A Woman's Heart (6 page)

"Not particularly," she replied, "though some people manage it." Her parents had. Capt'n and Ruby, too.

But it wasn't for her.

"Do you believe in it?" she asked.

Ignoring her question, he turned his attention to the framed photographs papering one wall.

Jann's shoulders tensed. She'd won an award for the first picture, a photo of a homeless woman squinting up into the afternoon sun. But next to it were photos of Alex. Pictures she'd prefer this man not see. She'd captured her baby's innocence in all his moods, whether crying or smiling or staring solemnly around with his old man's eyes. When Peter reached them, she ceased to breathe.

He slowly reached for the photo in the middle, the one of Claire, her face glistening with perspiration and joy as she held out her arms for Alex the very first time.

"Who took this?" Peter demanded softly. He took hold of the frame with knuckle-whitened fingers and lifted the photo from its hook.

"I did," Jann said, the sheer unfairness of Claire's death, as always, overwhelming her.

"All of them?" His sharp gaze swept the walls.

"Yes."

"Who taught you to take pictures like these?" He looked at her then in a clear, glittering glance, before shifting his attention to a photo of an aged Hawaiian woman gazing off into the distance, her face creased into a multitude of wrinkles. Her husband stood behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder in a timeless gesture of solidarity and love.

"Nobody, exactly," Jann said, but she remembered her father at his easel, his brush strokes capturing the precise curve of her mother's smile. She had inherited her father's eye, a gift that had come as swiftly and as unexpectedly as her parents had gone.

She turned back to the refrigerator and reached again for the lemonade. Her hand trembled and she spilled a few drops on her tiny countertop.

"It's just something I do," she explained quietly. Something she couldn't stop doing if she tried. "It’s my job." But it was more than a job. It was her sanity.

"They're good."

With reluctance, she met his eyes, trying again not to care that he liked them. If she worried what people thought, her gift would disappear, and with it, she believed, the stark honesty of her photos.

Peter turned his attention back to the picture in his hand.

"Keep it," Jann offered, the words escaping her lips before she realized they were there.

"I'll buy it," he said in return.

"It's not for sale."

His jaw clenched. With deliberate care he placed the photo back on its nail then slowly turned to face her.

"Where's my nephew?" he demanded.

"Why? So you can buy him, too?"

"I want to see him."

"Once you've seen him, I want you to leave."

She pushed past Peter, past his solid, statue-like immovability, and moved swiftly down the passage toward Alex's cabin. Before she opened his door, she pulled in a deep, cleansing breath, not wanting even a hint of the tension swirling through her boat to enter her baby's room. Since Clare had died, she'd done everything she could to wrap Alex in love, and she was not about to let Peter Strickland's possessiveness seep in and destroy that love.

Her baby slept peacefully, his face rosy in the glow of the sun sparkling through the glass hatch. His black hair, flattened by sleep, clung softly to the edges of his face.

Fear slivered through Jann. If Claire's brother gained custody of Alex, how would she survive?

"He looks like Claire."

She hadn't heard Peter approaching. Incredibly, she hadn't sensed him, but now she knew he was near, her nerve-endings jangled loudly enough to wake the dead.

He leaned over her shoulder, his breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. She could smell him again, a clean scent overlaid with the subtle bouquet of his aftershave. Turning, she faced him, placing her body solidly between his and that of her child.

Desire raged through her, sharp and unexpected, loosening her limbs and softening her lips.

Peter seemed to feel it also, for his eyes widened with shock, and gazed into hers so intently her breathing stopped. His eyes changed color from sea-green to emerald and for one agonizing instant, she was sure he meant to kiss her, was sure, also, that the idea appalled him as much as it did her.

With a swift intake of breath, she scooped up her sleeping son and thrust him towards his uncle. Alex woke, his face wrinkling with outrage, and his mouth opened wide in a high-pitched baby cry.

For a single second only, Jann felt safe, an obstacle now between her and this man who could destroy her life. Then her lips parted in a soundless protest, for Alex, beloved Alex, was now in the hands of the man who could take him from her.

With a gentle motion, Peter turned the small bundle to face him, his gaze softening as he stared down at his sister's child. A man like him, so large and strong, should appear awkward holding a baby, but this man didn't. He held Alexander as though he had been doing it forever.

A lump formed in Jann's throat, making it impossible to swallow.

Peter stroked Alex's cheek and the baby's howls died to nothing. Solemnly reaching into his jacket pocket, Peter pulled out a tattered, one-ear-chewed-off teddy bear.

"This is for you, Alexander Strickland," he said, speaking to his nephew so softly Jann had to strain to hear. "It was your mother's."

Chapter 4

Jann tugged her hair back from her face and looped it into a knot on the top of her head before stepping over the railing on the stern of her boat. Standing on the lip of the deck, she reached back and up as far as she could. No good. She was tall, but not tall enough.

Cautiously, she lifted first one leg then the other back over the railing until she was sitting on it, the pole of the wind generator between her legs. By stretching hard, the ends of her fingers brushed the release button of the telescoping pole. But she couldn't push it in. The sea air and ocean spray had corroded and stiffened the metal.

