Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) Page 7

  Ever since she talked to him on the radiophone from Ketchikan, she’d been looking forward to being able to call him again once they arrived in Masset. Somehow she had to find the will to break even that small contact. She couldn’t deny that it made sense to have someone following their progress, someone who could press the panic button if they disappeared, but from now on it would have to be someone else. She had to get Jake right out of her life before she could succeed in forgetting him.

  She was in love with him, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been in love, so she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Once she stopped seeing Jake, stopped talking to him – then, eventually she would stop wanting him, needing him.

  What if they had been lovers? She would be dependent on Jake for her happiness… Then, one day, there would be the moment when she reached for him with need… and found him gone.

  It would happen to Monica one day. Maybe Jake would marry her, but eventually…

  She went back outside, taking the mug of coffee with her, standing in the wind and staring ahead at the Queen Charlotte Islands. Lady Harriet moved carefully as they approached Masset Inlet.

  “We’ll go round once,” suggested George as they approached the wharfs. “If it looks easy to get in, we’ll go in. If not, we’ll steam back out and think it over before we try again.”

  The whole thing went like a charm. Jenny got the lines in her hand and hovered at the side of the boat until it came close to the wharf, then she stepped off just as if she’d been doing it all her life.

  Her smooth motions turned suddenly awkward and stiff as she sighted the big man in a floater jacket and captain’s hat.

  Jake! Here!

  He stepped up and took the aft line from her. She let go the line with a jerk, as if his hand had carried high voltage. She went forward to tie her line to the float while he tied the one at the back. George cut the engine and there was silence except for the sound of waves lapping against the wooden floats.

  Jenny fiddled with the knot she was tying, her fingers numb and her heart thundering. At one point, out in the pounding waves, she’d had a brief fantasy that he would be here to meet them. She’d discarded it as nonsense.

  Why was he here?

  A grizzled fisherman in high boots and a sou’wester stomped up to Jake and said something. Jake stood up and pushed a lock of wet hair back under the captain’s hat.

  In the city, in city clothes, he looked like he belonged there – if you didn’t look at his eyes and see the controlled hint of the untamed man; if you didn’t look too closely at the harsh lines of his face.

  Here, standing on a wharf on an island a few miles south of Alaska, talking to a tough-looking fisherman, Jake seemed to fit in perfectly.

  The two men exchanged a few words that Jenny couldn’t hear, then nodded at each other. Jake’s nod was as abrupt as the fisherman’s, but Jenny sensed somehow that they were friends.

  The man stomped on, staring at Jenny as he passed, saying gruffly, “See you made it all right. Crazy woman, tearing around in a plastic boat!”

  Jake walked towards her. He wasn’t smiling. She realized that she was. Her smile died nervously.

  “Where in the devil have you been?“

  His anger had the effect of calming her. She spoke confidently. “We’ve been fine. Waiting for the weather. Sitting in a bay, perfectly safe.”

  His feet were astride, his hands half clenched. She got the feeling that he wanted to shake her as he growled, “Sam said you didn’t have a radio?”

  “Sam?”

  “The captain of the fishing boat that spotted you earlier today.”

  She rubbed her hands against the wet fabric of her cruiser suit. “The radio quit on our second day out.” She pulled on the string to untie her hood, but didn’t push the hood back.

  Jake snarled, “And George, of course, couldn’t manage to figure out what was wrong with it?”

  “George didn’t try. Radios aren’t George’s thing.”

  “I’ll bet they’re not.” He glared at her, then said grudgingly, “I’m glad to see you’ve got a cruiser suit on. At least George had the sense to get good gear for you. I was worried you’d catch your death in this cold wind.”

  “It’s not as if it were freezing!”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Jennifer! Even in Campbell River you must have learned about hypothermia. You don’t need to freeze to die of the cold!”

  He looked so much like a stern father that she couldn’t help laughing. “Stop being such an alarmist, Jake! I know when to come in out of the cold.”

