“Only to someone who knows exactly what kind of work you do. From the little you’ve told me, I’d guess you’re some sort of structural engineer.”
“Bingo! Go to the top of the class, Janie.”
“But there’s surely more to the job than fixing damaged oil rigs?”
“You’re right. It’s not all fieldwork. I spend my share of time in my Vancouver office, working on designs. But let’s get back to you. I wouldn’t have pegged you as someone wanting to compete in what’s traditionally been a man’s world.”
“But that’s half the fun,” she said, dipping a chunk of succulent crabmeat in melted butter. “I like to think that, as a woman, I bring an added dimension of sensitivity to the job. Asking to borrow money is never easy.”
“You don’t think men can be sensitive, too?”
“Of course I do. And if I hadn’t known it before, you certainly taught me differently tonight.”
“Oh, don’t go all soft on me, or that’ll be your last glass of wine! Just because I lent a sympathetic ear for a change doesn’t change the basic rules we’ve laid down about not getting involved in each other’s lives.”
Planting her elbows on the table, she cradled her glass and regarded him solemnly. “Why is it so difficult for you to admit that you’re not all hard edges and tough attitude? Is it because you’re afraid, if you let your guard down, that I’ll take advantage of you?”
He let out a bellow of laughter. “That’ll be the day! I might be in a wheelchair, but I can still run the other way if I have to.”
She leaned toward him and beckoned him closer. “Don’t worry, Liam,” she whispered. “Your precious bachelorhood is safe with me. I won’t try to spin a casual, spur of the moment invitation to dinner into something more than it’s meant to be. And just to prove it, I’m not even going to offer to wash the dishes before I leave.”
“You might want to wash your face though,” he said. “You’ve smeared melted butter all over your chin.”
She sat back with a scowl. “There’s no getting in the last word with you, is there? You always have to come back with some smart put-down.”
“Would you rather I hadn’t told you? Most of the women I know are vain enough about their appearance that they want to know things like that.”
“But I’m not one of those women. You don’t know me at all.”
For a moment, he looked at her, his gaze skimming from her ankles to her face and settling with disconcerting thoughtfulness on her mouth. As if, maybe, he was debating kissing her. As if, for all his abrasive denials, he found her attractive.
Then, expression unreadable, he said, “You’re right. I don’t know you, nor do I intend to. Circumstance has made us neighbors but that doesn’t make us friends. Eventually, we’ll leave here and go our separate ways. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner that happens, the better.”
She left shortly after that, and why not? His last remark had hardly invited further conversation.
He’d been glad to see her go. Asking her over had been a mistake, one he’d make sure he didn’t repeat. He’d watched the pale shape of her fade into the night with the utmost relief.
Pity he couldn’t as easily dismiss her from his mind. Long after the light had gone out in her bedroom and the fire pit had grown cool, he remained outside, alone with the memory of her.
I’m not one of those women, she’d said.
No, he thought, tilting his head to look at the stars, she was different from the rest. Too honest. Too vulnerable.
When she’d cried, he’d found himself chafing at his inability to get up and go to her. Times like that, a woman needed to be held. She’d been too long without that. Too long without a man’s arms around her; without his hard, strong body to lean against.
Just as well he hadn’t been able to take on the job. She didn’t need another cripple, and the last thing he needed was the distraction of a woman like her. He might enjoy her fire, the spirit with which she challenged his opinions and attitude, but her gentleness terrified him.
Restless, frustrated, he wheeled across the grass to the path leading down to the dock. Jeez, what he wouldn’t give to be able to shove the blasted wheelchair into the water and just take off on two good legs! To be able to walk again—to do as he pleased, whenever it pleased him!
The powerboat rocked gently at its mooring, but it was to the dinghy that he turned, heaving himself on one leg to the edge of the wharf and lowering himself to the thwart. He needed physical exercise, something demanding and strenuous enough to make him forget that he’d been reduced to half a man.
Releasing the mooring line, he picked up the oars and pushed off. Beyond the shadow of the dock, the bay lay silent and empty, the water as smooth as glass. Bending to his task, he propelled the dinghy swiftly forward, charting a course parallel to land.
It was just as he rounded the outcropping of rock which separated her stretch of beach from his when she suddenly surfaced not more than ten feet away, rising out of the sea slender and completely naked.
She was facing the other way, toward the shore, and did not see him. Resting on the oars, he watched as she raised one arm and lifted the wet hair from the back of her neck.
She was too thin. Even by starlight, he could see that. Her waist was a child’s, her hips a mere suggestion of a woman’s curves. Yet she was lovely. Fragile as porcelain. Desirable.
The sudden ache in his groin infuriated him. Not because of his body’s response—handicap notwithstanding, he was, after all, still a man with a man’s normal urges—but because it put the lie to what he’d been telling himself all evening.
He wanted her. God help him, he wanted her!
As if he’d shouted out the message at the top of his lungs, she turned and caught him watching her.
CHAPTER FOUR
HER eyes widened in shock. Her hands flew up to cover her breasts even as she dipped low in the water to conceal herself from him, until the only part showing was her head, sleek and dark as a seal’s, and the pale oval of her face.
