Jed's Sweet Revenge (6 page)

Which, of course, she had no intention of doing. Not just because of the conflict between them, but because she didn’t ever again intend to touch a man in a sexual way. Any man. With that thought came embarrassing memories of Nate’s rejections.

Jed felt her scrutiny as if her fingertips were tracing every inch of him. He grabbed a T-shirt from the backpack near his feet and hurriedly slipped it over his head. She could burn a man up with those eyes, he thought. How many men had she turned to ashes before him?

“I’ll take your breakfast bribe,” he said gruffly. “It puts cowboy food to shame.”

“Good. Here’s another bribe.” She reached for something hidden on the other side of her and handed him a pair of scuffed leather sandals. “Wear these today and leave those hot boots behind.”

“These look like somethin’ an old hippy would own.”

“They belonged to my father, and he most certainly wasn’t an old hippy,” she retorted. “He was a member of the French Olympic equestrian team when he was young. And he was a well-respected marine biologist. My mother was a biologist too, by the way. So you’d better wear those sandals with pride.”

He made himself look very chastised. “Yes, ma’am.” His firm mouth crooked up at one corner. “I just thought maybe they belonged to your last boyfriend.”

She looked at him for a moment, and the shaming memories of Nate rose in her mind again. Oh, yes, she had no doubt that she’d best ignore her sexual feelings. Nate had said many times that she was an intellectual being not suited for intimacy. Her fumbling, unsuccessful attempts to change their platonic relationship over the years had done nothing but make him more certain they both should remain celibate, and finally she’d had to agree. She was a thinker, not a lover.

“Now that … friend,” she said slowly, “was an old hippy. But he wore tennis shoes, not sandals.”

Jed trained his eyes on his feet as he slid them into the strange-looking shoes, which were a little too big. He kept his voice and his expression poker-playing neutral. “What happened? Did you blast your old hippy boyfriend with the shotgun for some reason and chase him off?”

“He wasn’t just an old hippy. Before he came to the coast to live, he was a university literature professor. He was also a philosopher. Very brilliant. He died in the car wreck, with my parents.”

Jed raised apologetic eyes. She gazed back at him without rebuke, but after a minute he murmured, “Sometimes I can put both of my big feet into my big mouth. Forgive me?”

Thena nodded, and her eyes filled with puzzlement. He sounded so kind and sad. It was getting
difficult not to be fascinated with him, even if he were here to cause her nothing but trouble.

Jed absorbed the flicker of affection in her expression and felt as if she’d kissed him. Goose bumps ran down his arms.

“Were you in that accident too?”

She nodded and pointed to her knee. His eyes roamed over the network of surgery scars, and he remembered her limp. “It happened on the mainland,” she explained calmly. “That’s one reason I love my island. No cars except an old truck I use to haul supplies. No drunk drivers.” She paused, and her gaze turned bitter. “Your island,” she corrected.

Guilt surged through him. “I wanted to tell you yesterday, but you never gave me a chance, gal. You can keep your house and the land around it. Looks like you don’t have enough money to move anywhere else.”

“Thank you,” she said coldly. “But I do have money. My parents left me a little and I paint watercolor seascapes that bring in enough for most expenses. Money’s not the issue.”

Jed frowned, his generous gesture shot down. She put several golden whiting filets on a china plate she’d brought with her and unwrapped a dozen biscuits bundled in aluminum foil at the edge of the fire. She put three biscuits on the plate and handed it to him. Jed accepted the hot dish without looking at it.

“You can’t expect me to keep this place,” he protested. “What does a cowboy need with an island?”

“You’ll change your mind.” She nodded with an attitude of profound wisdom. There were beautiful spirits here—Sarah Gregg’s chief among them—and good powers of love and serenity that would capture his heart no matter how much he resisted. “This place is special.” She pointed to his plate. “Eat, and I’ll try to explain why.”

Jed nodded. His thoughts completely distracted
from food, he took a bite of the wheat biscuit and noted dimly that it was buttery and hot and wonderful. His woman was beautiful and very smart—he could tell that by the educated insults she had flung at him in the past two days—and a fantastic cook. Oh, yes, and she read
National Geographic
.

His woman? Great gosh a’mighty. He mentally kicked himself back to the real world, where scruffy cowboys, even rich ones, didn’t win the affections of island princesses.

