He grinned. ‘OK, I won’t argue with you. But if you have any plans to get up and go back to the resort tonight, forget ’em.’
‘It was the furthest thing from my mind,’ she said dreamily and snuggled up to him.
They slept for a while, then got up and showered, and he made a light supper.
They ate it on the veranda and watched the moon. Then he was struck by an idea. ‘Muslin,’ he said musingly and picked up her sarong still lying on the veranda floor. ‘Anything like this?’
Maggie sat up alertly. ‘That’s voile and silk, but it’s very fine, like muslin—it might just do the trick.’
He looked from the sarong in his hands to the Guettarda Speciosa just beyond the veranda railing with the perfume of its night flowers wafting over them in a light breeze. ‘How do we anchor it?’
‘Clothes pegs?’ she suggested.
He nodded and disappeared inside to get them and between them they spread the sarong over the top of the tree.
‘Morning will tell,’ he commented as he applied the last peg.
‘The morning after the night before,’ she said with a humorous little glint in her eyes.
‘There is that too,’ he agreed. ‘In the meantime—’ he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her against him ‘—how about back to bed?’
‘That sounds like a fine idea to me,’ she whispered.
He tilted her chin and looked into her eyes. ‘You know what’s going to happen, though, don’t you?’
She licked her lips. ‘Another fine idea by me,’ she said softly.
‘But what you may not realize,’ he temporized, ‘is that I suddenly feel like a starving person deprived of a feast.’
She slid her hands around his waist and up his back and pressed her breasts against his chest. ‘Who’s depriving you of anything?’
He groaned and picked her up.
This time their lovemaking was swift and tempestuous, as if he had felt truly starved of her, but Maggie matched him every inch of the way as the barrier of never having done it before lay behind her and she could express her need of him with a new sureness of touch.
The bed was a tangled mess when they came down from the heights this time, but Maggie was laughing as she caught her breath. ‘Wow! I see what you mean.’
He buried his head between her breasts. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s just call it our epiphany.’
He looked up with something in his eyes she couldn’t immediately translate. A tinge of surprise coupled with admiration, she realized suddenly, and it gave her a lovely sense of being on equal terms with him that carried her on to sleep serenely in his arms, once they’d reorganized the bed.
But the next morning it all caught up with Maggie in an embarrassing way.
All her life she’d suffered from a digestive system that took exception to too much excitement and too much rich food.
She woke up feeling pale and shaken and distinctly nauseous. Then she was as sick as a dog.
At first Jack was determined to drive her into the nearest doctor at Proserpine, but she explained between painful bouts of nausea and other complications what the problem was. ‘On top of everything else I should have gone easy on the wonderful Mornay sauces and marinades,’ she gasped.
He was sitting on the side of the bed watching her with concern. ‘Are you sure? You may have picked up a gastric bug.’
‘I’m quite sure! A bit of rest, just liquids and plain food for a while and I’ll be fine.’
She saw some indecision chase through his eyes and she put her hand over his. ‘Really. And I have a remedy I always carry but it’s in my luggage back at the resort.’
He came to a decision. ‘All right. Do you think you can talk on the phone long enough to tell the resort it’s OK to release your vehicle and your luggage to me?’
‘Yes.’
Several hours later, she was starting to feel better and Jack McKinnon couldn’t have been a better nurse to add to all the other things she admired about him.
He’d made her as comfortable as he could with clean sheets on the bed and a clean nightgown from her luggage. He’d darkened the bedroom section. He’d made up an electrolyte drink for her to replace the minerals she might have lost, and some clear, plain chicken soup. He was as quiet as possible so she could sleep.
And by four o’clock in the afternoon Maggie felt quite human again.
He brought her a cup of black tea and sat on the bed while she drank it.
‘I’m too excitable,’ she said ruefully. ‘That’s what my mother puts it down to.’
He gazed at her. She was still pale, but her eyes were clear and she’d brushed her hair into two ponytails tied with green bobbles.
