Hawkes Harbor Part 23

If Mich.e.l.le hadn't had lifeguard training...

"You know what that's like? To be really, really good at somethin' and then find out you can't do it anymore?"

Jamie raised his tearstained face. "It was something I was great at and now I can't f.u.c.kin' swim."

"Actually, Jamie," Grenville said. "I am relieved. For a moment I thought you were referring to f.u.c.king."

Jamie's reaction to hearing Grenville say that word for the first time was the same as if he'd been slapped.

Wordless, knocked out of hysteria, he stared at Grenville. After a minute, he half laughed.

"That sounds like something Kell would say."

Grenville disliked intensely being compared to that blackmailing sc.u.m Kellen Quinn, who'd more than justified every eighteenth-century prejudice against the Irish that Grenville had ever harbored-but Jamie evidently meant it as a compliment, so Grenville tried to take it that way. "Jamie, I know it must be a shock to you, but you do realize you have little need for swimming these days...."

Jamie slowly shook his head.

"You don't get it, Grenville. It was one of... I don't have a lot of stuff to be proud of like you do ..." He stood up.

"I'm gonna take a shower."

Grenville left the damp bunk to sit in one of the lounge chairs on the balcony. He stared at the Wall Street Journal without reading.

He felt rather ill.

There was a frantic pounding on the door of the cabin.

Grenville opened it to face those two friends of Jamie's.

They were still in their beach clothes, one of them openly crying, the other close to it.

"Is Jamie here? Is he okay?"

"Yes. He's showering at the mo-" They pushed by him without ceremony, threw open the bathroom door.

Grenville stood aghast.

Jamie, drying himself off, dropped the towel, startled to have the girls fling themselves on him. "Don't be upset, Jamie."

"It's okay, we don't care."

"It's not your fault."

They hugged him fiercely, kissed him frantically, and he put an arm around each of them, pulling them close.

"Please don't be sad."

"It doesn't matter."

"We want you to be happy."

"Okay," Jamie said. He kissed each of them. "I'm okay.

Don't worry."

He was still red-eyed but was no longer sobbing.

"Hey, I'm okay. Come on, we'll go to the Sugar Shack again tonight. Okay? Shut 'em down."

They seemed reluctant to release him, but he gradually pulled one from his neck, the other off his waist.

"Come to our cabin right away?"

"Please, it's empty without you."

"Sure," Jamie said.

"Right away. Don't forget."

"I'll be there in five minutes. Promise."

He gently herded them out of the bathroom and shut the door.

The girls looked at Grenville apologetically. "Sorry, Mr. Hawkes."

"We didn't mean to disturb you."

"We just..."

"Wanted to see Jamie."

"He's the nicest person ..."

"The sweetest guy ..."

"But you know that..."

"We just love him."

They left, leaving the room smelling of suntan lotion and seawater.

In a moment Jamie came out, a towel wrapped around his waist, and went to paw through his laundry stack, looking for something relatively clean.

He dug out a pair of jeans, a purple T-s.h.i.+rt.

Grenville smothered a gasp at the sight of Jamie's mutilated back.

Oh, good G.o.d, he had never dreamed it had been that bad ... though at the time no one thought he would live through it, not a doctor thought he could survive...

Yet Grenville had suspected he would, having realized very early that Jamie Sommers was a survivor.

"Jamie."

Jamie looked at him, apprehensive. He knew Grenville couldn't stand scenes, he'd probably had all he could tolerate for one day.

"You are mistaken. You have much to be proud of."

Jamie blinked hard. "Thanks."

Jamie rolled the T-s.h.i.+rt down over his head, pulled on his jeans without bothering with underwear. He stuck his feet into flip-flops.

"See you around, Grenville," he said. "Yes, Jamie. See you around."

Suss.e.x Airport, Delaware August 1968 Louisa Kahne was a little late. Jamie and Grenville had already left the plane as she reached the gate.

"I'll take it out of your wages for the next five years-no, ten-my G.o.d, Jamie you must have been drinking like the proverbial fish to run up a bill like that! Did you never draw a sober breath the whole time?"

