by Daphne Clair
Maddie nodded. “Is it okay for him to come again tomorrow? If you don’t want him just say. I’ll talk to Glen. I was a bit wild that he brought him along without asking you, but—” a frown creased the perfect skin between her fine brows “—I guess it seemed a good idea to him.”
“Sure it’s okay.” Glen was doing her a favor and if he wanted Jager along, it shouldn’t hurt her to accommodate his wishes.
They finished the dishes and Paige showed Maddie what she intended to do with the interior of the house.
“Well, better you than me, but I expect you’ll work wonders,” Maddie said. “That’s one thing you inherited from Mum, an eye for design and color. I’m hopeless with anything like that. Wouldn’t know where to start. Clothes, now…that’s different!” She yawned. “The men are taking a long time. There’s a torch in the car. Why don’t we go down and hurry them up.”
The path was short but rough. Paige went ahead with the torch, emerging at the bottom from the manuka and tree ferns onto crushed shells and tiny pebbles mixed with soft dark sand. The water lapped in low ripples along the narrow shoreline, and across the harbor Auckland was a glowing blur of city lights with the illuminated Sky Tower rising above the others. A pale half-moon cast a sheen on the glassy blackness of the sea.
The men were still in the water, making muted silver splashes. Maddie called to them, and after a quick sweep of the torch, picking up their glistening faces and arms, Paige switched off the light.
Glen said, “Come in, Mad. It’s great.”
Maddie laughed. “You’re nuts. Both of you. Anyway, I don’t have anything to put on.”
Glen said patiently, “It’s dark, love. No need to put on anything. We didn’t.”
“You’re skinny-dipping?”
“Why not? We’re the only ones here.”
“It’s cold—”
“Not that cold, and once you’re in it warms up. Live a little dangerously. I’ll look after you, promise.”
After a few more seconds of hesitation Maddie pulled the pale knitted top over her head and said nervously to Paige, “Do you think I could swim in my undies?”
“Everything will cling when you come out with them wet,” Paige warned. “If you’re worried about your modesty you’d be better off nude.”
“Oh. I suppose you’re right.”
A louder splash carried to shore, and Paige glimpsed the line of an arm raised in a crawl. Jager, she guessed, because Glen was still trying to coax his wife into the water.
“I’m coming,” Maddie called bravely, and waded in, squealing before she plunged in and swam to Glen’s side.
They exchanged some laughing murmurs, and Paige sat on the cool sand and waited.
She couldn’t see Jager anymore. Or hear him, she realized. Her eyes hunted the dark water. “Where’s Jager?” she called sharply.
“Over there,” Glen called back, but she couldn’t see him clearly enough to know where he meant. “I think.”
He thought? How long was it since she’d seen that arm, apparently heading out into the harbor?
She switched on the torch again, to sweep the beam over the sea. It found Maddie and Glen, their arms around each other, and Maddie squealed again in laughing protest.
“Sorry.” Paige stood up and moved the beam across the inky surface. Where was he? She crunched forward over the shingle until the cold water seeping into her canvas shoes brought her up with a small shock.
Instinctively she retreated a step, then put down the torch and began tearing off her clothes. Blind panic fluttered in her throat.
She was down to her bra and briefs when Jager’s voice nearby said, “Decided to join us?”
Paige jumped, and swallowed a scream. “Where were you?” she said, swinging toward the voice, seeing a large glistening shape against paler rocks at the water’s edge. “Have you been there all the time?”
“All what time? I was in the water until half a minute ago. You’re going in?”
He didn’t know she’d been looking for him. That she’d had some mad idea of diving in and rescuing him. Maybe he’d been underwater when she’d missed him. She remembered he’d always been able to hold his breath for long periods beneath the surface. “Yes,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Just a short dip.”
Paige could scarcely make him out in the darkness. So it followed he couldn’t see her, either. Quickly she dispensed with her bra and panties and waded in, getting under the water as soon as she could.
