Calamity Mum

His statement left her blustering. “My goodness, just because I smiled at you a time or two…!”

“You did more than smile. You positively leered,” he corrected.

“Will you stop saying that?” she cried. “For heaven’s sake, I was only looking at you! And even if I was after that kind of…of thing, why would I pick a man with a son? Some father you are! Does he know that his father wanders all over the beach accusing people of propositioning him? And you must be attached—”

He was oddly watchful, not at all angry. He was studying her face with keen, faintly amused interest. “My, my, and you’re not even redheaded,” he murmured, watching the color come and go on that exquisite complexion. “My son is too smitten with you to consider my place in your thoughts, and I don’t have a wife. She died some years ago. I do have a fiancée—almost,” he added half under his breath.

“The poor woman!”

“She’s quite well-to-do, in fact,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “So am I. Another reason to avoid college students, who are notoriously without means.”

She wanted to tell him what her means were, but she was too angry to get the words out. She flushed furiously at being misjudged and insulted. She decided then and there not to tell him about her background. He’d have to get to know her for herself, not her “means.”

“Thinking up appropriate replies?” he asked helpfully. “Something along the lines of feeding me to the sharks?”

“They’d have to draw straws so the loser could eat you!” she blurted out.

She turned and set off back down the beach, hot all over from her surge of fury.

She ran along the beach in her haste to get away from him. She’d been playing mind games with herself. She hadn’t realized that he mistook her rapt regard for serious flirting. She’d certainly be more careful in future to keep her fantasies to herself! Never again would she so much as glance at that man!

It was a pity she didn’t look back. He was standing where she left him with a peculiarly predatory look in his pale eyes, and he was laughing.

* * *

SHELLY AND NAN STUCK to the beach and the shops for the rest of the day, and that evening she persuaded Nan to go to a fast-food joint with some of the other students instead of the restaurant. She didn’t dare tell anyone why, or confess the result of her stupid behavior. If Nan suspected, she was kind enough not to say anything.

Two good things had come out of the experience, Shelly thought as she now walked by herself along the beach. It had been two days since she’d run into the man. She’d managed to avoid the worshipful glances of Mr. Sexy’s son, and she’d learned a painful lesson about obvious flirting. He was a banker. Wasn’t he supposed to be dignified and faintly reticent and withdrawn? Her father was an investment counselor, and he was like that. Of course, he had inherited wealth, too, and that made him faintly arrogant. Mr. Sexy almost cornered the market on arrogance, of course, and conceit. She had to add conceit to the list, since he thought she couldn’t wait to jump into bed with him!

I might have known, she told herself, that no man could be that perfect to look at without having a few buried ugly flaws. Conceit, stupidity, arrogance…

As she thought, she walked. There was a long pier that ran down from the hotel, and usually at the end of it were fishermen. But this particular day the pier was deserted. A sound was coming from it. A series of sharp cries.

Curious, Shelly walked onto it and started out toward the bay. The sounds grew louder. As she quickened her pace to reach the end of the pier, she heard splashing.

She stopped and peered over the edge.

“Help!” a young voice sputtered, and long, thin arms splashed for dear life. She knew that voice, and that face. It was the teenage son of Mr. Sexy, the one she’d been dodging for two days. Talk about fate!

She didn’t stop to think. She tugged off her sandals and dived in after him, shoes, cutoffs, sleeveless white blouse and all. She’d taken a Red Cross lifesaving course and she knew what to do.

“Don’t panic,” she cautioned as she got behind him and caught him under the chin to protect herself. Drowning swimmers very often pulled their rescuers down with them, causing two deaths instead of one. “Stop flailing around and listen to me!” she said, moving her legs to keep afloat. “That’s better. I’m going to tow you to shore. Try to relax. Let your body relax.”

“I’ll drown!” came the choking reply.

“No, you won’t. Trust me.”

There was a pause and a very exaggerated bout of breathing. “Okay.”

“Good fellow. Here we go.”

She struck out for shore, carrying the victim she’d appropriated along with her.

It wasn’t that far to shore, but she was out of practice towing another person. By the time they reached shallow water, she was panting for breath along with the boy.

They flopped onto the beach and he coughed up water for several seconds.

“I thought I was a goner.” He choked. “If you hadn’t come along, I’d have drowned!” He looked at her and then grinned. “I’m sure you’ve heard the old axiom about saving a life.”

She frowned. Her brain wasn’t working. “What axiom?”

His grin grew even wider. “Why, that when you save a life, you’re responsible for it as long as you live!” He threw his arms wide. “I’m yours!”

CHAPTER TWO

“THANKS,” SHE SAID. “But you can have your life back.”

“Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. You’re stuck with me. Where are we going to live?”

She knew her expression was as perplexed as her thoughts. “Look, you’re a nice boy…”

“I’m twelve and a half,” he said. “I have all my own teeth, I’m in good health, I can do dishes and make beds. I don’t mind cooking occasionally. You can trust me to feed and water whatever pets you possess,” he concluded. “Oh, and I’m an Eagle Scout.” He raised three fingers.

She glared at him. “Two fingers, not three fingers! Three fingers mean you’re a Girl Scout!”

He snapped his fingers. “Darn.” He looked at her. “Does that mean I have to give back the green dress?”

She burst into laughter. After the shock of seeing him almost drown, and the strain of rescue, her sense of humor came back in full force. She fell back onto the beach and laughed until her stomach hurt.

“I can’t stand it,” she choked.

He grinned down at her. “Great. Let’s go and feed me. I do eat a lot, but I can get a part-time job to help out with groceries.”

“Your father is not going to give you to me,” she told him somberly, and flushed when she remembered what his father had said to her two days ago, and what she’d said back. She’d been lucky, because she’d managed to avoid him ever since.

“Why not? He doesn’t want me. He’s trying to give me to a school with an R.O.T.C. and after I get out of there, he’s going to sell my soul to Harvard.”

“Don’t knock college fees,” she told him firmly. “I’ve had to fight every step of the way for mine.”

“Yeah, Dad and I saw you with the other college students,” he agreed. “Dad was right. You really are pretty,” he added critically, watching her look of surprise. “Do you like chess and can you play computer games? Oh, you have to like dogs, because I’ve got one.”

She looked around to make sure he was talking to her.

“Well?” he persisted.

“I can play chess,” she said. “I like cats, but my dad has two golden retrievers and I get along with them. I don’t know about computer games…”

“That’s okay. I can teach you.”

“What am I auditioning for?”

“My mother, of course,” he said. “Dad’s business partner has this daughter, and she’s done everything but move in with us trying to get Dad to marry her! She looks like two-day-old whitefish, she eats carrot sticks and health food and she takes aerobics. She hates me,” he added curtly. “She’s the one who thinks I belong in a school—a faraway school.”

“And you don’t want to go.”

“I hate guns and stuff,” he said heavily. They were both beginning to dry out in the sun. His hair was dark brown, a little lighter than his father’s. He had those same silver-gray eyes.

“I know what you mean. My parents didn’t want me to go to college.” She leaned toward him. “My dad’s an investment counselor. All he knows are numbers and accounting.”

“Sounds just like my dad.” He scowled. “Listen, you won’t hold that against him? I mean, he’s real handsome and he has good manners. He’s a little bad-tempered,” he confessed, “and he leaves his clothes laying all over the bedroom so that Jennie—she’s our maid—fusses. But he’s got a kind heart.”

“That makes up for a lot,” she said, thinking privately that his father hadn’t been particularly kind to her.

“He likes animals, too.”

“You’re very nice to offer me your life, and your father, to boot,” she said pleasantly, “but I’ve got at least three more years of college to go, and I can’t think about a family for a long time. I want to be a social worker.”

“My dad’s real social,” he remarked. “You can work on him.”

“God forbid,” she said under her breath.

“He’ll grow on you,” he persisted. “He’s rich.”

She knew about being rich. She came from old money herself. His father seemed to think that she was after his. That was almost laughable.

“Money can’t buy a lot of things,” she reminded him.

“Name three.”

“Love. Happiness. Peace of mind.”

He threw up his hands. “I give up!”

“Try to give up swimming alone,” she advised. “It’s dangerous.”

“Actually,” he confessed, “I didn’t just jump in on purpose as much as I tripped over a bucket and fell in. But I would have been just as dead.”

“Indeed you would. Keep your mind on what you are doing,” she admonished.

He saluted her. “Roger, wilco.”

“You might like R.O.T.C.,” she said.

He shrugged. “I like to paint birds.”

“Oh, boy.”

“See what I mean? My dad hunts ducks. He wants me to. I hate it!”

This boy had a real problem. She didn’t know what to tell him. His father was obviously rock-headed and intractable.

“Have you been without your mother for a long time?” she asked gently.

“All my life. She died just after I was born. Dad and I get along all right, but we aren’t close. He spends so much time at work, and out of the country on business, that I almost never see him. It’s just Jennie and Mrs. Brady and me most of the time. They’re good to me. We had a wonderful Christmas together….”

“Where was your father?” she exclaimed.

“He had to fly to Paris. She found out and got on the plane when he wasn’t looking. Since he couldn’t send her home, she went with him,” he muttered.

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