The Older Man

by Laurey Bright

  “I’m not frightened. But after yesterday I’d be fool to give you another chance to — “

  “Kiss you? Make you admit that this indifference of yours isn’t real?”

  “It’s real,” Rennie said flatly.

  “Pardon me,” he said with exquisite politeness. “But after yesterday I find that hard to believe.” He sat up, watching her.

  “I told you — “

  “Oh, spare me!” he snapped, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. “I’m not without experience, Rennie. You were way too angry to be brought round by a bit of lovemaking, to reach the pitch that we did just because I’m ‘good at kissing’. That was me, the whole me, that you responded to, it was no impersonal animal mechanism. The sex was a trigger, but it came out of something much more complex. Something elemental, real. And we both know it.”

  Rennie looked away from him. She wished that he had not come to Sheerwind. Before, she had been convinced that she had reached calm waters after the storms and passions that had racked her life since meeting him. Now he had flung her into turmoil again. She was confused and angry and he was right when he said she wasn’t indifferent. But if what she felt now was love, then it was a very peculiar kind of love. It was painful and violent and stark. It scared her, and she didn’t want any part of it.

  Grant said, “I promise I won’t touch. Do you think you can handle being with me under those conditions? If you’re really as indifferent as you say, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  His voice held a jeering note. Perhaps he knew that even now she’d not be able to resist a dare.

  “All right,” she snapped. She knew that whatever it cost him, Grant would always keep a promise.

  “Good,” he said, and unexpectedly got up. “I’ll see about getting myself a bicycle.”

  She watched him plunge into the water, then gathered up her towel and returned to the house.

  He got a bicycle from somewhere. It was new and shiny and looked rugged enough to cope with any terrain. Rennie climbed onto Janice’s old ten-speed and led the way, determined to make him regret his challenge. She’d been cycling now for weeks, but she remembered the first couple of days of aching muscles and a sore seat. Grant probably hadn’t ridden a bike since childhood.

  She took him to the township first, to see the small museum and the little shops that sold souvenirs to the summer tourists. Then to one of the more popular beaches near Conneston, where families and holidaymakers crowded the sand. She knew he’d have preferred somewhere quieter, but he didn’t complain. The following day they toured the ring road that swept around the island, climbing sometimes around steep little hills, then sweeping down to the ocean’s edge. She kept up a running commentary on every landmark, regurgitating all she had learned about Sheerwind from Ethan and from a history of the island written by his neighbour. Grant had asked for a tour guide, she thought, and a tour guide was what he was going to get.

  “We have to stop here,” she said, as they reached a headland looking down over a reef endlessly attacked by white-edged breakers. “It’s the Sheerwind memorial.”

  “Oh, I must see that,” Grant said solemnly as they left their bikes and walked along a narrow path to the cliff edge.

  Rennie ignored the faint sarcasm, gazing at the ocean. A deep band of silver glitter on the horizon, and starpoints glistening off lazy waves as they entered the bay below.

  Here stood the memorial to the first, involuntary settlers, survivors of a convict ship wrecked there in the nineteenth century.

  “The island was named after it,” she told him as he studied the plaque commemorating the wreck of the Sheerwind.

  He nodded. “That much I know.” They had seen some relics of the wreck in the museum the previous day.

  “A convict, Tatty Connors — after a good deal of bloodshed — eventually appropriated all the four women survivors for himself. One of the ship’s crew was a black ex-slave — his descendants still live here. Before the wreck the island was uninhabited, but since the nineteenth century, all kinds of people have settled here — Europeans and Pacific Islanders, a few Chinese, and they all intermarried and picked up aspects of one another’s culture.”

  “You know a lot about the place for someone who’s been here only a short time,” he said.

  “I’m a fast learner.” The phrase woke an echo in her mind, and she saw the sudden smile in his eyes that meant he’d remembered, too. Pushing that aside she asked innocently, “Am I boring you?”

  The smile deepened. He knew perfectly well what she was up to. “Not at all,” he told her smoothly. “I’m fascinated by all this esoteric knowledge you’ve stored up.” He added, “You could never bore me, Rennie.”

