Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (48 page)

A small, older model foreign car slowed at the corner, then made an easy right into the lot and drove straight to the first row before stopping. The car sat at idle for a long minute or so before the engine was turned off and a door opened. A dark-haired young man got out and looked up and down the rows of cars. Apparently not finding what he was looking for, he patiently leaned back against his car, his hands in his pockets.

With the aid of small but powerful binoculars, Jeremy focused on the license plate. Satisfied that this was one of the two parties for whom he was being paid to watch, he took a few cursory shots with the Nikon of the young man leaning against the car. He then turned his attention to the video camera, focusing the lens on the small black car with the Georgetown University sticker on the back window.

Through the eye of the video camera, the investigator could see that the man was even younger than he'd initially supposed, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. He was handsome, dark-haired, with good clean features. The senator's daughter had chosen a fine-looking man to lose her heart to. It was a shame that her father was intent on making sure that the relationship never went any further.

"I appreciate that you've agreed to meet me on such short notice, Mr. Noble." The senator had offered a hand as he ushered Jeremy into the private study of the palatial Georgetown home earlier that day. "One of my colleagues has highly recommended your services."

Jeremy had not confirmed the identity of his other client—he would never acknowledge for whom he did or did not work—but they both knew the senator's friend—a congressman—was involved in a horrendous custody battle with an ex-wife who, along with her current boyfriend, had kidnapped the congressman's only child and had attempted to take the boy out of the country. Only quick thinking and quicker action on the part of both Jeremy and his partner had prevented the child from disappearing from his father's life. Thanks to Noble and Dawson, the boy was now back with his father where, it was hoped, he would remain.

"We have a bit of a domestic matter that my wife and I feel needs to be attended to immediately," the senator confided, offering Jeremy a chair as he himself sat in a dark green leather wingback. "For the past several years, our daughter has been involved with a young man whom we feel is totally unsuitable. You see, we have long held the hope that she would marry into the diplomatic circle. Why, the son of the ambassador from Greece is head over heels for her. Good boy, good family."

The senator's cigar punctuated the air.

"Now, she tells me that she's not seeing this other boy anymore—he's a teacher. Can you imagine a child of mine living on a teacher's salary? Her mother and I certainly cannot. Anyway, she tells us that
that
relationship is over. Her mother's buying her story, but I'm not. I have it on good authority that she's been secretly meeting him"—the senator handed Jeremy a piece of paper—"at this address. The boy's license plate number is there, too, and the number of my cell phone. I want photographs. I want videos. I want her to see that she cannot lie to me, that there's no place she can sneak off to where I cannot find her."

Jeremy took the slip of paper, glanced at it before tucking it into his pocket.

"I want you to call me when the boy arrives. And I want to know when my daughter gets there."

"Why don't you just wait for her yourself?"

"I'm expected to attend a reception at the British Embassy. Besides, a man like me—a United States senator!—can't very well be lurking about in vacant lots hoping to catch his twenty-one-year-old daughter in a lie. You'll call me at the number on the card. I'll take it from there."

The senator stood to announce that the meeting was over.

"We love our daughter very much, Mr. Noble. We only want what's best for her. We strongly believe that what's best for her is
not
to marry a teacher and spend her life in the backwoods of Kentucky. That's not the future we had envisioned for her. She's our only child. I'm sure you understand."

An uneasy feeling had crept over Jeremy then and had stayed with him for the rest of the day. He always hated jobs that involved the manipulation of someone else's life. But the senator was prominent and powerful, and could be a good ally in the suburban Washington marketplace, where surveillance and intrigue services were frequently sought and handsomely paid for.

Well, the job would be over soon enough.

Jeremy watched the little BMW convertible zip into the parking lot and cruise for a place to park The exuberant driver hopped out and all but danced across the macadam to her waiting lover. She spun into his arms, settled momentarily for a long, deep kiss, then danced back toward the BMW, pulling the dark-haired young man with her. Jeremy leaned into the video cam and brought them into sharp focus.

