"And you're working on something else now?"
"The island's a beautiful place to work. If I wasn't writing, I'd be taking photographs. Everywhere I look there's something to see." She pointed out the window. "What's that giant bird?"
Silently he congratulated her on a neat change of subject. "A wedge tail eagle."
"I saw some gorgeous birds the other day when I was patrolling. There was a small flock of them. They were large. Black with yellow tails."
"Our yellow tailed black cockatoos."
She tried to think of something else to ask him about, but he was a step ahead of her. "Is your new novel set on the island?"
"I've just begun it. I don't know much yet."
"It's about a little girl growing up," Jody said. "And she has brown hair like me."
"Will your daughter be allowed to read this one?" he asked Alexis.
"That remains to be seen." Alexis turned her head to gaze out the window and cool her heated cheeks. As bestselling women's fiction went, the love scenes in her first novel had been only mildly spicy, more offstage than on. But the thought of Matthew knowing about them was doing something strange to her insides. The book had uncovered secret wells of sensuality that she hadn't known she possessed. Certainly Charles had never uncovered any of her secrets, but then, Charles had never really tried. He had been too busy satisfying his own twisted desires.
They turned off on a road that made the one they'd been traveling look like a superhighway. Matthew apologized. "Did you realize it would be such a long trip?"
"Any trip is long when your top speed is thirty miles an hour."
The trip was long, but Alexis found she didn't mind. She liked sitting next to Matthew, watching him drive. She liked the hard line of his jaw, the uncompromising set of his mouth, the dark slash of his brows over his farseeing blue eyes. He was a man in control, and although she liked being in charge of her own life, she found that letting him assume control of something as simple as the driving was relaxing.
She didn't know him well, but she already knew some things about him. Even his most glaring fault was a strength that had ranged out of bounds. He had loved too well, wrapped too much of his life and himself around his wife and son. If a man needed an imperfection, his was one of the better.
As a young woman Alexis had dreamed of having a man like Matthew in her life. Now, for the rest of the time it took to get to Seal Bay, she imagined how different her life would have been if she had waited for one.
Matthew parked the wagon in a parking lot above the heath covered dunes leading down to the water. There was a picnic area farther up the beach, with tables and barbecues, but Jody couldn't wait that long to see the sea lions. She raced to the walkway leading down the beach, then stopped, dismayed.
"They're dead! All of them! The poachers killed them."
Matthew's grunt was surprisingly close to a laugh. "No one's killed them. They're sleeping. Look." He went to her side and pointed. "See those specks in the water out there? They're sea lions, playing in the waves."
Jody shaded her eyes and squinted into the sun. "The ones on the beach look dead to me."
"You'll see they're breathing when we go down."
"You're sure it's safe?" Alexis asked, although she could see from their vantage point that other people were walking in and out between the sea lions, seemingly unafraid.
"Perfectly safe if we don't get too close." He made sure he had Jody's attention for the next sentence. "Remember, though, don't bother them, especially the cows with pups, because they'll defend themselves, and their teeth are razor-sharp."
"There are so many," Alexis said. "I didn't know we'd see dozens."
"There are several hundred who live in the bay. They represent about ten percent of the Australian sea lions left in the world. Once there were hundreds of thousands."
"Do you have problems with poachers here?"
"This beach is patrolled, so there's been no trouble. But we also have colonies of the New Zealand fur seal that breed on other parts of the south coast, and we've had reports of problems there in the past."
"I don't understand why man feels such a need to hurt anything weaker than he is."
"Not all men feel that way."
Alexis risked a glance and found that Matthew was looking at her as if he could read her mind. She wanted to deny that she had meant anything more than a simple reference to the poachers, but she doubted he would believe her.
Jody was already halfway down the steps when Alexis and Matthew started after her. The beach was sheltered by cliffs and white sand dunes, gloriously ablaze with patches of blooming wildflowers. The beach itself was flat and strewn with large rocks that, from a distance, were difficult to distinguish from the sea lions. The bay was a glistening blue broken by projecting rocks that created surf for the sea lions to glide on and clear pools to dive in.
Jody waited at the foot of the steps, obviously awed. "Some of them are as big as I am," she said when Matthew and Alexis had joined her.
"Some of them are almost twice as long and weigh three times more than I do," Matthew told her. "Which is one excellent reason not to get too close."
But close was a relative thing. The sleeping sea lions, who did indeed look dead because they slept so soundly, were very approachable. They slept in groups, warm bodies piled in heaps, as if each had been too tired to find his own space. Matthew led Alexis and Jody right up to them, and Jody finally agreed that they were alive as she watched them drawing deep, even breaths. She stayed with Alexis and Matthew at first, cautious because of Matthew's warning. But as the sea lions ignored her, preferring to sleep or find their way to the water for a swim, she grew bolder, running on ahead to investigate on her own.
Alexis stopped to gaze out at the water. She could feel Matthew behind her, and from the corner of her eye, she could see Jody, twenty yards down the beach, carefully checking out the next sleeping cluster.
She never felt so far from home as she did when she gazed out on one of the many seas that separated her from all she had known before. The distance seemed endless then, the changes too infinite to comprehend.
