CHAPTER FIVE
'what do you mean, we didn't have to get married? " Kate finished tossing the salad, glad that it was Mrs Vincent's day off and that she wasn't around to hear this conversation, not that they'd have been having it if she had been, of course. "Just what I said. You jumped the gun. Marina wasn't a prospective Alexakis Bride." She gave Damon a bright smile which brought her a glower in return. "How do you know?" "Your mother said." "You asked her? " Well, sort of. Not precisely," Kate added quickly when Damon looked as if he might explode. "She was discussing all the er things she hoped you would find in the woman you married. And then she said she was happy you'd found them in me." She offered this last a bit hesitantly. Damon didn't say anything. He leaned against the kitchen counter, eyeing her narrowly. "Sheer didn't think you were paying attention when she talked about what you needed in a bride. And she's glad you did." Damon muttered something under his breath. "And Marina?" he prompted when she didn't add anything else. Kate set the salad on the table and took the steaks out of the broiler. "Marina was urn sort of a er prod, as it were." "Prod!" "To stimulate your thinking." The'muttering became more furious. Kate was glad it was in Greek. She didn't think she wanted to know what he was saying. "Sit down," she said. "We can eat." Damon sat, but he didn't eat. He picked up his knife and stabbed his steak. He watched the juices ooze all over the plate. Then he pulled out the knife and stabbed it again. "So," Kate said, 'we can get an annulment if you want. " Damon's head jerked up. His gaze was as sharp as the knife. "The hell we will!" Taken aback, Kate scowled. "But if you don't actually need to be married to me. . .1 mean, I won't hold you to it--I mean, on account of Jeffrey and all." She'd given it considerable thought on the way home in the taxi this afternoon, and as tempting as it would be to hold him to his part of the bargain, she decided that it was only fair to let him go. She could handle Jeffrey and her father, especially now that she had another abortive marriage under her belt, and Damon certainly wouldn't damage her business at this point. "Jeffrey hell! This has nothing to do with Jeffrey." Damon was looking at her, outraged. "Do you honestly think we're going to get an annulment now" Do you have any idea what my mother would think if we did? " "Oh," Kate said, considering it. "Yes, oh," Damon said with scathing mockery. "Well, it was really pretty idiotic," Kate retorted, stung. "Which makes you as big an idiot as I am." Kate muttered under her breath. It wasn't exactly polite of him to mention it, but it didn't surprise her. "So what do you suggest?" Damon stabbed the steak one more time. "I suggest we go have our honeymoon in the Bahamas." Be flexible, Kate always told her mother's helpers. Roll with the punches. Good advice in the face of two-year-olds throwing temper tantrums and capricious society mamas. Not bad when one found oneself confronted with a scowling, grouchy Greek husband, either. Kate had done her best, despite feeling equal parts guilty and foolish, to face the honeymoon prospect with equanimity. Damon had been alternately brusque, silent and sulky. Considering that his nights on the floor might be causing some of it, Kate offered to go out and get him a fold-up mattress. He practically bit her head off. "I was only trying to help," she protested. "That's not the kind of help I need," Damon snarled, and stalked out. The rest of their encounters hadn't been much better. She hoped that once they got away from work and family, things would improve. "Damon loves Buccaneer's Cay," Helena had told her at their fateful lunch. "It will be the best possible place for you to go." But now, as the plane dipped low over the turquoise waters just beyond the Atlantic coast of tiny Buccaneer's Cay, Kate wasn't sure about that. Certainly Damon didn't look pleased. He'd played the cheerful bridegroom that morning at the airport until his mother and sisters had disappeared, then he'd pulled a sheaf of papers out of his carry-on bag and proceeded to ignore Kate for the rest of the time. Kate had attempted a couple of conversational gambits, but when they both met with monosyllabic replies he gave up. Be that way, then, she thought, you old rouch. However bad the situation was, she couldn't help feeling an inkling of excitement, a tremor of eagerness to see this new and wondrous land. She fully intended to enjoy herself. What Damon did was his problem. The plane banked and came across the island, allowing a clear view of the narrow sand beach and the string of houses that dotted the jungle behind it. "Which house is it?" Kate asked. Damon glanced up briefly and pointed. "There." She picked out a two storey, tangerine-coloured tucco building with stone fireplaces, tall shuttered windows , and wide verandas, tucked among the trees. There were two or three smaller buildings nearby. Sheds or caretaker's cottages, no doubt. "It's lovely," Kate said. Damon went back to his papers. They