Spirit Of Atlantis

Putting down her fork, she wiped her lips with her napkin, trying desperately to retain her self-composure. What was Dan Prescott doing here? she wondered anxiously. People like the Prescotts did not visit hotels like the Kawana Point. They stayed at their own summer residences, and when they needed entertainment they went into Orillia or Barrie, or to any one of a dozen private clubs situated along the lake shore road.

Her taste for the shrimps dwindling, she picked up her glass and swallowed a mouthful of Coke. It was coolly refreshing, and as she put down her glass again she felt a growing impatience with herself. What was she? Some kind of cipher or something? Just because a man she had never expected to see again had turned up at the hotel it did not mean he had come in search of her. That was the most appalling conceit, and totally unlike her. Was it unreasonable that having discovered the whereabouts of the hotel he should come and take a look at it, but how had he got here this time? She had not heard any motorcycle, a sound which would carry on the evening air, and although he was not wearing evening clothes he had been wearing an expensive-looking jacket, hardly the attire for two wheels.

Appalled anew that she should remember so distinctly what he had been wearing after such a fleeting appraisal, Julie determinedly picked up her fork again. Then she remembered the yacht, the yacht which had aroused such excitement from the normally-laconic Brad. Was that how they had made the trip across to the hotel?

The appearance of Pam in her working gear of cotton shirt and denims, her plump face flushed and excited, did nothing to improve her digestion. Her friend came bustling towards her, and it was obvious from her manner that she knew exactly who was in the bar.

‘Did you see him?’ she hissed, bending over Julie’s table, and the younger girl deliberately bit the tail from a shrimp before replying.

‘See who?’ she asked then, playing for time, but Pam was not deceived.

‘You must have seen them cross the hall,’ she whispered impatiently, casting an apologetic glance at her other residents. ‘They’re in the bar. What are you going to do?’

Julie looked bland. ‘What am I going to do?’ she echoed.

‘Yes.’ Pam sighed. ‘Well, I mean it’s obvious, isn’t it? He didn’t come here just to taste the beer. His cousin’s with him—at least, I think it’s his cousin. He calls him Drew, and I know Anthea Leyton has a son called Andrew—’

‘Pam, their being here has nothing to do with me,’ declared Julie firmly. ‘If they choose to come—to come slumming, that’s their affair. I have no intention of speaking to Dan Prescott, so don’t go getting any ideas.’

‘But, Julie, you can’t just ignore him!’

‘Why not?’ Julie hid her trembling hands beneath the napkin in her lap. ‘Honestly, Pam, I don’t even like the man!’

‘You said yourself, you hardly know him.’

‘All the more reason for keeping out of his way.’

‘Well, I think you’re crazy!’

‘Oh, do you?’ Julie stared up at her, half irritated by her insistence.

‘Yes.’ Pam dismissed the younger girl’s objections with an inconsequent wave of her hand. ‘Julie, you may never get another chance to meet him socially—’

‘I don’t want that chance, Pam.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m not interested.’

Pam gazed at her disbelievingly. ‘You mean you’re afraid.’

‘Afraid?’ Julie gasped.

‘Yes, afraid.’ Pam straightened, resting her hands on her broad hips. ‘You’ve had your life organised for you for so long, you’ve forgotten what it’s like to take a risk—’

‘So you admit it is a risk?’

Julie tilted her head, and Pam pulled a wry face. ‘All right. So he does have a reputation. What of it? You’re an adult, aren’t you. You can handle it.’

Julie sighed. ‘I don’t want to handle anything, Pam. I just want to sit here and eat my dinner, and afterwards I’m going to watch some television and then go to bed.’

Pam made a defeated gesture. ‘I give up.’

‘Good.’

Julie determinedly returned to her shrimp cocktail and Pam had no alternative but to leave her to it. But she shook her head rather frustratedly as she crossed to the door, and Julie, watching her, doubted she had heard the last of it.

