Reckless Moon (2 page)

“I don’t want to go over all of that again,” Beth said hoarsely. She still reacted to the
sound of his voice saying her name.

“I’ll bet you don’t,” he said softly, moving even closer. She tried not to meet his eyes, but her gaze was drawn to his, mesmerized.

He did look different from the way she remembered him, but
his attractiveness was hardly diminished by the change. Ten years before he’d been clean shaven, with close-cropped wavy hair. Now the lower portion of his face was covered by a short black beard, and his raven hair had grown out into dark wings that covered his ears and curled over his collar. Trust Bram to adopt longer hair when it had really passed out of style; he always liked to be different But the cola-brown eyes, the thick, dark lashes, the strong white teeth were all the same. And the slim, powerful body, clad in a dark suit in honor of the occasion, was as lean and agile as she recalled. Beth ached to go to him, but she backed away.

He laughed softly. “You had more guts the last time I saw you,” he said. “You’ve changed.”

“You were drunk the last time I saw you,” Beth replied. “You haven’t changed at all.”

His eyes widened, and the fading evening sun coming through the window lightened them to the color of milk chocolate. “Drunk,” he said, indignant. “Certainly not. I had a couple of nips for courage, nothing much.”

“You needed courage to face me?” Beth asked, watching him.

He turned away, not answering. Then, after a moment, “Maybe I needed courage to face the memories in this room.” He looked back at her. “I never wanted your father to send you away, Bethany.”

Beth said nothing.

“I went to see him the next day and tried to talk him out of it,” Bram added. “As soon as I heard his plan, I tried to dissuade him.”

Beth couldn’t conceal her surprise.

Bram nodded. “I suspected he wouldn’t tell you about that. You just assumed I’d abandoned you to your hapless fate, didn’t you?”

“Does it matter what I thought?” Beth asked wearily, pushing back a strand of her hair. “It was a long time ago. I was just a willful, impulsive child, and you were just...”

“A fully grown man who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘restraint,’” Bram finished dryly. “When a sixteen-year-old girl gets together with a twenty-five-year-old merchant seaman, you don’t have to tell me who’s responsible.”

“That’s not what you said a few minutes ago,” Beth replied, reeling. She now remembered how he could blithely switch tracks in a second, leaving her to stumble after him in a desperate struggle to understand.

“A few minutes ago I was smarting from the impact of your frosty reception,” he stated flatly.

Beth didn’t know how to respond to that, so she asked,“Are you home to stay? I heard you might be.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “My father appears to need me to run the business, and since my dear stepmother has at last left him for good, there seems to be no reason why I shouldn’t stay.” His eyes drifted away from her face, looking into the distance. “I’ve finally tired of roaming the globe, Bethany.” Then he grinned suddenly, his magnificent teeth flashing. “The prodigal son has returned.”

“Your father must be happy about that.”

Bram shrugged. “As long as Anabel remains in Palm Beach, I’ll stick. He never missed me before but now he’s too sick to get along without me, so I’ve become necessary.”

His acid tone regarding his family hadn’t changed either. Bram’s mother had died when he was small, and when Bram was fifteen his father, at that time fifty, had married Anabel, who was half his age. Bram’s enmity for his stepmother was legendary, and their disagreements had led to his enlisting in the merchant marine two years later, when he was seventeen. Except for visits on leave, he hadn’t been home to live since.

“Mindy tells me that you’re a lawyer,” he said, smiling slightly.

“That’s right,” Beth replied. “Surprised?”

Bram shook his head slowly, his eyes holding hers, and Beth felt a flush spreading up her neck.

“I knew you were one quick-smart lady,” he said quietly, and Beth felt as if he had touched her.

“Brains and beauty, your Dad said to me,” Bram went on. “And he was right. After you left and I went back to sea, I discovered that I couldn’t quite dismiss that combination, even in a teenage schoolgirl.”

Beth held her breath, afraid to speak.

“The day after the barbecue I told your father I was leaving anyway, there was no reason to ship you off to Boston,” Bram said. “But he was convinced that you needed discipline, and boarding school was the answer. Just the thing to control a motherless girl.”

“He thought I was a simpleton, a silly little flirt,” Beth said bitterly.

“You were nothing like that,” Bram said huskily. “You just got mixed up with the wrong guy, on the wrong night.”

Beth closed her eyes.

“Your father asked me not to contact you again, so I didn’t, even though I knew he had misunderstood it all. But after what happened I thought it best to listen to him.”

Mindy’s voice sounded in the hall outside the door. They both started.

“My father didn’t understand,” Beth said helplessly.

“He couldn’t,” Bram replied. “I was sorry to hear of his death, Bethany. The news reached me six months after the funeral. I didn’t get any mail until we docked in Tripoli.”

“Beth? You in there?” Mindy called. She rapped on the door.

Bram dropped his eyes and walked back to the fireplace.

“Come in,” Beth called.

Mindy entered, but stopped short when she saw Beth’s companion.

“Melinda Sue,” Bram greeted her. “I see your timing is still impeccable.”

“Hello, Abraham,” Mindy replied gravely, returning his formal address. “It didn’t take you long to find Beth.”

“Actually, she found me,” Bram said, retrieving his glass from the mantel. “Don’t let me put a damper on the festivities. I’ll go and refill my empty glass.” He brushed past Beth with a single electric glance and left the room.

Beth sank into the leather chair next to the fireplace.

“How did it go?” Mindy asked.

Beth couldn’t reply.

“Is it still the same?” Mindy persisted.

Beth nodded dumbly, and then said, “It is for me.”

“What did he say?” Mindy demanded.

Beth spread her hands. “A lot of things. You know how he talks, as if he were making fun of himself and everyone else at the same time. It’s impossible to tell how much of what he says he really means.”

