Island of Dreams
Page 6
A hand clamped tightly over her mouth, stifling the sound. ‘Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it.’
The salt tang of his palm stayed on her lips after she shook herself free. ‘A truth remains true even when it’s unspoken.’ He must know by now that he couldn’t stop her from loving him just because he willed it? She’d had five years to prove him wrong. ‘Are you still married, Harry?’
A snarl twisted his mouth. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet? Kim’s dead.’
The admission was wrung from him with such force that she reeled back as if from a blow. ‘How long?’ she managed to whisper.
‘Seven years ago, just before I met your father,’ he ground out. His eyes glittered with a ferocity which made her quail. How powerfully he must have loved his wife to grieve for her for so long.
It almost killed her to ask, but she had to know. ‘What happened?’
‘You may not like the answer.’
‘Not knowing is worse.’
He inclined his head then swung his dark gaze back to her. ‘You may not think so once you know the truth. Kim is dead because I killed her.’
‘Harry, no!’
Her tortured response was made to an empty room. On the heels of his admission he spun away, over the low stone wall into the jungle beyond. She heard his crashing passage through the undergrowth.
She stayed frozen where she was for almost a full minute, until a breeze on her damp skin sent shivers sweeping through her. She cursed her scanty covering which stopped her from pursuing him. He had no right to make such a confession then leave her to deal with it alone. There must be more. She refused to believe that Harry Blake had killed anyone.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled on shorts and a T-shirt. They refused to deal with a bra so she left it off, desperate to go in search of Harry.
She found him on the pathway leading to the spring. He was hunkered down on the cliff-top, where she had suggested building a look-out. His far-sighted stare seemed oblivious to the magnificent view. His skin was sallow under his tan. He didn’t acknowledge her presence when she dropped down beside him.
‘You have to tell me the rest,’ she pleaded.
His bleak stare raked her. ‘I don’t have to do anything.’
A sigh escaped her parted lips. She was the one who wanted to know it all. Had her insistence destroyed any chance of an understanding between them? ‘You’re right, you don’t,’ she conceded. ‘But I hope you’ll want to tell me the rest. It may help to talk about it.’
‘Talking can’t restore a life.’
‘But it can restore some semblance of tranquillity.’ At that moment she wasn’t sure whether she meant his state of mind or her own. ‘I can’t believe you killed anyone, Harry,’ she said with quiet insistence.
‘Still as sweetly naive as ever, aren’t you?’ he drawled, his voice dripping sarcasm.
Something snapped inside her and she scrambled to her feet. With legs wide apart and hands planted on hips she glared down at him. ‘I’m neither sweet nor naive, simply objective. The Harry Blake I know wouldn’t consciously hurt anyone.’
He massaged his chin thoughtfully. ‘Ah, but there’s the rub.’
Her arms dropped to her sides. ‘What are you saying?’
His hand encircled her wrist and he pulled her back down beside him. ‘I’m saying you hit the nail on- the head when you said I wouldn’t consciously hurt anyone. But I might as well have done. Kim died because of me, so it’s the same thing.’
She was glad to be sitting down as a wave of weakness swept over her. She had known that Harry wasn’t capable of murder, but for some reason he blamed himself for his wife’s death. ‘How did it happen?’ she asked.
‘I was working on a story about organised crime, going undercover as a courier to get the information I needed. The stuff was explosive—names, case histories, enough evidence for the police to make some arrests.’
‘I think I remember the series. You got as many headlines as your stories did.’ She remembered the shock of seeing him interviewed on a current-affairs programme. Even then his personal power mesmerised her, although she couldn’t imagine the impact he would have on her own life.
‘The publicity was the problem,’ he said, his voice cracking at the memories which were obviously still painful. ‘I started getting phone calls telling me to drop the series or my family would suffer.’
Her heart felt heavy as she sensed what was coming. ‘You didn’t stop, did you?’
