To love and to honor (4 page)

"It has gone over us. You can make the float. Only a foot ahead."

A huge wave made by the careening boat, a hand on her wrist, and another under her armpit lifted her to the rough boards. She clung to an iron ring. The lifeguard had disappeared. She'd never call him bossy again. Had he gone under? Had he been struck by the propeller while saving her? She flung herself flat and reached down with one hand.

"This way. This way," she called. "Grab my arm and I'll pull you up."

A black head appeared. A voice shouted. "Get back. I'm all right. Hold on. Another giant swell coming."

One hand gripping the iron ring, the other clutching the edge of the float with all her strength, she clung while the water swept over her and knocked the breath from her body. She opened her eyes as a man with her blue cap in one hand pulled himself up beside her; sat back on her heels, shook water from her hair, and looked up into clear gray eyes in a tanned face. The bracelet man.

"You? I thought it was the Hfeguard. Thank heaven you're safe. If anything had happened to you because you came to my aid—"

"Forget it. Here's your cap. O.K?"

"Yes. Still a trifle jittery. I was frightened. I had visions of appearing in the future with my head tucked under my arm like the headless horseman when in pursuit of Ichabod. Don't look at me as if you suspected I'd gone haywire. Talking like a house afire helps me relax. It seems painfully inadequate to say 'Thank you.' I wouldn't have made it without you."

"Stop imagining gruesome possibilities. The crazy craft is now shooting toward the open sea. Just escaped piling up on the ledge. Out of our lives forever."

"How far will it run?"

"Till the gas gives out."

"What do you suppose became of the skipper? Drowned?" She shivered.

"It is more probable that a new owner, wet behind the ears, started the engine, then stepped out of the boat for something, and the cagey thing shot off on a little joy ride of its own. Why didn't you turn back when I shouted?"

"I thought it was the brand-new lifeguard getting bossy. We have had two showdowns. I've been bathing on this beach all my life, it's more fun than going in alone off The Castle shore. I thought the hum I heard was from the plane overhead."

"I was the lifeguard, pro tem, while the boy went for his lunch. Ready to go back?"

"I'll sit here and sun for a while. Don't let me keep you."

"Thanks for the suggestion, but I like to finish a job I start. You are still shaking."

She had hoped he had not noticed her poorly suppressed shivers.

"It's a silly reaction I have after fright. I acknowledge I was scared stiff. I couldn't move. It really doesn't mean a thing. It's just the way I'm made." She kicked the water into foam to emphasize indifference.

"If you feel that way about it I'll go. I can see Jim

d'Arcy's white cap. He's back on the job. I'll leave you and report to him." He dived.

"Don't—" she snapped her lips together before the word "go" escaped. The thought of being left alone panicked her. Never before had she been afraid of the ocean. Slowly she pulled on the turquoise blue cap. The yellow beach where the tide ruffled whitely seemed miles away. Could she make it?

A brown hand with a seal ring gripped the edge of the float. A sleek wet head appeared. A shoulder with an ugly jagged reddish scar followed. White teeth gleamed in a strongly lined bronzed face.

"How about it? Ready to be good and come along with me?"

"Am I? Watch me. Just watch me." She slid into the water.

He fitted his stroke to hers. They swam toward shore side by side till they could touch the sand with their feet, then waded in. They walked up the beach to the music of "Good Luck and the Same to You" coming from a portable radio.

"I saw British Tommies marching to that tune just before I left London," he said. "Better stop a minute. You are still.breathless."

She sank to the sand beside a colorful plaid beach robe, and pulled off the turquoise blue cap.

"The stiffening appears to have oozed from my knees temporarily. I'll sit here till it returns to normal. A million thanks for your help. Don't feel you must wait for me."

"When I go in for a rescue stunt I hang around till I am sure my patient is O.K." His straight body was as brown as the lifeguard's, his trunks as blue as the sky. He pulled on the gay beach robe. "As you see, I like exuberant colors. With your permission." He dropped down beside her.

"We're about the only persons left on the beach except d'Arcy and the girl in the red one-piece snuggling up to the man in the loud suit," he observed.

