The Second Time (11 page)

The overgrown yard was chosen as the first task. Randy teased her that she intended to wage war with it when he saw the tools she had raided from her father’s equipment shed. There was the usual assemblage of garden tools, such as rakes, hoes, and spades, plus more lethal items—hatchets, machetes, and a double-bladed axe. She loaded them into a wheelbarrow and, together,
she and Randy wheeled it over to their new house in the cool of early morning.

Dressed in combat gear consisting of long-sleeved shirts, sturdy denims, boots, and gloves to protect their bodies from the sharp and sometimes thorny underbrush, they attacked the front yard in earnest, using the sidewalk as their route of entry. By late morning, they had made a sizable and hard-fought dent in it. But the heat and the humidity were beginning to wear them down.

Randy had stripped down to the waist, sweat streaming down his shoulders and wetting the thick hair on his forehead. A kerchief was tied around it, creating a sweatband to keep the stinging perspiration out of his eyes. Another wheelbarrow load of palm fronds and tangled vines had to be pushed to the growing pile of debris in the driveway. The muscles in his young arms bulged as he lifted the handles and began driving it forward.

Hot and frazzled, Dawn leaned on her rake. A scarf was tied around her hair. She tipped her head back and squinted at the sun high overhead, trying to judge the time. She hadn’t risked wearing her watch for fear she’d catch it on some brush and lose it. The plan had been to work until noon, then quit before the full heat of the day hit them. It had to be close to that now, she decided.

She shifted her grip on the rake and winced in pain. Gingerly she pulled off the glove on her right hand and examined the blister on her palm.
It looked raw and angry. She heard the rattle of the wheelbarrow as its load was dumped and turned to call to Randy.

“Bring a bandage from the first aid kit when you come.” Her voice croaked on a weary note.

Stopping, Randy turned and jogged the short distance to the veranda where the first aid kit and water jug sat side by side in the shade. Dawn marveled at the resiliency of youth that Randy still had the energy to move out of a dragging walk.

Enough of the yard had been cleared to enable her to have only a partially obscured view of the street. A flash of black caught her eye, attracted by the sound of a passing car. Only it wasn’t passing. Dawn recognized the black Corvette as it swung into the driveway, just managing to stop short of the brush pile.

Even though Dawn was too tired to care about her appearance, she was conscious of it. Her face was streaked with dust and pollen. Stickers and broken twigs were hooked onto her clothes. In this old shirt of her father’s, she knew she looked shapeless. Even the crowning glory of her hair was hidden under the dirty scarf. For some strange reason, it was her chipped nails and blistered palms that bothered her the most. There wasn’t time to slip her glove back on, and it would have been too painful anyway, so she simply let her hand hang by her side, hoping he wouldn’t notice it.

His brows were drawn together in a frown as
his gaze swept the yard, his long, free-swinging strides carrying him to where she was standing. “Where are your workmen? Have they broken for lunch already?”

“We are the workmen,” she said, including Randy with a gesture of her gloved hand as he joined them.

“You aren’t planning to clean up this yard by yourselves?” He looked at her as if she’d lost her senses.

Dawn was hot and tired enough to wonder if she had. “We’re both young and able-bodied. All it takes is a little muscle.”

“A weak mind and a strong back, that’s what it takes,” Slater corrected with a trace of exasperation.

“A little physical labor doesn’t hurt anybody,” she insisted, and smiled briefly at her son. “Besides, this is going to be our new home. We have to put some effort into making it that.” She felt it would be a good lesson for Randy; instill in him a sense of ownership because he had helped with it.

“Here’s your bandage, Mom.” He offered it to her.

“Physical labor doesn’t hurt anybody, huh?” Slater mocked and took the bandage from Randy. His seeking glance noticed the gloveless hand at her side. “A blister?” he guessed.

“Yes. It’s just a little sore.” She wouldn’t admit that it was throbbing painfully since it had been exposed to the air.

Turning her hand palm-upward, she showed him the fiery red sore. His gaze flicked sharply to her face. “You crazy little fool,” he muttered angrily under his breath. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t get infection in it.”

