by Jane Toombs
“Oh, do you have one, too?” Despite trying to keep her voice even, she felt it quaver.
He gave her an odd look, one she couldn’t quite decipher. A mixture of surprise and guilt? Surely not.
“An island revelation is what I meant,” he said after a few seconds. “The next part of our tour is by water.”
“You don’t have to—”
He dropped the blanket and caught her by the shoulders. “I don’t care why you came to Mackinac. You’re here, that’s what matters. Didn’t we make that clear night before last?” His voice was strained, almost desperate.
Confused, she gazed up at him, into his green eyes, seeing a hunger that wiped everything from her mind but her own answering need. When he caught her to him, his mouth coming down hard on hers, she let go of the basket to hold him closer, responding eagerly to the wild passion in his kiss.
Nothing mattered to Russ but having Mari in his arms. Whatever she was, he wanted her with an intensity that couldn’t be denied. Never mind his father, never mind Joe; nothing else mattered. He couldn’t ever recall feeling like this and he didn’t care. Kissing her wasn’t enough; he needed more, needed everything.
Cupping her breast through the T-shirt she wore drove him higher. They should be naked, the two of them, making love in this meadow here and now. He could tell by her soft moans and by the way she clung to him that the same fiery urgency fueled her. He pulled away slightly to locate the blanket and, as he did, he heard voices.
“Damn tourists!” he blurted. Were there no secret places left on the island?
Releasing Mari, he did his best to cool down, picking up the blanket again.
She gave him an impish grin. “Remember, you make your living from those poor tourists.”
Never mind how unruffled and collected she looked, the husky tone of her voice revealed how much she’d been aroused. By him. For him. He grinned at her. The day was far from over. He even managed a friendly hello when two couples emerged into the clearing.
By the time he and Mari had driven back to town, dropped the horse and buggy at the stables and walked down to the marina where his sailboat waited, Russ had filed her confession away for later evaluation. This wasn’t his father’s or Joe’s day, this was his. His and Mari’s.
“So this is the revelation you meant,” she said as she helped him ready the boat.
He didn’t care to be reminded of revelations at the moment, so he began quizzing her about how a desert gal knew her way around a sailboat.
“Lake Tahoe is less than an hour away from the ranch,” she told him. “Plus there’s Topaz Lake to the east and Washoe to the north. I’ll have you know I also fish.”
What he’d intended to do was circumnavigate the island, pointing out various sites, but that was before he’d kissed her in the meadow. All he really wanted now was to find a secluded spot to anchor and finish what they’d begun. Unlikely during tourist season here, but there were other islands nearby. A quick look through binoculars at Bois Blanc Island showed him a number of boats anchored there, and it was the same at Round Island.
The moment might have to be postponed, but he sure as hell wasn’t giving it up.
“Would you like a view of the Haskell house from the water?” he asked. “It and the other old Victorian cottages along the West Bluff?”
She nodded, asking, “Is your father’s place one of them?”
“His is on the East Bluff, also Victorian, but smaller.”
“Is your mother still alive?”
He shook his head. “She died five years ago.” It’d been his quiet, sweet-tempered mother who’d asked him if he were sure he wanted to marry Denise. He’d realized later—too late—that it had been as much of a warning as she was capable of giving.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“My sister Amy is five years younger. She’s a psychologist living in California.” Amy hadn’t underplayed her warning to Russ before his wedding.
“Skip town right now, Russ,” she’d advised. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”
He’d laughed, pretending to think she meant marriage in general, not Denise specifically.
Before he realized what he was doing, Russ found himself saying, “Neither my mother nor Amy thought Denise and I were well suited, but I didn’t listen.”
“How about your father?”
“He was for the marriage.” As he spoke, Russ realized this wasn’t quite true. “He didn’t express any opinion,” he amended.
“Willa thinks you might not be poisonous,” Mari told him.
He raised an eyebrow.
