been a woman as perfect? She'd been a knockout in high school, but age had only refined her fragile beauty. She had weathered the years so much more gracefully than he had. And she'd achieved a reputation of highest regard in both her personal life and her business, while
he had become merely dйclassй. It seemed quite unbelievable that she was here with him at last, for in spite of all his dreams, he'd never really believed it would happen.
Rachel hung her head back, felt the cool droplets spray her fingertips, heard the snick of a lighter, then caught the faint drift of cigarette smoke. Even with her eyes closed, she knew he was studying her.
The boat suddenly thrust forward with a jerk that lifted its nose above the water and snapped Rachel's head farther back. Her eyes flew open and she shot a look at Tommy Lee.
He had a cigarette clamped between china-white teeth while his broad teasing smile shone devilishly. Left hand on the wheel, right on the throttle, he studied her with a challenge in his glinting eyes.
'Let's cool off.' The words were distorted around the filter as he spoke, but they gave him a rakish appeal much as he'd had in those days when they'd roared off, carefree, in his '57 Chevy.
A tiny smirk appeared at the corners of Rachel's mouth. 'You always did like speed.'
'Always!' he shouted above the wind, while she
herself became exhilarated by it as the boat 157 gained momentum then leveled off with the fluttering wind pressing against her ears, lifting and swirling her hair.
It was wonderful! Releasing! She turned to him and shouted to be heard above the motor and the thump of the hull bouncing on the water. 'I can remember my daddy saying to you, `Now, drive carefully, and don't speed.` Then we'd get one block away from the houses and fly like the wind.'
He laughed, throwing his head back while taking the cigarette out of his mouth as an ash flew backward. 'I still love it!' he shouted.
'So I've heard!'
His eyes returned to hers and they measured each other silently. Then he shouted, 'Do you want me to slow down?'
By now the minute ripples on the surface of the water had become nothing more than a blur as the rumbling inboard propelled them forward like a dynamo. She pushed the whipping hair back from her temple with the palm of one hand and yelled, 'No, it feels wonderful. I think it's exactly what I needed.'
But he couldn't hear her and leaned across the
aisle, lowering his ear.
She leaned close enough to smell fresh after-shave. 'I said, it feels wonderful! I think it's exactly what I needed!'
He straightened, smiled wider, and warned, 'Hang on!' Then he anchored the cigarette between his teeth, dropped his hand to the throttle, and pushed it full forward. Their hair whipped like flags; their jackets billowed like sails. Their bodies jiggled as they rocketed toward a vanishing point on the far horizon, wrapped in the ebullient sensation of near-flight.
Tommy Lee cramped the wheel and suddenly Rachel was high above him, the water spuming wide from the hull, churning out a rabid wake behind them. She laughed and he tossed an appreciative glance her way, then spun the wheel in the opposite direction. She made an owl face at him and pressed a hand to her stomach while rolling her eyes. His answering laugh sounded faintly above the roar of the wind in her ears and the thrumming cylinders. Then they were snaking right and left, right and left, lifting and falling until Rachel felt giddy. Again she laughed, feeling gay and unfettered for the first time in months, letting
the reckless ride take her 159 deliciously off kilter. But finally she reached out and squeezed Tommy Lee's forearm, shaking her head, pressing a hand to her stomach once more. He straightened the wheel but left the speed where it was until Rachel finally reached out and covered his hand on the throttle with her own, drawing back both until the boat quieted and slowed and drifted in the abrupt lift of its own backwash.
In the sudden quiet their combined laughter drifted above the lake. As if directed by a baton, they stilled simultaneously and found themselves gazing at each other. At that moment Rachel realized her hand still rested on his, the pads of her fingers contouring his knuckles, and she withdrew it as casually as possible, but not before his eyes fell to the sight of their joined hands on the throttle, then came back to her face.
'It's nice to hear you laugh again,' he said.
'It's been a long time since I have. It feels good.'
She thought for a moment he was going to touch her; the look in his eyes said he was thinking about it. But then, abruptly, he twisted around to fetch himself a beer from the cooler.
'Want one?' He popped the top and tossed it over his shoulder into the water.
'No, thank you.' She bit back the reprimand about littering the lake with pop-tops and told herself it was none of her business. She was only spending one afternoon with him. 'Just lime water.'
He wedged the can between his legs, tight against his swim trunks, while twisting to reach for the cooler again. Realizing her gaze had followed the can of beer, she turned sharply to study the water beyond her side of the boat until a cold touch on her arm announced the lime water.
They cruised the lake, too aware of each other, yet maintaining a cautious distance at all times. She counted the cigarettes he smoked, the butts he threw into the lake, the beers he downed. When he'd begun his third, she moved restlessly and suggested, 'Why don't we swim?' thinking that if he was swimming he couldn't be drinking.
'Anything you say,' he complied. 'Anyplace in particular?'
'You know the lake better than I do.'
'All right. Hang on.' His latest
cigarette butt went the way of the 161 others, and again the boat shot forward at hair-pulling speed until a few minutes later Tommy Lee throttled down and killed the engine completely.
Rachel glanced around quizzically. 'Here?' she asked. They were in an inlet with trees all around, but it was a long swim to shore in any given direction, and there wasn't a soul in sight.
'You want to go somewhere else?'
'I thought we'd go to one of the beaches.'
'With all those people? You really want to?'
She turned to find his shaded lenses facing her, but couldn't make out his eyes behind them. 'No… no, this is fine.'
'Okay, I'll drop anchor.' At the touch of his finger, an electric buzz accompanied the soft shrrr of the anchor line paying out. Silence followed, vast upon the sunny stretch of the blue water with its canopy of matching sky. The sun beat down and shimmered while Tommy Lee downed the last of his beer, fished a Styrofoam floatboard from beneath the foredeck, tossed it over the side, leaned down again, and came up with a lightweight ladder.
'You first.' He waved Rachel aft, and she slipped between their two seats toward the stern of the boat, then turned to find him bending to hang the ladder on the side. Straightening, he was already yanking at the single snap at his waist, and a minute later the terry-cloth jacket lay on the seat and Rachel found herself confronted with the entire stretch of his bare chest, mesmerized by the dense Y of pewter gray while it struck her again how much more masculine a man is at forty than at sixteen.
Guiltily she turned her back while releasing the hook at her waist and removing her cover-up. She found it difficult to confront the changes wrought upon them by the years, not only her thinness but his heaviness.
'Last one in buys two bucks' worth of gas,' he said quietly.
She looked back over her shoulder, then turned to find him with a nostalgic look on his face. Years ago, when they'd crowded into somebody's car with a gang of kids and driven out to City Park to swim, that had always been the challenge. Nobody had money then, and how happy they'd all been. Now they both had all
the money they needed… 163
She searched for something to say, anything that would lift the heavy weight of remembrance and bear her back to the present. But the past created a tremendous gravity between them, and she sensed him deliberately training his eyes above her shoulders. She knew what control it took to keep them there, because it was equally hard for her to keep her eyes above his waist.
Attempting to sever the skein of sexuality that seemed suddenly to bind them, she quipped, 'If I were you I'd take my glasses off before I issued any challenges.' Then with a deft movement she was over the side, diving neatly into the deep, cool sanctuary of Cedar Creek Lake. She heard the muffled surge of his body following, then opened