“It isn’t that bad.” But Dawn winced as his finger probed around the edges of it, his touch basically gentle although it imparted pain. He firmly held her hand so she couldn’t pull it away from him.

“Do you have any antiseptic with you?” he asked.

“In the first aid kit,” she nodded.

“Go get it for me, Randy,” he ordered. “Before we put a bandage on it, it needs to be cleansed and treated.”

As Randy trotted off again, Dawn didn’t want to pursue the subject of her blister, certain it would only invite a lecture from Slater. And if she chose to clean the yard herself instead of having it done, it was entirely her own business. But she wasn’t in the mood to argue with him over that point.

“Why did you stop by?” she asked. “Do you have the final papers ready for the house?”

“No, they should be finished tomorrow,” he said, then explained, “I had the afternoon free so I stopped by your parents’ house to see if Randy wanted to go out on the boat with me. I promised to take him snorkeling some time.”

“He’d like that.” As sticky and overheated as she felt, the invitation sounded heavenly.

“Do you mean he doesn’t have to work in the yard this afternoon?” There was a devilish twinkle in his gray eyes that laughingly mocked her.

“Regardless of what you think, I’m not so foolish as to work outside in the heat of the afternoon,” Dawn retorted.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Slater invited unexpectedly.

“No.” Her refusal was quick, perhaps too quick.

“Why not?” he challenged, deliberately argumentative to wear down her resistance. “With Randy along as chaperon, I’ll have to lay off the booze.” She stiffened self-consciously at the oblique reference to her, knowing full well it was what she had wanted to avoid when she had initially turned down the invitation. “Sorry. I guess that joke was in poor taste.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured.

“I’d still like you to come with us,” he said more quietly. “Being the father of a ten-year-old boy is still new to me. It gets a bit awkward between us sometimes. I’m never sure what I should say to him, or what we’re supposed to talk about. I think it would be easier on Randy if you came along to smooth out the rough spots.”

She listened to the run of his voice, hearing its calm reasoning and persuasive tone. It made sense. Plus it had been years since she had gone snorkeling in these clear waters. The combination made for an irresistible appeal.

“I’ll come,” she agreed.

Randy came trotting up, slowing to walk heavily
the last couple of steps. “I brought the whole kit ‘cause I wasn’t sure which you wanted,” he said to Slater and opened the box to show him the contents.

“How would you like to go snorkeling this afternoon?” Slater asked as he removed a bottle of disinfectant to cleanse the blistered sore.

“Really?” Randy perked up with interest.

“Your mother’s going to come with us.” He doused the area as Dawn hissed in a breath at the burning sting it made.

“Great!” His enthusiasm at the news was a total endorsement of the plan.

Slater dabbed on some antiseptic before pressing the adhesive bandage over the sore. “Get all these tools put away and I’ll give you a ride home so you can get cleaned up and ready to go.”

In record time it seemed, the car was rolling to a stop in her parents’ driveway. The motor idled while Slater waited for them to climb out.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said.

“We’ll be ready,” Dawn promised, although it just barely gave them time to shower, change, and grab a bite of lunch.

As he backed out of the driveway, she curved an arm around Randy’s shoulders and turned them both toward the house. When the sound of the motor had faded away, Randy tipped his head back to look at her with an anxious frown.

“Do you think he likes me?” he asked earnestly. “I mean
really
likes me—not just because he should ‘cause he’s my father.” He didn’t pause
for Dawn to answer. “I want him to like me so much, but sometimes I get all tongue-tied and can’t think of anything to say.”

Her expression softened. “I’ll bet he has that same problem, too.”

“I doubt it.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe in the gravel.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, though,” Dawn insisted. “After you get to know each other better, all the awkwardness will go away.”

Randy’s concern was almost an echo of the sentiment Slater had expressed to her earlier, and confirmed that her presence would be useful. It wasn’t something she was just pretending so she would have an excuse to spend an afternoon with Slater.

The class of boats tied up at the marina ran the full gamut from sport fishermen with fly bridges to catamarans to houseboats, and anything and everything in between. Dawn silently admired the sleek lines of the thirty-foot cabin cruiser they approached. Slater had already pointed it out as belonging to him.