“She raises rattlers for their venom and can tell a harmless snake from the poisonous kind with one good look. She rates men the same way.”
“I’m harmless?”
“No man is. Actually, even so-called harmless snakes often bite people who handle them. But the bites aren’t fatal.”
“So this isn’t a fatal attraction we have going here?”
Mari’s smile faded, but she spoke lightly enough. “As Willa would say, could be it’s too soon to tell.”
When they rounded the island so the West Bluff could be seen, he pointed out the Haskell house. “You can tell it by the single cupola.”
“With the telescope in it.”
“I wonder if it still is?”
“I haven’t been up to look.” After a moment, Mari added, “You know, Diana thinks Mr. Haskell banished a portrait of Isabel to the attic. Pauline says that isn’t true, because she inventories the attic every spring. It just occurred to me there’s a possibility that portrait might be in the cupola. What do you think?”
“It’s important to you to find this picture?”
“Yes. All the family photos of Isabel have been destroyed, apparently, so I don’t know what she looked like. I really would like to know. In case…” Her voice trailed off.
He knew why, but he wasn’t going to go there right now. Especially since she’d just given him such a great idea.
“We could explore the cupola together,” he said. “I’ll see if the telescope’s still there and you can search for the portrait.”
Her face lit up. “Oh, would you come with me?”
“Why not? We’ll zip back to the marina and take a look right now.” His motives were so ulterior he almost felt guilty, but he figured she must at least guess what he had in mind, nonfatal attraction or not.
Chapter Six
When Russ and Mari entered the Haskell house, neither Pauline nor Diana were anywhere in sight. Mari set the picnic basket down on the entry table and led the way upstairs, pausing by the door she knew led up to the cupola. As before, it was unlocked, and Russ opened it.
“When I was a kid,” he said, as they started up the steps, “I couldn’t decide which I liked the best—the spiral stairs or the telescope.”
“I do believe this is the first spiral staircase I’ve ever climbed,” she said, wondering how it would have been to be a child spending summers in this house with loving parents.
Not that Blanche and Stan hadn’t been loving parents who’d given her a happy childhood in Nevada. Mari had no complaints. Still, ever since her uncle had told her the truth about her parentage, she’d felt a nagging need to learn more about her birth parents. She was on this island to discover whether her mother really was Isabel Haskell, but how about her father? His name on the original birth certificate had been listed as Elias Grant. As far as Mari knew, he’d never been told he had a daughter.
Would he care? Or was he like Danny Boy, who’d left a woman and the child he’d fathered back in California, to come to Nevada and find someone new to romance. Mari had no clue to what her father might or might not have done, but she’d never forget the day she’d found out that Danny Boy had skipped out on his responsibilities and she had confronted him about it.
“That’s her problem,” he’d said of the woman he’d deserted. “She might have been living with me, but for all I know the kid could
be some other guy’s.”
What a hockey puck! Mari had dropped him—fast. It still upset her to think she’d ever been attracted to a guy who had no heart, much less a conscience. Now here she was, trusting another man. Not too smart, was it? Russ had given her a reason for his divorce, but she hadn’t heard his ex-wife’s side of it, had she?
“You’ve made it to the top, you know,” Russ said, bringing her back to the present. How long had she been standing at the head of the spiral staircase, lost in the past?
“I was thinking about the man listed as my father—Elias Grant,” she told him. “Will I ever know if he’s dead or alive?”
Russ well knew that as soon as Joe had received the letter from Mari’s uncle, Russ’s father had hired private investigators to search for Elias Grant. So far, he hadn’t been found.
“It’s so strange to discover my mother was a person Aunt Blanche didn’t even know. According to my uncle, Blanche never found out where my mother came from, other than ‘off the bus.’”
For some reason Russ didn’t doubt this part of Mari’s story. How could he, when he could see the sad and lost expression on her face? Was there any possibility that she and her uncle could be telling the truth? Not that it would ensure she was Isabel Haskell’s child, even if they were. The very vagueness of Mari’s background may have been what had prompted them to have her pose as the Haskell heir.
