by Owner
Snatching up the blanket, he walked her over to her vehicle. “Mr. Muttley, the guy who built this pleasure palace, must be a deep sleeper.”
“He built the house as a present for his wife of one year. That was forty years ago. I think it’s utterly romantic.”
“Udderly,” he groaned. “Moo.”
She swatted his arm. “Do you want my last memory for the entire next year to be one of you moo-ing.” She brushed some grass from his lip.
“No.” He kissed her long and hard, bending her over the fender of the Jeep. “I want it to be of you moaning my name,” he said against her lips.
“Jon,” she moaned to please him.
He smiled.
Maddie wriggled away while she still could and climbed behind the steering wheel of the Jeep. She stopped herself from reaching out to touch him one last time. She needed distance. No way was she allowing herself the pleasure or the risk of becoming more involved with Jon than she’d originally planned. Familiarity bred interference. That’s why she didn’t dare confide her family problems to anyone on the island. And that’s why Jon was staying a once-a-year confidant and lover instead of…instead of the man she loved.
That notion had her grabbing for the door handle. He chucked the blanket onto the backseat, closed the Jeep door, and waved before he turned away and walked toward his sports car with his hands in his pockets.
Maddie started her engine but didn’t pull out until he did. She followed his Jag to the fork in the road. With a toot of her horn, they steered in opposite directions.
Until next year.
Chapter Sixteen
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Jon jerked out of a sound sleep. What in the hell? Was it morning already? Rodger wasn’t much on subtle wakeup calls if it was. Or was Craig on the phone, calling to say that Sarah had delivered?
“Fire department.” With a crash, an ax broke through the lock and two men in full fire regalia rushed in to stand at the bow of his ship-shaped bed.
“There’s a fire below on the first floor. Lots of smoke. You have to evacuate. Now.”
This didn’t sound like a concept-sharing session, and these guys didn’t look like they were fooling around. Jon hopped out of bed, threw on his grass-stained clothes from the night before while the firemen grabbed his bags, tossing his laptop around like a lame idea. The darn thing would never be user-friendly again.
He joined Harry and his wife and several oil-painted canvases out on the sidewalk. As the sky cracked with the first light of dawn, they watched black smoke billow from the first floor windows
“Smells like grease.” Harry sniffed the air. “Probably started in the kitchen.”
“Where are we supposed to go now?” He plopped down to sit on his leather overnight bag. Between Maddie and Spot and the fire, his butt was dragging.
“Rodger says the owner of the Chowder House will let us use his shower but can’t put any of us up.” Harry shrugged his shoulders and the bright yellow happy faces scattering his pajamas did a dance. He wore his battered Stetson and unlaced roper boots.
“Nice look,” Jon commented.
“Yeah. Thank my mother-in-law.”
Harry’s wife threw them both daggered looks.
“Need a lift over to the Chowder House?” Jon got to his feet.
“That’s a start.” Harry stacked up his wife’s paintings with a grunt. “Then, a shower and a ferry to freedom.”
“I envy you.” He was stranded on the island until after the meeting this evening. And then what? Sleep in his car at the ferry landing until the first boat out in the morning. Great plan.
He helped Mrs. Harry carry their luggage while Harry struggled with the paintings. When Jon popped the trunk, the car cover filled most of the storage space. The poor Jag was beyond protecting so he tossed it out and stashed everyone’s bags inside. He called Rodger over about recycling the cover.
“Thanks. I forgot about moving my car in all the excitement.” Rodger shook his hand and scurried away with the cover.
“Sorry about your inn,” he shouted after him. He’d never seen Rodger’s car but was glad to have given it protection.
The Jag was as hopeless a sight as the inn. Battered to hell and grimy. Jon patted the once silver and shiny, now dented, scratched, and sooty fender while he held the door open for Harry’s missus to climb into the backseat.
He and Harry piled her canvasses onto the roof. Both of them held onto the frames through the open, side windows when Jon pulled out. Driving one-handed didn’t go too badly until he swerved into the Chowder House’s narrow parking area.