“Sancia Island,” she began, “is nearly thirty square miles in size.” Thena wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees and looked out over the ocean. “It has ten miles of virgin beaches. Loggerhead turtles come here to lay their eggs. The forest is full of wildlife.” She leaned forward and touched his arm, her eyes gleaming with almost maternal pride. “I have indigo snakes here.” When he didn’t register recognition—he couldn’t think about much else other than the pressure of her warm fingers on his skin—she looked dismayed. “Those aren’t found anywhere in the world except on these barrier islands, Jed.”

Jed
. He liked his name for the first time in his life, because she made it sound lyrical.

“All that’d still be here,” he told her blankly. “We’d work it out.” Something had softened his vengeful desire for bulldozers and condominiums, he realized in the back of his mind. Jed knew as soon as he got away from here and her that he’d set his revenge on course again.

She released his arm and shook her head a second time. “No development. None at all. That’s what you’re going to have to concede.” Thena thought for a moment, then looked at him with renewed enthusiasm. “Horses! That’s what you need to see! Did you know that your grandmother kept Arabians here?”

“No, I never cared to learn what she did. I’m a quarter horse man, myself. Arabians are a might too dainty for my tastes,” Jed muttered. Her enthusiasm wilted. “But pretty,” he quickly added.

“Magnificent,” she corrected. “Your grandfather left them after Sarah was killed. When he went back to New York, he took his little girl—your mother—with him and left the horses and everything else. My grandfather told me all about it. And we always wondered what became of the little girl.”

“She fell in love with a dirt-poor cowboy named Roarke Powers. She married him and they had a son. A few years later she died an ugly death.” Jed held up a warning hand to stop the flow of shock and curiosity into Thena’s eyes. “Tell me more about the horses.”

Shaken, Thena assessed the old resentment and deep pain that simmered underneath his hard exterior, and she felt sorry for him. This man hadn’t had an easy life.

“The Arabians,” she continued softly, “bred with our island horses. The island horses are the descendants of horses left here by the Spanish, back in the sixteen hundreds. They bred with the Arabians over the past fifty years, and the combination produced some wonderful foals. The herd numbers about twenty-five head. My parents sold horses to the mainlanders, occasionally.”

“Tell me about Cendrillon. I’ve never seen a horse that reddish palomino color in my life.”

Her eyes gleaming, Thena smiled. “She’s the best. I watched her being born and that makes her even more special to me. My father taught me how to train horses, and I put everything I learned into training her.”

“What’s that name of hers mean?”

“It’s old French for ‘Cinderella.’ She was stunted and ugly when she was born, and no one except me ever thought she’d grow out of it. She had hidden beauty.”

Thena continued talking about Cendrillon and the island’s other animals for several more minutes. When she finished, Jed seemed mesmerized, as if he
couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally he told her in a low voice, “You love everything here, I figure, and everything here loves you. I see why.”

Thena caught her breath. How could the man put so much sexiness into such ordinary words? This conversation could quickly get out of hand. She stood up and jabbed a finger at his half-eaten food. “Yes, well. Hurry and eat. I’ll call one of the other horses up for you. I’ve trained a few besides Cendrillon.”

“You just want to watch me get stomped by a half-wild stallion,” he joked. “But I made my livin’ for a lot of years ridin’ rodeo broncs, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why did you stop competing?”

“I got stomped by a half-wild stallion.” He smiled a little and pointed to his neck. “Cracked two vertebrae. That was when I decided to train quarter horses for a livin’. Right now I’m huntin’ for a ranch to buy. I’m gonna have the best quarter horse ranch in the country, one of these days.”

“That costs money. You must have inherited a lot.” She looked at him in a disapproving way that told him exactly what she thought of his sour attitude toward a family that had done him the favor of making him rich.

That was a mistake. His eyes immediately hardened. “It was my mother’s money, meant for her.” Jed squinted up, and his deep voice cut her attitude to shreds. “If she’d had it years ago, she’d still be alive. I didn’t ask for the money or this island, but I got it. And I don’t feel one damned bit bad about havin’ what should have been hers.”

Thena felt her face turning pink. “I … there’s probably a lot I don’t know about all that,” she said hurriedly. “And it’s none of my business. I didn’t mean to sound judgmental. All I care about is what you intend to do with my … the island.”

