“Are you gonna be all right?” he called. She made a small, impatient gesture with one hand, answering a silent yes. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
“No,” she called back over her shoulder. “Good-bye. I don’t care why you’re here. Leave before I get back or I’ll shoot you—which is what I should have done before.”
Amazed, Jed kept his eyes glued to her as she went to the mare and swung gracefully onto her back. They disappeared into the forest without a backward glance at him. Then he realized he’d never told anyone before that Aunt Lucy and his mother were the only people he’d ever mourned. Jed realized something else—he hadn’t even introduced himself first.
She hadn’t cared enough to even ask for an introduction. Jed slapped an angry hand against his dusty jeans’ leg.
“Damn!”
He’d been bewitched, just as Farlo Briggs had warned.
Two
Thena stayed on the beach until after dark, walking, thinking, grieving. Of course the disturbing mainlander wouldn’t go away for good. That was too much to hope for. Her right knee ached a little from the violent encounter earlier in the day, and she sat down to rub the scar that circled her kneecap.
This pain came from a mainlander, too, she thought bitterly—a well-heeled visitor from Atlanta who’d had too much to drink on a warm spring night two years ago. He’d climbed into his Cadillac and gone tearing down the wrong side of U.S. 17, straight into her parents’ van.
Thena tried again to remember that night, but as always, her life ended with the recollection of a whimsical haiku verse Nate Gallagher had been reciting to her. Her parents were sitting in the van’s front seats, listening. Nate and she were sitting in the backseat, and she had just taken his hand in hers. Then her life stopped.
In the big hospital up the coast at Savannah, a doctor told her that her parents and her boyfriend were dead. The drunk driver went back to Atlanta with a fine and probation. After that, Thena stayed away from the mainland as much as possible.
“The past is gone,” she muttered out loud. She was too tired even to grieve now. Thena stood up in the darkness on the beach and wearily called for Cendrillon. “Cyrano is gone and won’t be back,” she told herself sternly.
Thena turned and looked toward the forest, toward the quiet glade where she’d scooped out a deep hole in the sand for his resting place. “Good-bye,” she said finally, her voice soft and stricken. It was time to go home and await the rest of Beneba’s prophecy.
All the next morning Jed debated the words to use when he talked to Thena Sainte-Colbet again. There was no solution but to walk back through the forest to her house and confront her as diplomatically as he could. Trouble was, he didn’t know diplomatic words; he knew plain, straight words.
He spent the whole morning procrastinating and planning while he explored the island’s beaches, picking up seashells. Even mundane clamshells fascinated him, because he’d never seen a shell except those glued to plastic ashtrays in tourist shops. He took off his shirt and boots, rolled up the faded legs of his jeans, then stretched out in the shade of a gnarled pine tree on the edge of the sand dunes to examine his finds.
At midafternoon he ate a meal of crackers and Spam, put on his shirt and boots again, and walked into the forest. Today no welcoming party met him, and he went straight to the rambling old house.
“Ma’am?” he called through the screen door. No answer. Jed cupped his hands around his eyes and squinted into the dark, cool interior. He saw heavy, upholstered furniture that had endured a lot of years. Packed bookcases lined almost every wall. Jed noticed that the big room included a huge dining table and a kitchen in one corner. Large, open windows, their shutters pulled back for the summer, let in filtered sunlight and the constant island breeze.
It was a friendly place with pine plank walls painted white and cheerful print curtains. A high ceiling and a central hall combined to draw air through the house and keep it cool. Jed felt the delicious breeze against his back as he stood at the front door.
“Thena, you home?” he called again, louder. Speaking her name out loud for the first time gave him a pleasant thrill. Jed idly tested the screen door, and it opened. This was, after all, his house. Everything on Sancia Island was his except for the personal effects left by Lewis Simmons, the caretaker his grandfather Gregg had hired forty years ago.
Jed stepped into the cool house, feeling a little guilty nonetheless. He was a deeply private man, and he respected other people’s privacy, but he also itched to look at everything that had to do with Thena Sainte-Colbet.
