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

by Conrad, Helen

  Heather bit her lip, ashamed of the thrill that shot through her at that bit of information. “He doesn’t?” she asked, trying to sound casual but failing miserably. “How do you know?”

  Kevin smiled knowingly. “I work with the man every day. It always puzzled me that he could stay so much to himself. At first I assumed, just like everyone else, that he and Dede... Well, that suspicion was crushed when she and I became friendly.”

  “You and Dede?”

  “For a short time. No longer, I’m afraid. I don’t share her passion for the cause of medicine, and she got impatient with me.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “It all came to a head one sunny afternoon. We’d planned to indulge in a bit of skinny-dipping at Pago Point, but she insisted on testing the water first with her little bottles of chemicals. Gave me a lecture on the evils of water pollution that killed my usually strong masculine instincts. When I finally told her I didn’t care how many parts per million were poisoned, she called me a fascist pig and marched out of my life.”

  Heather laughed. “Sounds like a case of listening to different drummers,” she noted.

  “Absolutely.” He sighed. “Though I sometimes wonder if my own drummer has fallen asleep on me.” He roused himself. “At any rate, back to Mitch. It wasn’t until you showed up that I finally understood the man.” He winked conspiratorially. “I might be able to forego the island pleasures myself if I were waiting for someone like you to arrive.”

  Her smile was almost tremulous. “Well, thank you, but I hardly feel it’s because of me. He’s just as wrapped up in his work as Dede is.”

  Kevin shrugged. “Possibly. But at least you have a week to find out where the truth lies”

  Heather stared at him, wondering just what he was expecting, but before she could question him further, he was hailing a newcomer to the room. Within moments, two men and a woman had joined them and the conversation veered away from Mitch.

  The evening passed quickly. Kevin introduced her to a wide assortment of island characters, everyone from a Chinese refugee scientist who bewailed his lot as a man without a country, to a University of Chicago anthropologist looking for evidence of ancient homo sapiens. Every person she met was fascinating, but Heather found her gaze slipping to the doorway again and again.

  She knew Mitch ate most of his meals here at Mele’s. When would he arrive?

  Not, of course, that she would speak to him when he did. Certainly not. He deserved a little cold-shouldering. But deep in her heart she knew she wasn’t planning a prolonged boycott, just an evening or two to make him understand how angry she was.

  Time passed and the dining room crowd thinned, until only the die-hard talkers were left. Kevin was obviously one of those, and soon everyone who had stayed was gathered around their table, trading stories of adventures in the islands or tales of why they had come to the tropics in the first place. Heather sat listening, waiting, wondering if Mitch would ever show up.

  Naturally, he appeared at the worst possible moment. Kevin had just leaned close, trying to explain to her why a joke the Chinese scientist had just made was really hysterically funny. He’d put an arm around her shoulders to speak into her ear. As she listened, trying to concentrate on the involved explanation, Mitch walked in and stopped, his eyes riveted on them, his face impassive but his eyes burning like hot coals.

  Mele bustled up to him, urging him to sit with the others, but with his eyes still on the arm Kevin had around Heather’s shoulders, he shook his head. “No,” he said in a voice that came clearly across the room, “I think I’ll just go to the bar and have a drink.”

  A wave of confusing impulses crashed over Heather. She wanted to jump up and follow him. At the same time, she wanted him to see her anger, wanted him to understand how much she resented what he’d done.

  Yet she loved him. Why not tell him so?

  That would never do. He wanted her. He’d said as much. But he’d also said he had no interest in the confining ties of marriage. In other words, he wanted her for now, but not forever.

  She sat where she was, still pretending to listen to Kevin, holding her hands tightly, the nails cutting into her skin. One part of her wanted to run to her room; the other insisted on waiting to see if Mitch would join the group later.

  The minutes crawled by, turning to hours. The music from the jukebox was becoming more and more annoying. She thought she would scream if she heard “... ten minutes to heartbreak...” wailed in full falsetto one more time.