She could have been about sixteen, he thought, a lovely, volatile child. Yet a brave one who’d matched his ardour in anything but a childlike way until she’d made herself sick.
‘I may have been at fault,’ he began.
‘No. Well—’ she smiled faintly ‘—you could be too good a cook.’
He grimaced. ‘What about the rest of it?’
‘The way we made love?’ She breathed deeply. ‘I could never regret a moment of that.’
‘Neither could I, but—’
‘You’re wondering if this is going to happen every time you make love to me? It won’t,’ she assured him. ‘These last few weeks have been—’ she gestured ‘—quite turbulent for me. It was probably bound to happen sooner or later, but I’m feeling—’ she chewed her lip ‘—much more tranquil now.’
He shook his head as if trying to sort through it all.
‘But—lonely,’ she added softly, ‘in this vast bed all on my own.’
‘Maggie—’
‘If you could just put your arms around me, that would be the best thing that’s happened to me today.’
He stared at her and she thought he was going to knock back her suggestion, then he changed his mind.
She sighed with sheer pleasure as he lay down beside her and gathered her close.
‘How did the perfume go?’ she asked drowsily.
‘Your sarong smells lovely, but there was nothing to wring out of it—not enough dew.’
She chuckled. ‘We may have to move to India.’
He stroked her hair.
But although they slept in the same bed that night, and although she drew strength and comfort from his arms and it was a magic experience on its own, that was all that happened until the next day when she could demonstrate she was as fit as a fiddle again.
The day after that, on what should have been their last day at Cape Gloucester but they’d made a mutual decision to stay on for a few days more, it all fell apart.
She had no intimation of the drama about to unfold when they swam very early that morning, naked and joyfully.
‘This adds another dimension,’ she told him as he lifted her aloft out of the sea. She put her hands on his shoulders with her arms straight and her hair dripped over his head. Her skin was covered with goose-bumps and her nipples peaked in the chill of it all.
‘Know what?’ He tasted each nipple in turn. ‘If we hadn’t just made love, guess what we’d be doing as soon as we got back? You taste salty,’ he added.
She flipped backwards over his encircling arms and wound her legs around him. ‘No idea at all!’ she said as she floated on her back and her hair spread out on the water like seaweed. ‘This water is so buoyant.’
‘And you’re particularly buoyant this morning, Miss Trent,’ he teased. ‘Not to mention full of cheek.’
She arched her body, then flipped upright, laughing down at him. ‘I wonder why?’ She sobered and stroked his broad shoulders. ‘What is the masculine equivalent of a siren?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘There should be,’ she told him. ‘Anyway, you’re it, Mr McKinnon. Enough to make any girl feel very buoyant, not to mention—wonderful!’
He s
tared into her eyes, as green as the sea at that moment, with her eyelashes clumped together and beaded with moisture, and at the freshness of her skin. And he said with an odd little smile, as if there was something in the air she wasn’t aware of, ‘I haven’t felt quite so wonderful myself for a while.’
She insisted on cooking breakfast, saying it was about time she earned her keep.
They’d showered together and she’d put on a short denim skirt with a green blouse that matched her eyes. Her hair was loose as it dried and she frequently looped it behind her ears as she cooked—grilled bacon and banana with chopped, fried tomato and onion and French toast.
‘There,’ she said proudly as she set it out on the veranda table. ‘I may not be in your gourmet class, but I’m not useless in the kitchen either.’
‘Did I say you were?’ he drawled.
She pulled out a chair and wrinkled her nose at him. ‘You’ve carefully avoided any mention of it, which led me to wonder if you’d simply assumed my privileged background had left me fit only to rely on someone else to provide my meals—what a mouthful, Maggie,’ she accused herself with a gurgle of laughter.
He grinned. ‘I did wonder.’
‘Well, now you know. I’m actually quite domesticated.’ She picked up her knife and fork, then paused and frowned. ‘Was that a car in the driveway I heard?’
