Renegade Player Page 2

  There was not a soul in sight. The few residents of Wimble Court were old beach-dwellers who had long since forgotten the joys of an impromptu swim, and now even the dogs had found another pastime. After flinching from the first chilly spray, she waded out hip-deep, then dived under a breaker, surfacing on the other side with a laugh of pure exuberant joy. Deliver her from the sterile world of chlorinated, fancifully shaped pools where white jacketed butlers stood by with chrome-plated poles to assist anyone who was gauche enough to encounter difficulties.

  After half an hour or so of body-surfing, glorying in the feel of tremendous surges of power moving her forward to scrape her naked stomach on a gravelly beach, she waded ashore. The dogs had returned, and so she raced with them on the hard-packed beach in an unusual burst of energy and then veered off in the direction of her apartment, hopping over the soft, sun-heated crest of the dune to climb her outside staircase. She never bothered to lock her apartment when she was in the area, a reaction, no doubt, of a lifetime of having to accept security measures as a matter of course. Whether at home with her grim-faced “companion” or at school with other girls with essentially the same background, she was never able to forget that she was Wilhelmina January Silverthorne, heiress to Jasper Silverthorne, who happened to own several square miles of various cities both in the States and abroad.

  It had been the advent of his third marriage, to a woman half his age, coming hard on the heels of her former fiancé Luke Styrewall’s fiasco, that had bought Willy her freedom. Freedom she had grabbed with both hands, leaving behind her almost everything she owned except the little Mercedes 450SL she had fallen heir to when Jasper had divorced his second wife on irrefutable grounds. Willy had taken the car because it had given her her first taste of freedom, which was probably why even now she gloried in the feel of a powerful engine under her command. When she had left home she’d gone directly to her mother’s only living relative, a crusty widowed cousin—Fred, who had been only too glad to return to his state of single bliss, after having recently been freed from almost forty years of henpecked bondage. He had been full of advice and had urged her to try for her license in real estate.

  Cousin Fred had lived in Edenton, but it had been the outer banks of North Carolina that had drawn Willy. She had grown up near the water, both at Hobe Sound and in the South of France, and it had been a constant source of frustration to her that she was never allowed the freedom to enjoy it. When she had finished her course and passed her exams, Willy had applied for, and been accepted by, a small firm of realtors at Nags Head. Here, she was plain Willy Silverthorne, career woman, with no means of support other than what was afforded her by her fairly good brain and her own determination. She was still learning about herself after so many years of being told what she was to like and dislike, and she discovered that she liked to sleep late. She enjoyed driving and cooking. And she loved searching out new restaurants, trying any food with which she was unfamiliar, then trying to duplicate it in her own small but adequate kitchen.

  Now, starved after her swim, she made herself a breakfast of shrimp on whole-wheat bread washed down with a mixture of orange juice and Perrier— hardly orthodox, but nourishing, for all that—and then she climbed into a pair of brief cutoff jeans that had lost all but the two bottom buttons on the fly, leaving her stomach bare to the bikini line. She left on her halter, loosening the neck strings, which were beginning to chafe, and wandered out onto her roofless porch.

  Here she had all the sunny privacy she could ever want, plus an almost constant breeze that sometimes faltered at ground level, and she intended to sleep in the sun until lunch, take another dip, cook herself something exotic and then, if she felt like it, sleep until dinnertime. Drowsily, she half-decided to hunt up Richy later and see if he was game to go out to a new Greek restaurant she had seen advertised.

  The first awareness that she was not alone came gradually, just a vague, uneasy feeling that the sun-induced redness behind her eyelids had changed from reddish to a dark gray-brown. She felt the cold prickle along her spine that told her someone was staring at her and she was suddenly afraid to open her eyes.

  In spite of all she could do, her unnatural rigidity must have revealed her alarm, for he spoke. A deep, chocolate-smooth voice with a hint of grit told her not to be alarmed, and she opened her eyes and gazed up what seemed an inordinate length of extremely masculine body to encounter a dark, speculative gaze. He openly scrutinized her half-naked body, making her burningly aware of her thousand or so freckles.