“Some things never change,” Mindy observed.

“He still hates Anabel and doesn’t have much use for his father.”

“Is he going to stay and run the show?”

“It sounds like it, but not out of any feeling of love. He seems to regard it as his duty.”

Mindy shook her head wonderingly. “He’s a difficult one to figure. Only Bram would turn his back on the most profitable tobacco concern in the Connecticut Valley to go off to sea. It’s like Toby Tyler running away to join the circus.”

“My father always suspected there was more to it than a desire on Bram’s part to see the world.”

“What do you mean?” Mindy asked, puzzled.

Beth stood again, running her fingers along the beveled edge of her father’s desk. “Well, when Bram first left I was just a kid, but I used to hear Dad talking about it to my mother before she died. Dad always thought family problems drove Bram out the door.”

“That’s hardly news. Everybody knew that he and Anabel didn’t get along once his father married her.” Mindy’s tone changed. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy for Bram; he was a teenager and his father had a bride only a few years older than he was,” she said sympathetically.

“Did you ever hear much about Bram’s real mother?” Beth asked.

“No. He’s supposed to look like her, though. Do you remember Jacinta, the housekeeper they had before Anabel let her go?”

“Of course. She went to school at night and she’s a nurse at Johnson Memorial now.”

“Right. Well, she knew the first Mrs. Curtis, and according to Jass she was a real beauty, dark like Bram, with skin like a camellia. That’s a direct quote:
‘como la camella’
is what she said.”

“And is Anabel divorcing the old man now, or what?” Beth wanted to know.

Mindy shrugged. “That’s anybody’s guess. All I know is that she’s gone. Hal says she’s probably trying to stay married to Bram’s father and outlast him. She’ll get a bigger share of the estate that way.”

Hal was Mindy’s husband, a lawyer much given to voicing such opinions. He was a patent attorney for a Hartford corporation, however, so Beth would not be competing with him for private business.

“That reminds me,” Mindy said. “Hal sent me to find you. Marion went upstairs to change and the groom needs help with the rest of the wedding presents.”

Preoccupied with thoughts of Bram, Beth went with Mindy to supervise the distribution of the booty.

* * *

It was hours later, after the wedding couple had left and Beth was seeing the last stragglers out the door, when she encountered Bram again. She thought he’d gone home and, disappointed, had stopped looking for him. But just as she came back inside the house he stepped from the shadows under the stairwell.

Beth froze, her eyes locked with his.

“I’m not going to bite you,” Bram said quietly. “Don’t look like that.”

“How do I look?”

“Like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.”

She hadn’t realized that her reaction to him was so obvious. “I’m sorry,” Beth said neutrally. “I was startled to see you. I thought that you had left.”

“You mean you hoped that I had left,” Bram amended.

Beth wasn’t going to touch that, so she said instead, “I wish your father had been able to come with you today. Please give him my regards.”

“I will. He’s still confined to bed most of the time. He is recovering from the stroke, but progress is slow.”

Having dispensed with the amenities, they stared at one another.

“Why are you still here?” Beth finally blurted out baldly.

Bram laughed softly, an intensely intimate, masculine sound that transformed the silent hall. Beth began to wish fervently that some of the guests had stayed a little longer.

“I’m surprised law school didn’t make you more diplomatic,” Bram replied. “Aren’t you supposed to learn subtlety there?”

“Sometimes I prefer the direct approach,” Beth said coolly. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Bram pulled loose the knot of his tie and opened the top buttons of his collar. The casual gesture disturbed Beth inordinately, calling up images of the last time she had seen it. Then he had taken off his shirt and she had caressed him, unable to believe that he desired her. Beth Forsyth, coltish teenager, had changed into Bethany Forsyth, J.D., but the searing memory remained, triggered by the innocent sensuality of his actions. Or maybe not so innocent, Beth thought. There was a sexual undertone to his demeanor with her that kept Beth constantly off balance, and she resented the advantage it gave him.

“... just wanted to see you again,” he was saying.
 

“Why?”

“We were interrupted before, and there are some things I’d like to know.”

Beth eyed him warily. “Such as?”

“Why haven’t you gotten married?”

“I’m twenty-six, Bram, I think I have a little time left,” Beth answered sarcastically. “And what makes you so sure I want to get married?”

“You must have had some offers,” he said.

“A few. Is it any of your business?”

“I wondered why you didn’t accept one of them.”

Because I could never duplicate the experience I had with you, Beth thought. Aloud she said, “How do you know I’m not married? I’ve been away, I could have a husband somewhere. Female attorneys frequently keep their maiden names.”

“You’re not wearing a ring,” Bram observed.

“So? Maybe I don’t like to wear one.” Why was she doing this? Simply because he was so sure of himself? Just once she would like to crack that smooth, charmingly detached facade. But perhaps she already had, just once, a long time ago.

He shook his head with deliberate conviction. “You would wear a ring,” he said.

She faced him down, infuriated by his accurate reading of her character. “It must be wonderful to know everything,” she said tightly.

“Not everything. Just you.”

Beth whirled away from him, confused. “What are you talking about? We shared a few hours one night when you’d had too much to drink. From that you’re able to deduce my views on life?” She wouldn’t look at him.

“Sometimes you can tell more about a person from one night than you can tell about another person you see every day.” His voice was low, controlled.

“That sounds like romantic nonsense,” Beth replied crisply.

He moved to stand behind her. “That is undoubtedly the first time I’ve been accused of being a romantic,” he said, amused.

This conversation was veering out of control. She shouldn’t be talking like this with Bram; she was on the verge of revealing too much. Beth composed herself and turned to look at him.