Matthew seemed to know what she was thinking. "Do you miss your home?"
The smile he couldn't see was sad. "Little things, mostly. Getting the New York Times delivered to my door. Baseball games. Chocolate chip cookies."
"Manhattan in the rain? The snowcapped Rockies?"
"No to both. I wasn't there often enough to miss either of them. How would you know about Manhattan in the rain?"
"I lived there until I was twelve."
She looked over her shoulder. "You're an American?"
He shook his head. "My father had a teaching position at Columbia, and we lived in New York until he decided to come home. I've been back often, though. I did a year of my university training at Columbia for old times' sake."
She tried to absorb the fact that Matthew had a connection to the States. She wondered how much he kept up with American news, American publications. "When were you last there?" she asked, trying to sound casual.
"Five years ago." He didn't want to think about that trip. It had been a second honeymoon surprise for Jeannie. They had gone, leaving Todd with Jeannie's parents, and the two weeks had been two of the best in their marriage.
Alexis relaxed a little. Her book hadn't even been written five years ago. Five years ago she had still been living in the depths of hell. "I wondered if you'd always lived on the island. You seem to fit perfectly here."
The sun moved behind a cloud, and the wind coming off the water blasted them in chilling gusts. Alexis folded her arms at her waist, rubbing the exposed skin with her fingertips. For a moment she envied the sea lions their fur.
"Cold?"
"The sun will be back out in a moment."
Matthew knew she was right. And he knew something else. The sea had stirred his loneliness, too. It was a loneliness that had become so much a part of him he could hardly remember its name.
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Tentatively he rested his hands on her shoulders. His touch was so light that for a moment she wasn't sure if she was imagining it. "Lean back," he said, his voice low.
"I'm all right."
"Lean back," he repeated.
She knew how good it would feel to have his arms around her. She had dreamed of this kind of warmth, this simple sharing of body heat and pleasure. Surely at some time in her life someone had offered her as much, although she couldn't remember when.
She swayed a little, and Matthew was encouraged. His hands slid down her arms, slowly, tentatively; then, as he felt her begin to relax against him, his arms closed around her waist.
She was small, and Jeannie had been almost his height, yet Alexis felt good in his arms. If not right, if not the same, then undeniably good, anyway. Her hair fanned out against his chest, and he lowered his face to it, inhaling its fragrance. He could feel the slight fullness of her hips and buttocks just brushing his legs, and he had to stop himself from pulling her fully against him.
He had been without a woman for three long years, and his body knew what his heart refused to discover. He needed a woman. He needed Alexis. Not to take Jeannie's place, because that was impossible. Not to take any real place in his life, because that was traitorous. But he needed her in the most primal of ways. He needed her moving under him, the heat of her body surrounding him; he needed the moment of oblivion that only sexual release can bring.
Before Jeannie had tamed him, he'd never lacked for women. He had been discriminating, choosing the ones he could leave with a hug and a fond farewell. In the intervening years he'd forgotten much of what he'd learned from those young, careless days. But he did remember one thing. Sex didn't always have to be the mind shattering union of souls that it had been in his marriage. Sex could be comforting, if both people were looking for the same thing.
And he and Alexis shared that much.
She was a woman alone with a child in a strange country. She needed comfort. He was a man alone in the world. He needed comfort, too.
She relaxed against him still more. He could feel her breasts against the back of his arms. She was slight and fragile, but her breasts were large enough to brush against him as he held her. He imagined them exposed to his gaze, to his touch, to the pressure of his lips. His arms tightened around her further, and she sighed.
Alexis felt lethargy stealing through her. She was standing on a beach strewn with the dark bodies of sea lions, yet she was acutely aware of each place Matthew touched, acutely aware of his clean scent and the warmth of his bare arms. She wanted to run her hands down those arms, feel their texture, know the strength of each separate muscle. She wanted to turn as he held her and press herself against his chest to feel her breasts flatten against him.
She felt his arms tighten around her, and she knew they were both held prisoner by something that would soon be far beyond their abilities to control. She closed her eyes. Hadn't each of them been punished enough?
"Mommy!"
For a moment Alexis couldn't locate her daughter. She turned her head, but there was no bright spot of orange nearby.
"Mommy!" With a sudden stab of panic, Alexis realized that Jody's cry was echoing from a spot halfway down the beach.
Matthew felt the sudden jerk as Alexis's body returned to tense awareness. She spun out of his arms, already running in the direction of her daughter's voice.
He was beside her in an instant, passing her in two. He knew she saw the danger at the same moment he did, because he heard the sharp catch in her breathing as he saw a massive bull sea lion bearing down on the little girl.
He had told the child to be careful of cows with their pups. He hadn't told her that the bulls resented anyone coming between them and their harem in the spring. Somehow, inadvertently, she had gotten too close at a time when the bull was most sensitive. As Matthew ran he saw the bull lumbering toward her, cutting off her escape and forcing her toward the water's edge. Rocks along the shoreline prevented her from retreating.
