Watching the Water Read online

  Watching the Water

  © 2016 Donna Gentry Morton. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published in the United States by BQB Publishing

  (Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company)

  www.bqbpublishing.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  978-1-937084-48-6 (p)

  978-1-937084-49-3 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948915

  Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

  Cover design by Maura Petrosino, www.bluefla.me

  Other Books by Donna Gentry Morton

  Seeking the Shore, Book 2 in the Heart Tides series

  To my big sister,

  Rebecca Ann Williams

  If you hadn’t given me that lighthouse figurine to place on my desk as inspiration, this story might not have ever been finished. You cleaned my house so I would have time to write. You were the first to read every page and told me to keep going.

  Thank you, Becky.

  Baby Sis loves you.

  And

  To the memory of my late husband, my soulmate, my It Guy, my

  “Hon,”

  John Ward Morton

  When it came to reading, you were more of a Clancy guy, but you read this manuscript and encouraged me to take it as far as I could. I’m trying to do that now and wish you were here to share the journey.

  I know you know, though.

  Someday we’ll talk about it.

  Time and tide, Hon.

  I’ll love you forever.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The Downtown Panache was a fashionable lady among the traditional white-columned hotels gracing the South. Its sleek and streamlined beauty captured Art Deco, its bright colors and exotic woods making it a favorite among the young, most of whom flocked to the rooftop where jazz beckoned them to dance beneath the stars.

  From near and far, people frequented the Downtown Panache, and from somewhere came the man with the dark eyes. Eyes like fine chocolates that, once sampled, were impossible to resist.

  They were what Julianna Sheffield first noticed about the man when she caught his appreciative stare from across the dining room. Startled, she looked away. His boldness filled her with an unnerving intrigue, so she tried focusing on the dessert menu before her. Baked Alaska, Lemon Meringue Pie, and Tapioca Pudding swam before her eyes like quick-finned fish. She placed the menu on the table and ran a slightly trembling hand through her shoulder-length hair, a maple cascade of waves, thanks to eight hours in the permanent wave machine.

  His attention didn’t waver. Feeling its persistence, Julianna couldn’t keep her eyes averted and began to take him in through glances. He was older, she guessed, having at least ten years on her twenty-two. His hair matched his eyes, and his tanned face was clean-shaven and perfectly chiseled. Though seated, he appeared tall with the lean and muscular, broad-shouldered build of a disciplined athlete. He wore a navy, double-breasted suit with a whimsical tie depicting Popeye the Sailor, and he had a snap brim hat stylishly turned down in the front and up in the back, which rested on the table.

  A playful smile formed on his lips, and it seemed to Julianna that he was amused by her glances. Perhaps he considered them a flirtatious catch-me-if-you-can dance of the eyes, an engaging game of cat and mouse.

  Finally, he pounced, grabbing her eyes before she could look away and locking them into a gaze so intense, she was certain their souls had collided.

  She was suddenly consumed. Her heart beat like a wild drum, and her thoughts roared like storm-driven waves hitting her in rapid succession. She couldn’t grasp one thought for being struck by another. Amid the internal chaos, though, she heard it—a prophetic voice whispering from her core. This man could touch her life, like no other man would ever have the power to do.

  She might have stayed immersed in his eyes had the waiter not intruded. “Dessert, Miss?”

  When she didn’t answer, he tapped her shoulder. “Miss?”

  Julianna broke free of the man’s gaze and turned to the waiter. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “No, no dessert, thank you.”

  He smiled and made a quick gesture about the table. “Your friends abandoned you?” He spoke of the four sorority sisters Julianna had dined with earlier, in town to be fitted for bridesmaid dresses for a friend’s wedding.

  Julianna sipped her sweet tea, wishing she could toss it on herself instead. She needed to snap from the surreal fog surrounding her, to regain her bearings. “They left me for Clark Gable,” she answered, still flustered. The words sounded distant even to her ears. “His new movie, I mean.”

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t join them.”

  Out of habit, she glanced at her watch. “I’m expected home soon.”

  “Ah” was all he said before nodding politely and swooping toward the kitchen.

  Julianna felt only slightly composed when she looked across the dining room to where the man had been seated. Would they be able to reclaim their connection or had the interruption broken the momentum?

  Her heart sank when she saw that he had vanished, leaving nothing behind except a cloth napkin crumpled across a dinner plate.

  It didn’t mean a thing, Julianna told herself as she walked through the hotel lobby moments later. It was just one of those strange moments in time. I’ll forget about it in a week.

