Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) (38 page)

“I don’t know.” She’d never known, but she had tried. “I’m such a wild thing. I’ve always been impulsive, but I tried not to be that way around him. I loved him so much, and I didn’t want to spoil it. The music— that was part of it, somehow, because whenever I played I could see that look in his eyes. As if he didn’t know what I’d do next.”

Lyle pushed back the hair tumbling over her forehead and she had to look at him. What had Scott wanted of her? Something she couldn’t give? Her hair bounced, rubbing across his hand as she shook her head.

“He wanted me to be more grown up, more settled. He was older than me, and I was so young.”

The curls twisted around Lyle’s fingers as he mused, “Volatile, and restless, and full of bouncing enthusiasm.”

Yes, all the wrong things. Scott had wanted her different – stable and content, full of warm acceptance. She said defensively, “I loved Scott!”

“Past tense?” he asked softly. “But did Scott love all of you?”

She sagged back against the chair, the guitar slack in her arms. She’d always known that Scott’s love depended on her being what he wanted. “I used to think I could make myself different for him, that I could be like— oh, like Jenny, I guess! Jenny’s always known how to please the people she loves, and she doesn’t get restless— well, not often anyway.”

She said tremulously, “I did love him, and I’ve missed him terribly, but—”

His hands were gentle through her hair, making her scalp tingle. She blinked against sudden tears that welled up behind her eyes. She thought of all the times she’d turned away from her impulses, of how she’d worried and ached with knowing she couldn’t be the perfect wife he wanted. “I’m never going to do it again. I’m wild and apt to— apt to do any crazy thing. I’m thirty years old now and I’m not going to change.”

His deep eyes held hers with magnetic intensity. “Grow up, George,” he whispered softly.

“Lyle, I’m thirty years old!”

“Are you?” He was smiling as if at a child. “Then don’t you think it’s time you stopped trying to live up to other people’s expectations?” His lips brushed hers in the most fleeting of kisses. “You’re unique, sweetheart. Don’t let anybody make you feel inadequate for having your own special talents. You don’t have to fit into a mold.”

She took a deep breath, tried to conceal that she was trembling from his touch.

He leaned closer, his thigh hard against her as he worked his way around the guitar. His lips moved against her cheek and his low voice said, “This is my room and it’s filled with music. If Scott resented your love of music, then I’d say this is one place you’ll have a hard time mixing us up.”

He was right. Here Lyle was strong and alive. His lips found hers. Her hands clenched on the guitar. Her mouth opened as his tongue moved between her lips. When she swayed, he took her closer in his arms and the kiss grew deeper.

His fingers kneaded softly on the muscles of her back, feeling the contours of her spine. When her hands reached up into his hair her fingers clenched on the slippery softness, pulling him closer as her mouth invited the hard invasion.

His hands on her back, his tongue thrusting, taking possession. A deep shudder passed through the core of her being and her body came to life, shifting closer, seeking intimacy.

The hard edges of the guitar pushed between them in a sudden, painful thrust.

“You’re driving me insane,” Lyle groaned as he released her. “I keep remembering you in my arms, touching you, seeing you in the moonlight.” His breathing was shallow and quick, his eyes flashing as he took in the signs of her own arousal, the thrust of her hardened nipples against her sweater, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts as she tried to calm her breathing. “You feel the same, don’t you? Say it, George!”

The heat was rushing through her body. She gripped the guitar, made music with her fingers that was wilder, more passionate than before.

His voice penetrated the notes. “George, I want to make love to you.”

“And you want me to stay here?” The words were drawn from her against her will.

“With me,” he said. “Yes.”

“I can’t.” The music came louder. She bent her head over the guitar, said softly, “It’s a trap. Just a little island and the winter storms shutting you in. I could never stay here.”

She pushed the guitar aside and she was on her feet, moving away to stop herself from touching him. She fingered keys on the synthesizer without knowing what they were. “Can you show me how this thing works?”

“Why not?” He moved close to her and she tensed. He leaned over to turn the power switch on. Over a faint hum, he asked, “Why did you come sailing up this coast so early in the year?”

She shrugged, moving back a step, out of his reach. “It’s not winter any more. I thought your bad storms were in December and January.”