"I snapped a picture of them, they seem so out of character on this beach. Later they were quarreling as I

passed. They seem to have made it up now. I have the most curious feeling I've seen him, the tilt of liis hat, before."

He laughed.

"Sure you have. In the movies. That is bad boy Humphrey Bogart's tilt to the fraction of an inch." He drew a package of cigarettes and a lighter from a pocket in the beach robe and offered them.

"Have one?"

"No, thanks." She waited until he had blown a smoke ring or two. "Did your Sally like the bracelet?" she inquired.

"Sally was improvised at the moment to give the hatchet-faced Ella the impression that you and I were old friends. I bought it to send to a homesick woman overseas."

"You didn't fool Ella Crane for a minute. She fancies she's psychic. She has been owner and head bottle-washer of that shop for years. It is not only a listening post, it is a major clearing station with broadcasting facilities for town gossip. That woman has seen me grow up and never lets me forget the fact."

"Then you are grown-up?"

She liked the way his eyes which could be piercingly keen collaborated with his mouth when he smiled.

"Certainly I'm grown-up. I have been handling business affairs for three years and not a child prodigy, either. I am a certified accountant."

"Fancy that. What's happened to your hair since yesterday? Your head is covered with short curls."

"I had it cut this morning. Fortunately it has a natural wave." She ran the fingers of her right hand through the wet hair. "It will look more presentable when it dries."

"Even wet it has a golden glint. I thought the chatty Ella called you Cinderella. Right?"

"Right. It is my name, worse luck. Now don't quip, *Has the Prince found your slipper?' It was amusing the first time I heard it, but it has lost its rapier edge."

He threw back his head and laughed a spontaneous

go TO LOVE AND TO HONOR

laugh of genuine amusement which made one think, "What a bright girl am I."

"Good line. Sorry I didn't think of it first."

Stretched out at length, resting on one elbow, he began to scoop, mold and pat the sand till it assumed outlines. Fascinated she watched his long, supple brown fingers add a tiny turret to the structure.

"As there is no Prince in the offing, another castle for Cinderella," he explained.

"It's a masterpiece. Even to the little windows. Pity the tide will wash it away."

"The castle for my Cinderella can't be washed away. It will be built on a rock."

"Are you—" she remembered the jagged scar—"were you an architect before you went into the service?"

"As an avocation only. I have helped my friends when they made over old houses. Sometimes I help them in other ways, also—I was off to a good start as a consulting engineer when Uncle Sam called me."

A quizzical light in the eyes that challenged hers when he said "Sometimes I help them in other ways, also" clanged a warning. She sprang to her feet.

"You are Bill Damon," she accused. "Why didn't you tell me?"

/

FIVE

He swept the little castle flat and rose.

"Why should I? You refused to speak to him when he phoned. I couldn't very well stop and introduce him when that boat was shooting for us, could I?"

"I still don't want to talk with you."

"That's just too bad. Because I am in this town to stay and we are likely to meet. Remember I told you that when I started a job I hung on till it was finished?"

"Are you referring to the job for Kenniston Stewart?"

"That is one of them."

"Why doesn't he come home and settle the matter himself?"

"Why are you so bitter against Ken? Is it a defense mechanism? Not in love with him, are you?"

"In love with him. That's the funniest thing I ever heard. I've never even seen a picture of him—and you may be sure he never has seen one of me. I refused to send it, not that he asked for one, it was his father's suggestion. Didn't the chatty Ella tell you the story of my life? I'll bet she did, pulling out all the stops. I'm the town's Exhibit A. Haven't you heard about me from the man whom you are here to represent?"

"Yes, but I would like your side of it. I want to be absolutely fair. Why did you do it?"

"Do what? Marry Ken Stewart or start the annulment?"

"Let's take first things first. Marry?"

"At the time it seemed the valid solution of a problem. He and I consented to help his father and mine.

Because looking back it seems a cockeyed proceeding doesn't alter the fact that it appeared to be the only way out then."

