"In a minute. I'll just start the dishwasher."
"What are you going to do today?" Cal asked them.
"I don't know." Laura looked at her aunt. "B.J.? What are we going to do?"
The girls didn't, Cal noticed, look sad or bored or lonely now, and they hadn't sulked since B.J. had come. They both had an eager shine about their faces, as if they knew the day was going to be full and busy and exciting.
Desperately, he wanted to join in whatever they were going to do—as long as they were going to do it with his unexpected house guest.
"Lots of things," B.J. said, "but first I want to check out my bike and free up those brakes. I should have done it yesterday."
"I checked your bike," Cal said, watching her slide her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. "It's a bit scratched, but not damaged. I fixed the brakes and looked it over completely to make sure it was safe for you to ride."
"Thank you." He could see she was surprised. "It was . . . nice of you to look at it for me."
"I'm a nice person," he said without smiling.
To his chagrin, she didn't comment on that. She smiled slightly, not enough to activate her dimples, but certainly enough to turn his insides over at an alarming-rate. "I could have checked it out myself, you know. I try to maintain it myself. It only makes sense when I ride so much off the beaten track."
"I thought you were a city woman, preferring paved roads to the . . . bushes." Her disliking the wilderness bothered him, but he didn't know why. It wasn't as though he wanted her to want to live there, for Pete's sake. She didn't have to find his life-style compatible. He didn't live there year round himself.
"I am a city person," she agreed. "But I still like the country. As an escape."
"Escape from what?"
She jammed her slender hands into the pockets of her jacket and shrugged. "From ... I don't know. Just from routine, I guess."
"Routine. Yes." He wondered what her routine consisted of. He wondered, too, why she had clammed up a few minutes ago and looked relieved when the girls came in. What was there about her life that she didn't want him to know? "And I'd better get to mine," he added. "Enjoy your morning, girls, and don't forget to do your lessons sometime today."
He laughed and apologized, making a swift escape under a flurry of cries about it's being Saturday, Uncle Cal! And they didn't have to do lessons on weekends, did they?
Behind him, he heard B.J. assuring them that he'd simply forgotten the day of the week. He wasn't being an ogre.
Yes, he thought, firmly placing himself in front of his easel, he'd forgotten the day of the week, all right. He was lucky he could remember his own name.
Her bike, as Cal had said, had suffered no damage beyond a few scrapes to its already battered coat of paint. B. J. took it for a short test run, then spent an hour giving the girls rides in turn, trying to keep her mind off the man working in a room not three hundred feet away.
Thoughts of him, though, constantly intruded, until she thought she would go crazy. What was his studio like? How did he achieve that amazing realism he was famous for? Some critics had said that you could tell an animal painted by Calvin Mixall because you could see it breathing, hear it snarling, watch its hairs lifting in the wind. The night before, when he'd been talking about the swans, she could see how much he loved them. He must feel that way about all wildlife, she mused, for his paintings to be so successful. Did that mean he didn't have the same love for his own kind? He never painted people, did he?
"Teach me to ride all by myself," Laura begged.
"Why not?" she said, thinking that maybe having something to concentrate on would keep her mind in a track she could deal with. "Your legs are long enough."
"Why not?" Cal asked behind them, making B.J. and the girls whirl around. "Because it's a crazy idea, is why not!"
He looked outraged, standing there with his hands on his lean hips, his legs long in his jeans, his shoulders broad within a powder blue cotton shirt. Dammit, he was too appealing, B.J. thought, with his black eyes alive and sparkling as he looked at her as if she had just offered to teach Laura to skydive with a bedsheet for a parachute.
"You aren't old enough, Laura," he said, "even though you might be tall enough, and the trails around here are rough going for a beginner." His tone, B.J. noticed, had softened considerably. She liked that about him. Even though he was refusing his niece something she wanted, he was prepared to be reasonable about it, and explain to her why he had to do it.
"But, Uncle Cal . . ."
"I'm sorry. Your parents didn't say anything at all about your being allowed to ride a motorcycle. And as your guardian, I feel compelled to say no, so let's just forget the idea, okay?"