“Watch out for the—” Crunch. “Never mind,” the female backseat driver warned too late.
By the time he braked, steadied the sliding paintings, and glanced up, the right front end of the Jag was sitting high on a stack of lobster traps.
Reverse only helped to scrape the undercarriage. He settled on Park. After balancing the tottering paintings, he and Harry got out of the car to yank a jammed trap out from under the wheel well.
“Sorry about that.” Harry shook his head.
“I’ve got insurance.” He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from biting his knuckles.
“What happened?” Mrs. Harry flung open the door from the backseat, striking the offending trap and sending a chunk of silver-gray paint flying.
The chip landed on his forearm. He flicked it off like fly crap before sucking in a deep breath of salt air and choking. Harry smacked him on the back.
“Take it easy,” the man coaxed. “Don’t hyperventilate on me.”
“I’m okay,” Jon assured him. Mrs. Harry looked at him doubtfully.
“What’s this stuff?” Harry gaped at his hand. “It looks like dog hair.”
“I had a run-in with a hairy hound after I dropped you at your door last night.”
Harry’s wife obviously disliked the reminder of her husband’s previous night’s condition. She snarled her lip like Spot had.
Once the men unloaded the trunk, the Harrys took their gear and trudged inside. He followed them with his clean clothes tucked under his arm, too tired to carry his overnighter inside.
Jeb, the bartender, in jeans and bare feet, with red-rimmed, sleep-deprived eyes, was as hospitable as could be expected at the early hour.
“I just lit the pilot light on the water boiler. You’ll have hot water in about an hour.” He pointed toward the hotplate where a pot of coffee finished dripping. “Help yourselves.”
The aroma of the fresh brew smelled inviting after the stench of the fire. Mrs. Harry did the honors by pouring them each a colorful mugful.
The bartender pointed toward a door behind the kitchen. “The bedroom and bathroom are through there. I’ll be in the bed to the left. Try to take quiet showers to the right.” With that he yawned and lumbered toward his room.
“Good night,” they said in unison, standing in a row, coffee mugs in hand, scrambled eggs for brains.
Harry plunked his mug onto the nearest table before plopping down onto a straight back chair. He used another for his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. “If I fall off, don’t wake me.” He closed his eyes.
Mrs. Harry stood there, sipping her coffee, staring ahead at the ticking clock shaped like a life preserver.
What a day. Jon sank down onto a chair. With a thud, followed by another thud, he dropped his cup and head onto the table. Hell, it wasn’t even six a.m. yet.
****
“How’d you sleep?” Maddie’s father called up to her first thing the next morning.
She pattered down the oak stairway to where her father stood in the foyer, blocking the front door. Hmm, this didn’t resemble any good morning she recalled. “After mixing it up with the Cubs, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.”
Not to mention tussling on the grass with Jon. Their lovemaking session had been hot and wild, his fantasy satisfying. She missed him. Dreamed about him. Couldn’t get his crooked smile or hi
s sexy body out of her mind. Or rid herself of the notion that she was in love with him.
“I heard the Bane won.” Her father sponsored the team and grinned over the victory while tucking his arm into hers.
“Eight-to-five.” She yawned. “Too bad the alarm rang so early.”
“Same time as every morning.” He chuckled. “A good breakfast will get you going. Your mother plans to join us in the dining room.”
“No, Dad, not on an empty stomach.” She broke loose, backing away until her spine hit the banister. “Let’s do dinner instead.”
Besides, she wanted to savor her last memories of Jon alone, without her mother’s nasal pitch piercing her brain.
“We have to discuss dinner, also.” He latched onto her elbow again.
“Over breakfast?” Her mouth drooped. This didn’t sound promising. “Barb’s been even colder to me than usual since I gave her that lame excuse about why I was away. She hasn’t stayed in any room with me longer than she’s had to, and she’s made those moments unbearable.”
