Passion's Baby

by Catherine Spencer

  Oh, cripes! Helplessly, he shoved his fingers through his hair and considered his options. To say they were limited was a gross exaggeration. He had only one choice.

  Grabbing her under the arms, he dragged her into the house. By the time he’d dumped her on the sofa, she’d passed out completely. “First thing tomorrow, you’re out of here,” he informed her dourly. “And if you’re still incapable of flying, you can bloody well swim!”

  Overnight, a front moved in from the Pacific. Instead of the pale lemon light she expected, Jane awoke to a green semi-gloom and the sound of rain dripping on leaves. Pushing aside the ferns at the mouth of the cave, she looked out on a morning draped in mist.

  So much for her plans to climb Bell Mountain! Much though she wanted to put distance between her and Liam McGuire, she wasn’t prepared to risk her neck or Bounder’s to do it. She had her compact stove and fuel, coffee and food, fresh spring water not fifty feet away, a book to pass the time, and a dry place to sleep. She’d simply wait out the weather.

  But after two days with no sign of a break, and the only other sound beside the constant patter of rain the mournful toll of the bell buoy from which the island derived its name, she’d had enough of her own company to last a lifetime. Too many thoughts of Liam filled her mind; too many regrets, and too many hopes which would never be fulfilled.

  His face came between her and the pages of her book. His voice invaded her dreams. His remembered touch inflamed her body. Furious with herself for ever allowing things to come to such a pass, she recognized that her haven of retreat had become a prison. Furthermore, although it wasn’t exactly cold, the damp lent the air a premature touch of autumn that had even Bounder curled up in a tight ball with his tail over his nose.

  So, when, toward evening, the mist cleared enough for her to catch a glimpse of the flat, gray sea below, she rolled up her sleeping bag and headed back the way she’d come, arriving home just after dark, dispirited, tired and muddy.

  She fed Bounder first then, while she waited for water to heat, she changed into a terry cloth robe, went out to where the old zinc-plated bath tub hung on a hook outside the back door and set it down on the porch. Normally, because she was by nature a private person who didn’t go around flaunting herself even in the privacy of her own garden, she dragged the tub into the middle of the kitchen floor, pulled closed the curtains and bathed in there.

  But it was dark, and it was raining again, hard enough that no one would be out in such inclement conditions. And who, after all, cared enough about her to drop by uninvited? Liam? Hardly! He’d made it plain he never wanted to see her again.

  So, tired and out of sorts with life in general, she threw aside her usual caution and chose to bathe outside by the light of a hurricane lamp set on a kitchen chair under the shelter of the porch. Fortunately, the tub was small, more of an old-fashioned hip bath really, with a high curved back, which meant she had to sit with her knees drawn up almost to her waist, but the water, hot and scented with lavender bath salts, came almost to her shoulders and felt divine.

  Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrant steam. Oh, she was ready to return to civilization, for all kinds of reasons, not the least among them the comforts she’d so willingly forfeited when she’d decided to spend the summer at the cottage. Tomorrow, she’d start closing the place up for the winter and make arrangements to go home. Maybe then, when neither he nor the memory of him was a presence next door, she’d be able to put Liam McGuire out of her mind for good.

  On the third night of their enforced confinement, Brianna came racing into the cottage from the porch screeching that she’d just seen a wolf coming up the path from the beach.

  “There aren’t any wolves on the island,” Liam said wearily, by then so beside himself with worry about Jane’s disappearance that he’d long since stopped caring what she might think if she discovered he’d had another woman staying with him since the fog closed in. “Either your imagination’s running away with you or you’ve been at the booze again.”

  “I certainly have not been in the booze,” she exclaimed indignantly. “And I’m not seeing things. There’s a black…creature out there and if you don’t believe me, go look for yourself.”

  Only then did it occur to Liam that what she’d seen was Bounder. Surging to his feet, he hobbled to the door and yanked it open. Outside, a heap of wet black fur appeared out of the dark and hurled itself through the air with maniacal enthusiasm.

  “You great, stupid, smelly lump!” Liam yelled, clutching at the door frame and narrowly missed being flattened as Bounder skidded to a landing.

  From the other end of the kitchen Brianna started squealing again and ran for the frying pan. “Put that down before you brain someone,” Liam told her, fending off another enthusiastic greeting from the dog. “The mutt lives next door and he’s harmless.”

  “He looks rabid to me,” she shrieked.

  If he were, I’d set him on you! Smothering the uncharitable thought before he found himself putting it into words, Liam managed to grab hold of the dog’s collar and subdue him somewhat. “Relax,” he said, his thoughts funneling into one overriding urge to see Jane. To make sure she was okay. To worry about someone else for a change, instead of focusing solely on himself and his own problems.

  No, not just “someone else.” Her!

  “If it’ll ease your fears any,” he told Brianna, “I’ll take him back where he belongs.”

  It was the perfect excuse to go over and make sure that Jane had also come home again. After all, just because Bounder had shown up didn’t mean she’d done the same. For all he knew, she could be lying out in the rain with a broken leg or something and the mutt was trying to lead him to her.

