Patricia Potter (3 page)

“Peter!” Meara didn’t want Tara to hear any more. She hadn’t thought Mr. Connor talked of such matters in front of the boy, although she knew he felt strongly about the war. An influential financier, he had already raised millions in war bonds and had even met with President Roosevelt on plans to expedite American war financing and production.

“I heard Father talking to another man about it,” Peter insisted stubbornly, his lower lip beginning to inch out in rebellion.

“But talk of killing is nothing a gentleman discusses in front of two lovely ladies,” the Canadian interceded, again with such charm that it took Meara a moment to realize how easily he had defused Peter. Peter’s pout turned into a delighted smile at being called a gentleman, and Tara beamed at being classified with Meara as a lovely lady.

Meara couldn’t help but smile with appreciation at the neat rebuke. His eyes were speculative and even admiring as they settled on her, and she felt ridiculously happy at his evident interest.

It was a feeling quite unlike any other she’d ever experienced before. Although she had gone through brief moonstruck stages as a teenager, she’d had little time for dating. From the time she was small, she had wanted to be a journalist, and she had worked hard to accomplish that in the same determined, compulsive way she did everything. It had not mattered that her mother was a maid and an immigrant with very little education, that Meara had never known her father. She had only known she wanted to write, that she must go to college. The Connors had made it easy for her, but she still had always worked, first as a maid for the Connors, then as a companion for the children. When she was at Columbia, she worked as a waitress as well as holding an important position with the university paper. She seldom dated, and when she did it was mostly to attend political events or concerts, and she had always made it very clear that she wished no deeper relationship, not now, not until she made her own mark on the world.

It was an attitude that puzzled and dismayed her mother, and was incomprehensible to many of her acquaintances. But once Meara made up her mind, nothing deterred her. And no member of the opposite sex had tempted her sufficiently even to consider deviating the slightest bit from the course she had chosen.

Until now.

Meara lowered her eyes before he could see what must be shining in them. She had never learned to hide her emotions. She laughed when she was happy and cried copiously in grief. She had an Irish temper, but usually it quickly wore itself out. She held a grudge only when someone purposely hurt a person she loved, and then she held that grudge forever. That unforgiving aspect of her personality, she realized, was not entirely admirable, but a saint she was not, and she had come to accept that un-Christian characteristic in herself.

Her unfortunate openness, Meara sometimes feared, was not an altogether good quality for a journalist. She also had a tendency to like most people, to always find something to admire or appreciate. Meara often worried about that too, afraid that perhaps she wasn’t always the best judge of character because of that too-trusting acceptance. Yet she also knew she had a compensating ability to drive to the center of a problem, to focus on the one really important fact among hundreds thrown out.

She tried to find that piece of Michael Fielding now, the one really important quality that summed him up. Accumulation of wealth was her employer’s. The drive for security her mother’s. Her own? Ambition, she realized quickly. Ambition to be the very best at what she did.

And Michael Fielding? Usually she could guess immediately when she met someone. Usually she was right. But now nothing appeared obvious. She suddenly realized that despite his charm, his warmth toward the children, and the few comments he had made, she’d received no general impression of him, that it was well hidden somewhere deep inside and he was giving very little away.

“How long are you going to be on Jekyll?” she asked, her hand tightly clenching the ship’s rail.

“Two weeks,” he replied. That was the limit for guests at the club, Meara knew. Michael’s face closed momentarily as if he were weighing his next words, and again Meara caught an impression of grimness before the smile came back. “Since I’m a stranger, I wonder if you and the children would help show me around.”

Meara studied him.

“Oh, yes,” Peter said, thoroughly taken with him.

“I think that’s up to their parents,” Meara corrected. The Connors were very wealthy, and since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping years earlier, they were also cautious with their children.

“And who might they be?” Michael asked softly.

Meara suddenly realized that while he had introduced himself, they had not. Peter had been too interested in the man’s injury, and she’d been too mesmerized by his personality.

Peter remedied the problem of introductions quickly. “I am Peter Connor,” he said proudly. “My father is Calvin Connor, and he’s a friend of the president.”

Michael Fielding looked suitably impressed, yet something else flickered in his eyes. Knowledge? Familiarity with the name? Amusement at Peter’s pride? Meara couldn’t quite identify it.

“And I’m Tara,” Tara chimed in, forgetting shyness in her irritation at being left out of the introduction.

“Ah,” Michael said, bestowing an approving smile on her. “The home of the Irish kings.”

Tara looked puzzled.

“It is a very pretty name for a very pretty girl,” he amended easily as his gaze returned to Meara. “And you?”

“She’s Meara.” Peter answered for her.

“Meara,” he repeated slowly. “A rare and lovely name,” he added, his eyes dancing at the confusion he found in her face. “Does Meara have another name?”

“O’Hara,” Peter supplied accommodatingly.

“Meara O’Hara,” he repeated, and warmth flooded Meara as he said the name slowly and lingeringly. She had never thought her name particularly pretty before, but now the words sounded lovely on his lips, lovely and even magical as if he bestowed some special meaning to each syllable.

But then the spell was broken by approaching figures. Calvin Connor and his wife, Elizabeth, were suddenly with them, Calvin carefully scrutinized the tall man with them before looking questioningly at Meara.

“Mr. and Mrs. Connor,” she said formally, “this is Commander Michael Fielding, a Canadian Navy officer who was recently wounded.”

“Lieutenant Commander,” Michael corrected, “although I’m grateful for the promotion.”