  “Oh, Mele,” she cried in desperation when the owner of the Coconut Club came to sit with them at last, her duties of the evening completed. “Can’t you do something about that music?”

  “Not a chance, honey,” the woman replied, smiling complacently. “The boys would string me up.”

  “You know what you should do,” Heather said, suddenly getting an idea. “You should hire local talent one night a week. That might wean the boys away from their favorites. They might even find out they like a little variety.”

  “Isn’t that just like a newcomer?” Mele told them all good-naturedly. “Wants to come in and reform us all.” She grinned at Heather. “And just where do you think we’re going to find this local talent?”

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t know. There must be someone... Oh, wait, I do know after all. I heard a marvelous guitar player today. His name’s Danny Cabrillo.”

  “Danny Cabrillo?” Kevin asked. “From Titano village?”

  “Right,” Heather replied, getting excited. “You really ought to hear him play, Mele. I’ll bet he could get the boys tapping their toes in no time.”

  But Mele was shaking her head. “It’ll never work. Believe me, the boys know what they want, and they don’t want some wet-behind-the-ears kid to come in and mess with their music.”

  As she spoke, the sound of “Ten minutes to heartbreak” drifted in again, and Heather gritted her teeth. She couldn’t wait all night for Mitch to show up.

  “When do you think Mitch will be finished in the bar?” she whispered to Mele.

  The Polynesian woman looked surprised. “Why, he left half an hour ago, honey. If you want to talk to him, why don’t you just go on over to his place and catch him before he falls asleep?”

  Despite the evening’s stultifying heat, Heather felt suddenly chilled. “Oh. I guess I’ll... go on to bed,” she managed as she rose from the table, smiling blindly at the others. “See you all tomorrow.”

  There was a hush in the room as she left, and she knew they were waiting until she got up the stairs before beginning a long debate about what was going on between her and Mitch. But she didn’t really care. The only thing that concerned her was the man who was sleeping in the house across the road. Her heart was with him, even if she didn’t dare go herself.

  Chapter Seven

  “Can you hold him still?”

  Heather moved along the bank of the shallow muddy river, trying to get an angle for the picture she wanted to sketch.

  “Will he stop and graze or something?”

  Three grinning brown children waved at her from the back of a tremendous water buffalo. She’d asked if she could make a quick sketch of their ride and they’d agreed happily, but the beast they were astride had other ideas.

  “Stop, stop!” the children all yelled. The lead boy tugged on the cord tied to the animal’s nose and pulled at his wide flat horns. But the buffalo was old and contrary, and he stopped only long enough to turn his huge wide-eyed face in Heather’s direction. The jaws chewed a few times, drooling green residue along the side of his mouth. Then, with what Heather would have sworn was a grin, the beast began to walk away, totally ignoring the children’s cries.

  “We come back later, lady,” the lead boy called to her as they rode off.

  “You do that,” she muttered back, laughing in exasperation. She’d have to improve her technique of capturing subjects or stick to houses. At least they didn’t walk off in the middle of a sketch.

  But s
he’d tried houses already. She ruffled through her sketch pad, glancing at those she’d drawn the day before at Titano village, and the ones she’d done this morning here in Ragonai. They had nice enough lines and form, but no soul. Why couldn’t she capture the spark she wanted so badly?

  She began to walk back to the Coconut Club, letting her thoughts drift from her troubles with her drawing to her troubles with her ex-husband. It was hard to believe she’d arrived on this island less than two days ago. She felt as though she’d been through enough emotional turmoil to last a lifetime.

  The night had gone badly again as she tossed and turned, wondering if Mitch was as sleepless as she. But when she’d gone to her window and looked down, she’d found no light on in his house. She’d sat watching the wind bend the palm trees, thinking of how it might have been if he’d been standing at his window, too, if they’d seen one another and both walked out into the night to meet.