The senator's daughter was not a natural beauty—her features were just slightly too small, her eyes just slightly too far apart—but clearly, her young man was totally captivated. Adoration was written all over his face.

Jeremy watched as they walked to the back of her car, watched as the young man turned her to him and touched her face gently, watched as the young woman looked up at him with eyes filled with love and lifted a hand to smooth his hair back tenderly, as if to reassure. He said something to her that caused her face to crinkle with soft laughter, her eyes glowing and alive with promise and trust-filled with a hot, sudden shot of envy, Jeremy tried to remember when a woman had last looked at him with such loving eyes.

It had been, he conceded, a very, very long time.

Something in Jeremy's gut wrenched as he recalled that his instructions included calling the senator as soon as the young man had arrived. One hand reached for the cell phone, the other into his shirt pocket for the scrap of folded paper containing the number. He looked back at the couple in the parking lot, so filled with each other, so unaware that their happiness was one brief phone call from coming to an end.

The young woman reached into the trunk and pulled out a dark green gym bag, which she swung over her shoulder. Slamming the trunk, she turned again, and in the light of the nearby lamppost, Jeremy could see her dreams, aglow with promise, reflected in her face.

They're running away
, Jeremy realized as she locked the car and took the young man's hand.

The small, slim phone lay heavy in his own.

He suddenly recalled another early summer night when the face of another young woman had been caught in lamplight, just so. He'd been a junior at Princeton that year, and had had the world by the tail. He and his date for that weekend had strolled off campus to Nassau Street, down Witherspoon to a coffee shop that was open late and served great sandwiches. On their way back to campus, they had stopped beneath a street lamp and kissed. From behind them had come a sigh, and, startled, they had broken apart. An elderly man, dapperly dressed and leaning on a cane, apologized for having frightened them.

"I'm so sorry," he'd said softly to Jeremy, "but you're so young, and she's so beautiful. Hold fast to nights like this, son… they pass so quickly. Hold fast to it all…"

The old man had stepped closer and kissed Jeremy's date, right at the corner of her pretty young mouth, then stepped away, nodded to them both, and disappeared back into the night.

It had been years since he'd thought of it—or the young woman, whose name and face had been lost to time—but the words came back to Jeremy now.

"
Hold fast to it all
. …"

Jeremy watched the young lovers walk across the parking lot, and he put the phone down. He pulled the film from the Nikon, exposing it, then packed up the video cam.

"Good luck, kids," he said quietly as the small foreign car sped from the parking lot and disappeared into the night.

He took the long way back to his townhouse. He pulled up slowly in front of his garage, parked the car, and contemplated what he'd done. Jeremy had never scuttled an investigation before, never given less than his best on any job, regardless of the difficulty. And this client would be a particularly unhappy man. Well, it was too late to change his mind now. He'd made his decision back in the parking lot, and now he'd have to play it out. The senator would have an easy enough time finding someone else to wreck his daughter's life. But at least it wouldn't have been Jeremy's call that had taken the sparkle from those young eyes.

Jeremy glanced at his watch, then picked up his cell phone and dialed the number he'd been given.

"Senator. Jeremy Noble. I'm afraid I've had a touch of bad luck… my car broke down on 95 outside of College Park. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep that appointment after all…"

Jeremy unlocked the front door, chuckling as he pictured the distinguished statesman whispering angry curses into the tiny cell phone while in the midst of an important gathering in the oh-so-very-elegant British Embassy.

Whistling, Jeremy punched the message button on the answering machine as he went into tine kitchen and turned on the light. Half listening to the messages, he opened the refrigerator door and hunted for something that hadn't expired or grown some life form of its own. Unsuccessful, he checked the freezer. Nothing there either. He poked around in a cupboard until he found a can of soup. That would have to do.

The messages were still running, but so far he'd heard nothing important enough to interfere with his quest for food.

