“Please, Will,” she begged. “Please take me now.”
* * *
PLEASE, WILL.... Please take me now...
The sound of her voice came to him from far, far away. There was no way he could resist, not now, not ever. As he lowered his head and took her nipple in his lips, something stirred in the back of his mind, a warning he was powerless to heed. He pushed the thought aside and slid his hand over her hip to the inside of her thighs. She was warm and wet and waiting.
Waiting for him to make them one.
Take your fill.
He whispered Hawaiian love words in her ear and gently tugged on her earlobe with his teeth as he slipped his fingers into her to make certain she was ready for him. He lowered himself over her, eased his way into her hot, honeyed recesses, slowly edging in and withdrawing when he reached resistance.
She wrapped her legs around his waist to keep him from leaving her. It was a blatant, silent invitation that sent him over the edge. He drove into her, sheathed himself in her and then held himself rigidly still until he felt her settle against him and begin to move again.
I want to remember this night forever.
He gave her what she wanted, brought her to fulfillment again and yet again before he reached his own climax. His head was beginning to pound as he pulled out of her and drew her up against him. From somewhere far off, a woman was weeping, fitfully whispering words of love even as she begged forgiveness for some deception.
Fully satiated, Will held Josie tight and closed his eyes against the throbbing pain in his head and the heaviness around his heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EARLY-MORNING SUNLIGHT sneaked through the edges of the draperies, slashing across the carpet, glinting off the champagne bottle’s green glass. Josie wanted to run and hide from the sun and the reality of what she had done last night, but she was afraid to move and disturb the man who had held her all night long.
Her mind in turmoil, her soul racked with guilt, she had not had a moment’s sleep. Instead, she had lain there imprisoned in Will’s arms, listening to the slow, even cadence of his breathing, pondering on the exquisite joys of lovemaking. And wondering how Will was going to react.
Daring to tip her head back on the pillow, she was able to stare up at Bella Duprey. Much to her chagrin, the portrait appeared to be smiling even more than she recalled.
Go ahead and laugh, Josie thought in answer to Bella’s smug expression. You got me into this.
When she settled back against the pillow and glanced over at Will again, her eyes widened in shock and fear. He was awake. Confusion marred his brow as he lay there frowning at her. He shook his head and blinked, as if trying to clear his vision.
Josie managed a weak smile.
Will let go of her and shot out of the bed, then stood there stark naked, staring down at her. When he realized he didn’t have a stitch on, he jerked the spread off the bed, whipped it around his waist and knotted it. He looked for all the world exactly like an etching of a Polynesian warrior she’d seen in a copy of Oddities of the World’s Geographical Outposts.
“I can explain everything—”
He cut her off without warning. “Oh, no, you can’t. There’s no explanation for this...this...”
“Transgression?”
“Outrage!” Will shot his fingers through his hair.
“I was only trying to—”
“You have no idea what you’ve done!” His complexion had darkened with his fury. “What in the hell did you give me last night?”
Reaching up, he pressed his hands against his temples and began to massage them. His dark-eyed gaze shot around the room, stopping briefly on the table littered with the remains of their dinner and then on the bedside table and the empty champagne bottle.
She was shaking now, trembling like a newborn filly. He looked mad enough to kill her.
“I only did it because I love you, Will. I couldn’t let you ride out of my life without even trying to make you realize that you love me, too.”
“Jesus, Josie.” He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, his back to her, his shoulders slumped as he propped his elbows on his knees and continued to massage his temples.
She got to her knees, drew the corner of the sheet over her body and scooted across the bed until she was kneeling directly behind him. When she reached out in a tentative attempt to touch him, he shrugged her away. Cut to the quick and burning with embarrassment, she dropped her hand.
He peered over his shoulder, still eyeing her suspiciously.
“I should have kept going. You haven’t known me long enough to love me, Josie. How can you say you love me when you know nothing about me? You’re infatuated, you’re curious...but love?”
“Deny there was something between us from the moment you rode into the yard—”
“Oh, there’s something between us all right.”
“Before last night, before we made love...there was magic. Until I saw you, I didn’t know what love is. With Julian—”
“Ah, yes. Julian. What about Julian?”
“That’s over now, of course. No matter what you think of me, no matter what happens, I’ll never marry Julian. I knew that the minute I decided—”
“To lure me up here? What in the hell did you give me? I’ve never felt this bad, even after drinking too much okolehao.”
She pointed to the journal on the table. “Just an old elixir of my grandmother’s. I found her journal in a trunk full of her old things. I think maybe the ingredients might have gone bad.”
“Your grandmother? I’m glad I never ran into her.” He laughed, but the sound was full of bitterness, not mirth.
He had stopped railing at her and was silent for so long Josie began to hope he had finally calmed down enough to think things through. There was still a chance.
“Can you ever forgive me, Will? I’m so ashamed.” She sat back on her heels and buried her face in her hands.
Will shifted onto his hip and half turned so that he could face her. It was the morning after her first time and she should have been happy, should have been with a husband who would cosset her and tempt her into making love again. She should have been a bride on her honeymoon with her whole married life ahead of her. Instead she was trembling, on the verge of tears, her spirit broken.
