Jed's Sweet Revenge (11 page)

Thena took a ragged breath. “You can be very eloquent when you want to be,” she murmured. “Would you like a shave? Then I’ll turn on the attic fan and you can go upstairs and take a nap.”

“Are you tryin’ to get me outta your hair?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because of what I just told you about myself?”

“No. My parents taught me to judge a person by his actions and his nature, not by his past. I meant it last week when I said that I see the beauty in you. But … you want something from me that …”

“I wasn’t hintin’ that I wanted to spoon with you again,” he teased softly. She cut her eyes at him in rebuke. “Well, okay, maybe I do want to spoon a little—”

“Please don’t talk like that.” Her voice broke on the last word. “Are you trying to ruin our friendship?”

“Are we friends, Thena?”

She nodded and sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t help myself. We’re friends. At least temporarily.”

“Could it ever be more?”

She shook her head. “Not with you. Not with anyone.” A tear slid down her cheek and she hurriedly brushed it away. She looked at him in despair. “Can we please just not discuss this subject again? Please?”

His mouth opened in protest, but he caught himself in time to hold his bewilderment and frustration inside. She must have loved that professor like life itself, Jed thought dully. And she’s not over him yet. Patience, he told himself. She can be gentled. She can be won.

“You got it, wildflower.” His voice was sincere. “I know you’ve been hurt. I can pretend to be a gentleman, when I have to. And I will. Relax.”

“You are very much a gentleman, in all the ways that are important. You don’t have to pretend.”

“So I’m Jedidiah, not Jed, and a gentleman, not a rich saddle tramp. You’re good for my ego, gal.”

“You’re good for me … because you’re a challenge.
I have so much to teach you about this island. You have to give me a chance.”

The look in her eyes beseeched him in a way that made him feel he held the key to her happiness. A sense of protectiveness swelled up inside him, and at that moment he would have cheerfully fought dragons with his bare hands on her behalf. He figured this magical place probably had a few, puffing around somewhere.

“All right, gal. You keep feedin’ me, and I swear I’ll listen with an open mind.”

Her face brightened. “I’ll raise your consciousness yet.”

He smiled at her wickedly. “Give it a chance to get over bein’ sunburned, first.”

He slept all day. At dusk, Thena gave into an odd, restless impulse to see him and hear his voice. She tiptoed upstairs, found the door to the bedroom open, and peeked in furtively. It was too hot to keep the door closed. She expected that. She didn’t expect to see his shorts and white briefs lying on the old plank floor or his lying naked on his stomach with his head burrowed in a pillow.

Stunned, Thena studied his relaxed body with an awe she usually reserved for magnificent sunrises. The sheets curled around him like a milky river, their pale softness a startling contrast to his hard angles and sun-baked skin. Of course he’s not sunburned everywhere, she thought blankly, staring at the smooth white skin on his rump.

Thena tilted her head to one side and looked at it with an artist’s eye. How lovely and symmetrical it was. Her academic nature noted the well-toned appearance of the muscles. Yes, the gluteals—maximus, medius, and minimus—were in excellent shape. Quite excellent. Quite appealing and vulnerable. Quite touchable, really, and her fingertips were very interested in proving it.

Aghast, Thena tiptoed away, went downstairs, and curled up in an overstuffed chair with comfortably sprung springs. The summer twilight and the island’s night sounds slipped inside and surrounded
her. Thena sat in the dark a long time, trying to decide at what point her chemical reactions to Jed Powers had gotten totally out of control.

Her father had been taller than Jed, but not much bigger around. Thena went into a back storage room, where she unpacked a pair of blousey white work pants and rolled up the legs. She also aired out one of the faded Hawaiian shirts her father had adored. Tom Selleck attire it was not, but at least Jed would be adequately covered. Getting him covered was a crucial project to her.

