The Welcoming

by Nora Roberts

  “A couple of years. Why?”

  “Just curious. Block doesn’t look much like a tour guide.”

  “Roger? No, I guess he looks more like a wrestler.” She went back to her papers. It was difficult to make small talk when her feelings were so close to the surface. “He does a good job.”

  “Yeah. I’ll be upstairs.”

  “Roman.” There was so much she wanted to say, but she could feel, though they were standing only a few feet apart, that he had distanced himself from her. “We never discussed a day off,” she began. “You’re welcome to take Sunday, if you like.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “And if you’d give Bob your hours at the end of the week, he generally takes care of payroll.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  A young couple with a toddler walked out of the dining room. Roman left her to answer their questions on renting a boat.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to talk to him, Charity decided later. But she had to do it. She’d spent all morning on business, she’d double-checked the housekeeping in the cabins, she’d made every phone call on her list, and if Mae’s comments were anything to go on she’d made a nuisance of herself in the kitchen.

  She was stalling.

  That wasn’t like her. All her life she’d made a habit of facing her problems head-on and plowing through them. Not only with business, she thought now. Personal problems had always been given the same kind of direct approach. She had handled being parentless. Even as a child she had never evaded the sometimes painful questions about her background.

  But then, she’d had her grandfather. He’d been so solid, so loving. He’d helped her understand that she was her own person. Just as he’d helped her through her first high-school crush, Charity remembered.

  He wasn’t here now, and she wasn’t a fifteen-year-old mooning over the captain of the debating team. But if he had taught her anything, it was that honest feelings were nothing to be ashamed of.

  Armed with a thermos full of coffee, she walked into the west wing. She wished it didn’t feel so much like bearding the lion in his den.

  He’d finished the parlor. The scent of fresh paint was strong, though he’d left a window open to air it out. The doors still had to be hung and the floors varnished, but she could already imagine the room with sheer, billowy curtains and the faded floral-print rug she’d stored in the attic.

  From the bedroom beyond, she could hear the buzz of an electric saw. A good, constructive sound, she thought as she pushed the door open to peek inside.

  His eyes were narrowed in concentration as he bent over the wood he had laid across a pair of sawhorses. Wood dust flew, dancing gold in the sunlight. His hands, and his arms where he’d rolled his sleeves up past the elbow, were covered with it. He’d used a bandanna to keep the hair out of his eyes. He didn’t hum while he worked, as she did. Or talk to himself, she mused, as George had. But, watching him, she thought she detected a simple pleasure in doing a job and doing it well.

  He could do things, she thought as she watched him measure the wood for the next cut. Good things, even important things. She was sure of it. Not just because she loved him, she realized. Because it was in him. When a woman spent all her life entertaining strangers in her home, she learned to judge, and to see.

  She waited until he put the saw down before she pushed the door open. Before she could speak he whirled around. Her step backward was instinctive, defensive. It was ridiculous, she told herself, but she thought that if he’d had a weapon he’d have drawn it.

  “I’m sorry.” The nerves she had managed to get under control were shot to hell. “I should have realized I’d startle you.”

  “It’s all right.” He settled quickly, though it annoyed him to have been caught off guard. Perhaps if he hadn’t been thinking of her he would have sensed her.

  “I needed to do some things upstairs, so I thought I’d bring you some coffee on my way.” She set the thermos on the stepladder, then wished she’d kept it, as her empty hands made her feel foolish. “And I wanted to check how things were going. The parlor looks great.”

  “It’s coming along. Did you label the paint?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because it was all done in this tidy printing on the lid of each can in the color of the paint. That seemed like something you’d do.”

  “Obsessively organized?” She made a face. “I can’t seem to help it.”

  “I liked the way you had the paintbrushes arranged according to size.”

  She lifted a brow. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, as long as I know.” Her nerves were calmer now. “Want some of this coffee?”

  “Yeah. I’ll get it.”

  “You’ve got sawdust all over your hands.” Waving him aside, she unscrewed the top. “I take it our truce is back on.”

  “I didn’t realize it had been off.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder, then looked around and poured the coffee into the plastic cup. “I made you uncomfortable yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  He accepted the cup and sat down on a sawhorse. “You’re putting words in my mouth again, Charity.”

  “I don’t have to this time. You looked as if I’d hit you with a brick.” Restless, she moved her shoulders. “I suppose I might have reacted the same way if someone had said they loved me out of the blue like that. It must have been pretty startling, seeing as we haven’t known each other for long.”

  Finding he had no taste for it, he set the coffee aside. “You were reacting to the moment.”

