by Sandra Field
“Just for the summer. Filling in for Mark MacDonald.”
“I’m a physiotherapist,” she said rapidly. “So I know enough first aid to look after myself.”
This was new information to Travis. Ever since he’d met Julie, he’d been so off balance he’d never thought to ask the ordinary questions, like her age or what she did to earn her living. “Do you work in the hospital? Why haven’t I seen you there?”
If she answered him, Julie thought, he’d know where to find her. With huge reluctance she said, “I’ve got a temporary contract at Silversides, the clinic just out of town.” She knew as well as he that Silversides was a retreat for the very rich; just as she knew Dr. MacDonald’s practice was almost exclusively white-collar. She could have told him about her real work overseas; but why bother? After today, she wasn’t going to see him again.
“I’ll get my bag,” he said. “I always travel with it.”
“You’re like a nor’easter,” she said irritably, “there’s no stopping you.”
“And you don’t have to worry about Brent, he left on the launch. With a blonde.”
“It isn’t Brent I’m worrying about,” Julie said unwisely and shut the door in Travis’s face.
The hot water stung her various cuts and scrapes; she was going to have a few choice bruises when she went back to work tomorrow. She pulled on her sundress, brushed her hair and left the bathroom.
Travis was sitting on the bed, looking very much at home. He’d changed into cotton trousers and a blue shirt . open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up. Suppressing the urge to jump him, Julie said, “Make it fast, I’m hungry.” Recklessly she plunked herself down beside him on the bed, hauling her skirt above her knees. She wasn’t going to jump him. She knew better than to do that.
So she was quite safe.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The scrape on Julie’s knee was picturesque and hurt like crazy; but it wasn’t overly deep. Travis knelt in front of her, extracting a few specks of bark with sterile tweezers, then smoothing on antibiotic ointment and applying a light bandage. Julie watched him, fascinated by the skill of his long fingers, so deft and gentle. He’d be a very good doctor.
He’d be a very good lover.
Desire washed over her, so strongly that it was as much as she could do to keep her hands at her sides. “Keep an eye on it,” Travis said, getting to his feet.
Her face must have been an open book. With a strangled sound in his throat, Travis pushed her back on the bed, threw himself down beside her and began kissing her, fiercely possessive kisses that sang along her veins until the beat of her blood was like a primitive drum. She kissed him back, running her hands through the thick silkiness of his hair, stroking his nape, roaming his muscled shoulders. As he tugged at the hem of his shirt, she went lower, desperate to feel skin and flesh. The rough hair on his belly tangled her fingers; and then she found his nipple, hard as a pebble.
His tongue twined with hers in an intimacy that served only to increase her hunger. She opened to him, whimpering with need; and felt him slide the straps from her shoulders, pulling her dress down to bare her breasts. As he cupped them in his palms, she arched toward him, aching for more, maddened by sensations that were building as inexorably as a storm at sea.
His head dropped to her breast, his mouth taking one tip then the other, laving them until she was moaning with pleasure. When he raised his head to kiss her mouth again, she tore at the buttons on his shirt; then she pulled him down to lie on her, the roughness of his body hair abrading her breasts.
Her skirt was above her thighs. At the first touch of his fingers between her legs, she gave a strangled cry. All the barriers were down; as the hardness of his erection dug into her thigh, she knew she couldn’t rest until he was inside her. Where he belonged.
But even as she fumbled to remove the scrap of lace that was keeping him from her, Travis reared up, his eyes fastened on her face. “Julie,” he said hoarsely, “in a moment I won’t be able to stop. Is this what you want?”
She looked at him blankly, trying to find her voice. “Of course it is,” she gasped, “can’t you tell?”
“A summer affair.”
It was as though he were trying the words out, she thought, listening to see how they sounded. Only last night she’d told him an affair was the last thing she was looking for; and she’d meant it. But now, crazed by passion, she was just about begging him to take her.