  She opened her mouth to say something tart, like, what about when you thought I was infatuated with you? He’d done his best then to make her feel a nuisance and a bore. But she didn’t want to open that subject again.

  She remounted her bicycle and said, “I’ll show you Tatty’s cottage.”

  “I can’t wait,” she hear him mutter as he followed. So far he had shown no sign of tiring.

  The ruined cottage was surrounded by weeds and regenerating bush. “It’s haunted,” Rennie said.

  “Of course it would be,” Grant remarked tranquilly.

  “An old drunk who had slept the night there was found dead in the morning.” She dredged her memory for several other stories of about the unexpected deaths of several people who had tried to remove stones from the cottage for building. “No one touches it now,” she finished.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Having exhausted her small store of knowledge about the place she turned reluctantly back to the road. Grant was much fitter than she’d expected.

  “Where to next?” he enquired interestedly.

  Surreptiously Rennie eased aching shoulders. She wouldn’t have minded a swim to refresh herself and a long laze on a quiet beach afterwards, but that would have been admitting defeat. She forced herself to wax ecstatic about the view from The Camel, a double-humped hill that looked over almost the entire island.

  He asked with every sign of enthusiasm, “Will we be able to go there today? Or aren’t you up to it? I don’t want to tire you, Rennie.”

  Of course she was up to it, she told him loftily.

  They were both slightly sweaty by the time they made it to the top, but Grant still hadn’t flagged. As they parked their bicycles against a handy tree Rennie began to wonder rather bitterly what it would take to tire him. The breeze on the lookout point was welcome. She pushed windblown hair out of her eyes and turned to walk the few yards to the best view, trying to breathe normally.

  Grant stood close to her. “Sure you’re all right?” he said, concern in his voice.

  “Yes, of course.” She kept her voice casual, her eyes on the sweep of green countryside with the town in the distance and the blue sea washing white-sand shores.

  She was chagrined that when he suggested they head for home, taking it easy, she knew without doubt it was for her sake, not his. At dinner he told Ethan and Celeste that he’d seen most of the island, and with laughter in his eyes added, “Rennie was a superb guide. She’s missed her vocation.”

  Grimly she stayed up until their hosts were ready for bed, and then thankfully followed them upstairs. But spite of being dead tired, she was unable to sleep that night. The air was warm and heavy, and the perfume of night-scented flowers wafted in through the open window. An insect chirped intermittently nearby, a bird called once, clear and fluting, and the insistent sound of the waves on the shore came clearly from the beach.

  The sound seemed to beckon her, and eventually she gave into it. Pulling off her nightshirt she shrugged a short robe over her naked body, took her small torch and, ignoring the ache in her calves, legacy of the long day’s cycling, quietly went down the stairs and let herself out of the house.

  When she reached the sand she switched off the torch and put it in her pocket. The moon came out from b
ehind a smoky cloud, and lit the water with a pale glitter.

  She scuffed along the sand for a little way, then was drawn irresistibly to the water’s edge, standing with her feet sinking slightly into the wet softness as a ruffle of white curled about her ankles. The water was warm and caressing. On impulse she stripped off the robe and flung it onto the dry sand a few yards distant, then walked into the water until it reached her thighs before flinging herself down. Coolness folded around her; she stroked slowly forward, then turned on her back and floated, looking at the high round moon.

  The water gradually warmed on her skin, and she kept afloat by the smallest movements, glancing at the shore to make sure she didn’t lose her bearings.

  Once she thought she saw a moving shadow on the sand, and her heart missed a beat. She turned quickly with a silvery splash, but could see nothing but the white sliver of sand and the dark trees beyond.

  When she finally came ashore and pulled on the robe over her damp skin, she felt relaxed and clearheaded. Until she had almost reached the trees and the path, and saw the pale blur of a face a few yards further along, deep in the shadow of the trees, and the man standing there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Rennie gave a choked scream even as she turned and fled back along the sand, stumbling in its softness.