He cocked his head. ‘I’m not expecting anyone.’
A moment later they heard a door bang, then footsteps crunching on the gravel path around the side of the house.
‘Anyone home?’ a voice called at the same time as a tall fair woman appeared at the bottom of the steps, then, ‘Oh, Jack! I’m so glad I caught you. Maisie did say you’d decided to stay on for a couple more days, but one never quite knows with you!’
To Maggie’s surprise, Jack McKinnon went quite still for a long moment, still and tense and as dangerously alert as a big jungle cat. Then he relaxed deliberately and stood up. ‘Sylvia,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise.’
Maggie blinked and Sylvia, his adoptive sister, arrived on the veranda. She was as lovely as her photo and there was no trace of sadness about her as she greeted Jack, full of laughing explanations.
‘I really needed a bit of time off—Mum and I were getting to the stage of wanting to shoot each other! So I flew up to Proserpine yesterday, hired a car and took off before dawn hoping to catch you and surprise you—oh!’ Her gaze fell on Maggie. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Maisie didn’t say anything about…’ She trailed off awkwardly.
‘Don’t be silly, Syl,’ Jack said quietly. ‘I’m always happy to see you. This is Maggie.’
Maggie got up and came round the table, holding out her hand. ‘Maggie Trent, actually. How do you do?’
Sylvia’s mouth fell open, as if she was completely floored, and she appeared not to notice Maggie’s proffered hand. Instead, her gaze was riveted on Maggie’s tawny hair and green eyes. Then she closed her mouth with a click. ‘Not—Margaret Leila Trent?’
‘Why, yes!’ Maggie beamed at her. ‘I don’t know how you know that, but that’s me.’
‘Jack,’ Sylvia said hollowly, and turned to him, ‘don’t tell me this is what I think it is. He’d…’ she swallowed visibly ‘… he’d kill you if he knew…’
‘Who?’ Maggie said into the sudden deathly silence.
‘Your father,’ Sylvia whispered. Then she put a hand to her mouth and turned around to run down the steps.
‘You stay here, Maggie,’ Jack ordered. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He followed Sylvia.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS an hour before he came back, a tense, highly uncomfortable hour for Maggie.
She got rid of their uneaten breakfasts and tidied up, but there was a dreadful feeling of apprehension at the pit of her stomach and all her movements were jerky and unco-ordinated.
As far as she was aware he’d never met her father, so what could be involved? Then her mind fastened on something he’d said the day she’d found him here. Something about men and their grievances not being parted lightly.
She’d assumed when he’d said that, and something else she remembered about never seeing eye to eye with her father, that her father’s arrogant, high-handed reputation and the ruthless businessman he could be, also by repute, were the things Jack McKinnon took exception to…
Then she remembered his reluctance—she put her hands to her suddenly hot cheeks—to have anything more to do with her after the shed incident. What had she precipitated?
When he came back she was sipping coffee, but sheer nerves made her rush into speech. ‘What’s going on? How is she? Where is she?’
There was a plunger pot on the veranda table and another mug. He poured coffee for himself in a completely unsmiling way that terrified Maggie all the more.
‘She’s booked into the resort for the time being. Maggie, believe me…’ he pulled out a chair and sank into it ‘… I would rather—climb Mount Everest— than be the one to tell you this, but since you’re here, and this has happened, I don’t seem to have any choice.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she agreed. ‘You obviously know my father!’
‘Not well,’ he said rather grimly. ‘Sylvia is the one who knows him, or knew him. They had an affair—’ He stopped abruptly at the shocked little sound she made.
‘It’s common enough,’ he said then.
‘Well, yes.’ She paused and laced her fingers together. ‘And my parents haven’t—it doesn’t exactly seem to be a joyful marriage at times, but they are together so—’ She broke off and looked at him with a painful query in her eyes.
