Two Hearts, Slightly Used

Hell, he’d never had a clue as to who his old man was. His mother, either. Once, though, he’d overheard a social worker telling a cop who’d busted him for some petty offense or another that he’d been left in a shopping cart in a department store rest room and was more trouble than any kid they’d ever had to deal with.

To this day Brace could recall how proud he’d been at the distinction. They’d called him John Henry because they’d had to call him something, but he’d never felt like a John Henry. When he was thirteen, he’d taken the name of Bracewell after a local war hero who was being feted about that time. The Ridgeway had come from the department store. He’d rather liked that touch. As soon as he’d been old enough, he’d had the name made legal.

Now he wandered back out to the kitchen and lit the burner under the pot of day-old coffee. With his face in traction for so long, he’d had to give up cigarettes. Alcohol didn’t mix with too many of the drugs he’d been on in the hospital, so he’d cut down on that vice, too. Mostly, he made do with bad coffee. Black as tar and strong enough to float an F-18. Sooner or later the stuff would probably eat a hole in his gut, and he’d wind up back in a hospital bed. He’d sworn never to set foot in another hospital. The day he’d walked out a free man, he’d sworn the only way anyone would ever get him back in another hospital was feetfirst, in a Ziploc bag.

He’d sworn a lot of things when he’d learned that if he so much as pulled a single G, his whole carcass would probably self-destruct.

His flying days were over, but what the hell—he’d survive. If there was one thing Brace had learned about himself over some forty-three years, it was that he was too damn mean to die young.

In the Hunt’s main living room, paneled in pickled cypress and decorated with an eye more to comfort than style, he turned on the TV and slid a video in the VCR. He poured himself a pint-size mug of thick coffee and settled down to watch an old World War II training film.

The P-51. Now there was one sweet plane! Yawning, he slipped farther down into the deep leather-covered chair. The furnace cut in as the temperature fell. Outside, rain rattled against the tall windows as wind gusted against the northeast side of the house.

Half-asleep, he wondered if the woman had ever found the switch box. Probably hadn’t even thought to look. Most women wouldn’t know a switch box from a sushi bar. Keegan’s Maudie, of course, would’ve had everything ticking over in two minutes flat. But then, Keegan’s Maudie was one in a million.

His thoughts drifted aimlessly back to some of the women who had figured briefly in his own life over the years. By mutual choice they’d been strictly temporary diversions. Decorative, entertaining and willing.

And then, unbidden, his thoughts vectored onto a new heading, and he heard again Sharon’s voice saying to someone just outside the door of his hospital room, “Oh, God, I can’t stand to look at him! He can’t even talk! How do they know his brain still works? What if he never looks any better than he does now? He’ll have to wear a mask— Oh, God, what am I going to tell everybody? What am I going to do? No one can expect me to marry that!”

Sharon Bing. The sister of a man who’d been trying off and on for years to lure him into a business partnership, Sharon had been one of Pete’s most effective inducements. What had started out as a casual acquaintance had unexpectedly escalated into a high-octane affair. With a background in the airline industry—old P. G. Bing had once owned a small regional airline, giving young Pete and Sharon a leg-up in the business—Sharon had liked the idea of being married to the man who had tested and helped develop one of the Navy’s hottest flying machines. And Brace had thought, why not? He’d tried about everything else. Other men had taken the plunge and lived to tell the tale, so why not give it a try?

And then had come the crash. Hanging on to the ability to breathe had taken top priority for the first few weeks, but he was tougher than he’d been given credit for.

Eventually, Brace had discovered that appearances mattered a lot more to Sharon than he’d thought. She was a beautiful, brainy woman, and beautiful, brainy women could pretty much write their own ticket. He couldn’t begrudge her that. He sure as hell couldn’t blame her for wanting out once he no longer fit her specifications.

She’d let him down gently, he’d have to hand her that. About as gently as he’d let down the ATX-4. It had probably been the best thing that could’ve happened to him, he’d rationalized later. What did a guy who’d been flying solo all his life need with a wife, anyhow?

He still kept a picture of her—one of those glamour things, all heavy eyelids, pouting lips and plunging neckline, shot through a soft-focus lens. It helped to remind him, in case he was ever tempted to forget, of what could happen when a guy started taking himself too seriously.

It would’ve hurt a lot worse if he hadn’t been groggy from all those painkillers. An unexpected side benefit of having his face ripped off and then reconstructed—getting dumped hadn’t seemed all that important at the time.

Deliberately Brace pulled his thoughts out of the power dive and steered them back to the present. Which, at the moment, included a tall, skinny woman with stringy black hair, a gritty voice and the sweet disposition of a hornet with PMS.

Of course, he hadn’t been all that sweet himself. But dammit, Keegan had guaranteed him complete privacy in return for keeping an eye on things for a few weeks! All he needed was a quiet, private place to hole up while he weighed his options and made his decision. How the devil could a man concentrate with a bunch of nosy strangers dropping in out of the blue, staring at his face and asking stupid questions?

Dammit, he was not oversensitive! He didn’t give a damn what she thought, as long as she did her thinking somewhere else!

He’d give her a day, he decided. Two days, tops, but he doubted if she’d even last that long. A deserted island in late January, with the nearest shopping mall several islands away?

No way. If he knew women—and to his sorrow, he did—she’d be out of here before noon.

The old training film video droned on. Brace had watched it at least a hundred times. Yawning, he told himself he should’ve plugged in her phone, at least. That way she could call the marina and be out of his hair before she dug in too deeply.

First thing in the morning, just to be on the safe side, he mused drowsily, he’d run Keegan’s boat around to the other side of the island, out of sight. Just in case she took it in her head not to wait for Jerry to get out of school.