  “Rennie!” A hand touched her shoulder, but she jerked away, sobbing with panic. Her robe slipped and she tore herself away, but tripped backwards over a piece of driftwood and went plunging onto the sand.

  Before she could recover, he was on his knees beside her, gripping her arms as she tried to get up, to fight him. “Rennie, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to frighten you like this!

  Her breath caught, she went suddenly still. “Grant? Oh, Grant!”

  She swayed forward into his arms, and he pulled her tightly to him, stroking her hair as she took deep, shuddering breaths, saying again, “I’m sorry, my darling. I didn’t realise you wouldn’t know me in the dark. It wasn’t me you were running from this time, was it?”

  Rennie shook her head. “I thought — Kevin. I know it’s stupid but — “

  “Not stupid at all,” he said. “Did you come down here to get away from the nightmares?”

  Too shocked to ask how he knew about that, she said, “No. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me too. I was here when you came down, but you obviously wanted to be alone.”

  “You watched.” She lifted her head from his shoulder.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. “I didn’t know you were going to go for a nude swim. Once you were in, I — thought it safer if someone was about.”

  “You could have gone back to the house when you saw me come out.”

  A longer pause. “I couldn’t bring myself to.”

  She had stopped shaking. “The upright lawyer as Peeping Tom?” Her brave attempt at flippancy was marred by the tremor in her voice.

  He said gruffly, “Are you angry?”

  Rennie shook her head. He was embarrassed, more so than she, and she felt a strange welling of tenderness. “Not now.” She reached up and touched his cheek.

  “Rennie?” His voice was low. He moved so that he sat on the sand, holding her against him, and she leaned into him. “Rennie,” he said on a different note.

  She lifted her face to him, and he gave a long sigh and kissed her, easing her down on the sand. Rennie’s arms went round his neck as he pressed closer to her. He kissed her and she responded with a passion that shook both of them.

  His mouth wandered to her bare shoulder where the wrap had slipped. His hand slid it further down, baring her breast, too. He looked down at her, then into her eyes. “Rennie?” he said a third time. And now his voice too was unsteady.

  She knew it was her last chance to say no. And knew that she didn’t want to say it. She said his name instead, and fearlessly put her hands behind his head and drew it to her breast. And as she felt his mouth close over it, warm and moist and gentle, her breath left her throat in a rush of joy.

  His hand brushed away the robe on the other side and made its own slow, erotic exploration, before his mouth returned to hers and she welcomed it with renewed passion.

  When he half sat up to sweep away the wrap entirely, she lifted her own hands and opened the buttons of his shirt, running her palms over his chest, glorying in the sudden indrawing of his breath, and his hurried tugging at his belt.

  He threw off his clothes and stretched out at her side at first, admiring her in the moonlight, one hand playing over her body, inducing little drifts of pleasure that flowed from her lips, breasts, thighs, and eventually centred on one hot, spiralling core of need.

  She bucked a little under his hand, and said, “Oh, please. Please, now!”

  His shadow came over her, and his hand was under her head. “Not too fast, little virgin.”

  Slightly stung, even in the grip of her desire, she said, “How do you know I’m still a virgin?”

  The hand in her hair convulsed, and she saw the stark passion on his face. “I’m about to find out,” he said, as his legs parted hers, faintly harsh with sand. “So do I need to take this gently — or not?”

  Staring into his eyes, she said rashly, “Take it how you like — but take it now!”

  She stiffened with the shock of his first thrust, and saw his face change, and that he knew. She felt the way he stopped and held himself back and made it as easy as he could.

  And then more than easy. She felt him glide in deeper, and his mouth met hers again, excitement overriding the slight discomfort, and she met him, matched him, closed herself about him and rode on wave after wave of golden light that splintered into shards of pleasure.

  And heard him murmur her own name over and over as he rode it with her.

  It was dawn before they talked, sitting on the sand with Rennie’s back against Grant’s chest, their hands linked in her lap. Grant had put on his clothes and pulled Rennie’s wrap about her because the air had cooled towards morning.

