To love and to honor by Emilie Baker Loring Read Free Book Online Page B

Ann Parker was the original watchdog. She slept with one eye and both ears open.
    Perfect night, so enchanting it made one homesick— for what? she asked herself as she snuggled among soft green cushions and stretched at length on the chaise longue. "What a day," she said aloud. "I haven't stopped a minute. I'm dead to the world. Part of it is because shame at my treatment of Bill Damon after he saved my life has been gnawing at my conscience."
    Fragrantly warm air rustled the balsams. A three-quarters moon, already taking on a tinge of autumn ruddiness and attended by a brilliant lady-in-waiting

    Star, grinned down at her with a what-you-going-to-do-about-it smirk.
    "Ohl"
    The descent of a warm body on her knees jolted the exdamation through her Hps. The black Persian cat circled several times before settling down in a purring lump on Cindy's aqua linen lap.
    "Make yourself at home, Darius," she whispered as she scratched the top of the satin-smooth head. "At what point in my tabulation of the events of this epoch-making day had I arrived when you switched the dial?"
    The cat tucked nose under velvet paws, blinked topaz eyes at the face above and closed them. His rhythmic purr accompanied the monotonous chirp of crickets in the flower border, the scratchy call of a katydid and the insistent far-off shrill of a tree toad. Shine and blink, shine and blink, myriad fireflies flitted about the patio and snapped their lights on and off.
    Head against the downy cushions, eyes closed, Cindy heard again that shouted "Come backl"; lived over the moments under water till the crazy motorboat had passed high above their heads; the following session on the beach. Who was the man? Why wonder? Hadn't Lydia Fane declared that Bill Damon was registered at the Inn?
    Just a minute, gal. Did he ever tell you he was the man of whom Ken Stewart had written to Armstrong? The question brought her sitting up straight. He said that I refused to speak with Bill Damon when he phoned, that answers that doubt, doesn't it? Maddening that my lawyer is away. Another week to wait. Will he try to see me meanwhile, or was he too annoyed by my doubt of him to care if he ever saw me again?
    "Cindy, you here?"
    The hoarse whisper brought her to her feet and the sleeping cat with a thump to the flagged floor of the patio.
    "Good heavens, Sary Parker. You might as well kill me as scare me to death. What's happened?"
    "Sssh-h-1"
    The warning hiss came from the figure enveloped in a

    dark bathrobe. Sarah Ann Parker laid a work-worn restraining hand on the girl's bare arm.
    "Speak low, Cindy. We may not be the only folks watching."
    "Watching what?" Chills feathered along Cindy's veins. She was indignantly aware that the huskiness of her voice was going the housekeeper's one better.
    "Want to know somethin'? That big yacht I told you about is in again. I was lookin' out my bedroom window—couldn't get to sleep till you came in—an' I saw two lights flash. Suppose that Mrs. Sally Drew's goin' on the water this time of night? Don't seem respectable."
    "Sally." The name reverberated with startling clarity along the corridors of memory. "You know Sally," the bracelet man had said. Later he had claimed that the name had been an improvisation. Had it been or was there such a person in his life? Perhaps he knew this Sally Drew who made mysterious excursions at midnight, perhaps—he was really here to see her.
    "My sakes, Cindy, why'd you gasp as if someone had knocked the breath out of you?"
    "Why not? You've got me all excited about your mystery hunch, though common sense tells me that dozens of boats come into this harbor and at midnight, too. Why shouldn't Mrs. Drew go for a sail?" She glanced at the illuminated dial of her wrist watch. "It is half after the witching hour of midnight. A yacht and a beau to twang a guitar is the perfect answer to this moonlight. Wish someone would invite me."
    "You're pokin' fun at me, Cinderella. I feel it in my bones 'tain't as