A dangerous thought. Comforting Nellie Reid could take on a whole different meaning once he started down that perilous road. No way. He'd stay out of her bed, and out of her life. What Nellie Reid needed—a commitment of marriage for her, and a step-father for her son—he could never give her. But before he'd cleared that thought from his mind, she stood, opened her arms to him, and said, "I could really use a goodnight hug."
Unwisely, he took her in his arms and held her, all the while reminding himself that this perilous road could only lead to a dead end. But for the moment he didn’t want to think about it. All he wanted was to hold Nellie in his arms and feel her breasts against his chest, and her heart beating beneath his, and soak up the warmth of her body, for just a little while.
CHAPTER 4
Two days later, when Nellie stepped into the galley, she stared in disbelief at the small, dog-eared book resting on the table. The cover displayed the image of a mouse wearing a dress. "He's not for real," she said to Katy, who looked up from her fleece-lined bed on the floor and cocked an ear. Will couldn't really expect Mike to read The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse?
Nellie opened the cover. Inside, she found a note scrawled in blue ballpoint. "To Willie from Mrs. Miller." She smiled as she pictured a dark-haired boy with brown eyes and a crocked smile responding to the name, Willie. She slowly thumbed through the pages. It was like Will said: a tidy house in a hole in the ground, a little lady mouse dusting and cleaning, and everything nice and cozy and secure. But to expect Mike to go for this…
She glanced through the porthole. On deck, Will was showing Mike a piece of equipment she assumed was for his orca study. From the perturbed expression on Mike's face, he wanted no part of whatever Will was saying to him. It wasn't like Mike to be rude, so she suspected he was jealous. After all, Mike had been the man of the house for well over a year, and he undoubtedly believed Will was trying to take his place.
Nellie pondered that thought. Will being head of the household. She had to admit it appealed to her, maybe more than it should. But she'd also been puzzled by Will's hasty departure, two nights before, when he'd sat with her in the salon talking about Mike's bad dreams. When she'd told him he had the makings of a natural father, something fleeting in Will's eyes told her differently. She'd noticed other things about him that night as well. He had the kind of body that captured and held a woman's attention. She'd fantasized about it after Will left, wondering what he'd be like in bed. He excited her in a way she'd never felt with Richard. But then, she'd known Richard for years before they married. With Will, it was all new. And bizarrely alluring...
And she sensed Will was attracted to her as well. Over the past week he'd spent time helping her scrape and sand when she knew he should have been working on the engine. And the night before he’d found her sitting on deck after Mike had gone to bed, and they'd talked past midnight, mostly about the memorable times she'd had with Uncle Vern on the Isadora. It hadn't occurred to her until after Will left that he'd revealed nothing about himself. But there was time... a month at sea to get better acquainted. She let out a little snicker. She could never have imagined, the night her car died and she called Will from the garage, that two weeks later she'd be fantasizing about the man. It still felt odd to find herself thinking romantically about any man but Richard.
A few minutes later, Will stepped through the door carrying a large box which, Nellie knew, from the flex of his muscles, was very heavy. He set the box down. Focusing on The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse in her hands, he said, "What do you think?"
"It's very nice of you," Nellie said, knowing he meant well, "but Mike's ten years old. He's not going to read a story about a lady mouse cleaning house."
"He will when we're in open water and there's nothing to do," Will said. "Meanwhile, I have something for you." He opened the box, revealing a portable, heavy-duty sewing machine.
"How long do we have it for?" Nellie asked, stepping over to inspect the machine.
"As long as you want," Will replied. "I bought it."
Will stepped up behind her, and as he peered over her shoulder, Nellie caught the hint of a very sexy male aftershave. Musk? She'd read somewhere that musk was put in aftershaves and male colognes as an aphrodisiac. Whatever is was, it was working. The image of Will's muscular chest and the thin line of hair disappearing into his sweats came back. Her breath quickened...
"Is it what you wanted?" Will asked.