  “Do you? I’m beginning to suspect you don’t have any sense at all.”

  She flared, “If I’m such a pain in the neck, why do you bother with me? Why don’t you just stay in Vancouver where it’s warm and dry, and leave me to my fate?”

  He looked past her, over her head at the other side of the harbor. When he answered, his voice had the exaggerated patience of a parent dealing with an aggravating small child. “In the first place, Vancouver was pelting down rain when I left and I—” He stopped, shrugged, and finished lamely, “And you may be a pain in the neck, but everything’s been falling apart since you left.”

  She threw her shoulders back and glared at him. “Well, that’s just too bad. I don’t belong to Austin Media and I don’t need you to follow after me, lecturing me on what to wear and what to do!”

  Jake opened his mouth to shout a reply to her, then closed it abruptly. He was staring past her onto the deck of Lady Harriet.

  George was standing there, tiny, dwarfed by the bulky yellow cruiser suit. Only George could manage to look glamorous in a Mustang cruiser suit! She had loosened her collar and pushed the hood back, letting her blond curls tumble around her very feminine face, the one streak of gray at her temple.

  Jenny couldn’t help laughing at the look in Jake’s eyes as George placed her hands on her yellow-clad hips and surveyed him before she said, “Don’t bother introducing me, Jenny. This has got to be Jake. Or do you know other men who would make a habit of shouting at you in strange ports?”

  “Who the hell are you?” demanded Jake.

  “George,” her cousin said smugly.

  Jake almost stammered, “G–George?”

  The blonde head nodded. Jake stared at her, then turned to Jenny swiftly, furiously.

  Jenny said hurriedly, “I never said George was a man!“

  “Well, you sure as hell never said he— she was a girl!“

  She caught herself before she stomped her foot, contenting herself with shouting back, “It was none of your bloody business!”

  “Jenny!” George had to raise her voice to get Jenny’s attention. “Are you coming inside for coffee? Or would you rather stay out here and fight?”

  They looked at each other, slightly shamefaced, then Jenny said, “All right, George, I’ll behave. Jake, would you like to come in for a coffee?”

  He followed them in. Jenny had the feeling that he was at a loss, didn’t know what to say. He stooped to get through the companionway. The small boat wasn’t designed for anyone as tall as Jake.

  Inside, George stepped out of her cruiser suit. It was too large for her and slipped off easily.

  Jenny’s was tighter, damp from rain and spray. She unzipped the upper part and started to struggle out of the arms.

  Jake grasped an arm and started pulling the damp nylon.

  “I can get it off myself,” she protested, too aware of him towering over her, his arm half around her as he worked the suit down off her arms.

  “Can you?” Damn him! He was laughing. She quit protesting and stood still as he peeled the suit down to her waist.

  “You’d better change out of those clothes once we get this off.” He unsnapped the belt and bent to unzip the bottoms of the legs. “You’re all damp inside.”

  She was a mess, her hair wild, her sweater damp and clinging too tightly to her body. Jake pushed the suit down around her legs.

  “Lift y
our leg, Jennifer.”

  She lifted, complaining, “I feel like a two year old— ‘Stand still. Lift your leg. Here, I’ll unzip your suit.’ ”

  Jake laughed and freed her left leg. “Now lift the other one – there, you’re free of it! Better hang it somewhere to dry. You don’t look like a two year old.”

  He stood back and let his eyes travel from her bare feet up, over her damp jeans and clinging sweater. She flushed and shifted uncomfortably as his eyes lingered on the curves of her breasts, then traveled up to her face, her hair.

  “What the devil have you done to your hair? You’ve cut it!”

  She lifted her hand and made a futile attempt to smooth it back over her head.

  “It looks—” He lifted his hand, stopped just short of touching her hair.

  “It looks what?” she asked defensively.

  “Different. You don’t look like Jennifer. This whole thing—” He looked around, gestured at the small saloon and galley, then back to Jenny. “You, your clothes, your hair. The way you’re behaving here. It’s not like you.”

