Through Waters Deep (12 page)

With a brisk nod, Fiske walked away.

Mary frowned. Was that a reprimand of O'Donnell's actions—or approval? How very odd. She recorded every word in her book.

By the time she'd finished, her heart rate had almost returned to normal, but energy coursed through her. Agent Sheffield hadn't seen that fight or heard those words. In fact, if he'd been around, none of it would have happened.

A smile tugged the corners of her lips as she crossed the catwalk to the dock. Who said amateur detectives were
useless? Who said pride played a role? She wasn't undermining the FBI but aiding it.

She strode across the wharf toward Building 39. This investigation made her feel as if she were doing some good. This weekend she'd type up her most recent notes, and she'd turn them in to Agent Sheffield on Monday. He wouldn't be pleased that Mary was still involved, but he'd be pleased with the information she presented.

She hummed “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” as she strolled along. As of September, she'd sing in the choir on Sunday mornings, even if Bertha and Edith Wilkins had to prop her up between them. They treated her more like a third Wilkins sister than a girl young enough to be their great-granddaughter. At choir practice, they giggled like schoolgirls. On several occasions, poor Mrs. Gunderson had needed to hush them.

Three naval officers in summer whites passed Mary, smiled, and tipped their caps.

She smiled back. Oh, how she missed Jim. The shakedown cruise was supposed to last about a month—any day now. Arch had mentioned a possible sailing weekend at his parents' seaside Connecticut home. That would be wonderful.

The air felt lighter, cooler, and her step more buoyant. A whole weekend together. Maybe things would change. Even if they didn't, even if her romantic dreams fizzled and died, a whole weekend enjoying Jim's company and friendship would be delightful.

Her music, her friendships, the thrill of confronting her lifelong fear—how it all filled her sails.

Stonington, Connecticut
Saturday, August 30, 1941

“Little more to port.” Jim grasped the helm above Mary's hand, guiding her, his bare arm brushing hers. Heat rushed through him.

Thank goodness he'd decided not to stand directly behind her and help her steer with both hands. If he had, he'd throw common sense into the balmy breeze, wrap his arms around her, and nuzzle in her sun-warmed neck. Scare the poor girl half to death.

Instead he stood behind her right shoulder, far enough away to look suave, but near enough to help and too close to ogle her figure. He was still aware of every curve in that dark blue swimsuit covered with little white spots, as orderly and feminine as Mary herself.

Up by the mast of the Vandenberg yacht, wearing swim trunks and deck shoes, Arch adjusted lines. He called forward to Gloria, who lay in the sun in a skimpy swimsuit, a giant hat clamped over her face.

“How's this, Jim?” Mary glanced over her bare shoulder, her dark hair sweeping back in the wind.

Jim schooled his face not to erupt in a goofy grin. “Good. Almost time to change tack.”

“Still seems odd that you have to zigzag to move in a straight line.”

“The wind doesn't always blow in the direction you want to go.”

“So true.”

Her thoughtful tone massaged his brain. All his life, he'd had favorable winds. His family loved and supported him. He had the personal traits needed to excel and the opportunities to do so. It might not always be that way. It wasn't for most people.

Arch's parents wanted their only son to take over their business, but he'd bucked their desires and joined the Navy, straining against the current.

Running with the wind wasn't the only—or even the best—way to sail.

“Ready about,” Jim called to Arch.

“Aye aye.” The yachtsman gathered up the sheet lines, ready to spring to action. “Hard-a-lee.”

“All right, Mary. Turn her hard into the wind.”

She did so. The sails loosened, and Arch ran out lines to compensate.

The bow pointed straight into the wind, and the boat paused, holding its breath.

“Oh!” Mary paused too.

“No. Don't stop now.” Jim gripped the wheel and kept it moving. “We'll be in irons.”

“In irons?” The sails luffed, jangled on their rings, and snapped in the wind.

“Stalled. Stuck.”

