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Helen tried to recall the details of her pitiful auto insurance policy. She knew she didn’t have coverage on the Suburban. Why would she? That tank could survive anything. And she seemed to recall that her liability coverage had a deductible equal to the payoff of a winning lottery ticket.
Lately, Helen’s meager savings account had suffered some major hits. The future didn’t look much better if that pregnancy test came up positive. Certain that her best course of action was to maintain a tacit innocence, she shoved her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “So, you had car trouble even before—” she glanced from the Lincoln to the dismembered door “—this happened?”
“Yeah. I rented this thing in Tampa, exactly—” he checked his watch “—one hour and forty-five minutes ago. It ran beautifully for eighty miles and then conked out on your deserted stretch of Heron Point superhighway.”
Helen leaned against the hood of the Lincoln. “Tough break. A car this fancy should get at least a couple hundred miles before breaking down.”
He smiled grimly and looked at the pad of the cell phone. “At least we agree on something. I was just calling Diamond Rental to come pick up this two-ton pile of misery when you decided to make my complaint a bit of an embarrassment. I think the rental company might question the validity of my claim, now.”
He started to dial, but paused and said, “Maybe you ought to get your insurance information. And I suppose we have to report this to the police.”
Oh, great. Just what she needed. It’d probably be Billy Muldoone who’d swoop down upon the scene with his siren blaring and his features cemented into a condescending sneer. He’d write her up faster than the women of Heron Point turned him down for dances at the Lionheart Pub. In the pit of her stomach, Helen sensed a tingling of panic—the second time today. She didn’t like the feeling, though she figured she’d experience it again while she waited for the pregnancy-test results. But right now she needed to calm down so she could plan a course of action for this current disaster.
“Ah, sure,” she said. “I’ll get my insurance card from the truck.” She walked to the Suburban and lifted the hood to make sure none of its parts had been crippled. Thank goodness the steam had cleared and the engine hiccuped with its usual congestive rattle, telling her its internal workings were A-okay.
“Any damage to your vehicle?” the new guy called to her.
She looked over at him. “A busted headlight.” Then she flashed him a little smile, hoping to distract him from following accident protocol to the letter. “Guess you’d better get your insurance information, too. Last time I replaced a headlight in this beast it cost me twenty-five bucks.”
He held up a card between his thumb and index finger. Naturally, he already had his card ready even though he’d probably determined he was the injured party.
Helen scribbled a phone number on a scrap of paper and walked back to him. Ignoring a persistent niggling of guilt, she said, “I forgot my wallet. Here’s my number. How can I reach you?”
He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “I’m staying at the Heron Point Hotel temporarily,” he said. “You can leave a message if I’m not in.”
She stepped closer to him and reached for the card. When she took it, he wrinkled his nose and jerked his hand back. “What’s that smell?”
Well, great. Barely an hour ago she’d been cleaning the bait well on the Finn Catcher, getting the boat ready for its next charter trip on Friday morning. She hadn’t bothered to change clothes before running into town for a quick visit to the doctor, and now she noticed a few glistening fish scales still stuck to her cargo shorts. Fishy smells didn’t bother her. She’d grown up with them, but that obviously wasn’t the case with this pressed and polished out-of-towner.
She slipped the business card into her waistband. “It’s fish.”
“Fish?” He said the word as if he needed a zoology textbook to figure out what she was talking about.
“This is an island,” she said. “We are surrounded by the little creatures.”
He stared at his hand but at least had the decency to chuckle a little in a self-deprecating way. “Of course.” Then he abruptly changed the subject to one she definitely wasn’t interested in. “I guess I’ll call the police now.”
She pointed a finger at him. “You do that. I’ll wait in my truck.”
She walked away from him, got behind the wheel of the Suburban and backed out of the palm thatch. Then, without so much as a backward glance, she peeled down the road. It was the coward’s way out. Helen knew that just as she knew she wasn’t getting away with anything. Maybe he’d call that number she gave him and have a nice little chat with the old guy who repaired fishing rods in town, but the decoy wasn’t going to get her out of trouble. Everyone in town, and especially the police, knew who drove a rusty old Suburban.
So, it was only a matter of time until she had to face up to what had happened here. Helen frowned at the package on the passenger seat. But first she had to face something a whole lot more important.