  “Isn’t it? Or is it that you don’t know very much about me? You never did.”

  “You never let me,” he retorted, his eyes probing hers, seeing her discomfort. “Why?” he demanded.

  Her heart was knocking against her ribs. She dropped her eyes, afraid he was seeing too much. He mustn’t know how vulnerable she was to him. It had started that first day, when she’d forced him to take her into his business. She’d been attracted, known she wanted nothing more than to work with this man, be close to him. At the same time, she’d always known that if she let him get close to her she would have no defenses against him.

  “Why did you cut your hair?” he asked.

  The hair; that was easy to answer. Relieved, she said, “It was bothering me. It was in the way, always blowing in the wind, tangling. George cut it.”

  “George cut it?” He turned to look at George who had run a comb through her own hair and was looking glamorous in blue jeans and an oversized sweater. “George, your boyfriend?”

  “George, her cousin,” said George, setting two steaming mugs down on the table. “I cut it and dropped it overboard somewhere in Alaska.”

  Jenny shifted uncomfortably. She wished she had a camera to shove into his hands, to distract him. “Jake, stop staring at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “As if you were trying to probe my— as if I’m a subject for one of your films.”

  “What will you do now?” he asked softly. “You can’t drop that curtain of glossy brown hair between yourself and the world.”

  That was too close to home. She reached desperately for a change of subject. “Would you please stop calling me Jennifer?”

  “I’ve been calling you Jennifer for five years.”

  “And I hate it. I’ve always hated being called Jennifer.” She looked up and found George looking at her curiously.

  “Did you?” George asked, “but didn’t Lance always call you—”

  Jenny said, sharply, “George!” and her cousin fell silent.

  Jake lifted the mug slowly to his lips, watching her as he sipped the hot coffee. “If you mind being called Jennifer, why didn’t you tell me before?”

  She laughed bitterly, “Telling you never makes any difference.”

  He took another big sip from the steaming cup. For a minute she thought she had gone too far, made him quietly, dangerously angry.

  “Are you sure you’ve tried?” he asked conversationally. He didn’t seem angry. “You could always hit me over the head with it – like when you told me you quit. I got the message that time.”

  She caught George’s eye. Her cousin wasn’t missing a word of this. And Jake had that look in his eye, as if he were searching for the meaning in a beautiful picture. She tried throwing a distraction in his path. “I had to shout. You’d have walked out otherwise. You were hell bent to go to the North Shore – what was so important over on the North Shore that day?”

  He said, “Nothing that matters now,” and she had the feeling that he couldn’t remember. Then he said briskly, “If you go up to the hotel and tell the girl at the desk that you’re Jake’s friends, she’ll show you where you can have a hot bath. I’ll give you directions and you can go and have a long soak while I get someone to look at your radio.”

  Jenny couldn’t help feeling she should object to Jake’s arranging their activities, just on general principles. But how could she? A hot bath sounded like heaven, and neither Jenny nor George knew the first thing about repairing radios.

  She felt uneasy about walking into the hotel and demanding a bath, but George didn’t hesitate.

  “Jake told us to come,” she announced to the girl behind the counter.

  “Oh, yes!” The girl put her pen down and picked up a key from the counter in front of her. “You wanted a bath?”

  A man crossing the lobby with his head down stopped, turned and stared at the two women who wanted a bath. Then he shrugged and walked on.

  George had the first bath, then returned to the boat while Jenny had a long soak in the empty hotel suite. When she came out of the bathroom, she changed into clean jeans and a tailored shirt, bundling her old clothes into the small pack she had carried up to the hotel. Later, she and George would have to find a Laundromat.

  She heard Jake’s voice as she came down the stairs. He was leaning casually against the front desk, talking to the clerk. He looked so different out of city clothes, so hard and muscled and somehow uncontrollable.

