by Jill Barnett
But now, as he stared at her profile while she drew something absently in the sand, he felt a restless need to touch her. He shifted closer, casually resting one hand in the sand behind her.
She turned. Her eyes widened when she saw how close he was. Her gaze dropped to his lips, then back up to his eyes. Her lips parted, and she took one deep breath through her mouth.
With his free hand, he brushed another strand of hair from her lips and cheek, then slid his hand behind her neck. Before she had a chance to think, he kissed her.
Chapter 17
There were times when reality was far worse than anything imaginable. For Margaret, reality came in the form of a wave—the cold wet slap of an ocean wave.
The water washed over her, and a second later she realized that she was rolling in the sand with Hank. Her tongue was in his mouth, kissing him back. He was on top of her, pinning her to the wet sand, one hand holding her head to his, his other hand between her legs.
She opened her eyes and blinked up at his face, then shoved him off of her and stood so quickly she saw stars for a second. She covered her eyes with a hand and took a deep breath to calm herself down.
Water dripped from her face and hair and pattered on the sand. Another wave sloshed over her ankles and calves and the sand sucked at her feet. The sea was pulling her one way. Her body pulled her another. Her head resisted them both.
Hank stood and moved closer to her, his shadow blocking out the warmth of the sun.
She didn’t want to look at him. This wasn’t happening. She took another deep breath, then without a word she turned and took a step.
He grabbed her arm and made her turn back around. “Running away?”
She stood there stiffly, embarrassed, confused, angry. “No.”
“You’re a rotten liar.”
“Let go of me.”
He didn’t.
“Please let go.” Her voice was almost a whisper. He swore and released her hand.
From somewhere she gathered the strength to look at him.
He was angry, too. His eyes were black with it. He gave her a mock bow and flung his hand out. “Go ahead. Run as fast as you can. But remember. I’m still here. And you’re still here. That isn’t going to change anymore than you can change what just went on between us.”
“I don’t want anything between us.”
“Believe me, sweetheart, neither do I.” He ran a hand through his hair and wiped the water from his face. Even with the anger and embarrassment of the moment, she could feel something pass between them. Tension and more—something neither wanted.
But even she couldn’t deny it. He’d been right about that. She turned her back to him and clutched her arms to her. After a minute, she said quietly, “In a perfect world, you would be a doctor . . . a judge or a professor. Anything but a crook.”
He shifted even closer, and a long dark shadow spread over the sand. “The world isn’t perfect and I’m no doctor or professor.” His voice was harsh and low and right next to her ear. “But it takes a crook to know the world will never be fair. And you want to know why?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to hear this. He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “This is why.” His mouth hit hers hard.
She stood there stiffly, refusing to respond. Her hands were clenched at her sides, her lips tightly sealed, her eyes open and angry.
His eyes were open, too. His look was coldly cruel, penetrating, as if he could somehow force her to see things as he did.
He let go swiftly, half pushing her away. But he never broke that hard look. “Use that brain of yours to think about it. Too many men are like me. Out to get what they can. Any way they can. Accept it, sweetheart.”
She watched him walk away. She brought a hand to her head and just stood there. Something was wrong with her.
She had no idea how long she stood there, staring at the horizon, then down at the water. After a few more minutes she sank down onto the sand, just sat there thinking.
Suddenly she felt more alone than she had in a long time. Alone and confused. Nothing made sense.
She began to draw in the sand a list of words., single, disjointed words. Hank. Man. Margaret. Kiss. Love? Sick! Blame? Humidity. Hot. Sun. Trauma. Something . . . Anything.
She stared at her list. A second later, she frantically rubbed out the words.
Two hours later, Margaret swept a strand of hair out of her face and stared at the burnt remains of three fish. They had been a good ten inches long. Now they held a striking resemblance to small, black goldfish.
She picked up one of the smoldering sticks Hank had carved as a spit. It broke in half. The stick and the fish crumbled into the fire. She just stared at it, unable to believe that she could possibly have burned another meal.
“Are those fish done yet?” Hank and the children walked toward her.
She looked at the fish, then up at him. “Yes. I’d say they’re done.”
“Good!” He stepped around her, took one look at the fire, and bellowed, “Dammit, Smitty!”
With an uneasy sense of failure and embarrassment she looked at their hungry faces. She gave them a forced smile. “Anyone else for bananas?”
The day only got worse. It was one of those days that had all the earmarks of being so rotten that one looked forward to night. She busied herself with the children, made Theodore bathe, then sent him on his way while Lydia took her turn at the pool. The girl finished and changed into a small flannel nightdress they had found in one of the trunks.
In the bright afternoon sunlight, Margaret had brushed Lydia’s hair back and tied it with blue ribbons. In between grabs at Annabelle to keep her from falling in the water—and a few close calls when the baby had tried to eat a butterfly, two beetles, and leaves from all the surrounding bushes—it had taken almost an hour to get Lydia’s hair dry and silky.
“All done.” Brush in hand, Margaret stood back, waiting to see if Lydia would smile. Even just a look of pleasure or delight would be enough.
