Free Against the Wind by Anne Stuart Page B

often, along with her favorite paean to draft resisters, the ultimate bribe for an unsure eighteen-year-old boy: Girls say yes to boys who say no.
    She had gotten very drunk at her party. Well, perhaps not very drunk. But the champagne had flowed freely, and no one had appeared to mind that half the guests at the private birthday party held at the exclusive country club were under eighteen.
    Eric Thompson had been fairly dazzled by the new Maddy, with the thick straight hair hanging down to her waist, the new figure, the slight edge of desperate gaiety that clung to her. Her mother’s words still ran through her head, the cold, cruel pleasure she took in recountingthe court-martial that Jake Murphy had endured along with his entire unit. The court-martial that he had instigated, in the teeth of the army’s attempt to cover it up, where he testified against his friends and comrades. All the champagne in the world hadn’t been able to drive it from her head. Dancing barefoot, her slender body pressed up against Eric’s sturdy one had only just begun to dim the edges of the awful revelations her mother had made, and the dark corner of the poolside cabana with Eric’s clumsy hands on the front of her dress and his wet, hungry mouth on hers almost made it all go away. But not completely. Particularly not when it was Jake who found them there.
    “Party’s over,” he’d said, looking down at her with unreadable hazel eyes as she sat curled up on the chaise longue, her skirt up high around her long tanned legs, her head on Eric’s shoulder.
    Eric had turned bright red when Jake’s tall figure had appeared from out of the shadows, and he had yanked his hand away from Maddy’s breast with unflattering haste. She was sitting in his lap, making no move to get up, and he could hardly dump her on the cement walkway, so he tried a little sophisticated, man-to-man banter.
    “Give us just another half hour, would you, old man?” he requested, not noticing Maddy’s stillness as she sat in his lap. “You understand these things.”
    Jake had only looked at him, his face forbidding in the moonlight. “I understand only too well. Come along, Maddy.”
    And she had gone, docilely enough then as now, without even a backward glance at Eric Thompson’s crushed expression.
    Jake had driven her new car over to the country club, and the sight of his long limbs folding into the driver’sseat of the shiny white VW bug had struck Maddy with inappropriate amusement. He stared up at her with great patience, waiting for her to get in the car.
    When she finally did so he made no move to start it, just sat there watching her. “Where are your shoes?”
    She giggled. It had been awhile since her last glass of Moet, but the giddy delight still lingered. “I have no idea.”
    “And your comb?”
    She reached up a vague hand to push the mane of dark-brown hair away from her face. “I don’t know. It’s probably in the bottom of the punch bowl.”
    “Is that what you were drinking?” He started the car, pulling out of the crowded parking lot with practiced ease.
    Maddy shook her head, the gesture making her feel slightly dizzy, and she slid lower in her seat. “Champagne,” she said succinctly.
    “I think we’d better go home by way of some coffee,” Jake had said after a moment. “Your father doesn’t need to deal with you in your current state on top of everything else.”
    “What’s everything else?” she asked idly. Before he could answer she began humming, a little off-key, and the conversation lapsed into silence.
    “Was that Eric Thompson?” he said after a long moment.
    “Who?” She interrupted her humming for a moment to peer at him owlishly.
    “The young man you were kissing so enthusiastically?” Jake’s voice was wry.
    “I don’t know if I was enthusiastic. But yes, it was Eric. He might have to go to Canada,” she confided.
    “The war’s over, Maddy.”
    “Well, you never know what might happen.