  Not until he’d rounded the corner of her house did he see the glimmer of light on her back porch. And what it revealed rendered him motionless. Even his lungs seized up. About the only thing moving was his heart, and it was going a mile a minute.

  Restraining the dog with a firm hand, he froze in the shadow of the leafy vine rimming her porch and stared at the sight before him. Skeins of steam rising from the bath tub coiled around her, teasing him with glimpses of skin, of delicate limbs and slender shoulders. She’d worked shampoo into her hair and piled it in a soapy lather on top of her head. It made her look like some piece of Grecian sculpture, graceful and almost ethereal.

  As he stood there, dry-mouthed, with his lungs fairly bursting for lack of oxygen, she tipped her head back to expose her throat and let water from a sponge trickle like diamonds from her chin to the hint of cleavage showing just above the water level.

  At that moment, he would have given ten years of his life to have caught those sparkling drops on his tongue.

  He also knew he was flirting with disaster. Regardless of the wisdom of such a response, he was full and aching for her, stretched tight as a drum to the point of discomfort. Every instinct he possessed urged him to go to her, to take her in his arms. If there’d been room enough for two in the tub, he’d have shucked off his clothes and climbed in next to her.

  He’d be better off backing away as silently as he’d arrived and taking a flying leap into the cool, rain-washed sea. Better yet, he never should have come over in the first place.

  Get back where you came from! his conscience ordered. Stay the hell out of her life!

  But his legs, so long useless, had different ideas and propelled him closer.

  He must have made a sound, or perhaps she caught the hint of movement just beyond her line of vision. Her head snapped upright and she clutched the sponge to her breasts.

  Even then, he might have escaped undetected had she not called out, “Bounder, is that you?”

  Immediately, he released the dog and tried to shove it forward, but the stupid mutt refused to obey, instead choosing to circle him and give off little yips of delight which put paid to his remaining incognito.

  Snatching at the towel she’d draped over the back of a chair, sh
e leaped out of the tub and covered herself—or at least, as much of herself as possible, which was to say all her most interesting parts. “Who’s there?” she called out in a high, terrified voice.

  “Just me,” he said because, although self-preservation dictated that if he had a grain of sense, he’d hobble for the hills, conscience wouldn’t allow him to frighten her like that.

  Her face was a pale mask of shock, her eyes great dark blots of alarm. Stricken, he stepped into the aura of light cast by the lamp. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Janie,” he said. “I just came over to—”

  “You creep!” she whispered, hugging the towel more tightly around her and shaking with aftershocks of fright.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know. But it’s partly your fault I’m here.”

  “And just how do you figure that?”

  “You disappeared without a word, three days ago. And the weather….” He shrugged. “Heck, what was I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing!” she spat. “Just the way you expected me to do nothing when you decided to take off in the middle of a storm!”

  “That was different. You’re a woman and—”

  “I’m surprised you noticed.”

  He bit his lips to stop himself from smiling. “If I ever had any doubts, Janie, you’ve more than dispelled them tonight.”

  But she was in no mood to be softened up with compliments, however backhanded. “You made me jump through hoops, trying to please you,” she cried. “You used me as your whipping boy because you were in a wheelchair. Worst of all, you made me feel guilty and inadequate for daring to care about you. And yet you think all you have to do is turn on the charm when it suits you, and I’ll forget how you’ve hurt me.” She drew a shaking breath and big, fat tears trembled along her lashes. “Well, no more, Liam!”

  Her words hit home. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve done all those things and more. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried when you disappeared without a word.”

  “Oh, please! You don’t give a damn about me! You made that plain enough the last time we spoke. If you felt anything at all, it was probably relief that you were finally rid of me.”

  The tears, turned gold by the lamplight, spilled down her face. He didn’t understand why they affected him so profoundly. Women’s tears usually gave him the willies. But a great knot of feeling unlike anything he’d experienced before rose up inside him at the sight of hers. Not passion in the sense he usually knew it, it stirred him to a different kind of desire, one that had him pulling her against his chest despite her objections.

  Touching her was a mistake—the most grievous of a long string of mistakes where she was concerned, especially just then with her wearing nothing but a towel and a mountain of soapy lather on her hair. But did he let her go? Did he put a safe and respectable distance between them? No. He stroked his hand up and down her spine while he mumbled all kinds of nonsense until the quiet grief stopped shaking her and she sorted of melded to him, so warm and soft and womanly and begging to be loved. And he, God help him, found himself more than willing to oblige.

  He had to do something to break the spell, something that would relieve the crackling tension without crushing her feelings yet again. Holding her slightly away, he ran the tip of his finger through the shampoo stuck to his chin, the way he might have scooped frosting from a cake, and licked it experimentally. “Hmm, this smells a lot better than it tastes!”

  “You idiot!”

  But it wasn’t what she said that precipitated his next move, it was the way she said it, with a little smile that trembled over her mouth and reminded him how it felt to kiss her. Oh, brother, he was in trouble, and wading deeper with every second that passed!

  Desperately, he put her away from him, took the empty pail beside the tub and filled it with water from the rain barrel at the end of the porch. “You’ll catch your death of cold out here. Let’s get the soap out of your hair so you can put some clothes on.”