Arch ran out more lines, the mainsail puffed up on the other side, and the boat sailed smoothly.

“Hold her steady.” Jim wrapped his hand around Mary's slender wrist. “Very good.”

“That's exciting, isn't it? A lot of noise and motion.”

He released her wrist for his own sake. “As you saw, when the sails start luffing, you can't let the noise and motion distract you. You have to keep moving.”

“Hmm. I understand.”

“Good. This weekend we'll make a sailor out of you.”

Mary smiled, snatched the white cover from Jim's head, and snugged it over her wind-whipped hair. Much cuter on her. Very cute.

The goofy grin—he could feel it undoing months of hard work trying to look sophisticated. He plopped onto the seat in the stern. “You have the helm, Captain. Since I've been demoted to landlubber.”

Her laugh sparkled. “So what shall we talk about, since Arch has forbidden all talk of war and sabotage?”

Arch wanted to placate Gloria by avoiding her least favorite subjects. If Gloria failed this weekend's test, it wouldn't be due to lack of effort on Arch's part to satisfy the girl's demands.

Too bad, because the events in the news would give them plenty to discuss. President Roosevelt had signed the bill to extend the draft, increasing the length of service from twelve to thirty months. US Navy planes now flew from Iceland, covering Allied convoys. And still the carnage continued in the North Atlantic, with multiple freighters and tankers falling prey to Nazi U-boats almost every day.

“Well?” Mary looked like a pinup girl in Jim's cover, her nautical bathing suit, her playful smile, and too many curves for Jim's well-being.

He leaned back, draped one hairy leg along the brass railing, and laced his hands behind his head. “Anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.” But the way she squinted and pursed her lips made him regret it.

“I've been wondering . . . about your hands.”

“My hands?” The scars constricted, curling his fingers into his briny hair.

Mary tilted her head, gazing ahead. “Sometimes you rub your palms, but you stop when anyone notices. And when we dance . . . just now when you touched me . . .” She set one hand on the wrist he'd held only moments earlier.

Jim swallowed. Above his head, the edge of the sail ruffled. He sprang to Mary's side. “The wind shifted. Head a bit to starboard.”

Mary complied, and the ruffling ceased. “If you don't want to talk about it, that's all right. I understand.”

A sophisticated man didn't have scars, but Jim uncoiled his hands before her. Shiny scars ran along the fleshy ridges of his palms.

“Oh,” Mary sighed. “How did that happen?”

He returned to his seat, elbows on his knees, the evidence on his palms facing the clear blue sky. “The first time I tried to take charge, to make waves.”

“What happened?” She had such a soft way of asking, without accusation.

“The day Lillian lost her leg.”

“Oh dear. I knew she had an accident, but no one talks of the details.”

“She was five, so I was seven, Rob nine, Dan eleven. Lillian and Lucy might be identical twins on the outside, but they couldn't be more different on the inside.”

Mary tipped up a smile. “True.”

“Lucy liked to stay home and play dolls, but Lillian was a tomboy, always wanted to tag along with us boys. I liked to play with her, but Dan and Rob didn't, so they always prevailed.”

“I understand. My older sisters didn't let me tag along either.”

The boat rose and fell with the waves, the constant reassuring hiss of water on wood, the wake spreading white behind them, spray cooling Jim's skin. “One day we boys were heading into the woods, and Lillian wanted to come. She begged me. She never used tears to manipulate me, but this time she cried. So I told her to follow us at a distance. Then when we arrived at the fort we were building, she'd show up. Dan and Rob would be annoyed, but they wouldn't send her home, and they'd see how much fun she was.”

“You're a sweet brother.”

Jim glanced away, toward the homes along the shore, the lighthouse on the point. “She followed my instructions too well. She kept off the path so she wouldn't be seen, but she strayed too far. Halfway to the fort I heard a scream.”

“Oh no.”

The memory of that sound ripped through him, fresh and raw and primeval. “I raced back. Dan told me to stop, because a wounded animal was dangerous, but I knew it was Lillian. Knew it.”