“The worst ones,” he agreed harshly, “but March isn’t exactly summer. Why didn’t you wait for spring? Where were you last? Before you came here?”

She said, “Mexico,” her voice flat. What was he, psychic? How did he always know where to find her vulnerable spots?

“Mexico?” he repeated, ignoring her unwillingness to talk. “With the boat? Why did you leave the sunshine? Why not wait until June like the other boats, then come see the North Coast when the sun makes it kind and beautiful?”

“Why do you have to ask so damned many questions?”

He grinned, his long arm reaching her shoulder in a fleeting caress. “Mostly because you seem to hate answering them so much. That makes you a mystery, honey, and mysteries are for solving.”

“I don’t want to be solved.” Damn! She sounded petulant, like a sulky child. “I don’t want to talk about Mexico,” she added.

“Why not?” He pressed some buttons. The muted sounds of the song he had been writing the night before filled the room. “So many things you won’t talk about. Scott. Your marriage. Mexico— lord! You’d think Mexico would be a safe enough subject. Tell me about the markets, the warm water. Did you swim there? Are sharks a problem for swimmers in Mexico?”

She laughed, then frowned because she didn’t want to be smiling at him. She swung away abruptly, stuffing her hands into the pockets of the jeans that were beginning to hurt as they rubbed against the wound on her leg.

“Watch your leg!” His warning came just as she twisted her leg, swinging around at the boundary of the room. She winced at the sudden shaft of pain reaching up her thigh. Then her ribs, seeming belatedly to sense the twisting she had inflicted, hit her with a gaspingly intense attack.

“Are you okay, honey?”

She winced as his hands settled gently over her shoulders. “Don’t touch!” she gasped. “Please don’t touch me for a minute!”

She breathed carefully, slowly making each intake of air longer than the last. “My poor ribs!”

“Let me see what you’ve done.” He was frowning, his eyes raking over her. “You’re terribly pale. You’re not going to faint, are you?”

“Of course not! I— no, leave it, please!” she protested as his fingers started to pull her sweater up. She wanted so badly to close her eyes, let him take the sweater away. She wanted to give herself to him.

Forever.

No! Not forever.

“It’s all right. Please—”

His fingers stilled, his eyes narrowed as he watched her face. “Okay, be still George. Come here and sit down for a minute.” He guided her back into the chair. “Don’t try to get up. Just sit, damn it! Do you ever just sit still and do what you’re told?”

She giggled at the frustration in his voice, let his hands push her back into the chair. Then the pain came and she closed her eyes, whispering, “No, I guess I don’t. When I had chicken pox as a kid I kept getting out of the house, spreading the pox over the whole neighborhood.”

“I can believe it.” He prodded gently along her rib cage. “Stay still for a minute, please, honey. You look really pale. I don’t think you did any damage, but please try to remember for a while that you’re fragile. And I promise I won’t ask about Mexico. Now stay still.”

He sat beside her and settled her against his shoulder. “Okay?” he asked, his voice a deep rumble through his chest where her ear pressed.

“Yes,” she admitted, giving herself up to the pleasure of resting against him. She seemed to fit so nicely against his shoulder.

His music was low around them, still playing from the recorder connected to his synthesizer. She could hear water in his music, clear and pale green.

“Mexico wasn’t anything, really,” she said as his music faded. “Just— well, depressing, I guess. And I don’t feel very good about Mexico. I guess— well, I don’t really want you to think badly of me.”

His arms tightened carefully around her. She didn’t want to tell him that it hurt when his wrist pushed into her side. She wanted to stay here. In his arms she felt somehow that it was safe to rest, to stop running..

He murmured, “I don’t think I could ever think badly of you.”

It was too easy talking to him. The words just seemed to come out of their own volition.

“It started last year. I told you about my cousin Jenny? And Jake? When they finally worked it out, I left them the boat for a honeymoon trip.”

She’d looked down at them from the window of the seaplane as she flew away from them. Together, locked in each other’s arms. She’d tried not to envy them their happiness.

Lyle’s hand stroked the curls at the back of her neck. “And what did you do?”

