Love is a Distant Shore
By
Claire Harrison
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
LOVE IS A DISTANT SHORE
Petra was determined to swim across Lake Ontario. And she didn't want the disagreeable Geoff Hamilton around to cover the story. He would only get in her way—and destroy her concentration…
Books you will enjoy by CLAIRE HARRISON
ONE LAST DANCE
Casmir Yakovaloskov, Marta Cole's virile Russian ballet partner, was a threat to her peace of mind. But it was not until she became his partner off-stage as well as on that she realised just how much of a threat he was…
DRAGON'S POINT
Maggie was convinced that nothing dangerous could happen at Dragon's Point—until Jason Hale arrived, and she realised that there was more than one kind of danger!
DIPLOMATIC AFFAIR
Ambition had killed Rachel Sims' and Christopher Blake's love ten years ago. Now, of course, they were older and wiser, but was the maturity and strength of ten years of hurting enough to make this time more than a brief, diplomatic affair?
This book is dedicated to
Mary Connell of Whitby, Ontario,
whose graceful title adorns its cover
and who helped me understand that a swim like Petra's can change people.
First published
in
Great Britain 1986
by Mills & Boon Limited
© Claire Harrison 1986
ISBN 0 263 75353 0
CHAPTER ONE
Geoffrey Hamilton sat on the bench, shifted his aching leg slightly and glared down at the figure in the pool below. He would have liked to curse out loud, but his mother had brought him up to be a damned gentleman and, somewhere along in his wayward youth, he'd managed to absorb enough of her teaching to know that it wasn't proper to swear in the presence of a lady, even if she was immersed in water and seemingly oblivious of his existence.
Still, nothing stopped him from having his own private thoughts, and those were dark, gloomy and angry. He wondered what the hell he was doing, sitting in a pool in Toronto and watching a skinny little number like Petra Morgan make her 100th lap of the pool and acting as if it were her first. Back and forth, back and forth, arms going around in that perfect front crawl. Up, around and over. Up, around and over. Swim to the end, tuck and curl, shoot out into the water again. And, all the while, her coach, Joseph McGinnis, was pacing beside her, looking smug and shouting the occasional encouragement in her direction. As if she needed it. Geoff didn't think he'd ever seen anyone with a mind on such a single track as Petra Morgan.
He could have killed his boss, Rick, who had conspired to put him on this beat. If he'd known what was in store for him, he wouldn't have left Beirut even with a busted leg and nerves so shot to hell that his hands shook when he placed them on his typewriter keys. You're lucky to be alive, Rick had said. When you get out of that hospital, come home. So he'd come back to Canada, been taken fishing in the north country and told, in the nicest way possible, that he was all washed up. Oh, Rick had used other words. Rest, he'd said, relaxation, take it easy for a while, no need to get back in the thick of things too quickly. And he'd sweetened the pie with a bonus and a raise. But Geoff was no fool. When a war correspondent is taken off the political desk and dumped into sports, he'd have to be an idiot not to notice that he was demoted. And, when that sports beat didn't include something dignified like football, he'd have to be a total imbecile not to know he was being put out to pasture.
Thirty-six years old and plucked out of the action like some helpless child. The thought of it made Geoff's teeth grind together in an impotent fury. It wouldn't last, he'd made that vow to himself. His leg was healing, slowly it was true, but at least he could hobble around on it now. The femur has been shot to smithereens, the surgeon had said, but we'll have you walking. We'll give you a romantic limp. Romantic, hell. Pitiable was more like it. He'd been bedridden for weeks, in a cast for months. And, for a man who had taken his athletic prowess for granted, this new physical vulnerability had been damned hard to swallow. One step down the wrong street in Beirut, a bomb explosion, hours of lying under rubble next to a dead body. He'd gone half mad from the pain and had been convinced that he would suffocate to death. Those hours had changed his life. The Geoff Hamilton that he had known, the war correspondent with the front-page byline, the inimitable courage and the invincibility of a cat with nine lives, was gone. In his place was someone else; a man with memories, a helpless man, an angry one.