Cal Connor’s shrewd gaze ranged over the man, lowering to scan the cane, the way the man was standing. He seemed to recognize the military posture, even as Michael shifted slightly to favor his left leg.

Both men nodded slightly, eyes wary, as they shook hands and silently judged each other. It was an expression Meara had seen often in the circles of the wealthy. The barracuda look, she had always thought, an appraising gaze that passed between two strong men who wondered whether the other was adversary or possible ally.

“Where were you wounded?” Connor said.

“The Atlantic.”

“Another ship?”

Fielding shook his head. “A sub.”

A competitive gleam appeared in Connor’s eyes. “Did you get it?”

“I don’t know,” the Canadian said. “Unfortunately, I was knocked out, apparently by shrapnel from an explosion. When I regained consciousness, I found myself floating in a life raft with a dead man. Some French fishermen found us, and eventually helped to get me back to England.”

“Your ship?”

“Sunk, I found out later.”

“Any other survivors?”

Michael nodded. “I’m afraid they wound up in German hands.”

“What kind of ship were you on?”

“A destroyer,” Fielding said shortly, the interrogation obviously becoming irritating.

Peter tugged at his father’s hand. “Michael asked us to show him around the island. May we?”

Connor furrowed his brows. “Michael?”

The Canadian broke in the conversation. “I asked him to call me that. I’m a bit tired of military titles. I’ve been in military hospitals for several months.”

“What are your plans now?”

“Another couple of weeks of recuperation. Then I hope to convince them to take me back.”

“What about your leg?”

“You don’t walk much in the navy.” Michael grinned, and Meara could see some of her employer’s natural suspicions fading. “And,” Michael added in his precise accent, “England needs all the men it has.”

Connor nodded at that. All the Allied countries did.

“Can we, Father?” Peter’s voice interrupted again.

Cal Connor looked down at his son, his eyes softening.

“Can we show him the island?” Peter asked impatiently.

Connor looked up at the Canadian. “Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight and we’ll discuss it then?” It was obvious he was not going to allow Meara and his children to associate with anyone until he knew more of him. Yet Meara could see he was sympathetic to both the plea in his son’s eyes and to a wounded ally.

Michael Fielding looked toward the woman who stood at Connor’s side. “Mrs. Connor? I wouldn’t wish to intrude on your first night.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I think we, at least my imps here, are the ones intruding on you. But we would very much like to have you.”

Michael accepted easily with a smile and a nod. “Thank you, I would be delighted.”

“Ask anyone for the location of the DuBignon cottage. Nine o’clock, then?” Connor said abruptly before turning toward the door of the cabin.

Meara understood the message in her employer’s abrupt departure. She was not to allow the children to keep company with the tall Canadian until he had been thoroughly examined and accepted by Cal Connor.

“We have to go in,” she said softly, reluctant to leave his strangely magnetic presence.

“Will you be dining with us tonight?”

“No, I eat earlier with the children.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you this afternoon, then, building sand castles.”

So he had been listening earlier. “Perhaps,” she said, knowing she should not say such a thing, especially after the silent warning from her employer. But nothing could happen on Jekyll Island. It was, she thought, the most peaceful, tranquil place on earth. All the guests at the club were gentlemen, either members or friends of members. The names of any guests had to be submitted and approved in advance.

His mouth moved into beguilingly boyish delight and approval. She would have promised anything at that moment, even her soul had the devil been available to take it.

He nodded and moved away, as if he too sought to break the sudden odd recognition that had flared between them and bound them together in some incomprehensible yet wildly reckless and intimate way.

Taking Tara’s hand, Meara moved almost unseeingly to the door, feeling that some part of herself had just been torn away. It was replaced by a certain wonder, a distressingly strong anticipation, and for the briefest of moments, the feeling that her life had just changed forever.

Chapter Two

M
ICHAEL
F
IELDING KNEW
he was in trouble. He had known it on the cruiser when he first saw the girl, her hair flying free and her eyes sparkling and her laugh floating in the wind like a spring song.

He had known it from the second his heart warmed. He’d never quite experienced that feeling before. And that uniqueness frightened him.

He justified his intrusion into the enchanting world of the girl and two children as part of his assignment, as a necessary step toward a goal he considered distasteful but necessary.

But now misgivings assaulted him as he looked around his room at the Jekyll Island Club. The taste was impeccable. Elegantly comfortable. Elegantly casual. Everything he had been led to expect. And more. There was something about this island….

Or perhaps there was something about the girl.

He went over to one of the two suitcases he had brought with him. It was smaller than the other, but heavier. Checking once again to see that the case was still securely locked, he placed it in back of the wardrobe and opened the other one, rummaging through the clothes, mostly new, mostly unfamiliar, that rested there. He had worn a uniform for years, more years than he wanted to remember, particularly during the past few years. He searched among the clothes until he found a lightweight white cotton shirt and a pair of casual tan slacks, the tailoring very American with its generous pleats.

Michael looked at his watch. Dinner was hours away, and he needed no lunch. The invitation to the Connors had been a real stroke of luck as well as a challenge. Connor was no fool. Michael had been briefed on each American financier and industrialist who visited the island. If he was accepted by the Connors, his task was half accomplished. Connor’s acceptance would give him quick entrée to the others, to the social events and habits of the other visitors to the island.

But although he knew he should keep his mind on the business at hand, he kept thinking of the girl. That realization surprised him, for he had never before given a woman much more thought than a night’s pleasure. One reason had been his occupation. As a ship’s officer, he was never any place longer than several days. There had never been time for attachments, even if he had wanted any. Then why, in a matter of minutes, had he been so completely charmed?