In a cracked voice she said, “I want you so much that I forgot all the reasons we shouldn’t be doing this.” Pushing him off, she sat up; as she dragged at her dress to hide her breasts, the words came tumbling from her lips. “I thought I knew myself until you came along. I’m no virgin, Travis—when I was twenty I went to bed with my physics partner, because I figured it was time I found out what sex was all about. Nothing much, that’s what I discovered. No big deal. So I got on with my life. And that was fine with me, I didn’t want to fall in love back then and I still don’t. And I sure don’t want to get married.” She paused for breath, her hands clasped in her lap. “I’ve dated since then, of course I have. Nice men, attractive men, many of whom would have been happy to have an affair with no strings attached. But I never did. Not one of them swept me off my feet. Until you came along.” She bit her lip. “I don’t understand why you’re so different. When you kiss me, I forget everything except you. You saw how I behaved a moment ago, I was like a wild woman. That’s not me! I’ve never been like that.”
“You think I come on to women I’ve only just met?”
“How would I know?”
He said with vicious truth, “Whatever’s swept you off your feet has knocked the feet right out from under me.”
“And how you hate me for doing that to you!”
“Why don’t you want to fall in love or get married?”
He’d gone right to the crux. “Two reasons,” she said with an unhappy laugh. “My father and my mother. And that’s all you’re getting out of me.” In a flurry of skirts, she stood up. “I’m sorry if I seemed to be leading you on, I couldn’t help myself. I’m going downstairs for breakfast and then I’ll leave with Oliver.”
“I was a damn fool to ask if you really wanted to make love,” Travis said harshly. “If we’d just gone ahead and done it, you wouldn’t be in such a rush to get on the boat.”
Her knee was hurting, her whole body was a huge ache of sexual frustration, and all she wanted to do was curl up on the bed and sob her heart out. “I’m glad you did ask. It’s better for both of us this way.”
He pushed himself to his feet. “We’ll be in Portland for the summer, you and I. We’re bound to meet up with each other.”
“I’ll do my best to see that doesn’t happen.”
“So this is goodbye,” he said in an unreadable voice.
She gave him the faintest of smiles. “You’ll have forgotten me in a couple of days, you’ll see.”
“Don’t judge me by your own standards!”
Flinching from the fury in his face, Julie shoved her feet into her sandals and ran for the door. But his voice stopped her, pinioning her to the white-painted panels. “You’re planning on forgetting me. On forgetting what happens every time we get within ten feet of each other. Aren’t you?”
“I’ve got to!”
“Maybe it’s time you started behaving like an adult instead of jerking me around like a puppet on a string. On one minute, off the next. Or are you going to let your parents run your life for the rest of your days?”
“You didn’t have to kiss me, Travis.”
“You know what I really hate? That I didn’t have a choice,” he said savagely.
“We all have choices,” she retorted. “And I’m choosing to get out of here before we do any more damage.”
“I wouldn’t have called you a coward,” he jeered. “Goodbye, Julie… have a nice life.”
She made a sound expressive of fury and frustration, whirled and banged the door shut behind her. Imp
ossible man. Infuriating, arrogant and irresistibly sexy man. Scowling prodigiously, wincing at the pain in her knee, Julie went downstairs and hurried across the hall. She stopped short at the dining-room door, pasted a smile on her face and pushed it open. The huge table was spread with ample bacon and eggs, along with a gorgeous array of fruit, freshly baked croissants and coffee cakes. She stood still in the doorway; her appetite had completely forsaken her.
Forcing herself to calm down, she went in search of Charles and Corinne. They were outside on the patio. Calling on all her good manners, she thanked them for a wonderful stay and made her escape. When she went back to her room to get her bag, there was no sign of Travis. Nor was he, to her infinite relief, on the dock by the boathouse. Oliver was leaving in five minutes, he told her. She waited in an agony of impatience, making conversation with four other guests who were also leaving Manatuck. They all climbed aboard, and the launch pulled away from the dock.
