All That Glitters. Mary Brady

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СКАЧАТЬ had beaten the odds and headed inland. The wind hammered at her as she stood immobile, wavering between the insanity of the storm and the lunacy her life had turned into.

      She suddenly saw herself once again standing on a stage facing a jeering crowd at the university. When the booing started, she had thought it was a joke, and then as it continued, she expected rotten eggs, but it had been a more intellectual crowd, and all she got were death threats and promises of a lifelong ban from journalism.

      The wind took another shot at her and she tensed her whole body. When she didn’t leave, the man waved her away with a jerk of his head, but it was another shout from him to “go away” that revved up her reporter mode.

      She swiped at the rain running down her face and, when he turned in her direction, stepped forward.

      “I just need to find Zachary Hale.” She screamed into the wind and it screamed right back at her.

      “’Et.... ’Ell. ’Way.” The rising wind carried much of his shout off, but she got the gist.

      She inched closer to him. “Tell me where to find Zachary Hale.”

      Just then the wind ripped at the boat and one man on the other side lost his grip. With horror, Addy realized the craft, lifted by the wind, now tipped. Then, in slow motion, the boat began to fall in her direction.

      She stumbled back, but not quickly enough. The man grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket and hauled her aside like a net full of cod as the boat crashed into the spot where she had stood a second before.

      The white-and-red boat rocked and settled half on one side.

      When the wind couldn’t blow her over, she realized the man had not released her. She looked up into his dark, angry eyes. How sweet. A savior. A tough guy with a heart of gold.

      A cliché.

      Oh, God, she was not always this cynical. Once upon a time, she had actually been nice, she thought, as her feet nearly left the ground. Her savior propelled her toward her car, where he opened the door and pitched her in.

      “Go,” he shouted against the wind and then slammed the door turning away as if he had fixed that problem.

      “Ah-yuh” and “ahm tellin’ you” she was in Maine.

      Addy stayed in the rental car, watched the men and dripped all over the seat and floor mats. Rental car—it was okay. These boat rescuers were going to have to leave sooner or later. They might even need a ride. A grateful man, out of the wind and rain, might be willing to chat about Zachary Hale.

      After several more minutes of struggling, the workers finished their task and then raced toward a nearby shed. A short moment later, a black SUV burst out and defied the wind as it made a quick arc and sped near where she parked.

      The SUV stopped suddenly and the driver side window lowered. Glowering out at her was her rescuer, his face covered with soft golden whiskers, his hair both plastered to his head and sticking out at endearing angles. Hero type. Handsome and good-hearted. Maybe he’d tell her where the manicured billionaire was hiding.

      “Unless you have a death wish, get out of here,” he said as the wind buffeted both vehicles.

      “I just—”

      The window closed and the SUV took off up the hill leaving her with no answers, a scant few feet above sea level, in a rising storm.

      She looked to the second crew who were securing their boat and decided her best chance for an answer was fleeing up the hill. “You are not getting away so easily, buddy.”

      Addy slammed the car in gear and hurried after the SUV’s taillights. A year ago, she would have felt the gut clench of paralyzing fear. Today, she almost savored the chase. There was a kind of freedom when one’s tail was dragging along the bottom of the barrel as hers was.

      She had nothing to lose.

      Water rushed down the street, high enough to make her add a prayer to her bravado as she rode a gusty tail wind steadily up the hill. At the top, the SUV turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

      Addy gave the car more gas than was probably prudent, but a hot scoop waited for no one.

      When she reached the stop sign at the intersection, the SUV sat parked at the curb around the corner in front of a place called Braven’s Tavern. Addy realized they must be waiting to see if she could climb the hill. Good. She might yet get a chance to speak with someone.

      Just then, three of the SUV’s doors popped open and all but the driver leaped out, splashing in their rubber boots. The yellow-suited passengers hurried toward the boarded-up tavern. As Addy inched her car around the corner, the SUV made a U-turn and headed back down toward the harbor. Maybe the driver was crazier than she was.

      The yellow suits hurried into the tavern, the big, solid oak door slamming shut behind them.

      She let the madman driver go and parked the worthy compact rental in a high spot just past the tavern in front of Pardee Jordan’s Best Ever Donuts where water swirled but didn’t collect.

      The donut shop gave her some shelter from the wind, but there was no shelter from the rain. By the time she got to the tavern’s old-fashioned oak door, rain poured down her shoulders, wicked up the pant legs of her jeans and threatened to dampen her underwear.

      She grabbed the long brass door handle, tugged hard, and when the door swung open, dashed inside. These Mainers might be rough around the edges, but they would not toss her back out into the storm.

      She hoped.

      The short, dark hallway of the entry led to an open area where, on the right, hooks lined the wall and the SUV’s three passengers were shedding their rain gear and hanging it up to drip.

      To the left, the bar stools stood empty at the square-cornered, U-shaped bar and no bartender leaned over the bar in greeting. Shelves of liquor and a couple unlit beer signs decorated the back wall of the bar lit by flickering candles.

      The three workers stopped and turned as a unit to gape at her. One man was tall and lean with a lot of red hair plastered to his head and around his face. One was stocky and white-whiskered and the third man who was somewhere in the middle of height and girth had graying dark brown, unruly curls around his thin face.

      Not one of them said a word.

      Addy pushed her hood back from her wet hair and gave each of them an even look. Well, what she hoped was an even look because when one’s underwear was starting to take on water it was hard.

      They stared back for a moment and then turned away to continue removing their rain suits. She had the feeling they would have stripped down to their underwear if she hadn’t been there—maybe they still would.

      “Eh, Michael, sorry about Francine,” the stocky, white-whiskered member of the trio said to the red headed man.

      Addy remembered the word FRANCINE as it had headed directly for her upturned face. Francine was the boat’s name.

      The shoulders of the tall thin man with what now seemed like a bushel of wet red hair slumped. “Ah-yuh. Wish we’d’a known sooner.”

      “...that СКАЧАТЬ