Читать книгу Passion's Baby - Catherine Spencer - Страница 7

AFTERWARD, when it was too late to go back and do things differently, Jane looked for someone to blame for the chain of events which led to her first meeting with Liam McGuire.

Her grandfather topped the list, because he was the one who’d assured her, “You’ll have our half of the island all to yourself this year. Steve’s spending the summer with his married son in California.”

But when she discovered that her grandfather’s old fishing buddy hadn’t bothered telling anyone he’d decided to rent his place to someone else while he was away, she tried shifting the blame to him. In all fairness though, Steve had the right to do as he pleased with his own property and, on top of that, was getting forgetful in his old age, so perhaps he couldn’t be held accountable.

Of course, there was Liam McGuire himself, surely the messiest man ever born and one who needed to have someone wash out his mouth with soap to cure his bad language. The way he could curse would make a sailor blush! But again, if she were to be scrupulously objective, Jane had to admit that, as the legal tenant of Steve’s house and with a signed lease to prove it, evil-tempered Liam McGuire was under no obligation to live up to her personal standards of socially acceptable behavior.

So, stymied on that front, also, she then tried blaming her dog. If Bounder hadn’t had such a passion for wrapping his jaws around whatever was handiest and offering it as a gift to whomever he happened to meet, she might have been able to acquit herself with a modicum of dignity. On the other hand, if she’d done a better job of training him when he was a puppy, he wouldn’t have developed such bad habits.

So, much though she loathed having to admit it, when all was said and done the blame ended up where it really belonged: squarely on her own shoulders. Which was why, in the middle of the morning on the first day of what was supposed to be her summer of spiritual and physical renewal, she found herself huddled behind a chunk of rock on the beach below the cottages, her face flaming with embarrassment and her heart staggering with shame.

“I’d have been better off staying in town,” she muttered dolefully to Bounder, who alternated between fixing her in a meltingly sympathetic gaze and staring longingly at the waves breaking on the sand, forty yards away.

But the kind of serenity she craved wasn’t to be found in the hectic bustle and pace of Vancouver’s streets, so she’d returned to the haven of her childhood. Arriving at her grandfather’s cottage late the previous night, she’d climbed the winding stairs to the big square room under the eaves, crawled under the goose feather quilt on the high brass bed, and fallen asleep to the sound of waves breaking on the shore and the smell of the sea filling her lungs.

For the first time in months, she had not been haunted by dreams. Instead, she’d slept deeply, certain that the tranquil solitude of Bell Island would cure what ailed her.

She’d woken early the next morning and, blissfully unaware of the turmoil about to descend, had gone to the bedroom’s north window to take in the view of Desolation Sound which defined the very essence of her happy childhood. But rather than deep blue waters snaking into quiet inlets against a backdrop of mountains, her attention had fastened on the thin column of smoke rising into the still air from the chimney next door.

Even then, she might have managed to avoid making such a colossal fool of herself if she hadn’t also happened to notice the windows were still boarded up to protect them against the fury of the past winter’s south-easterly gales. But it was now June, with summer arrived, which had made Jane very suspicious. Why would a legitimate occupant choose to live in semi-darkness when every room in the place could be flooded with sunlight?

“There’s something very fishy about this,” she’d told Bounder. “I think we should investigate.”

It had been an easy decision to make from the safety of her grandfather’s cottage, but a twinge of uneasiness had fluttered down her spine as she approached the wraparound porch of the house. Suddenly, she’d been glad she had the eighteen-month-old Belgian sheepdog at her side.

The front door stood half open. Grasping Bounder by the collar, she’d knocked and called out, “Hello? Anybody there?”

But the shaft of light streaming through the open doorway revealed only dying embers in the fireplace, a pile of dirty dishes on the counter next to the sink, and a sweater flung carelessly over the back of the couch.

Somewhat reassured, she’d stepped fully inside to take a closer look. A cell phone and a dozen or more books lay scattered haphazardly over the coffee table. Whoever had taken up residence obviously enjoyed reading, not to mention instant communication with the outside world.