He walked slowly around the main room, scanning the bookcases. Now he remembered that Lewis Simmons had been some sort of scientist who studied plants. And the lawyers had mentioned something about Simmons’s daughter and her husband doing the same kind of work. These books showed that.
Jed stopped by something so odd it made him whistle under his breath. A big color television console occupied a corner of the room like a visitor from another planet. Jed ran his blunt-tipped fingers over the VCR unit that sat on top of it.
He’d walked around the house yesterday to look at the cistern for catching rainwater. Next to it he’d found the shed that contained the gas-run generator that provided electricity. Thena lived in isolation on a deserted island, but she had a color TV and a VCR. It made no sense, but then not much else here did either.
Shaking his head, Jed crossed to a half-shut door and pushed it open. His lips parted in an involuntary sigh of admiration.
Her bed was cradled in a heavy, antique frame made of some sort of reddish wood. Miles of white net draped over it from a central fastening on the tall ceiling. Fancy rugs covered the wood floor under the bed. It was a fantasy scene that made sensual images of her leap into his thoughts.
“Great gosh a’mighty, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Jed murmured. Absolutely enchanted, he sat down in a rocking chair across from the bed and waited.
Thena came in the front door five minutes later, a sketch pad in one hand and a bucket of shells in the other, with her sandals positioned on top. Softly singing a song from an old Judy Garland film she’d rented a week ago, she put her things on the thick oak dining table and padded toward the bedroom.
Her voice, nearly in tune, rose heartily as she stepped inside the room and inhaled the scent of hibiscus outside the open windows. Thena began to pull her smock over her head. Then she made a half-turn to her right and saw yesterday’s stranger seated in her mother’s rocking chair. Rocking.
Jed caught one glimpse of her golden, naked rump before she snapped the smock down and backed away, her eyes full of molten silver, her lips parted in shock.
“We’ve got to talk, ma’am,” he said as politely as he could, considering that he didn’t know which he felt more—embarrassment or arousal. Didn’t she ever wear panties or a bra? “Whether you want to or not.”
Her beautiful face became a mask of fury. “Get out of my house,” she said evenly. “You voyeuristic interloper.”
Jed stood up, determined to be pleasant but straightforward.
“I apologize for interlopin’ around here,” he said wryly, “but the fact is, ma’am, this isn’t your house.”
“You, cowboy, have been out in the sun too long. Go!” Thena pointed toward the bedroom door and wished she hadn’t left the dogs outside and the shotgun on the porch.
“Would you just read somethin’?” Jed reached in a back pocket and brought forward a legal document. “This ought to explain everything—”
“Out!” she ordered, stabbing the air with one hand in the direction of the door.
Jed was getting more frustrated by the moment. “No.” He held out the document. “Read this, dammit, and calm your feisty self down.”
Thena glared at him in utter rage. This was her sanctuary, her home, her island, and she’d had enough of this rough man, handsome or not. She started toward the door. He blocked her way so quickly and gracefully that she
yipped in startled dismay.
“No gun and no dogs,” he ordered, reading her mind. Jed held out the document in supplication. Thena’s gaze darted toward a bedroom window that opened onto the front porch. She caught the subtle movement of the man’s body as he balanced to block that exit, too. Real fear began to gnaw at her.
Jed saw it and winced. “Now, look, don’t be scared of me. All I want is for you to read this paper and talk to me about it.” And I’d like to know if you sleep naked and alone in that big old bed over there, he added silently.
Thena relaxed a little at the earnest sound of his voice. She eyed the document for a moment, then jerked it out of his hand and popped it open. Jed shoved his hands into his back pockets and watched her intently as she read.
Jed felt a wistful little pain curl around his rib cage as her defiant expression faded and the pink undertones drained out of her honeyed complexion.
“Oh,” she whispered weakly. “Oh, I see.” The look she turned up to him was blank with disbelief. Then she frowned and tilted her head to one side to study him. “My mother was raised here. I was born here.” She pointed to the bed. “Right there. That’s all that’s important.”