  “No.” She turned back to him, knowing it was important to talk face-to-face. “I thought you might think that. In fact, I even considered playing it safe and letting you. I’m lousy at deception. It seemed more fair to tell you that I’m not in the habit of . . . What I mean is, I don’t throw myself at men as a rule. The truth is, you’re the first.”

  “Charity.” He dragged a hand through his hair, pulling out the bandanna and sending more wood dust scattering. “I don’t know what to say to you.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. The fact is, I came in here with my little speech all worked out. It was a pretty good one, too . . . calm, understanding, a couple of dashes of humor to keep it light. I’m screwing it up.”

  She kicked a scrap of wood into the corner before she paced to the window. Columbine and bluebells grew just below in a bed where poppies were waiting to burst into color. On impulse, she pushed up the window to breathe in their faint, fragile scents.

  “The point is,” she began, hating herself for keeping her back to him, “we can’t pretend I didn’t say it. I can’t pretend I don’t feel it. That doesn’t mean I expect you to feel the same way, because I don’t.”

  “What do you expect?”

  He was right behind her. She jumped when his hand gripped her shoulder. Gathering her courage, she turned around. “For you to be honest with me.” She was speaking quickly now, and she didn’t notice his slight, automatic retreat. “I appreciate the fact that you don’t pretend to love me. I may be simple, Roman, but I’m not stupid. I know it might be easier to lie, to say what you think I want to hear.”

  “You’re not simple,” he murmured, lifting a hand and brushing it against her cheek. “I’ve never met a more confusing, complicated woman.”

  Shock came first, then pleasure. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. No one’s ever accused me of being complicated.”

  He’d meant to lower his hand, but she had already lifted hers and clasped it. “I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

  That made her grin. Relaxed again, she sat back on the windowsill. “Even better. I hope this means we’re finished feeling awkward around each other.”

  “I don’t know what I feel around you.” He ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders, then down to the elbows again. “But awkward isn’t the word for it.”

  Touched—much too deeply—she rose. “I h
ave to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the middle of the day, and if you kiss me I might forget that.”

  Already aroused, he eased her forward. “Always organized.”

  “Yes.” She put a hand to his chest to keep some distance between them. “I have some invoices I have to go over upstairs.” Holding her breath, she backed toward the door. “I do want you, Roman. I’m just not sure I can handle that part of it.”

  Neither was he, he thought after she shut the door. With another woman he would have been certain that physical release would end the tension. With Charity he knew that making love with her would only add another layer to the hold she had on him.

  And she did have a hold on him. It was time to admit that, and to deal with it.

  Perhaps he’d reacted so strongly to her declaration of love because he was afraid, as he’d never been afraid of anything in his life, that he was falling in love with her.

  “Roman!” He heard the delight in Charity’s voice when she called to him. He swung open the door and saw her standing on the landing at the top of the stairs. “Come up. Hurry. I want you to see them.”

  She disappeared, leaving him wishing she’d called him anyplace but that innocently seductive bedroom.

  When he walked into her sitting room, she called again, impatience in her tone now. “Hurry. I don’t know how long they’ll stay.”

  She was sitting on the windowsill, her upper body out the opening, her long legs hooked just above the ankles. There was music playing, something vibrant, passionate. How was it he had never thought of classical music as passionate?

  “Damn it, Roman, you’re going to miss them. Don’t just stand in the doorway. I didn’t call you up to tie you to the bedposts.”

  Because he felt like a fool, he crossed to her. “There goes my night.”

  “Very funny. Look.” She was holding a brass spyglass, and she pointed with it now, out to sea. “Orcas.”

  He leaned out the window and followed her guiding hand. He could see a pair of shapes in the distance, rippling the water as they swam. Fascinated, he took the spyglass from Charity’s hand.

  “There are three of them,” he said. Delighted, he joined her on the windowsill. Their legs were aligned now, and he rested his hand absently on her knee. This time, instead of fire, there was simple warmth.

  “Yes, there’s a calf. I think it might be the same pod I spotted a few days ago.” She closed a hand over his as they both stared out to sea. “Great, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, they are.” He focused on the calf, which was just visible between the two larger whales. “I never really expected to see any.”

  “Why? The island’s named after them.” She narrowed her eyes, trying to follow their path. She didn’t have the heart to ask Roman for the glass. “My first clear memory of seeing one was when I was about four. Pop had me out on this little excuse for a fishing boat. One shot up out of the water no more than eight or ten yards away. I screamed my lungs out.” Laughing, she leaned back against the windowframe. “I thought it was going to swallow us whole, like Jonah or maybe Pinocchio.”

  Roman lowered the glass for a moment. “Pinocchio?”