Her whisper condemned him louder than if she’d screamed her outrage to the night. “Pervert! If this is the way you get your kicks, it’s small wonder your wife left you for someone else! You’re nothing but an overgrown teenager masquerading as a man.”
“Hey,” he said, “it was an accident. I didn’t come looking for you, I came out to work off a few calories. I thought you were in bed. Your place has been in darkness for hours.”
“How do you know that?” She bobbed a little closer to the boat, the ripples she sent shimmering over the surface of the water doing an excellent job of camouflaging her nakedness. “Do you sit there spying on my every movement?”
“Oh, give me a break, Jane! Yours is the only place for miles around. I don’t have to be some sort of sick voyeur to notice whether or not the lights are on next door. And since we are such close neighbors, you might think twice before you decide to going skinny dipping again if you’re going to get this bent out of shape at being caught in the raw.”
“You are without doubt the most offensive creature I’ve ever met!” she gasped, teeth chattering with cold. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think you might be worth getting to know.”
“And I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, here, at this hour of the night. For pity’s sake, swim ashore before you succumb to hypothermia. I don’t relish finding your body washed up on the beach in the morning. Contrary to what you might believe, I place a rather high value on human life.”
“Especially mine, I’m sure!” she retorted, backing away from the dinghy. “Why else would you be stalking me like this?”
“Heck, Janie, I don’t have to settle for modest little maidens like you when I’ve got an itch that needs scratching! There are plenty of other women only too happy to accommodate me.”
“If they’re that thick on the ground, why didn’t you ask one of them to dinner, instead of me?”
“I already to
ld you. No other reason than because you were there. If a roll in the hay was what I’d been looking for, I’d have gone elsewhere.” Even though he couldn’t see much of anything, he leaned forward and made a slow inspection of her indistinct shape. “Frankly, you’re a bit too much on the skinny side for my taste and could use some fattening up. I’ve known greyhounds with more meat on their bones.”
“And you’re a disgusting pig,” she said, slapping a handful of water in his face.
By the time he’d stopped chortling, she was ashore and running up the beach to the shadow of the trees lining the path to her house.
His laughter followed her all the way home, taunting, derisive. How pathetic he must find her, and small wonder! She didn’t need him to tell her she didn’t have what it took to appeal to a man. The mirror didn’t lie, and the few pounds she’d gained over the last weeks did little to disguise her scrawny frame. As he’d so bluntly pointed out, not Liam McGuire’s kind of woman at all.
The question was, why did she care? She’d never been the casual affair type. Derek had been her only lover and she’d been a virgin when they married. A man who discarded women as easily as he attracted them wasn’t for her. If she ever fell in love again, it would be with someone who took monogamy as seriously as she did. An itch that needed scratching indeed! What kind of disrespect for women did a remark like that show?
And yet, when morning came, she found herself looking across the curve of the bay to the other house. Found herself thinking about the man who lived there. Hoping their paths would cross again—and dreading that they would.
He clearly wasn’t anxious to run into her. Occasionally, she saw him from a distance, hauling his crab trap onto the wharf, or wheeling himself along the low bluff below the cottage. But he never once looked her way and there was no telling if they’d ever have exchanged another word if it hadn’t been for the day of the storm.
She’d awoken that morning to a day of bruised skies and the kind of oppressive heat that promised trouble. Even with the doors and windows open wide, the house was like an oven. Thunder muttered in the distance, a forerunner of bigger things to come.
Just after three that afternoon, she heard the purr of an engine and saw Liam at the wheel of the powerboat, speeding away from the dock and out into the unprotected waters of the Sound.
“He must be crazy,” she exclaimed, stunned. “Doesn’t he know the danger of being out at sea with ugly weather like this closing in?”
Within an hour of his leaving, the thunder rolled down Bell Mountain, full of fury. Not long after, the heavens opened and the mist swept in, veiling the island so thoroughly that even the wild red poppies growing at the foot of the porch steps looked faded.
By five, the flowers were bent flat by the rain sheeting down, their heads pressed into the sodden earth. By six, a premature dusk threatened the afternoon light.
Throughout it all, between the deafening cracks of thunder and during the brilliant flashes of lightning, Jane strained to hear the throaty growl of an engine; to detect through the densely swirling mist the outline of a boat’s hull next to the dock. There was nothing. Nothing but nature on a wild summer rampage.
Bounder was the one who finally found him. Tired of his restless pacing, she’d let the dog out during a lull in the weather, expecting he’d soon decide he’d rather be inside where it was dry. But minutes passed with no sign of him, adding another anxiety to that already chewing holes in her peace of mind.
When at last he showed up, he refused to come into the cottage, choosing instead to circle agitatedly at the foot of the porch steps and give vent to short, high-pitched yelps so different from his usual deep bark that she knew at once something was amiss.
His message was clear enough. Come with me!
Grabbing her grandfather’s oilskin jacket from the hook behind the door, she flung it over her shoulders and set out. Immediately, the dog made for the beach, running ahead of her and stopping every few yards to make sure she was following.