“Folks are born in hospitals, but that don’t mean they own ’em.” She looked at him with slowly rising anger, and he put his hands on his hips. He hadn’t meant to sound so flippant, but dadgummit, she had to listen to reason. “Nobody from the Gregg family ever told you this was your island, did they?”
“No, but after all these years … My parents were scientists, and they said H. Wilkens Gregg meant for Sancia to be preserved, and that one day he’d get around to donating the island to the state as a wildlife refuge. We always knew that would happen.”
Jed shook his head slowly, without any attitude of victory. “ ’Fraid not, ma’am.”
She frowned. “Just who are you?” She read the document again. “Jedidiah Huntington Powers? Is that you? You’re Mr. Gregg’s grandson, cowboy? You?”
He nodded. “Don’t have to make it sound so hard to believe, ma’am. And it’s Jed Powers. Nothin’ fancy.” “Huntington” came from Huntington Wilkens Gregg, and he hated that.
“All right, Jed Powers. Why are you here?” She closed the document slowly and handed it back to him. Abruptly, she smiled. “Are you going to donate the island to the state?”
Jed nearly groaned. “No.”
Her smile faded. “What are you going to do with it, then?” Trouble gonna fall, trouble gonna fall, Beneba had said.
There was no way to soften the blow, Jed thought wearily. “Sell it for development.” She gasped. “But don’t you worry. Now listen—”
“No!” She snatched her hands to her throat in an expression of horror, and his heart sank all the way to his boots. She shoved out of the room past him before he could stop her. “Rasputin! Godiva!”
“Hold on, now!” he yelled, and leapt after her. Jed managed to throw himself in front of the screen door before she could reach it. She slid to a stop, her eyes narrowed with fierceness. Jed thrust his chin forward. “Don’t you dare sic those dogs on me.”
“I’ll let them teach you a lesson in morals, you indiscriminate greedy oaf.” Her voice came out low and trembling with anger. “You’ll go back to the mainland with their fang marks in your behind.”
“Are you trying to make me do something mean?” he asked.
Thena backed away, her hands still touching her throat in distress. “Such as?”
“Something. You’ll be sorry, if I have to.” Jed studied her fear and instantly added, “I don’t want to, Thena.”
“Don’t call me by my name. I may not own Sancia, but I own my name.” Her shoulders sagged. The light died in her eyes and Jed felt terrible for her. “Just go,” she said dully. “I have to think.”
“You can’t hide from the facts, Thena … ma’am. We might as well talk about the future.”
“You’re horrible.” Her voice made that simple description sound like a lethal curse. “Get out.”
“Nope. I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of mean hellion.”
“This island is part of my family heritage! And … and your family heritage!” she said fervently. “I know all about the Greggs—my grandfather told me. H. Wilkens and Sarah honeymooned here. Their daughter was born here. Their daughter …” Thena stared at him. “Your mother?”
He nodded grimly.
“The old Gregg mansion is still here.” Thena held out pleading hands. “If you could just see it … if you could just see SalHaven—”
“Hell, no. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about the Gregg family and I want to be rid of this fancy playpen of theirs.”
New words died in Thena’s throat. Jed Powers’s voice hadn’t risen and nothing overt had changed about him. But his dark eyes now froze the world with disgust and anger.
“You,” she said quietly, “are an angry man with a cold heart.” Thena straightened with rigid dignity and indicated the door behind him. “Get out. I won’t turn the dogs on you. Just leave.”
Jed couldn’t remember when frustration had threatened his calm nature so badly. Frustration and wounded feelings, all because this woman called his heart cold. She made him feel cruel, and he wasn’t.
“This is my house,” he said slowly. “And I’ll stay if I want to.” He paused, his chin jutting forward. “You got that … Thena?”
She exploded into action. In two quick steps she reached her dining table and grabbed a ripe peach from a stoneware bowl there. Jed didn’t even have time to duck. She hurled the peach with a force that amazed him. It bounced off his ribs with a painful thud and left a soggy stain on his plaid shirt.
