Marcus was on the tiny porch. “Katie says you’re not well,” he said.
He seemed to loom over her, a bulky figure with the lowering light behind him. She blinked up at him. “It’s only a headache.”
“Is that true, or an excuse?”
Jenna sighed. “Does it matter? Actually it is true, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“I’ve got aspirin, thanks.”
He hesitated, looking as though he might argue. “You know where we are if you need anyone.”
“Sure, but I won’t.”
He nodded, and she stayed in the doorway until he’d joined Katie in the car and started the engine.
Jenna was sorting through her wardrobe on Saturday afternoon when the doorbell pealed.
The bed was covered in clothes, and she had to pick her way over a litter of shoes, boots, balled pairs of socks and boxes of assorted junk. She brushed dust from her loose shirt, worn over old shorts, and tried to tuck in strands that had escaped the band she’d hurriedly twisted round her hair.
By the time she opened the door, Marcus had his finger on the bell again.
“What are you doing here?” She had assumed that, as he had taken Katie, he too would be staying for the weekend.
“And hello to you,” he returned. As she remained staring at him, he said with a hint of impatience, “Ask me in, Jenna.”
She stepped back so he could come past her and shut the door. Then she led the way to the sitting room.
Turning to face him, she asked, “What do you want?”
Marcus seemed to be looking at her with unusual attention, focusing on her face as if he needed to read something there. “A drink would be nice,” he answered her. “You look all right. How’s the headache?”
“Gone. Coffee, beer, lemonade? The only choices we have, I’m afraid.”
He opted for beer and followed her into the kitchen. She made herself a shandy to keep him company, and they went back to the other room. “Did Katie send you?” she asked.
“No.”
He waited for her to sit on one of the mismatched easy chairs before he took a seat on the sofa.
Jenna found she was tongue-tied, and Marcus was in no hurry to start a conversation, sipping his beer and wiping a line of froth from his upper lip without even looking at her.
When he did, his gaze seemed critical. “Katie thinks you’re losing weight.”
Under the baggy shirt he wouldn’t have been able to tell, but his scrutiny made her self-conscious.
“Not much. I’ve been working hard.”
She’d been keeping herself busy, trying not to leave too much time for thinking—for regrets. And hiding her feelings from Katie, maybe not altogether successfully.
“There are other ways of forgetting,” Marcus said, “besides working yourself into the ground. More pleasant ways.”
“I don’t think hitting the bottle did me much good.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that.”
His eyes held something that to her intense chagrin made her blush. She thought of claiming she didn’t know what he meant, but he’d see through that instantly.
Fortunately he didn’t appear to expect an answer. He got up, and Jenna tensed, but he walked away from her toward the window, looked out as though searching for something to interest him, then turned, his half-full beer glass held in one strong hand.
She noticed that his knuckles were white, but his face seemed emotionless. He gulped some more beer. His throat was taut and lightly tanned, the Adam’s apple not prominent, but she saw it move as he swallowed.
Lowering the glass, he said, “You’ve never thought of any man but Dean, have you?”
“Not seriously.” She had found other men fleetingly attractive, but she’d regarded herself as taken. So none of those attractions had come to anything—because she hadn’t let them.
“You can’t have him,” Marcus said.
It was brutal, and unlike him. She felt herself pale. Her head lifted. “You don’t need to remind me.” It wasn’t as if she’d tried to take Dean away from Callie. She’d actually bent over backward not to hint at her pain and disappointment.
“So is there anyone else on the horizon?”
Jenna’s eyes widened. “There’s hardly been time for that!”
“You do know other young men.”
“Of course I do. Friends.”
“Friends can become lovers.”
“I don’t need a lover!”
Marcus’s mouth moved in a strange smile. The glint in his eyes made her uneasy, sending a weird little hot shiver up her spine. “Are you sure? You could have fooled me,” he said, “the night of the party.”
She recalled that in a moment of temporary insanity she’d thought of asking him to take her home, take her to his bed. Maybe he’d guessed. “I shouldn’t have had so much wine.”
He finished his drink in one movement. “But perhaps you need a friend more, right now.”
“I’m certainly not ready for…for anything else!”
Marcus came closer to put his glass down on the coffee table in front of her, finding a clear space among the magazines and junk mail, beside a saucer crumbed with the remains of potato crisps. Straightening, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark trousers, regarding her narrowly.
“Do you always react like that to a couple of glasses of wine?”
“Throwing myself at the nearest male? No. And I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing it up!”
He lowered himself again to the sofa, smiling at her now, disarming her completely. “I don’t mean to give you a hard time,” he said. “We’ve known each other so long, Jenna, I hate to see you unhappy.”
“As you told me,” she said, trying to believe it, “I’ll get over it.”
“Then let me help.”
“How?” she asked starkly. “What can you do?”
“I can give you a social life apart from my family, for a start.”
“I have other friends.”
“Mostly they’re Katie’s friends too, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” Even people they met separately tended to become mutual friends. They liked the same people.
Marcus nodded. “And Katie will bring Dean and Callie into that circle. You need to break out of it if you’re ever going to live your own life.”