Laura glared at him rebelliously, then wailed, "But B.J.'s our guardian, too, and she should have just as much say in the matter and she said she'd teach me!" Her eyes filled with tears and her face crumpled.
"And I said she's not." Cal was beginning to look more than just a little disconcerted.
"And I happen to agree with your uncle," B.J. said quickly, hugging Laura in apology. "While you're here at his place, he makes the rules, as is only right. If you were with me, then I'd make them. When I said I'd teach you, I wasn't thinking clearly. The trails here are too rough for a beginner, to say nothing of too steep. Look what happened to me, and I've been riding for years and years! I'd hate to have to call your parents and confess that I'd done something stupid and let you get injured."
Cal gaped at her. He'd seen the flare of anger in her eyes when he first spoke. He'd cut off what he expected to be a heated argument, and to have her agree with him was so unexpected, he didn't know how to handle it. So what else was new? Since her arrival, the woman had made a habit of throwing him off balance. But still, what she'd done required some kind of acknowledgment on his part. Other than his kissing her feet. He blinked, thinking about that. He'd start there and—
"I. . . well, thank you, Miss Gray."
She grinned at the blank astonishment on his face. "Thank you, Mr. Mixall. See? I'm a fairly nice person myself, and I was about to make a mistake. I'm glad you came along in time to stop me. So, ladies, what should we do now? Any more suggestions for some fun and excitement at Kinikinik Lake?"
"How about a canoe trip?" Cal asked, then frowned at his own words. What he should do was go back into his studio and work. If he meant to have enough pieces ready for that show in December, he couldn't afford to waste time now. He'd been telling the girls that ever since they came. About to recant his invitation, he opened his mouth and said, "'To the end of the lake and back.'"
"You're very good." Cal said half an hour later as he looked across ten feet of rippled water, watching the steady, quiet rhythm with which B.J. propelled the canoe she and Kara were in. He liked to see her body in motion. Her arms, covered only by the sleeves of her blue baseball jersey, were slender but sinuously strong, and even the yellow floater vest couldn't hide the shape of her breasts from him. As always, he was painfully aware of her.
"Thank you," she said. "I like canoeing. One summer I did the whole Bowron Lake circuit with a friend."
He stared ahead for some time, thinking about the Bowron Lake circuit, the quiet little bays where camp could be set up in seclusion, where it was so private that swimmers needed no suits, where it was so peaceful that couples could— He cut his thoughts off at that point. Dammit, it was none of his business!
Moments later he heard himself say tautly, "I know a few people who've done that circuit. What's your friend's name?"
"Terry Milligan."
Oh, thanks a bunch! he said silently, digging his paddle in harder and shooting his canoe ahead of hers. That really told him what he wanted to know.
B.J. saw Cal's muscles flex as he paddled hard and glided ahead of her. A small shiver attacked her spine as she recalled the way those muscles had flexed when she first came to after passing out, and began kissing him back. He had pulled her closer, and she had felt those hard arms und
er her back, lifting her body. . . .
Unnoticed, her paddle hung idle in the water as she remembered the way his lips had felt on hers, the taste of him, the scent of his skin. There had been something she couldn't identify, and it was intriguing. She wished she hadn't run away from him the night before. Maybe, if she'd stayed, she'd know now what it was, that elusive teasing taste. She closed her eyes, trying to conjure it up, then kept them closed, savoring the memory, projecting far into a series of what-ifs before she drew herself up short.
She had been kissed before, of course, but seldom had she spent so much time dwelling on those kisses and anticipating what they could lead to.
Even Antonio had been only a very close friend. What was so different this time?
This time? Hey, hold it, she told herself. You are not anticipating any more kisses with Cal Mixall, or anything else with him, for that matter, except looking after two mutual relatives.
"B.J.?"
"What?" Kara's voice startled her so much B.J. jumped, making the canoe rock alarmingly. Her niece clutched the gunwales, her paddle splashing into the lake, head turned toward her aunt, her eyes wide. She fished the child's paddle out of the water and passed it to her.