At ten o’clock he ambled downstairs, the denim cutoffs slung low on his hips. Seated in her chair again, a floor lamp creating a pool of light around her, Thena looked up from her latest sojourn through the world of
Oliver Twist
. The dogs, stretched out on the floor near her feet, watched Jed with growing acceptance. They only growled once.

“Bathroom,” he mumbled sleepily.

Her face taut with the effort of not staring at the descending V of hair on his stomach, she pointed down the hall. He smiled at her and started toward it.

“There are fresh clothes in there for you.”

“Thanks. What’re you readin’?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Charles Dickens. My favorite.”

“I remember him. Wrote about England. Hmmmm,
David Copperfield
. Only book I didn’t fall asleep over in class.” Thena stared at him in pleased surprise, her lips parted.

“I’m reading
Oliver Twist.”

“Has it got a few laughs in it?”

“A few.”

“Will you read some of it to me after I take a shower?”

“Well … certainly. I’ll fix something to eat, if you’re hungry. How do you like hot dogs?”

“By the dozen.”

Hot dogs and Dickens. They spent several hours indulging in both. The warm, fragrant night air sifted through the screen door and the open windows. The tame hawk Jed had seen the first day landed outside the door and delicately ate morsels of canned tuna that Thena left in a bowl for it. Thena sat in the easy chair and Jed lay down on the couch nearby. The room was lit only by the floor lamp.

Jed listened to
Oliver Twist
with sincere interest, his eyes dark with intrigue. Thena felt them on her, never moving, as still as the shadows that pooled in the corners of the house. When an ancient grandfather clock next to the television chimed twice, Thena put her book down and looked at it in surprise. She’d been reading to Jed for several hours.

“Not a bad story. Makes me wish I’d read more good books when I had the chance. I’d like to hear the rest, and you got a pretty voice. How about tomorrow?”

“Are you serious?”

“Damn pretty. You sort of sing when you talk—”

“I meant, are you serious about Dickens? About
Oliver Twist
?” Flustered and secretly pleased, Thena nearly dropped her book. And not because he was interested in literature.

“Yep. I feel content to be still and listen.” He blinked languidly. “You know what? If I hadn’t nearly turned into a french fry on your beach, I would have enjoyed livin’ there. I can see why people like the ocean. It makes you feel peaceful.”

“See? You’re learning to appreciate Sancia already. Would you like to go back to SalHaven tomorrow?”

“Nope. I’ll go anywhere but there.”

“All right. Then you can follow me around.”

“Now that’s a right interestin’ idea—”

“And count crabs.”

He clasped his chest dramatically. “She shot him down bad, right through the heart.”

Thena chuckled. “I count sand crabs regularly.
Over the years, my records might reveal dramatic changes in their population. That could be important to everything they eat, and everything that eats them.”

“I’ll eat them unless you get me another hot dog.” They shared a companionable laugh.

Companionable. That was the perfect way to describe the relationship that developed between them during the next few days, Thena decided. He seemed to relish her talkative, animated presence, and in return, she enjoyed his unhurried attitude. He didn’t indulge in moods. He was solid and quiet, calm to the point that a stranger might have thought him completely indifferent to everything around him.

But she was no stranger—sometimes a poignant, puzzling sense of closeness made her feel that he and she had never really been strangers—and Thena knew that under his facade lay an intensely observant nature. Because she was often the recipient of both the disturbing intensity and the observation, she never mistook his nonchalance for indifference.

Thena talked carefully about SalHaven, mentioning innocuous facts that left his grandfather Gregg out of the conversation. The “Sal” came from his grandmother Sarah’s nickname, Sally, she told Jed. The old-timers on the mainland had never forgotten her kindness, her lack of snobbishness, and her charity work. A tall, athletic woman with auburn hair, she rode her beloved Arabians with incomparable grace.

“I’ve seen pictures of her,” Thena said. “You have her eyes.”

“Is that good?” Jed asked in his slow, teasing way. “What do my eyes look like?” Everything he did and said seemed to have a sensuous undertone, or else her chemicals had infiltrated her imagination and were making it work overtime, Thena decided.

