by Janet Dailey
The lights were on downstairs when they reached the house. Julie had no conception of the time—whether it was late or early. The gravel in the driveway bit into the bare soles of her feet as she stepped from the car and she had to pick her way to the steps. Ruel reached the front door ahead of her and opened it for her.
Emily Harmon was coming down the stairs as Julie entered the large foyer. "You're home, Julie. I was wondering what time to expect you." Her smile of greeting contained relief. When she saw Ruel walk in behind Julie, her eyes widened in surprise. "You didn't tell me you were with Ruel."
"Didn't I? I thought I had." Julie tossed out the lie with numbed unconcern.
"Where are your shoes?" Emily began to take in the appearance of both of them, a thousand puzzled questions leaping into her eyes.
"I took them off to walk on the beach and a wave washed them out to sea. Ruel waded in after them, but he couldn't reach them." Julie felt something begin to splinter inside of her and knew she couldn't keep answering these questions. "Excuse me, Emily, I'm really a mess. I'll see you in the morning."
She rushed past the woman and up the stairs, leaving Ruel to make any more explanations that might be required by his aunt. In the safety of her room, she began shaking uncontrollably, her reaction to what had happened vibrating through her. It took all her effort to undress, wash and climb into bed.
Sunday came and went with Julie venturing no farther from the house than the swimming pool. There were no more questions from Emily about the previous night. And Ruel was nowhere around. Those two factors should have made it easier; but instead the tension mounted within her.
Mid-afternoon on Monday, Julie was in Debbie's room trying to explain the solution to an algebra problem. "I just don't understand how to do it. Can't we leave it for today?" Debbie pleaded. "I can't concentrate.
"I noticed," Julie sighed with short patience.
"Did Auntie Em tell you the news?" Debbie's eyes glowed with excitement, making her look closer to fourteen than seventeen.
"What news?" Julie asked the expected question.
"I'm going into the hospital on Thursday. They're going to X-ray and see how I'm healing. If everything's all right, they'll take off this cast and put me in a smaller one. I might even be able to use a wheelchair. Isn't that glorious?" she burst out.
"It certainly is," Julie agreed with a wide smile. "It's the best news I've heard in ages. I'm happy for you."
"I'm happy for me, too," Debbie declared, and glanced toward the window at the sound of a car pulling into the drive. "That's Ruel—I'd recognize his car anywhere. He's home early today. I can hardly wait to tell him, Julie!"
Blinded by her happiness, Debbie didn't see the tenseness enter Julie's features. The curve of her lips became strained. At the slam of the car door, she clenched her teeth to keep from wincing.
"You'll have to wait for a little while, because we still have schoolwork to finish," she insisted, and tried to close her ears to the sound of the front door opening and closing.
"Not that algebra problem again!" Debbie protested in a haft plea.
"It isn't so difficult."
"That's easy for you to say," Debbie sighed ruefully, and looked past Julie to the door. She broke into an immediate smile. "Hi Ruel!"
Julie stiffened, her nerve ends screaming out their awareness of his presence in the room. She refused to turn and look at him, staring instead at the equation in her hand.
"Hi, Deb. How are you?" His footsteps approached her chair by his sister's bed.
"Fine, I—"
Julie broke in, her spine rigid. "Would you mind visiting your sister after she's finished her lessons?" she demanded, indifferent to the astonished look she received from Debbie.
"I came to speak to you," Ruel stated.
He was standing much too close to her chair. In agitation, she rose and put distance between them, clasping the math papers in front of her as if they offered protection.
"As you can see, I'm busy." Briefly she let her eyes meet his narrowed gaze before she turned her head away, keeping her chin high. His hard vitality made her feel drained and vulnerable.
"This will only take a moment," he challenged.
Julie didn't trust herself alone with him. "Why would you possibly need to speak to me?" She attempted to laugh away his request, but the sound was brittle and harsh.
"For one thing," he crossed the room to where she stood, a muscle in his jaw working convulsively, "I wanted to give you this."