Nellie focused her attention on the machine again. "Yes," she said, "but this kind of machine must be very expensive." She turned to face him, and he was so close she could see the pulse beating in his throat. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him, and said, somewhat lamely, "I mean, wasn't it terribly pricey?"
"It's a used machine," Will said, his eyes focusing on her lips. "You don't mind owning a used machine, do you?" He moved closer.
"No... a used machine... is just fine..." Nellie's words trailed off when Will's finger curved under her chin and tipped her face up, and before she analyzed the pros and cons of what was about to happen, their lips met, and Will's arms were around her, and she didn't try to stop him. Until now she hadn't realized how much she'd missed being held by a man, and having the scent of him in her nostrils, and the salty taste of him on her tongue, and his hands moving in languid strokes up and down her back... and her hands tangling in his hair... and little moans of pleasure emanating from her throat...
"I hate you!" Mike's voice shattered the moment. "I hate you both!" Mike rushed onto the deck, leapt to the dock and ran out of the boathouse.
Nellie pushed out of Will's arms. "Mike, wait!" she yelled after him. But he'd already rushed out, slamming the door behind him.
"I'm sorry," Will said.
"It's fine to be sorry, after the fact," Nellie replied, "but as adults, we should have some control. After all, we only just met a short time ago, and the sort of thing that happened is confusing to a young boy."
"We were kissing," Will said. "It happens all the time. I'm sure it's nothing new to Mike."
"It is when it's his mother!" Nellie said, her voice rising. "I'm trying to teach him morals and the least I can do is set an example."
"Kissing isn’t immoral," Will stated. "It's the exchange of feelings between two people."
Nellie looked at Will, exasperated. It was impossible to reason with a man who had so little experience with children. "Mike isn't ready for this."
"He will be the next time it happens," Will said.
"There won't be a next time!" Nellie cried. But even as she said the words, Nellie found herself looking forward to another kiss. "I've got to find Mike."
As she searched the docks, Nellie went over in her mind what she'd say. How does a mother, a widow no less, explain to her ten-year-old son why she was kissing a man she'd known for such a short time? But that was the difficult part. Will seemed much more than just a friend, even though they'd known each other for less than two weeks.
She spotted Mike sitting at the far end of a long pier. A stick in his hand, he pounded it against a weathered piling. From his short, quick, movements she knew he was upset. She lowered herself beside him and gazed across the water. "It's real pretty here, don't you think?"
Mike continued to pound the piling without looking up. A piece of stick broke off and flipped into the water. He tossed the rest of the stick after it, refusing to answer.
Nellie drew in a ragged breath. "I'm sorry you're upset about what happened," she said. "It's okay for you to feel that way. It's not wrong."
Mike didn't respond and Nellie was beginning to think he hadn't heard her. Then he picked up a bottle cap, hurled it into the water, and said, "I thought you loved Daddy."
"I did love Daddy and I still do," Nellie said, "and losing him saddens me more than you'll ever know. But he's gone, and my life is still going on, just as yours is." She waited for Mike to respond. When he didn't, she said, "You've got to understand, Mike, that I can't just wither and die because Daddy was taken away
from us. He wouldn't want that." She reached for Mike's arm and he snatched it away. She sighed. "He'd want us to be happy."
"You kissed him on the mouth," Mike said, disgusted, "like you kissed Daddy."
The heel of Mike's shoe thumped repeatedly against the piling and Nellie could feel the anger roiling inside him. "I'm sorry you walked in on us," she said, "but that can't be helped. I didn't intend for it to happen. It just did."
Mike picked up a clam shell and started scraping the pier. "Are you gonna marry him?"
Nellie let out a short, nervous laugh. "Just because we kissed doesn't mean we're going to get married. A kiss is a sign of affection between two people. And we are good friends. But if we did decide to get married, would that be so bad?" She was surprised to hear herself verbalized the idea. But the notion had taken root, and she couldn't seem to set it aside. She sensed that Will was a man who could give her love and understanding. And he had an almost uncanny way of sorting through Mike's problems and getting to the core of things. She could certainly do worse.
