Patricia Potter Read Online Free PDF Page B

walls.
    Only rarely during the afternoon, as the sun began to dip, did he remember his real purpose here, and that he was only playing a role. He was doing as he had been told, ingratiating himself, making friends, beginning a betrayal that he already suspected would destroy him as well as the intended victims. Perhaps that was why, he thought, he was grabbing these moments for his own. Tomorrow, Hans would be here, and plans would begin in earnest. God, he detested the man he was being forced to work with.
    “We’re tiring you.” Meara’s voice interrupted his thought, and he knew he must be frowning, his eyes clouded.
    “No, it’s been a pleasure.” His voice was softer than he’d intended, laced with a regret only he understood.
    Peter began to move restlessly, and eagerly accepted Meara’s suggestion that he and Tara play ball.
    As they moved away, Michael turned to Meara. “How long have you been with the Connors?”
    “Forever,” she smiled. Fondness was in her voice as she continued. “My mother has been their maid for twenty years. I was too, for a while, and then I started taking care of Tara and Peter.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “In New York.”
    “And your father?”
    “He died just after I was born. An accident on the New York docks. He was a stevedore.”
    There was a challenge in the way she said the words, and he understood it only too well. By his very presence here, he had to be wealthy and of fine background. Michael sensed she had also felt the fierce attraction between them and was telling him, quite honestly, of her own history before another step was taken by either of them. She was, in her own soft way, asking him if it mattered. Sudden guilt, deep and bitter, battered at him like storm-swept waves. Honesty was the one thing he couldn’t give. He was going to use her. He had no choice but to use her, but perhaps he could minimize the damage. He couldn’t allow the magic between them to continue. Better she think him a snob. He had what he wanted, an introduction to the Connors and, through them, to the others on the island.
    Any more was idiocy. But still he didn’t leave. He damned himself, but still he didn’t leave. For some reason, he didn’t think Meara would be satisfied taking care of someone else’s children all her life, though she obviously did it very well.
    “And now? What are your plans now?”
    She smiled, and he knew he had been right, and that she appreciated his seeing it.
    “Writing.”
    He raised an eyebrow in question.
    “I received my degree in journalism a month ago. I start with Life magazine this summer. Nothing very grand. An assistant to an assistant to an assistant,” she added quickly.
    “I think that’s very grand, indeed,” he said quite truthfully and with some surprise. His recent contacts with women had been few and temporary, and never with the apparently growing number of women choosing a career over marriage.
    Meara’s expression thanked him, and once more he felt a rare ripple of pleasure surge through him.
    “And you?” she said.
    “Back to war, I expect. If they will take me back now. The leg has healed better than they thought.”
    “Was it very bad then?”
    He shrugged as if the wound was of little import. “It was…rugged, I suppose,” he said, a little surprised at his own words. He had never expressed the extreme fear he’d once felt at the possibility of amputation. “At one time they thought…” The words died off, but Meara could imagine the rest.
    “And after the war?” she said, wanting to drive the sudden desolation from his eyes.
    “The sea, I suppose,” he replied. “I’m a sailor by profession as well as by circumstance of war.”
    “With the navy?”
    “Commercial shipping,” he answered somewhat curtly, but his smile softened the words. “I would much rather talk about you.” He was, he knew, slipping into dangerous territory. But then from Connor’s attitude earlier, he knew he should be