There was no place for Julie to retreat. She couldn't keep running from him anyway. She stared at the package he offered to her.
"What is it?" She made no move to take it.
"A pair of shoes to replace the ones you lost the other night."
"That wasn't your responsibility. The fault was mine for leaving them on the sand," she rejected stiffly, and started to turn away.
"Dammit, Julie!" Ruel cursed beneath his breath, the words barely audible, and caught at her arm with his hand. She recoiled from his touch, an instinctive reaction to keep from turning into his arms. He compressed his mouth into a tightly grim line. "Will you take this?" His dangerously low voice seemed to threaten violence if she refused.
Julie took the package. "Thank you." She lifted her gaze to his face, schooling it to look on him impersonally. "Was there anything else, Mr. Chandler?''
"No!" The negative came out in a savage rush of breath. "Nothing else, Miss Lancaster." Sarcastically Ruel flung her formality back in her face. Turning, he nodded curtly to Debbie. "I'II be in to see you later." He didn't wait for a response as he let his long strides carry him from the room.
"What was that all about?" Debbie queried, her speculative gaze examining Julie.
"Your brother brought me some shoes to replace a pair I lost, that's all." Julie tried to make light of the incident, walking around the bed to set the package on a side table.
"I know all about your lost shoes. I heard you come home Saturday night—with Ruel. After you went upstairs, he told Em that you two had dinner together." Debbie continued to study her intently. Julie found the look in the girl's eye was much too worldly and knowing. "What happened? Did you two have an argument?"
"Why would I be arguing with your brother?" Julie dodged the question with a stilted laugh.
"Listen, a minute ago the air in here was so thick, you needed a machete to cut through it," Debbie declared.
"That's nonsense. You're imagining things," Julie insisted, and began shuffling papers in a show of business.
"I don't think so. For instance, I know Ruel didn't take you to dinner Saturday night just so you could have a meal out. He took you because you're a woman. You went because he's a man."
"Debbie—" Julie began.
"Don't bother to deny it." Debbie didn't give Julie a chance to finish her sentence. "It's the most natural thing in the world—the two of you living under the same roof, eating breakfast and dinner together. Ruel is bound to have noticed you. And nobody can ignore him for long. You've fallen for him, haven't you?"
"No!" It was a sharp, explosive denial and an outright lie.
"It's okay, Julie," Debbie consoled. "Everybody does."
"Thanks!" It wasn't any comfort to know she was one of the many.
"I'm sorry. Maybe you'll feel better if you tell me what you fought about?" Debbie suggested.
"Once and for all, Debbie, we didn't fight." It had been a clear-cut parting of the ways. "I'm not going to discuss your brother any further. Is that clear?"
"I was just trying to help." Debbie's dark eyes held a look of wounded dignity.
"You can help by getting on with your lessons," Julie retorted.
By the time Thursday arrived, Julie was almost glad to see Debbie leave for the hospital, since it gave her a respite from the girl's scrutiny. At almost seventeen, Debbie was too perceptive. She didn't make any more attempts to invite Julie's confidence, but it was unspoken in her every look, and the strain of ignoring it had
begun to wear her nerves thin. It had been as difficult to endure as Ruel's studied politeness, so cool and aloof.
Julie wasn't on hand to welcome Debbie home late Friday afternoon. She had swum in the pool to the point of exhaustion and was stretched out on one of the lounge chairs when she heard the commotion that heralded Debbie's return. She didn't think she could match the happy sound of the voices filtering from the house, so she made no attempt to join them. Besides, Ruel would be there and Julie preferred not to be with Debbie when he was around and vice versa.
Closing her eyes to the glaring angle of the sun, she tried to relax. Its warmth couldn't ease the tension that stiffened her muscles and frayed at her nerves. She was living each day as it came, never asking herself how long she could stand up under the strain.
The familiar slip-slipping sound of Malia's thongs on the sun deck warned her of the housekeeper's approach. "Miss Emily was wondering where you were, Julie. Debbie has come home from the hospital."