  She bent her head obediently. Trying like the devil not to dwell on the graceful curve of her neck, he rinsed her hair until it squeaked in protest between his fingers.

  “You got another towel?” he asked when he’d finished.

  She tilted one shoulder in a provocative little shrug that sent a shower of drops glimmering over her skin, and said, “Just the one I’m wearing.”

  A wiser man would have ignored the implicit invitation in her reply, but he was long past the point of wisdom. Far from dissipating, the aching tenderness she aroused in him turned to raw, uncomplicated hunger and before her words had cooled on the air, his fingers were skimming over her, unwinding the towel from her body until she stood naked before him.

  His voice sounding as if he’d dined on rusty nails, he croaked, “Then it’ll have to do the job.”

  She stood submissively while he fashioned a lopsided turban around her head, her eyes never leaving his face. “Were you really worried?” she asked.

  “Enough that I haven’t slept for two nights.”

  She reached up to touch his eyelids, then brought her fingers down to his mouth in a touch as soft as a butterfly’s wings. “You must be tired.”

  “Sleep’s not exactly uppermost in my mind, Janie, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Nor mine,” she murmured, tugging his shirt free from his jeans and placing cool hands against his burning skin. “That being the case, would you like to come inside for a nightcap?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  HYPNOTIZED by the sway of her hips and the knowing little smile playing over her features, he went with her. In his willingness to follow the siren she’d suddenly become, he left his cane on the porch, but he was too consumed with a more urgent throbbing to care about the torment to his leg as he climbed the spiral staircase to her bedroom.

  Vaguely, he was aware of gable windows jutting out from each of the four walls, and a sloping ceiling rising to a central peak like a canopy. Of roses in a vase next to a lamp on a night table, and a long white nightdress trimmed with blue ribbons flung over a chair. But mostly, he saw the bed, its brass rails gleaming in the lamplight—and her sinking slowly to the mattress and holding out her arms to him.

  She smelled like something imported from Paris—exotic, faintly spicy, deliciously feminine. Her skin had the luster of pearls, as if she polished it with moon dust. And even as part of his mind was telling him what he was contemplating was a bad idea, another part was reasoning that he was only a man, not a god. There was a limit to what he could resist. And if she was willing….

  But conscience, refusing to go along with such specious argument, continued to nag. She’s acting out of character. Only a jerk would take advantage of her in such a situation. Haven’t you done enough, without sinking to this level?

  As if she sensed his mounting reservations, she cupped her hands beneath her breasts and offered them to him. That, and the way she looked at him, her eyes huge and soft with trust, almost moved him to tears.

  He was not used to such artless seduction; the women he’d known before her were wise with a wealth of experience beyond anything she could begin to realize. They knew how to protect themselves from hurt. They knew how take. But she…she was dangerously out of her depth and too focused on giving with no idea of what it might ultimately cost her.

  Again, vanishing sanity had the last word. Which is why you should back off. Now!

  “Maybe we ought to talk about this while we’re both still capable of rational thought, Janie,” he muttered, gripping her by the shoulders and trying like the devil to stand his ground—no easy feat given that she immediately initiated an even bolder move by tugging open his jeans and closing her hand over him.

  “When did talking ever get me anywhere?” she purred, punctuating the question with a row of tiny kisses sewn from his chest to his navel. “You never listen to a word I say. All you ever do is argue with me.”

  “Ex…actly.” Completely lacking in conviction, the word rolled out of his mouth on a strangle
d breath. But how the blazes could a man be expected to retain control, with her creating mayhem in his most susceptible areas?

  Folding in the face of defeat, he stripped off his clothes and holding her just far enough away that he could see the sultry droop of her eyelids, he taught her the folly of testing him too far. Deliberately, and with a dedication that left not a millimeter of skin undiscovered, he shaped the delicate curve of her torso, from her shoulders to her thighs, marveling at her silken perfection, and exulting in her abbreviated cry of shock when he found her so sleek and ready for him that a touch was all it took to send her over the edge.

  “Liam!” she cried out in a thin, lost voice, her whole body convulsing in a spasm of pleasure. “Oh, please…please…!”

  “Not yet,” he told her huskily, determined that their lovemaking wouldn’t be a repeat of the last time—furtive and hasty, on a boat rocking so hard from their hurried coupling that they’d almost toppled to the deck floor.

  This time he would prolong the pleasure for both of them, but especially for her so that if, tomorrow, she did question the impulses which had driven her, at least she’d be able to justify them with memories worth keeping.

  He wanted her stretched out beside him, lying skin to skin with him; wanted the purely primitive satisfaction of feeling the soft curves of her body adapt to fit snugly against the angles of his. He wanted to savor the sweet cream taste of her and when the tension became more than he could handle, he wanted to bury himself inside her and feel her shudder beneath him, time and again.

  What he didn’t count on was how quickly his own hunger would run riot, or how helpless he’d be to contain it. The usual remedies—mentally tallying his assets, running a checklist of his stock portfolio, freezing his body and his mind in neutral—none of them worked. The fire continued to rage, roaring through his blood with explosive force. He was fighting a losing battle and he knew it.