Well, he hadn't gone down without a fight. He'd argued like crazy, had said that his leg was on the mend, that his nerves were coming along nicely, but Rick had shaken his head.
'Don't rush it,' Rick had said.
They'd been sitting in front of the fire in the small cabin Rick had on Simpson Lake. It was a cosy place, with fishing and boating gear hanging on its logged walls, its interior warmed by an old-fashioned wood stove. Rick, a burly bear of a man, had built most of it himself and said that it was his idea of a retirement home. Geoff had always enjoyed his stays at the cabin, but this time he felt claustrophobic as if he couldn't breathe.
'Rush what? Going back to work? Look, Rick. I can get around…' 'With a cane.'
'All right,' he'd said impatiently. 'But I'll be off that soon.'
Rick had glanced at him with a sympathy that made Geoff's fists clench. 'You're not ready to go back to Beirut.'
'You don't have anyone else who can do the same job for you.' 'Brennan will go.'
'Brennan! He's too young, too inexperienced, too…'
'Geoff.' Rick put out a restraining hand to stop Geoff from standing up and pacing around. 'The doctor says you're not ready.'
They stared at one another, and Geoff had seen the implacability in the older man's eyes. They'd been friends for a decade of camaraderie that had included hard work, hard drinking and good times. Rick had hired him, but their relationship had been so friendly and casual that Geoff had almost forgotten who was the boss and who was the employee.
He'd swallowed his pride then and said desperately, 'I need to work. I can't go on like this.'
Rick gave him a comforting smile. 'I'm going to put you on the Petra Morgan swim.'
'The what?
And that's how he found himself sitting at six o'clock on a fine June morning in a large metropolitan pool watching Petra Morgan swim. Geoff hadn't even known she existed until he'd come back to Canada.
He'd learned about her in one of the back issues of McLean's when he'd still been in his cast and forced into long periods of inactivity. Petra Morgan, the next Queen of the Lake, the schoolteacher turned swimmer who was going to conquer Lake Ontario. The reporter in McLean's had seemed enraptured with her, raving about her swimming skills, her training programme, her charm, her pretty smile. There'd been a picture with the article, a photograph of a dark-haired woman with wide cheekbones, a narrow chin, eyes of an indeterminate colour and a smile that put dimples into her cheeks. Geoff hadn't been interested enough in Petra Morgan or marathon swimming to do any more than skim the words and glance at the picture. He'd forgotten all about her the moment he'd put the magazine down. It wasn't until Rick had told him that he was going to cover Petra's swim in Lake Ontario that Geoff realised he'd read about her before.
And it wasn't until he actually met her that Geoff understood what sort of prejudices he'd had about women marathon swimmers. He had expected someone brawny, muscula
r, and chunky. In fact, when he'd first been introduced to her, he'd thought that someone was playing a joke on him. Instead of big shoulders, she had slender ones. Instead of muscular legs, hers were slim. The fact was that Petra Morgan was one of the most fragile-looking women he'd ever met. She was no more than five feet tall and, although she was in her mid-twenties, she had a girl's figure; narrow in the hips, a slight bust, shoulder blades that looked like birds' wings. He couldn't believe that this was the woman who was supposed to swim across Lake Ontario. He knew he couldn't do it. He didn't think that she'd have a chance.
Not until he'd watched her training, that was. Then he'd had to grudgingly admit that beneath that fragility was a surprisingly steely strength and stamina. She seemed indefatigable, her body cutting through the water with efficiency and speed, her head turning to the side again and again, her legs doing a steady flutter kick, her arms going round and round. Geoff reluctantly gave her points for perseverance and felt a faint flicker of curiosity at what made her keep at it, hour after excruciating hour. Of course, that's what he was there to find out. That was his assignment. To cover Petra Morgan's crossing of Lake Ontario and to give newspaper readers some idea of what made her tick. The problem was that Geoff didn't really care. People were dying around the globe, men were being tortured by totalitarian governments, elections were being rigged and terrorists were threatening world peace. Who cared if one woman challenged a lake? Who cared how long it took her? Who gave a damn?
