Patricia Potter (17 page)

He didn’t say anything more as the car followed a path lined with oaks and palms toward the other side of the island and a deserted beach there.

A silence stretched out between them, long and painful, although the air was pregnant with questions Meara feared to ask, and painful warnings Michael couldn’t give. Tension radiated between them, tension mixed with desire that was increasingly potent with each silent second until Meara could bear it no longer. She sought the most innocuous statement possible, just to break the quiet duel between them.

“Peter asked me whether you would give him another skeet shooting lesson.”

“What did you tell him?” Michael’s voice was slow, deliberate, yet there was a tense edge to it.

“That this is your vacation, that you needed rest.”

He stopped the car and looked at her without replying, his gaze consuming her. Michael ignored her words as waves of silent heat radiated between them, just as pressure grows in the air preceding a violent storm until the very air is ripe for explosion.

This is crazy, he thought. This was the very thing he had sought to prevent. He had meant to say good-bye, to end this…infatuation in the kindest way possible. He should have known that being alone with her was not the way to accomplish it. He struggled to recapture some sanity, some discipline. He forced his hands to relax, his mouth to bend into what he knew must be a caricature of a smile.

Slowly, he tore his gaze from hers and glanced around. They were in an isolated place of the forest. Without the
put-put
of the cart, the air was infinitely still until a woodpecker broke the silence with a steady, rhythmic drilling. Just beyond a stand of trees, they could see the gray of the sea, pounding against an empty beach.

“Is this all right?” he said in a forced voice, not looking at her, barely hearing her soft, uncertain acquiescence. He took the blanket and basket in one hand and looked at his cane in distaste before picking it up. Otherwise, he knew, he would be tempted to put his arm around her. He swore quietly to himself as they walked down an overgrown path to the ocean where he spread out the blanket. He waited for her to sit, and then he folded himself into a sitting position, one knee raised to rest his arm. The basket was ignored as she watched him steadily, warily, as if she knew what was coming.

“I haven’t had any rest since I met you,” he said, finishing the thought that had started in the little red bug.

“I know,” she said. “Me either. I didn’t plan on you.”

“You said the other night you always plan everything.”

“Very carefully,” she admitted.

He put a finger to her chin and played with it a moment. “They’re good plans…a good future. A chance to make your own future.”

He saw her eyes cloud at his words, and he knew she didn’t want him to continue. He didn’t want to. Her cheeks were flushed, and her mouth trembled at his touch. Those wonderful green eyes were caressing him in a way far more sensual than any human touch he’d ever felt.

His hand traced a path along the line of her chin and then her cheek to where it caught a curl between his fingers. “I brought you here to apologize for the other night.” There was a catch in his throat.

“But you’ve done nothing—”

His voice was suddenly harsh when he spoke. “I didn’t want you to think, to believe—”

“Don’t,” Meara replied softly, afraid of what he was trying to say. “I’m not asking for anything,” she said, but her voice trembled despite her best intentions. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t.

“It’s wrong, Meara. The timing’s wrong. Everything’s wrong. The island makes it seem right, as if we were the only two people in the world. But it’s not right. Not for you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her chin went up stubbornly. “I know you’re…going back, and I realize you’re worried about that. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“It’s more than that, Meara. I’m not the kind of man who settles down. I’m a wanderer. I’ll always be a wanderer.” He saw the hurt well in her eyes, and he would have given his life right then if he could change things. But giving his life wouldn’t change anything at the moment. He realized with sudden clarity that he
had
been a wanderer, but that wandering no longer held any attraction for him. Meara did. Only Meara. But it was too late. It had always been too late.

“I know,” Meara said in a strained voice, but somehow her fingers had crawled into his, and the conversation wasn’t going at all as he had anticipated. He’d thought to anger her, but there was so much understanding in her eyes, so much awareness and yet love, that he was silenced.

“I’ve never felt this way before,” she continued slowly, hesitantly. “I never thought I could. It’s a gift, a wonderful gift that I’ll always remember.” Her fingers played nervously with the golden hairs on the back of his hand and moved, as if she didn’t want to relinquish touch, up and down his arm made bare by rolled up sleeves. The slightest movement of her fingers created sparks that traveled rapidly, igniting a hot blaze deep inside him. He felt his loins tighten, responding to her every exploratory touch.

He reached out and drew her against him, his body disobeying his mind. He had already bitten from the forbidden fruit and now it was irresistible. Irresistible and within reach. That was the terrible part. He ached from wanting her, ached to touch her, to fullfil the promise hinted at the other night. He had never known moments like those before, the blazing passion that roared between them. How could he need someone so badly? He who had never needed anyone?

If only he didn’t care so damnably much!

He forced his hands still and spoke in slow, measured tones. It was a speech he had rehearsed. He just hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to deliver. “You have the whole world in front of you. Don’t let me get in its way.” He stopped, then continued determinedly, but raggedly. “But know I care about you, that I will always care about you. No matter what happens, never doubt that.”

Meara looked around to face him, her expression puzzled at the intensity of his words.

“Sometimes,” he said slowly, “there are obligations. Obligations that must be met. No matter how distasteful they may be.”

Meara’s puzzlement was obvious, and he knew he was speaking in riddles, dangerous riddles. He struggled to lighten his tone. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.” He realized she wanted to say something, to ask questions, but she didn’t. It was apparent in her face, and he thought even more of her for stifling the curiosity he knew he had aroused.

She leaned over the picnic basket, taking out the items wordlessly. Yet there were questions in the air, as loud as if they had been screamed outright.

They ate silently, listening to the gulls above them as the birds circled greedily, convinced of ultimate edible reward. The food was probably really quite good, Michael thought, but now it tasted like chalk and he had to force himself to eat it. Meara’s enthusiasm was no greater, he noticed.

