Treacherous Longings. Anne Mather

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       CHAPTER THREE

      QUINN sat on the veranda of the Old Rum House, drinking a glass of the strongest punch he had ever tasted. And he needed it, he thought ruefully. God, imagine that! Meeting Julia Harvey herself as soon as he stepped off the boat. Hector would say it was a bloody miracle. And it was. He just hadn’t come to terms with it yet.

      Inside the hotel he could hear the preparations for the evening meal getting under way, and there was a delicious aroma of foreign herbs and spices. Mr Hope—Zeke—had asked if fresh papaya and a conch chowder would be suitable for supper, but Quinn barely remembered what he had said in response. His thoughts had still been focused on the familiar, yet unfamiliar woman he had met on the quay, and he hoped he hadn’t looked as stupefied as he’d felt.

      Thank God he hadn’t had to make conversation with the other guests, he reflected now. There were only two of them: a young couple from England, Zeke had said, who’d arrived a couple of days ago, and Quinn suspected that they were here on their honeymoon. They were seated on a couch at the other end of the veranda, murmuring together in low, intimate voices, and every now and then there was a pregnant silence that spoke volumes for itself. They made Quinn feel unbelievably old, and a rather large gooseberry into the bargain.

      Not that he wanted company, he reminded himself, taking another stiffening mouthful of the rum. Right now he was having to cope with the fact that Hector’s information hadn’t been wrong, and that was not something he could take lightly.

      Even now he found it incredible to believe that the woman he had seen earlier was the Julia Harvey he had known. Oh, she had recognized him, so it had to be her, but she was nothing—nothing—like he had expected.

      Yet what had he expected? He’d hardly believed Hector’s story to begin with, and he’d been half prepared to find it was all a wild-goose chase. But what the hell? A trip to the Caribbean in February was no hardship and, in spite of Susan’s aversion to the idea, he had been curious.

      And now? Now he didn’t know what he felt. Meeting her like that had certainly robbed the situation of any fantasy, but he was no longer sure he wanted to pursue it. She had changed so much, and although she had been perfectly polite he could tell he was the last person she had wanted to see.

      His own reaction had been no less astounded. It was like being confronted by a dinosaur when you’d believed they were extinct. Not that Julia looked like a dinosaur. Her appearance was unique. He couldn’t get over how young she looked—how unsophisticated, how natural.

      How old was she? he wondered. She had to be thirty-five at least. But she didn’t look it. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. She’d evidently stopped cutting her hair, and the sun had streaked its silvery blondeness with shades of gold and honey. She’d put on some weight, too, though that suited her. And her skin was tanned now, instead of the magnolia-white that the studios had demanded.

      He took another swig of his punch and shook his head, as if by doing so he’d make some sense of the turmoil in his brain. Julia Harvey—and not just Julia Harvey but her son as well. For God’s sake, had her disappearance been due to nothing more than the fact that she’d got married? And if so, why hadn’t she just announced the fact? She wouldn’t have been the first woman to give up a successful career for love.

      For love...

      His glass was empty, and rather than disturb his amorous neighbours Quinn picked it up and ambled into the foyer of the small hotel. The reception desk was unmanned, but he could hear the sound of glasses clinking to his right, and when he turned in that direction he found himself in the subdued lighting of a bar.

      This part of the hotel was evidently used by the locals, and there were one or two of them there already, propping up the bar and filling the air around them with the aromatic smoke of a rather doubtful tobacco. A radio was tuned to a calypso station, and Zeke himself was serving his customers. He looked cheerfully in Quinn’s direction when he came in, his mouth widening knowingly as he saw his empty glass.

      ‘You want some more of that, Mr Marriott?’ he enquired, indicating the glass, but although Quinn was tempted he shook his head. He had the suspicion that Zeke and his cronies encouraged visitors to partake rather too freely of the local spirit, and then got a good-natured enjoyment out of the hangovers they cultivated. Quinn had no desire to spend tomorrow nursing his head and, setting his glass on the bar he accepted a Mexican beer instead.

      ‘Dinner be ready pretty soon,’ Zeke declared, running a damp cloth over the counter. ‘You hungry, Mr Marriott?’

      Quinn grimaced. In truth, he was tired. Back home, it was already well after midnight, and although he’d tried to doze on the plane from London weariness, and a certain sense of anticlimax, was getting to him. This wasn’t the way he had anticipated this assignment to go, and the knowledge that the initiative had somehow been taken from him niggled at his conscience.

      Why hadn’t he challenged her when she’d spoken to him? Why hadn’t he admitted, there and then, that he had come here to find her? She was probably suspicious, so why hadn’t he told her? Instead of making some inane remark about enjoying a rest?

      But, ridiculously enough, she had been the last person he had expected to see at that moment. His mind had been full of the problems he faced in trying to find her, and meeting her on the quay like that had left him feeling stunned. Much like the first time he’d seen her. She’d stunned him then as well...

      He gave an inward groan. How could he have been such an idiot? She’d completely mangled his brain. He’d stood there feeling as immature and callow as the youth he used to be, and by the time he’d pulled himself together she’d gone.

      ‘Going to get some scuba-diving in while you’re here, Mr Marriott?’

      Zeke’s enquiring voice brought him out of his reverie, and, realising he was being rude, Quinn made a determined effort to gather his scattered wits.

      ‘I—why, maybe,’ he conceded, still not sure how best to handle this. He knew Hager had made no secret of his enquiries, but Quinn preferred a more subtle approach. If Julia was living anonymously on San Jacinto, she had her reasons. And until he’d had the chance to talk to her—properly—he’d rather not advertise why he had come.

      He tried to remember everything Hagar had told him. He’d said he’d been told there was no Julia Harvey living on the island, but that there was an Englishwoman, who might have been mistaken for her. Unfortunately, he hadn’t СКАЧАТЬ