  But her heart lurched at the thought. Ha! It knew better and so did Julianna. She had been drawn to other men before, but this was so different. There was the fleeting schoolgirl crush she’d developed for a cute teenage boy who’d stolen a kiss from her at a summer picnic. She thought of the attraction she had felt for a handsome young man she met once on a blind date. Compared to tonight’s encounter, her heart had merely skipped like a butterfly at such times; this was more like the flight of a soaring eagle. Every other memory felt suddenly lighthearted and sure to fade. But she knew the moment shared with this man would be tucked away for safekeeping, tenderly retrieved on dreamy, rain-soaked nights. It would find its way into quiet thoughts when she watched the sun rise above the sea. And sometimes, while walking down the street, she would search the faces of strangers, hoping his would be among them. It had only been a moment, yes. But one to be forgotten? Never.

  She paused before reaching the valet, dreading the idea of getting her car and going home. Another glance at her watch warned her that her parents would soon start to wonder of her whereabouts. No daughter of Richard and Audrey Sheffield should be wandering unaccompanied past reasonable hours, and Julianna could easily imagine the lecture awaiting her if she didn’t return home soon. “But darling,” her mother would say, “it’s just not proper for a young woman to be out at all hours. Besides tha
t, it’s very dangerous unless you have a suitable escort.”

  True, there was her safety to think of, but also the family reputation to uphold, as her parents’ names were well inked on the town’s list of Who’s Who. And it wasn’t just their good name. Her father would say there was the business to think of too. Yes, she had the People’s Standard National Bank to thank for their family’s good fortune. But her father had the makings of a maestro, given his need to orchestrate every facet of Julianna’s life. And her mother—she may be bubbly and efficient on the outside, but Julianna knew all too well that she was a dying spirit on the inside, a slave to the strict propriety of high society life.

  Her parents kept a tight leash on Julianna, their only child, though there had never been any need to. She had always been compliant, partly because it had been ingrained in her by privileged society that she was a very fortunate girl who should want to please her parents for making sure that she never wanted for anything. Appreciation was a feeling she understood and agreed with, but she also believed her parents really did have her best interests at heart. For those reasons, Julianna Isabella Sheffield had never done anything unexpected in her life.

  Until right now.

  Because despite the desire to please her parents, she was starting to realize that it demanded sacrifice. She had never danced with that thought until recently, perhaps because their expectations now included something that was too much, something she feared would secure their happiness while squashing her own.

  Right now, though, she wasn’t going to think about that something. Right now, she turned from the valet desk and faced a bank of elevators, preparing to take the one that carried passengers to the rooftop.

  Somehow, she knew he was up there. Whether it was the nudge from an unseen guardian angel, intuition that whispered to her heart, or a great hope that could not be deterred, she felt certain that she was about to see him again. As her eyes focused only on the elevator that ascended to the roof, it chimed and its doors opened, almost as though on cue, almost as though it was beckoning her with “now or never.”

  She crossed to the elevator and stepped inside, adjusting her emerald silk-print dress, smoothing it about her tall figure that was neither too thin nor too voluptuous, but somewhere nicely in between. As the elevator began its ascent, Julianna looked at her reflection in the mirrored wall and was struck by the expression in her eyes.

  People often told her that she had the greenest eyes they had ever seen, a compliment that Julianna modestly brushed off. Tonight, though, she had to admit that they were spectacular, so green that even the rich color in her dress dared not compete.

  Tonight her eyes were gems, each facet reflecting emotions that made her feel more alive than ever before. There she saw fear of knowing that she had ceased to play it safe and anticipation that life might never be the same again.

  The rooftop was set with small round tables topped with smoldering hurricane lamps that made the space glow amber beneath the early June sky. The crowd was sparse, so she had no trouble spotting the man with the dark eyes at a table against the security wall.

  His face showed no surprise at seeing her. He wore only a slight and knowing smile, as if to say he’d been expecting her.

  Stomach churning, she walked toward him, recognizing none of the people she passed. This wasn’t the night her crowd frequented the rooftop, and she was glad. She wouldn’t have to explain anything to anyone, which would be a challenge considering that she couldn’t even explain it to herself. She felt surreal, as though she were dreaming or acting the part in a movie.

  He stood when she reached him, confirming what she had intimated downstairs—he was tall, at least six feet and a few inches. All she could think of was that she would need to reach up to put her arms around his neck if they decided to dance. This pleased her, as she stood five feet nine and had known the awkwardness of dance partners who would have preferred she remove her heels.

  His smile widened, welcoming her with a friendly warmth that put her as much at ease as she could possibly be in this most unusual situation. His eyes, dark and mysterious downstairs, reacted to the smile by taking on their own warmth, reflecting light as though caramel had blended with the chocolate. If they truly were the window to his soul, then his soul appeared happy to see her.

  “I’m sorry for staring at you downstairs,” he said, “but your beauty is distracting.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured, her cheeks warming at the flattery.