And, damn, the wine was flat. Or seemed that way. Everything was bitter. Bitter and flavorless.

He looked up and saw the blimp browsing slowly over the sea, watching, searching.

Meara saw his glance. “I hope they find something. We found a part of a picture frame yesterday. It must have come from a ship.”

“I know.”

“I hate them,” she said, her voice even more fierce as she thought of him returning to sea, thought of the danger to him.

“All of them?”

“Yes,” she said fiercely.

“I don’t expect they’re all bad,” he said carefully. “Many don’t have a choice. Germany’s their country.”

“They sink unarmed ships and kill sailors in the water. They’ve invaded and killed throughout Europe. Loyalty to evil. What kind of loyalty or allegiance is that?”

Michael closed his eyes briefly, blocking out the sun, trying to block out the words. When he opened them again, he was surprised that the sun was still there because he only felt a cold, hard darkness.

“You’re a journalist, Meara. There’re always two sides.”

“Not this time,” she said stubbornly.

“Perhaps not.” He surrendered, knowing he had already said far too much.

“Are you anxious to go back?” Her voice was tight.

He raised an eyebrow. “Part of me, maybe. It’s what I do best, sailing. The sea. Another part would like to stay here, like this, forever. How about you? I would think you’d be anxious to start your job.”

“Part of me.” She mocked gently. “And part of me would like to stay here, like this, forever.” Her voice grew wistful. “I’ll always think of you here.”

He didn’t want her to think of him at all. He recalled the hatred in her voice when she spoke of Germans. Any hope of understanding, of forgiveness, had been quashed at that moment. Not that there ever was any. The hatred was natural enough, given the war between their two countries, but it was also very, very painful. Meara, with her joyous laughter and open heart, did not come easily to hate. But when she did, given that passionate nature of hers, it would be strong and unrelenting.

He poured them both a fresh glass of wine, truly needing it for the first time in his life. Every part of him ached to take her in his arms, every part but the logical, working region of his mind which even now could envision the disgust and fury soon to be in her eyes.

As if she sensed the battle within him, she was silent. The easy companionship between them was gone, but the electricity was still there, raw and vital and pulling, sizzling like an exposed, snaking wire ready to burst into flames.

His hand tightened around the glass and it broke in his hand, fine crystal falling in his lap and glimmering in the sand, light gold wine darkening the sun-kissed grains.

With a short apology, he spun upward, ignoring the sudden pain in his leg and Meara’s surprised exclamation. He pushed his hands in his trouser pockets and stalked across the sand, alone and angry and confused in a way he’d never been before.

Meara watched him go, his shoulders squared and his legs stiff, the limp less noticeable, she guessed, through sheer will. She wanted to go after him, but something told her not to.

The tension in him had been palpable since he had picked her up. She could taste it, feel it. It had frightened her, for it took him away to a place she didn’t understand.

There was a quality about him, never more so than now, that gave her pause. She had noticed it before, but he appeared so easy, so adaptable with people that she hadn’t been able to identify that allusive impression until now.

But now she saw an aloneness about him. Not loneliness, not like that she had seen in Sanders Evans. Loneliness came from needing people and not having them. But this was something different altogether.

Meara remembered the moments of reserve, the times he had escaped into some inner place. She had watched him with people, winning them easily to him, yet there was always something distant, a part of him standing back and watching.

Her fingers carefully gathered the pieces of crystal which had exploded into the sand and blanket, her mind grateful that there was something to do. A piece of glass cut her finger and she sucked at it, trying to stem the blood as well as the flood of emotions. Love. Grief. Confusion. Need.

Michael had been trying to tell her something, but she hadn’t understood what. Only that it was some kind of farewell, and the thought pierced her like a dagger as she looked at his form moving along the beach, his blond hair ruffling in the cool, fragrant, giving breeze which always blew at this time of the year. He looked so solitary, but he also looked as if solitude fit him, was a part of him.

She loved him. How very, very much she loved him. And she knew little more about him than his name and that he was a Canadian. She didn’t know how to contact him, or where he was from, or whether he had friends or family. When he left, he would be gone completely. Except for memories of a halcyon time when love came and the sun shone with uncommon brightness, and the night succored with gentle graciousness.

Meara had always thought love was something that came slowly, that you planted and nurtured and harvested. She had never expected it to bloom full blossomed without reason or sense, nor that it could fill the mind and soul and senses so completely and to the absolute exclusion of all else. Consumed. That was one word, but even that didn’t describe the strength of a pounding, swelling heart, or the vividness with which it made every facet of life. The sun was brighter, the sea bluer, the air fresher, the songs sweeter. Her skin tingled with the blaze of the spring sun, or was it the remembrance of his touch. The world was somehow newer and brighter, and every second was precious. And the internal ache more painful than any she’d felt before.

Michael had disappeared around the curve of the beach, and she wondered whether she should go after him. As he had walked away, everything about him said stay away. Yet she needed him with a fierceness that made no more sense than anything else. She felt he needed her too, despite his veiled warnings of minutes earlier.

She carefully wrapped the broken glass in a cloth napkin and placed it in the picnic hamper. She stood stiffly, her legs cramped from the stillness with which she had sat, and, wisely or unwisely, she followed the footsteps in the sand.

She found him sitting down, almost completely out of sight, near a sand dune. He was staring out at the sea, his form motionless, like a statue. He didn’t turn when she approached, but she knew from the sudden stiffening of his body that he knew she was there. Meara sank down next to him, her hand touching his arm slightly. She heard a sigh, like the rustle of wind against the sea oats growing in profusion along the dunes, and his arms went around her and pulled her close to him.