He clenched his fists so tightly that the knuckles whitened. ‘I knew these people and what they were capable of, but I told myself the public good was more important.’
She covered his clenched fist with her own, and massaged it gently, persuasively. ‘You put criminals behind bars, where they couldn’t hurt any more people.’
‘Except Kim,’ he said with savage intensity. ‘I gambled with her life and I lost. Her car exploded one morning as she was setting off for work. The destruction was so total that the police couldn’t establish a cause, far less identify the perpetrator. But they were certain her car was booby-trapped.’
It came back to Lisa now. ‘I remember reading about it, but the woman referred to wasn’t Kim Blake.’
‘She was a journalist in her own right and worked under her maiden name after we married. As a reporter herself she insisted we couldn’t give in to extortion. She paid the price for my principles.’
‘They were her principles, too. She could have asked you to drop the whole thing, but she didn’t because she believed in what you were doing. It was her choice.’
‘But the decision should have been mine. The scum I was after knew I wouldn’t be stopped by threats to my own life, so they targeted someone close to me.’
Without thinking, she dropped her hands to his shoulders and began to knead the knotted muscles under the tanned skin. His tension radiated along her fingers and up her forearms as a dull ache which she welcomed as a way of sharing his burden. Her palms slid along the tops of his shoulders, her thumbs and fingers finding the pressure points which would temper his suffering. ‘Is what happened to Kim the reason why you gave up investigative journalism?’
He flexed his shoulders, leaning in to her touch as if it was a welcome relief. ‘Mostly. The series on the immigrants was the last under my byline.’
‘No wonder you welcomed the chance to write Papa’s story,’ she mused. ‘I used to wonder why a hot-shot reporter like Harry Blake chose to write the biography of a Russian defector.’
Over his shoulder his hooded gaze flicked to her then back to the ocean. ‘I wanted to write your father’s story. It wasn’t a second-best option, nor was it a form of running away.’
Her palms glowed with the heat from his body, and breathing had become difficult suddenly. ‘I never thought it was.’ He sounded as if he needed to convince himself as much as her.
‘I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt on my account,’ he affirmed.
‘At least now I understand.’
He shrugged her hands away, moving to his feet with a fluid motion. ‘What do you understand?’
She ignored the sarcasm lacing his tone. ‘I understand why you don’t want to make promises to me, not now and not before. My age was never an issue, was it?’
‘You were a kid, too young and innocent to get involved with a hard-bitten newspaperman like me.’
‘You were never hard-bitten. But Kim’s death was still fresh when we first met. No wonder you didn’t want to get involved with anyone who could be used as a weapon against you.’
He mimicked silent applause. ‘Give the lady a psychology degree. No, I didn’t—and don’t—want to get involved with anyone again.’
His words held an awful finality which sent a chill sliding down her spine. ‘Why did you invite me here if you didn’t want to get involved?’ she demanded.
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts and fixed his steely gaze on the ocean. ‘I thought you’d outgrow
n your feelings for me. I wanted to get you out of Tyler Thornton’s sights, but there were probably a dozen better ways I could have done it.’
Outrage swept through her as she leapt to her feet, her Tartar blood singing in her ears. ‘That’s garbage and you know it. You didn’t bring me here out of a sense of duty. It was an excuse to test yourself in the face of temptation. Well, you’ve proved your point, so you can send me back now with a clear conscience. I’m glad to have been of service.’
She whirled away, tears stinging her eyes, but was brought up short by a hand clamped around her arm. When he swivelled her to face him a storm blazed in his dark eyes. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She quailed in the face of his fury but lifted her chin determinedly. ‘Can’t you see that the work you’re doing now makes your enforced sainthood totally unnecessary?’
‘How do you know what work I’m doing now?’
‘When I went into your room I saw a manuscript on your dresser. It’s a book, isn’t it?’
‘As it happens, yes.’
‘A book about the world’s best-kept secrets,’ she pressed on, recalling the title page. ‘Hardly a subject to interest the criminal element.’