“Yeah. You should be so lucky,” he muttered. Yawning, he watched as the pilot of the P-51 taxied in for a perfect three-point landing, confident that no woman whose idea of a serviceable flashlight was a pink plastic gizmo the size of a lipstick tube was going to tackle a forty-horse outboard in unfamiliar waters.

Feeling the last of the tension seep out of the muscles at the back of his neck, he yawned again and told himself he might even offer to run her over himself.

Sure! Why not? And to prove what a sweetheart he was, he wouldn’t even make her beg.

Two

To a woman who had mastered the word processor, the food processor, elementary plumbing and the fine art of diplomacy under fire, there was nothing particularly intimidating about an outboard motor. Frances had watched the boy from the marina punch, poke, jiggle and shove and then steer with one arm crooked casually over the handle. And while this particular model was somewhat larger, the principles were probably pretty much the same. The main thing to remember, she reminded herself, was that once she got the thing cranked up, steering was in reverse. To go right, shove the handle left and vice versa.

As a precaution, she untied the lines before she began fiddling with the controls. It had occurred to her that once she got the engine running, she might have her hands too full to worry about undoing all those fancy little knots.

A bit of common sense was called for here. Luckily, common sense was her strong suit. Thanks to her brothers, Bill and Dennis, she had a basic knowledge of combustion engines. There was nothing particularly difficult about operating an outboard engine.

Or was it a motor? Bill had explained the difference, but she’d forgotten. She’d learned to make simple repairs on most household appliances, but she could never remember the names of all the little gizmos.

Once underway, the first thing Frances noticed was that aluminum on water reacted somewhat differently than did rubber on pavement. For one thing, it lacked gripping power. By trial and error, she managed to propel the boat into open water without coming to grief, and felt a warm glow of pride.

Really, this was no big deal at all.

The second thing she noticed was the poles, which had been stuck seemingly at random along the way, one of which was green, with a light on top, the rest being plain. Not so much as a hand-painted arrow pointing the way to Coronoke or Hatteras. She’d been so tired and so intent on reaching her destination on the way over the day before that she hadn’t paid them much attention.

Now, just to be on the safe side, she steered a wide course around each one. By the time it occurred to her that they might have something to do with marking a trail, every clenchable muscle she possessed was clenched, from her teeth right down to her toes. Three times she came within inches of plowing into a shoal and then had to fumble with the left-turn, right-turn thing.

Outboard motors, she decided, were designed either by or for a dyslexic. Her left-handed sister, Debbie, would have managed just fine!

As her destination drew near, it occurred to her that with no brakes except for an anchor that was stashed up under the pointy end of the boat, the good ship Coronoke might not be easy to park. A little test of momentum seemed indicated here. Praying she could start it again, she cut the power and carefully observed how long it took to come to a full stop.

Not too bad, she mused. But sideways? Where had that tricky little glide step come from? The handle was aimed straight forward.

Frances was still experimenting when her stomach began to growl, reminding her that her last meal had been a super-coronary special at a fast-food restaurant in Manteo early the previous afternoon. The fat content of all that beef, bacon and cheese alone had kept her functioning until now. However, a bowl of Fancy’s Fat-Free, Fiber-Filled Homemade Granola would be her first priority once she got back to the cottage.

After two more rehearsals a safe distance away from any visible obstacles, she managed to make a creditable landing at the marina without denting either boat or pier. Still slightly terrified, but extraordinarily proud of her accomplishments—considering that the last boat she’d skippered had been a rubber affair some six inches long in a claw-footed bathtub—she tied up at the pier, briefly considered tossing out the anchor for good measure and elbowed her way up onto the splintery wharf.

And then she quietly collapsed, breathing deeply of the cold, fish-and-diesel-oil-smelling air. In the distance a noisy truck rattled past, the first sign of life she’d seen all day other than the wheeling gulls that searched the dark waters of the harbor for scraps of food.

Not until the chill began to creep into her bones did she turn to the task at hand. Making several trips to her car, she loaded her various bags and boxes aboard and set out again, her mind on trying to remember which box held her coffee filters and which held her supply of granola makings.

Somewhat to her surprise the entire operation, practice maneuvers included, had taken only slightly over an hour.

* * *

Back on Coronoke, Brace stood at the end of the pier in his briefs and boots, oblivious to the raw, cutting wind, and ran through about six yards of gutter profanity. Dammit, he’d known the first time he’d set eyes on that woman that she was going to be trouble! In the first place, she had no business even being here! Keegan had sworn he would have the place to himself, otherwise he never would’ve agreed to the deal.

Evidently she’d bought his story about the lack of basic amenities. Damn good thing, too. If that hadn’t worked, he’d planned to hit her with a tale about hurricanes, tornadoes and man-eating mosquitoes and throw in a few alligators for good measure.

But dammit, why’d she have to go and steal his boat? He’d already made up his mind to ferry her back across to the marina. If there was one thing that irritated him more than a clinging, whining female, it was one of the superindependent types.

Brace had been shaving when he’d heard the outboard sputter a few times and start up. He’d gone racing down to the landing in his briefs and boots, face covered with shaving cream, in time to see her roar out of the harbor, hanging on to the stick like a chicken in a high wind. While he stood there swearing, the phone had started ringing back at the Hunt, and he’d raced back and grabbed it just in time to hear the disconnect.

Still swearing under his breath, he’d jogged back down to the landing, wondering what the devil was happening to his nice, private little retreat. No one was even supposed to know where he was except for the Keegans and Pete Bing.

He figured it was Keegan, calling to check up on things. Pete knew better than to put the screws on him at this point in their negotiations. Brace had left it at the “don’t call me, I’ll call you” stage. He still had a lot of thinking to do before he signed on with any outfit. Not that he had any doubts about Bing Aero. He had plenty, however, about the woman involved.