'She's great, isn't she?'
Geoff brought himself out of his reverie and turned to find Joe McGinnis beside him. The trainer was a small man with a barrel chest and hair cut shorter than a buck private's. He wore a whistle on a rope around his neck, a T-shirt that said 'Go, Petra, go,' and a pair of blue swimming trunks. His round face was wrinkled as if he spent most of his time outdoors, squinting against the sun.
'Yeah,' Geoff said.
Joe didn't notice his lack of enthusiasm, but then that was Joe. In the two days since he'd come to watch Petra swim, Geoff had realised that Joe's optimism and cheerfulness were unlimited. He grinned, he bounced, he waved his arms in the air, his conversation was a continual pep talk. And there was no quenching him. When it came to Petra Morgan, Joe was a bubbling fountain of facts, figures, and glowing endorsements. As far as Joe was concerned, Petra Morgan was a champion.
'And this is nothing,' Joe went on. 'Wait till you see her at the lake. This is child's play for her.'
'Yeah. I can see that.'
'I mean this was Petra's idea. I told her—go have a nice holiday before we go to the cottage—but she wanted to keep training. That's the way she is. Once Petra gets her mind on to something, she never quits.' 'Mmmmm.'
'And there's no stopping her. This young lady is going to break records, I can tell you that.' Geoff nodded. 'Are you a swimmer?'
Geoff shrugged slightly. 'I know how to swim.' Joe was now eyeing him in a professional sort of way, assessing the broad shoulders under Geoff's plaid short-sleeved shirt and the muscular curve of his arms. 'You look like you'd have the build of the sport.' 'I swam a lot as a kid, raced a bit. That was all.' 'You should think about doing it again. It would be a great sport for you now.' 'Now?'
'With your leg. That injury wouldn't stop you in the water. Not once you'd built up some stamina.'
Geoff looked down at the pool. He didn't like to talk about his leg with anyone. 'Yeah,' he said.
He missed the shrewdness of Joe's glance and the small smile. 'Of course, I'm not saying you'd want to be like Petra.'
Geoff was watching that slight figure with its unceasing motion. Up, around and over. 'No. I don't think I could stand it.'
Joe's eyes followed his. 'No,' he said reverently, standing up to head back to his place by the pool, 'most people couldn't. She's unique.'
Petra Morgan. The assignment would have been far more fascinating, Geoff thought as he once again shifted his leg and tried to ignore the pain that shot up it like an arrow into his groin, if Petra Morgan had been his type. But she wasn't. When he'd spoken to her, she'd answered him softly, looking at him quickly and then glancing away. She was shy, Geoff had judged, and he liked his women bold. And her looks didn't appeal to him. Not that she wasn't attractive. He supposed that she was pretty enough in a sort of ephemeral way. She had delicate bones in her face, short brown curly hair, wide grey eyes, a small nose and a mouth that was soft and rounded. But she lacked some of the physical characteristics that Geoff found particularly enticing in a woman. He went for leggy, curvaceous blondes with a bountiful pair of mammary glands. He didn't much care about their personalities, their intellect or their conversation. Being a war correspondent hadn't given Geoff much leisure time to develop a relationship with any of the women he'd bedded during his distinguished career.
Even as a boy, Geoff had known precisely what he wanted to be when he grew up. While his three other brothers took turns at wanting to be firemen, policemen, astronauts and jet pilots, Geoff had only one goal in mind. He wanted to be where the action was, where the decisions were being made, where the news was being created. He'd graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Toronto and started his journalistic career as a city reporter for the Globe & Mail. From there it was a short hop into national politics and then, after he'd been employed by a wire service, into the international arena. Geoff had the usual journalistic tricks up his sleeve. He knew how to ask the right questions and he had a flair with words, but it was his fearlessness that eventually put him in every hot spot around the globe. He'd been the last North-American journalist in Iran before the Khomeini take-over and the first in the Falklands. He'd been at the border of Afghanistan when the Russian tanks rolled in. And, when Beirut had flared into gunfire, Geoff had asked to go. That was the best part of being foot-loose and fancy free. Unlike many of his fellow journalists, he didn't have children waiting for him at home or a wife wondering if he'd ever come back alive.