APPARENTLY FINISHED WITH his inspection of the damages, the muscle-bound cop leaned against the Town Car and rested his elbow near the retractable sunroof. “So, what did the driver of the other car look like, Mr. Anderson?”
Ethan stared at the police officer who had arrived a few minutes ago heralded by earsplitting sirens and flashing lights. Ethan had considered the entrance a somewhat over-the-top reaction to what he’d called a “minor traffic accident” when he’d phoned in the report. Pad in hand, and his eyes narrowed in that officious scowl police officers seemed to perfect, the cop had sauntered all around Ethan’s car, and its missing door fifty yards away.
“What did she look like?” Ethan repeated.
Officer Muldoone removed his arm from the top of the car and prepared to write. “It was a female, then?”
“Right, yes,” Ethan answered. He held his hand just under his chin. “She was about this tall.”
“About five feet, five inches?”
“Give or take. She was skinny. No, thin. Not too skinny.” Now that Ethan thought about the daredevil driver, he decided she was actually quite pleasantly proportioned. She was slim all over, though her breasts were certainly full enough to satisfy any man’s standards. And ignoring this woman’s better features under that ribbed tank top had been impossible.
“Anything else you remember?” the officer asked. “Hair? Eyes?”
Funny. Ethan remembered both quite well. “She had light blond hair.” He wiggled his fingers around his own head. “Strands of it stuck out every which way, some short over her forehead, some longer, reaching her shoulders.” He felt his skin flush when he realized he must sound like a Manhattan hairdresser. “That’s not important,” he said. “She’s a blonde.”
Muldoone wrote.
“And she had blue eyes,” Ethan added. “I remember that distinctly.”
“Sounds like Helen Sweeney,” the officer said. “Was she driving a noisy old Suburban with rust spots?”
Ethan nodded, experiencing a totally unexpected attack of guilt. The ID had been too easy for the cop. But why should Ethan feel guilty? The car rental agency had specifically informed him that he’d need a police report when they sent a tow for the Lincoln. Heck, he was only doing what he had to do. Besides, the kooky lady could be here defending herself if she hadn’t shot down the road, leaving him in her dust.
“And it was a hit-and-run, you say?” Muldoone asked. “That would be Helen’s MO. She ran down a mailbox last month, and we didn’t know who to blame until a new box showed up at the victim’s house two weeks later with a note of apology. Signed H. S.”
Helen’s MO? The cop was behaving as if this woman had a rap sheet. Ethan scrubbed his hand down his face. “To be completely honest, officer, it wasn’t truly a hit-and-run. Helen, or whoever did this…”
The cop let loose with a sputter of laughter. “Oh, it was Helen.”
“Anyway, Helen did hit my car, but she didn’t immediately run. She stayed quite a while, actually. She made certain I wasn’t hurt.” When he remembered Helen’s initial reaction upon finding him flat on his back in the car, Ethan tried to make her seem more sympathetic to the officer. “In fact, she offered to call an ambulance.”
“Big of her.” Muldoone chose not to write that information down.
“What are you going to do?” Ethan asked.
“I’m going out to the Sweeney place when I leave here. Helen just lives a mile up this road. I’ll issue her a ticket for reckless driving, and she’ll have to face a county judge. He may take her license, this time.”
Wonderful. Here he was, his first day in a new town. He was here to get the residents’ cooperation and to get them to accept that Anderson Enterprises was coming in and would most definitely make an impression. And what had happened? Before he’d been here an hour he’d had a literal run-in with a local and stood to make an enemy of her if she lost her license. Not a very auspicious beginning.
“To be perfectly honest, Officer,” he said, “maybe I shouldn’t have been parked where I was. The car is half on, half off the road.”
Muldoone smiled and flipped the cover over his notebook. “Don’t let her get to you, Mr. Anderson,” he said. “You can be sure Helen will give the judge that little detail. If I were you, I’d stick to your story. If not, you could end up losing your license. Helen has a way of turning the tables.”
The officer headed toward his patrol car. Before he got in, he turned back to Ethan and said, “What are you going to do now, Mr. Anderson? You want me to call headquarters? I’ve got the only patrol car, but I can have my partner come out on the golf cart, pick you up and take you back into town.”
