what you done,’ the boy said fiercely.
‘Pay it no mind,’ his father said. ‘Women cry for no reason at all.’
‘She had a reason,’ the boy snapped. ‘I’ve told you before. This is a nice one, and you made her cry. Why?’
‘Maybe you’re right, Harry. I didn’t think she’d cry. Let me see if I can stop the tears.’
‘You’d better,’ the boy threatened.
Abby, doing her best to keep the tears rolling, was startled to hear the boy crying as well. The kitchen door slammed as Harry ran out, leaving her alone with Selby. Not exactly what I planned, Abby told herself. She threw in a couple of additional sobs.
There was movement, and a strong arm came around her shoulders. She cracked one eyelid. Selby was kneeling at her side, trying to get a big handkerchief out of his pocket. ‘I don’t understand,’ he murmured. ‘A girl as big as you are, crying?’
I’ll show you big, she thought as she turned up the sobs and slumped over, resting all of her hundred and thirty-five-pound weight against him. It took but a moment for her to realise she had made a terrible mistake. He liked having her lean on him. He especially liked the softness of her full breast, falling haphazardly into the cup of his hand.
‘Don’t.’ She struggled to sit up, but the cold intervention of the world around her ruined her comfort. With a little gasp she fell back into his arms. ‘Don’t,’ she repeated in a soft, pleading whisper.
‘Don’t?’ He pulled her closer, gently massaging her breast, and then said, ‘Oh. You mean this?’ His right hand pulled her up, his left hand continued to gently support her breast.
‘I mean don’t!’ This time indignantly. She wrenched herself away from him. His right hand came loose. His left hand seemed to twitch for a moment, and then he helped her to stand. She was still quivering. She clutched her fists and thrust them down along the seams of her jeans. Her whole body shook, until the muscle tension brought her under control.
‘Don’t you ever touch me like that again,’ she spat.
He held his hand up before him, still flexing the fingers. ‘It was delightful,’ he announced.
‘I didn’t enjoy it,’ she lied. She might have said more, but Harry came back into the room. There was a moment or two of silence then Harry said,
‘I had enough breakfast for the day. Now what am I gonna do?’
His father looked at him seriously, as if he was debating the subject. ‘Well,’ Selby said, ‘I know what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to redo those pages you used to colour on yesterday. Maybe Abby can think of something for you both to do.’
‘Why should I be the one to come up with entertainment ideas? I have work to do too, you know. Very important work!’
Selby looked over at her, and there was a tug at the corner of his mouth, as if he couldn’t resist laughing, but had to. ‘Yes. But we have a small problem,’ he said. ‘Someone has to entertain Harry and I’ve got a living to make. I’m sure you could fit childcare into your schedule.’
‘Oh? What gave you that misguided idea?’ Abby pounced on his last statement. She might not be a rabid feminist but she did hold that talent and drive were neither gender-orientated nor segregated. Women did not have to be the child-tenders. But the look on Harry’s face soon shut her up. He looked as if he had heard this argument about who was going to look after him before and it made him feel like a package no one wanted.
‘I’ll tell you what, nobody has to entertain me. I’ll go fishing by myself. You two can work all you want. Don’t think about me. I’ll go fishing!’ With that Harry ran out of the kitchen with a very set look on his face.
Abby slumped back in her chair and glared at Selby. ‘You brought the kid out to this island. Why did you do that if you weren’t going to spend time with him?’
‘I spent all day yesterday with him,’ Selby flashed at her.
‘Do you honestly think that one day is enough? What did you do for the first three weeks you were here?’
‘We did things together,’ Selby defended himself. ‘It’s different for men; we don’t have to be together all the hours of the day. And, besides, Harry is getting to be a big boy and big boys like to investigate on their own.’
‘If you both have been here three weeks then Harry must know the island very well. There’s not that much of it to investigate.’ Abby was getting more and more angry on Harry’s behalf with this whole conversation.
Stop it, she told herself, this is not helping anything and you know you want to help.
‘I suppose I could start my work tomorrow. I’ll go fishing with Harry,’ Abby said after she had mastered her anger.
‘That’ll be nice,’ Selby said, looking as if he had been giving himself instructions to calm down. ‘Especially considering the fact that Harry doesn’t know anything about fishing. If you two catch something it would enlarge our larder. Harry and I both love fried fish.’
‘I have always hated fried fish,’ Abby said, ‘and I don’t see any reason why—’ And she stopped at that point. Sucker, she told herself. He’s just trying to jolly you into looking after the boy full time. His father was staring at her with a look that said, Of course you will. Abby felt stalled between announcing, ‘The hell you say,’ or going along with the game to see what else might develop. She was fairly sure, however, what was going to develop and that it would involve Harry and herself doing things together. Her own work would suffer. Her editor would want her head on a pike. Oh, well, in for a penny.
‘Yes,’ she finally said, ‘Harry and I will go fishing. What are you going to be doing?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I have a great deal of work to do. I need to rewrite some pages that were lost to the world of adolescent art and they have to be replaced so that I can finish this paper.’
‘I heard you last night,’ Abby chipped in. ‘Is this going to be a long paper? What are you writing? Do you think it will ever be published?’
‘Published? Please—I’m writing something for a legal case I’m working on. Well, it’s a very long argument and I have to keep at it, so I’ll put my grind to the nosestone while you two have all the fun in the world.’
‘Yes, I can bet you will,’ Abby said sarcastically. ‘Put your nose to the grindstone, I mean.’ Another discouraged sigh. ‘I don’t suppose you would consider that I have a great deal of work to do myself?’
He waved her off. ‘Surely not as important as mine, my dear.’ There was a suave tone in his voice. Like a travelling salesman, Abby thought. He’d make a good Hellfire and Damnation preacher. Or perhaps a politician—no, nothing that bad. Like all non-politicians in Washington, Abby could be either a devoted follower, or a member of a ‘hate’ group. Usually she fitted under the latter label.
‘And just what,’ Abby said indignantly, ‘do you suppose will happen to all the work that I brought with me? I have to get it done. There’s a deadline and I need peace and quiet.’
‘Oh, you don’t need that much time,’ Selby said. ‘Anyone of your calibre, any good red-blooded American woman can do this kind of thing easily. Besides, that’s what New Englanders do best, isn’t it, fishing?’
‘Let me remind you,’ Abby said very firmly, ‘that I come from Washington, DC, not New England.’
‘Oh, that slipped my mind,’ Selby said. ‘Slipped my ever-loving mind. My apologies. But you will take the boy fishing.’
‘I will take the boy fishing. I said so once before. We will be back at noontime. You will make the lunch. It will not be peanut butter sandwiches. And you will look around for Cleo’s ball. She’ll go whompers if we can’t find