“It was a trap, wasn't it? I remember.”

Never once had Jim been seasick, but now nausea cramped his belly. “You can imagine—strong enough to hold a wild animal—and her little leg.” The mangled, crooked, bloody mess.

Jim's fingers bent down, working their way into the imaginary trap. “I tried—I tried to open it, but I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't thinking, didn't care about my hands, just wanted to save her.”

“Of course you did.”

“Then Dan and Rob arrived. Dan flipped the release lever, calm as can be, and he carried her home.”

“Poor Lillian.”

“They couldn't save her leg, amputated the same day.”

“And your hands . . .”

He curled up his fingers, the tips resting on the hard smooth scar tissue. “For a while, I wished the doctor would amputate my hands too.”

“Oh, Jim . . .” Mary's voice wavered.

“Hey, Avery!” Arch shouted.

He jerked up his head. The boat, the sails, the course. He hadn't been paying attention. “Yeah?”

“Ready about?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” He stood, his legs wobbly. “Ready, Mary?”

At Arch's command, she swung the helm and switched tack, smooth as maple syrup.

“Well done,” Jim said, glad to change the topic.

Mary looked up at him with a liquid gaze. “Do you blame yourself?”

Every single day. “If I hadn't intervened, she wouldn't have been hurt.”

“Does she blame you?”

He smashed his lips together. Three months out of pharmacy school, with excellent grades, in a booming economy, and she still didn't have a job. Only one reason stood out—no one wanted to hire a woman they'd label a cripple. “If she does, she's forgiven me, or at least acts like she has.”

“You were both so young. It was an accident.”

Jim had heard that countless times, but hearing it on Mary's pretty lips—somehow he believed it for the first time.

Mary stretched flat on her stomach, the sun dissolving her bones, the waves rocking her. Only Jim's voice kept her awake, his deep cheerful voice, laughing and talking to Arch as they tied the yacht to the pier.

His behavior was more mysterious than that of the sabotage suspects. One minute open and friendly as usual, then the next he'd replace his smile with blank apathy. Yet he'd stayed at her side most of the afternoon, and he'd touched her far more than necessary to teach her to sail, touches that sent warmth vibrating through her.

If she couldn't figure out Jim Avery, what made her think she could solve a complicated mystery? If only she could discuss the latest developments with Jim, but the silly moratorium on talking about war and sabotage stifled her. She blew out a breath, cooling her forehead.

Beside her on the deck, Gloria Washburn heaved a sigh and sat up, leaning over her bent legs and stroking them. “I can't believe the government seized the entire supply of silk. Whatever shall we wear for stockings?” Her voice drifted well past Mary.

Yet Arch laughed at something else and tossed a line down to Jim on the pier.

To relieve Gloria's embarrassment at being ignored, Mary pretended Gloria had intended to converse with her instead. “We'll have to make do. I have a pair of those new nylon stockings, and I like them. The government needs silk for parachutes for all the planes we're building, and Jim says silk is used in powder bags for the large guns on battleships and—”

“Oh, the war. I'm so tired of it, and we haven't fired a shot.” Gloria leaned back and rested on her palms. She frowned in her boyfriend's direction. “He hasn't paid me any attention all day.”

Mary laid her cheek on her crossed forearms and gave Gloria a sympathetic smile. Gloria certainly flaunted herself, with her tiny light green two-piece swimsuit and many provocative looks and poses. In comparison, Mary felt dowdy in her modest one-piece.

Gloria glanced over to the pier. “Well, Jim's paying attention to you. What'd I tell you? All you had to do was show off your figure.”

Mary winced. She flipped to see the pier, see if Jim had heard, but he was chatting with Arch and tying a line to a cleat. Relief poured out in a sigh. She faced Gloria again. “I'm not trying to show off.”

“Maybe not, but he's noticing.”