Oh, right. Ethan remembered the head of security for Anderson Enterprises telling him that Heron Point cops rode around on golf carts. As much as he wanted to see that, and as much as he wanted to get out of the heat, Ethan declined the offer. “I’ve got to wait for the tow,” he said. “I could be here as long as two hours. You’re kind of remote on this island.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll probably see you when I’m coming back from the Sweeney place.”
Officer Muldoone got in his car and drove away. Ethan swatted at an aggressive dragonfly, got in the Town Car and turned on the air-conditioning. Most of the cool breeze went out the gaping hole where the door had been, but Ethan didn’t care. He didn’t suppose Diamond Rental was going to say much about the car returning without a full tank of gas.
WHEN SHE HEARD the knock on her door, Helen looked out the front window and swore. “Oh, hell.”
Her father silenced the Sweeney’s fifteen-year-old yellow Lab and wheeled around in his chair. “Who is it, Helen?”
“It’s Muldoone,” she said.
“What in the world does he want?”
“I clipped somebody on Gulfview Road today,” she said. Seeing the worried look on her father’s face, she added, “It was no big thing, Pop. The other guy’s fine. Our truck just got a scratch.”
“And you didn’t tell me this?” Finn asked.
The pounding on the door increased, and Helen turned the knob. “I knew there’d be time enough.” She opened the door. “Hi, Billy. Nice day, isn’t it?”
“Not for you, Helen.” He handed her a ticket. “Reckless driving. Again. You’ll have to make a court appearance on this one. About six weeks from now.”
She took the ticket. “I’m probably busy that day, but I’ll try to squeeze it in. By the way, how’s that guy, the one who got in my way?”
Muldoone sent her a strange look, one that hinted he was amused by her question. “You don’t know who you hit, do you?”
“No.” She hadn’t bothered to look at the business card, which right now sat on the bathroom counter. “Who is he?”
“Ethan Anderson,” Billy said smugly. “Does the name ring a bell?”
It did. Almost as if the bell were clanging against the side of her head with the intention of deafening her. “The guy from Anderson Enterprises.”
“Oh, yeah. And you sure taught him a lesson about Heron Point hospitality. If he doesn’t hightail it back to New York on the next plane, he’ll at least avoid you from now on.”
Could this day get any worse? Now she’d hit the one man people in Heron Point were looking to as a financial savior.
Sticking his head inside the front door, Billy said, “How’s it going, Finn?”
“It’d be better, Billy, if you hadn’t given us that ticket—and that news.”
Helen closed the door a couple of inches. She had to get rid of Billy. She had to go down to the edge of the water and scream as loud as she could where no one would hear her. “Okay, then, boys,” she said. “Enough chitchat.”
Billy stubbornly leaned his two-hundred-pound frame against the jamb, preventing her from shutting him out. “Hey, Helen, you still going out with that folksinger?”
“Sure am. We’re as cozy as a pair of fleas on a dog’s ear.”
He moved a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “You let me know when you break up. You still owe me a date.”
Helen couldn’t remember the debt, but even if it were true, there was no way Billy Muldoone was going to collect. “Right. You’ll be the first person I tell.” She shut the door and collapsed against it.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” Finn said. “The ticket you just got or the fact that an Anderson has finally showed up in Heron Point.”
Helen had never understood her father’s resentment of anyone associated with Anderson Enterprises, and she’d grown tired of asking him. Finn would tell her when he was ready. “My money’s on the ticket,” she said. “You’re the only one in town who hasn’t been looking forward to Anderson’s arrival.”
Finn frowned. “You okay? You weren’t hurt in that little mishap, were you?”
“No. I’m just dandy.” She stared down at the ticket in her hand. That, and the bad impression she’d made on Ethan Anderson weren’t the most disturbing pieces of information she’d gotten today. In fact, they weren’t even a close second and third. The absolute winner in the bad-news category was that eight-letter word printed in blue on the plastic wand in her bathroom. It said, pregnant.
CHAPTER TWO
AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THURSDAY morning Helen parked the Suburban behind the Lionheart Pub and entered the establishment through the back door. She’d been up since seven preparing fishing tackle for her charter trip the next morning, but she’d put off coming into town until she knew Donny would be awake. His last set at the Lionheart didn’t end until nearly two o’clock, and he liked to sleep in after performing late.