It occurred to him then that he hadn't had a meal at home or a day off in over five weeks. While there was definitely something to be said for steady work, tonight's little episode had reminded him that there were other, more important things in life. He dumped the congealed soup into a pan, then added a little water. It looked disgusting.

Nothing at all like that cream of she-crab soup he'd had at the Bishop's Inn on the Maryland coast back in June. Pale as moonlight, with chunks of crab and deli-cate traces of herbs. Jeremy's mouth watered just to think of it.

And not fust the soup
, his tired mind poked at him playfully,
the chef was pretty mouthwatering, too
…

Ah, yes, Jody.

Jeremy set the pan of soup on the burner and turned the flame on low.

Jody Beckett. Jody with the light brown hair and the long, lanky body and the wizard's touch in the kitchen.

He sat on one of the hard kitchen chairs, pulled another out from under the table and propped his legs up on it, thinking back to the days he had spent at the Bishop's Inn in the beginning of June. He'd been working on a big case that involved Laura Bishop, the owner of the inn, and when it had concluded, she'd invited him to stay on for a few days as a guest, a little bonus for his part in bringing the matter to a successful conclusion. Because of his work schedule, he'd been able to spend only two days and nights there, but every minute had been a treasure. Sun, sand, fishing, great conversation with the inn's other lively guests, incredible food.

And Jody.

If he closed his eyes, he could see her. Clear skin, eyes the color of pale amber, a pert nose that wrinkled when she laughed, a sweet mouth that curved up on one side. Great legs, too. Long and shapely…

It wasn't, he acknowledged, the first time he'd seen that face—or those legs—in his mind's eye. More than once over the past few weeks, something of Jody had seemed to be floating around inside his head, like a snippet of a song he'd yet to learn all the words to.

Hold fast to it all…

Perhaps it was time to take Laura up on her offer to spend a week at the inn.

Jeremy pulled his briefcase across the table and opened it, searching for his appointment book. Things looked pretty tight, he grimaced, trying to figure out which jobs he could switch around or postpone, and which he could pass off to his partner.

If he worked like a demon this week, he might be able to make it by the last week of July.

If his partner pitched in, he could make it in less.

He reached for the phone, wondering just what payment his partner, T. J. Dawson, would extract in return. Whatever it was, it would be worth it for a week at the Bishop's Inn. Long enough, he rationalized. There was something about Jody that had been circling around in the back of his mind like a lazy hawk on a summer morning. Maybe it was time to find out if it was more than just her cooking that was keeping her there.

Jody Beckett leaned against the white porcelain sink that was shaped like a big scallop shell, hoping to bring her face as close as humanly possible to the mirror that hung behind it. Narrowing her eyes, she studied the skin around them, searching for some outward sign that in one short day—just twenty-four more hours—she would turn thirty.

The big three-oh.

Gray hairs and sagging and wrinkles, oh my.

She squinted a little more, wondering if
that right there
was the start of crow's feet. Crow's foot, she corrected herself, since there appeared to be only one. Turning her face this way and that, she realized that what she had first thought to be a line was merely shadow, the play of early morning light from a nearby window. Jody sighed deeply. She just wasn't ready to be old when it had been years since she had felt really young.

Jody brushed back her hair—summer streaked and just a shade or two from being mousy—and caught it in a yellow scrunchie. A glance at the clock assured her that she needn't hurry, since it wasn't likely that anyone else would be awake just yet, but hurry she did. She liked the tranquil lull that lay about the Bishop's Inn—her home and place of employment for the past three years—at the earliest hours of the day. Pulling on a pair of faded denim shorts and a tee-shirt the color of cornflowers, she slipped her feet into Adidas sandals and tucked the key to her suite of rooms into a pocket. Closing the door behind her, she eased down two flights of steps, the second of which widened into a sweeping curve to the lobby. Once downstairs, she paused and cocked her head, listening, but hearing no telltale sounds of running water or doors closing or feet moving on thick carpet.