With a sigh, she slumped forward against the pole. Alex grinned toothlessly up at her from the high chair she had jammed against the back corner of the cockpit, and clapped his hands together, as though cheering her efforts. She smiled back at him, then, the smile turning to a frown, returned her gaze to the wind generator high above her head.

She needed it in working order for her trip to Maui next week, but couldn't seem to fix it, was too tired to make the extra effort. And that was Peter Strickland's fault. She'd lain awake half the night, unable to forget how out of control she'd felt when they'd almost kissed.

"Damn." Capt'n's growl carried easily from his boat to Jann's.

"What are you doing out there?" Ruby demanded irritably, her voice still filled with sleep. "John, you're not working on that rudder again! You promised to hire someone to help you."

Jann chuckled. The Capt'n might be a mechanical genius but even working a lifetime as ship's engineer on a large freighter in the South Pacific hadn't prepared him for the idiosyncrasies of the run-down old sloop he and Ruby had bought when they retired last year.

An indistinct murmur grabbed Jann's attention. Peering toward the
Windward
through a forest of intervening masts, she saw no one. But she didn't need to see Peter Strickland to recognize his voice.

"Need some help?"

Capt'n wouldn't want any help from Peter.

"Much obliged," Capt'n answered gruffly.

Frowning, Jann clutched the pole more tightly and leaned sideways until she could make out the
Windward's
bow. It rocked up as Peter stepped onto the stern.

"Can't seem to make the darn thing work right," Capt'n complained querulously.

"Maybe, if you...."

The rest was lost in a series of thumps and bangs.

"By God, that did the trick!" Capt'n exclaimed, when the noise suddenly died. "How about a cup of coffee?"

Now he was serving Peter coffee!

The boat rocked again as the two men moved forward.

"What an unusual carving," Peter said, his voice now sharp and clear. "Not from around here, is it?"

She could imagine Claire's brother staring with narrowed green eyes at the painted wooden mask Capt'n kept nailed to the front of the cabin. Her frown deepened.

"Picked it up in New Guinea on my last voyage there," Capt'n explained.

"I have one just like it," Peter said thoughtfully. "Got it from a fellow in Port Moresby—Jeff Andrews, his name was."

"Jeff! You know Jeff? Ruby, did you hear that? He knows Jeff."

Now they had mutual friends. Jann's stomach lurched. She rested her cheek against the pole and clung there, staring at the mast on the boat opposite, hoping a focal point would rid her body of the dizziness overtaking her.

"...no, I won't have more coffee, thanks. I need to talk to Jann."

Short of casting off and putting out to sea there was no avenue of escape, Jann decided. Damn the man. She had work to do. Pressing her lips together, she stretched again toward the stubborn button, concentrating on that and ignoring the sound of Peter's feet padding closer along the pier.

"Good morning," he said.

"What do you want?" she muttered, uncomfortably aware of her too-short cut-offs and skimpy, clinging tee shirt.

"You know why I'm here."

Reluctantly, she lowered her arms. Today Peter was dressed for the heat. Two strongly-muscled, tanned legs stretched up then disappeared beneath a pair of khaki shorts. A rust-colored tee shirt lay snug across his broad chest and his green eyes were focused on her. She dragged the back of her hand across her brow, wiping away the moisture forming there.

"I told you before you left last night that you couldn't see Alex until this evening. I'll be on a shoot all day." She'd been looking forward all week to the shoot at Sunset Beach. Now she was probably too exhausted to do her work properly.

"I'm here to baby-sit," he said evenly, waggling his fingers at Alex.

Her baby chortled back at him and the finger of toast he was attempting to maneuver into his mouth slipped from between chubby fingers and landed on the deck. Alex's smile crumpled into an O-shaped wail.

"Ruby and Capt'n are baby-sitting," Jann said firmly.

"I'll help," Peter said then, stepping on board, he retrieved Alex's toast and handed it back to the baby.

"No! Your visits have to be supervised."

"John and Ruby will supervise."

"I have to supervise." Her fingers tightened around the pole.

"Then you don't leave me much choice."

"What do you mean?"

"Alexander and I will go with you."

"You can't!" From the hardening line of his jaw, Jann saw he not only could, but would. "It'll be too hard on Alex—that long bus ride, no place to nap—"

"I have a car," he reminded her implacably, "with a baby seat."

"I might not even go," she muttered.

"Why not?"

"I've got to fix this first." She gestured with a grimace toward the metal pole.

"What is it?"

"A wind generator."

"How do you expect to work on it from there?"

"The pole telescopes down. I just have to release this darned button."

"Let me have a look." He edged around Alex's high chair and stepped closer.

"I can do it."

"You're going to fall overboard the way you're sitting."

"I never have yet!"

"Are you going to move?" he demanded, suddenly closer than she wanted him, almost as close as they'd been last night.

"No," she snapped. He was the one who needed to move. She couldn't work with him this close. Tearing her gaze away from his ocean-colored eyes, she stretched upward toward the button.

"You'll never reach it," he insisted, and without waiting for her assent, grabbed hold of the pole to which she clung and swung his legs over the railing.