Free Renegade Player by Dixie Browning

moon rise over the ocean, laying out a silver carpet before it? Or were they over there across the way, lying on the cushioned lounge, having a dessert of wine and cheese?
    Willy was almost asleep when the first strains of music drifted through her open window, and when she recognized the haunting strains of an aria from The Pearlfishers , she pounded her pillow furiously and then pulled it over her head.

Chapter Four
    For the next few days, Willy saw nothing of Kiel and she hated to admit, even to herself, how badly she missed him. That brief period when she had seen him several times a day could almost have occurred in another lifetime, so isolated did it seem now in the oppressive heat of summer doldrums. She found herself snapping at Pete and Frank when they teased her and even Dotty came in for her share of Willy’s ill humor.
    “I want to know what in the world has happened, Willy,” Dotty demanded one day when Willy spilled a folder and proceeded to tell the office at large what she thought of trying to manage without a file clerk. “Somebody’s put your nose out of joint and I’m warning you, honey, unless you come around pretty soon, you’re going to make the post office’s least-wanted list. Even Richy was complaining about your moping upstairs all the time.”
    “Oh, golly, am I as bad as all that?” Willy shoved her hair back from her face and grimaced. “It’s the heat. Dog days, isn’t it?”
    “Nope, not yet. We still have that to look forward to.”
    “Where’d you see Richy, anyway? I haven’t seen either him or Ada since she started working nights at the convenience store.”
    Dotty rolled a sheet of paper in her typewriter and adjusted it. “He’s signed on with Bill for the Blue Marlin Tournament. They’ve gone to Hatteras for the duration and he’s probably going to work as mate until he goes back to school.” Dotty’s boyfriend, Bill Yancey, was skipper of a fishing boat that carried out sports fishing parties in the summertime and did commercial fishing during the winter. He was a nice-enough man but Willy had never heard him say more than two consecutive words.
    “You planning to go down to join them?” Willy asked.
    “Nope. I’m still determined to bone up and take my realtor’s exams whether I ever work at it or not. Just to prove to myself that I can. Then, and only then, will I settle down and raise a houseful of little Bills.” She grinned and Willy was struck by the thought that some people didn’t know how lucky they were.
    And then she shook herself out of her maudlin sentimentalism. Kiel Faulkner was no more husband material than she herself was wife material. She had seen little enough of marriage that appealed to her, and certainly not the examples closest home, where her father seemed determined to pick up where Ponce de León left off, using younger and younger mates as the magic elixir.

    The next morning she was thanking the Lord it was Friday as she descended the stairs, fumbling in her handbag for her keys, when Kiel greeted her with the news that his car wouldn’t start. “How about a lift to work?” he asked.
    Disconcerted, she nodded. “Sure. Hop in. What is it, the battery?”
    “Nothing so mundane, I’m afraid. I’ll check it out later when I have more time, but just now I want to finish up at the office in time to get off early and head down the banks.”
    She shot him a questioning look, concentrating on her driving with more difficulty than usual as she became aware of the subtle scent of his aftershave, the casual spread of his powerful thighs in the seat beside her.
    “Blue Marlin Tournament. I thought I’d take a break and go down to watch the start. I need an offshore breeze to blow the office dust out of my brain.”
    “You’re going in a boat, then?”
    He laughed briefly. “I don’t walk on water. You’re interested in boats?” He had heard the spark of interest in her voice, but it was Kiel she was interested in, not his