  “I’m your new neighbor,” the man informed her in a tone meant to reassure, “come begging.” He extended a plastic measuring cup and Willy allowed a small, nervous laugh to escape her. “Sugar?” she asked, feeling some of the tension drain away, to leave her curiously limp.

  “Actually, dry sherry, if you have any,” he replied apologetically, and at her look of surprise, he elaborated, “I’m trying out a new seafood recipe—scallops and shrimp in a sour-cream, cheddar and sherry mixture—and I discovered I’m fresh out of sherry. My ... the man who packed for me must have considered all opened bottles perks of the job.”

  Her interest was thoroughly piqued, and not only because of the recipe. Who would have thought such a strikingly masculine-looking man would be interested in cooking? She led the way to the kitchen, hastily tying her straps as she went. She was only too conscious of the fact that her hair, which she had braided earlier to get it out of the way, showed an untidy tendency to escape its confinement and she tugged surreptitiously at her gaping jeans.

  Reaching her topmost cabinet, she shuffled her few bottles until she emerged triumphant, waving a dark bottle with a Spanish label. She handed it over and he studied the label, looking up at her with what she thought was a surprised look of respect.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t have anything except créme,” he admitted with a crooked smile that revealed one slightly chipped tooth among a lineup of strong, straight white ones. He held up the measuring cup and pulled the cork, inhaling appreciatively.

  “Take the whole bottle,” she offered generously, still perched on the stool she had knelt on to reach the cabinet. Her face was flushed from her nap in the sun and there was a new crop of freckles emerging, none of which, had she but known it, marred her unorthodox appeal one whit as she coiled herself carelessly into a graceful twist. “I know I can never depend on a recipe for the right amount of seasoning. Only taste will tell.” She smiled openly. “What do you do with it?”

  “Do with it?” the man repeated with a lift of heavy black brows.

  “Bake it? Broil it? Chill it?”

  “Oh.” He grinned. His face relaxed some of the oddly watchful austerity to give her the first hint of what a devastating effect he might have on an unsuspecting female under certain circumstances. “Actually, you’re supposed to bake it in cockleshells, after topping it with crumbs. Do you suppose I might be able to find enough shells on the beach along here or has it been pretty well picked over?”

  “Well, we’re pretty private this far south—residential, mostly—and since most of the residents have long since collected whatever they needed in the way of baking shells and ashtrays, you could probably find enough. But if you’re in a hurry, I have a dozen or so and you’re welcome to as many as you need.”

  “Thanks. That’s awfully generous of you. Perhaps in appreciation I could prevail on you to help me sample it . . . unless you lack the nerve to sample a stranger’s first attempt at shellfish coquilles.”

  Willy unfolded her elegant length from the barstool. “Oh, I’m a purple-heart winner when it comes to bravery in the kitchen,” she assured him with her slow, half-shy smile.

  “Sounds promising. No purple heart, I sincerely hope, but how about a croix de guerre?”

  “If you’re sure you have enough, perhaps I will come try a bit when it’s done. If I like it, may I have the recipe?” she asked.

  “Not unless you agree to help me stuff your shells and do a bit of p
reliminary tasting. Your taste for sherry may not agree with mine. I like it well-laced.”

  She grinned more freely now. “So do I, up to the point where it stops tasting like sherry and begins to taste like library paste.” She located her shells in a bottom drawer and, after selecting half a dozen of the largest, most perfect, followed him from the room.

  “Don’t you need to lock up?” he asked. “This may take a while.”

  Willy glanced up at him, shaking her head. “There’re only a few of us living here at Wimble and they’re all awfully nice people. Besides,” she added with a gurgle, “there’s nothing to steal, unless someone covets the rest of my cockleshells.”

  “Not even your purse? You’re the first woman I’ve run into who can go more than twenty-five paces without a full stock of supplies.”

