Never Too Late (17 page)

"She's not
a pawn," Jerry said. "She stands up to him."

"That's
because she's married to a man as strong as her father and she's stubborn
enough to make sure her father doesn't forget it. Nor will Carter back down,
even though he knows you're not the man he makes you out to be. If he wasn't so
stubborn, he'd be bragging about you to his friends and associates... His
son-in-law who came from nothing and made a success. He knows it, but he can't
say it because it would make him a lesser man in his own eyes because he came
from old money, and that's bothered him all his life. Deep down, he envies and
admires you.

"He's your
husband," Jerry said. "You have to stand by him. But I don't have to
give him the time of day, and the less we see of each other, the better our
lives will be."

"You're
probably right," Barbara agreed, giving a little wistful sigh. "But
for the record, I don't blame you for Scott's death. If he hadn't been killed
in the car you got him it could have happened in any other car, or racing
someone's motorcycle, or rock climbing, or taking up a dare. Scott always did
live on the edge."

"Yeah,
well, Scott's not an issue with Andrea and me anymore because we don't talk
about him. We don't talk about much of anything." Jerry looked out the
window at the water lapping against the beach, sweeping up the sandy incline
and falling back, leaving a watery slope behind and said, broodingly,
"Andrea and I are just two ships passing in the night..."

More
accurately, two ships that collided in a storm...
 
bow to stern, stern to stern, however two
ships conquer and subjugate. But there had been no victor. Just he and Andrea
taking what they wanted...

"I've been
aware that you and Andrea have been having marital problems for the past two
years," Barbara's voice came from behind, "and I know lifestyles are
different now than when Carter and I married, but I never dreamed you and
Andrea had an open marriage. Do the girls know?"

"The girls
know nothing," Jerry replied. "But it's not an open marriage. At
least it wasn't until the cruise. Andrea and I are getting a divorce and we
were planning to tell the girls before we took off for the lake house. Before I
took off for the lake house with the girls, that is. Andrea would have stayed
home. But when the girls gave us the cruise we were stuck, so we decided to get
a second stateroom and go as singles. We probably would have scratched each
other's eyes out if we'd shared the same room."

"Then you
just plan to end twenty-five years, like that." Barbara snapped her
fingers.

"Hell,
Barbara. It's definitely not like that. We haven't had a good word to say to
each other since Scott died. Yesterday on the beach..." his voice drifted
off momentarily. "Well, yesterday wasn't so bad," he said, trying to
block out of his mind what might have been... hearing that throaty laugh and
experiencing the culmination of months of abstinence. But what happened out
there had nothing to do with love, only lust... and years of knowing what
turned each other on, knowing those intimate trigger points that awakened
passions in an instant, even when things were wrong. And things were definitely
wrong on the beach. They were like two strangers, screwing the hell out of each
other, and walking away.

But that's the
way it was, a touch of reality, a love lost and buried in the sand...

"This will
devastate the girls," Barbara said. "Have you considered that?"

"That's
about all I've thought of for months," Jerry replied, while continuing to
stare out the window. "But there's no other way. We plan to start
proceedings when we get back. But I'll make sure Andrea gets a sizeable
settlement so she can stay in that big house and be completely independent of
her father or else he'll run her life."

"You do
still care," Barbara said, matter-of-factly.

"She's
been my wife for twenty-five years," Jerry replied. "She's the mother
of my children. Yeah, I still care. But the marriage is over."

He walked out,
leaving Barbara standing in the bungalow.

***

The beach
stretched out in both directions, deserted, pristine, like wide sandy arms
trying to embrace the turquoise waters. Andrea knew she shouldn't be walking
alone, but after her mother slipped out of the bungalow, leaving her and her
father alone to throw verbal darts at each other, she also took off and never
looked back. Presumably her father had taken the hint and gone back to the
lodge. Unfortunately, her parents were also staying at Finnigan's Hideaway, and
Andrea didn't expect them to leave the island until the investigators learned
about Alessandro's whereabouts. The knowledge that she'd spent the night in the
stateroom of a man who was a kingpin in a drug cartel was very sobering. Was
there blood on Alessandro's hands? Had he kidnapped or murdered to protect his
interest in the cartel? And to what extent would he go to hold what he
considered his, if it were threatened? He was still out there somewhere, and
she was walking alone on a deserted beach.