  They would have come together in an ardent, wordless embrace. He would have told her he loved her, that he realized he couldn’t live without her. Their divorce had been a terrible mistake, and he wanted to come back with her to Flagstaff to try again.

  That dream had looked very nice around three o’clock in the morning, but in the bright daylight, sharing breakfast with Kevin and watching for a Mitch who never came, it had evaporated like the pipe dream it was.

  “Does Mitch usually come here for breakfast?” she’d asked Kevin casually.

  “Not always. He’s often too busy to take time to eat.”

  “The archetypal physician dedicated to his job?” That description didn’t jibe with the picture she’d formed in Flagstaff, but she had to admit it seemed to apply here.

  “Exactly.” Kevin had eyed her for a moment. “What gives, Heather? Are you going to punish him until the papers come back with Dede? Somehow that doesn’t seem your style.”

  She flushed. “My style right now is survival, Kevin, my dear. Emotional survival.”

  When she’d come out of the club, Mitch’s Jeep had been gone. She supposed he was off for another day of tending patients across the island. She’d taken out her flat case of artist’s supplies and gone looking for sights to draw. After three hours at it she still hadn’t found what she was looking for.

  Restlessly, she strode into the yard of the Coconut Club, wishing she could still the churning in her soul.

  Suddenly she stopped. Mele had planted a large vegetable garden in back of the club, and right now she was bent over between rows of tomato plants and runner beans, digging energetically with a short-handled hoe. Something in the angle of her body suggested to Heather the timeless image of a thousand generations of island women just like Mele. Quietly, for the woman hadn’t noticed her arrival, she opened her case and reached for her supplies.

  For just a moment her hand hovered over her pastels, but she knew at once that they wouldn’t do. Instead, she took out her box of pens, their nibs lined up in neat rows. After drawing out a pad of paper, she filled the pen with ink and sat down on a stump, ignoring the ants and roaches that crawled away to make room for her. Becoming totally absorbed in what she was doing, she began to draw.

  She’d always been adept at pen and ink drawing, but the medium had never captured her imagination as it did now. Her fingers fairly flew across the page, adding lines and shading. Once or twice she felt almost as though the pen were filled with magic, her movements seemed so perfect, so intuitive.

  Mele finally looked up and saw her, waved, and went into the house, but Heather hardly noticed. She went on to draw the mango tree in the next yard, then the cliff just barely visible beyond the hibiscus hedge. Sketch after sketch flowed from her hand, each better than the last.

  When Maria, the elderly woman who helped Mele in the kitchen, came out to feed the pigs, Heather asked her to pose for a moment. Maria agreed with a toothy grin, and Heather made a drawing that excited her more than any she’d done in months.

  She wanted to tell someone what had happened to her today. It was like a conversion, a mystical experience, and she longed to share the joy with one special person who she was sure would understand—Mitch. When she heard his Jeep crunch into the driveway, she gathered up her work and ran across the road to meet him.

  “Mitch!” she called, jogging along so fast that she didn’t notice how her heels caught on the coral rocks. “Mitch, wait. I’ve got to show you something.”

  He stepped out of the Jeep, cast a disparaging glance at her shoes, and shook his head. “It’ll have to wait until later, Heather. I’ve got an emergency in the clinic.”

  She stood beside the Jeep, clutching her papers to her chest as he strode away. His eyes had been cold and intent on something other than her. She felt thoroughly rebuffed.

  It took a long time to rid herself of that desolate feeling, but she managed. She showed the drawings to Kevin, who was suitably awed by her talent, but she couldn’t avoid wishing it were Mitch she was impressing. Kevin took her up a trail that led to the top of a hill overlooking the village and offered a multitude of subjects for her swift pen.

  She drew flowers and trees and ocean scenes, but finally she made Kevin pose for her, and then the magic happened again. That was what she was meant to do. For the first time in her career, faces came truly alive at her touch.

  The excitement of the discovery stirred her, but she still wished she could share it with Mitch. She ached for his approval, which irritated her. Why couldn’t she grow up and depend on herself alone?