“The red telescope,” he said, turning from her as well as his thoughts. “There it is, like I remember.”
She cleared her throat. “Oh, yes, I see the telescope.”
“Everything’s the same—the paneled walls, the red velvet chaise longue, the rosewood secretary, the rug—everything.”
Mari took a few steps into the round room. “What a wonderful place—no wonder you liked to be up here. The view is spectacular.”
“Let me focus the finderscope on the harbor.”
“Didn’t the old sea captains have telescopes on their ships? Oh, no, I’m wrong. They had spyglasses.”
Spyglasses. The word jolted him. The spy with the spyglass? No, dammit, this was a telescope. But what was he? To rid himself of the uncomfortable thought, Russ said the first thing that came to mind. “They’re not ships on the Great Lakes, they’re boats, even the big ones. At least until the seagoing cargo ships began coming through the St. Lawrence Seaway. But lake captains still command boats, not ships.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I stand corrected.”
His smile was apologetic. “Didn’t mean to lecture.” He fiddled with the scope finder until the harbor came clearly into view. “Come look.”
She obeyed, standing so close to him that her faint scent of lilacs surrounded him in an erotic web. “Mari,” he murmured.
When she lifted her head from the eyepiece to turn to him, he gazed into her tawny eyes and was lost. He saw her pupils dilate as he bent to kiss her, then his lips met hers, she was in his arms and nothing else mattered.
His hands slid up under her T-shirt, finding and releasing her bra closure, freeing her breasts to his touch. Perfect beasts, designed to drive a man out of his mind with desire. Not that his mind was functioning, anyway. Not with her softness pressing against him, conjuring up an image of her naked, lying against the red velvet of the chaise.
Mari, feeling that she was melting, that her knees might give way at any moment, sighed in anticipation when he lifted her into his arms.
A moment later he sat her on the chaise, immediately lifting her shirt over her head and sliding off her bra. He eased down beside her, turning her toward him to run his tongue over each nipple in turn before taking one breast into his mouth. Pleasurable shivers coursed along her nerves, warmth pooling deep within. By the time he moved his caresses to her other breast she’d lost all sense of time or place. Nothing existed except Russ.
He eased her down until she was lying on the chaise, then he knelt on the rug and took off her shoes and socks. Unzipping her jeans, he slid them down her legs, along with her panties. He leaned over and ran his tongue along her abdomen, lower and lower until he reached the inside of her thighs. She quivered with escalating need, reaching a crescendo when he came to her heated center.
She wanted, she needed. “Russ,” she moaned. “Oh, Russ.”
And then—miraculously, it seemed—he, too, was naked and rising over her, filling her with his hardness, his rhythmic thrusts taking her with him to somewhere she’d never been before, a place she never wanted to leave.
Still holding her, in the warmth of the afterglow, Russ made the mistake of trying to ease onto his side. There was no room and they both rolled off the low chaise onto the rug. She looked at him and began to giggle. He chuckled, light-headed with happiness and wishing he’d never have to let her go. Reaching up, he grabbed the afghan from the arm of the chaise and pulled it over them.
“I’m just a romantic at heart,” he told her.
“You’re admitting you have one?”
“A heart? Don’t we all?”
“No. Not everyone.” She bent her head until her ear lay on his left chest. “There’s something beating in there,” she murmured. “I hope it’s a heart.”
He gave her a squeeze. “I always thought it was.” He slid his hand along her side until he reached her left breast. Just under it he could feel the steady thump of her own heart, but at the moment, he was more interested in other things. Cupping her breast, he ran his thumb over her nipple.
“I don’t think that’s my heart,” she said.
Sliding his hand over to fondle her other breast, he said, “I already know you have one heart.”
