Rough Harbor (5 page)

Tommy Anderson stepped into Sam’s office. Two glasses and a bottle of single malt sat on the desk.

“What are we celebrating?” Tommy asked, taking a seat.

“Well,” Sam said, taking off his reading glasses and pouring out a finger of whisky into each glass. “Today was just the beginning.”

Tommy took his glass, raised it in cheers and took a swallow. It was good stuff, and it slid smoothly down his throat.

“I managed to convince Noah Randall that things would be best if he left them in my – that is, our – capable hands.”

Sam took a sniff and a swallow of his own drink.

“Kept asking about Caitlyn. Wanted to know if she’d be any good running the place.”

Tommy chuckled. “Well, that would be something.”

He settled back into his leather chair, letting his eyes take it all in. Sam had gone with the traditional masculine look – all dark wood, a faded Oriental rug in red and gold tones, rows of leather-bound volumes behind him. The desk was neat, one stack of papers, a computer and a phone. Pictures of yachts racing decorated the walls and half-hull models of bygone vessels took up prime shelf space.

The man loved his sailing. Even the pictures of his family, in tasteful silver frames, showed them on boats. Here in the Caribbean, that one in New England with yellow foul weather gear. Sam Harris, Tommy knew, came from some money. Prep schools, sailing teams. He was a born snob, the feelings of privilege so inbred he didn’t even consider there could be some other way of life.

It was a way of life foreign to Tommy. He’d grown up with a single mom and a missing dad, in a one-room apartment in the bad part of Hartford. Only some skill in baseball, good grades and a hustling mindset had kept him moving forward.

“That’s what I said. I happen to know that those two have some sort of history together. Heard they were thick as thieves for awhile, back when they were kids. So I went easy on her. Told him to watch out for her.”

“And why’s that?” Tommy leaned forward.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure that old Maxwell made a few promises he didn’t intend to keep when he lured here.”

“Lured her?” Tommy said. “I thought she ran into trouble in London – that she got fired and no one would give her a job?”

Sam shrugged. “Maxwell said it wasn’t quite so cut and dried. Said it was never a performance issue, more of a personal one. Her grandfather and Maxwell used to run this place together. It was her great-grandfather that started it. Then her grandfather, Lucas, took it over and brought Maxwell on, made him a partner. Then when Lucas offed himself, Maxwell took over, complete control. It was about then I entered the picture.”

Tommy swirled his drink in his glass, watching the dusky liquid catch bits of light from the green-shaded banker’s lamp. It was interesting stuff, stuff he probably should have known sooner. But that wasn’t what they were here to talk about.

Tommy brushed back his blond hair and tossed back the last of his drink.

“May I?” he asked, reaching for the bottle. Sam hesitated just for an instant before nodding. Tommy smiled. Didn’t like to share the good stuff, did he? Tommy thought as he poured himself a generous measure.

“You didn’t bring me here to talk about old history, did you?”

Sam looked at him, shook his head and said, “I really like what you’ve done with the Platinum Fund. We have clients clamoring to get in. I see a bright future for you here at the new Randall Group.”

Noah stood on the beach, wrapped in a warm jacket lifted from his father’s closet. His clothes were all Californian now, not suited for October on the East coast, so he had found this one that was old and shabby, but only a little too small. He had come down here to clear his head. The police had made their final, formal call. The medical examiner had ruled his father’s death an accident, one caused by an excess of alcohol, a penchant for drinking outside and a set of rickety old stairs that ended on a rocky bit of beach. Noah could sense that they were already losing interest, moving on to the next case.

He rubbed his hands through his hair. His head was still reeling. The news that lawyer had delivered hadn’t been a complete surprise. His father had been clear that he wanted to pass the firm on to his son. His father had believed in passing things down from one generation to the next. The foundation of great wealth, he’d often said. He wouldn’t have cared whether or not the next generation wanted it – or whether it had really been his to give.

Noah had always been bothered by that. The simple, almost effortless way Maxwell had taken control of the company after Lucas Montgomery’s death, squeezing out Caitlyn and her mother. They’d been left with nothing of the company her family had built over the generations. Even the name had been changed.

Noah now had something he did not want, did not need and, most importantly, did not know what to do with. He would have no clue how to run an investment advising firm. He was focused on his next project, and that was going to require all of his time and energy.

He looked out over the water as if the answers to all his problems could be found there. His father’s house sat on a short promontory of land that stuck out in the wide expanse of Queensbay Harbor. To the west was the actual village of Queensbay, to the east, more land that rounded off into bluffs and a beach that overlooked the Sound. Hills ringed the whole harbor, dotted with the homes of those who had enough cash to pay for a water view. The easiest way to get down to the beach were by the private staircases that wound up and down the face of the bluffs.

Noah had decided to avoid his father’s precarious stairs. It was too hard for him to look at them without imagining his father falling, not sober enough to realize just what was happening. So, he had taken the long way around, cutting across the small row of trees that divided his father’s property from the neighbors’ and then borrowed their stairs, which were sturdy and in good condition.

