Patricia Potter Read Online Free PDF Page A

tangy scents of wildflowers and the sea.
    No one else was on the road, and aside from the put-put of his vehicle there was only the whisper of wind and the fetching song of a mockingbird.
    He reached some old dune ridges, which were covered with a forest of wind-sculpted live oak tress, all their branches stretched out toward the interior in an odd, lopsided pattern. He parked and took up his cane, limping across the dunes to a wide beach.
    Michael felt an inexplicable but fierce stab of disappointment that he saw no human figures, no woman and children, although there were hundreds of birds playing and hunting at the water’s edge. The depth of his disappointment was really quite remarkable, and completely unlike anything he had previously experienced. He pondered briefly how those few moments on the cruiser could have made such an impact, and then dismissed the thought with the iron control he had so well developed.
    Instead, he looked at the beach with a certain appreciation. It was low tide, and the sand appeared endless before it melted into the foam-licked gray water. He took a turn to the left, where huge oak trees, part of their knurled roots unearthed by wind and sand, clustered above the beach. At high tide they would almost meet the water, challenging it to do its worst.
    The sand was hard, not like the soft sand of many other beaches he had walked, and easy for his injured leg to maneuver. The leg was aching, for he had been on it all morning, but each day it grew stronger and he had extended his walks from half a mile to two miles. Usually by the time he finished, streaks of agony ran up and down the length of his calf, but he welcomed the pain. He had come so damned close to losing it.
    Michael closed his eyes, remembering the moment when particles of metal had ripped into his flesh, tearing it open through the bone. He had been lucky. He’d had a fine surgeon who chose to try to repair it rather than amputate. He was then sent to one of the best doctors in Berlin. He didn’t know why until later. And then he had wondered whether the price had been worth it.
    But for today, he would forget the cost. Seabirds danced happily on the beach, and gulls swept gracefully down in the water. A cool breeze broke the unexpected heat of a late March day, and mild waves rushed in pleasant rhythm up the beach. The rich, unforgettable smell of water teaming with life filled his senses and melded there with the echoing wild, lonely call of a gull and the scolding heckling of smaller birds competing for a sea-discarded offering. After two months in a hospital and suffocating, claustrophobic days in a submarine, he greedily absorbed the sights and sounds and smells. He could almost forget why he was here. Almost.
    He reached a curve in the beach, where it swung around to face the marshes, and he turned back, his limp becoming more pronounced as the leg rebelled. He wondered how far he had come. The sun was lowering now, its brightness fading slightly as the bright ball slid down the horizon. But still it favored the ocean with its rays, sending flecks of gold dust across its shimmering surface. Deceptively calm, deceptively peaceful.
    Michael knew the ocean, knew the water in each of its moods. The sea had been his parents, his teacher, his security. He had run away to sea, at fourteen, lying about his age. He had run away from his father, from a mother who suffered repeated abuse and yet still adored the man who did it to her. Michael hadn’t been able to understand, to accept, and he knew if he’d stayed he would one day kill his father. So he had left, and found the roughest, most exacting school there was. It was a world harder for him than most, for he carried a natural arrogance and charm which came from wealth and breeding, and those characteristics alienated the rough seamen. He’d had to fight his way to respect, to repeatedly prove himself by working harder, longer than anyone else. He’d had a natural aptitude and