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“This is going to be tougher than I thought,” he said at length, when he was under control again.
“I know I’m not helping,” A
“The feeling is mutual.” He sat a few feet away from her and said, “I have to ask you a question.”
“Anything.”
“Did you call Jensen’s earlier tonight and ask for me?”
“That was my friend Amy. I wanted to make sure you were there and I was nervous about calling myself.”
“Why?”
“I thought you might recognize my voice.”
“I would have, I think. But why didn’t you just admit that it was you?”
“I wanted the chance to back out if I got cold feet.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, Princess.”
“So am I.” She hesitated a moment and then said, “Why do you always call me ‘Princess’?”
“Because that’s what you look like to me, all golden hair and big blue eyes, creamy skin. Like what’s her name... with the dwarfs. Snow White.”
“Snow White had black hair,” A
“Well, then, Sleeping Beauty. Or that other one in the tower, Rapunsa.”
“Rapunzel.”
“Right. I know she was a blonde—I saw the cartoon.” He was laughing with her. He stood, pulled A
“What are we going to do, Rapunzel?” he said into her ear. “I would go over to your house and talk to your father man to man, if I thought it would do any good....”
“Promise me you won’t do that, Heath!” A
“All right, A
“You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll do something awful to you, I know he will. You have to believe me.”
“I believe you. I believe you. Relax. Whew! Your old man must be some piece of work.”
“I’m supposed to cover his name with glory by marrying some millionaire. He will regard it as a failure on his part if I wind up with anything less.”
“Like me, for example.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to tell you that talking to him reasonably won’t work. I’ve tried it for years. My older brother has been going crazy trying to live up to the Talbot name since he was born. It’s worse for him, being a boy, because he has to inherit the business and prove himself worthy to be chairman of the board.”
“And all you have to do is marry well?”
“You got it.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“He lives in Massachusetts with his mother, my father’s first wife. He’s in college now, spending the summer as an intern at the Harvard Business School. Usually he’s down here this time of year.”
“So I guess this discussion means that we have to sneak around, huh?” Heath said bluntly.
“We have no choice. Amy will help, she’s very clever. Speaking of Amy, I have to get to her place by midnight, that’s her curfew. Her parents will be back home by then and I’m supposed to stay the night at her house.”
“Where does she live?”
“Cocoa Boulevard, by the golf course. Her family is moving to Largo in the fall.”
“I’ll drop you off there,” Heath said.
A
“I’m off Tuesday night,” he said. “Can you meet me in the parking lot of the Lime Island I
“Eight o’clock?” A
“Seven. That will give us more time together.” He kissed her forehead and then said, “Come on, Princess, back up in the saddle again. I have to get you back to town.”
Returning to Port Lisbon with her arms planted securely around Heath’s middle, A
* * * *
During the next six weeks Heath spent every waking minute he wasn’t working with A
Reality would not dare interrupt her dream.
She and Heath covered the Keys on his bike, playing pool and pinball and miniature golf, dancing in out-of-the way joints and eating in roadside cafes, generally having a wonderful time. A
A
“What is it, Daddy?” she asked i
“Don’t bat your eyelashes at me, young lady. That may work with your hot-blooded, swamp-trotter boyfriend, but it will cut no mustard in this room.”
A
“What do you mean?” she said quietly.
“I mean that I know you do not have a job in Laguna. I also know that you have abused my trust, not to mention your mother’s trust, by inventing stories to explain your whereabouts while you’ve been flitting all over these islands with that grease monkey straight from the trash heap—Heath Bodine.”
“Heath isn’t trash.”
“I don’t care what he is, young lady, he is not for you. I know his father. I know his family. A worse bunch of layabouts, substance abusers and mendicants never lived. And you have taken up with the very flower of the next generation.”
“You can’t stop me from seeing him.”
“Oh, I beg to disagree. I know where you’ve been going, who you’ve been spending time with—”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“You’re my child, A
“What did you do, hire a private detective?”
“I already had security men working for my business. It was easy enough to assign them elsewhere.”
A
“I love him, Daddy,” she said desperately.
“You do not love him—the very idea is preposterous. You come from one of the finest families on this island and he...well, it doesn’t merit consideration. I grant you that he is a handsome boy and possesses a certain raffish charm, that’s apparent even to me. But I will not have you throw away your future on a person without education, breeding or the slightest chance of ever making a decent living.”
“That isn’t true!” A
“I am not going to discuss this with you any further, A
“What would you do?” A
“You would be wise not to push me to the point of finding out,” her father said crisply. “I trust we understand each other. You may go now.”