He almost reached out to take her in his arms, and would have, if the act would not have compounded the problem. She was everything a man could ever want in a lover and a wife. Josie was intelligent and beautiful, capable of running a huge ranch on her own. Only a cruel twist of fate kept them apart. He silently cursed himself for ever leaving Hawaii. He should have stayed on his side of the Pacific.
“Josie, this whole debacle is more my fault than yours.”
She shook her head. “No. No, it was that horrible old trunk of Bella’s, the journal, the elixir.”
“I should have been completely honest the day I met you, but when I told you about the Hearts, you were so very terrified of losing this place, there was such fear and worry in your eyes that I held back.”
Will knew he wasn’t making much sense, knew he would have to go slowly, to explain carefully. There was no softening the truth.
“What do you mean? What did you hold back?”
“My name isn’t Will Ipo. It’s Will Heart.”
“Heart?” Her hand went to her throat and she swallowed. “What do you mean, Heart?”
“Sam Heart was my father. I’m the oldest of his Hawaiian children.”
“So you’re my...uncle? You can’t be.” Josie was staring at him as if he had just told her he was a cold-blooded murderer.
He ran his hands over his face. “Half uncle. And I wish to God I wasn’t.”
Josie’s mind was spinning. She had seduced her own uncle. Her father’s half brother. This exotic, erotic man was her blood kin and had failed to tell her that until now, when it was too late...too late.
What had she done? Her one night of glorious passion, her attemp
t to win Will’s love had ruined her life.
He was up now. With swift but efficient movements, Will was getting dressed, preparing to leave her.
How could she blame him for running out?
“You’re leaving,” she whispered, clutching the sheet against her breasts, unable to keep her voice from shaking. She realized she sounded like a lost waif but couldn’t help it. Her life was over, ruined, all because she’d had no power to deny her need for Will Heart.
He paused with his hands on the top button of his shirt, dropped them to his sides and went to her. For a moment she thought that he was going to reach out and touch her, but he halted a good arm’s length away and stood staring down at her, his brow furrowed in thought. Then he turned away. As he went after his boots he said, “In Hawaii, not two generations ago, this would not have been frowned upon. Among the ali’i, royal families intermarried to keep bloodlines pure. Brothers even married sisters.”
“Too bad this isn’t Hawaii,” she said glumly.
Will sat on the chair he had occupied at the table last night and began to shove his foot into a boot. “That’s why we must put this night behind us. I’m riding out of your life forever. You’re young. You still have Julian. Maybe that little book of your
grandmother’s will tell you how to hide that you are no longer a virgin from him. What’s done is done. We have to forget—”
He paused as he put on his second boot and stood up.
“And forgive? Can you forgive me, Will?” She would have given anything to take it all back. Anything.
“I forgive you, Josie. After all, it’s as much my fault that this happened. I can’t honestly say I didn’t want you from the moment I laid eyes on you, but I never thought.... I should have told you the truth.” He smiled, a slow, sad smile.
He picked up his jacket, settled his hat on his head. She thought he was going to leave without a word, but then he paused on the threshold and stared at the nude in the painting above the bed.
“That’s my grandmother, Bella Duprey.” Josie couldn’t even bear to look at the portrait.
Will leaned against the door frame. “Your grandmother? Bella Duprey is the woman who bilked my father out of this ranch in a card game.”
Josie shook her head. “No...that’s impossible. My mother was her daughter. How could my father have ended up married to the daughter of the very woman who stole his ranch?”
“How did I end up in bed with you?”
“Oh, my God,” she mumbled.
“The Heart men must all be cursed as soon as they meet a woman with Bella Duprey’s blood.”
Josie watched him push away from the door frame and run his fingers around the brim of his hat. She had a hard time meeting his eyes.
“Where’s my horse?”
“Out behind the house, in the old shed behind the herb garden. The men will be out working cattle by now. You shouldn’t have any problem getting out to the road before you run into anyone.”
“I hate to leave you like this, Josie. If there was anything I could do, anything at all, to change things...”
There was nothing he could say to make things any different, to make things right. Even “I love you” was out of the question now and she knew it.
“Just go. Please.” She couldn’t bear the bittersweet torture any longer.
“Goodbye, Josie,” he mumbled as he turned and walked away.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, holding on until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. She gave him time to exit the house and then buried her face in her hands and began to sob.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN JOSIE TOLD Julian the engagement was off, he reacted in his usual composed, collected manner. Deep down, she suspected he had never really wanted to be married at all. Ada Fairchild was a different story. She alternately railed at Josie and then tried to play on her conscience. What would people think? She had always thought of Josie as her daughter. Julian needed her, needed a good wife since, God knows, she, Ada, wouldn’t be around much longer.