  “Yes, you know the puppet who wanted to be a real boy. Jiminy Cricket, the Blue Fairy. Anyway, Pop finally calmed me down. It followed us for ten or fifteen minutes. After that, I nagged him mercilessly to take me out again.”

  “Did he?”

  “Every Monday afternoon that summer. We didn’t always see something, but they were great days, the best days. I guess we were a pod, too, Pop and I.” She turned her face into the breeze. “I was lucky to have him as long as I did, but there are times—like this—when I can’t help wishing he were here.”

  “Like this?”

  “He loved to watch them,” she said quietly. “Even when he was ill, really ill, he would sit for hours at the window. One afternoon I found him sitting there with the spyglass on his lap. I thought he’d fallen asleep, but he was gone.” There was a catch in her breath when she slowly let it out. “He would have wanted that, to just slip away while watching for his whales. I haven’t been able to take the boat out since he died.” She shook her head. “Stupid.”

  “No.” He reached for her hand for the first time and linked his fingers with hers. “It’s not.”

  She turned her face to his again. “You can be a nice man.” The phone rang, and she groaned but slipped dutifully from the windowsill to answer it.

  “Hello. Yes, Bob. What does he mean he won’t deliver them? New management be damned, we’ve been dealing with that company for ten years. Yes, all right. I’ll be right there. Oh, wait.” She glanced up from the phone. “Roman, are they still there?”

  “Yes. Heading south. I don’t know if they’re feeding or just taking an afternoon stroll.”

  She laughed and put the receiver at her ear again. “Bob— What? Yes, that was Roman.” Her brow lifted. “That’s right. We’re in my room. I called Roman up here because I spotted a pod out my bedroom window. You might want to tell any of the guests you see around. No, there’s no reason for you to be concerned. Why should there be? I’ll be right down.”

  She hung up, shaking her head. “It’s like having a houseful of chaperons,” she muttered.

  “Problem?”

  “No. Bob realized that you were in my bedroom—or rather that we were alone in my bedroom—and got very big-brotherly. Typical.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a fabric-covered band. In a few quick movements she had her hair caught back from her face. “Last year Mae threatened to poison a guest who made a pass at me. You’d think I was fifteen.”

  He turned to study her. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a silk-screened map of the island. “Yes, you would.”

  “I don’t take that as a compliment.” But she didn’t have time to argue. “I have to deal with a small crisis downstairs. You’re welcome to stay and watch the whales.” She started toward the door, but then she stopped. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Can you build shelves?”

  “Probably.”

  “Great. I think the parlor in the family suite could use them. We’ll talk about it.”

  He heard her jog down the stairs. Whatever crisis there might be at the other end of the inn, he was sure she would handle it. In the meantime, she had left him alone in her room. It would be a simple matter to go through her desk again, to see if she’d left anything that would help him move his investigation forward.

  It should be simple, anyway. Roman looked out to sea again. It should be something he could do without hesitation. But he couldn’t. She trusted him. Sometime during the past twenty-four hours he reached the point where he couldn’t violate that trust.

  That made him useless. Swearing, Roman leaned back against the windowframe. She had, without even being aware of it, totally undermined his ability to do his job. It would be best for him to call Conby and have himself taken off the case. It would simply be a matter of him turning in his resignation now, rather than at the end of the assignment. It was a question of duty.

  He wasn’t going to do that, either.

  He needed to stay. It had nothing to do with being loved, with feeling at home. He needed to believe that. He also needed to finish his job and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Charity’s innocence. That was a question of loyalty.

  Conby would have said that his loyalty belonged to the Bureau, not to a woman he had known for less than a week. And Conby would have been wrong, Roman thought as he set aside the spyglass. There were times, rare times, when you had a chance to do something good, something right. Something that proved you gave a damn. That had never mattered to him before, but it mattered now.

  If the only thing he could give Charity was a clear name, he intended to give it to her. And then get out of her life.

  Rising, he looked around the room. He wished he were nothing more than the out-of-work drifter Charity had taken into her home. If he were maybe he would have the right to love he
r. As it was, all he could do was save her.

  Chapter 6

  The weather was warming. Spring was busting loose, full of glory and color and scent. The island was a treasure trove of wildflowers, leafy trees and birdsong. At dawn, with thin fingers of fog over the water, it was a mystical, timeless place.

  Roman stood at the side of the road and watched the sun come up as he had only days before. He didn’t know the names of the flowers that grew in tangles on the roadside. He didn’t know the song of a jay from that of a sparrow. But he knew Charity was out running with her dog and that she would pass the place he stood on her return.

  He needed to see her, to talk to her, to be with her.