She went to stand by the bow. As the island receded, she stole one last glance at it. But it wasn’t the crenellated towers and absurd turrets, or the bannered tents on the lawn that held her attention. It was the lighthouse at the northeast tip of the island, where a dark-haired man had kissed her on the grass, turning her into a woman she didn’t even recognize.
A woman of passion, who was afraid of that passion. More afraid than she’d ever been of anything in her life.
Left alone in Julie’s bedroom, Travis stared unseeingly out of the window. He’d made a fool of himself. A total and unmitigated fool. Telling her she’d knocked him off his feet. Rambling on about having no choice.
He’d been on the brink of begging her to go to bed with him. Begging? Him?
Thank heavens he hadn’t sunk that low.
But how was he ever going to forget the sweet rise of her breast, the racing of her pulse against his palm, the delicate scent of her skin? Or the brilliant green of her irises when he’d kissed her, their depths shot with fire? Why in hell had he blabbed on about summer affairs, giving her the time to think?
If he hadn’t, she’d have been his.
He banged his fist hard on the sill, almost relishing the pain. If he’d been all kinds of a fool, at least he wasn’t going to repeat his mistakes. He’d make sure of that by never seeing her again. He only rarely went to the clinic, and by the sound of it she wouldn’t come near the hospital; plus he had no intention of finding out her phone number.
What did he need her phone number for when he wasn’t going to see her again?
Goodbye meant just that. Goodbye.
He was well rid of Julie Renshaw.
Travis stayed on Manatuck until the last of the guests had gone. He, Corinne and Charles ate an informal supper on the patio, Travis doing his best to sound more at ease than he felt. Then he got up. “I’ll get my bag, I told Oliver I’d be leaving in a few minutes.”
“Fine, fine,” Charles said. “Glad you could make it for the party, Travis. You remember what I said… Portland’s too small for you, you’d be better off heading overseas where there’s more scope for your talents.”
“I hear you, Dad.” One more person who didn’t want to see him again, he thought with an inward wince. “Goodbye, Corinne,” he added, “thanks for everything.”
She offered him the same cool cheek as when he’d arrived, just as though the intervening two days hadn’t happened. It was left for Oliver to say at the wharf on the mainland, “You come back soon, Mr. Travis. Manatuck ain’t the same without you.”
“Thanks, Oliver. Take care.”
Julie’s blue car was, of course, gone. Travis drove back to Portland, parking his car and going upstairs to the condo that belonged to Mark MacDonald and that he was renting for the summer. It was a very desirable condo built on one of the wharves on the waterfront, in sight of yachts and ferries and lobster boats. He’d made very little attempt to imprint his personality on it; as he entered, its impersonality struck him like a blow.
He wanted Julie here with him. That’s what he wanted. Dammit, he didn’t. He was tired, that’s all.
He poured himself a drink. Night was already falling over the harbor, the lights on the marina glittering like earthbound stars. Where did she live? In Old Port, with its handsome brick buildings and cobblestone streets? Or west of here, nearer to the clinic?
Was she thinking about him? Or had she already put him out of her mind, an incident that had happened and wouldn’t be repeated?
He loathed the thought of being so summarily dismissed. Forgotten, like a garment she’d discarded.
Travis went to bed early, slept badly for the third night in a row and did a ten-hour shift at the hospital the next day. Afterward, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, he went to the grocery store nearest the medical center. He could have eaten out; but he’d tired of that in his first month here, and now preferred to cook something back at the condo. He was frowning at the array of steaks, wondering if he’d barbecue on the balcony, when a woman’s voice said, “Travis? It is you, isn’t it?”
He turned, recognizing the voice almost immediately. “Trish,” he said warmly, “how are you? Long time no see.”
“Eleven or twelve years,” she said, shifting the carton of milk she was carrying to shake his hand.
She’d changed very little in those years, her long blond hair still in an untidy knot on her head, her eyes the same warm brown. Travis had been engaged to her his final year at medical school; for a moment he felt like that young man again, head stuffed with knowledge, wanderlust tugging him like a magnet even as he was pulled toward the more ordinary longings for home and a family. He said impulsively, “Have you got time for a drink? Or dinner?”
