Charmed By You ((Destiny Bay Romances-The Islanders 5))

by Conrad, Helen

  “Ever heard of seat belts?” she called out to Mitch.

  He grinned. “This baby was built when seat belts weren’t much more than a gleam in some inventor’s eye,” he called back. “Hold on tight. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  In the struggle to survive the trip, she forgot about Trevor.

  The road was made of the same rutted coral as in town, a pink and beige ribbon against the greenery on either side. Tropical foliage was everywhere. The light green of the grass gave way to the darker green of the bushes, and that was set off by the royal green of the jungle, the olive drab green of the palm trees, the lime green of the papaya and banana trees. Every imaginable shade of the color was represented, making a stunning array before her.

  Mitch drew the Jeep to a stop at the top of the hill to let her take in the view of the village they were approaching. Above them the sky was a solid blue setting for powder puff clouds that scudded by. Below them houses spread out like bits of confetti scattered over green velvet between the huge white Catholic church, located on a rise above the town, and the turquoise blue of the ocean lagoon. A ring of brown reef protected the lagoon, and waves hit it repeatedly, sending lacy foam out across the water.

  Heather’s sense of line and color was piqued by the view. “It’s lovely,” she exclaimed. “Like something out of a Gauguin painting.”

  Mitch nodded solemnly. “It has a certain charm from this distance,” he agreed. “Like all things, it invites disappointment under closer scrutiny.”

  Was he referring to her, to their marriage? She looked at him sharply but could detect no malice in his glance. “Tell me something about this island,” she urged. “What do the people do?”

  He looked at her searchingly, then returned to staring out through the dirty windshield. “This is a typical Micronesian island,” he said in a quiet monotone. “It belonged to Spain for a few hundred years, then to Germany until World War One. The Japanese held it until the USA took it back in World War Two. Now the people eke out a living fishing or farming or working for the Trust Territory.” He shrugged. “They’re poor. If they want a decent education beyond junior high, they have to go to Guam or Hawaii. They have no skills, no idea of how to bring back the glorious days when they exported food instead of living on government subsidies.”

  Did he intend to help them do that? It was hard to believe he might have come here just because he was needed, no matter how often he’d told her so in the past.

  “What made you want to come here, Mitch?” she asked. “Why here rather than some other backwater?”

  He slumped in the seat, looking out across the hood of the Jeep at the silver-blue ocean. “You never did listen, did you?” he asked, his voice touched with weariness. “We went over this again and again in Flagstaff. Didn’t you hear a word I said?”

  Heather frowned. He was so awfully enigmatic today. Just what was it he had said in those days? She thought hard, trying to remember.

  The tension between them had made it difficult to regain the easy communication they’d enjoyed that first year. By the time he’d begun talking about going to Ragonai, they were at each other’s throats over the slightest disagreement. She remembered how he’d brought it up.

  “I’ve got to get out of here, Heather,” he’d said, pacing before her in their glass-and-chrome-furnished living room. “I feel like I’m suffocating. Dede Sablan has told me about the Pacific island her people come from. They’re in desperate need of medical assistance.”

  Heather shook her head. She couldn’t remember the rest. She’d only heard that he was suffocating, that for some reason he wasn’t happy with her or with the life they led. It made him feel as though he were drowning.

  “Mitch,” she’d said plaintively once, as she remembered it. “It isn’t like we’re living in New York City or something. This is the Southwest. Arizona. We’re practically just a few years from pioneer days. How can this be too civilized for you?”

  He shook his head. “Civilization isn’t the point,” he’d said. “Filling a need. Finding a place in the world where I can change lives.” He’d shrugged. “I came from the islands, Heather. I feel the pull to go back. I have to try it.”

  Trevor had explained what it all meant. “Let’s face it, Heather,” he’d told her sympathetically. “The guy can’t cut it. You’ve seen how he acts, hanging around the free clinics down on Santa Fe instead of making his way among his associates at the hospital. Mitch can’t make the grade with real competition. He wants to go out to some island where he can be a kingpin on his own.”