  “Well, since I don’t lock up, I don’t need keys, and since I don’t smoke, I don’t need cigarettes, and since I assume I’m trading my very good sherry for a sample of your equally good cooking, I won’t be needing any money, so why bother?”

  He shrugged. “Why, indeed?” he agreed, his well-worn deck shoes almost silent as he led the way down her ramshackle stairs.

  “Hey,” she called after him as she hopped barefoot across the patch of hot concrete that separated the two frame cottages at the end of the street. “Who are you?”

  Turning to see her predicament, he grabbed an arm and pulled her, laughing, into the scant noonday shade beside his garage door. “Sorry ... I forgot to introduce myself. Kiel Faulkner. And you?” He bent to lift the door, revealing a familiar silver-gray Porsche.

  Willy stood on one foot, rubbing her calf with the burning sole of her other one as she gazed raptly at the low, superbly engineered piece of machinery. “So you’re the Porsche,” she breathed reverently. “It’s gorgeous.”

  He leaned against the side and leveled her a gaze that, had she been looking at him, might have puzzled her. “Are you a fan?”

  “I could easily become one,” she admitted, stroking the flawless finish wistfully.

  “Maybe you’d care to give it a road test sometime?” Her unbelieving eyes flew up to beseech him. “Could I? Really? The only thing I like better than driving a good car is eating a good meal, and it would have to be Cordon Bleu to compare with this.”

  He looked at her skeptically. “That’s a bit hard to believe, Willy.”

  “What, that I like food and cars?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

  “You certainly aren’t the first woman to admire a good car, but you’re the first I’ve run across who put them in the same category as food. Come on, this way up.” He indicated the stairs in the comer of the garage that comprised the first floor of his cottage.

  “Well, I don’t see why not,” she said, following his long, powerful legs in their trim-fitting chinos. “They’re both fun. I get a kick out of feeling all that horsepower under my hands, but when I’m hungry, no mere automobile can compare with hot, thin, lace cornbread, dripping with butter, and fried bluefish that just came out of the surf half an hour before it was popped into the pan. Now, that’s my idea of heaven.” She followed him into a room that was approximately the same size and proportions as her own living room, but there the resemblance ended.

  “I think there’s a flaw in your reasoning somewhere along the line, Willy, and besides, that strikes me as pretty mundane fare here on the banks, especially for a gal who appreciates a better line of sports cars.”

  “Oh, I assure you, when it comes to food, I’m no snob.” She settled back into a circular chair of rattan and white leather and watched as he put out a plate of pink shrimp, white scallops, and a bowl of grated cheddar.

  “All right, Willy Silverthorne, let’s say the magic words and turn this into something that’ll melt your heart.” He got out the container of sour cream and a large mixing bowl and proceeded to put the ingredients together while Willy looked on in rapt admiration, never once wondering how he came to know her name when she hadn’t mentioned it to him.

  Chapter Two

  That was the beginning of a relationship Willy found increasingly satisfying, although something deep inside her whispered a warning that she must not allow herself to forget the lesson she had learned a year ago in Florida.

  On that first Saturday, after sampling the bubbling hot coquilles along with fresh spinach salad and German wine for a late lunch, Willy and Kiel Faulkner spent the rest of the afternoon in his house listening to his favorite Bizet opera, The Pearlfishers.

  Never one to stand when she could sit, nor to sit when she could recline, Willy found herself relaxing on a down-cushioned sofa under windows that opened to let the salt breeze blow in over her. She had run back to her own place long enough to change the skimpy halter for a T-shirt and she wished now she had taken time to change her shorts as well, as she tugged the shirt down over her gaping jeans. Closing her eyes to the strains of the haunting music, with its counterpoint of raucous gulls and seething surf, she was totally content, and once, when she opened her eyes to see Kiel’s gaze on her freckled abdomen, she tugged at her shirt again and apologized for her attire. “Sorry about that.” She grinned lazily. “I’ve gained three pounds since I came here and I haven’t gotten around to sewing on all the buttons I’ve popped off.”