Finally, after an exhausting interview with both of them, Josie was alone in the big, silent house. Slowly, she walked upstairs and went straight to the bedroom, climbed onto the bed and took down Bella’s portrait. Despite the weight of the painting, she wrestled it up the attic stairs and rested it against the wall. She took one last look at Bella reclining there so smugly before she threw the sheet over it. Then she carefully replaced Bella’s journal, gown and the vial and slammed the trunk lid shut. The secrets of Bella Duprey would not be passed on to any more of her descendants, for Josie knew that since she could not have Will, she would never marry.
Straightening, she brushed the dust off her skirt, stiffened her spine and walked out of the attic. Josie pulled the door shut behind her, turning her back on the past, determined to face a long, bleak future alone.
* * *
EVEN THE SIGHT of a rainbow shimmering against Mauna Kea and the velvet air of the gentle trade winds could not cheer Will Heart when his ship reached the harbor at Kawaihae on the Big Island. He could see his family gathered at the water’s edge eagerly awaiting the unloading of the ship that remained anchored offshore. He removed his hat and waved it over his head as he stood there at the rail, staring across the emerald water that separated him from everyone in the world he held dear. Everyone but Josie.
Since the day he had left her, he had not thought of anything else. Her eyes, her smile. More and more of his memories of the night they made love came back to him over the days and nights of the voyage, as if the elixir Josie had given him had buried the details in the corners of his mind. Time seemed to draw them out.
He waited to be on the last dinghy to take passengers ashore, unwilling to disembark until he was certain it was almost time for the big roan to be swung over the side and lowered into the sea. The animal would be forced to swim to shore like the other livestock. Thankfully there had been no shark sightings that day. He would have hated to bring the prime horse so far only to lose him now.
When he stepped ashore, his mother, Nani, greeted him with a flower lei and open arms, nearly crushing him in her enthusiastic embrace. His brothers shouted aloha as they gathered to help escort the frightened horses and cattle swimming up to the shore.
“You not going mainland again. No moah.” Nani admonished him sternly in heavy pidgin English as she shook a plump finger in his face.
“You miss me, Mama?”
Her face broke out in a wide, sparkling smile. “I miss you, Wiliama. Too much. No moah mainland for you. I like keep all my boys Hawaii.”
Unable to keep the heaviness out of his tone, he shook his head. “No more mainland for me, Mama. I’m staying right here.” His eyes followed the sloping land that led up to the gentle mountainside.
“What’s dis I see? Why you so sad, Wiliama?”
His mother always read him like a book. “It’s nothing,” Will lied as he threw his arm over her broad shoulders. Nani was nearly as tall as he, her once lithe body now heavy, her hair showing few signs of gray. She always wore plumeria blossoms pinned in her hair and her dark eyes always sparkled with merriment. But right now she was watching him with deep concern, just as she would have done any of her nine children if they were hurting.
“I make lau lau for you, Wiliama. You eat, you come happy, you see.” She reached up to pat his cheek as they stood side by side at the shoreline, watching the men lead the terrified animals across the beach.
Will was looking at his brothers and the others without really seeing them. All he could think of was Josie and how he had left her. She would break her engagement, just as she said she would. But where would that leave her? After what she had done, he truly doubted she would ever seek out a husband. She was soiled goods. She had ruined herself because she had to have him. Although he did not admit as much to her, the same mysterious, compelling need had drawn him to her from the moment he laid eyes on her. There was definitely something more than mere attraction between them, s
ome twisted reason fate had played itself out the way it had.
The thought of his mother’s assurance that a bit of lau lau would make him happy brought a lifeless smile to his face. Will wondered if he could ever be truly happy again.
* * *
“WAIT HERE, Clay,” Josie commanded as she kicked her horse and headed off through the scrub oak on the hillside. It was the third time that morning she had left the men staring after her without any explanation.
After she suffered through another bout of dry heaves, having emptied the contents of her stomach earlier, she mounted and rode back to the spot where she had left the others. Only Clay was there, waiting for her with a look of concern.
“What’d you eat for breakfast?”
“The bacon must have been bad,” she said offhandedly as their mounts wove their way over the dry hillside. The summer grass had long since turned from rich emerald to gold. In late August, even mornings were too hot to bear.
“Seems to me if a body was eatin’ bad bacon, she wouldn’t have it every day.” He reined in sharply, pinning her with a steely, blue-eyed gaze. “Let’s have the truth, Josie. Ain’t no one but me here to look after you now, me and Lena, and you’ve always been able to twist her around your little finger.”
Josie took a deep breath and tightened her hands on the reins. She looked across the land. She wasn’t rich by any means, not when all she had was tied up in cattle and land and both were subject to disease and the weather. But she had more than most, much more—even if she didn’t have the one thing she wanted, the one person in the world who was forbidden to her, even now, when she needed him the most.
“I’m having a baby, Clay—”
Before she could say more, the foreman exploded. “Goddamn that mama’s boy Julian Fairchild. I should’a knowed when the wedding was called off that he’d turned tail for some reason.”
“I broke off the engagement, just like I told you.”
She took a deep breath, knowing full well that she had Clay’s trust. He had been her father’s foreman and was as loyal as the day was long. The day he signed on at Heartbreak Ranch he swore he was done traveling and that they would be stuck with him until he died.
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