"Sit down again, please. Be sensible. Let's thresh out this matter of your aversion to Bill Damon and get it behind us. I'd like to be friends. Believe it or not, I've seen enough fighting to last the rest of my life."

After an instant of hesitation she sank to the beach. He dropped down beside her and clasped his brown hands about his knees. Her eyes were on her fingers, through which she sifted sand.

"This is a lot more comfortable," he approved. "Now that the smoke of battle has cleared, I can see no reason why you and I should be enemies, even if you detest the man whom I am here to represent. I can't make a move till I know your side of it. First, having decided it was wise to contract the marriage, why dissolve it? You and Ken still hold the property."

"Apparently Ella Crane omitted the fact that the ardent bridegroom has not been interested to return to this country and take his share of the business load."

"Maybe he realized that you were under emotional pressure, that as nothing could be done about your freedom till the property was settled, he was giving you a clear uncontested plea of separation. The three years since the signing of the marriage contract were up a week ago, weren't they? Looks to me as if he has given you a chance to make a watertight case by keeping away."

" 'Want to know something?' That's a quote—I can't think of him as being so understanding. Mr. Armstrong told me yesterday that Ken Stewart is as eager to have that marriage annulled as I am."

"Who is Mr. Armstrong?"

"My legal adviser."

"The proxy?"

"Good heavens, no. There wasn't a proxy. The deed was done by signed contracts." Her mouth widened in a smile. "Tom Slade who was in the office of the lawyer who represented Father's interests is tall, slender, lithe, blond and terribly good-looking. The New York-Maine

lawyer is broad and short and ruddy. Understanding, though."

"How did he know the sentiments of the indifferent

husband?"

"They have corresponded. Counselor Armstrong—as he is called here—showed me a letter yesterday in which Kenniston Stewart reiterated his eagerness to dissolve the tie that binds." She hummed the last words to the tune of the hymn.

"You don't believe in the inviolability of contracts, do you?"

"It would be rank sentimentality if I believed in the inviolability of this one. I go through a form of marriage to save Father's business, the son of another man agrees to co-operate to save his, naturally, as he had advanced the capital to make that same business possible. After the contracts are signed, sealed and delivered, Tom Slade slips a ring provided by the distant groom's father on my finger, orates theatrically, 'With this ring—' I stopped his quote right there—and the deed was done."

"Where is it now?"

"The ring? In the safe in my workroom."

"Why aren't you wearing it? You are still Mrs. Stewart."

"I've worn it for three years. I'll so soon be free, I've shed it except for formal occasions. And now for the soap-opera touch. After all the scheming of the two fathers, the messing up of the lives of their children, there is the possibility that the holdings will be sold for a song because of faulty registration of patents and leases, but of course, Ken Stewart has briefed you on that. You're here as his deputy."

"Who discovered they are faulty?"

"The parties who wanted to buy."

"You said that Counselor Armstrong has been corresponding with your husband recently?"

"My husband? Your mistake, there isn't such a person."

"This marriage is a joke to you, isn't it?"

"And why not? A girl and man who never had met

make a mariage de convenance. It is no longer a necessity. In fact the groom had intimated he is interested elsewhere."

"Could it be possible that you are also?"

"Not only possible but probable."

"You are a hard-boiled female."

Her brown eyes widened in amazement.

"Why should I pretend affection for a man with whom I put through a business deal because of a passionate desire to ease the mind of my father who, I knew, hadn't long to live? Not for a minute. I'll save that for the one I love."

"Tom Slade or a man named Harding?"

"What do you know about him?"

"I had quite a visit with the talkative Ella."

"That, mon brave, ends the Information Please quiz. Good-by and I mean good-by." He caught her hand and held it so that she couldn't rise.

"Just a minute. You can't give me the brush-off. I've fallen hard for this village, I intend to remain here until I've finished my book—and Ken Stewart's business. I'm here to represent him. I can make the going rough for you. I hold the power of attorney. Better be good. I will phone for an appointment with your lawyer for this afternoon to present my credentials."

"He's away. He has gone to check on the oil property. He won't be back for a week."