Two Hearts, Slightly Used

It could hardly be worse. The thought echoed again in her aching head. The raw wind that had followed her all the way down the narrow strip of barrier islands had diminished somewhat with the setting of the sun, but the cold had long since penetrated her layers of spray-damp clothing. Her nose had probably turned blue to match the circles under her eyes. Nothing like making a good first impression.

“And how do you propose I leave?” she inquired sweetly. To anyone who knew her, such a reckless disregard for danger would be a sure tip-off of how near the end of her rope she was. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to direct me to the nearest bus stop?”

He didn’t know her, and obviously didn’t care to. His response was brief, rude and unhelpful. In the rapidly fading light, Frances couldn’t tell much about his face, except that it reminded her of the chunk of petrified wood her grandmother used to use as a doorstop.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I have no intention of doing any such thing,” she said, her attempt at firmness largely ruined by the chattering of her teeth. “If you’ll just point me in the right direction, I’ll find the place, myself.”

When he continued to stand there, arms crossed over his broad chest, she said, “It’s the Seymore cottage. It’s called Blackbeard’s Hole. It’s the one with the green-striped shutters!”

Exasperated beyond bearing, she reached down and began gathering up her assorted baggage. “Oh, forget it! I’ll just—”

“Storm blinds.”

“What? Oh, never mind, I’ll find it myself!” she snapped. Her head ached, she was cold, hungry, discouraged and bone tired after two and a half days of traveling. It had been a real bitch of a week.

A real bitch of a decade, actually, but she had made up her mind to leave the past behind her and look ahead to the next forty years. They were going to be terrific! She owed herself that much.

Gathering up her computer and her suitcase, Frances eyed the lumpy sacks of groceries, glanced at the sky and prayed for the rain to hold off until she had everything under cover. Her unwelcoming committee obviously had no intention of helping her.

So be it. Brushing past him, she set out up the sloping beach toward the narrow path Jerry had pointed out. If the cottages were on the other side of the island, why the dickens hadn’t he driven his blooming boat around there and parked it closer to her doorstep?

The owners liked their privacy, he’d said. Well, if she had any choice in the matter, they could keep their darned privacy! Not even a decent sidewalk! Her shoes were filled with sand before she’d gone a hundred feet, and there was no telling how much farther she still had to go.

“You really intend to go through with it, huh?”

At the sound of that gravelly voice right behind her, Frances almost walked into a tree. And that was another thing about sand she hated! A body could sneak up on you and you wouldn’t even hear him!

Trudging onward, she made up her mind to ignore him, but the temptation was too great. She stole a glance over her shoulder and then had the grace to feel ashamed when she saw that he was carrying the two largest of her six sacks of groceries. They were heavy, too. Five pounds of this, five pounds of that, not to mention all the canned goods—she’d had to start from scratch and stock up on everything.

He moved up beside her, crowding her between the dark, encroaching bushes. “How do you intend to get in?” he asked.

Frances tried to ignore the feeling of being trapped in the forest with a hungry predator. She refused to be intimidated. She’d come too far for that. “I’ll pick the lock, of course. Or if I can’t find my trusty lock picker, I’ll just toss a brick through a window.” A streak of reckless perversity that was totally out of character kept her from mentioning the key her uncle had mailed her.

“That’s what storm blinds are for.”

“Oh? Then it’ll have to be lock-picking. I always hate picking strange locks in the dark, but at least it’s neater than using explosives.”

Explosives? The closest she’d ever come to using explosives was when she’d microwaved her first egg. She was running on adrenaline, practically begging for trouble from a stranger who looked as if he’d invented trouble and still held the patent.

But anger served to keep her going, and she was afraid if she slowed down for so much as a minute, she might collapse like a punctured balloon.

“Look, I have a key from the owner, all right?” she cried, exasperated. “I’m not trespassing, so you can just knock off the watchdog routine!”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Might as well warn you, though, if you’re looking for a cozy place to crash—the generator tank probably needs filling, and without that, you won’t have lights, heat or running water. You might find a candle or two, but that’s about all.”

“Fine! Just give me the luxuries of life, and I’ll do without the necessities.” The only luxury she wanted at the moment was a bed and a roof over her head, and even the roof was optional as long as it didn’t rain. “I’ll figure it all out tomorrow.” Fumbling in her shoulder bag, she came up with the door key and prayed it was the right one. Knowing Uncle Seymore, it could just as easily be the key to his own basement. Poor Uncle Seymore wasn’t quite as sharp as he used to be.

It was the right key. Frances stepped inside and drew a deep breath of relief. Home at long last! And then she shivered. Home, at the moment, was cold as a tomb, damp as a well and smelled of mice and mildew. “I’ve seen cozier caves,” she muttered. “Do bats smell like mice?”

“I warned you.” He had come in right behind her, and for one crazy moment, she was glad of his nearness. Alone wasn’t quite so intimidating when there was someone there to share it.

“So you did. Did I remember to thank you? No? Then thank you so much for all your help and your warm welcome. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get the rest of my groceries under cover in case it rains tonight.”

“I think that’s pretty well guaranteed. Do you have a flashlight?”

“Of course I have a flashlight!” Digging in her purse, she came up with a small plastic model designed to locate car keys and keyholes. It illuminated a spot roughly the size of a nickel.