  At the time, she’d rebelled against the explanation, certain that Mitch was good at his work, sure that his true worth would pull him through. But her father had agreed with Trevor.

  “It’s all very well to spout altruistic ideals,” he’d grumbled to her one night. “All this talk about helping people is fine. But when it comes right down to it, you’ll usually find it’s no more than an excuse for failure in the real world.”

  Eventually Heather had come to wonder if they were right. Was Mitch too unconventional, too careless, to compete with the other medical professionals at the hospital? Was he falling behind, losing out, and did he want to run to a safe haven where incompetence would be tolerated?

  No, she couldn’t fully believe it. She still loved and trusted him. Besides, if medicine wasn’t his field, she was ready and willing to stand behind him while he found what he was really meant for.

  But what if he didn’t want her standing behind him? He seemed to push away every attempt she made to help. She would have stuck by him no matter what, if only he hadn’t shut her out. But he had. He’d been disdainful of everything she tried to do. When her father had set up a dinner engagement with the head of the hospital surgical unit, a prize social encounter that might have paved the way for a nice position on the hospital staff, Mitch had refused to go.

  “I won’t fawn over the man, begging for a job,” he’d told her angrily. “That might be how the people you run around with make their way in this world, but I won’t stoop to it.”

  Her father had grunted. “Can’t take the heat, can he? I never would have guessed he’d be so afraid of proving himself.” He’d shrugged. “Well, I suppose Mitch knows better than we do what he’s capable of. If he doesn’t think he has a chance, who are we to tell him differently?”

  She’d defended him again and again. But deep inside she’d begun to doubt.

  When he’d left, there had been no question of her going with him. She’d made it plain that she wanted to stay in Flagstaff. But had she made it clear enough that she wanted him to stay, too?

  She looked at her dark-haired ex-husband, sitting so near, yet so distant. “All I remember is that you wanted to get out of Flagstaff. You said you were suffocating.”

  He nodded and turned to meet her glance. “I was. I knew I had to get away. When Dede told me about these islands, about how she was training to go back to help her people, I was fascinated. I wanted to go with her. I knew I could find a niche for myself, somewhere I could make a difference.”

  Heather pulled her gaze from his, hiding the pain that surely must be mirrored in her eyes. Mitch had attracted women wherever he went, but it had never really bothered her until Dede Sablan had entered the picture. Heather had known immediately that the raven-haired beauty was different. Mitch respected her, treated her as a valued friend. Heather had been jealous of their professional relationship from the start.

  When Dede and Mitch started working together in the free clinics in their spare time, Heather had swallowed her objections and tried to pretend his relationship with Dede didn’t matter. But it did matter. It wasn’t the major factor in their separation, but it certainly helped create the tension that led to it.

  “So it was Dede who influenced you,” she said softly, wincing even as she said the name. Dede had persuaded him to come to her island, while Heather herself had failed to get him to come to dinner with her parents.

 
; “Yes, I owe her a lot.”

  So do I, Heather thought, but she kept the sarcasm to herself.

  “She’s been a good friend,” Mitch continued. “Though her timing may not be the best.” He turned suddenly and caught Heather’s gaze with his own. “Why did you run away from me last night, Heather?” he asked evenly.

  She avoided his eyes, staring at the hands twisted together in her lap. “Your place was getting a little too crowded for me,” she answered with artificial lightness.

  “Were you embarrassed in front of Dede?” His voice betrayed his incredulity. “But we’ve been married, Heather. Why should our being together embarrass you?”

  She raised her eyes to stare into his, wondering if he was really as blind on this issue as he seemed. Did he think she had no right to resent Dede’s place in his life? Or did he take sexual affairs so casually that he couldn’t understand why she might care?

  “We’re not married anymore, Mitch.” She stiffened, moving back across her seat toward her side of the Jeep as she sensed a gathering aggression in him. “That part of our life is over.”