  She looked at the table and saw a carafe of red wine and two empty glasses. “How did you know I would come?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, pulling out a chair for her. “I was just hoping that you would.”

  She started to sit, saying, “I’m Juli—”

  “Shhhhh,” he said kindly, pressing a finger to her lips. “No names.”

  Her ease was knocked aside, jolted by his intimate touch. And his words implied that he wanted to remain strangers. What was she to say? Fumbling for a response, she thought of her best friend, Virginia Fleming, who had far more experience and knowledge about men than she did. She made a quick recall of past conversations with Virginia and drew from her wisdom.

  “That makes me suspect that you’re married,” she said, hearing the accusation in her voice. She couldn’t help the images that flashed through her mind—a faceless wife staring out of a houseless window and wondering where he was.

  He sat across from her and raised his left hand. “Never been close to that.”

  She knew that neither the missing ring nor his words guaranteed his status. His voice and steady eye contact convinced her, and she relaxed a bit. She tried to lighten her tone. “Then what? You’re an international spy? Your work is so dangerous that you have to remain anonymous?”

  He leaned back in his chair and laughed.

  Julianna beamed, hoping he really did find her funny. Virginia always insisted that men loved women who made them laugh, so she would take his reaction as a good sign, especially when he laughed again and said, “I like that story, I really do.” Interest sparked his eye and he suddenly sat forward, scooted his chair closer to her, and rested one elbow on the table, looking like a man about to engage in lively conversation. “You must be a writer.”

  “Only of pathetically boring essays on people like Chaucer, Milton, and Melville,” she said, then went on to explain. “I was an English major in college. I just finished a few weeks ago.”

  “Well, congratulations. And now we have a reason to toast,” he said as he poured their wine, his movements smooth and without pause, as though they had been sharing the red warmth together for years. “But Melville wasn’t boring. All that stuff about chasing whales and fighting the sea? The man wrote what he lived.”

  “I know, but after you’ve written a hundred papers on a hundred writers—” Her voice trailed as she noticed that he was leaning in very close, as if not to miss a single word she said. She struggled to speak with his lips so close to hers. She wanted to feel them against hers in a long kiss. Blushing, she glanced away and spoke to the back of a woman standing near their table. “Well, I guess they all start to seem mundane.”

  “But at least you were writing something,” he said as he took her hand and drew her attention back to the two of them. He placed her palm against her wineglass, then one by one, closed her fingers around it. “Writing is a privilege.”

  “I’d never looked at it like that,” she said, swallowing hard and praying he didn’t hear what sounded to her like a loud gulp. As she watched him guide her fingers, she wondered if he might notice how her pulse was racing through her wrist.

  How was it that he touched her with such confidence and ease, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do? He did it while speaking of ordinary things, turning them into intimate conversations that made her long for more of him. She tossed back her hair in an attempt to corral her thoughts and return them to the actual discussion they were having. “You—you seem in
terested in the craft. Are you a writer?”

  Quiet settled for a minute, followed by his firm, “No.” The spell of another moment broken, he released her hand and sat upright. “I’m an international spy.”

  “Of course you are,” she said. “That’s why you can’t reveal your name.”

  “Well, truth be told, names have a way of haunting sweet memories,” he said. “Names make it hard for me to move on after the night ends.”

  Julianna sipped her wine. Now she understood—it was just as she’d feared. He was seeking an intimate stranger, and when the sun rose, they would part ways forever. No regrets, no expectations. Well, he certainly didn’t keep a girl guessing about his intentions. Had her actions implied that she sought anything more? Pensive, she played with her wineglass, tilting it back and forth and watching the liquid roll about. She had come to the rooftop unaccompanied, and after only seeing him from across a room.

  She frowned, annoyed at her own naiveté, knowing she could never meet his expectations, and thinking she should have fought the sudden urge to get on the elevator.

  When she looked up from her wineglass, he was studying her carefully. His expression seemed intuitive, as though he had read her concerns. “I didn’t mean to imply anything improper,” he said. “You have to know up front, though, that I can’t form attachments right now.” He took a drink of wine and smiled. “But a night of good conversation is always appreciated.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re only looking for conversation?”

  “No, good conversation.” The smile hadn’t left his face, and she liked that, liked the way he smiled as he talked. “One night stands are for the miserable. And besides, you’re not the type.”

  Relaxed again, she returned his smile. “You think you know what type I am?”

  “Hmmm,” he answered, staring into her eyes. “You want to know who I think you are?”

  “I’d be most interested,” she said, her heart beating wildly at his intensity.

  “You’re a thoroughbred—I can see that by the way you carry yourself, the clothes you’re wearing.” His eyes swept over her dress and down to her matching shoes and the handbag sitting by her feet. “You’re not feeling too many pains from the Depression—that dress is beautiful, cost a lot, and looks new.”