‘Nor is it a book on stamp collecting,’ he threw at her. ‘Some people might prefer to keep their secrets.’
Her hands lifted in helpless despair. ‘Must you always write about controversial subjects?’
He gave a lop-sided shrug. ‘I write what needs to be written. The best books usually get somebody’s back up.’
‘Other writers manage to survive their books.’
‘And I intend to survive mine,’ he said with deceptive mildness. ‘It’s the people I care about that I can’t protect.’
Her shoulders slumped as she heard the finality in his voice. ‘I can’t fight phantoms, Harry.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to.’ He took a step forward but stopped when she flinched. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen, Lisa. No matter what you think, I brought you here for your benefit.’
Tears coloured her voice. ‘Don’t do me any more favours, huh?’
Hardly seeing where she was going, she stumbled along the shell path towards the house. She was dimly aware that the storm had been building while they’d argued. The wind was a high-pitched whine, bending the trees almost double in its path. Leaves and debris flew through the air around her.
Before she had gone a dozen yards the first tropical raindrops splashed down on her head, quickly becoming a torrent which soaked through her clothes. In minutes she could hardly see the path for the intensity of the downpour. It was as if someone had turned a shower full on over her head.
Head down, she battled the mud which had turned sticky underfoot, her tears mingling freely with the rain. Damn Harry Blake and his precious principles. They might have been valid once, when he was an investigative journalist tackling dangerous assignments. But they seemed so futile now that he was out of the mainstream of his profession.
Into the fury of the storm she screamed her helpless rage. The sound was torn from her and lost among the chaos of other sounds as the seas pounded the island and wind and rain lashed the land.
Suddenly there was a great tearing crash over her head. She didn’t see the tree limb which cracked through the branches on top of her. She only knew that the light was gone and the storm had stopped its banshee screaming.
CHAPTER FIVE
HARRY fixed his gaze on the turbulent sea, his thoughts equally chaotic. He wasn’t being entirely honest with Lisa, even now. But hell, she hadn’t given him any leeway and she was bound to misinterpret the truth.
Her accusation rang in his ears. Was he testing the strength of his resolve by bringing her here? If so, it hadn’t been a conscious decision. After he’d found out that she was being harassed by that jackal Tyler Thornton his aim had been to protect her. It was his fault that she was in this fix, although she didn’t know that either. A grin sloped across his face. He could imagine her reaction if she found out. She was really something when she was angry.
Easy, boy, he cautioned himself as the blood started to race and his stomach clenched with a familiar tightness. He meant what he’d told her about Kim. It was the last time anyone would get close enough to him to be held hostage to his beliefs.
He stood up and stretched his cramped muscles. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed the rain starting and now he was uncomfortably damp. He’d better start back. With luck Lisa would have cooled down enough by now to see reason.
A faint cry brought his head up, his keen ears alert for the source of the sound. It was hard to pin-point above the gathering storm but he could swear it came from closer to the house.
‘Lisa?’ His cry mingled with the screech of the wind. But his feet were already moving over the shell path, heedless of the fallen branches strewn in his way. He leapt over a tree trunk the size of a telegraph pole. It had been torn out by its roots. He cursed himself as he ran. How could he have ignored the storm-warning signs and let Lisa head home alone?
He found her sprawled across the path a few yards from the house. At first he thought she was pinned under the torn branch covering her. But it moved easily aside. Under it she lay almost peacefully, her eyes closed and her lips gently parted on the cry which had summoned him. Blood was already clotting over a cut on her forehead. She was out cold but she was breathing.
She didn’t stir when he checked her over, for which he was thankful. If anything was broken he would have had to hurt her. The thought wrenched at him with an almost physical impact but he pushed it aside. He’d deal with his own feelings later.
