sedate three knots, Lucy wished her sixth-graders could see her now. They teased her unmercifully about the clunker she drove. She teased right back by telling them that it took far more skill to drive a real car than it did to operate any one of the sleek new computerized models that were designed by robots for robots.
By the time she had circled the island twice, Lucy was high on the sheer exhilaration of accomplishment. Taking dead aim at a channel marker, she was following the deep green water, steering close to a high shoal that ran along the southwest tip of Hatteras Island, when it occurred to her the sun was no longer blazing down on the back of her neck.
Blazing? It was no longer even visible! While she’d been busy learning to navigate, a thick bank of black clouds had snuck up and swallowed every visible scrap of blue.
Uneasily, Lucy peered at the sky again. She’d been skirting the landward edge of the channel, marveling at the way the water magnified the size of the few shells hugging the side of the steep shoal. Scallop shells looked like dinner plates. That oyster shell was easily a foot long, and—
And then she saw the conch shell. Only a few yards ahead, it was as big as a basketball. She reminded herself that it was only an illusion, but all the same, it was tempting. Half a minute more and she could snare it for her class. They might even make a study of the magnifying powers of water.
Having rationalized the collecting of her souvenir, Lucy adjusted the throttle and idled closer, careful to stay just over into the deep water. The moment she came within reach, she grabbed an oar with one hand, meaning to work the tip of the blade into the opening of the shell and lift it aboard. Carefully balancing, she leaned over the side of the unsteady craft.
Lightning flashed. A split second later there was a blast of thunder. Jerking around to glance over her shoulder, Lucy gasped at the angry mass roiling directly overhead. Cold sweat broke out on her back and she swore under her breath. A single moment’s inattention was all it took. Before she could gather her wits, several things happened at once. The blade of the oar dipped under the water, causing the boat to swerve into the shoal. Before she could shove off again, the outboard sputtered and died.
“Oh, no!” Lucy lunged for the choke, then grabbed the throttle. Too late. “Oh, damn and blast!” she wailed as another burst of lightning split the tarnished sky.
A splash of rain struck the back of her neck and channeled down under her damp shirt. Sweat prickled under the life vest. “All right now, Lucinda, calm down,” she muttered. “First push the— No, pull the whoosie halfway out, then push the whatsit and— Oh, rats!”
On the raw edge of panic, she worked the throttle several times, stabbing the starter button in between. Nothing happened.
Lightning flashed again. The thunder was almost constant now. A bloom of iridescence spread swiftly around the stern of the boat, and Lucy stared at it in resignation.
She had flooded the blasted motor. Which meant she would have to wait for it to cool off before she could even try it again. Which meant she was going to get soaked, at the very least. Possibly fried.
Lightning flickered green against a black sky. Cats’ paws ruffled the dark surface of the water, and she buried her face in her crossed arms and swore softly. Was it just her, or was it something in the Dooley family gene pool that inhibited the development of ordinary common sense?
She should’ve suspected something was wrong when, after growing up like a gypsy, she’d been so eager for a real home and a real family that she’d nearly run off and married a charming rat whose idea of fidelity was never sleeping with more than one woman at the same time.
That had been in Baton Rouge. She’d been seventeen when she had fallen in love with Hamm Sheppard’s family, which had consisted of parents, a grandmother and seven brothers and sisters, all of whom had lived in the same house for three generations.
Fortunately, Pawpaw had loaded up the Dooley Trolley and lit out for Galveston before she could get into too much trouble.
That had been her first near miss, but certainly not her last. How many times had she mistaken lust for something more lasting, more meaningful? Not that she’d ever been promiscuous, but even that had been due more to an innate sense of self-respect than any sense of self-preservation.
When it came to brains, Lucy thought as she attempted to row herself back to Coronoke and safety, hers were about as reliable as a two-dollar watch. At this rate, she might as well just grab a live wire and be done with it.
* * *
Stone had been watching through the binoculars when his neighbor sauntered down the path toward the pier earlier that day, minus the sweats. The woman had legs, all right. The kind of legs a man woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about. Long, golden, silky confections with flawlessly turned ankles and calves designed expressly to fit a man’s palms.
And then there were her thighs....
Slowly, he lowered the binoculars and exhaled in a soft whistle. So that was La Dooley. In the flesh! If the rest of her lived up to those legs at closer inspection, he could easily see how Billy might have lost his perspective. No wonder she’d been able to twist him and a whole damned law firm around her little finger. If Alice hadn’t been off on one of her constant jaunts, it never would have happened. But when the cat was away, all hell usually broke loose.
Stone just hoped she’d been worth it, especially since she was reportedly trying to elbow her way back up to the trough. His worn mocs silent on the sandy, leaf-strewn path, he followed her down to the pier in time to watch her give Keegan the business.
She was good, all right—he had to hand it to her. First the smile. Roughly a thousand watts, he figured. Easily enough to stun a full-grown ox. Somewhere along the line, she had cultivated this way of standing with her toes turned in like a barefoot kid, and scratching her thigh in a way that was obviously designed to call attention to her assets. In a centerfold type like La Dooley, the effect was lethal.
Billy, poor devil, had never stood a chance.
Stone watched as she pretended to trip, forcing Keegan to catch her by the shoulders. A pretty shopworn ploy, but Keegan didn’t seem to mind.
Having known a few women who made a profession of preying on men, Stone felt anger begin to curdle inside him. He’d been too smart to fall into that particular trap, but more than one of his friends had been ripped up pretty badly by women like Lucy Dooley.
As for Stone, he’d once had a shot at a good relationship a long time ago. He’d blown it all by himself, but that didn’t mean he was going to stand by and let La Dooley mess up another life. Keegan and Maudie seemed to be pretty decent people. The first time the ex-Mrs. Hardisson tried anything there, Stone was going to take her aside and quietly drive home a few basic rules.
In fact, he was beginning to look forward to it.
Keegan’s runabout pulled away first, heading east toward Hatteras. La Dooley went next and took a different direction. Stone felt some of the tension bleed away. Then, having nothing better to do with his time, he collected his field guide to Eastern birds from the cottage and, binoculars around his neck, made himself comfortable in the shade of a sprawling live oak.
She circled the island a few times. He followed her by sound. A pelican—a brown pelican, to be more specific—flapped by, lumbering along like a C-130 cargo plane. He followed it out of sight and then picked up La Dooley as she rounded a wooded point on the southwest side of the island. From