A few hundred
feet from where the path from the bungalow met the beach, she glanced around to
see if anyone else was there, and to her alarm, saw someone emerge from the
palms and mangroves that skirted the beach, not far behind. A man. Tall and
lean, his face and body in shadow with the sun low behind him. Had he been
watching her? Maybe saw her leave her bungalow and was following her?

She knew it
wasn't Jerry. Jerry had a distinct walk, a loose kind of amble. But the man
following her was tall, erect, walking a straight determined line toward her.
She quickened her pace, feeling the first grip of panic. Not far ahead, the
beach narrowed and the mangroves came close to the shore. If she hurried she
could dart into the brush and find her way back. Other bungalows sat facing the
water, each with its own trail to the main path. Jerry's bungalow was among
them, though she didn't know which was his. She looked back again, and the man
was gone. She was about to rush into the brush and stay until dark, when she
heard rustling inside the mangroves, and a figure came bursting out. She
started to scream. Then saw it was Jerry.

"Are you
crazy!?" he said. "What in hell are you doing walking on the beach
alone? You know what the inspector said."

"I had to
get away," Andrea replied. "My father was driving me crazy." She
looked back to where the man had been, and asked, while pointing, "Did you
see a man on the beach back there? Tall. Lean?"

"Cavallaro,"
Jerry replied.

"Then you
saw him?"

"No, I
took a path that brought me here. But he's out there somewhere. And you're not
dealing with some Italian stud now. You're dealing with a dangerous man who
wouldn't think twice about wrapping his hands around your neck and snapping it.
I'm walking you back to your bungalow and staying with you."

Andrea didn't
argue because she was too scared to worry about Jerry taking what he wanted
while protecting her. She didn't care. He could take her on the beach, or in
bed, or anywhere he wanted because it didn't matter. They were just two people
trapped in a hell they'd created, and needing a diversion to get through it.
And all she wanted was to get off the island and go back to Myrtle Beach and
lock herself in her tower and pretend the world beyond didn't exist...

"I'll
sleep on the sofa," Jerry said. "I don't want a repeat of what
happened on the beach."

"Why? Was
I lacking in some way?" Andrea clipped. "I thought I performed rather
well. You certainly can't accuse me of not moving."

"Don't
push my hot buttons," Jerry warned.

Andrea clamped
her jaws shut. She didn't know why she was taunting Jerry, except that it had
become a pattern since Scott's death, a way to keep a physical and an emotional
barrier between them. Yet, on the beach, there was no way two people could have
been closer together physically. But, while they were struggling to fill a
physical void, there had been an emotional barrier between them that was as
solid as steel.

She glanced at
Jerry's hard profile. "I'm sorry," she found herself saying. "I
just want to get this whole twenty-fifth-wedding-anniversary nightmare
over."

"You've
got that right," Jerry replied. "And I'll try to stay out of your way
at the bungalow. But if you pull a stunt like you did in the shower before we
left on this nightmare, I'll nail you to the bed." There was no humor in
his words.

In the past,
those exact words had been sweetly seductive because the look on Jerry's face
had been teasing and loving, a look that told her he was about to give her what
would make her writhe with passion, then have her cuddling in his arms and
sighing in contentment. But there was nothing playful about the way he said it
this time. And nothing subtle about its meaning.

"Don't
worry," she said. "You won't have a repeat of the shower. I can't
speak for the beach though. You're the one who stripped me and nailed me to the
sand. It won’t happen again."

Jerry heaved a
disgruntled sigh then said in a slightly appeasing tone, "I didn’t plan
for that to happen. It just did. You looked good in the swim suit."