"Where did they go?" Kara asked.
"Who?"
"Uncle Cal and Laura. They're gone!"
B.J. blinked and blinked again, scanning the lake. Where had Cal and Laura gone? One minute the other canoe was right there, traveling smoothly next to a stretch of reedy shore, and the next it had disappeared completely. She could see no splashing or waving paddles to indicate the other two might have capsized, but it was as if they had been swallowed whole.
"They can't be far away," she said. "They must have slipped into a creek mouth or something, or gone around a point that blends into the shore from here. We'll catch them soon."
Strongly now, she paddled, feeling the blade bite deep into the water, forcing it through, the pull in her arms and back and shoulders hard and unfamiliar. But it was a good feeling, and she thought she could have gone on like that for hours. The hard physical labor quelled those other feelings that had been coming too close to the surface.
Close to shore they skimmed, following the line the other canoe had been on. Yet as closely as she was watching, she would have missed them entirely if she hadn't heard Laura giggle.
"Laura? Where are you?" She backpaddled, bringing the canoe to a halt, then kept it still by feathering the blade gently as she peered at the foliage along the lakeshore. "Right here. Can't you see us?"
"No, I ... Oh!" She gasped when Laura's hand appeared in a small gap within the wall of vegetation. "My gosh! What a hideout!"
"Back up about six feet," said Cal's smooth voice, "and you'll see the entrance." B.J. wanted to paddle away hard and fast, seeking that delicious anticipation again, but Kara had caught onto some of the bushes and was forcing the canoe backward.
"It's one of Uncle Cal's blinds," Laura explained as Cal caught the bow of her canoe, guiding it into a narrow cut in the reeds where his own was nestled up against a small, decked raft. The raft was completely surrounded by six-foot-high wooden walls, with enough greenery around to render them invisible from even a few feet away. Under a lean-to roof at one end, Laura sat cross-legged on a platform two feet above the deck and about as wide as a double bed.
"Uncle Cal sleeps here sometimes," Laura said, "so he can get pictures and drawings of the birds when they come to feed at dawn. He can even make coffee," she added proudly, indicating a small propane stove on a table that hung from the wall near the foot of the bunk. B.J. noticed a length of rolled canvas hanging from the top of the lean-to room, which could be dropped to keep out rain and cold, making the bunk area very snug, like a small, private cave. Something atavistic stirred in her and she pushed it away.
"Just like a treehouse, isn't it?" Laura said as B.J. and Kara joined her and her uncle on the raft. It dipped slightly under the added weight, but then settled to bobbing gently with their movements.
"A treehouse," B.J. said, mostly to distract herself from thinking about camping out in this snug place— with the man who owned it. "That's what you kids could be doing while your uncle's busy. Why don't you build yourselves a treehouse?"
Cal lifted his brows. "Do girls like treehouses?"
"Girls love treehouses!" came a chorus of three voices.
He slowly shook his head. "Well, well, well. I think it's a very good thing you came, Great-Aunt Barbara. Maybe, if I keep you around, I'll learn more about the care and feeding of two young ladies, and how to make them happy while they're here."
"Aw, Uncle Cal, we're not really that unhappy, you know," Kara said, hopping off the bunk and hugging him. "It's just that it's so much nicer having both you and B.J. here."
He hugged her back, then looked over at B.J., who was perched on the end of the sleeping platform with Laura. "I think so, too, punkin." He smiled, eyes half-hooded. "All I have to do now is think of some way to get her to stay."
5
B.J. froze at the look on his face, then began to tremble deep inside. The trembling worsened when he set Kara back on her feet, checked the zipper of her orange life jacket, and said, "If you two want some canoe time, it's nice and sheltered at this end of the lake, so feel free. Laura, you in the stern. You're stronger." He held the canoe steady as the girls clambered in eagerly. Gently, Cal shoved them out past the reeds.
"You can go as far as that half-submerged log over there—the one with the bushes growing out of it—and then head back." He pointed to a strip of apparently floating shrubbery half a mile out into the lake.