He eased his hand downward. “There’s another place I need to investigate, though.”
As he reached her warm and moist center, her hand closed over his rapidly stiffening arousal. He gave an involuntary sound of pleasure. By the time she urged him onto his back, he was extremely ready.
“Wait,” he said, groping for his discarded jeans.
After he managed to extract what he needed, she slid it onto him, driving him wild with her touch. He thought he’d die from anticipation before she fitted herself over him and they again entered into the age-old dance of mating.
Making love with her was so different, like nothing he’d ever experienced. Once they’d reached the peak again and she collapsed onto him, he still wasn’t ready to let her go.
“We can’t stay like this for the rest of the day,” she murmured at last. “Why not?”
“For one thing, Pauline might come looking.” Russ released Mari reluctantly.
After they were dressed and the afghan once again draped sedately over the arm of the chaise longue, she said, “Are you sure the only reason you wanted to come here was to check on the telescope?”
Noting the impish glint in her eye, he nodded. “How was I to know I’d wind up being seduced?”
“I was under the impression that you seduced me.”
“Can we agree on mutual seduction? Not that I haven’t had it in mind since I got my first view of that enticing butt of yours on the fence in Nevada.”
She rolled her eyes. “Men.” Then she looked carefully around the small room. “At least you found the telescope. I don’t see any place a portrait could be hidden up here.”
A mental picture flashed before Russ, something he’d known as a kid he wasn’t supposed to see. He’d been coming up the spiral staircase in his bare feet because his shoes and socks were muddy and the housekeeper before Pauline had made him take them off before she’d let him in the house. So Joe, up in the cupola, hadn’t heard him. Ten-year-old Russ had almost been to the top and ready to call out, when he saw Joe slide back a panel in the wall, put a large oblong object inside and close the panel.
A secret panel, Russ had told himself. Joe’ll be mad if he knows I saw. So he had eased back halfway down the stairs and begun to whistle as he started up again. He’d been tempted to look for the panel a few times when he was alone in the room, but he never had. And t
hen he’d forgotten about it until this moment.
“There is a place,” he told Mari.
Russ tried three panels before he found the right one. Inside was what looked like the large oblong object he’d seen Joe put there so many years ago. It was wrapped in a soft cloth and, as he lifted it free, he could feel what was under the material. A canvas on a stretch frame.
He handed it to Mari, explaining how he knew about the secret panel. “At the time I had no idea it was a portrait,” he finished.
By then she was sitting on the floor, carefully unwrapping the canvas.
He stared down at what she’d uncovered—an oil portrait of an adolescent girl. A girl with the same color hair as Mari’s. But Isabel, if that’s who it was, had blue not sherry-colored eyes, and instead of Mari’s rounder face, she had a pointed chin.
For a long time Mari didn’t take her gaze from the portrait. Finally she looked up at him and said in a flat tone, “I don’t look like Isabel, do I?”
“If it is Isabel,” he equivocated.
“We both know it must be. Why else would he hide it?”
“Your hair’s the same color.” He knew perfectly well hair could be dyed any color—in fact, his father had mentioned that to him before he left for Nevada. Still, if Mari and her uncle had never seen a colored photo of Isabel—and how could they, when the media hadn’t been able to uncover any?—it’d be tricky to get even close to this unusual shade.
“But we don’t look anything alike.”
He almost told her she might resemble her father before he realized what he was about to do. Here he was supposed to be uncovering her as a scam artist. Why would he want to convince her she could be Isabel’s daughter? Damn, she’d almost converted him into a believer, and that’d never do. “You’re prettier,” he said, aware that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
Mari stared into Russ’s green eyes, wondering what he was thinking. Was he telling her the truth about forgetting the secret panel, or had he known all along Isabel’s portrait was hidden behind it? She mentioned looking for a portrait before they’d ever climbed up here, yet, he hadn’t said a word about the panel until now. Hadn’t she learned better than to trust any man?