The tide was low, the rocks slippery, the mist so thick that she’d have lost her bearings had the dog not been there to guide her up the low bluff on the far side of the cove, to where the path forked, with one way pointing directly to the dock, and the other to Liam’s place.
It was there, as she stopped to catch her breath, that the mist thinned just enough for her to discern the powerboat, safe at its mooring. Just a few feet away and angled steeply because of the low tide, the ramp spanned the space between land and water.
And midway between the two, on the worn, rain-slick boards, an empty wheelchair lay tipped on its side.
As though satisfied that it had wreaked havoc enough for one day, the storm seemed suddenly to abate. The thunder, the rain, the hectic beat of her heart—they all stopped, leaving behind a stillness made all the more terrifying because the only sound to penetrate the silence was the uneven spatter of water dripping from the trees.
No cry for help. No urgent splashing to disturb the oily calm of the sea lapping idly against the hull of the boat. No sign at all of anyone but herself and her dog. They might have been the only two living creatures left on earth.
She would have stood there indefinitely, paralyzed with fear, had Bounder not lost patience with the delay and harassed her into moving on—not, thank God, toward the water, but to the house whose roofline appeared briefly as the malicious mist shifted inland.
Liam lay sprawled on the porch, his shoulders propped against the wall, and one hand massaging his injured leg.
Well, at least he was alive!
Relief had her babbling with rage. “You idiot!” she shrieked, dropping to her knees beside him. “What were you thinking of, taking off in weather like this?”
His lips barely moved when he answered. “I had an errand that needed taking care of.”
“An errand?”
He gave a weary sigh. “I needed to get to a phone to leave a message for someone, if you must know, and my cell unit’s conked out on me.”
Astounded, she exclaimed, “What on earth kind of phone call was worth risking your life for?”
“None of your business,” he said.
She sat back on her heels and planted her fists on her hips. “Is that a fact? Well, let me tell you what is my business. You acting irresponsibly and leaving me to handle the consequences. Did you once stop to consider what I’ve gone through all afternoon, wondering whether I should send up flares to alert the coast guard to start a search and rescue operation, or whether I should leave you to wallow in your own stupidity? You have no right—no right at all…!”
She stopped and drew breath, furious to find herself trembling and on the brink of tears. I can’t do this, she thought. I can’t afford to get involved with this man and his problems. I can’t worry about whether he lives or dies. I don’t have what it takes to cope with another soul in crisis.
“Ah, Janie,” Liam said, lifting his head a fraction and regarding her from beneath drooping eyelids, “you were worried about me. How nice!”
“Don’t make a joke out of this,” she quavered. “It’s anything but funny. What if you’d run aground in the fog and the boat had started taking in water? What then, with you in your condition?”
“Calm yourself,” he said wryly. “It didn’t happen. Unfortunately for you, I survived unscathed.”
“You call the state you’re in ‘unscathed’?” she flung at him. “I happened to see the wheelchair. I know how far you had to crawl to get back here. You’re scraped and bleeding, and probably black and blue all over, and it’s no less than you deserve. If I had a grain of sense, I’d leave you here to rot.”
“Why don’t you, then?”
“Because, unlike you, I’m not totally wrapped up in myself and my own problems. My conscience won’t allow me to simply walk away and leave you in the state you’re in.”
“Oh, goody!” he sneered. “Just what I need— Florence Nightingale with a halo, riding to my rescue!”
; “Count yourself lucky that I’ve taken enough first-aid courses to know what to do.”
He was hurting and he was exhausted, and nothing he could affect in the way of sarcastic bravado could hide the fact. But that didn’t stop him from leering at her and saying, “Are you going to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Janie?”
“No,” she said, eyeing his injuries. On closer inspection, she saw that he’d smacked the side of his face, probably when the wheelchair had tipped over. But of more immediate concern were the gravel and slivers of cedar embedded in the wounds he’d inflicted on himself as he’d crawled back to the cottage. They were an infection in the making. “By the time I’m finished with you, you’re probably going to need it, though. Even if you haven’t suffered any other injuries, those scrapes need attention.”
“I can hardly wait,” he said morosely.
She pushed herself to her feet. “Good. We’ll begin by getting you out of those clothes and dried off. You’re soaked to the skin.”
“Forget it,” he said, shying away from her as if she had typhoid. “You’re not taking advantage of me when I’m in no position to defend myself. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she shot back. “It’s not you personally I care about. I’d be just as concerned about anyone—though most people would have shown more sense than to act the way you have.”
“That’s me,” he said sourly. “Always looking for trouble and usually managing to find it, one way or another. Go away and leave me alone, for Pete’s sake. Drowning would have been preferable to listening to you carrying on like a harpy.”
She opened her mouth to agree, but the flippant reply died on her lips. For all his tough talk, there was no mistaking the whiteness around his mouth, the dullness in his eyes, that came of bearing up under pain.
“I’m not going anywhere, Liam McGuire, no matter how many insults you throw at me,” she told him. “You need help and there’s no one else around to dish it out but me. Like it or not, I’m getting you inside and I’m looking after you, so instead of wasting your energy arguing, use it to get to your feet. Can you stand, do you think, if you lean on me?”
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