"Yes, I heard." She didn't move nor open her eyes.
"You should see her! She's so excited about that wheelchair," Malia declared. "It will be good for her to be able to get out of that room for a little while each day."
"Yes, it certainly will," Julie agreed. "Debbie has been looking forward to that."
"Yes, she has. Aren't you going to come in to see her?" Malia asked when Julie showed no indication of leaving the pool area.
"Later," promised Julie, "after the initial excitement of coming home has died down. Besides, I know . . . her brother and Emily will want to spend some time with her, and I wouldn't want to intrude."
"Miss Emily wouldn't think you were intruding," Malia replied. "And Ruel has a dinner engagement in town this evening. He said he just had time to shower and change before he leaves."
"Oh." Julie swallowed at the lump that rose in her throat. His dinner companion would probably be some beautiful woman who didn't care if she bored him. "Tell Debbie I'll be in to see her later," she repeated at last. "Sometime before dinner."
"I will." There was a faint sigh in Malia's voice as if she regretted not being able to persuade Julie to come in sooner.
As Julie listened to the woman's footsteps retreating to the house, she felt a tear trickle out of the corner of her eye and into her hair.
She wiped it away with a finger. Opening her eyes, she tried to blink away the moistness that was gathering in them. Her throat ached and it hurt to breathe.
Something—a sound or a sensation—made her look up. Ruel was standing on the lanai overlooking the pool. The doors of his bedroom were open behind him. His shirt was pulled free of the waistband of his trousers and was unbuttoned three-quarters of the way down; he looked as if he had been halted in the act of taking it off. He was staring at her, stretched out on the lounge chair like a sacrificial offering to the sun.
The scanty covering of the orange bikini had never bothered Julie before, but now she felt exposed—naked. She had the feeling he could see all the way into her soul. She couldn't let him do that. Rising abruptly, she grabbed for her beach jacket and hurriedly stuffed her arms in its sleeves. She wrapped it across her front and tied the terry cloth sash. When she glanced to the upper lanai where Ruel had been watching, he wasn't there. The doors to his bedroom were partially shut.
Her shoulders sagged with defeat and a long, broken sigh came from her throat. What had she been protecting? Or had she merely been tilting at windmills? She concluded that she was her own worst enemy. She had to get control of herself and her emotions.
As she climbed the outer staircase to the lanai and her bedroom, she felt as fragile as glass. She was on the verge of breaking. The slightest jar would be capable of shattering her. She wanted to cry, but she was afraid of doing even that.
Pushing open the French doors to her room, she walked in. Her hair was almost dry from the swim, but it was matted about her shoulders. She lifted it away from her neck and let it fall back. Her appearance had ceased to concern her. Untying her beach jacket, she took it off and started to toss it on the chair by the wall. Something skittered across white-painted drywall and startled a shriek of alarm from her before she recognized the tiny harmless lizard, one of many that inhabited the gardens outdoors.
If she hadn't been so edgy, the little creature would not have scared her. Shaking in reaction, she clutched the robe to her stomach. Her heart was attempting to resume its normal beat.
"You're cracking up!" She whispered the warning to herself.
The French doors burst open. Her nerves had barely recovered from her previous fright, and she spun around, shattered to find Ruel standing inside, naked to the waist, concern etched in his hard male features.
"What is it? I heard you scream," he demanded.
She fought the rising tide of panic. "It was nothing. One of those . . . lizards or chameleons, whatever they are . . . ran across the wall," she explained in a faltering voice. "It . . . scared me for a second before I saw what it was."
Exhaling a breath, he relaxed. His muscles seemed to visibly uncoil. "You're all right, then. I thought you might have hurt yourself somehow," he said grimly.
She shook her head. "No, I'm all right."
It was impossible to tear her gaze from him. She had never seen him like this, his chest bared, hard flesh gleaming in a ripple of muscle, his skin deeply tanned all over. His virility shook her senses, assaulting her from every direction.