“Do you think so?” Mary kept her voice low. Maybe that would encourage Gloria to do likewise.

She laughed. “Oh, honey, I know so. He likes you.”

Hope fluttered in her chest, and she ventured another glance at him. He looked so good in his swim trunks as he climbed back onto the boat with long muscular legs. More than hope fluttered inside her, but her common sense squelched it.

She raised herself on her elbows. “I don't think so. Not like that. In high school, he was madly in love with my best friend. He couldn't take his eyes off her, practically drooled over her. He doesn't act that way with me. Not at all.”

Gloria tapped Mary's elbow with her toes. “He isn't a schoolboy anymore. He's a grown man.”

Grown nicely too. As he lashed down a sail, the muscles of his chest and arms worked. Once when she'd stood at the helm, he'd squeezed behind her, his chest hair brushing the back of her arm. Her cheeks heated at the remembered intimacy.

“See how he watches you?” Gloria said. “He's been doing it all day.”

Sure enough, Jim's gaze flitted to her. She smiled, he smiled back, and he returned to his work.

“Is she watching me?” Gloria said in a fake masculine voice. “Did she see me flex my muscles? Better do it again, make sure she sees.”

Jim did seem to flex his muscles a lot more than required for his work.

Hope and amusement bubbled into a giggle. “Stop it, Gloria.”

Jim rested one hand on the mast and looked Mary's way, a long look, as if studying her, querying her, and it pressed her heart hard against the polished wooden deck.

In high school Jim had loved vivacious golden girl Quintessa, but maybe he could grow to like Mary's subdued silver ways. Perhaps he already had.

How could she encourage him? What did she know about flirting or romance? She'd had so few boyfriends and hadn't dated for almost two years. Yet something natural flowed through her, took over, and raised a soft smile.

He flipped up a grin, spun around, and grabbed a line, back to work.

Gloria groaned and flopped onto her back. “Arch used to look at me like that. More so. He was enthralled.”

Mary didn't want to offer false encouragement. Who wouldn't notice the tension between them this weekend? “I'm sure Arch just has a lot on his mind.”

“What good is a great figure and a killer-diller swimsuit if I can't snag a rich husband?”

Although she cringed, Mary kept her voice gentle. “Maybe he doesn't want to be snagged. Maybe he wants to be loved for who he is.”

Gloria sat up and leaned close, her golden hair falling over one golden-tan cheek. “I do love him for who he is. Can I help it if ‘who he is' owns this spectacular estate and this yacht and an enormous thriving business?”

Mary's stomach soured. “He gave up the business to join the Navy.”

Gloria shoved back her hair. “That won't last. He says he'll stay in the Navy forever, but he won't. He'll miss all this. Who wouldn't? His Navy salary won't satisfy him. How could it when he's used to having everything he desires?”

Mary studied the perfect symmetry of Gloria's face. “What if he doesn't miss it? What if he's satisfied with a simpler life?”

A startled look raced through Gloria's eyes.

Just as Mary thought—Gloria planned to make Archer Vandenberg quite dissatisfied with Navy life.

“All right, ladies.” Arch stepped closer, pulling on a khaki shirt. “Time to head ashore and dress for dinner.”

Mary rummaged in her bag, pulled out her one-piece playsuit, stepped in, and buttoned it up, still tickled to have found a playsuit in navy-and-white polka dots to match her swimsuit.

Gloria sauntered down the length of the boat, hips swaying, swinging her bag, and she sang the new hit song “You Made Me Love You.”

Arch hopped to the pier, reached out a hand to his girlfriend,
then retracted it. “Do you have something to put on over that? Shorts and a blouse like Mary has?”

Gloria put one hand on her hip. “Are you ashamed of me?”

His shoulders sagged. “Come on. I told you my parents are old-fashioned. Please put some clothes on and don't make a scene.”

Without a word, Gloria threw her bag to the deck and opened it.

“Mary?” Jim stood on the pier, his hand outstretched, and he tilted his head as if to say, “Let's get out of here.”