She breast-stroked parallel to the shore, a little further out than the other two, who were playing around like a couple of dolphins—or a couple in love. As Paige and Jager had once done, chasing and splashing each other, then falling silent as they glided near, touched, even kissed until the water closed over their heads and they had to surface…
Paige turned on her back and looked up at the pale stars that competed with the city lights. She’d been floating for a few minutes when Jager’s voice close by interrupted her reverie. “Paige?”
“What?” She turned over, treading water.
“Just checking you’re okay. I couldn’t see you.”
Paige almost laughed. Him too? “I’m getting out.”
She started back to the shore, and found him beside her, matching stroke for stroke.
They splashed to the shingly sand together, and Jager said, “Where’s the torch?”
She didn’t remember exactly. “Over here, I think.” Heading off blindly, she stumbled over a smooth rock embedded in the sand, and found herself on her knees.
Jager dropped beside her. “Are you all right?” One of his hands brushed her water-slicked breast. “Sorry,” he muttered, as she drew in a startled breath. His hand found her arm and closed on wet, slippery skin.
Paige could scarcely breathe. She was suddenly hotly conscious of her nakedness—and his. And of the delicious tingling where he’d touched her. She pulled away, repudiating her feelings. “I’m not hurt,” she said. “I need my clothes.”
“Stay there, I’ll find them.”
He left her and found the torch, hunted down her crumpled clothes and turned off the light before giving them to her along with a towel.
“Thanks.” She dried off, scrambled into her clothes, and was thankful when the other two came out of the water, arms still around each other, and with much muffled laughter got dressed.
On the way back Maddie and Glen took one of the lights and led the way, walking hand in hand. He turned his head to kiss the top of hers.
Paige shone the other torch on the path for herself and Jager. A trickle of water ran coldly down her neck to the neckline of her T-shirt. Her hair still hung in wet rat’s tails. Maddie had tied hers into a topknot before going into the water and somehow kept it almost totally dry.
Paige sighed, and Jager said, “Something the matter?”
“I’m a bit tired.” Her T-shirt was clammy because her hasty drying had been less than thorough. She was conscious of Jager beside her. They weren’t even touching, yet she was sure she could feel the warmth emanating from him, and smell the scent of his skin mingled with the salty tang of seawater. To take her mind off it she said, “You and Glen have done wonders. It was rather a cheek for him to rope you in.”
For an instant she saw his smile flash, a glimpse of white teeth. “Thanks for not sending me away.”
He had surprised her with his offer to go. “Would you have gone?” Perhaps he’d counted on her unwillingness to upset her sister. Maybe it had been a bluff.
“Whatever you wanted,” he said smoothly. Which told her nothing. “I’d like to come back tomorrow.”
Paige shrugged, trying to convey supreme indifference. “A tiger for punishment,” she said lightly. “Please yourself.”
After they’d gone she had a quick shower and went to bed in the spare room. When she closed her eyes she could see against the darkness the outline of Jager’s masculine form, naked as he had been on the little beach, more clearly than she ha
d in reality. She felt again the brush of his hand against her, and her body yearned for him.
She turned on her back and opened her eyes, trying to dispel the tormenting images. Deliberately she conjured up a mental picture of Aidan. Gentle Aidan, who had been sweet and funny and had helped mend her wounded heart, who had taught her that the wound wasn’t mortal after all. Aidan, who deserved at least a proper period of mourning.
But thinking about him only made her sad, and when her lids drifted down again and she slipped into sleep, it was to dream erotically of Jager.
By Sunday evening the cottage walls gleamed a warm pinkish cream, the trims a dark dusky rose.
Jager’s promised contact visited Paige on Monday with brochures and advice on security, leaving her with a couple of quotes. Afterward Jager phoned to check the man had been and said, “You won’t mess around on this, will you? You need something in place as soon as possible.”
“It’s a quiet neighborhood,” she protested.