didn't land on Buccaneer's Cay itself. The airstrip was on a larger island nearby. A taxi and the boat would take them at last to the landing at Buccaneer's Cay. She had learned that from Helena, too. Damon didn't say a word. Not until they finally crossed the bay and the boat docked at the custom's house. There they found themselves hailed by a burly black man, and Damon put away his papers and broke into a grin. "Joe!" It was the first smile Kate had seen on him all week. "Hey, mon, good to see you. You down early this year." Joe shook Damon's hand. "An' with a pretty lady." "I'm on my honeymoon." Joe's eyes bugged. Then he clapped Damon on the "houlder and pumped his hand. "You sure are! A nighty pretty lady!" He laughed, then stopped and gave Kate a friendly, but clearly assessing look. The Alexakis Bride! " he said after a moment. "Yes, sir. Your mother done good." "My mother had nothing to do with it." Joe looked momentarily taken aback as he led them to the moke. He started to say something, but didn't. "Ah. Like that, is it?" He winked at Kate. "You must be a pretty special lady." For the thousandth time Kate wished she weren't there under false pretences. She gave him a hopeful smile. "I try." Joe grinned. "You got him to the' altar That says it all. You got it made." "We'll see about that," Damon said, but he was smiling, too. And there was still a hint of that smile hovering on his face as they bounced their way through the jungle towards the house. Kate found herself wishing that smile would disappear. All week long she'd wished he wouldn't be so crabby and remote. Now she thought it might have been a blessing. He was gorgeous when he smiled! At last the moke halted at the end of the road behind the huge two storey house Damon had pointed out from the plane. Its tall, narrow windows and broad white porches reminded Kate of something out of a nineteenth-century seafaring novel. She was charmed. Also relieved. In a place this big she and Damon would have no trouble avoiding each other. Before she could say anything, down the path towards them bustled a tall, robust woman in a yellow dress. "Mr Damon! Your mama call last Monday and say you got married! Let me see this lucky lady!" Damon said to Kate under his breath, "Her name is Teresa, and she's as quick as they come." "I'll keep it in mind." Kate pasted on a bright smile as Damon stepped out and dragged her out after him into Teresa's embrace. It was like being hugged by a pillow, warm and sweet-smelling, and Kate felt an irresistible urge to return it. "Let me look at you, honey," Teresa said at last, pulling back and holding Kate out at arm's length, beaming at her. Kate's gaze slid guiltily away. "She shy?" Teresa demanded of Damon. "You don' need to be shy, honey. Not with me. Why, you're just as pretty as the missus said you is. She's so pleased! I always knew Mr Damon would find his self a beauty. " She turned an assessing gaze on Damon. "Had to find one to match him, didn't he?" she said to Kate with a grin. Kate was surprised to see Damon's cheekbones lined with red. "You're blind, Teresa," he said gruffly, reaching for the suitcases, hauling them out of the back of the moke. Teresa laughed. "You want to eat first or unpack." Damon looked at Kate. She shrugged. "We'll unpack," Damon decided, heading towards the house. "You ain't sleepin' here;' Teresa said. "Your mama said to get the cottage ready." Damon stopped dead. "The cottage?" The colour seemed to drain from his face. "That belongs to Sophia and Stephanos." Teresa's teeth gleamed in a broad smile. "No. It don't. It belongs to married folk. You got a right to it now." She grinned even more widely. "You don' want to be rattlin' round in here with me on your honeymoon, boy. You want some privacy. Leastways, that's what your mama said." She cocked her head. "S
he wrong?" "Of course not," Damon said irritably. He turned and strode up a narrow tree-lined path without looking back. Kate stared after him for a split second, nonplussed. Then seeing him disappear around the corner of the house, she followed. "What cottage?" she asked his back. "What's going on? Why can't we stay in the main house?" "Because Mother is manipulating again." He didn't stop until they reached a small one-storey white house. One of the tiny buildings she'd seen from the air. It was set closer to the ocean than the main house. With its tangerine-coloured shutters and narrow veranda, it looked as if it had been designed and painted as a counterpoint to the main house. It was darling. It was charming. It was homey. It wasn't big enough. Kate, with sinking desperation, said so. "You think I don't know that!" Damon almost shouted at her. Wincing, Kate opened the door and went in. The living-room-kitchen was bright and airy, painted white and fitted out with a table and chairs as well as a white wicker set tee and matching chairs with gaily flowered cushions. Ten steps took her across the room and through the only other door. It was a bedroom. Equally bright. Equally airy. Just as tiny. With one double bed. Kate looked at him narrowly. Damon said an extremely rude word. "The cottage wasn't my idea." "The marriage was. Honestly, Damon, this gets worse and worse. Didn't you think at all before you proposed this stupid scheme?" He rubbed a hand through his hair. "It seemed like i good idea at the time." "Do you always make spur-of-the-moment business lecisions." "Of course not." "Well, then. . .?" He shrugged and leaned against the wall, closing his yes. "Put it down to stress." Kate thought he did indeed look stressed. If she'd ia red she would have reached out and touched his ;heek, perhaps brushed that stray lock of hair back off lis forehead. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her skirt. She looked around the tiny bedroom with its soft white walls and light wicker furniture, its lazily spin- ling ceiling fan and its flower-quilted bed. She couldn't lelp thinking what a really lovely place it would be if he were on a real honeymoon. Deliberately she went back into the other room. "At east you can sleep in the living-room here," she said )ffhandedly. Damon said a very rude word. he let Kate have the bedroom. She told him he was a gentleman. He could think of another word for it. "Idiot' sprang o mind. And the longer he lay on the hard wood floor and listened to her humming in the bedroom, imagining her with her long. hair loose and free, her face reshly scrubbed, her nightgown barely covering the curves he knew were a part of her, the more certain he was. Damn! What was he doing here? Damon didn't like it when things got out of control, and there was no doubt that, as far as his marriage to Kate went, things had. Not that Teresa didn't believe in their wedded bliss. She did. But that was thanks to Kate, not him. Kate had done everything she should have with Teresa, laughing and smiling over dinner, answering her questions with the right amount of eagerness, even appearing suitably smitten with Damon when it seemed to be required. It had been his own behaviour that had caused Teresa to lift her brows in. wonder He'd been reluctant to touch Kate when they sat on the sofa side by side. When Teresa had teasingly asked him some silly question about his love-life, he'd almost bitten her head off. And when they were leaving and Kate had casually put her hand on his arm, he'd jumped. Why? Because he wanted her. He'd hoped that ignoring her the past week would put a damper on his desire. He'd hoped that she would do something or say something that would turn him off. She hadn't yet. He saw the light in the bedroom flick off and heard the bed creak. He remembered the nights last week when he'd lain on the floor of the bedroom and watched her slip into bed. Here he didn't even have the pleasure or pain of doing that. He cursed and rolled over. Something small and dark scuttled across the moonlit floor. He muttered a word as unprintable as the one he'd used earlier. It was going to be a long night. Night? Hah. It was going to be a hell of a long week. He tried not to think about the year of marriage that lay ahead of him. When he did, he told himself that it was purely a I natter of hormones. He hadn't had a woman in a long time. Most of the time it didn't matter. Now it did imply because of the propinquity. Everywhere he went, there she was. And he couldn't have her. Damn it, why hadn't he found a woman who liked ;asual sex? It would be so much easier to be married :o her if she did! He shut his eyes; he dreamed of Kate. He dreamed of stripping off her nightgown and earning the line of those curves, discovering the iepths of her. He dreamed of making love to her until he was senseless with desire. And then he dreamed of her hands on him light hands, delicate hands- tempting, teasing as they tripped up his bare calf. His need woke him, made him moan. And then in that half-awake and half-dreaming state, he realised he could still feel that light touch. It wasn't Kate. He yelped, leaping to his feet. A palmetto bug fell :o the floor and scurried out of sight under the up board Damon stood, white-faced and shaking, stunned and muttering. He spoke English now without second thought. He'd used it every day, all day, since le'd been sixteen. But swearing in Greek was far more atisfying. He muttered one last curse and shuddered, then aked his fingers through his hair and looked longingly . t the closed bedroom door. But it didn't take much imagination to conjure up the furore that would result if he invaded that sacred domain. Muttering, he dragged the sheet over and folded limself onto the short narrow set tee He tucked the ;dges of the sheet around him, letting none of it touch he floor, and willed himself to sleep again. This time he dreamed of plate-sized palmetto bugs, of tarantulas and scorpions, of blue lizards and snakes. He awoke in a cold sweat so often that, at last, he gave up and hauled himself to his feet. There would be no sleep tonight, that was certain. And no point in sitting there staring at the door that separated him from his wife. Tossing the sheet on to the set tee Damon strode to the door, then