“I do,” he responded promptly. He gave her a rather sheepish grin. “I just happened to bring one along with me yesterday.”
“I see,” she said in a tight voice. “You just happened to bring a typewriter to my house when you came to check on me. Or had you forgotten you came because you were so worried about me?”
“Tools of the trade,” he said. “It goes everywhere with me.”
She had to laugh. It was so typical of him. In a way, she even had to admire him for his dedication. Besides, he had been kind to her last night, and even cooked breakfast this morning. Regardless of how awful it was, his intentions had been good.
“Well, right now I’m too tired to start pounding a typewriter.” She jumped up from the couch and stretched her arms high above her head to get the kinks out. “The sun is shining. I think I’ll take a short walk to clear my head, then“
She stopped short when she saw the look on his face. His glittering dark eyes were fastened at exactly the point where her sweater strained tightly against her breasts as she stretched. She flushed deeply, then slowly lowered her arms to her sides.
He raised his head then, and their eyes met briefly. What she saw in those brown depths shook her, and there flashed through her mind the memory of the way he’d held her last night when he’d carried her to bed, the sweetness of his kiss. She arranged her sweater more loosely and turned from him.
“Anyway,” she mumbled, “I need some fresh air. Surely the story can wait a few hours.”
“Fair enough,” he said in a perfectly normal tone of voice. “Actually, I thought while you did the typing this afternoon I’d get some more wood chopped. We’re just about out, and I could use the exercise.”
Although his bland assumption that he was staying on at the house troubled her a little, she didn’t feel like arguing with him about it now. The room had suddenly come to feel very warm, almost stifling, and she only wanted to get out of there, away from his disturbing presence.
“I’ll see you later, then,” she said, moving past him. “I’ll just get my things from my room, then maybe wander down as far as the crossroads to see what the road looks like by now.”
By the time she got back from her walk the clouds had completely dispersed and the sun was really quite
warm, warm enough in fact for her to shed her jacket. Although the flood had receded, the road was still impassable, by car at any rate.
Jerry could walk back to the village, but he’d brought so much luggage along with him that it would be tough going. It would serve him right, she thought, except that it probably wouldn’t hurt her to put him up for one more night. Since they’d just about finŹished the story, he might not even want to stay on at all. A man like Jerry thrived in a more cosmopolitan setting, and he was probably anxious to get back to the city, especially the nightlife.
Surely by now, since getting rid of Claudia, he must have another blonde on the string, and she had to wonder what in the world had made him come on to her last night. As she’d told him, she certainly wasn’t his usual type. Propinquity, she decided as she turned into the path that led to the house. They’d been stranded here alone together, she’d been in a weakened condition, and the moment was just right. Besides, she added with a suppressed giggle, in the dark he wouldn’t have noticed that her hair wasn’t blond.
As she approached the front porch she could hear a steady thudding sound coming from the back of the house. Curious, she went around the side to see what it was. When she reached the far corner, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared.
There was Jerry, stripped to the waist, her father’s ax in hand, chopping wood. His back gleamed with perspiration and his dark hair was falling over his forehead. He was turned slightly away from her so that he couldn’t see her, and she stood there for several moments watching as he raised the ax high above his head, then brought it crashing down onto the log.
She’d never realized what a strong muscular body he had. Not an ounce of fat on him, the shoulders broad, the arms strong and well developed. His jeans were riding low on his slim hips, and they seemed to slip a little lower every time he raised his arms up. Strange sensations began to course through her at the sight, so unsettling that she quickly turned away and ran back to the front of the house.
In the living room she saw that he had set up the typewriter on the table by the sofa. With a sigh, she sat down and started in on it.
She spent the next hour trying to decipher her scribblings well enough to transcribe them on the typewriter in some kind of order, and by then had had enough for one day. She needed a bath and a change of clothes before thinking about what to scrounge for dinner among the meager supplies she’d bought at the grocery store.
After she had her bath, she put on her silk shirt and gray flannel trousers. Then, at the mirror over the dresser, she brushed her hair carefully, teasing it a little to give it a softer look. She’d been such a mess ever since Jerry arrived that she wanted to show him she could look more attractive, more feminine, when she tried. She dabbed a little powder on her nose to take off the shine, applied some pale coral lipstick, a touch of mascara.
When she was finished, she gazed at her reflection, humming a little under her breath, quite pleased with her appearance. She’d also done a good day’s work, which was always satisfying. Maybe a little perfume, she thought, reaching for the bottle on the dresser.
Suddenly she stopped short, her hand in midair. “What am I doing?” she said aloud. Why was she
taking such pains to look nice for Jerry Bannister? Had she turned into one of those repressed old maids who had erotic fantasies at the drop of the hat?
She’d just have to change her clothes into someŹthing more neutral immediately, scrub off the makeŹup, comb her hair back in its usual style, forget the perfume.
Just then she heard the back door open and close and Jerry’s footsteps going through the kitchen into the living room. It was too late. He’d come looking for her any minute, anxious to find out how far she’d gone with the typing.
