Palindrome by Stuart Woods Page B

my grandsons will come back and live in it one day. I'll be gone by then." For a moment the old man looked stricken; then he looked up and paid attention to his driving. For the remainder of their drive they talked about the island and its history and how Angus Drummond had shaped it. It seemed to Liz that, in a couple of hours, they had covered more ground than most new acquaintances did in weeks. They warmed to each other.
    When the jeep pulled up at Stafford Beach Cottage, Liz climbed out and retrieved her tripod. "That was a wonderful tour," she said. "I hope I'll get to see Dungeness one of these days, too.
    "I'd be honored to show it to you," he said. "You're a young woman of some substance, Miz Barwick." He grinned. "If I were fifty years younger, I'd do something about it."
    "Thank you for that," she said. "Call me Liz."
    "I'll call you Elizabeth," he said. Then he put the jeep in gear and drove away.
    Liz watched him go, then trudged into the house with her gear. It occurred to her that Angus Drummond, at ninety-one, was the most attractive man she had met in years. She wondered if that was a comment on him or on her.
    Germaine Drummond was at her desk off the kitchen at Greyfield Inn when she heard her grandfather's jeep. She got up, opened the screen door, and stuck her head out. "Hey, Grandpapa!" she called. "You want a cup of tea?"
    Angus sat in the idling jeep and looked at her for a moment. "Germaine," he said, "you call my lawyer and tell him to come over here and see me. Next week will be soon enough." Then he drove on. Germaine stepped out into the drive and ate a little of his dust. He was finally going to make a will. She felt weak with relief.

CHAPTER 8
    Liz stood naked before the mirror and, for the first time since she had struggled into the Piedmont Trauma Center, looked deliberately at her reflection. At first it was something of a shock. Her hair was still short enough to be spiky, and she was still thinner than at any time since prepubescence, but the Cumberland sun had given her color, and the last of her bruises had faded, taking their yellow tinge with them. The person who stared back at her seemed a reasonably healthy woman. Her thoughts returned to the couple she had seen on her first visit to the inn. How long since she had leaned against a man in that way? How long since she had made love? She laughed at herself. A reasonably healthy woman, indeed! She slipped into a favorite cotton nightshirt and padded barefoot, into the kitchen to fix herself dinner. She put a steak under the grill and, while it cooked, opened a bottle of California Merlot and poured herself a glass. She took her meal out onto the deck and ate it greedily while the light died and the blue sea beyond the dunes faded into a slate gray. She had an appetite at last, and the wine was good, too. She poured herself another glass and sat on a chaise, hugging her knees, sipping the wine while half a moon rose from the Atlantic Ocean. She was dug in, now, and that day she had taken a good photograph, the one of the pelicans on the beach. Except for her loneliness, this felt very much like contentment.
    A fresh breeze swept in, bringing with it the promise of autumn, though that season comes late on Cumberland. She shivered a bit, then walked through the darkening cottage to the kitchen, where she washed her dishes. When the kitchen was neat, she returned to the living room and stretched out on the sofa. She sipped the last of her glass of wine and watched the moon swing across the sky, turning the room white and leaving her in shadow. She did not remember falling asleep; she only knew how good it felt. When the noise woke her she knew exactly where she was, in spite of the wine, and she knew where the noise came from: the kitchen. There was the closing of the refrigerator and the scrape of a chair on the linoleum floor. She lay still, trying to keep her breathing steady, wondering what to do. Then she became angry. This was her