“You have very intelligent eyes.” She paused slyly. “But then, so does a wild goat.”

They were sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch, having just returned from counting loggerhead turtle nests on the beach. Jed’s wet, dirty sandals lay near his feet. In one easy motion, he scooped a sandal up and lobbed it into her lap. It spattered grit and water on her white shorts. In the lighthearted battle that followed, she chased him into the front yard, her own dirty sandal raised to throw.

He stubbed his big toe on a cactus plant and, true to his nature, didn’t make a sound. Instead, he grinned nonchalantly and limped with haste to the safety of her big water cistern. He climbed the ten-rung ladder that ran up one side and hoisted himself over the barrel top. Thena heard a splash as he disappeared from sight. This was childish and absurd, but she couldn’t remember when she’d had a better time.

“You’re not safe from me up there!” she yelled.

“Good! Come and get me, gal!”

“All right!”

She ran to the ladder and climbed hurriedly while he splashed over to the far side of the cistern, whooping with great feigned fear. When she reached the top and swung herself over the side, he yelled, “We’ve been boarded by lady Klingons, Captain! Run for your life, Spock! I’ll rassle the little thing to a standstill and take her to the brig!”

“What’s a Klingon?” she asked breathlessly, just as he dove underwater and grabbed her ankles. Thena gasped as he pulled her under with him. They wrestled playfully for a minute and popped above the surface together, laughing. She was in his arms.

“What’s a Klingon?” he echoed in amazement, gazing down at her. Then his eyes turned comically shifty. “It’s a love-starved critter that can’t keep its paws off cowboys.” Then he kissed her full on the mouth and let her go. He went back to his side of the cistern.

“Oh … oh! Sorry I asked!” Perturbed and tingling, she splashed over to her side and clung to it, desperately. Thena turned her back to him and rested her head on her arms, frowning. “I’m not a Klingon,” she told him in a firm tone.

“Well, let’s just test you out and see if you’re tellin’ the truth.”

She heard soft sloshing sounds, and the water in the cistern undulated as if he were moving about. Thena refused to look at him, determined not to encourage his antics. Seconds later, something soggy smacked the cistern wall near her. She jumped and looked quickly to her right. Her father’s shirt and pants—Jed’s shirt and pants—hung over the old wood siding.

“Turn around, lady Klingon,” Jed ordered in a low, gruff voice. “Or are you chicken?”

Thena took a deep breath and pivoted about, then plastered her back to the cistern wall. Jed waited on the other side, his magnificent torso bare, the water lapping sensuously at a level that teased her by revealing his navel, then hiding it, then showing it again, then hiding it.…

Thena quickly pulled her gaze upward. He smiled coyly, but his eyes glinted with something serious and provocative. “Watch now, Klingon,” he drawled in a throaty voice. “See if you can resist.”

He began to cup water over his naked chest, spreading his hands wide and making long, slow strokes from his collarbone all the way to that disturbing navel. Up, down, up, down, slower and slower. She was hypnotized. His thick brown chest hair followed the patterns he caressed on his pectoral muscles, and she was close enough to see the goose bumps on his nipples. He presented a glistening picture of male temptation. His arms and shoulders were corded with muscle, and his waist tapered cleanly into the water. She could imagine exactly what the submerged parts of him looked like.

“Come on over here, Klingon.” His voice was just a whisper. “You come over here and do this for me. And then I’ll do it for you. I know how you Klingons love to have your chests stroked.”

Thena fought for a semblance of calm. Her skin felt so hot that she wondered why the water didn’t steam around her. There wasn’t enough water in the world to fight the sweet fire low in her body.

“I’ve still got my drawers on,” Jed purred. “I’m decent.”

“Jedidiah, you’re not very subtle at seduction.”

“Maybe you want to be seduced and I don’t have to be subtle.” He smiled as if he were teasing, but his intense, compelling eyes were ordering her to strip naked so that his hands could roam over her body.