The breeze was running fresh air through him, cleansing him, serving to scour him of the pain he felt. He’d known coming home wouldn’t be easy, having successfully avoided it for years. There were too many memories for that, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite this hard. Seeing Caitlyn would have been treacherous under any circumstances, but the past couple of days had stirred up too many old memories, too many old feelings.

Why was it she could do that to him, make him feel like he had when he’d been twenty and under her powerful spell? Her eyes had been distant and a little sad, and he knew that, of everyone there, she best understood his pain, his complex feelings, torn by guilt between duty and freedom.

She had told him, that last night long ago, that there was a price to pay for his freedom. But it was too late. He had already told his father of his plans. She was silent, the mood, their intimacy, fading away. He thought that she wasn’t happy for him, didn’t believe in him, but now, with the luxury of time, he knew she had felt for him, knowing the pain that he would go through.

Not a word between them for almost ten years. Why was she back? Had it been her idea or Maxwell’s? Why, he wondered, was Caitlyn Montgomery, with her Ivy League education and jet-setting ways back here in Queensbay? What was she searching for?

<<>>

Caitlyn made her way down the stairs that led from the edge of her lawn to the beach below. She moved slowly, happy to breathe in the clean, bracing air. Her disappointment at finding out Maxwell’s plans had been short-lived. Anger had replaced it, a justifiable anger. And the beginnings of a plan. The Randall Group belonged to her. Her grandfather had meant for her to have it, she knew that. From generation to generation was how he had said it.

Not just about the company. About the house, too – the house high on the bluff, built by a Montgomery sea captain ancestor. Everything in it, from the furniture to the rugs, even the knickknacks, had been collected slowly over time, and each and every thing meant something. The Montgomery-Randall Group had been Lucas’s whole life, especially after her grandmother died. Then after his death, it belonged to Maxwell. Lock, stock and barrel. It hadn’t quite added up to Caitlyn, but the lawyers had said that was just the way it was.

A gull moved in the sky with a soft flap of wings and then dove for something into a cresting wave. It had felt good to move back, she thought, as she hit the rocky sand and set out towards the east. The beach, the house, the harbor, it all spoke to her. She liked the town, the glances of recognition, some curious, some happy, to see her again. She liked waking up to the sound of the waves, driving the winding shore road to work, and doing her job.

The routine, the success she had found at the Randall Group were healing her, pushing her past what had happened in London, burying the painful memories of Michael St. John farther and farther away, until she couldn’t remember quite what he looked like or the sound of his voice.

It was habit that drew her down to the beach, to walk along the shore, heading towards the comfort of Sailor’s Rock. When she’d been young, she had gone there almost every day in the summer, first thing in the morning, as a way of welcoming the day, perhaps with a quick swim in the warm, salty water, or a moment’s rest on the smooth, flat surface of the boulder.

In the fall, she would watch the racing clouds flit by on a blue sky, tracking the trees along the bluffs cupping the harbor, watching the leaves as they turned from green to yellow to orange. In the winter, she still came, waiting until the afternoon to catch the warmest part of the day. When it snowed, which was rare, she would go to the rock and listen to the snowflakes as they hit the water, gentle soft whispers melting into each other, water to water.

On this day, there was no possibility of snow, just the same, steady fall sunshine that did little to warm anything, but fought off the notion that winter was really coming. Her shoes crunched along the shore, her feet sliding now and then on the loose rocks. She turned around the point and stopped. Someone was there already. Knees drawn up, sitting, staring out over the water at the empty harbor and the quiet houses nestled amongst the almost-bare trees. She knew who it was without seeing anything more than his back and sun-lightened hair.

Hesitating, she started to turn back when he looked over to her. She stopped, frozen, caught. They would have to meet sometime. He stood up, taller than life, a shadow thrown out over the rustling sea grass. Raising his hand in a wave, he pulled her to him.

She stopped at the base of the rock and looked up. The sun was behind him, making it difficult to see.

“Hi,” he said first.

“Hello,” she answered after a moment. She was miffed. It was her rock, really, her place, and here he was, invading it.

“Did you come here to think?” he asked.

She shrugged. There didn’t seem to be much to say, but she wasn’t going to let him run her off her rock. There was a whole beach, and several other rocks. He didn’t need to be here, thinking on this one.

“Want to come up? There’s room enough for both of us.” He held out a hand, a peace offering, and it was a moment before she agreed. He pulled her up, steadying her next to him, and she sat down with her knees drawn up, cocooning herself from the wind.

She stared straight ahead, her profile sculpted in the light, but she felt him looking at her.

“Seen enough?” she asked casually, well aware of his survey.

“You haven’t changed much, but your face has thinned out. You’re not as tan,” he said, his voice deeper than she remembered it.

“It’s the English weather. No one has a tan.”

He smiled. “I didn’t say you were pale. You look good.”

It was her turn to glance at him. He was a golden brown, his sandy hair tipped at the end with blond. His eyes were dark, so brown they were almost black. She could see the stubble on his face, knowing he’d neglected to shave.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. No matter what, Noah had lost his father.

