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beach.

CHAPTER TWO
    S USAN WAS CHOKING BACK tears as she stumbled out of the beach house; tears she had sworn she would never shed. After all, she had met Peter Lane because he knew he was dying, and she had known exactly what to expect from the son…
    Those logical, determined thoughts helped her a bit, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why. She didn’t care what people thought; she never had. So why, she wondered, was she so disturbed now? Especially since she had known for months now exactly what David Lane’s opinion had been.
    Her shoe caught in the sand, twisting her ankle. She swore softly, then allowed her tears to join with mist that surrounded her to dampen her cheeks. She realized that she had come right up on the beach, where the water was spewing over boulders and sand—and her shoes.
    They were ruined, of course. Leaning against one of the gray rocks that rose over her head, she pulled them from her feet and slammed them viciously against the rock.
    What was it about David Lane that infuriated her to such a degree? The cold contempt and disregard she had first encountered when she had attempted to see him and tell him the truth about his father? She should have stayed that day. But she who had learned such serenity from life had tossed water in his face, stunned by his blunt, unexpected accusation. She shouldn’t have done it. She should have been as cold and contemptuous as he’d been and informed him scornfully that he was an insolent bastard, but for Peter’s sake she would tolerate his rude and unjust behavior.
    Oh, no! She was right to have thrown the water in his face. She should have just stayed afterward and straightened things out then.
    Except that his mind had been so set, he surely wouldn’t have believed a thing she had to say. Except, maybe, about his father.
    She shouldn’t have been there to begin with, believing as she did in the rights of the aged and the dying. Peter might have been old and ill, but his mind had been as sharp as a whip. Sharper. Until the very end. And he hadn’t wanted his son to know.
    “Took me thirty-six years to get the relationship right with David,” Peter told her once, “and for whatever time I have left, I want it to be what it is now. We’re friends. He calls me, he sees me, he cares for my every concern. He leads his own life, but he’s careful never to forget me. You can’t always say that for young people today, you know,” he had said proudly. Then he sighed. “Don’t you see, Susan? We’ve finally got it just right. He’s there, but he still respects my opinions, my individuality, and my privacy. If he knew, it would all change. He’d want me to come to New York. He’d start doting on me, and then I’d grow very old and decrepit, become a liability. No. I’ve got it all just right now. And that’s what I want it to be like—down to the end. There’s nothing I haven’t had, Susan. Nothing. It’s all precious to me. It’s been a hell of a life. I’ve enjoyed it, and I’ll continue to do so until the end!”
    It had been Peter’s right…
    “Oh, I think that’s why I hate you so much, David Lane!” she whispered to the rising wind. “He loved you; he was so proud of you. He was an incredibly great man—and you didn’t think enough of him to believe that someone could care about him and not his money!”
    She lowered her head dejectedly just as the rain started. She barely noticed it in her bitterness. What was the matter with their world that no one could accept a young woman and an old man being friends? Peter had been there for her when she had been alone and stumbling and groping. And she had been there for him. Not as a lover but as a friend. Someone who really cared for him and loved to hear him talk about his past, about his days as an immigrant, about the wife he had loved so dearly that he had defied his own people to marry her and flee to a new world …
    “Oh, you son of a bitch!” she cried,