  He watched her coming down the stairs, his eyes taking in everything from her freshly scrubbed cheeks to the way her shirt clung to her still damp body,

  “Feeling better?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Much better!” She looked at the woman behind the desk. “Thank you, that was lovely!”

  Jake kept pace with her as they moved along the main street of Masset towards the docks.

  Looking ahead, her hands pushed into her pockets as she walked, she asked, “Why are you here, Jake?”

  Deliberately misunderstanding, he said, “I’m walking you to the docks.” Outside the cooperative general store they passed two men standing together, deep in conversation. One lifted his hand in greeting to Jake.

  “I’m not coming back to work for you, Jake.”

  “Hi, Graham!” said Jake to one of the men. “How’s the catch?”

  “Jake! It’s been years! Fishing’s rotten!”

  Jake nodded, said, “Catch you later,” and guided Jenny off the edge of the pavement.

  “Watch out!” he warned her as her foot went down on the uneven pavement, throwing her off balance.

  She threw her arms out and found them clutching his chest. She pushed away, breathless, said accusingly, “You’re here to get me back to work.”

  He was silent until they were half a block away from the store, then he asked, “How long do you want for your fling, Jennifer?”

  “I asked you not to call me Jennifer,” she evaded.

  “Yes, you did, didn’t you? Lance used to call you Jennifer. Tell me about Lance.”

  “No!” She stopped walking, her breath coming short, her voice trembling a little as she denied, “Lance is nobody. Nothing.”

  “Is he?” Jake stopped too, grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him. The lines of his face were deeper than usual. “You know, somehow I don’t believe that.”

  She jerked away from him. “Oh, go dissect someone else, will you? I’m going to find George. I’d appreciate it if you’d go off and amuse yourself somewhere else.”

  “George is on Julie II. David and Glenda – Julie II’s owners – have invited you both for dinner. They sent me to fetch you.”

  “Friends of yours?” she asked curiously.

  “Old friends,” he agreed warmly.

  Jenny could hear the sounds of George’s guitar as she walked along the float with Jake. She moved quickly towards the music, away from Jak
e’s probing.

  “You didn’t tell me it was a jam session.”

  “I didn’t know.” He grasped her arm to steady her as she stepped onto the fishing boat. She pulled away, stumbling a little as Jake said, “I didn’t know they had a guitar.”

  “That’s George on the guitar. It’s her favorite song. Hear her singing it?”

  “For a tiny girl, she’s got a big voice— hey, Jenny, stop running! Watch out!” His hand gripped, steering her clear of a big, jagged piece of metal on the back deck of the boat.

  “What’s that?”

  “Fishing gear – it’s all over the place, so watch your step. And don’t run away so fast. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She was acting like an idiot, rushing across the cluttered deck of this boat to escape a few seconds alone with Jake. He must wonder what was getting into her. She took deep, slow breaths and turned around, facing him.

  He was right behind her, one hand above his head, grasping one of the many pipes that ran over their heads. She said breathlessly, “I had no idea there was so much— were so many strange pieces of metal on a fishing boat.”

  The music was coming through the closed door, but Jake and Jenny were alone out here. She could hear the sounds of the sea along with George’s song.

  Jake said huskily, “You’re really very beautiful,” and she realized in sudden panic that he meant to kiss her.

  “I’m not,” she whispered, staring wide-eyed as his lips approached hers.

  It was the softest kiss, a whisper of his skin against hers, a warm movement that left her trembling, unable to move away as her eyes were pulled into a long, deep contact with his.

  “What are you afraid of?” he asked softly.

  “Nothing,” she lied, her eyes pulling away. She shivered, hugging herself. “It’s cold, isn’t it? Shall we go in?”

  “We may as well,” he said wryly, calling out, “Permission to board!”

  A heavily-accented Scots voice from inside replied, “Come ahead, Jake!”

  The inside of this fishing boat was crammed with people. The big voice belonged to a red-headed man in the corner.