“About as well as I deserve, I suppose. It’s been a rough couple of days.” There was a moment of silence that stretched out in front of them.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked, surprised.

“For not making a scene. For taking the news gracefully, I guess.”

“Gracefully.” Caitlyn gave a laugh. “I suppose you’ve forgotten you caught me going through your father’s desk.”

“No, I haven’t.” A trace of a smile ghosted his mouth. “But I think I know what you were looking for.”

“You do?” Caitlyn kept her voice neutral. She wouldn’t be tricked into revealing too much until she knew where she stood.

“I’m sure what happened. Did Maxwell ask you to come here? Or did you ask him? Either way, I bet you couldn’t help but have some… expectations, I guess, about the firm.”

Caitlyn stayed still, smiling only a bit, waiting.

Noah laughed. “You still do it.”

“Do what?”

“Play it cool, make the other person do all of the talking, all of the revealing. You turn those big blue eyes of yours on a guy, and I bet he just melts.”

“Something like that,” Caitlyn said, still waiting.

“I’m betting that’s how you got my father to take you back.”

“We only talked on the phone.” Caitlyn lifted her head to catch a bit of the sun’s warmth on her face. “I needed a job.”

“Really? You. Miss Hot-Shot Money Honey? Why?”

“Personal reasons,” Caitlyn answered, looking at him.

Noah nodded.

“But still, I am sure you could have found a job many places, like New York City. Why come up to sleepy little Queensbay?”

“I could have gone anywhere,” she admitted. But she had needed to come here, to come home – not that she would tell him that. So she told the same story she’d told all the others who’d asked the same question. “But Queensbay isn’t so sleepy, and it’s just a quick train ride from the city. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s a very nice place to live. Lots of rich people like it here. Just what a financial firm needs,” Caitlyn answered.

She looked down. Noah had pushed the sleeves of his coat up in the warming sun, and she could see his hands and the ropey muscles in his forearms.

Noah shifted his seat and moved a fraction closer to her. She could feel his warmth and resisted the urge to move closer, to snuggle and shelter from the chill breeze. If she was always a bit cold, Noah ran hot, warmth and passion emanating from him. Caitlyn’s nature was cooler, harnessed, more focused.

“Were you surprised?” he asked.

“By what?”

“That he didn’t name you in his will, that he didn’t leave you the company.”

She shrugged. Looking back on her conversations with Maxwell, she realized now that they had all been vague. On the one hand, he’d always said there would be a job here for her, if she needed it. But then, when she’d come to claim it, he hadn’t seemed all that happy. Surprising, too, since she’d been in demand. Lots of others firms had been vying for her, but she had wanted to come back here.

“I’m not sure what Maxwell wanted, or what he really intended to do. Except die. I know he wasn’t expecting that.”

“So you think he just ran out of time?” Noah probed.

“We’ll never know, will we?”

He had turned to face her, and when she kept her face straight, staring off into the harbor, his arm reached out and his hand came up, cupping her face, pulling her to him, so she was only inches away.

“You must hate that it’s happened again. First when Lucas died, now my father. Come on, admit it. You think the Randall Group should belong to you.”

Caitlyn fought to keep the anger out of her voice and remain calm as she told him, “Those hopes went out the window when he settled his estate. Maxwell didn’t waste any time in assuming total control. I was too young, too upset over what happened to fight it.”

Noah looked at her, his eyes dark. “But now you’re older.”

“You can’t fight a will,” Caitlyn said simply, feeling some of the tension ease out of her. That was it. She couldn’t fight a will; she couldn’t fight history. She could only move on, decide what to do. It was her life. Not her grandfather’s, not Maxwell’s and certainly not Noah Randall’s.

Her skin was warm where his hand held it, and they were looking at each other, intense looks. Caitlyn couldn’t help the feelings that were coursing through her. Why – why, after ten years – could he still make her feel like that? Hot flames of desire were shooting through her. Noah Randall was wrong, wrong, wrong for her on so many levels.

“So, are you going to leave, find another job?” Noah asked. His voice was barely above a whisper, his eyes dark.

“I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere else, but Noah didn’t need to know it. Coming home had seemed like her safest option. She just never expected to have to see Noah Randall again. He was supposed to be in California, three thousand miles away.

“What, is this some sort of vendetta?” Heat filled his voice, and he dropped his hand. “What, are you determined to get back your family’s company at any cost?”

“No…” she said, but her voice faltered. Her reasons for coming had been complicated, and while she’d hated to be at the mercy of Maxwell Randall, it was even more humiliating to be at the mercy of his son.

Caitlyn started to scramble up, ready to drop down onto the sand below, but Noah grabbed her arm. He pulled her down again so she was kneeling, almost on top of him. He was breathing heavily, looking at her, looking for something.

“You’re hurting me,” she told him. And he was, the grip on her arm vise-like. Instantly he dropped his hand, and she was free, but he didn’t move. He just kept looking at her, searching her face, trying to find something.