Jed’s anger dissolved under her earnest response. “I reckon I look real bad to you, and I’m sorry about
that. I don’t expect you to understand the way I feel about this old Gregg family place.”

Thena measured the stoic quality in his voice and the strong resolve in his face, but behind his hazel eyes she believed she saw genuine sadness on her account.

“You don’t look bad to me,” she told him. Why she wanted to soothe this man’s feelings, she didn’t know. Thena sighed in dismay at her jumbled emotions. “You just look like a mainlander who has to be educated.”

“So teach me, gal.”

For a breathless second they stared at each other in awkward anticipation—anticipation of what, Thena didn’t want to consider. She began backing away.

“Eat,” she urged. “I’ll go get the horses.”

Jed watched her until she disappeared into the forest. You don’t look bad to me, she’d said. He felt like a half-grown boy on the verge of giving a giddy whoop.

   Thena knew the minute Jed settled onto JackJaw’s buckskin back that she was in the presence of a man who understood and loved horses as well as she did. Already astride Cendrillon, she watched Jed expertly guide the stallion in loping circles on the beach. JackJaw wore nothing but a blue nylon halter and rope reins.

It was a powerful sight, lithe man and fluid horse moving so gracefully together on her beach, and Thena felt sweet tears rise under her dark eyelashes. Jed Powers couldn’t be heartless enough to sell her island—it was impossible. His expression was serene and his smile was honest. Honest and very attractive.

She became aware of molten warmth shimmering through her body. She suddenly seemed too hot, as if she had her own internal sun, and when a bird
trilled in the pines nearby, she felt an odd, poignant emotion race up her spine. She thought her island had strong powers. Well, perhaps this unusual man had powers too. His last name might be appropriate.

Jed slid the stallion to a halt beside Cendrillon, and Thena smiled weakly at him.

“You understand horses,” she said.

“Been ridin’ since I was in diapers.”

“You must have used a lot of baby powder.”

“Itched like a sonuvagun.”

He grinned at her and the sun inside her nearly went nova. Deep lines etched his eyes, his strong jaw softened, his whole handsome self became an example of Mother Nature’s intention that men should be irresistibly attractive for the sake of the species. Thena stared at him with unabashed rediscovery.

The horses stood so close that her bare knee met the taut rope of muscles in Jed’s thigh. JackJaw shifted, took a step forward, and her knee slid sensuously along the surface of Jed’s outer leg. Thena was shocked to find out that her knee contained an erogenous zone.

Apparently his leg was even more affected than her knee, because his grin faded and she sat, hypnotized, as he studied her intently.

“You make a fine horse trainer,” he said gruffly. “This stud moves like he’s been taught to step between eggs without breakin’ them.” Through a subtle movement of his leg, he eased JackJaw a few inches away from Cendrillon. Thena shivered with relief.

“Let’s go,” she said abruptly. “I have a lot to show you.”

“I’m ready and waitin’ to be shown.”

She gave him a long, assessing look, then nudged Cendrillon toward the dark mysteries of the forest.

   Jed half-expected elves to pop into sight at any minute, then huffed at his foolishness. He began to
feel the way he had as a boy, sitting next to Aunt Lucy in church. He felt like whispering.

They were in an area of huge, twisted live oaks covered in lichens and Spanish moss and ferns. Clumps of palmetto bushes rattled against the horses’ legs; magnolia trees hung paddle-leafed branches out to caress Jed’s arms and face. Thena rode beside him, and from time to time she made comments about the island.

“What’s that nice smell?” he asked.

“Bayberries and wild grapes. I always think of Tasoneela and Gabel Boisfeuillet when I smell it.”

“Who?” Jed inquired, as she had hoped he would. Now she’d catch his imagination for sure.

“Tasoneela and Gabel Boisfeuillet. They were lovers here back before the Revolutionary War. They died on the island.”

“From eatin’ bayberries and wild grapes?”

Thena clucked her tongue in dismay. “Don’t make fun. Do you want to hear the story? If you believe in spirits, you’ll like it.”

“I believe in spirits like Jack Daniel’s and Johnnie Walker.” Jed smiled ruefully at the piqued look she gave him. “But I like ghost stories.”