Lydia knelt at the edge of the pool and frowned down at her reflection. She stood up quickly. “I’ll take Annabelle so you can bathe now.” was all she said.
No “Thank you” or “I like it.” Nothing. Lydia handed Margaret the ball of soap.
Margaret felt like a complete failure. She watched the girl walk toward the arm of rocks that hid the pool and called out. “Lydia!”
She turned around.
“Do you like your hair?”
Lydia shrugged. “Mama always used yellow ribbons.” And she and Annabelle disappeared around the rocks.
Shaking her head, she set down the soap, stripped, and walked into the pool. As the water lapped around her, she made a mental note to let Lydia pick her own ribbons in the future.
Margaret stared down at her reflection. She looked like something the cat dragged in. Actually, she looked worse.
She ducked underwater and surfaced. She looked at herself again and wondered who the woman was that looked back at her.
She was an attorney, not a mother.
An intelligent and fairly talented woman to whom most things had come naturally, easily. It had always amazed her father and uncles at how she had grasped the intricacies of the legal field as easily as someone born with the knowledge. She could usually think her way out of any sticky situation.
But here on this island, with the children and Hank, nothing seemed to work right. She didn’t understand children any more than she understood Hank.
And it wasn’t only her inability to do something as simple as cook. That just seemed to symbolize everything she couldn’t grasp.
Babies seemed to know no schedule, something that made a mess of her methodical routine. In her role as a mother she had almost no time alone. She wondered how on earth the mothers of the world got anything done with all the interruptions.
A fact that was driven home to her again less than five minutes later.
Annabelle began to cry. She could he
ar her. She waded over to the side of the pool where a pea-sized sliver of soap sat abandoned on the rocks.
The baby was crying “Mama!”
She tried to make lather from the almost nonexistent sliver of soap.
Annabelle cried out over and over.
Margaret scrubbed her body harder, telling herself that Lydia was with her and she’d be fine. She washed her hair and dove under the water. But even underwater she could still hear Annabelle’s wailing.
She climbed out and dried off, then put on another flannel nightdress that was about a foot too short in the hem and sleeves and an inch too tight in the chest.
“Ducky,” she muttered, shoving up the sleeves to her elbow as she rounded the rocks. The baby was screaming and kicking to get Lydia to let her go. She took one look at Margaret and cried, “Mama!”
Lydia’s face paled.
“Ma-manaanah!”
Margaret reached for Annabelle. “I’ll take her.”
Lydia looked down at her sister, who was sobbing and twisting and crying so hard she was hiccupping. The girl handed her to Margaret as if she were being forced to give away her heart. Lydia turned and stiffly walked away.
“Lydia, please wait!” Margaret bounced the sobbing baby on her hip.
The girl kept walking.
“I’m sorry . . . I . . .”
Lydia disappeared around some rocks at the other side of the clearing.
Margaret stared at the spot where Lydia disappeared, feeling a complete failure. She asked herself how an intelligent and educated woman could make such a mess of everything.
She looked down at Annabelle. The baby was sound asleep in her arms.
And at that moment Margaret, an intelligent and educated woman, realized something else. She had absolutely no talent for instant motherhood.
Muddy awoke to someone knocking on his bottle. He wiped the sleep from his tired eyes and stared up at the stopper. If he were given three wishes, one of them would be for a door.
He swung his feet off the divan, his bells tingling. He stood and stretched.
“Muddy?” came a loud whisper. “Are you awake?” Muddy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Yes, master!”
The stopper popped open, and a big, blue eyeball stared down at him. “You coming out now?”
“Yes, master, just as soon as you move your eye.” “Oh.” The eyeball blinked and moved back.
“How’s that?”
Muddy’s feet left the carpet, and a second later he passed through the opening of the bottle. The smoke dissipated, and he saw that Theodore was back to squinting into the bottle.
He looked up. “Whatcha got in there?” Then he looked back inside.
“Would you like to see?”
Theodore jerked his eye away from the bottle and looked up, his face showing how badly he wanted to see inside. “Can I?”
Muddy uncrossed his arms—a stupid stance that some moron back at the beginning of time thought was geniesque. May Allah save him from the ludicrousness of ritual.
He looked down at Theodore, who had begun to fidget from anticipation, and extended a palm. “Just take my hand, master.”
Theodore ran over and took Muddy’s hand. A second later purple smoke began to swirl like a small whirlwind, and they both levitated up with the smoke.“Holy cow!”
They circled over the bottle like a bird of prey. Theodore giggled, then laughed, and Muddy took him for an extra few laps around the bottle, the smoke following in their wake.
They had just made the last lap and were hovering over the bottle when Lydia came walking around some rocks.
“Look, Leedee! Look! It’s me! I’m flying into the bottle!” And they disappeared inside.
“Where’s the kid?”
Margaret placed a sleeping Annabelle into the trunk-bed and looked up.
Hank was scowling at her.
“Theodore? I haven’t seen him.”
“Me either.” Hank turned, his gaze scanning the area. “Where’s the other one, Lydia?”
“She wandered off a few minutes ago.”