"I don't like him," Mike stated. "If you marry him I'll run away."
"You don't mean that," Nellie said, attempting to hide the worry in her voice.
"Yes I do," Mike insisted.
"Running away won't solve anything," she said.
Mike hurled the clam shell into the water and stood. When he turned to leave, Nellie jumped up and grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"
"No place. I just don't want to go back there," Mike said, looking toward the boathouse.
Nellie stared at Mike's troubled face and considered his threat, and vowed she'd resist Will's advances, no matter how difficult it might be. "I'm almost finished painting trim," she said, "so why don't you come back to the boathouse and get Katy and take her for a walk, and after that, you and I will go to the store and buy some candy."
Mike gave a shrug of indifference, then followed Nellie back to the boathouse, where he untied Katy from the cleat and left. "Don't be too long," Nellie called after him.
The door to the boathouse slammed.
Nellie jumped to the deck of the Isadora and went inside. She hadn't been there long when Will climbed up from the galley and stepped into the salon. "You know what," he said, his eyes roaming over her. "I'd like to nibble on your neck." He reached out and took her arm, pulling her to him, and before she could protest, he kissed her soundly.
Bracing her hands on his chest, Nellie pushed against him, and said, "We’ve absolutely got to stop this. Mike threatened to run away."
"Lots of kids threaten to do that, but they rarely mean it," Will replied. "Mike's probably just testing to see what kind of reaction he'll get."
"Well, I'm scared," Nellie said. "He's so upset, he might just do it."
"You can't believe he'd run away simply because he saw you kiss me," Will said in a sober voice. "There's got to be more to it than that."
Nellie shrugged. "That's basically it… almost."
"Almost?"
Nellie gave him a nervous little smile. "He said he'd run away if we... got married."
"Married?" The word seemed to hang heavily on Will's lips, and for some moments he said nothing. Then he eyed her warily, and said, "Why would he think we'd get married?"
Feeling chagrined, Nellie shrugged and replied, "I suppose because to Mike kissing means love, and love means marriage. It's a fairly simple concept."
"And you?" Will asked, pointedly. "What does kissing mean to you?"
Nellie sensed his terse words to be a sort of criterion. He’d already told her that never marry because he was a loner. Feeling foolish for having brought up the subject, she shrugged, and said, "I don't think kissing or anything else has to necessarily end in marriage."
But the fact was, she could never give her soul without love, or her body without commitment. And for her, commitment was marriage.
***
Nellie sat on the dock checking Katy for fleas while the carpet was being installed in the salon and staterooms and the vinyl put down in the galley and head. "Looks pretty good, Katy," she said to the little dog. "I guess your collar's working. We don't want any fleas to crawl down into the new carpet," she explained. Katy thumped her tail rhythmically against the dock.
Nellie glanced toward the door to the engine room, where she knew Will was working. Ever since the subject of marriage came up three days before, Will kept a respectable distance from her, and she missed the closeness they'd come to share. The sight of his bare chest and the promise of what lay beneath his sweats was like an intoxicant, and she found herself fantasizing about running her hands over his sleek male body and down his flat belly and closing her palm around his male part and learning what gave him pleasure, and showing him what gave her pleasure, and making hot, heavy love with him...
But Will's terms didn't include marriage, and hers didn't allow anything else. Still, she could have her fantasies. Her mind drifted to the master stateroom with its double-wide berth. She and Will hadn't discussed sleeping arrangements. At the moment, she was staying in the master stateroom, Mike was in one of the two bunks in the fo'c'sle, and Will was in his apartment. The only other room aboard was a small compartment with no bunk and little room to move around.
Returning her attention to Katy, she commented, "You'll be a regular old sea dog by the end of the trip but you've got to stop chasing Zeke." Katy cocked an ear at the change in Nellie's voice then looked at her with curiosity. "I'm sorry, but it has to be that way," she said. "I know you're just having fun, but Zeke doesn't view it that way. Nor does Will."