She went into the living room, where he was just dumping the logs he’d chopped into the scuttle by the hearth with a loud crash. He’d put his shirt back on but left it unbuttoned.
“Well,” she said, walking toward him, but still managing to avert her eyes from the masculine chest. “You have been busy.”
“You’re darned right I’ve been busy.” He straightened up slowly and stood staring fixedly at her for a while, then gave a low whistle. “My,” he said
at last. “Don’t you look?” He faltered, fumbling
for the right word. “Nice,” he added finally. “What’s the occasion? Or did you go to all that trouble just for me?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said tartly. “I’m just so glad to get that story out of the way, I thought it was time to celebrate.”
“Ah, yes. The story. How did you make out with it this afternoon?”
“Not bad. It’s still pretty sketchy, but shouldn’t need much polishing. You can look it over tonight,
and we can probably get it in final form by tomorrow.”
“Good work, Anne,” he said with a nod of satisfaction. “See? I told you you could do it.”
“Yes, with your help.” She shook her head. “I still can’t quite figure out how you managed to talk him into it.”
He shrugged. “Oh, I’m an old hand at that kind of thing.”
“Well, you probably want to clean up now after your arduous labors. The bathroom is free. I’ll go see what I can find to fix for our dinner.”
As Jerry had predicted, there really wasn’t much in the cupboards except cans of soup. There were still some eggs and cheese left in the fridge, however. Maybe an omelet with soup and crackers would be enough. Tomorrow, if the road was clear, she could go to the village and stock up on groceries.
As she pottered in the kitchen, she could hear Jerry moving around in the back of the house, and when the shower came on and he began to sing again s
he had to smile. After such an inauspicious beginning, they had ended up being quite comfortable together. She was almost sorry that it would end tomorrow. She began to picture him as he’d looked chopping wood, and gradually the image began to change to one of him standing under the shower, soaping the tall lean muscular body, rinsing off
Suddenly she realized that the egg she was holding in her hand had been squeezed so tightly that its insides were dripping all over the counter. Cursing herself for her clumsiness, she started to mop up the mess. She’d have to pay more attention to what she
was doing than that, or old eagle eyes would get suspicious.
It wasnU until she was rinsing egg yolk out of the dishcloth that it dawned on her that it was only five o’clock. What was she thinking of anyway? It was too early to make dinner. She shook her head angrily. Where was her mind lately?
Putting the carton of eggs back in the refrigerator, she went into the living room and switched on the lamp. The sun had gone down, it was dark out, and the house was growing chilly.
She decided to try to light a fire, not her strong point, but since Jerry had chopped all that wood she could at least make the effort. She wadded up old newspaper, lit it, then put in a handful of kindling. When it was blazing nicely, she threw a heavy log on top. With a brief puff of smoke, the flame fizzled out immediately.
She was on her knees, still trying ineffectually to coax it back into life, when she heard Jerry come in behind her. She jumped to her feet and turned to face him. He was freshly shaven, his dark hair still damp, and dressed in black pants and a clean white shirt, open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up over his forearms.
“I never could get one of these things going properly,” she said. “At home I use those three-hour treated logs, and even they give me trouble.”
He glanced at the smoking hearth. “You just put the log on too soon, that’s all.”
He got down on his haunches and with the fire tongs moved the log off the kindling and set it to one side. He started feeding in more paper, blowing on it until
it caught. He jabbed at the kindling with the poker, spreading it out until it too blazed up.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll take care of the fire. Why don’t you go see if you can find something to drink besides that awful brandy? As you said, we deŹserve a little celebration after our hard day’s work.”
“Fair enough,” she said, relieved of the responsibility for the fire. “But I don’t know what kind of luck I’ll have.”
In the kitchen she got up on a chair to explore the topmost cupboard more thoroughly. Finally, after rummaging around among the dust and the cobwebs and a few half-empty bottles of the sweet liqueurs her mother used to like, she found an unopened bottle of sherry that must have been there since time began. Her father never drank wine. It was probably a gift he’d never even bothered to open.
She got out two wineglasses, a corkscrew, and another plate of crackers, and carried everything on a tray back to the living room. By now Jerry had a merry blaze going, and she stood there for a moment, watching the firelight play over his strong features. He really was an awfully good-looking man. Just then he turned and she held up the bottle.
“I hope you like sherry. Outside of some ancient crčme de menthe, it was all I could find. Unless you want to risk what’s left of the brandy.”
He made a face. “No, thanks. Sherry’s fine.”
She set the tray down. “You’ll have to take the cork out. I always manage to crumble them into little pieces.”
He took up the bottle, deftly removed the cork with a few twists of the corkscrew and poured out the
glasses. He handed her one, then raised his and clinked it against hers.
“Here’s to the story,” he said.
“The story,” she murmured.
They sat down on the couch in front of the fire and sipped their wine in a companionable silence for some time. The room seemed much cozier now, and it was very pleasant to just relax and enjoy the wine, the quietand the company.