Inexpertly, the girls moved the small craft along, but soon picked up a rhythm and paddled less jerkily, though still with much splashing.
A flock of ducks took to their wings with a lot of clatter, and B.J. shook her head. "You won't get much work done if this keeps up. They'll frighten off every living thing in the lake."
"The ducks will come back," he said easily, standing beside her as they watched the girls. "And I don't feel like working anyway." He tilted his head to one side and looked at her. "B.J., I meant what I said to Kara. I'd like you to stay. And there won't be any more antisocial behavior."
His words, for some reason, embarrassed her. What "antisocial behavior" was he referring to? His ill humor on Thursday, or his kisses last night? Since he'd already apologized for the former, she decided it had to be the latter.
"That's all right," she said, looking down. "I didn't take it seriously." If not with kisses, then how did he intend to persuade her to stay? Not that she was going to be persuaded, of course, but she wouldn't mind a few more kisses. She jumped, startled, when he tilted her face up, his fingers hard and warm under her chin, his other hand light on her waist.
"I wish you would take me seriously," he said softly. "I have such a hard time keeping my hands off you that I'm beginning to think I have a very serious problem where you're concerned."
So maybe he wasn't apologizing for kissing her. She knew she should pull back from him, but once more she was mesmerized by him, overwhelmed by his pure masculinity. It was a feeling she was unaccustomed to. With great force of will, she pulled out of his loose embrace.
"Sorry, but I seldom take anything seriously," she said as she returned to sit on the end of the bunk platform. "Except my job."
"Couldn't you see this as part of your job? I mean, the only reason you're not teaching right now is because of the school's troubles. Stay, B.J. Stay and teach the girls here." He pulled his deck chair close to her and sank down onto its creaking seat. "Listen, by now you must have figured out that I like you, B.J. I find you more than just attractive." He lifted a hand as if to touch her, then dropped it back to his lap. "But if you aren't interested, I'll leave you alone. No matter what you decide about me, I really do want you to stay, if only for the girls' sake."
"I. . . can't, Cal. Remember? I'm house-sitting."
"It's not just that, is it? It's me." He blew out a gusty
sigh. "I wish you'd tell me why you dislike me so! If you did, maybe I could fix it. It can't be something I've ever done to you because I can't even remember having met you, though Melody tells me I did."
A sudden look of consternation flooded his face. "Oh, no! Is that it? Is it because I don't remember you?"
B.J. had to laugh in spite of the confused emotions roiling within her. "Of course not. Heavens, I don't expect everyone I've ever met to remember me. Besides," she added uncomfortably, "I was probably too young to make much of an impression."
He looked at her meditatively. "You were eighteen. A guy of twenty-three, if he was anywhere near normal, would remember someone who must have looked like you did at eighteen." He laughed softly. "Especially someone who was, at eighteen, an aunt to the twenty-two-year-old bride."
"We seldom told people I was her aunt. It embarrassed both of us, I guess. So people just assumed I was another cousin. There were . . . there were a lot of teenage cousins running around that weekend," she said quickly, wanting only to get off this subject. "You can't be expected to remember all of us."
"Do you remember me?"
Her quiet, "Yes," was among the greatest understatements she'd ever made. "After all, you were the best man." And she had been asked to be maid of honor, but had declined. Both Melody and Phyllis had been angry with her over that. Now, even more than before, she was glad she'd been firm in her refusal. An ugly maid of honor, he'd have remembered, for sure.
"I'm not surprised you remember me," he said.
"I'm sure you're not," she said dryly. "Women don't usually forget Cal Mixall, do they?"
He winced. "That wasn't the way I meant it. 1 recall being such a snot that weekend, it's surprising everyone who was there doesn't remember me with horror."
Drawing a series of circles on his knee with the tip of one finger, he went on, "I was a real pain in the . . . rear to everyone that weekend, I'm told." He looked up, fixing her with his dark eyes. "Is that why you hate me, B.J.?"
She laughed softly. "Cal, I don't hate you. I don't j know you. And when I told the kids I didn't like you, I was simply making a point. Can't you forget I ever said it?"
Judy Gill Page 6