‘Your father desperately wanted a son and your mother couldn’t have any more children.’
A bell rang in the recesses of Maggie’s mind. Something her grandmother had said to her, then never explained. Something in response to her saying she should have been a boy. Don’t go down that road, Maggie. Your mother has and… But Leila Trent had never completed the statement.
She blinked several times as she looked back down the years, and it all fell into place. The growing tension between her parents, her mother’s anguish, carefully concealed so that her growing daughter would not be affected, but now it came back to Maggie in a hundred little ways… How could she have been so blind? she wondered.
She cleared her throat. ‘Go on.’
‘Your father met Sylvia about six years ago. They fell in love—at least Sylvia assures me they did. She…’ he paused and looked out over the glittering sea with his eyes hard and his mouth set ‘… fell for him in a big way despite his being married.’
‘Did… did he offer to leave my mother and marry her?’
‘He certainly led her to expect it. Then things changed dramatically.’ He turned back to her. ‘Talking of gynaecological problems, Sylvia has had more than her fair share of them and the net result is that she’s unable to have children. When your father discovered that, the terms of his proposition changed somewhat. There was no more talk of marriage.’
Maggie went pale.
‘I guess,’ he said slowly, ‘I need to fill you in on a bit of background here. Possibly because we were both adopted—there was never any secret made of it—we had more common ground than many siblings have, Sylvia and I. We looked out for each other as we were growing up. There were times when we almost seemed to be on the same wavelength like twins. So I knew exactly how Sylvia was going through the mill with your father. And I knew she was too loving, too special to be any man’s mistress.’
‘Did she agree with you?’ Maggie asked.
He shrugged. ‘Pertinent question. Did I rush in and sort out her life as I saw fit?’
‘Did you?’
‘No. To give your father his due, he was infatuated. Sylvia took the first steps to break it off herself, but he wouldn’t hear of it. She finally came to me and begged for help. She said she doubted she would ever love anyone quite like that again, but the sense of inadequacy she felt—your mother may have had the same
problem—over this inability to provide sons was crippling her and she had to get out.’
‘You… you confronted him?’ Maggie hazarded.
He smiled unamusedly. ‘Yes.’
‘How did you make him see sense?’
Jack stared at her. ‘I threatened him with exposure to his wife and his, at the time, seventeen-year-old daughter. You may not realize this, Margaret Leila Trent, but your father, for all his sins and his thirst for a son, loves you dearly. He often talked to Sylvia about you with a great deal of pride.’
There were tears running down Maggie’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t know,’ she whispered. She stood up and walked to the veranda railing. ‘It’s all so sad!’ She dashed her cheeks. ‘My mother still loves him, I’m sure. Sylvia…?’ She turned back with a question in her eyes.
‘Sylvia went to hell and back.’
Maggie sniffed. ‘And that’s all you had to do to get him to stop seeing her?’
He folded his arms. ‘Yes, but it didn’t end there. We’ve been playing a game of tit for tat ever since.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How so?’
‘He tried to ruin me financially.’ This time his smile was pure tiger. ‘But two can play that game, as he’s found to his cost several times.’
Maggie sank back into her chair and dropped her face into her hands. ‘That’s horrible.’ She swallowed, then looked up. ‘Of course. That explains the revenge element.’
He didn’t deny it. He was silent for so long, Maggie found it difficult to breathe as she wondered what was coming.
‘It crossed my mind,’ he said and grimaced. ‘More than once. That is why, Maggie,’ he said slowly, ‘I dropped you like a hot potato, or tried to.’
She bit her lip and coloured. ‘You could have told me this a lot sooner.’
‘It was hard enough to tell you now.’ He gestured. ‘But in the end revenge didn’t come into it.’ His lips twisted. ‘You may be a right chip off the old block in some respects, but in others you’re very sweet and lovely and refreshing and I…’ he paused ‘… I just couldn’t resist you even although I knew damn well I should.’
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 26