She consulted her watch. “A drink, I’m going to my inlaws for dinner, my husband’s out of town and they’ve been looking after the children for me. Let me just pay for this.”
He grabbed a steak, a few onions and some broccoli, and followed her. Ten minutes later they were seated in a booth in a nearby pub. “To chance meetings,” Travis said, raising his glass. “Tell me about your husband… and how many children?”
“I have photos,” she grinned, and showed him snapshots of two towheaded little boys and an angelic little girl, all blond curls and dimples. Her husband, Tom, was tall and athletic, with a pleasant smile. All five looked happy together, Travis thought. As though they fit.
“You’re fortunate,” he said. “A lovely family, Trish.”
“And you? Have you married?”
He shifted in the seat. “Never have, no. I’ve spent most of my time overseas since you and I broke up. You name it, I’ve been there.”
“It wouldn’t be easy to meet women when you’re on the move a lot, I suppose.”
“You can always meet women if you want to.”
“So you’re still unattached,” she said slowly. “Do you remember what I said to you the night I broke our engagement?”
“That you wanted a man who was head over heels in love with you,” he said promptly. “Is Tom like that?”
Her face softened. “Yes. Even after three kids and the usual ups and downs of marriage. I lucked out.”
“You knew enough to wait for the real thing.” With an urgency that took him by surprise, Travis asked, “Did you know the minute you met Tom? Or was it more gradual?”
She took a sip of her martini. “After you left, and even though I was sure I’d done the right thing by breaking up with you, I was lonely. So I got a dog at the animal shelter, kind of an ugly dog actually, that no one else wanted to adopt. I was walking him in Deering Park one evening by the pond when he started to play with a very patrician collie. He fell in love with the collie and I fell in love with the collie’s owner. And yes, I knew right away. I can tell you what Tom was wearing that evening and what we said, and how alive I felt. Utterly and wonderfully alive.”
“And it’s lasted…”
“As I say, we lucked out. It doesn’t last for everyone, Travis. But you have to be willing to take the
risk. And in the rough times to work your heart out.”
Moodily he stared into his Scotch. The moment Julie had stood up on the wharf and turned to face him, hadn’t he in some primal sense recognized her?
“You’ve met someone,” Trish ventured.
“Not really.” He let a mouthful of the liquor slide down his throat, Julie’s face in his mind’s eye as clearly as if she were actually standing there.
“Come clean,” Trish said pithily.
Exasperated with himself, Travis said, “I met this woman last Friday, you’re right, and my hormones have been in an uproar ever since. But that’s all it is. Lust.”
“If it’s lust, anyone will do.”
He didn’t want anyone. He wanted Julie. But it was still lust.
“One of the things I always admired about you was your honesty,” Trish remarked. “You said it like it was. Surely you haven’t lost that?”
“She’s got me so riled up, I don’t know what the truth is!”
“Maybe you’ve fallen in love with her.”
He made an instinctive gesture of repudiation. “I don’t know what love is, Trish… didn’t you accuse me of that all those years ago?”
“I did, yes. You’d get just so close to me and then you’d back off. I was younger then and I had the world figured out, so I accused you of being afraid of intimacy. You’d lost your mother and you’d decided at the age of six that you weren’t going to trust any female ever again.” Her smile was rueful. “I wouldn’t be quite so frank now. Or so sure that I was right.”
“You probably were right, though. My mother disappeared between one day and the next. I don’t remember the funeral, or any of the relatives visiting. I do know my dad would never allow her name to be mentioned. And then I was shipped off to boarding school as though nothing had happened. Two years later he married Corinne.”
“Little wonder you’re afraid to trust. But if this woman is the right one, Travis, she’s worth fighting for. Love’s worth fighting for, that’s what I’m saying. And now I’m going to shut up, and you’re going to tell me about some of your adventures overseas.”