“You think so?” he asked, a slow smile infecting his expression. She nodded, hoping she didn’t look too eager to kiss him again. He took her hand and brought her to her feet in front of him. Amused, his eyes shining, his touch warm, he took on a husbandly affect and asked, “Is the cat out and the back door locked, dear?”
“What cat?”
“It’s been a good day,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist with an air of ownership. “But a long one. I think it’s time we ... go up ... to bed.”
“To bed?”
He grinned. “Now, don’t tell me you’re reconsidering your decision to sleep in separate bedrooms? You know, I never did approve of that idea.” He wagged his finger in her face and started up the stairs. “The choice is entirely yours, my dear. Though, you must know, you’re more than welcome in my bed.”
“Thank you, ah, dear.” Not the actor he was, she giggled. “But I feel that perhaps this time apart from each other will be good for us.”
She wasn’t any good at improvisations either. She’d have given anything to be witty enough to ad-lib a clever line that was as seductive and unsettling as his.
“Ah, yes,” he said sagely, swinging his empty arm wide. “Abstinence makes the heart grow horny. Interesting theory, that.”
“I believe it’s absence makes the heart grow fonder, dear.”
“Actually, it’s absence makes the heart grow fonder for someone else, dear, but let us not quibble. You’re the only woman within safe walking distance of my bed. You’re the one I want in it.”
She gasped, and he chortled gleefully, thinking he’d made a wonderful joke. In fact, she felt that he’d probably spoken the truth. She was the only woman around. The only one for him to tease and flirt with, the only one he could use to satisfy his sexual needs. His if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em attitude was much more tolerable than his sickly complaints and his sarcastic anger, but if he thought that was all it took to join with her, he was very much mistaken.
“How very romantic,” she said, her voice biting as she stepped out of the circle of his arm. “Dear.”
He stopped on the stairs to stare at her.
“Whoa, Harri,” he said, racing to catch up with her, leaning forward to see her face. “What’s this? Did I hit a nerve? Are you romantic, Harri?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, feeling strange and stupid. “I’m a scientist. Chemistry. Biology. Mental and emotional compatibility. That’s romance.”
“This from a woman who believes in magic?” He shook his head. “Won’t fly, Harri. You’re a dreamer, an idealist, a hopeless romantic.”
“I don’t believe in the magic,” she said, blurting her words. “Well, I do, but I don’t. I—”
“Want to believe,” he finished for her, “And that makes you a romantic.”
“Okay,” she said, miffed, turning on him at the top of the stairway. “All right. So I’m a little bit romantic. So what?”
“So nothing,” he said softly, slowly taking the last few steps toward her, stopping only when he could feel her breath on his lips. It was a fatuity for sure, but he was vitally glad that after all she’d experienced she was still everything he’d accused her of being. A dreamer. An idealist. A romantic. He wanted so much to kiss her that he could taste her, long before he covered her mouth with his.
It was like rushing to take the last seat on a roller-coaster ride as it pulled away from the loading dock—with no time to sit down, no time to secure the safety belt, no time to catch her breath before it began its ascent. Higher and higher she went, feeling safe and secure until the pace slowed, peaked, and sent her plunging out of control, plummeting toward the unknown, falling and frantic and deliriously delighted with the thrill of it all.
Her body raced to keep up with her senses, but in vain. And when at last the ride abruptly bottomed out, she was numb, limp, euphoric.
Payton licked the last drop of dew from her sweet, soft lips before he lifted his head and opened his eyes. He held her close until she could pry her lazy eyelids apart, then smiled at her dazed expression.
“That felt like magic to me,” he said. Nodding encouragingly, he added, “I think the powers that be are trying to tell us that they want us to ... carry on, so to speak. A little more kissing, some heavy-duty petting and who knows what they might tell us to do after that?”
His eagerness brushed against something in the back of her mind, and she laughed weakly, dropping her head to his chest for support.
“We hardly know each other,” she said. “Yesterday you hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you. I thought you were crazy,” he said, then tilting her chin upward so he could look into the dark depths of her eyes, he added, “And you can tell me everything I need to know about you by answering one question.”
She stepped away, putting several feet of railing between them. “No. I won’t sell you my island. Not willingly. Not before Sunday.”
“It doesn’t have to do with the island. It’s a hypothetical question.”
She grinned. “My favorite. What is it?”
“If I told you I was afraid—terrified—of the dark, would you leave the light in the hallway on and your bedroom door open?”
Hmm. Was it a trick question? Did he have some witty, suggestive comment to make, whichever way she answered? What kind of an answer did he want? The truth or not?
“Are you afraid of the dark?” she asked, watching him.
“No.” His answer was as candid as his gaze.
“Then why ...?”
“It’s just a question.”
Her brows rose in the manner he so enjoyed and she shrugged.
“Then, of course, I’d leave the light on and the door open. It would be cruel not to.”
“I knew you would,” he said, his voice soft and filled with emotion—something she hadn’t expected. He smiled his good night to her and took the opposite direction, heading for his bedroom.
Was that it? No more sweet talk? No more soft looks? No more seduction? She had declined his proposition, but his easy acquiescence was disappointing.