  “Mitch said he had an emergency today,” she murmured as she attempted to capture Kevin’s devil-may-care personality on paper. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “Yeah.” He hesitated. “I’m the one who called him in to take care of it. The Tejeda kid damn near cut his finger off on a chain saw. I called Mitch back to stitch it up.”

  Heather looked at him in surprise. “Couldn’t you have handled it?”

  Kevin’s usually merry face became troubled. “No, Heather. I’m finally coming to terms with my incompetence as a physician. You see”—he smiled with a wan attempt at a joke—“I faint at the sight of blood.”

  She frowned, not sure how serious he was. “But Kevin...”

  “Let’s face it.” Suddenly his voice was bitter. “Dede can do a better job at medicine than I can. I’m not cut out to be a doctor. I never was. After all these years, I’m finally admitting it to myself.”

  “But what will you do?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s a world of possibilities, of course.” His eyes twinkled. “I could marry an heiress. Know any? Or take tourists on trips around the island. That ought to pay real well. Hey, maybe I could hire out as a male model. What do you say, Heather? Would you give me references?”

  She read the pain beneath the jokes and reached out to him sympathetically. “I think you ought to go home and face your father,” she told him impulsively.

  “Are you serious?” His laugh was hard-edged. “Did Jack go back to face the giant?”

  She shook her head. “I think you’ll never have any peace until you see this thing through,” she said lightly. “But it’s not really my place to tell you what to do, is it? Hold your head still. I have your nose wrong.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon together, then Heather went up to her room to rest and shower for dinner. Her wardrobe looked pretty dreary by now. She knew she’d have to ask Mele for time at the washtub in the morning. She only prayed her last pair of panty hose would last.

  She put on a plain lemon-yellow cotton shift, which she’d worn on her stopover in Guam, and tied her hair on top her head to leave her neck free to catch the evening breeze. It was hot, so hot that every movement took a major effort. Everything she touched felt wet, as though even the walls were sweating.

  She went down to the dining room apprehensively, nagged by the feeling that some sort of showdown was coming. It was without surprise that she saw Mitch at Kevin’s table as she entered.

&n
bsp; Both men stood up as she approached. She returned Kevin’s smile and dodged Mitch’s glare. There was an embarrassing scuffle as Kevin began to pull out her chair, then backed away, letting Mitch do it.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Heather said lightly, dropping into the chair and ignoring the brief tussle. “I’m glad to see you’re eating tonight; Mitch. For a physician you seem to have a poor idea of what good nutrition is all about.”

  He frowned as though he had no idea what she was talking about. “Don’t worry about my health,” he said testily, “and I won’t worry about your insomnia.”

  Her head jerked up and she stared at him, but his eyes were expressionless, as usual. Had he seen her the night before, sitting at her window, watching for a sign of life in his house? If he’d seen her, why hadn’t he made some sort of indication? She reached for her water glass and took a long drink.

  “What delicious surprise do we have on the menu tonight?” she asked when she’d regained her composure. The meal last night had been Hawaiian ham, and she’d found it superb.

  “Pancit,” Kevin told her. “A Philippino dish. Ever had it?” When she shook her head, he explained. “It’s made of long noodles in a spicy sauce with bits of chicken, crab, shrimp, and pork all mixed together. It’s a little spicy, but I think you’ll like it.”

  Heather had her doubts, but she was determined not to voice them. She sat staring into her water glass, unable to look up again, waiting for someone to start the conversation. She desperately needed a distraction to help overcome the overwhelming sense of Mitch’s presence beside her.

  The silence continued unbroken. When she’d finally thought of something to say and raised her head to speak, Mitch interrupted. “What was it you wanted to show me this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Oh.” She couldn’t tell him now. She’d wanted to so badly this afternoon, but the joy had gone out of it. She wasn’t sure he’d even care. “Nothing,” she said softly. “It wasn’t important.”