“The pleasure is mine.”He left his hand where it was, even when Swansy’s top hand began to move.I wondered whether he knew how much she could tell from a hand.Either he didn’t, or he had nothing to hide.
I watched her closely, anxious to know her reaction to Peter.But she wasn’t letting on.Leisurely she finished exploring the back of his hand and tracking the length of his fingers.Then she wagged his hand toward a chair.“Sit by me, please.”
Peter sent me a lopsided grin.In return I shot a pointed look at the cushioned armchair that sat not far from the bentwood.As Swansy released his fingers, he backed into it.I stayed close by her chair.
“Is this your first trip north?”she asked.
“No, ma’am.I’ve been many a time to Camden, though not in a long, long time.”
“Camden.”She was silent for a minute.“What was your business in Camden?”
I knew what he’d say.Camden was a summer playground for the big bucks crowd.My family and I had visited friends there many a time.Funny, we’d never heard about him then.
“When I was in my teens,” he said, “I waited tables at the big old hotel that used to be there.”
Which was why we’d never heard about him then.The Madigans and their friends didn’tmix with the hired help.If either Samantha or I had dared to flirt with an attractive young waiter.Dad would have cut off our allowances for a month.We’d never have risked that.
Besides, the years would have been wrong.Peter was forty.When he’d been in his teens, I’d have been too young to flirt.Not that I ever really got the knack of it.
So Peter had worked.I remembered Samantha saying something—what was it?—about his having made it big only in the past five years?That opened up dozens of questions, none of which I had the nerve to ask.
Swansy did.She started with, “Where are you from?”
“Originally?Columbus, Ohio.”
She mulled that over.“It’s a long way from Ohio to Maine.”
“Uh-huh.”
Swansy pulled a Swansy, then.I’d seen her do it to others, and heaven only knew how many times she’d done it to me, but I was surprised that it worked on Peter.He seemed too sharp, shrewd enough to hold the cards to his chest in the face of a bluff.But when Swansy sat there, training her opaque blue eyes his way and smiling with such sweet anticipation, he fell prey and, without another word from her, began to talk.
“I’d been a troublesome kid.My mother died when I was ten, my older brother had long since left, and I was stuck with my dad, who was asrigid a man as you’d ever want to meet.I ran away whenever I could.Those summers, I hitched my way to the coast.I was fourteen the first time, but I was a big kid.I had no trouble finding a job.In the summers after that, my dad was pleased to see me go.”
He tossed me a glance.Only then did I realize that I’d been holding my breath.I let it out slowly, but I couldn’t take my eyes from him.“What did your dad do for a living?”I asked softly.
“He worked in a factory.Punched in every morning, punched out every night.I couldn’t bear the thought of growing up to do that.Prison was preferable in my mind—at least, that was what I told myself when I did some of the things I did.I came really close to finding out.”
“What did you do?”
He shrugged.“Petty stuff.Nothing felonious.”
“Like what?”
He looked bemused.“You really want to know.”
It was halfway between a question and a statement, and either way, I couldn’t deny it.I wanted to know, not because it had anything to do with what he could or could not do for Cooper, but because I was curious.
“I stole cars.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute.Then I couldn’t help myself.“That’s petty?Do you know what havoc you wreak when you steal someone’s car?I had a car stolen when I wastwenty.It was my mother’s, but I’d been the one driving, so I felt the burden.There was the hassle of being without it, the hassle of waiting for the police to call and report it found, the hassle of having it repaired, not to mention the expense, and then the feeling of driving a car that’s been diddled with by some faceless creep.”
Peter looked amused.“‘Diddled with’?”
I’d used the phrase in all innocence, but the way Peter said it, and the look in his eye when he did, suggested something X-rated.“You know what I mean,” I muttered and looked away.
Quietly Peter said, “I never damaged any of the cars I stole.I just rode them around.It was an ego trip.I stepped on the gas, really stepped on it, and watched the speedometer needle pass sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety.…” His breath caught, then broke free.“It was a wild feeling of power.”
My gaze had returned to his as he’d been talking, lured by the excitement that, even then, crept into his voice.It was in his eyes, too, that excitement, and as I looked it seemed at the same time dangerous and sexy.Unable to accept either, I snorted.“It was a miracle you didn’t crash.”