Geoff had deliberately chosen to remain single. He refused to date a woman who seemed to have marriage on her mind and, if he noted a budding of any small domestic tendencies, he cut off the relationship swiftly and as painlessly as he could. He wasn't unkind; it was simply that he didn't have a lot of time or energy for slow disintegrations or tortuous partings. He was careful to let his wishes be known, and most women accepted him for what he was. And he'd never had any trouble finding partners. He was too good-looking, too charming, too rakish not to attract women in droves. His hair was blond and wavy, his eyes were blue as a sunlit sky, his nose straight, his chin square and determined. In his pragmatic way, Geoff accepted his looks as a gift and his attraction to women as a natural right. He didn't exploit his romantic accomplishments, nor did he blow them out of proportion. In his busy life, women came a long way after his job and their function was to provide him with a good time and a sexual release. Geoff believed in living hard and playing hard, and he did both with consummate ease. 'Time's up Petra.'
The swimming figure stopped its incessant motion and the capped head raised itself out of the water. 'Was that ten miles altogether, Joe?' 'Yup.'
Below Geoff, the training session was coming to an end. Petra was pulling herself out of the pool and was now standing at its edge, water running down the black sheen of her bathing suit and dripping on to the tile. She pulled off her goggles and then her bathing cap, shaking out her damp, dark curls. Geoff watched as she flexed her shoulder muscles and then talked earnestly to Joe. He couldn't quite catch her words, but he had a fair idea of what she'd be talking about. Timing, pacing, strokes per minute. Arrangements for the next training session. Receiving a Joe McGinnis pep talk. Geoff gave a silent and unsatisfying curse and wished himself anywhere except where he was, staring down at a slip of a woman who was obsessed with something as trivial as swimming across a lake. And he had no choice except to follow her around for the next month in order to send back a human interest story to Rick on her personality, her training, her courage and her lif
e story. As if he cared. Goddamn.
'Eighty-five strokes per minute during that last sprint,' Joe said. 'You looked good.'
Petra nodded.
'And great form, sweetheart. If you can keep that up on the lake, you'll do just fine.'
Petra gave him a small smile and reached with one arm upwards and then the other to stretch out the muscles in her back. She was in top shape; she knew that, but her muscles would stiffen a bit. They always did.
'Petra, honey. We're going to break a record.'
'Joe, I don't know if breaking a record is as important as getting across. Thirty-two miles.' She sighed. 'I dream about it some nights.'
'You'll be ready for it. I give you my Joe McGinnis oath on that. By the time you make the swim, it'll be a piece of cake.'
Petra gave Joe a look of affection. He was President of the Lakeside Swimming Association, her own private coach and the father she'd never had. Ever since her childhood, Joe had bestowed upon her his attention and his enthusiasm, his caring and his concern. And, for him, she had swum hundreds of miles, trained for hours every day and stuck with her adolescent wish to swim Lake Ontario. It had been a wish that had been interrupted by the crisis with her mother, her education and her job, but she had never stopped swimming, even during the hardest times, and they'd both known that one day she would make the attempt.
When she'd told Joe that this summer was it, he had gone into high gear. He'd put her on a fitness programme that included a two-hour daily swim; he'd made the necessary arrangements with the Safety Committee of the Ontario Solo Swim Association; and he'd raised money and lined up the four boats and crew that would accompany her across the lake. Petra had had her medical certificate authorised and done the ten-mile swim required in order to prove to the OSSA that she was capable of crossing Lake Ontario. All that remained now was another month of training before they set the date.
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