But apart from a heap of clothes littering the floor beside an open canvas suitcase, and a sleeping bag and two pillows on the single mattress, the slivers of sunshine filtering between the cracks in the boards covering the bedroom windows gave away nothing of the occupant’s identity beyond the fact that he wasn’t trying to hide his untidy presence.

It had to be a “he,” she’d reasoned. The sweater in the living room was too large for a woman and only a man would treat his clothes so carelessly or leave his sleeping bag in wrinkled disarray from a night’s sleep.

“Still,” she’d told Bounder, “whoever he is could at least have taken down the shutters and given the room a bit of natural light, not to mention a breath of fresh air. It’s musty as a cellar in here.”

By way of reply, Bounder had let out a low whine and pricked up his oversize ears, a clear signal that he’d heard someone approaching the house. Realizing her initial concern had crossed the boundary into outright infringement of privacy, Jane had made a beeline for the bedroom door, anxious at least to get as far as the living room before she was caught intruding. But the dog, tail thrashing in excitement, yanked himself free of her hold, snatched up the nearest piece of clothing, and raced ahead of her.

“Bounder, no!” she begged in an appalled whisper. “Oh, Bounder, please! Drop that! Give!”

She might as well have been speaking Swahili for all the attention he paid. Using his great paws as launching pads, he plowed on his merry way, leaving mayhem in his wake. She caught up with him on the far side of the living room sofa and had barely managed to rescue the item he’d filched from the bedroom when a shadow darkened the patch of sunlight shining across the floor from the open front door.

Straightening, she prepared to offer an introduction-cum-explanation for her uninvited presence. In fact, the words, “I’m Jane Ogilvie from next door and I just stopped by to say hello” were all ready to pop out of her mouth, but her attempt to appear nothing more than a friendly neighbor welcoming a summer visitor faltered and died before she uttered a single syllable.

The man had stationed himself on the cottage threshold, making escape impossible, and the cold, unwelcoming stare he directed at her would have silenced a thunderbolt. But it was neither the justifiable indignation in his eyes, which were the same translucent blue-green as the sea on a cold winter’s day, nor the embarrassment of finding herself caught brazenly snooping through his home, that left her speechless. Instead she stared mutely at his legs, knowing she shouldn’t, but unable to help herself.

From the way he let her squirm in the ensuing silence, it was her guess he was the kind who thrived on other people’s discomfiture. Finally, when she was about ready to choke on humiliation, he said, in a voice so larded with bitterness that she recoiled, “What’s the matter, Goldilocks? Never seen a man in a wheelchair before?”

Oh, yes, she could have told him, had he been at all interested in hearing her answer. But he was much too busy cursing with stunning vulgarity as he navigated the furniture and maneuvered himself farther into the room.

Knocking aside a wooden kitchen chair, he propelled himself around the table and only just missed wheeling over the tip of Bounder’s tail in the process. “Move it, hound!” he snapped, not even pausing to consider that Bounder, had he been equally ill-tempered, could have taken a chunk out of his unshaven face.

Instead, the dog tried to lick the hand which clearly wouldn’t have fed him if he’d been starving. Deciding sensitivity was wasted on such a man, Jane adopted a more confrontational approach. “Does the owner of this cottage know that you’re living here?” she inquired, folding the garment she still held in her hand and fixing him in a forthright stare.

“What business is it of yours?” he shot back. “And what the devil do you think you’re doing with my undershorts?”

She thought she’d already scaled the upper limit of human embarrassment but the realization that she was absently fingering underwear belonging to a man whose name she didn’t even know taught her the folly of that assumption. “Uh…” she mumbled, switching her horrified gaze from his face to the scarlet maple leaves emblazoned on the offending garment. “Um…oh, dear, I didn’t realize that’s what these are.”

“Cripes!” He rolled his rather beautiful eyes in disbelief. “You’ll be telling me next that you didn’t know you were trespassing on my property.”

“But it’s not your property,” she said, latching onto any excuse to change the subject. “It belongs to Steve Coffey who is an old friend of my grandfather’s and whom I’ve known since I was five years old.” Then, realizing she still hadn’t introduced herself, added, “I’m Jane Ogilvie and I’m staying at the house on the other side of the cove.”