When he was sure nothing was broken he lifted her carefully and held her against him, where she nestled with a soft crooning sound as if she was aware of his attention at some unconscious level. He bent his head and kissed the wound on her forehead, then started for the house, stepping with infinite care so he wouldn’t jolt her.
With the same care he placed her on his bed and pulled the quilt over her, then headed for the radiophone, praying that the storm hadn’t knocked out the system yet.
He was lucky. A static-laden voice answered his call. ‘Is Alf there? I need him right away, over,’ he said urgently.
‘You hurt, boss?’ Her concern penetrated the static.
‘No, Rose, it’s a friend of mine. Cut by a flying branch and possible candidate for concussion. She needs Alf’s help, over.’
‘No problem, boss. He’s sleeping right here. It’s time he went out and did some work.’
In spite of his tension, Harry chuckled into the handset. ‘I’ll tell him you said so. Over and out.’
He could picture Rose, a full-blooded islander, prodding her husband, Alf, awake. He had probably been up half the previous night delivering someone’s baby halfway around the island. Harry hated to call him out during the storm, but as the only qualified doctor on the island he was accustomed to it and would chide Harry for doing anything else.
Alf Nawi and Harry had been friends since university and Alf had been delighted that Harry had chosen to drop out on his ancestral island. ‘Do you good to pick up a bit of culture,’ he’d assured Harry.
‘Pick up some head-hunting and cannibalism, don’t you mean?’ Harry had joked good-naturedly. There was a grain of truth in it, however. Until the present century the people of the Torres Strait had been feared as pirates, head-hunters and cannibals. Alf’s grandfather could well have been among them, although Alf himself was as urbane as any man.
Right now Harry wouldn’t have cared if he’d been a witch doctor with bones through his nose as long as he could help Lisa.
A bright light shining in her eyes brought Lisa to full wakefulness. She struggled against the fingers gently lifting her eyelids. ‘What happened? Who are you?’
She was lying on Harry’s bed, she saw at once. A grey-haired black man, wearing nothing but a pareu tied around his waist and a pair of plasticrimmed glasses, was bending over her.
She struggled to sit up and immediately wished she hadn’t as the room whirled around her. Harry rushed to place another pillow behind her head and she sank against it with a grateful sigh. ‘Am I all right—er—Doctor?’
His teeth gleamed whitely against cocoa-coloured skin which contrasted with his crinkly grey hair and beard. ‘You seem dubious about my qualifications. I’m afraid I left my medical degree back at my camp or I’d show it to you.’
‘I’ll vouch for him,’ Harry said, resting a hand on the other man’s shoulder.
She pressed a hand to her aching head. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘My camp is called Utingu, place of many big trees. It’s beyond the spring, on the far side of the island.’
‘Alf—Dr Nawi—is the elder of his tribe. He’s the keeper of his totemic history, tender of cave paintings…’
‘And healer of the sick,’ Alf finished with a laugh. ‘I decided my people needed my services more than yours did,’ he told Lisa.
‘Right now I’m not sure I agree with you,’ she said shakily. ‘My head is splitting.’
He nodded sympathetically. ‘I’ll give you something for the pain. Harry will need to keep an eye on you and call me if there’s any sign of concussion.’ His concerned gaze lifted to Harry, hovering anxiously beside them. ‘Something tells me he won’t mind having to spend the night at a young lady’s bedside.’
Her colour heightened. The doctor thought that she and Harry were already sharing the bedroom. Apparently Harry’s reluctance to share his life didn’t extend to his bed, since his friend didn’t seem to find her presence at all unusual. ‘I’m sorry to be such a bother,’ she said a little stiffly.
Harry frowned. ‘I should have realised how bad the storm was getting, and made sure you got back safely.’
Instead of brooding about his own problems, she read into his statement. The doctor’s puzzled glance went from one to the other, as if he sensed the undercurrents flowing between them. ‘Luckily there’s no serious harm done,’ he said. ‘Concussions are common enough at Utingu. People falling out of coconut trees and whatnot.’