“Don’t be silly, Maddie. Please.”
Although he’d used the magic word, please, he still had to escort her. Nearly bodily. She didn’t quite brace her arms against the flocked wallpaper, and he didn’t quite drag her across the polished marble floor.
Soon, she sat in the dining room at the gleaming wood table set for three. Within moments, with a whirr, Barb wheeled into the room. Her mother looked well. Healthy almost, except for the dark hollows under her eyes that were almost hidden beneath her perfect makeup.
“Good morning.” Maddie greeted her mother with a perfunctory kiss. Barb kissed the air near her cheek in return.
While her father moved the heavy wooden armchair away from the table, with a flick of her electronic switch, Barb motored her wheelchair into place.
No sooner did Maddie raise a slice of toast to her mouth than Barb said, “I want you to attend the board meeting this evening as an interested party. The Matthews’ consultant wants to discuss methods for raising revenue for the island.”
She dropped her toast onto her plate. “The previous consultant never met with the board. He never even set foot on our island. You handled it by phone from Portland. What’s this guy’s problem?”
“Madelyn,” Barb began.
“Barbra.” She held up her palm but wasn’t sure her mother could see it above the elaborate floral arrangement blotting her from view. “Can we skip the lecture on duty? I have it memorized.”
“Good,” her mother gloated. Maddie caught a peek of her victory grin through a droopy yellow tulip. “The meeting’s at six, and I expect you to wear proper shoes.”
While her toes curled in despair, her father sipped his coffee, seemingly lost in a deep fog. No help coming from his front this morning. She glanced at her wristwatch. “I’d better throw together a change of clothes. I won’t finish my last appointment at the clinic until after five.”
“I need one more moment of your time.”
She gave her father a pleading look. He glanced away at the folded morning paper.
“Invite Matthews to dinner for tomorrow evening and as our houseguest for the weekend. I instructed your father to issue the invitation, but he suddenly has a repulsion to company.”
“What?” She stared at the flowers, her mouth open. Her mother had only recently allowed her own daughter to see her incapacitated, let alone a stranger.
Barb waved her wrist, her triple-banded diamond bracelet catching prisms of light from the chandelier and beaming the colors through the spiky green stems. “I know what you’re thinking. Until now I didn’t want anyone seeing me in this wheelchair, even if it is top of the line. I’ve needed time to adjust. Not that either of you would understand since you’re not crippled.”
Through the hole in the floral bouquet, she saw her mother raise her fresh-squeezed orange juice to her lips, content, after managing to make everyone else feel self-conscious about their good health.
Finally, her father spoke up. “Barbra, we discussed this last night, and I still don’t see the point.”
“After the fiasco with the former consultant, I want all of us to check him out,” she said flatly.
Fiasco was putting it mildly. Maddie coughed and sipped some juice. The last man had turned out to be a thief. She couldn’t imagine where her parents had found him. But that was past changing.
“Both Maddie and I will be at the meeting, how much scrutiny does the young man need?”
“I’ll do my own evaluating.” She plunked her juice glass onto the table, and beamed a smile through the flower petals that looked as false as her mother’s eyelashes. “Besides, three opinions are better than one.”
Right. Like Barb ever listened to anyone else’s thoughts.
“Maddie, you’re excused.” Barb dismissed her with a nod.
Maddie pushed back her chair and strode for the glass-paned French doors. She was grateful Jon was leaving. She wouldn’t have to deal with him and the consultant, who was moving in for the weekend, at the same time.
Once upstairs in her room, beneath the cockeyed loon painting she’d bought on Rose Island, she threw a suit into a garment bag. In a way, the houseguest could be a step forward. Once the legalities cleared up with the former consultant and the new one was on the job, her mother might be more inclined to agree to physical therapy.
Become healthy before all hell broke loose with their futures—
On her way out of her bedroom, she pivoted and went back to rummage around the floor of her closet for the least lethal-looking pair of leather heels. With the shoes dangling from her fingers like the smelliest, fishiest, catch of the day, she hurried down the stairs and out the front door.