“Women have been attacked in quiet neighborhoods,” Jager said. “Get it done, Paige.”
“You’re not my keeper!”
“I want to be sure you’re safe.”
She was an independent woman, Paige reminded herself, who could fend quite well for herself. Yet his concern lit a warm glow in her heart, as if he’d put strong, protective arms around her. And it was decidedly galling to realize that she liked it.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS THE renovations progressed it seemed tacitly taken for granted that Jager as well as Glen was involved in the makeover. Paige almost became used to his presence alongside his half brother.
They helped lift the old carpets and the layers of even older cracked lino that a preliminary investigation had shown underneath. Taking a short break, Glen ran a hand through his thick brown hair, rubbed at it and grimaced. “I could do with a shower.”
Paige knew how he felt. The dust and grime of years had worked its way through the carpet fibers. Even Jager was grime-streaked, his hair dusty. She probably looked as though she needed a shower too.
“Feel free to use the bathroom,” she said, sitting back to rub black dust from her glasses on a corner of her shirt. “Although it isn’t very glamorous at the moment.” They’d ripped up the flooring in there too, and everything was covered in fine, gritty debris. “Or you could swim.”
Bending back to the job in hand, Glen said, “A swim would take too long. Let’s finish this sucker.”
Jager looked over at Paige. “Why don’t you go and clean up, and leave the rest to us?”
She shook her head. This was her project and although grateful for the help she wouldn’t sit back and let them do it for her.
Maddie was as fresh as ever. She’d been wonderful at providing sustenance for the others and fetching and carrying, but drew the line at going down on her hands and knees and getting physical. When the old carpets and pieces of flooring had been shoved into the hired bin at the gate, she told Paige, “You’d better sleep over at our place. Your bed’s under all that furniture the men shifted.”
They’d moved everything movable into one room to clear the other floors.
“There wasn’t much.” Jager looked at her questioningly. “You don’t seem to have a lot.”
“I didn’t want the place cluttered up with furniture while I was renovating.”
It would have been sensible, Paige supposed, to have the floors finished before she moved in, but once the cottage was hers she’d been impatient to start living in it, making plans for its restoration.
“You must have had furniture and things in America,” Jager observed.
“There didn’t seem much point in transporting it all that way.” It had been hard but she’d sold or given away almost everything she and Aidan had owned, keeping only a few pictures and some knickknacks for their sentimental value.
“You just left it?” He paused. “Yes, I suppose you would. Cutting your losses.”
Even Glen looked a bit disconcerted. Maddie glanced from Jager to Paige. “You must be exhausted,” she said to her sister. “Let’s get you over to our place and find you a bed.”
Sliding between cool sheets an hour later, Paige consciously tried to relax. Despite the men’s help with the physical labor her muscles ached. And something else ached—something in the region of her heart.
Her dreams were filled with images of Jager—Jager accusing and angry, his green eyes hard as glass, saying something she couldn’t hear. Jager wielding a paint brush, laughing. And then Jager walking toward her, taking her in his arms, bearing her down on a shingly midnight beach that in the way of dreams became a soft, rocking bed, a black satin sea on which they miraculously floated as they made passionate, sweet love until they sank into the water and a dark oblivion.
The morning was still new when Maddie came into her room. “Did you sleep well?”
“I slept okay,” Paige said. Her sister looked blooming. She hadn’t had to rely on dreams.
Maddie seemed to want to say something more, and finally decided to take the plunge. “It’s a bit soon to be bringing it up, but you’re young to be a widow, Paige. And it would be nice if…”
“I’m sure it would, from your point of view,” Paige said crisply. And Glen’s, maybe. A nice neat equation. “It won’t work, though. Didn’t before and can’t now.”
Maddie pouted but didn’t press the point.
Paige brushed away the remnants of her dreams, banishing them to the ether. “I’d better get up.”
