by Nora Roberts
"Excuse me?"
Conal looked out to sea, studying the crashing wall of waves. "You won't find your way back today, and likely not tomorrow, as there's more coming our way."
"But_" She was talking to his back as he walked inside as though he hadn't just sealed her doom. "I have to get back. She'll be worried."
"There'll be no ferry service in these seas, and no boatman with a brain in his head would chance the trip back to the mainland."
She sat on the arm of a chair, closed her eyes. "Well, that caps it. Is there a phone? Could I use your phone to call the hotel and leave a message?"
"The phones are out."
"Of course they are." She watched him go to the fire to add some bricks of turf. Her clothes hung on the screen like a recrimination. "Mr.
O'Neil?"
"Conal." He straightened, turned to her. "All the women I undress and put into bed call me Conal."
It was a test, deliberately provocative. But she didn't flush or fire.
Instead her eyes lit with humor. "All the men who undress me and put me into bed call me Lena."
"I prefer Allena."
"Really? So do I, but it seems to be too many syllables for most people. Anyway, Conal, is there a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast where I can stay until the ferry's running again?"
"There's no hotel on Dolman. It's a rare tourist who comes this far.
And the nearest village, of which there are but three, is more than eight kilometers away."
She gave him a level look. "Am I staying here?"
"Apparently."
She nodded, rubbing her hand absently over Hugh's broad back as she took stock of her surroundings. "I appreciate it, and I'll try not to be a nuisance."
"It's a bit late for that, but we'll deal with it." When her only response was to lift her eyebrows and stare steadily, he felt a tug of shame.
"Can you make a proper pot of tea?"
"Yes."
He gestured toward the kitchen that was separated from the living area by a short counter. "The makings are in there. I've a few things to see to, then we'll talk this out over a cup."
"Fine." The word was rigidly and properly polite. Only the single gunshot bang of a cupboard door as he started out again told him she was miffed.
She'd make the damn tea, she thought, jerking the faucet on to fill the kettle, which was no easy matter since the cast-iron sink was loaded with dishes. And she'd be grateful for Conal O'Neil's hospitality, however reluctantly, however rudely given.
Was it her fault she'd ended up on the wrong island? Was it her fault she'd gotten turned around in a storm and passed out and had to be carted back to his house? Was it her fault she had nowhere else to go?
Well, yes. She rolled her eyes and began to empty the dishes out of the sink so that she could fill it with soapy water and wash them. Yes, technically it was her fault. Which just made it all the more annoying.
When she got back to New York she would be jobless. Again. And once more she'd be the object of pity, puzzlement, and pursed lips. And that was her fault, too. Her family expected her to fail now flighty, scatterbrained
Lena.
Worse, she realized, was that she expected it, too.
The problem was she wasn't particularly good at anything. She had no real skill, no craft, and no driving ambitions.
She wasn't lazy, though she knew Margaret would disagree. Work didn't frighten her. Business did.
But that was tomorrow's problem, she reminded herself as she dealt with the dishes and waited for the kettle to boil. Today's problem was Conal O'Neil and how to handle the situation she'd put them both into.
A situation, she thought, as she went about stacking dishes, wiping counters, heating the teapot, that should have been thrilling. A storm-swept island; a handsome, brooding man; a cozy, if rustic, cottage isolated from the world.
This, she decided, perking up, was an adventure. She was going to find a way to enjoy it before the axe fell.
When Conal came back in, the old teapot was sitting snugly in a frayed and faded cozy. Cups and saucers were set on the table, and the table scrubbed clean. The sink was empty, the counters sparkling, and the chocolate biscuits he'd had in a tin were arranged prettily on a plate.
"I was hungry." She was already nibbling on one. "I hope you don't mind."
"No." He'd nearly forgotten what it was like to sit down and have tea in tidiness. Her little temper snap appeared to be over as well, he noted.
She looked quietly at home in his kitchen, in his shirt.
"So." She sat down to pour. The one thing she was good at was conversation. She'd often been told she was too good at it. "You live here alone?"
"I do."
"With your dog."
"Hugh. He was my father's. My father died some months back."
She didn't say she was sorry, as so many too many would have.
But her eyes said it, and that made it matter more. "It's a beautiful spot. A perfect spot. That's what I was thinking before I fell into your garden. You grew up here?"
"I did."
"I grew up in New York, in the city. It never fit, somehow." She studied him over her teacup. "This fits you. It's wonderful to find the right fit. Everyone in my family fits except me. My parents and Margaret and
James my brother and sister. Their mother died when Margaret was twelve and James ten. Their father met my mother a couple of years later, then they married and had me."
"And you're Cinderella?"
"No, nothing as romantic as that." But she sighed and thought how lovely it would be. "Just the misfit. They're all brilliant, you see.
Every one of them. My father's a doctor, a surgeon. My mother's a lawyer. James is a wildly successful cosmetic surgeon, and Margaret has her own business with
A Civilized Adventure."
"Who would want an adventure civilized?"
"Yes." Delighted, Allena slapped a palm on the table. "That's exactly what I thought. I mean, wouldn't regimenting it mean it wasn't an adventure at all? But saying that to Margaret earned me a twenty-minute lecture, and since her business is thriving, there you go."
The light was already shifting, he noted, as a new sea of clouds washed in.
But there was enough of the sun yet to sprinkle over her hair, into her eyes.
And make his fingers itch for a pencil.
He knew just what he would do with her, exactly how it would be. Planning it, he let his gaze wander over her. And nearly jolted when he saw the pendant.
He'd all but forgotten it.
"Where did you get that?"
She'd seen those vivid blue eyes travel down, had felt a shiver of response, and now another of relief that she hoped it was the pendant that interested him.
"This? It's the heart of my problem."
She'd meant it as a joke, but his gaze returned to her face, all but seared the flesh with the heat of it. "Where did you get it?"
Though the edge to his voice puzzled her, she shrugged. "There was a little shop near the waterfront. The display window was just crammed with things. Wonderful things. Magic."
"Magic."
"Elves and dragons, books and jewelry in lovely, fascinating shapes. A hodgepodge, but a crafty one. Irresistible. I only meant to go in for a minute.
I had time before we were to meet at the ferry. But the old woman showed me this, and somehow while we were talking, time just went away. I didn't mean to buy it, either. But I do a lot of things I don't mean to do."
"You don't know what it is?"
"No." She closed her hand over it, felt that low vibration that couldn't be there, blinked as something tried to slide in on the edge of her vision. "It feels old, but it can't be old, not valuably old, because it only cost ten pounds."
"Value's different for one than for another." He reached out. It was irresistible. With his eyes steady and level he closed his hand over hers that held the pendant.
The jolt snapped into her, sharp as an electric current.
The air seemed to turn the blue of lightning. She was on her feet, her head tipping back to keep her eyes locked with his as he shoved back from the table with enough violence to send his chair crashing.
That same violence was in him when his mouth crushed hers. The need, so bright, so strong, so right, whipped through her even as the wind rushed sudden and sharp through the window at her back. Her hand fisted in his hair, her body lifted itself to his.
And fit.
The pounding of her heart was like a song, each note a thrill. Here, with him, it was enough, even if the world crumbled to dust around them.
He couldn't stop. The taste of her was like water, cool and clean, after a lifetime of thirst. Empty pockets he hadn't known he carried inside him filled, bulged, overflowed. His blood was a rage of heat, his body weak with wanting.
He gathered the back of the shirt in his bunched fingers, prepared to rip.
Then they dropped the pendant they held between them to reach for each other. And he snapped back as if from a blow.
"This is not what I want." He took her shoulders, intending to