Her fingers curled into her palms, wanting to thread themselves through that cloud of golden-brown hair on his chest. She could almost hear the steady pounding of his heart—or was it hers? The male scent of him seemed to reach across the room and envelop her.
Ruel seemed so primitive standing there, half-dressed. The sight of him touched a similar core in her own being. She looked into his face and saw his gaze waywardly working its way over her bikini-clad torso. The beach jacket was a crumpled ball, pressed to her stomach, concealing none of her curves.
When his eyes met hers she saw the desire blazing there, and elemental hunger trembled through her. She felt raw and exposed, defenseless against him, because of the uncontrollable emotion he aroused.
"Get out of my bedroom." It was a hoarse plea not to test her resistance any farther. She knew she had none.
His head made a short, negative movement. "Julie." He held out a hand in silent entreaty and took a step toward her.
With a half-muffled cry she swayed toward him. It was all the answer Ruel needed as he crossed the room to sweep her into his arms. Julie locked her arms around his neck, her toes dangling off the floor. The dam had burst and nothing could hold back the tide of her love.
Chapter Eleven
HALF-SOBBING WITH JOY, she pressed kisses against his jaw and cheek while he buried his mouth in the curve of her neck. "I don't care anymore."
"Julie," he moaned.
His trembling lips moved up her neck to seek the parted softness of hers. His sighing breath of satisfaction filled her mouth with a quaking intimacy. She felt his hand moving up her spine to the halter bow of her bikini. A pull of the string and it loosened. She hunched her shoulders so he could remove the top completely, then it went sailing across the room as naked flesh met naked flesh.
"God, how I've wanted you," Ruel muttered against the hollow of her throat.
Unburdened by her weight, he carried her to the bed and laid her on the coverlet. The mattress sagged as he followed her down. With the pressure of his body spread half over her and half beside her, Julie's limbs felt curiously weak. A heady lethargy took hold of her and she surrendered to the sensuous demands he made.
She shuddered with desire when he bent to kiss the curve of her breast and tease the rosy peak into hardness. The sensual ache for fulfillment warmed her body—and she was overwhelmingly aware that Ruel was equally disturbed.
His mouth was back on her lips, crushing them, nibbling their edges. "Kulie." The golden cloud of chest hairs settled onto her rosy peaks. His hand slid down her wai
st, closing over her hipbone. "Ipo, ku'uipo," he murmured into her mouth. "Aloha auia oe." He rubbed his chin and cheek against hers in a rough caress. His eyes were half-closed, smoldering over her in passion. "I don't know why it comes out so much easier in Hawaiian," he said thickly. "Do you know what I said?"
"No." Words had ceased to matter. They were after all only words. "Kiss me. Love me, Ruel," she begged.
His mouth covered hers in urgent possession. His hands were seeking and shaping her curves to him. Neither could seem to get close enough to the other. His weight crushing her more fully onto the bed; his body rising above her.
A succession of sharp raps on the door was followed immediately by Emily calling, "Julie? Are you all right?"
Julie surfaced from his kiss with a rush, but not quickly enough to call out an answer. The knob rattled as she searched for her voice. The door opened and Emily stepped in.
It all happened in a span of seconds. There wasn't sufficient time for Julie and Ruel to separate. After Julie's initial glimpse of Emily's shocked expression, she turned her face away, burying it in the hard muscle of his upper arm. He shielded her from his aunt's view for a moment.
"What is going on here?" Emily finally breathed out the demand.
"Dammit! What the hell do you think is going on?" Ruel snapped, and levered himself away from Julie to rise from the bed.
Hot with shame and embarrassment, Julie rolled onto her side, grabbing for the edge of the coverlet to hide her nakedness. Waves of nausea swamped her. She thought she was going to be sick. She couldn't bring herself to look at either Emily or Ruel.
"Julie, I—" The shock of disappointment and disapproval was in the woman's voice.
"For God's sake, Em, leave her alone," he muttered.
"You know very well that I will not permit such goings on in this house, Ruel," his aunt declared, provoked into rage.