Finally, he laid his arm on the back of the couch and shifted toward her. “Well, Cameron,” he said. “Last night you wormed my past history out of me. Tonight it’s your turn. What about you?”
She smiled and waved a hand in the air. “Oh, there’s not much to tell. My mother died ten years ago and now with my father gone I don’t have any family at all.”
“Ah, then you’re an orphan. No brothers or sisters?”
“I had an older brother. David. But he was killed in a boating accident when he was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “That must have been rough. Were you close?”
“Oh, yes. I adored him. But it was so long ago that I don’t really think much about it any more. It almost killed my mother, though. In fact, in a way it did. She died just a few years after David did.”
“How about your father? It must have been hard on him to lose both his son and his wife that way. I’m surprised it didn’t bring you and him closer together.”
She frowned. “It should have, but he doted on his only son, of course, and worshiped my mother, and I think after they were both gone he actually resented me, just for being alive. In any case, everything simply
fell to pieces that summer my mother died. I ended up leaving the island and never coming back.”
“Until now,” he said.
She darted him a swift look. “Yes. Until now.”
“And did Ben Poole have anything to do with your leaving?”
She flushed, determined not to tell him that story. “Oh, in a way. I guess I’d always been crazy about Ben. His wife was my mother’s best friend and had been awfully good to me. That summer it just seemed as though my life here had reached a dead end. Everything was hopeless. My fatherwell, we had a kind of ugly showdown I won’t go into. And Ben was certainly out of my reach.”
“But not anymore.”
She swallowed the last of the wine in her glass, then refilled it from the bottle. “I don’t know, Jerry, I honestly don’t know.”
He leaned back and gave her a long look. “Well, I’ve already told you what I think about that situation.”
“Yes,” she agreed firmly. “You have. And I don’t really want to hear“
“I think,” he went on blithely, ignoring the interruption, “that you see Ben Poole as a father figure, a kind of substitute for your own father, who obŹviously rejected you after your mother died.”
She gave him her most withering look. “So now you’re a psychiatrist! You have it all figured out. Well, you’re wrong. My feelings for Ben have nothing to do with my father.”
He shrugged. “All right, calm down. Have it your way. I just hate to see you throw yourself away on an old“
“Jerry,” she warned. “If you say one more word about that, I’ll never speak to you again.”
He held up a hand defensively. “All right, all right, I won’t say it.” He grinned. “But I can think it.”
“Besides,” she went on, ignoring the comment, “what makes you think Ben would want me?”
“Oh, he’ll want you all right.”
She gave him a sharp look. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, who wouldn’t?” He stared broodingly into the fire for a few moments, then turned back to her and reached out to place a hand on the side of her face. “Any man would be glad to get you, Anne.”
She looked into his eyes, such a deep brown that they looked almost black in the firelight. The touch of his hand had come like an electric shock, and as their eyes locked together she could feel the tension building up between them. She couldn’t move. The dim room, their isolation, the wine, the discussion of her pastseveral things, in factall seemed to come together to work on her like some kind of potent drug.
“Jerry,” she said in a weak voice.
“Shh,” he said. “Don’t say anything.”
His hand slipped from her cheek to the back of her neck, pulling her ge
ntly toward him until their bodies were just touching. Slowly he bent his head and she closed her eyes, waiting. When he kissed her, softly, sweetly, an insidious warmth began to build inside her. A tiny voice in a dim corner of her mind accused her of being disloyal to Ben, but those warm seeking lips on hers felt so good that she was simply unable to resist.
His mouth left hers then and moved slowly across her cheek. He lifted her hair up and she could feel
the warmth of his breath in her ear. His other hand came to rest at the base of her throat, and she knew that if she didn’t do something now, right away, she’d be lost, past the point of no return.
She pulled her head away from his and forced him to meet her eyes. “Jerry,” she said quietly, “why are you doing this to me?”
He smiled crookedly. “Why not? I like you. SomeŹtimes I even think you like me.” He removed his hands, then reached over for his glass and took a long swallow of wine. “I’ll tell you something, Anne,” he said, dead serious now. “I’ve had my eye on you from the day you walked into my office five years ago looking for a job. But you were always so cool and standoffish, with that touch-me-not air of yours, that I decided not to do anything about it.”
Her eyes flew open. “Me? You were attracted to me?”
He nodded. “Yep. You.”
“You don’t seriously expect me to believe that, do you?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said in a hurt tone.
She had to laugh. “Well, for one thing, I’m not blond or tall and willowy, and for another you said yourself you had no intention of making a serious commitment to any woman.”
“And I suppose you’d never settle for less?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, I wouldn’t. Pretty old-fashioned, huh?”
“Very old-fashioned, I’d say. In fact, archaic in this day and age.” He stared down at his hands, clasped loosely between his long legs. “People can change,” he said at last. He looked over at her. “If the right person came along.”
“You mean me?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. My feelings about love and marriage, comŹmitment to something beyond the thrill of the moment, run pretty deep.”
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