Summer Secrets by Barbara Freethy Page B

broke around the table, and more and more people gathered around the group of sailors talking about their experience in the southern seas. Tyler looked to his right where Sean Amberson was perched on a bar stool, nursing his way through yet another beer. He was listening to the stories with an odd look in his eyes, as if a part of him wanted to listen and a part of him didn’t.
    “Sounds like a hell of a trip,” Tyler said.
    Sean nodded, his face somewhat grim. “My brother, Jeremy, used to talk about the Furious Fifties.”
    “The what?”
    “Furious Fifties -- the high-latitude zones known for winds gusting to seventy knots. Jeremy said that when you sail through them, you feel like you’re flying.”
    “Are you a racer, too?”
    “I’m thinking about it,” Sean replied, draining his glass. He set it down on the bar and motioned for the bartender to give him a refill.
    Tyler checked his watch. He doubted Kate would wait for him. On the other hand, she was probably late herself; no way would she want to prove him right about her punctuality. But he hated to leave Sean without getting whatever information he could. Maybe it was time to go for the jugular.
    “I understand your brother, Jeremy, was one of the sailors lost in the Winston race,” Tyler said.
    “That’s right,” Sean said curtly, now eyeing Tyler somewhat suspiciously. “Who are you, anyway?”
    “I’m a reporter. I’m writing a story on sailboat racers. I’m particularly interested in ocean racing and the McKenna family. In fact, I’d like to do a follow-up piece on the sisters and their father.”
    “Good luck,” Sean said, a cynical note in his voice.
    “Do I need it?”
    “With Duncan, no. With the sisters, yes. They don’t talk about the race.”
    “Why is that?”
    Sean shrugged. “Who knows why they do anything?”
    “You’re a friend of theirs, aren’t you? I saw a photograph of you and Ashley taken after the race.”
    “I used to be.” Sean’s eyes darkened with something -- regret, anger -- Tyler couldn’t quite tell. “Ashley and I hung out together when we were kids. But when she came back from sailing around the world, it was over. She was a different girl.”
    “How so?”
    “She wouldn’t go near the water or boats, for one thing.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t know. Not much of what she did made sense to me. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all in the past”
    Sean didn’t sound like a man who was done with the past Nor did he sound like he was done with Ashley. Which was all well and good, but it didn’t help Tyler’s search.
    Although, he mused, Ashley had been in love with Sean when she left, but changed when she came back. Maybe she was the one who’d gotten pregnant. Maybe by another guy. Feeling alone, afraid, she’d given up the baby. And when she returned home, she couldn’t look Sean in the eye, couldn’t go back to him without admitting everything that had happened to her. Ashley would have been eighteen when the race ended. As a young girl who’d given up a baby, she could have been traumatized.
    It made sense, but he was only speculating. He still had no hard facts and too many questions. For instance, why hide the pregnancy? Not only why, but how? Hadn’t anyone seen a pregnant girl on the Moon Dancer? Hadn’t anyone taken a photograph? Sure, they were at sea, but there were ports of call throughout the race. That part baffled him.
    “Do you think there was someone else?” Tyler asked Sean, returning to the subject at hand.
    “What do you mean?” Sean seemed confused by the question.
    “Another guy. Someone Ashley met while she was sailing around the world.”
    “No,” Sean said forcefully. “Absolutely not. They were on a boat, the three of them and their dad. There wasn’t anyone else around,”
    “But they stopped along the way, and she was gone a long time.”
    Sean shook his head. “Something else happened. Something to do with Kate and Jeremy, I think.”
    “Your