Jenna protested, “I’m not dependent on your family for everything.” She had even dated occasionally, mainly because when Katie was dating someone she worried about Jenna sitting at home on her own.
“It wouldn’t hurt to broaden your horizon.”
“You think I’m narrow and dull.” Indignation stirred.
Marcus laughed. “Not at all. But I think there’s a world out there you haven’t even begun to explore. And I’d like to show it to you.”
Maybe her doubts showed. “Come on, Jenna,” he urged. “What have you got to lose?”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “What’s in it for you?”
He gave her a long, assessing look that held a germ of exasperation. “I’m helping out a friend,” he said. “And I think it could be…rewarding.”
“I never had you pegged as a do-gooder.”
His brows shot up. “I’m not looking for a halo. Something much more…temporal.”
“Like what?”
A different smile lurked in his eyes. “Let’s take it one step at a time, shall we?”
Jenna moved restlessly and gulped down what was left of her shandy. A faint stirring of something curiously like anticipation shivered through her. After all, what did she have to lose? Except time spent moping around wishing for what might have been. Self-pity had never appealed to her. “All right,” she said recklessly. “Let’s.”
He didn’t move, but she had the impression he’d just released a pent-up breath. “Good,” he said. “What would you like to do tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“A film…a show
…dinner? What about a comedy club? You could do with a good laugh.”
“I suppose,” she said, lifting a shoulder. Already she had cold feet. More strongly she said, “Yes. That sounds like fun.”
He stood up. “I’ll pick you up around seven.”
She trailed him to the door, where he turned to face her. He lifted a hand and just touched her cheek with his thumb. “Don’t look so worried,” he admonished. “It will be all right, I promise.”
The silly thing was, Jenna thought as she closed the door after him, she believed him.
She did have a good laugh. Not all of the acts were truly funny, but there were enough humorous one-liners and witty monologues to keep the audience amused most of the time. She had never seen Marcus laugh so often.
Afterward they had a snack and a drink and then he delivered her home, leaving her at the door with a swift peck on her cheek. “I’m picking up Katie from home tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t suppose you want to come?”
“No.” It was a relief to be frank, even blunt. She didn’t want to see Dean with Callie again, to have to pretend it didn’t matter. With Marcus she didn’t need to put up a smokescreen.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
He was, less than a week later. When Katie handed her the phone and said, “Big brother wants to talk to you,” Jenna tried to appear nonchalant.
A friend had loaned him a yacht for the weekend, he said, and he planned to spend a couple of days cruising about the Hauraki Gulf. “I’d like you to come.”
“Just me?” Jenna asked involuntarily.
It was a moment before he answered. “You know what a poor sailor Katie is.”
While still at university he’d bought, for what he said was a “single verse rather than a song,” a small boat of his own, run-down and shabby. He’d spent every weekend he could spare from studying on scraping, repairing and restoring it, with occasional assistance from his younger siblings and Jenna.
Dean and Jenna had learned to help sail the boat and loved it, but Katie spent most of the time hanging over the side until Marcus took pity and returned her to dry land. She never did acquire sea legs, and after several attempts had given up. Marcus sold the boat when he went overseas.
“He’s got a boat for the weekend,” Jenna relayed to Katie when she had hung up. “He needs someone to crew for him.”
Katie shuddered. “No wonder he wanted to talk to you.”
They left on Saturday morning, a perfect day, with a brisk breeze that filled the sails and scattered the few ragged clouds hanging over Rangitoto, the island volcano in the gulf.
The clear air, the wind in her hair, the water hissing under the hull as they skimmed the jade-green surface were wonderful fresheners. Scrambling to adjust the sails, taking a turn at the tiller, obeying Marcus’s crisp, decisive orders, Jenna felt more alive than she had in weeks—maybe years.
When they anchored in a sheltered bay in the lee of a hillocky island, where woolly white sheep fled across close-shorn green paddocks, she was aching and sunburned but almost happy.
They swam in cool, clear water, Marcus in a fast crawl away from the boat and back again, while Jenna floated lazily on the surface and occasionally dived to the sandy bottom. Shell fragments glistened red, orange and pale gold on the sea bed, and tiny shimmering fish darted away from the human intruders and from a hungry gannet plummeting with folded wings into the sea. Afterward Jenna roughly dried her hair, then wrapped the towel about her waist over her swimsuit. Marcus had stripped to a pair of shorts.
“You’re burned,” he said, running a finger across her bared shoulders. The salt water drying on them stung. “Hang on a minute.”
He disappeared below and came back with a pink plastic bottle, unscrewing the cap. “You should use more sunscreen,” he scolded, turning her with a hand on her arm.
“I thought I’d used plenty.” And he’d made sure she wore a hat all day, even clamping it more firmly to her head when the breeze had threatened to blow it away.
“This should help.”
She shuddered as cold moisture hit her hot skin. Then his hand was smoothing it across the bones, down her arm, onto her back where her skimpy top had bared it to the merciless rays.
