“Tell me all there is to know about Jordan Hadlock. What was your maiden name, by the way?” Reeves asked as he leaned forward and took her hand where it lay on the Formica table top.
“Simms. Why?” she asked, laughing.
He shrugged and smiled that boyish grin that by now she knew well. “I don’t know. Just curious. I want to know everything about you.”
Self-consciously, she looked down at their clasped hands. She thought of the exciting life he led and the other women he must meet every day and her life seemed to pale to insignificance. “There isn’t much to tell. I think you know all there is to know.”
“Tell me about your family.”
She smiled. “My parents are lovely. Dad is a regional representative for a publishing house. Mother has always been a homemaker.”
“Siblings?”
“One who died at birth a few years after I was born. No others.”
“You told me that you were married for four years.” She nodded. “Why didn’t you have any children?”
“Charles didn’t want any.”
“But you did.”
Was he clairvoyant? She ducked her head in self-consciousness. “Yes, I wanted children. Now I see that it wasn’t meant to be.”
Her wanting a family had been a source of contention between Charles and her. He hadn’t wanted children to “slow him down.” “When my ship comes in and we’re on easy street, there’ll be plenty of time for kids.” But that time had never come and neither had the family that Jordan so longed for. In retrospect, she supposed that it was just as well. She wouldn’t have wanted a child to grow up in the impermanence that existed in her marriage. She raised her eyes and met Reeves’s intent stare.
He was acutely aware of the sadness that had settled in her eyes, so he directed the conversation elsewhere. “Did your parents mind your coming over here?”
She pondered the question as her thumb stroked the light brown hairs that sprinkled the back of his hand. “Yes, they did, I’m sure. But they made no arguments to stop me. I think they understood why I had to leave. For a while anyway. Too, there had never been an excess of money in our house. I wasn’t deprived, by any means, but I think they always felt guilty because they couldn’t afford to send me to Europe when some of my schoolmates went after graduation. I even worked to help put myself through college. They wanted me to have this opportunity.”
She glanced out over the lake with its sparkling blue water. The foothills rose around it, still green and dotted with quaint chalets. As charming as it was, she felt a wave of homesickness for her parents and her homeland. One couldn’t stay away too long without missing it terribly. She roused herself and brought her eyes back to Reeves, who was watching her closely. “What about you? Do you have a family?”
“Dad is deceased. Mother is remarried to a wonderful gentleman, a retired grocer, who treats her like a queen. I have one kid sister who is in law school. God help the judicial system when she is let loose in it,” he chuckled.
And so the hour flew by while they revealed aspects of their lives, past and present. Anyone watching might have thought they were lovers, for they never looked at anyone else. Indeed, they seemed unaware of anyone else.
During a break in their conversation, Reeves said, “Jordan, I just want to know one thing.”
His tone was so serious that she felt a prickle of alarm. “Yes?” she asked hesitantly.
“Do you know when we’re supposed to get off this boat?”
She burst into laughter. He joined her and they laughed just for the sheer joy of doing it together. Her gray eyes were swimming with tears of mirth when she answered, “The next stop is ours. We’d better start gathering up our things.”
They walked down the gangplank arm in arm, still talking privately. Jordan happened to glance up and saw Henri, Helmut’s chauffeur, scanning the crowd. She stepped away from the arm across her shoulders just as Henri spotted them.
“Mrs. Hadlock, I have a message for you from Mr. Eckherdt,” the uniformed man said in halting English when he stood before them. “Mr. Eckherdt asked me to see you home. He has been invited to dinner this evening by a business associate and he wishes you to accompany him. He said to dress semiformally. He’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”
As he spoke, he had been escorting them through the crowd toward the parked car. Now he held the back door open for her and Reeves. Not knowing what to do, she turned toward Reeves with a bewildered, helpless expression on her face. They had planned that he would come to her apartment after his meeting with Helmut since she had no plans for the evening. What was she to do?