“Did someone die?” Lyndsey gasped when Maddie entered the clinic twenty minutes later carrying her garment bag and shoes.
“No, no funeral,” she assured her. “I have to go to a board meeting wearing shoes.”
“Whew.” Her friend mopped her red bangs away from her forehead. “I was worried. For a sec, I thought we’d lost old man Denky during the night.”
“He may be the oldest coot on the island, but he’s the hardiest.” She hung the bag and tossed the shoes. “Mrs. Muttley’s probably going to call. She’s confused about her appointment.”
“Again.” Lyndsey donned her clinic coat. “Where’d you run into her? I thought she was visiting her sister inland until Monday.”
“She obviously forgot.”
“And you know this because—” Her coworker leaned against the closet next to Maddie.
“Because I saw her last night when I was showing Jon her birthday cake house.”
“The stalker?” Her eyes bugged. “You were giving the stalker a guided tour?”
“It turns out he’s not a stalker, just a harmless tourist.” She exhaled, relieved that Jon was leaving the island the next morning. She’d no longer have to worry about him running off at the mouth or running into her friends or her running out of excuses.
Everything felt secure for the first time all week. She and Jon had said their final goodbye. Sad as it had been. But now, she was no longer in danger of having him spill her confidences anywhere on the island. He was probably conducting his business as she and Lyndsey stood here.
Whatever his business was…
Probably had something to do with Rodger’s investments. Jon looked like the brokerage type.
Chapter Seventeen
“Next.” Harry kicked the chair to wake Jon.
Jon pried open a groggy, blurry eye. Minus his cowboy hat, the Texan peered down on him, his hair damp and smelly from an herbal shampoo. Reality filtered through his funk after several blinks.
“Is it my turn in the shower?” Lifting his head from the Chowder House’s table, he wiped the drool from his arm and jaunted off toward the bathroom.
Swiftly, he peeled off his grassy, sooty clothes. Since putting the misery of saying goodbye to Maddie behind him, six p.m. couldn’t roll ar
ound fast enough. He was eager to get the board meeting over with and catch tomorrow morning’s ferry for drier land.
Soon as the steam hit him, the odor of dog and smoke and sex engulfed him. Whew, but he stank, except for the musky smell of sex from his amazing encounter with Maddie. She’d been racy enough to fulfill his fantasy and sweet enough to fight back a tear when they’d finally parted. He had a feeling she was falling for him as hard as he’d fallen for her. She just wasn’t ready to admit it. Somehow, he’d break her down, and he wasn’t waiting a whole year to do it.
After scrubbing with a bar of yellow soap that wasn’t in the least herbal and left him smelling sterilized, like a hospital, he dressed and said his goodbyes to Harry and his missus.
“Need help with your luggage, paintings, or getting to the ferry?” he offered.
“No,” Harry drawled, pulling him aside. “I’m borrowing a red wooden wagon from the back porch to haul our belongings up to the ferry landing. The wife thinks it will look quaint and plans on sketching me. No sense ticking her off now.”
Jon waved them off. “Good luck.”
After searching the counter at the bar, he found a telephone fitted into a copper diving helmet. Very nautical. Using his phone card, he dialed Craig and asked, “What’s up?”
“Sarah didn’t deliver yet,” his brother-in-law said. “They’re giving her another hour and then they’re going to perform a Cesarean section.”
“Sheesh.” He scrubbed his hand over his face.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s better for her and the baby.”
“If you say so. My cell phone sucks, and I don’t have a number where I can be reached. I’ll call you back in about two hours to check on her again.”
“Is everything okay there? You sound beat.”
“I’m okay. I’ll be starting for home tomorrow morning. I’ll call from my cell phone once I’m on solid ground again.” By solid, he meant the mainland and not his growing desire and love for Maddie that left him off-balance most of the time.