"I don't think that's fair. You never told me drinks were separate. I thought they were included. You said it was my vacation, too.... Hey, Louisa."

Grenville stopped to give Louisa a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. She squeezed him back and turned to Jamie.

"Jamie Sommers, you must have put on ten pounds."

Jamie felt self-consciously at the small roll around his waist.

"Well, Louisa, there wasn't a whole lot to do on that s.h.i.+p besides eat and fu-lay around." He caught himself.

She didn't miss the unsaid word or the quick glance he and Grenville exchanged, but ignored both.

"Well, you do look relaxed." And she noted, not the least bit nervous.

"If he were any more relaxed, he'd be dead," Grenville commented dryly.

Grenville looked well, too. Not tan and pudgy like Jamie, but much less grim and tense. And something else ... she realized he was wearing a blazer over an open-necked polo s.h.i.+rt-it was the first time she'd seen him travel in anything other than a business suit.

It was only too becoming... but she frowned, suspecting the hand of a woman.

Louisa suddenly wondered suspiciously what exactly had gone on during the cruise.

Both men had an unmistakable, gleefully guilty look.

And as she joined them at the baggage claim from a trip to the ladies' room, she heard Grenville say, in a voice of awe: "Both? Actually?"

And Jamie chuckle wickedly. "Oh, yeah." This was the last time, she thought, that she'd send those two off together.

Entirely too much male bonding.

The three stood silently waiting for the luggage to appear.

Grenville was thinking how good it was to see Louisa again. Leslie had been very dear, but there were so many things she didn't know about him, could never know.

Louisa knew the worst and loved him in spite of it. He could share anything with her. He realized how lucky he was to have her in his life.

In one of his rare gestures of affection, he put his arm around her. She leaned against his side.

Jamie watched them absently. Those two together always seemed so right to him....

Jamie was thinking he needed a girlfriend. s.e.x was great, but what he was going to miss most was waking up to soft girl bodies snuggled on him, going to sleep in their arms. That was what he'd miss the most. That and the s.e.x.

He had mooned around about Katie Roddendem long enough. Maybe he never would be over her completely, but he could be happy again.

But then, there was no rush.

The girls had promised to visit. He'd better rest up. "It's nice to be back," he said, at the same moment as Grenville.

Like they were somehow connected. Like there was some kind of bond.

Hawkes Harbor Frederick Hawkes Elementary School Hawkes Harbor, Delaware November 1968 "I toldja, Louisa, you want me to work for you, you have to make an appointment, pay me. And I'm getting booked up."

"Jamie, this is an important project with a tight deadline-it is incredibly cold down here."

Louisa s.h.i.+vered, wrapping her coat tightly around her.

"That's why I'm fixing the furnace," Jamie said patiently. "It's an important project with a tight deadline, too. School's back in session Monday and it's twenty degrees out."

"I didn't think the school had a budget that could accommodate paying you by the hour," she said tartly.

"I charge by the job," he said. "I know I'm slow."

Louisa bit her lip. She didn't mean to hurt him. Jamie could be so exasperating, but she was very fond of him, too.

"Grenville doesn't mind you taking outside jobs?" she asked, curious.

She and Grenville had both been surprised when Jamie had fliers printed advertising his services for hire, had rented a post-office box for messages. Grenville refused to question him about it, but Louisa was dying to know....

"Not as long as I've got everything taken care of at the Hall. I'm just working extra on my time off."

If he minds he can give me a G.o.dd.a.m.n raise, Jamie thought. He'd needed some extra money, figured out a way to make it; it wasn't their business. Except for his motives.

"Jamie," she said-something in his quiet defiance, his strangely confident air, aroused her suspicions. "Just why exactly is it that you need more money?"

"Everybody can always use more money."

"Well, it's not like you pay room and board."

She sounded just like Grenville, he thought. Like the freezing dimly lit isolated Hawkes Hall was the f.u.c.king Ritz.

"Mr. Sommers!" Another voice spoke loudly from behind him. Jamie jumped, dropped his wrench on his foot, and hopped around, trying to keep from swearing and not doing a very good job.