Andrea couldn't
help the warmth curling inside with Jerry's words. She hadn't intended to look
good for him, but for some reason, after she put on the suit and saw herself in
the mirror, it mattered what he thought. The suit covered everything she didn't
want him to see—the stretch marks on her belly, breasts that were no longer as
high and firm as years past, yet managed to fill the top of the suit nicely and
in a youthful way. But when he stripped the suit off her and she turned around,
he didn't seem to care that she was a woman past her prime, the glint in his
eyes told her he liked what he saw, and he intended to take what he wanted. And
that was all the spark she needed, because when she looked at him, sleek, and
muscular, and fully aroused and ready for her, she wanted what he was offering
too...

"It's a
nice suit," she said, lamely. "It's comfortable. And the batik
pattern is pretty."

"Yeah,
pretty," Jerry said. He walked ahead a few feet, then turned around and
said, while walking backwards, "Look, I'm having trouble. You're looking
good. Trim. Your legs... I want to stop the sex. It's like an addiction. You
give. I take. I want more. It's all go while we're here away from everything,
but back home... nothing's changed. This trip has been hell, and there's not a
shred of affection between us, and all I want to do when I see you is screw the
hell out of you like I did on the beach. So it has to stop. No more sex."

His gaze
dropped and she knew he was looking at her breasts nestled in the shirt where
she'd unbuttoned it and tied the tails together in a knot that left her midriff
bare. She hadn't intended to be seductive when she'd tied up her shirt, only to
be cool. He walked up to her and put his hands on her waist and looked at her
soberly. Then he licked his lips, and his nostrils flared, and the muscles in
his jaws bunched, and he said, "Oh shit," then dropped his hands,
turned, and walked in long strides ahead of her, not looking back until they
came to the alcove with the drift log where they'd rolled around in the sand
satisfying their lusts. He stopped then and looked down where the surf had
washed away every trace of two bodies in a frenzy of passion.

His fists
curved into knots as he stood staring at the empty sand.

Standing barely
an arm's distance from him, Andrea also stood looking down at the spot where
they'd been. It was strange and
awkward,
both of them
looking down while imagining what happened there, like watching a porno film
together, except the actors in the film were themselves. Then she looked up at
Jerry, and said, "If I thought I could stay in my parent's suite without
killing my father, figuratively speaking, I would, but it would be impossible,
especially now that he knows about our stupidity on the ship."

"I'll
think of something." Jerry raised his gaze from the sand, but only high
enough to focus on her breasts nestled in the shirt. For a few moments he stood
staring at her, and she made no move to stop him, or call him down for it.
Instead, she waited.

"Hell,"
he said. "This isn't helping things." He grabbed the tail ends of her
shirt and tugged her to him, and she thought for a moment he intended to kiss
her. Instead, he began working the knot loose, his knuckles pressing against
the underside of her breasts as he did, until the shirt gaped open. She looked
down and saw the swell of her bosom rising and falling with each intake of
breath. She glanced up and saw a heavy pulse beating in Jerry's throat as he
stared. Then he said in an irritated voice, "Button it up before I do
something we'll both regret." He turned and continued toward the bungalow.

Andrea followed
along behind while buttoning her shirt, feeling a sense of disappointment. When
he'd tugged on the knot, she thought he was after more, and she was ready to do
exactly what he didn't want to do. She was more than ready. She'd almost
removed her shirt she was so sure what he was after. But when he turned and
walked away instead she felt... bereft. Nothing was making sense. She hated
him. And she wanted him. And more than anything, she hated him for making her
feel that way.

Kicking aside a
swollen mass of kelp laying on the beach, she plodded along behind Jerry and
was relieved when they turned into the path leading to the bungalow because
even though she hated everything about what was going on in her confused mind
at the moment, she wanted a repeat of what happened on the beach. She didn't
care that there would be no love or affection, or laughter or romping. She just
wanted to release some of the tension that had been building.