When Paige had patiently removed stubborn rusted carpet tacks and ensured there were no protruding nails or splintered boards, she hired a professional to sand the floors, which turned out to be kauri as Glen had predicted.
During the long Easter break he and Jager helped apply polyurethane to protect and bring out the grain of the wood, and while each coat dried they all tackled the overgrown shrubs and vines in the neglected garden. Even Maddie donned gardening gloves to pull weeds and reveal long-forgotten plant treasures, while the men chainsawed a tree whose rotting trunk endangered the new roof.
Paige stayed at Maddie and Glen’s apartment to escape the fumes while the floors dried.
“That’s that,” Glen said, as he cleaned the last of the brushes. “Another twenty-four hours and then we can move the furniture from the bedroom and do that floor.”
“I can manage that one room on my own,” Paige said. “I owe you all. Dinner’s on me. Where shall we go?”
“I’m not fit to go anywhere!” Maddie objected, although there was hardly a spot on her pink cotton top and stretch jeans.
Glen flexed his shoulders and yawned. “Why don’t we just head back to our place and see what we can scratch up?”
In the end they decided on pizzas that Paige insisted she would pay for. And this time, back at the apartment, Jager joined them.
Glen poured wine to go with the pizzas, and they ate in the kitchen, crowding around the small table. Maddie and Glen were in high spirits, Glen plying Paige with far more wine than she was accustomed to. She felt relaxed and warm and well-fed, and the happy glow that surrounded her sister and brother-in-law affected her too.
Jager lounged in a chair, one thumb tucked into the waistband of his jeans, a faint smile on his mouth and lazy lids concealing his eyes. He seemed to be watching his half brother with almost clinical fascination, and for a moment Paige felt as if a cold draught had entered the room. He switched his gaze to Maddie, who was getting giggly.
Maddie’s eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed like a rose. She smiled a trifle muzzily when she found Jager looking at her. That smile would have melted stone, and Paige was relieved to see him smile back, his expression softening.
Glen leaned across and poured more wine into Jager’s glass, emptying the bottle. “I’ll fetch another one,” he announced.
“Not for me,” Jager protested. “I have to drive home.”
“Get a taxi or stay here,” Glen said. “Plenty of couches to choose
from.” He opened a fresh bottle and Jager didn’t protest at his glass being filled to the top.
Things became hazy after that. At some stage they shifted to the living room, more wine appeared and Glen put on some music. He and Maddie danced a little, their arms wrapped around each other, and then Maddie yawned and announced she was going to bed.
She walked uncertainly toward the door, tripped on something invisible and said, “Oops!”
Glen swooped to steady her. “Come on, love,” he said. “One foot after the other.” Looking back, he said, “You two will be okay if I don’t come back?”
Sitting opposite Paige, one arm resting on the back of a couch, Jager raised his glass. “Sure. Good night.”
Paige was nursing half a glass of wine. She put it down on a side table, and got up to turn off the music.
Into the resultant silence Jager said, “Spoilsport.”
She turned to him. “Did you want it on?”
“Only if you’re going to dance with me.” His eyes sent her a brazen invitation.
Paige shook her head. The room swayed, and she said, “I doubt if I’m capable. What do you suppose is in that wine?”
“I think we’re probably suffering from the effects of fumes from stuff we put on the floor, combined with alcohol.”
“You too?” She eyed him doubtfully. He looked the same as always—unruffled, handsome, contained.
“Put it this way—I’m not driving home.” He downed the rest of the liquid in his glass. “I don’t suppose you’d like to share the spare bed with me?”
“I’m slightly under the weather,” she said, “but not that much.”
Jager laughed. “I guess I’d better call a cab.”
He didn’t move, and neither did she. They were almost at opposite ends of the room, and yet Paige felt as if a golden cobweb was being spun about them, binding them.
She shook herself, a physical movement to bring her back to reality.
“What was that for?” Jager got up from the couch and came toward her, his feet soundless on the carpet.