“Good night, Payton,” she said, her voice echoing in the vast space above the open foyer.
“Sleep well, Harriet,” he said from his door on the other side of the walkway. She was about to enter her room when his voice stopped her. “Will you leave your hall door open? Please?”
Perplexed, she asked him a hundred questions with her eyes and received only fragmentary replies. His request wasn’t as simple as it sounded. There was no sexual connotation, he wasn’t asking her to trust him not to use it during the night. It was more a ... a test. Yes, a test, to determine her trustworthiness. Not sexually—they both knew she wouldn’t sneak across the hidden hallway and attack him in the middle of the night. It was more than that. It was a could-he-depend-on-her-trustworthiness test. If he called out to her, would she come? If he needed to talk, would she listen? If he was lonely, would she be there to hold him? If he wanted to cry, would she let him?
He was waiting for her answer, his expression unreadable.
“Sure. No problem,” she said.
They entered different rooms, private and secluded, separated on one side by an entire house; close and intimate, conveniently connected on the other side by a shallow, soundless hallway.
Eight
FOR THE NEXT TWO days the doors at both ends of the hall between the master bedroom and the nursery stood open, and unused.
It was a time that tried a man’s soul—and a woman’s.
Nights were the worst. The ready gateway was the last image in Harriet’s mind when she turned out the lights to sleep. It called to her in whispers. Her eyes would open to the darkness, and she would know that the door stood open, tempting and inviting. Her ears would strain to hear him breathing. Intuition teased her with the whim that his bed was warmer, and she would shiver with cold. Dozing once more, she dreamed of floating down the corridor in a long white pristine gown, hair knot
ted with a satin ribbon, her cheeks flushed. She was virginal, pure and absolute in her desire to be with him.
From the other end of the passageway, in Payton’s dreams, he would see her coming to him. Dark hair, loose and flowing down her back and arms. Skimpy silk frills, cut high and low on her body, clinging precariously. Bare legs, long and graceful. Cheeks flushed, she was wild, wanton, and willful in her lust to be with him. His eyes would open to the darkness, and he would know that the door stood open, tempting and inviting. His ears would strain to hear her breathing. Experience teased him with the certainty that her bed was warmer, and he would shiver with cold.
“I thought you wanted me to tell you something fascinating,” she complained, pushing at her glasses with the back of her hand, frowning at him.
“I did. This isn’t,” he said, shifting in his squat position, his leg muscles cramping.
“It is fascinating, so pay attention. I’m going to quiz you on it later.”
He watched the crazy curls around her face flutter in the wind and wondered how he could have ever wished them restrained. He took in the thick, dark plait resting on her shoulder and couldn’t resist the vision of what she might look like with her hair loose, wavy, tumbling over the soft curves of her body—her naked body. ...
“This is a perfect example of the island’s development. The rock, the moss, the vegetation,” she said, hunkered down beside him, brushing her hands across the rocks. A solitary tern flew overhead, passing low as if to investigate the lesson. “Most of the islands are granite hilltops—a billion-year-old-Precambrian rock—flooded six thousand years ago after the last ice age. The barren rock was colonized by lichens, and as soil developed, moss grew, then grass, then shrubs, and finally the trees.”
She stood and scrambled over the rocks, taking no notice of the pounding waves below. ... at least, not the notice Payton was taking in them. Vertigo was a good word for what he was experiencing.
He hurried to catch up with her.
“Now the fascinating part,” she said, as she waited for him to join her on the path that encircled the entire island, that would take them high atop the rocky cliffs for a breathtaking view of the waterway or low along the boulders at the water’s edge, “... is that the hot, dry, southwest slopes, exposed to sun and wind, create a climate typical of latitudes much farther south, thus the southern hardwoods. But the protected northeast slopes are cool, moist, and shaded, allowing northern plants and coniferous trees to prosper. This is a phenomenon called microclimate, and it’s what maintains the islands’ remarkable variety of flora and fauna.”
“Fascinating.” More fascinating was the way the frail winter sunshine seemed to catch and shine in the depths of her eyes.
Ignoring or perhaps not even hearing his sarcasm, she went on with great verve. “I’ve always thought so. The deer, the wild turkeys, the snakes, turtles, birds ... it’s all so intricately balanced and—”
“Enough,” he said, breaking in on her tribute to nature, taking her hand and turning her to face him. “I’ve been in your biology class for hours now, and I’ll admit it’s interesting, but it doesn’t fascinate me.”
“At breakfast I asked what you wanted to do today and you told me you’d leave it to me, to fascinate you. I’m doing my best.”
“Do better. Tell me something about you.”
“Me? I’m not fascinating. Unless you find someone who’s been to jail fascinating, and I’ve already told you about that,” she said, turning away from his piercing gaze to continue their walk, making no effort to remove her hand from his.
He wasn’t ready to move on. He tightened his grip and pulled her back to face him again.
“Harriet Wheaton, you’re as wild and unpredictable as these curls when they blow in the wind,” he said, indulging his fondness for them with a gentle touch. “I want to know all about you.”
She laughed. “You do know all about me. I’ve told you my family history, my history. There’s nothing left to tell.”