let himself out into the darkness. The moon had sunk lower and was now behind the trees. He heard soft scuttling sounds in the underbrush, but in reality they posed no menace. Damon didn't even think about them. He stalked straight ahead down the path towards the beach. The tide was going out and there was almost no surf. The ocean lay like a still sleeping pool. Damon walked without stopping straight across the damp sand and plunged in. To wash off the touch of the palmetto bug, to cleanse himself of the dreams of tarantulas and snakes, he told himself. And he did that. But even when he'd swum for over an hour, even when his lungs were near to bursting and his body longed for rest, even when he finally hauled himself out of the water and dropped down belly-first on to the sand, he still couldn't sleep. Because it wasn't the memory of the palmetto bug that was keeping him awake. Or the tarantulas and snakes of his nightmares. It was Kate. "Yes sir," Teresa said with awful cheer as she spooned scrambled eggs on to their plates that morning at breakfast, 'you do got the look of a man on a honeymoon. Them bloodshot eyes and deep sockets is a dead giveaway. " She gave Damon a broad wink. "Had a lot of experience, have you?" he asked sourly into his mug of coffee. Kate nudged him with her elbow. If she had to be polite, there was ho reason he shouldn't be. He raised his eyes to glare at her. He'd been glaring at her all morning, ever since he'd come in at half- past seven, looking as if he'd been dragged backwards under the reef, and she'd asked, "Oh, did you go for an early swim?" He'd grunted and stridden past her, heading for the bathroom without speaking. A shower and a shave hadn't improved his disposition much. Kate supposed it was the floor, but she could scarcely offer to provide him with a futon here. "An' what you going to do today?" Teresa looked at them curiously. "Or shouldn't I ask?" Another grin. "I don't know about Kate," Damon muttered, 'but I need some sleep. " "Honeymoons be like that," Teresa said un sympathetically Kate blushed. Damon ground his teeth. "The trouble with her is she's known me since I was eight," Damon grumbled when Teresa went back to the kitchen. "Thinks she can say anything." "She's only teasing," Kate pointed out. Damon grunted and bit down on his toast with considerable ferocity. Teresa's light gibes continued throughout the meal, and Kate could see Damon gradually losing control. All his admonitions to her about making sure Teresa thought they were deeply in love would come to naught by his own mouth if he weren't careful. "Come on," she said as soon as they had finished breakfast.
"I'm taking him home," she explained to Teresa, 'before the wild beast emerges. " Teresa chuckled. "You do that. Have your way with him." Damon opened his mouth, but Kate didn't wait to see what he was going to say. She grabbed his hand and began hauling him towards the door. "Cool it she muttered. "Just cool it. We'll go back to the house and you can take a nap." "Nap?" Damon sounded outraged. "Isn't that what you said you wanted?" "Yes, but--' He stopped, as if he'd been going to say something more, then thought better of it. "It's not a bad idea, actually," Kate said, warming to it. "We can share the bed." He made a pleased sound. "Ah." "I'll take it at night and you can have it during the day." "WhatT He stumbled over a root and crashed into her. Kate grinned. "It's the perfect solution. After all, Teresa is sure to think you need plenty of rest during the day if you're going to keep up your amatory exploits all night." "And you don't need it, I suppose?" he demanded irritably. Laughter bubbled up inside her. "I'm not supposed to have to work so hard, I guess. Teresa probably thinks I just lie back and think of New York City." Damon scowled. "Don't be a spoilsport," she chided him, moving on ahead again. "It's a better solution than you've come up with." "I could think of an even better one," Damon muttered at her back. She stopped again and glanced back. "What?" He looked at her, his gaze hot and hungry, and Kate didn't need to ask again. "Forget it," she said. She wished she could. She was doing her best. In fact, it would suit her to a "T' if he wanted to sleep the day away. They wouldn't have to pretend in dying love for each other if he was asleep. Though she was at pains to deny it, being around him all the time was making her increasingly nervous. 4e attracted her, and he shouldn't. She clapped a broad-brimmed straw hat on her lead, waggled her fingers in his direction and headed mt of the door. "Stay away from the house," Damon's voice called ifter her. Teresa will expect you to be here with me," he added when Kate turned and frowned. "I'll head towards the beach first, then go to town. ^an I get there by following the beach?" "When you get to the sand, go right. It's about a nile to a path that leads inland past one of the inns. you'll be able to tell--the sand's been swept for the ourists. Follow the path to the water tower. You can >
THE ALEXAKIS BRIDE by Anne McAllister Page 5