Mary took his hand, hesitated as she studied the watery gap between boat and pier, then jumped across.

He leaned down, his face only inches from her ear. “Let's give them some space.”

How could she breathe with him so close and his hand still wrapped around hers? She wouldn't let go. He might, but she wouldn't. “All right.” Her voice came out too breathy.

“Here. Let me take your bag.”

She'd rather he hold her hand than her bag, but he took it from her and strode up the wharf to the shore, his unbuttoned khaki shirt flapping behind him.

Mary followed him up the stairs to a winding, climbing path across the manicured estate grounds.

She and Jim strolled side by side. Stone benches beckoned from under shady trees, and colorful flower gardens rested in the bends of the path. At the top of the slope, the Vandenberg home sat long and stately and white, trimmed with gray stone. In the center of the home, the wall bowed outward, graced with huge windows in the ballroom upstairs and the enormous sitting room downstairs. Off to one side lay the tennis courts and horse stables.

Mary could admire such opulence without coveting it, but unlike Gloria, she'd never seen it as an option. In a way, she felt sorry for the girl.

Faint snapping voices rose from down by the water.

“Oh dear,” Mary said. “I do hate when couples argue.”

Jim slung both his bag and Mary's over his shoulder. “They won't be a couple for long.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“It was inevitable.” He waved one arm over the grounds. “Arch says he wants a woman with middle-class sensibilities, then expects her to share his upper-class indifference to luxury. It's happened before, and unless he wises up, it'll happen again.”

“And he's such a nice man.”

“He is. He's a good man, a good officer.”

“It's too bad that wasn't enough for Gloria.”

“Yeah.” A wry smile crinkled one corner of his mouth. “I have a hunch it never was.”

“And the more she feels him slipping away, the harder she tries.”

“And the harder she falls. The Vandenbergs don't like show-offs, and they despise scenes.”

The path curved around a maple tree, and Mary ran her hand under the green leaves, soon to be a brilliant orange-red. “If the Vandenbergs don't like show-offs, I'm surprised they allow maple trees on their property.”

Jim laughed, stopped, and faced Mary. “They're show-offs in autumn, but they pay penance in winter. Maybe that's why they haven't been chopped down.”

Mary joined his laughter. Jim's shirt hung open over the long lean expanse of his chest, and a sudden playful impulse leaped inside her. She grasped his open shirt and did up a middle button. “Why, you're a show-off too. You heard Arch. Put some clothes on and don't make a scene.”

He stood stock-still. Silent.

What was she doing? Her fingers froze and fumbled with the button, and her breath grew ragged. He must think she
was either forward or ridiculous. Somehow she had to save face, so she straightened his collar points. “There. You're a big boy. You can do the rest yourself.”

She mustered up a smile and looked him in the eye.

His expression turned her knees to mush—the question in his eyes, the parting of his lips, the softness, as if he wanted—as if he wanted to—

Footsteps stomped behind them. “I can't believe you said that, Archer Vandenberg. Just who do you think I am?”

“Come on, Gloria. Come back here. Let's talk in private. Don't make a scene.”

Jim's expression warped. He stepped back and did up his buttons with his free hand, giving Mary a tight-lipped smile. “So much for the relaxing weekend, eh?”

With effort, she nodded, but the world felt topsy-turvy beneath her feet.

Gloria stormed past them on the path, properly clad but cursing Arch in improper language.

Jim glanced behind them. “Arch will stay on the pier for a while. I know him.”

“Oh. All right.” Mary's voice squeaked and embarrassed her.

“Come on. Let's get dressed for dinner.”

“All right.” No squeak this time, thank goodness, but she couldn't help but sigh. Had she imagined that moment? That look in his eyes? As if he wanted to kiss her?

Her lungs filled with perfumed ocean air. She'd dreamed of a whole romantic weekend, but she'd had one romantic moment. For now, that would have to do.