Helen hadn’t come to see him play last night. He’d called during his first break to ask where she was. She’d tried to sound cheery, as if nothing was wrong. She’d said she was tired and would see him the next day.
And now that she was going to face him, she didn’t feel any more confident about telling him the news than she had the day before. She’d hoped that a quiet night alone with her thoughts would result in a clear plan for what she was going to do about the pregnancy, but that hadn’t happened, because her decision depended heavily on Donny’s reaction. Now, as she came through the Lionheart’s kitchen, she pondered the two conclusions she’d come to sometime in the middle of a restless night. She would tell Donny today. He was the father. He deserved to be the only other person she confided in. And for now, she would think of her condition in terms of the clinical word pregnancy. She refused to think of herself as having a baby. That was too intimate. Too conscionable. And certainly, until Donny reacted as she hoped he would, too scary.
Vinnie, the Lionheart’s luncheon cook, looked up from a bubbling cauldron of spaghetti sauce as she walked by. “Hey, Helen, it’s kind of early for you to be here.”
“Hi, Vinnie. I could tell what you were cooking all the way over at the Finn Catcher this morning, and had to see for myself if it tasted as good as it smelled.” She took the spoon he offered, dipped it in the pot and slurped a healthy portion. The rich tomato sauce settled in her stomach like a lit firecracker, and reminded her that two cups of coffee and a helping of garlic probably wasn’t a fit breakfast for a pregnant woman. “Yep, just as I thought,” she said. “Delicious.”
He smiled with pride. “Come back for lunch. I’ll make sure you get a big helping.”
She laid her hand over her stomach. “I’ll hold you to that. Is Donny outside?”
“Yeah, hard at work as usual.”
Helen knew what that meant. Donny spent most of his waking hours building his sailboat. Luckily, the vacant lot between the Lionheart and the Heron Point Hotel was large enough to accommodate the twenty-nine-foot hull that he’d lovingly assembled in the three months he’d been on the island.
She went through the public area of the bar without being noticed by the few patrons inside, walked out the front door and looked at the sandwich sign standing under a front window. While she gathered her courage for what had to be done, she silently read the advertisement she knew by heart.
The Lionheart Pub proudly presents the mellow folk styling of Donovan Jax. Six nights a week beginning at nine o’clock.
In the time he’d been here, Donny had seemed to fit in with the varied population of Heron Point. At least folks came to the Lionheart with enough regularity for Helen to believe they liked his singing. The only person who didn’t seem to take to the town’s most recent performer was her father. But getting Finn to admit to liking anything new on the island was always a challenge.
Helen descended the two steps from the porch to the sidewalk and strode around the side of the building. Donny was there, a kerchief around his forehead and his shoulder-length brown hair tied with a bit of twine at his neck. Dust motes rose in the sun as he sanded the bow of Donovan’s Dawn, the vessel he’d promised would take the two of them around Key West and into the eastern Caribbean.
Helen watched him work for a moment. She noticed especially his strong arms, since he was wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cropped off at the shoulders. His muscles flexed with each smooth, practiced swipe of the sandpaper—muscles as finely tuned to this task as they were to playing a guitar. His devilish green eyes narrowed as he studied the results of his labor before his full, sensuous lips rounded and he blew a puff of sawdust into the air.
He looked up, saw her leaning against the building and gave her a cheeky smile. “Hello, cupcake. How long you been standing there?”
She walked toward him. “Long enough to know that I’ll be glad when this thing is finished and I can see if she’ll really float.”
“Oh, she’ll float all right, if I have to swim underneath her holding her up the whole time.” He picked up a rag and brushed wood specks from his damp arms. “I thought you had a charter this morning.”
“Nope. Wish I did.” Any day Helen didn’t have a fishing trip was a day she didn’t make any money. “Got one tomorrow, though.”
“Good. Then you can help me today.”
“Yeah, how?”
He pointed to a stained foam cooler a few feet away. “By tossing me a beer.”
She pulled a bottle from the melting ice and threw it to him.
“Have one for yourself,” he said. “Once you start sanding, you’ll find out how hot that sun is today.”
A beer sounded good. Maybe it would help relax her. Helen reached into the ice again and withdrew a tempting bottle. She wrapped her hand around the cap and started to twist, anticipating the hiss of carbonation that always tantalized her taste buds.