He anointed the other shoulder, his palm moving hypnotically over her skin. It was both soothing and disturbing. Another shiver passed over her body.
“Turn around,” he said.
She did, and their eyes met before he dropped his gaze. She felt her breasts peak under the flimsy cloth covering them, and held her breath.
“Here,” he said, passing her the bottle. “You can do your front.”
She took the bottle from him, and he stepped away. “Hungry?” he asked.
She was ravenous, Jenna realized, smoothing lotion down to the top of her swimsuit. The pulse in her throat was jumping. She breathed out carefully, steadying her nerves. “I could probably eat one of those sheep,” she told him, “if there’s no horse available.”
Marcus laughed, and the tension eased. “We wouldn’t be popular. I don’t think we’re allowed to light fires on the beach, either, but we could grill some chops and sausages in the galley and eat on deck.”
While he cooked the meat, Jenna made a salad and sliced bread. Marcus found glasses and took out a bottle of wine that he’d chilled in the compact fridge.
Jenna eyed the glass he handed her as they sat on the gently rocking deck, watching a distant sunset wash the sky a pale pink and set the sea shimmering with golden light.
“I promise I won’t get you drunk,” Marcus said. “You should know by now I prefer my women to know what they’re doing.”
“Your women?”
He glanced at her, his eyes crinkling. “Figure of speech.”
“I’m your crew,” she reminded him.
He smiled. “I don’t get my crew drunk, either. Bad for discipline.”
“Are there…have there been many women?” She shouldn’t ask, but the words were out before she thought better of them. “I mean—”
“I know what you meant.” He seemed to consider the question, and she wondered if he was doing the mental arithmetic. “Very few, as a matter of fact,” he said, and looked at her. “Do you want an exact figure?”
“No,” she disclaimed. “I don’t know why I asked, I shouldn’t have—”
“Because you wanted to know.”
He almost seemed to be pleased about it. He picked up his fork and said, pointing to her steak, “Eat that before it gets cold.”
Chapter Six
They lay at anchor overnight, sleeping in narrow bunks only a few feet from each other across the width of the cabin. Marcus sent Jenna down first, descending himself twenty minutes later, by which time she had slid into her sleeping bag.
“Want the light left on?” he asked.
“No. I don’t mind if you do, though.”
He shot her a teasing look, and she added hastily, “I mean, if you want to read or something.”
He switched it off, and she heard him undress in the dark, and the bunk creaking faintly under his weight.
“Good day?” he said quietly.
“Yes,” Jenna answered. “Thank you, Marcus.”
The bunk creaked again as he shifted his weight. “You don’t need to thank me. I’ve had a great day, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Maybe Marcus needed a break too. Once Katie had asked him why he didn’t take more time off, and he’d told her that no one stayed at the top by slacking. Besides, he enjoyed being “hands on” rather than leaving the running of the business to someone else.
After an early breakfast they sailed out of the cove. Jenna wore a T-shirt to ensure that the burn didn’t get worse, and Marcus made sure she used sunblock every hour. He’d insisted on applying more salve on her back while she held a towel around herself before she dressed.
When they anchored for lunch he took out the pink bottle again and said, “Take off
your shirt.”
“I’m not wearing anything under it!” Jenna protested. Her bra straps would have irritated the tender skin.
The only visible craft was a sailboat cruising near the horizon. Marcus glanced at it and cast her a quizzical look. “You hold the front,” he said patiently, “while I get some of this stuff on your back.”
She was being prudish, but he hadn’t seen her topless since she was ten. She probably felt more shy with Marcus than she might have with a total stranger.
Jenna crossed her arms under her breasts while he pushed the shirt up and over her shoulders. The cold splash of the lotion made her flinch, and he said, “Sorry.”
“No,” she said. “It feels wonderful.”
Marcus laughed quietly, smoothing the cool liquid slowly into her skin. He paused to get some more, then his hand cupped one shoulder, shaping it to his moistened palm. “Considering that you have a picture of me in the nuddy,” he said, “I feel I’m being short-changed here.”
“We were kids.” She and Katie had been, anyway.
He didn’t answer, gently massaging her shoulder, his palm gliding over the heated flesh.
Jenna closed her eyes. He applied the stuff to the other shoulder, then ran his hand across her back again. For a moment it rested there, his fingers spread between her shoulder blades. The sun was warm on her bent head, and she heard the slap-slap of the water against the boat, and the soft sound of Marcus’s breath as it stirred the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck.
She felt his lips briefly touch the skin just behind her ear, and it electrified her whole body.
Then he removed his hand, saying briskly, “There you are,” and pulled down the shirt.
By the time Jenna had adjusted the shirt and turned around, he had his back to her while he put the bottle of lotion away.
When he returned her to the flat, it was getting dark. Katie met them at the door and insisted on Marcus coming in for a meal.
After they’d eaten they sat around the table with a bottle of wine, and then coffee, talking. It was quite late before Marcus pushed back his chair and said he’d better be going.
Jenna yawned and began to get up too, wincing when her sore shoulder rubbed against the chair back.
Marrying Marcus Page 6