Страница 38 из 70
“Why don’t we go look for her?” A
“I suppose you’re right.” Again Patience sighed. She pushed herself to her feet and flicked on the flashlight. The beam caught the swirl of her skirt. Flame-orange silk; it moved like a vapor in the still air. Dainty flame-colored suede shoes burned against the dark wood of the deck.
“Half of the fun of coming to Rock is seeing what you’re wearing,” A
“No more feety pajamas?”
“Never give up your feety pajamas,” A
Below the lodge, along the bay, two harsh intruder lights threw their glare out onto the water. Quays poked concrete fingers into the mooring area. Boats, many still showing lights, lined them bow to stern. The effect was of magic lanterns, or, A
She turned and walked out on the second of the piers.
“Where are you going?” Patience sounded alarmed.
“Thought we’d check your boat. See if Carrie is holed up there. Or took it. You never know.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Does Carrie only like boats with cute boys in them? I can sympathize with that.” A
Or dead. A
“I guess if anybody has to play Miss Coitus Interruptus it may as well be the outraged mom.” Patience sounded too sour to permit A
Patience rapped out a sharp shave-and-a-haircut on the fiberglass. No reply. She stepped off the dock into the boat. A
“Told you,” Patience said.
A
“I’m not.”
A
“Think I’ll turn in,” she told Patience. “Suddenly the bottom fell out. The week is catching up to me, I guess.”
“Are you in the Belle Isle?”
A
“You’re welcome to our couch.”
A
The Belle was moored beyond the harbor lights in a horseshoe of concrete. A
“A
Her name was called so softly she could believe it had been whispered by the lake. Little hairs on her neck began to prickle.
“A
She hadn’t imagined it. A shadow coalesced in the back of the Belle Isle and sprang noiselessly onto the concrete.
“It’s me. Hawk,” the incubus said before A
He sat beside her on the bench, very near. The warm glow began to creep back.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Too many squirrels on the boat.”
“I couldn’t sleep either,” A
“Shall we try it together?”
“Strength in numbers?”
“Comrades in arms,” Hawk said.
FIFTEEN
Hawk and A
Hawk put his arm around her shoulders. His touch was light but firm. A
An absurd desire to say the words “I love you” came over her. Not because she meant them, merely because she remembered how good it had felt when she had.
Suddenly she was sorry she’d imbibed so heavily. Her mind was wandering from lust. A
“I’m sleeping on the Belle tonight,” she said. “Can I offer you a nightcap?”
“Only if the night comes with it.”
“It does.”
They walked together, not touching, to the boat. A
Hawk sat on the blue-vinyl-covered bench and watched without speaking as A
“Be gentle with me,” he said and A
“Your first time?”
“Might as well be.”
“Orphans in the storm.” She sat beside him and he took her face in his hands, smoothed her hair back with callused fingers.
If anything was new to A
The “Mermaids” tape ended. “Wolf Eyes” filled the Belle with music of the north. A
“Vasectomy,” Hawk said as if he’d read her mind. He pulled her closer, kissed her hair. “Sleep, A
She slept without dreaming till sometime after moonrise. The silvery beam, powerful as a spotlight at the forty-eighth parallel, pouring down through the hatch woke her. Finally the harbor was utterly still. Hawk had rolled away from her on the triangular-shaped sleeping platform and lay curled up as neat and independent as a cat. A
She needed to escape the narrow confines of the hull, to get out where she could breathe. I have grown addicted to solitude, she thought as she dragged on Levi’s and a sweatshirt, too many nights alone. Something fell from the pouch pocket of the shirt and rattled to the floor. She scooped it up along with her socks. Not looking at Hawk lest the pressure of her gaze awaken him, she crept to the stern.