“Tell me a secret. Tell me something about you that isn’t part of a public record, that no one else knows, only you.”
“A secret?” She had none. Up until she’d gone to prison, her life had been terribly ordinary. A happy childhood, an awkward adolescence, college, career, jail, picking up the pieces of her life, and another career. But no real secrets.
“It can be just a thought,” he said. “A thought you’ve never spoken aloud.”
Ah, she had lots of those.
“Come on,” she said, pulling at him. “I’ll show you a secret thought.”
Chill winds blew in their faces and rolled dark clouds across the sky. There was more scrambling over rocks, but Payton didn’t mind, it was an easy downhill slope toward the water in the bay, near the dock and the boat house.
“Gosh. I haven’t thought about this in years, until now. I wonder if it’s still there,” she said, careful of her footing on the slick surfaces.
“What?”
“Come on. If it’s still here, it’ll be right over ... Yes. There. Look.”
He did and saw nothing but rock and water. He watched as she jumped a tide pool and stepped up against a huge wall of stone beyond the normal waterline.
“Look there,” she said, smiling. “It’s still here. I did that when I was thirteen.”
He couldn’t comment on what he couldn’t see. He put his hands on her shoulders from behind and leaned closer. There, rubbed in the rock, were the letters HMW.
“Harriet ...” he started.
“Martha.”
“Wheaton.” He chuckled. “Your folks really had a thing for old names, didn’t they? Too bad you didn’t have any sisters to share them with.”
“They’re family names. That’s why I did that,” she said, nodding to the crude marks in the rock. “I hated my name. I hated all the family history and being part of something I didn’t really have anything to do with and that I couldn’t get away from.” She paused. “Actually, I just hated being thirteen and not being anyone special, just part of a line. I wanted to make my mark, so to speak. I wanted to let the world know somehow that I was here.”
“Even then, all this was a responsibility,” he said, almost to himself.
“Always.”
“Then why not sell it? Get out from under it. It could be your contribution to the island’s history.” He could hear it already. “Jovette Island was sold, late in the twentieth century, by Harriet Martha Wheaton, whose mother was the last Jovette.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” she asked, realizing that her position in life wasn’t a common one. “This place isn’t mine to sell. It doesn’t matter what my last name is, it could be Jovette and it still wouldn’t belong to me. It’s not like the orchard or my car or the house in Massena. They belong to me and I can sell them. But for the brief span of my lifetime this place is only in my keeping, it belongs to the Jovettes, all those before and all those after me.”
He studied her thoughtfully, trying to imagine her sense of infinity. What would it be like to be a part of something that always was and always would be? He’d always compared his own life to that of a comet, a solitary star with no orbit, streaking through the sky for a short time. And when it burnt out, it was gone forever and forgotten.
Continuity was another dream he’d given up. Children. Grandchildren. It had seemed to him that it was more important to get from one day to the next as painlessly as possible, than to worry about living forever. How could he nurture and protect a child when it took everything he had to nurture and protect himself?
Still, he could see how important it was to Harriet.
“I must be losing my mind,” he said suddenly, and more to the world at large than to her.
She looked at him. “And you’re just now taking notice?” she asked, grinning.
He was serious. In a silent fit of madness, he said, “You should sell some of the antiques in the house. The first editions in the library alone would pay the back tax
es on this place. The attic’s a gold mine, and you’d never miss a lot of that stuff. Sell it.”
A tremor passed through his body, his hands trembled. Relief, shock, courage, weakness? He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, only that it wasn’t planned and that it had shaken him to the core.
Harriet could only stare, baffled and curious. Did he know what he’d done, or was he losing his mind?
He had turned and was looking out over the water when Harriet stepped in front of him, looped her arms around his neck, and stretched on tiptoe to kiss him.
He accepted her gift of appreciation with a shyness neither of them expected. Inept in the presence of true affection and admiration, he permitted the modest declaration, then stepped away from her, sorely ill at ease.
But Harriet wouldn’t let go. In that microsecond she knew she’d never be able to let go of him. Like a primed siphon, her heart felt the emptiness in his and began to pour forth her love, wanting to fill all the dents, hollows, and punctures that had drained him of his hopes and dreams and of his trust.
She locked her lips to his and kissed him with a passion that bowled them both over.
What could he do?
Payton removed her glasses, slowly, carefully, deliberately. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. He followed her into oblivion and joined her in a celebration of sensation. The earth lost its trajectory, falling, dropping closer and closer to the center of the galaxy. Their bodies burned like the fires of the sun, melting away thought and memory.
She grew weak in his arms, and when the heat threatened to overtake him as well, they sank slowly to the cool, smooth stones and continued to stoke an inferno that Sol himself would have admired.
“Payton,” she murmured against his lips, expecting no answer, simply speaking his name in wonderment. She had never known such needs—to give, to take, to fill and be fulfilled. She had never known such urgency—to touch, to feel. She had never known such a lightness as she felt loving Payton.
“Hmm?” He pulled his lips from hers, then returned twice more before he was ready to pay attention to what she had to say. “What?”
The Trouble with Magic (Loveswept) Page 10