  He was reaching for her, just as she’d known he would. Her hand flashed out to stop his, and she tried to inject coldness into her tone as she complained, “You promised, Mitch. No seduction on this trip.”

  His eyes were as flat as tinted glass, but she could feel the anger beneath his calm exterior. “All right, have it your way.” To her surprise, he started the engine and began the descent into the village.

  She sat back in her seat and tried to feel relief, a bit puzzled by his easy capitulation. She’d expected more of a fight. More important, and to her complete chagrin, she realized suddenly that she’d been looking forward to it.

  Instead, he was acting as though he hardly cared. But such behavior was typical, wasn’t it? He only took what came to him easily. At least that was what they’d all said at home when he packed his bags and flew off to the Pacific. She’d never really believed it. But if it wasn’t true, why had he gone?

  The houses of Titano village were square boxes made of wood and corrugated iron and set on stilts, high above the ground. Tall palm trees swayed lazily over wide broad-leaved breadfruit trees. While hot island breezes ruffled the palm fronds and banana leaves around the open windows, children played in the cool shade under the houses, along with the hairy pigs, straggly chickens, and mangy dogs.

  Mitch pulled up in front of one house that looked like a cartoon version of a Cape Cod cottage. “The Cepeda children have croup,” he told Heather as he gathered his black bag and another flat case. “Want to come in and give me a hand?”

  She tried to read the intention behind his impassive dark eyes, but saw nothing to give her a clue. Why would he want to drag her into a household full of strangers? They wouldn’t want her hanging around, gawking at their illnesses.

  “I’ll wait out here,” she said firmly. “I trust you won’t be in there all day.”

  He shrugged as though it made no difference to him what she did. “You never can tell,” he said unhelpfully. “I’ve got three families to visit in this village today.” He walked toward the house without another glance her way.

  She watched him go, noting as she so often did how he moved like a jungle cat on the prowl. As he climbed the rickety steps to the doorway and disappeared into the house, she closed her eyes, fighting back a wave of anguish.

  She loved him so. It was true. She’d admitted it again. She did love him; she always did. When he’d walked out of her life, he’d taken all the sparkle from the day. She’d never found it again. Sometimes she thought she never would.

  When she began to hear a scuffling sound around the car, she opened her eyes. An audience had assembled around her made up of eight or nine dark-eyed children, all under four feet tall, all dressed in ragged clothes with dirty faces. She blinked, looking from one set of staring eyes to the next.

  “Hi, lady,” the bravest said at last.

  “Hi.” Good grief, what did she call him? She had known few children since she’d stopped being one herself, and she was very uncertain how one dealt with such little people.

  “Are you the doctor’s lady?” another high voice piped.

  “No,” she answered swiftly. “No, I just came along for the ride.” They took in this information solemnly, their eyes wide as they looked her over.

  “You got any pennies, lady?” asked the bold first speaker. As he made his demand, all the others got the giggles, covering their mouths with dirty fists and scrunching up their shoulders as they laughed.

  She shook her head sternly, wondering what visitors had been corrupting these children by handing out money to them. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  She didn’t add that it wasn’t nice to ask strangers for money, but she could see that they felt her disapproval without her having to voice it. Their faces crumpled with disappointment, and they all began to back away.

  Heather bit her lip as she watched them. She wished she could think of something to say that would bring back the giggles. She hadn’t meant to drive them off, but she couldn’t think of how to draw them back. They were so cute, so endearingly wide eyed. But they obviously hadn’t found much to like in her. They were loping off, looking for new adventures.

  Well, who could blame them? She must have come across as the Wicked Witch of the West. For just a moment, regret settled like a fog around her.

  She sighed, glancing at the silent house. Mitch might be in there for hours. Why had he insisted she come along, anyway? She certainly wasn’t about to sit here in this hot Jeep for the rest of the morning. Pulling her large shoulder bag from behind the seat, she slipped down onto the coral highway and began to walk toward a cliff that overlooked the sea.