Matthew had left Alexis far behind him in the sand, but the sea lion was closing in on the child and the rocks as he ran. He saw that he wasn't going to reach her in time. "Get up on the rocks!" he shouted.
The little girl was crying, edging along the rock shelf that grazed her legs. If she heard him, she didn't understand.
Matthew didn't take time to think that he had never used her name, that if he used it now she would be real to him forever after. He just shouted with all the breath left inside him.
"Jody, get up on those rocks. Turn around and do it now!"
Her name, or the authority in his voice, made the difference. Jody turned and scrambled on to the rocks, climbing higher as Matthew ran toward her. He snatched a long piece of driftwood from the shore's edge just as he neared the bull. Brandishing it like a spear, he ran straight for the animal.
The bull, who was no longer separated from his harem by the pesky child, looked at Matthew as if to say that violence was uncalled for, then turned and lumbered back to his cows.
The moment the bull was no longer a threat, Jody launched herself into Matthew's arms from the rock above. Matthew caught her and spun her around. But he didn't put her down when he had finished. He held her tight, her head pressed to his shoulder.
"I didn't do anything," Jody said in a scared voice. "I didn't. I wasn't close—well, maybe just a little close. But they were sleeping. And I didn't see the big one because he was behind the rocks."
"Jody!" Alexis caught up to them and held out her arms. Matthew gave the child an extra squeeze.
"You went too far!" Alexis said, reaching for Jody to hold her in a death grip. "You weren't supposed to go so far alone."
"I didn't mean to. I didn't know. I—"
"Matthew told you to be careful!"
Matthew touched Alexis's shoulder, his fingers lingering as he spoke. "She's learned her lesson. Haven't you, Jody?"
Jody looked at him as if something had changed, although it was clear she wasn't sure what. "You saved me."
"You saved yourself. You did exactly what you needed to do."
The man and the child looked at each other with new understanding. Jody smiled at him. Then she reached out, as if she were asking to be held once more. "Thank you."
Matthew saw the extended arms and the plea that was no less poignant because her face was so like her mother's. He had the sudden knowledge that if he reached out for her, nothing would ever be the same again.
His eyes flicked to Alexis's, and he knew that whether he reached out for Jody or not, nothing would be the same again anyway.
"Come here." He took the little girl in his arms, relieving Alexis of the burden of her weight. "Are you too old for a horsey ride?"
Jody giggled. Matthew set her down, then stooped so that she could climb up on his back. Alexis stood quietly beside them and watched.
Chapter 6
JUST PUT HER on the bed. I'll make her comfortable." Alexis led Matthew into Jody's bedroom and over to the small narrow cot that was her bed. They had left the States with little more than the clothes on their backs, and building a household from the floor up took time. Luckily the farmhouse, though furnished with old, worn pieces, was well enough equipped that they weren't uncomfortable. There had even been a real find or two in the spacious attic, including the kitchen table, which Alexis planned to refinish someday.
Someday they would have more of their own things around them. When it was safe to make a shipment, one would be made. Meanwhile, they collected new things as they saw them. The long trip here had been wonderful for that.
Matthew set the sleeping child on her bed, then stepped back to let Alexis sit. She began to untie Jody's sneakers. Jody slept on, oblivious to the world around her.
"Was it such a tiring day?" he asked curiously.
They had stayed at Seal Bay until the sun threatened to leave before they did. Then they had driven home, stopping near the turnoff to another picturesque bay for sandwi
ches and ice cream. Jody had fallen asleep immediately after, lulled perhaps by the continual swaying of the wagon as Matthew expertly avoided the worst spots in the road.
"Wonderful days make kids tired." Alexis looked up to smile at him. After Jody's encounter with the sea lion, the afternoon had been noticeably free of tension. They had eaten and explored and laughed together. Jody had conversed with the sea lions—from a safe distance—and later Matthew had guided them along cliff tops, where wind and salt scoured heath hid a multitude of small animals who scurried furtively as they approached.
"Do you need help?"
Alexis shook her head. "I'm just going to slip off her overalls and cover her up. Her shirt's warm enough if she loses some of her blankets tonight."
"Would you like me to make a fire for you before I go? It's going to turn cold."
She was so unaccustomed to anyone's help that for a moment she thought of refusing. Then she smiled again. "I'd like that. Yes."
The potbelly stove in the living room was already giving off heat by the time Alexis joined Matthew. He was squatting beside it, adding wood when she entered the room, and she stopped in the doorway to admire the expert way he coaxed the stove to perform.
"My fires take hours to warm the house," she confessed. "I should be practicing, not depending on you."
"You don't have much wood left."
"I'll be sure to order more before the fall."
"Then you'll be here that long?"
"I told you, I plan to stay."
He stood, brushing his palms against his shorts. "You've never said for how long. It doesn't look as if you plan to settle in for any length of time."
She gestured to the nearly empty room. "Because the house is so bare? It takes time to settle in. Months. Years before a house really becomes a home."
"You brought almost nothing with you."
"It was a long trip."
He had reached the point where curiosity had overtaken caution. Caution was useless now, anyway. He had thrown it to the wind that afternoon when he'd held her in his arms.
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