“Get out,” she repeated, and reached for another peach. With typical calm Jed looked down at his aching side, then back up at her.
“That’s real good,” he said dryly. “But since I never heard of a man bein’ killed by a peach, I’m sure not a helluva lot scared.”
“You will be.” The second peach flew across the room and smacked him in the jaw. Jed grunted with surprise and pain, but held his ground. He gingerly touched his jaw and couldn’t argue with the possibility that peaches might be fatal.
“Now there’s no need for gettin’ rowdy,” he murmured soothingly. “Let’s talk.” Thena paused, off guard. He charged her.
“Cheat!” she screamed.
Thena grabbed two more peaches and ran to the far side of the large table. Jed flung himself across it, scattering shells and knocking the bowl containing the rest of the fruit to the floor.
Thena screamed again as his hands grabbed for her skirt. Pelting him in the head with another peach, she leapt away. Her hand shook badly around the remaining peach it held. Heaven alone knew what this forceful man would do if he ever caught her. Trouble, trouble.
“Stay away from me!” she cried.
“I’ve had all I’m gonna take from you. I want an apology.”
She uttered something in French that Jed figured was distinctly not an apology. Deadly silent, his face white with pain and anger, he rolled off the far side of the table and charged toward her again. The bottom of his left boot made contact with a slick chunk of peach on the wood floor, and his left leg decided to take a different direction from the rest of him.
Thena gasped as he tumbled energetically backward and whacked the side of his head on the rim of the kitchen’s yellow Formica countertop. His eyes closed in obvious response to the sharp torture, but he made no sound. He simply slid to the floor in a sitting position, his back against the kitchen cabinets, one denimed knee drawn up. He slowly flattened a hand over the rising lump on his head, and the skin around his mouth lost some of its ruddy color.
“I want to die with my boots on,” he mumbled, his eyes still squinted shut. “Just go ahead and beat me to death. Get an ear of corn. That ought to do the trick.”
“Dear God,” Thena said slowly. How could he joke when he’d nearly brained himself? Somewhere deep inside her, grudging adm
iration flared along with the fear that he might be seriously hurt. She dropped her last peach and hurried to the kitchen sink, where she soaked a dishcloth in cool water.
“Sit still,” she ordered. Thena knelt beside him and tentatively reached out with the cloth. His eyes opened, their gaze directly on her. He spoke somberly.
“I’d rather be beat to death than smothered, ma’am.”
He had a way about him that was funny and outrageous, and she was too overcharged to react in a reasonable way. Thena couldn’t contain a little smile at his humor.
“You’re safe for the moment.”
She quit smiling and pressed the cloth to the top of his head. He lowered his hand as Thena squeezed the soggy material. She watched the brown of his hair darken to chocolate as the water soaked it.
“Maybe that will help. Are you bleeding?”
Jed continued to study her as he ran his fingers under his wet hair. He pulled them away and she glanced over. He had absolutely battered hands, covered in scars and calluses, and the little finger on this particular hand was a tiny bit crooked, as if it’d been broken and hadn’t healed right. His hands suited what she knew of his nature, she decided. They intrigued her.
“No blood,” he answered.
“Good.”
“You’re bein’ mighty concerned about my health all of a sudden.”
Thena gave him a warning look. “Don’t bet on it. I just don’t want your carcass to foul my island.”
She began to wipe peach juice off his face, her ministrations a little rough and impatient. Hazel eyes, she thought suddenly. He has beautiful, deepset hazel eyes. And he smelled sweaty and masculine in an erotic way that drew attention from some traitorously female part of her brain.
“How old are you?” he asked abruptly. She nearly dropped her cloth. Thena cocked one dark brow at him.
“Twenty-five. Why?”
“Just askin’.”
She began wiping his face again, but now she felt very uncomfortable. His weathered complexion was red from the rough cloth; her fingertips accidently brushed his skin and the texture of his fine beard stubble transmitted strange signals up her arm.
Jed's Sweet Revenge Page 3