“Pretty. By the way, does your keeper know you’ve escaped?”

Frances could have wept—not so much at her own stupidity, but because he was there to gloat over it. Her good flashlight was back in Fort Wayne, along with her books, her mother’s good chesterfield, Aunt Becky’s marble-topped table, her AM-FM radio and all her garden implements. She’d been so blessed eager to escape with a clear conscience that she’d given her in-laws practically everything that could even faintly be considered marital property and stored the rest.

“Oh, yes. I left word at the asylum I’d be leaving. So thanks again for all your kind assistance,” she said with a saccharine smile. It was almost too dark to see inside the house, even with the front door standing wide open. She flicked on a light switch. Nothing happened.

“I warned you.” He was still holding both sacks of groceries, and she caught the gleam of a smile—a malicious smile, she told herself.

“Lucky for me, I’m not afraid of the dark.” She was afraid of three things—snakes, lightning and being made a fool of again. “Just put them anywhere—on that counter over there.”

“I may as well go get—”

“No, thank you. I need the exercise.” She held the door wide, hoping her grimace would pass for a smile in the dim light. In about five seconds she was going to cry, curse or kick something—hard! And she’d just as soon not have any witnesses.

* * *

Back at the Hunt several minutes later, Brace let himself inside and reached automatically for the light switch. His hand fell to his side, closed into a fist and then slid into his pocket. Dammit, his conscience was already giving him flak for all the lies he’d laid on her, and the crazy thing was, he didn’t even possess a conscience!

If she was still here tomorrow, he promised himself he would check out her generator. The tank wasn’t empty. They were kept topped off to prevent condensation.

Of course, he could simply flip the breakers and she wouldn’t need a generator. Unless the power cut out. Keegan had explained how salt buildup could cause transformers to arc, setting off pole fires, but there’d been enough rain lately to wash the salt off the lines.

On the other hand, there was no point in making things too easy for her. The more uncomfortable she was, the sooner she’d head back to wherever she’d come from. If there was one thing Brace didn’t need right now, it was company! Keegan had sworn the place was deserted by all but a few die-hard hunters in the wintertime.

Using his excellent night vision, he made his way to the back part of the restored central section of the lodge called Keegan’s Hunt. It had been built about a hundred years ago as a private hunting club and was on the way to falling into ruins when Rich Keegan, a few generations removed from the original builder, had come down to see if there was anything worth salvaging before the family’s ninety-nine-year lease ran out.

He’d found a squatter named Maudie—a divorcee with a grown daughter—married her and begun the task of rebuilding the elegant old hunt club and establishing a small but thriving air-commuter service between Billy Mitchell Airport on Hatteras and the mainland.

Not until Brace reached his own room, a corridorlike affair with a single oddly placed window, did he switch on a light, confident that it wouldn’t be seen from cottage row. Standing before a bow-fronted, bird’s-eye maple bureau with an ornate, gilt-framed mirror above it, he studied his own face dispassionately for the first time since he’d arrived a week and a half ago to island-sit for the Keegans while they went West.

It had been pretty dark. He figured she couldn’t have gotten a good look at him. Too bad. Stroking his jaw, he told himself that if she’d come a little earlier in the day, he could’ve scared the hell out of her without having to lay on all those lies. The way Brace figured it, in the long run the truth was a lot easier than lies. He’d never been a candidate for sainthood, but at least he drew the line somewhere.

Dispassionately he studied the image in the clouded and speckled old mirror. A few parts of the face that stared back were familiar. The deep-set gray eyes, narrowed from years of squinting against the sun. The hairline that was just beginning to migrate northward—at least, he imagined it was. As for the hair itself, it was still thick, of a nondescript shade of brown that turned paler on top in the summer sun. The gray hardly showed, not that he gave a good damn. He’d earned every last one of those gray hairs the hard way.

Earned the scars, too, he acknowledged ruefully as he studied the network of fine white lines that marred the left side of his face. His left cheekbone was slightly higher than the right one, but his new nose was a decided improvement over the old model. After a few too many walk-away crashes, not to mention more barroom brawls than he cared to recall, the old one had been barely functional. This new version—he fingered the straight slope—in addition to running a true northeast, southwest course, had the added advantage of working.

Switching off the light, Brace smiled bleakly into the darkness. He’d been accused of a lot of things in his long and colorful career—of carrying a chip on his shoulder the size of an old-growth redwood. Of trying to prove something to himself—God knew what. Of running on a mixture of jet fuel, adrenaline and testosterone.

Guilty on all three counts. It had taken a fiery, near-fatal crash in the top-secret ATX-4 he’d been testing to clip his wings permanently. Thirty-two months of intermittent hospitalization for reconstruction and rehabilitation gave a man a little too much time to think.

It was during that same period that he’d met Rich Keegan. Neither man had been into socializing, but they’d had flying in common. Finding themselves alone in the ward, while the others hung out in the rec room watching TV and playing video games, they’d gradually begun to talk. Behind the protective covering of a faceful of bandages, Brace had found himself opening up for the first time since he’d confided in a foster parent some thirty-odd years before that his real father was an Air Force general who was too busy saving the world to take care of him.