Mike, who’d sat silently watching the de-fleaing, looked at Nellie, and said in an irritated voice, "Why do we have to take a stupid cat with us anyway? Because of him, Mr. Edenshaw's gonna make us keep Katy tied up."
"Not if Katy stops misbehaving," Nellie said. "But you're partly to blame. I heard you encouraging Katy to chase Will’s cat."
"Why do you call him that? His name's Mr. Edenshaw."
"He asked me to call him Will, and I asked him to call me by my name too."
"I suppose you're gonna start calling him those other names, like you called Daddy."
"Honestly Mike, you're making way too much out of this. We're only going on a short boat trip with Will because he has a legal right to use a boat that happens to be our home. But that doesn't make him a candidate for a husband and step-father."
Nellie knew there was more to it than that. The truth was, in the short time she’d come to know Will, he’d started to fill a void in her life. Each time she was with him she felt a desire to be with him more. And she knew that, in time, Mike would come to accept him. But the problem lay with Will and he wasn't talking. Even now, with their relationship so tenuous, she knew she'd feel a void after the whale study was over, when Will would move on and out of her life. But she refused to think about that now.
After the carpet and vinyl installers left, Nellie went aboard to see the change. Standing in the doorway, she gazed into the salon. With the interior walls freshly varnished and new carpets replacing the soiled ones, the Isadora looked much as she'd remembered from her childhood. Glancing over her shoulder, she said to Mike, "What do you think?"
When Mike refused to reply, Nellie said, "Can't you even try to like the Isadora?" She was becoming increasingly alarmed with Mike's resentful behavior.
Mike pinned her with defiant eyes. "Is he going to stay in the room with me?"
"You mean Mr. Edenshaw?"
Mike glared at her. "Well, is he?"
Nellie drew in a long breath to try to calm the anxious beating of her heart. "I don't know, Mike. We haven't talked about that yet."
"If he does, I'm sleeping outside on deck."
Nellie was quickly losing patience. Only Mike's threat to run away kept her from lashing out in anger. "We'll work something out," she said. "Meanwhile, I need to spread out my material and start cutting out patterns for the cushions. You can take Katy for a walk if you’d like."
Witho
ut responding, Mike clipped on Katy's leash and left.
Nellie heaved an extended sigh. Males, she decided, were a very troublesome lot. She would simply shove the two males in her life out of her mind.
Retrieving a box of fabric from the locker, she removed a bolt of cloth and unrolled a long swathe of the blue and tan fabric onto the floor of the salon. Then she took out the patterns for the dinette cushions, that she'd made newspapers, and pinned then to the cloth. Reaching for the scissors, she began cutting. After a while, she glanced up from her cutting, realizing she'd neglected to look at the newly-carpeted master stateroom. Scurrying through the galley, she stood in the doorway and glanced around the quarters, pleased with what she saw. During the past week, she'd finished the dusky-blue curtains, which hung over the windows around the bow, and she'd covered the cushions on the curved couch below the windows with the same fabric. A bedspread in muted stripes completed the ensemble. As she stood gazing at the double-wide bed, Will came up behind, standing so close his chest brushed her shoulder and his breath whispered against her temple as he said, "It looks great."
"Thanks," Nellie replied. "With everything fresh and clean, maybe Mike will finally start to think of it as home."
"Speaking of Mike," Will said, "he went to the store to get some candy."
Nellie turned and looked at Will, alarmed. "I don't want him wandering off alone."
As she moved past Will to go after Mike, Will grabbed her arm. "He's not alone," he said. "He's with Roy Peters and his grandson, Donnie. The boys wanted to go to the store and buy candy, and Roy's walking with them."
Nellie shrugged off Will's arm and planted her hands on her hips, and said, "You should have checked with me first. I’m his mother!"
A Dolphin's Gift Page 6