When she was close enough to read the lettering on the side, she looked at it and laughed,
“Homesick?
What kind of name is that for a boat?”

Instead of being offended, Slater treated her to an indulgent look. “Whenever I get fed up with the business grind and wish I was back lazing around and living off the sea, I take the boat out for a couple of hours—or a couple of days. In other words, I get ‘homesick.’”

The explanation silenced her amusement at the name. She knew the drastic change his lifestyle had undergone, and the transition couldn’t have been an easy one. She was glad he hadn’t severed all ties with the sea. He had loved it so, familiar with its every mood. It was natural for him to
miss it, and the
Homesick
would take him back to it whenever he wanted to go.

After they were on board, Slater glanced at Randy. “Do you want to cast off the lines while I start the engines?”

“Sure,” he agreed quickly, then snapped a salute. “I mean, aye-aye, sir.”

Slater saluted him back, smiling faintly, then headed to the cruiser’s bridge area. Dawn followed him, lifting the hair out of her eyes when the wind off the sea blew it across her face. Over her black swimsuit with its swirling tiger-eye pattern, she wore a white lace beach jacket, belted at the waist. She stood to one side of Slater, out of his way, and looked out at the vast expanse of water shimmering under a high sun.

“Whatever happened to the
Seaspray?”
The minute she asked the question, she regretted it. Memories of that boat were all tied up and intertwined with the memory of their romance.

There was a long second when he appeared to be preoccupied checking gauges. “Initially I was going to do something dramatic,” he said, looking out to see how Randy was doing but not glancing at her. There was no inflection in his voice that might have indicated he was disturbed by the question. She could just as easily have asked him about the weather. “—like towing her into deep water and sinking her to the bottom, hoping she’d take your ghost with her. In the end, I sold her to some guy from New York and used the money to buy a partnership in a shrimp boat.
From there, I started building my little empire.” The last phrase was used wryly, managing to emphasize the smallness of his wealth in proportion to someone of Simpson Lord’s calibre.

“I’m glad you sold her,” Dawn said because she felt some kind of response was necessary.

“A month after he bought her, the guy ran her into a reef,” Slater informed her. “The
Seaspray
broke up and went to the bottom. But she didn’t take your ghost with her.”

Maybe it was the blandness in his announcement that made her suddenly so restless. Dawn really didn’t know. “I’ll go see if Randy needs any help,” she murmured and moved away.

The boat’s engines were kept a notch or two above idle speed until they had cleared the harbor, then Slater opened them up. The racing wind seemed to blow away Dawn’s tension and allowed her to relax and enjoy the ride.

After Slater pointed out their destination on a nautical chart, she and Randy plotted a course to it. Each took a turn at the controls, and the hour it took to reach the spot on the map flashed by.

They anchored the cruiser in the deep water just off a coral reef and swam ashore. It only took Randy a few lessons to become accustomed to the use of the snorkeling equipment before he was initiated to the underwater beauty of a coral reef.

For Dawn, it was a matter of rediscovering all the little delights. It was a sport of wondrous beauty and serenity, the waters crystal clear and the colors of the fish and strange plant life displaying
a rainbow brilliance. She was totally at peace—most of the time.

With a ten-year-old boy on the scene, there was bound to be some horseplay in the water. Usually it was between Randy and Slater but occasionally she was drawn into the playful fray. It just added to the fun of the afternoon.

All too soon it seemed, Slater was signaling them it was time to swim back to the boat. He was already on board when Dawn climbed the swimming ladder. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of her arm and hauled her onto the deck. Water streamed off of her as she looked up at him, smiling, a little out of breath from that last long swim, but blissfully contented.

His gaze glittered warmly onto her upturned face. “Enjoy yourself?”

“Yes,” she breathed out the very definite answer. “I’d forgotten how wonderful it is out there.”

She moved away so he could help Randy aboard. Exhausted but happy, she sank onto the aft deck, her legs curled to the side, and picked up a towel to towel-dry her hair. Randy was bubbling with enthusiasm over the adventure, talking non-stop from the second his feet touched the deck.