“I went to Montreal for a while. Then I came back and picked up the boat, sailed south. I took my time. It was pretty nice. I was getting into the idea of meandering around and— I guess it sounds pretty purposeless, doesn’t it?”

She felt him shrug. The skin of her neck quivered as his thumb brushed the short hairs. “It depends how you felt about it. It sounds as if you had no worries about money.”

“No.” Her hand was imprisoned between their chests. Her fingers occupied themselves fiddling with the second button on his shirt. “Scott had a lot of life insurance. He didn’t leave it to me as a lump sum. I guess he didn’t trust me not to blow it all. So I get an annuity, a monthly check from the insurance company. I’d be better off if I had to work, I think, because as it is—”

For the first time it occurred to her that Scott kept her dependent that way, that even now he controlled her life. The thought disturbed her.

“Well, I sailed south, through Panama. I ended in the Caribbean, anchored at St. Thomas in Grenada. Blue seas. Sunshine. Jenny’s parents were there. Uncle Herb was teaching at the Technical Institute. They’d just had a letter from Jenny— God, Lyle! I must sound like a sour old maid!”

He chuckled, his lips pressing against the hair at her temple. “I know the feeling. My family is filled with people who are in love, happily married. Even Con, damn him, seems to be in love with that witch he married. My own marriage was a disaster. I certainly wouldn’t wish that on anyone else, but I know how lonely you can feel looking at love from the outside.”

She sighed. She hadn’t wanted to be jealous of their love. “Jenny was expecting a baby and… I sent them both flowers and got back on
Lady Harriet
. I sailed to Mexico.

“I thought I could spend the winter there. There was— there was a man in a villa nearby.” She shrugged, ignoring the twinge of pain from her ribs. Had she really thought she could heal Scott’s desertion with a shallow affair?

She said dully, “It didn’t work. I mean, I tried. I felt so lonely, but—” She didn’t look at Lyle. She stared at the button her fingers were twisting, felt the deep, steady motion of his breathing. “I didn’t even say goodbye. I didn’t know what to say, and I felt— well, ashamed of myself. He was a nice man and— I pulled anchor and headed north.

“Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I stopped in Vancouver to see Jenny, but that was all.”

Lyle said softly, “So you just kept going until you hit Grey Islet?”

She nodded. She’d been running. The weather hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered.

“And Wednesday, when you get on that helicopter, where will you go?”

What did it matter where she went? Everywhere was the same. Except here. This island – this man – was something she had to get away from.

“More wandering?” he asked. “Hop on a plane and visit Paris? Montreal?”

“Vancouver,” she said tonelessly. “Maybe— I guess I’ll buy another guitar. Mine was on
Lady Harriet
. I’ll go to some coffeehouses. Get into some jam sessions.”

She thought of trying to drown her memories in music in the city; of Lyle back here on Green Island. Impulsively, she said, “Lyle, why are you here?”

“It’s the best place for Robyn right now.” He was shifting, moving away from her. He adjusted something on the synthesizer and she felt cold, sitting alone on the chair. Her ribs had stopped hurting. There was only a dull ache left.

“You can’t stay here forever,” she persisted, not understanding the meaning of the stillness on his face. “You can’t keep hiding yourself and Robyn away. Someday you’ve got to go outside, stop trying to protect her from the hurts and risks of the world.”

She realized suddenly that he was coldly angry. He’d seemed so even tempered, so patient with her, she hadn’t known her words could stir him to anger.

He said tightly, “At least, staying here, Robyn and I aren’t like you.” He made a sharp gesture towards her small frame in the chair. “What are you getting from being out in the world you make so much of? What have you got? At least Robyn and I have love, and each other.”

George gasped as if he had struck her. She turned away, unable to say anything, a knot of tears gripping her throat.

She scrambled to her feet, moving quickly towards the door. She must escape, get outside quickly before he saw how much his words had hurt.

“George—” He reached out to hold her back and she jerked away, her face averted.

“Let me go, Lyle! Let me out of here!”

Then she was running, through the door, outside and down the boardwalk in her bare feet, ignoring the cramping spasms from her leg.

She would always be alone. There’d never be another Scott, because she couldn’t bring herself to trust like that again. There were no children. No one.