“For Christ’s sake! Can’t you keep an eye on them?”
She turned slowly, her hands clenching into fists. “Now wait just a minute—”
“Go get her.”
She counted very slowly to twenty-five, then she said calmly and reasonably, “I can’t leave the baby. She just fell asleep.”
He swore loud enough to wake the baby. And he did.
Annabelle began to cry.
His expression turned cocky. “Well, now she’s awake.”
Margaret looked from him to Annabelle, and she took one short step backward. “Fine.” She spun on one foot and marched off toward the rocks. “I’ll go look for Lydia.”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
She never looked back, just grabbed her flannel skirts and broke into a full run.
“Smitty! You can’t leave this kid with me! Goddammit! Come back here!”
She tightened her grip on her nightdress and took a runner’s shallow breaths. Now here was a natural talent she hadn’t lost. No, siree! Her long legs ate up the ground like an antelope—her nickname on the ladies’ field and track team at college.
“Smitty, dammit!”
She laughed with wicked glee and hot-footed it the last hundred feet, then whipped around the bend before one could say Hank Wyatt was a sucker.
Chapter 18
Annabelle stared at Hank from over the rim of the trunk with a look so serious and intimidating she should have been a judge. He ran his hand through his hair and swore under his breath.
“Sit!” she repeated, then stuck two fingers in her mouth and stared at him again
He stood there scowling.
She ducked down and then poked her head up. “Peekaboo.”
“Yeah, yeah, kid, peekaboo to you, too.”
She ducked again.
He rolled his eyes. Great! We can sit here and play peekaboo all damn day.
A red curly head slowly rose above the edge of the trunk and two bright eyes sparkled at him. “Papa!”
“Oh, no! No way!” His hands shot up, and he backed up so fast he bumped into a tree trunk. “No Papa!” He jabbed a finger in his chest. “Hank! Got it, kid? I’m Hank.”
She grinned around her fingers, then took them out of her mouth and gave him a childish wave. “Hi!”
While he was pacing, running his hand through his hair and mentally spouting every curse in his vast knowledge of them, Annabelle climbed out of the trunk and ran toward him on short, stubby little legs.
He turned and froze. She was holding up a banana. They eyed each other, a meeting of innocence and cynicism. Hank squatted down in front of her, and she handed him the banana. “You hungry, kid?”
She just grinned at him. He peeled the banana, and she edged closer, then poked her finger on his nose.
“Nose,” she said as clear as could be.
That surprised him.
“Hank’s nose.”
He laughed. “Yeah. That’s my nose.”
He sat down in the sand and held out the banana. “Here, kid.”
She grabbed it and squeezed so hard the banana mashed through her fingers. She looked at it, then looked up at him and said, “Sit!”
“That’s what it looks like all right. You’re a smart kid.” She crammed some banana in her mouth, licking it off her palm, and crawled into his lap, then settled in, her back to his chest and her squat legs casually slung over one of his.
He stared down at her. She swung one foot back and forth. She had fat feet, fat hands, and fat legs that looked too short to support her. “So, kid . . . where are your knees?”
“Kneezzz.” She pointed to her nose and wrinkled it.
“Nah. That’s your nose.”
“Kneez.”
“Nose.”
“Kneez,” she insisted, then blew air out her nose twice.
He laughed then and nodded. “Sneez
e.”
She blew out her nose again and laughed with him.
He looked at those squatty legs for a second and said, “Yeah, well, you probably don’t have to know what knees are until you grow your own.”
She wiggled into a standing position and brought her face scant inches from his. She lifted a sticky finger and started to poke it in his eye.
He grabbed her wrist. “No, you don’t.”
“Eyez.”
“Yeah, those are my eyes.”
She wiped her sticky hand on his hair. “Hair.”
“Yeah.”
“Muck, muck, muck!” She poked her finger at his mouth for each word.
He stared at the kid. She reached down and took another mashed handful of banana. “Smitty’s right there, kid. You shouldn’t say that one. That’s a bad word.”
“Bad wolf.” She puffed her cheeks up and blew banana out of her mouth.
He flinched, then wiped it from his face. “Yeah, well here, kid.” Hank handed her another banana. “Eat. We’ll talk later.”
She threw the banana across the sand.
He scowled down at the kid. “You don’t want it, huh?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you. I think we’re all tired of bananas.” He looked around, but all he saw was a pile of the green fruit. He scratched his chin for a second and set her on the ground, then stood and reached for her hand.
It was gooey with smashed banana. He used his shirttail to wipe her hands, then swung her up onto his shoulders.
She laughed and slapped his head. “More!”
But before he could swing her again, he spotted the damn goat moseying up the sand and chewing on some monkey grass near a bright red ginger plant.
He studied the goat for a calculating minute, then looked at Annabelle. “How ’bout some milk, kid? You don’t cook milk, so Smitty can’t burn it. Although she might try.”
The goat looked up and bleated. Hank studied it. The goat appeared unfazed. It just lowered its head and went back to eating the grass.
Hank looked around, then set the kid down on a rock. “Don’t move. Got it?”
She grinned up at him.