  Kiel surveyed her frankly, his eyes appreciating her offbeat but very potent style of beauty. “Don’t mind me ... I just live here.”

  Rolling over on her stomach, Willy cupped her chin in her hand. “It’s a great place, isn’t it? I’ve been here several months now and I hope I’ll still be here by the time I’m drawing social security.”

  “Somehow, when the time comes, I doubt that you’ll be counting on a social-security check for subsistence,” Kiel said, his eyes straying from her heavy crop of sun-streaked hair to the bare feet that waved in loose time with the music. “I expect there’ll be a long line of men who’ll be delighted to offer you something a good deal more substantial than that. Matter of fact, I’ve met several of them at the office.” His easy smile was not reflected in eyes so dark they seemed to absorb the light, but then, Willy was too well fed and relaxed to notice that fact.

  Nevertheless, she wasn’t eager to talk about the men at CCE, nor about the one who had left, the one whose place Kiel had taken as head of the firm. “Maybe,” she admitted dubiously, “but it’s a good feeling, being your own boss. I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready to trade that freedom in on a husband, no matter how much security he offered me.”

  “Who said anything about a husband?” Kiel quipped laconically as the last record came to a clicking end.

  Willy slanted him a puzzled look, and then with a dismissing moue she said, “Nobody, I guess. I just assumed—”

  “Women often do. Assume, that is,” he added enigmatically, unfolding his considerable length to turn off the stereo. The sound quality was superb, but then, Willy was no stranger to first-rate quadraphonic speakers and she merely told him she liked the opera. “It’s far more romantic than Carmen, isn’t it? I think, with a few more hearings, I’ll fall in love with it.”

  “You’ll have to come over and listen often then. Feel free anytime.”

  Feeling a wave of warmth that had nothing to do with her morning in the sun, Willy stammeringly backed out of her gauche remark, but he dismissed her embarrassment with the wave of a hand.

  She refused his offer of dinner and afterward wondered why. He hadn’t made any threatening moves, nor was there the slightest indication of wolfish tendencies, although he had allowed his eyes to enjoy openly what she supposed she had presented. She wasn’t unused to being stared at, though, since she had filled out little more than a year or so ago. Still, there was something about the man that made her wary and she decided that in the case of Kiel Faulkner, she’d better tread carefully. Even the name sounded dangerous, she thought, unconsciously comparing him with Randy Collier. Randy had been one thing . . . she had been able to handle him well enough, as unpleasant as
it had been; but she had an idea that if she ever found herself in the same position with this man, she’d come out second-best, and the most frightening thing about the idea was that she wasn’t at all sure she’d mind.

  Kiel didn’t relinquish his parking place in the shade, nor did Willy expect him to. Even when the sun-baked leather burned the backs of her legs so that she was forced to bring along a towel to sit on, she accepted as perfectly natural the fact that Kiel Faulkner took his place with the other heads of firms, leaving the less-desirable places to the working force of the three office buildings. The fact would have dumbfounded her father.

  One day during the middle of the week, an exasperated Pete came in with his five-year-old son in tow. Connie, it seemed, was prostrated with a siege of morning sickness and the girl who usually looked after young Kip had failed to show up.

  “I don’t know how much I can get done with his help,” Pete said resignedly, “but it’s a cinch I can’t leave him home while Connie’s out of action. He’d dismantle the place in no time flat. Going to be an engineer, this one.”

  Somehow, it evolved that Willy ended up spending the morning playing with the child while she listened for the phone. The others, with the exception of Dotty, who had a batch of rush letters to get out, were all showing properties, and Willy made a new discovery about herself: she had a knack for getting along with children. Or at least with one small boy, with a stubborn streak and unflagging energy.

  They played cars, using ashtrays and the box that Dotty’s staples came in, and Kip was delighted with Willy’s ability to vocalize the various engine noises. He was best at horn sounds, himself, and the two of them were thus engaged when Kiel walked in and discovered them on their knees, bottoms up, playing at stock-car racing.