  She never went anywhere without her sketch pad. Maybe she could record her visit by capturing on paper these scattered houses as she’d done with the mansions in Flagstaff. She would try to catch the spirit of the island in the faces of its dwellings.

  While she worked with her pastels, the sun played peekaboo with a thick layer of fluffy clouds, making it difficult to get the lighting right. She finished the house Mitch was working in and held it away from her, studying it critically.

  Nothing. Not a bit of life to it. She chewed her lips abstractedly, wondering where her talent had gone. She’d drawn the house well enough, but it lay dead on the page. Maybe she didn’t have the proper feeling of oneness with the island. Maybe she could only draw what she understood.

  Tearing off the used sheet, she settled back, determined to try again. But a sudden shower squelched that. She ran back to the Jeep, hoping to stay dry, while rain turned the dirt road to mud.

  It was over as suddenly as it began. The dark cloud that had dropped the shower swept on across the island, leaving behind nothing but sunshine.

  Heather sat in the Jeep, staring moodily at the muddy road. Puddles filled every rut and something was moving in the murky water. She narrowed her eyes and looked intently. Toads. Each puddle was full of toads as big as softballs. As she watched, they jumped from one pool to another, merry little beasts.

  Fascinated, she failed to notice the sound of footsteps approaching the Jeep. When she looked up, she saw a little girl of not more than five coming along the road, her arms piled high with items she must have been sent to the store to purchase for her family. But her thin arms couldn’t hold so many things. Heather watched as she dropped one after another, bending down to retrieve a box of brown sugar, only to drop the corn flakes, bending to take up the cereal, staggering for a few steps, then dropping it again.

  Heather jumped to the ground, then hesitated. Her recent experience with the other children made her reluctant to get involved with another one. She didn’t have an easy way with children. Should she try again—or forget it?

  But as she watched the pitiful spectacle, she had a sudden memory of another little girl, many years before. She’d just ridden to the Girl Scout leader’s house on her bike to pick up the Gi
rl Scout cookies she’d sold. But the basket on her bike would hold only six boxes comfortably, and she had eight. She’d struggled along much as this little girl was now, dropping boxes and stopping to pick them up. Her mouth curled as she remembered what she’d finally brought home—eight boxes of cookie crumbs and lots of tears. Suddenly she felt a real kinship with the child coming toward her.

  Resolutely, Heather stuffed her belongings back into the shoulder bag and hurried out to the road. “Here, honey,” she said. “You look as though you could use a little help.”

  The little girl stopped and stared up at her, and in her moment of surprise, everything tumbled to her feet.

  “Oh, no!” Heather laughed softly, kneeling to help retrieve them. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help, and I ended up making it worse, didn’t I?”

  She replaced a few packages in the skinny arms and took the rest herself. “My name’s Heather. What’s yours?’

  The little girl gazed at her for a long moment, her eyes wide with naive intelligence. She was a pretty girl, her lashes long and black against her coffee-colored skin. Heather liked the look of her.

  “What’s this?” The girl shifted packages and pointed one slim finger at Heather’s legs.

  Heather looked down, turning to see what had captured the girl’s attention. “What do you mean?” she asked, then realization dawned. “Oh, this?” She pulled a pinch of stretchy nylon fabric away from her knee. “Panty hose. Haven’t you ever seen panty hose before?”

  The girl’s black curls bounced as she shook her head. She looked into Heather’s face, then slowly reached out to touch. “It feels funny.” She grinned. “I like it.”

  “I like it, too.” Heather chuckled. “Are you ever going to tell me your name?”

  “Lizzie Cabrillo,” she said at last, her voice clear and true. There was no shyness about her, and she smiled in answer to Heather’s nod. “Thank you for helping me. I live on the corner.”

  “You ought to take a cart with you, Lizzie,” Heather said lightly as they walked along. “Or at least a little red wagon.” For the first time she noticed that Lizzie had a definite limp.