By the time she had eaten half a dozen mouthfuls of her steak, she knew she was fighting a losing battle. The awareness of the man in the bar, of the possibility that he might choose to come into the dining room and order a meal, filled her with unease, and she knew she would not feel secure until she was safely locked behind her cabin door.

Declining a dessert, she left her table, walking swiftly through the open doors into the reception area. It was usually deserted at this hour of the evening, most of the guests either occupying the dining room or the bar, and she expected to make her escape unobserved. What she had not anticipated was Brad Galloway, deep in conversation with the man she most wanted to avoid, or to be involved in that discussion by the boy’s artless invitation.

‘Julie!’ he exclaimed, when he saw her. ‘Do you remember that yacht I told you about? Well, this is Mr Prescott who owns it.’

‘I didn’t say that, Brad.’ Dan Prescott’s voice was just as disturbing as she remembered. ‘I said it belonged to my family. It does. I just have the use of it now and then.’

His grin was apologetic, both to the boy and to Julie, but she refused to respond to it. In fact, she refused to look at Dan Prescott at all after that first dismaying appraisal. Yet, for all that, she knew the exact colour of the bluish-grey corded jacket he was wearing, and the way the dark blue jeans hugged the contours of his thighs. His clothes were casual, but they fitted him well, and she realised something she had not realised before. Men like Dan Prescott did not need to exhibit their wealth. They accepted it. It was a fact. And that extreme self-confidence was all the proof they needed.

‘What do you say, Julie?’

Brad was looking at her a little querulously now, and she forced herself to show the enthusiasm he was expecting. ‘That’s great,’ she murmured, realising her words sounded artificial even to her ears. ‘You must tell me all about it tomorrow.’

‘Why not right now?’

The words could have been Brad’s, but they weren’t, and Julie was obliged to acknowledge Dan Prescott’s presence for the first time. Even so, it was almost a physical shock meeting that penetrating stare. The lapse of time had been too brief for her to forget a second of their last encounter, and it was only too easy to remember how she had had to tear herself away from him, breaking the intimate contact he had initiated. Nevertheless, she had broken the contact, she told herself firmly, and he had no right to do this to her. But as his eyes moved lower, over the firm outline of her breasts and the rounded swell of her hips, she felt a wave of heat flooding over her, and nothing could alter the fact that if she were as indifferent to him as she liked to think, it wouldn’t matter what he did.

With a feeling of mortification she felt his eyes come back to her face, and then the heavy lids drooped. ‘Why not right now?’ he repeated, as aware of her confusion as she was herself, and conscious of Brad’s puzzled stare Julie tried to pull herself together.

‘I—why, I don’t have time just now, Brad,’ she offered, addressing her apology to the boy. ‘Some other time perhaps …’

‘Okay.’

Brad shrugged, obviously disappointed, and she was sorry, but then, to add to her humiliation, Pam appeared. It only took her a couple of seconds to sum up the situation, and acting purely on instinct Julie was sure, she exclaimed:

‘Oh, there you are, Brad. I’ve been looking for you.’ Her smile flashed briefly at Dan Prescott. ‘Come along, I want you to help me hang those lamps in the yard.’

‘Oh, Mom!’

Brad’s voice was eloquent with feeling, and after only a slight hesitation Dan said: ‘Perhaps I could help you, Mrs Galloway.’

Pam was obviously taken aback, but Julie’s hopes of reprieve were quickly squashed. ‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Prescott, thank you,’ her friend assured him warmly. ‘Brad will do it—he always does. He’s such a help around the place.’

‘I’m sure he is.’ Dan’s expression was amused as it rested on the boy’s mutinous face. ‘Sorry, old son, but there’ll be another time.’

‘Will there? Will there really?’

Brad gazed up at him eagerly, and with a fleeting glance in Julie’s direction Dan nodded. ‘You have my word on it,’ he nodded, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets, and Brad’s demeanour was swiftly transformed.

‘Oh—boy!’ he exclaimed, and grinned almost defiantly at Julie before his mother ushered him away.