  “Why did you deny that you still love me?” he asked her.

  “I wanted it to be true. I accused you of being afraid to love me, being like Ellen, wanting to shut love out.” She stopped, dipped her head and then raised it, shaking back the damp mane of her hair. She said, looking out to the brightening skyline where it met the sea, “I suppose my life has been quite sheltered, privileged. Until last year I’d never been badly hurt by anyone — physically or emotionally. I always expected that people would like me and be kind to me.”

  “As you were to them,” Grant put in quietly.

  “I did try to be, mostly. That’s how I was brought up. I guess I thought that within reason I could get anything I wanted, either by plain asking or with hard work. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled. To want something as much as I wanted … your love, and have it denied, was almost unbelievable to me. And to have someone hate me and want to hurt me as Kevin did — that was an emotional shock too. The world wasn’t the friendly place I’d always taken for granted. It had another face, a face to be feared.” She shivered again and Grant’s arm tightened around her. “I know now how it feels to be afraid. I was afraid to love you. Afraid of being hurt again.”

  His arm about her tightened. His voice muffled in her hair, he said, “I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I’d die of the pain, myself when I knew that I had.

  She stirred. “And now? Why change your mind after sending me away, if it wasn’t pity?”

  “There’s only so much self-sacrifice a man can make. I’ve reached the end of mine.”

  “You told me it was self-preservation, not self-sacrifice.”

  “In a way that was true. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the laughter leave your eyes, seeing it replaced by hatred and resentment.”

  “You would never believe that I was different from Jean.” Hurt made her voice husky. “You always had us mixed up in your mind.”

  “I know.”

  “I suppose it was inevitable, when you’d just
lost her,” Rennie acknowledged.

  “I suppose it was. I loved you so much, your laughter, your love of life — the way you gave yourself, your love, to the children, and then to me. It was all I could do to stop myself taking advantage of that generous, openhearted loving. But I had no right to take your lovely youth and your vitality and suck it dry, turn you into a bitter, unhappy woman. I was haunted by the thought that if I did, you’d die inside.”

  “I did that when you finally convinced me you didn’t want me.”

  “I wanted you so that I ached for you, night and day. I was going crazy with wanting you.”

  A wave slipped up the sand and slid back, leaving a glistening line of hissing bubbles behind in the moonlight. A faint breeze stirred Rennie’s hair. She raised a hand and pushed it out of her eyes.

  “Crazy enough to tell yourself that what you felt wasn’t real and wouldn’t last?”

  “It wasn’t my feelings I doubted.” He gent and kissed her, his hand on her cheek. “Try to understand, Rennie. Jean’s death and you coming into my life at the same time and me so screwed up I couldn’t think straight. Being apart from you these past months had me on the rack, but in a way it was a necessary torture. I needed to make my peace with Jean’s memory before I could truly believe I could make you happy.”

  “Can you, now?”

  “Yes. You’re Rennie, and I have no grounds for making assumptions about you based on another woman’s reactions. You’re generous and capable and amazingly mature. Lorna said once that maturity has very little to do with chronological age. She was right.”

  “Grant — what about Lorna?”

  Grant stared down at their linked hands. “She’d been in a long relationship with a man who never bothered to get a divorce. He died about the time of my divorce. Lorna and I are good friends, that’s all, and if I’d never met you I suppose it might have been a reasonable basis for marriage, eventually. She was … my protection.” His voice shook and he paused to steady it. “Because while you were living in my house I needed a buffer to stop myself from seducing you, which would have been a despicable act, given all the circumstances, and after you left there wasn’t a day when I didn’t have to force myself not to call you with some excuse for seeing you again. The day that bastard pushed you through the window, Lorna was in my office. When I realised it was you they were putting in the ambulance, I practically shoved her out of my way to get to you. Later, when I remembered her existence, I went back and apologised. She laughed and told me I’d better ask you to marry me. She meant it,” he added, answering her unspoken doubt. “She promised to dance at our wedding.”