“No, you’re not,” her ungracious host said flatly. “I’m Liam McGuire and when I signed the lease on this place, Coffey assured me I’d have the beach to myself all summer.”

“Then we’ve both been misled, because my grandfather told me the same thing. But if you’re worried I’m going to make a nuisance of myself, you can relax. I’m no more anxious to be neighborly than you are.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked pointedly at his boxer shorts. “Is that why you’re having such a good time fiddling with my drawers?”

The flush which rode up her neck rivaled the underwear’s maple leaves in color. “I most certainly am not fiddling…!”

“The hell you’re not,” he retorted with grim amusement. “The way you’re stroking them is downright indecent. You’ll be asking me to model them next.”

She dropped them as hurriedly as if they’d suddenly caught fire. “I don’t think so!”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice laced with slow insolence. “Because it’s not polite to recognize that a man in a wheelchair exists below the waist?”

“No,” she said, refusing to submit to that particular brand of emotional blackmail. “Because you’re not my type.”

“Why not?” he repeated in the same lazy drawl. “Because I’m in a wheelchair?”

“No. Because you’re arrogant, unpardonably rude, about as unappealing as a cockroach, and apparently enjoy living in a pigsty.”

He smiled. At least, she supposed his sudden display of flawless teeth amounted to that. “May I take it then that you won’t feel obliged to stop by every morning to make sure the unfortunate slob next door hasn’t accidentally fallen out of bed during the night and broken his miserable neck?”

“You may safely assume exactly that,” she said recklessly. “In fact, you may wheel yourself right off the end of the dock and drown, for all I care!”

And grabbing Bounder by the collar again, she’d marched past Liam McGuire and out of his house without so much as a backward glance. Not for the world would she have let him see how rattled she was by his attitude, or how appalled at her own behavior. Only when she reached the cover of the rock behind which she now huddled had she allowed the rigid set of her shoulders to relax and the shame to flood through her.

How could she have said such things—she who knew better than most the frustrations and agony of being confined to a wheelchair? Where was the compassion which had come so easily to her when Derek was alive?

It dried up with his death and I will not be drawn into such a web of pain again. I could not survive it a second time.

She closed her eyes, as if doing so would silence the truth echoing through her mind. But one thing she had learned too thoroughly ever to forget: turning away from the facts did nothing to change them. Like it or not, the man next door was disabled. How seriously, she didn’t know, but she understood now why the shutters remained in place over the windows, and why he hadn’t hung his clothes in the closet.

And with a defeated sigh, she knew that, no matter how unwelcome he might find her visits, sooner or later she’d come knocking on his door again, because she could no more ignore him or his plight than she could turn back the tide creeping up the beach.

“Son of a bitch!”

He slumped in the wheelchair and glared at his hands, clenched into fists in his lap. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate without having to contend with a next-door neighbor who had “Good Samaritan” written all over her face!

He’d seen the way she looked, immediately after she’d told him to go drown himself—as if she’d just swallowed a red-hot potato whole!—and he knew what would happen next. The stiff-necked pride which had carried her out of sight along the beach would evaporate faster than that morning’s early mist, and be replaced by a great surge of guilt embroidered with pity. She’d belabor herself for having spoken harshly to the gimp in the wheelchair and feel compelled to come back and be kind.

She’d train her big brown eyes on him and stammer out an apology, with a glimmer of penitent tears thrown in for extra effect. Worse, she’d probably bake something in the form of a peace offering—bran muffins most likely, because everyone knew that not getting enough exercise tended to have a detrimental effect on a man’s innards.

Swinging the wheelchair around, he rolled out to the front porch again and checked his watch. Almost ten-thirty. She’d been gone nearly half an hour and by now was likely wallowing up to her earlobes in remorse. Give her another hour to slave over a hot stove, and he’d bet money she’d reappear shortly after noon.

And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if she did. Since he’d run out of fish heads, he could use her bran muffins for crab bait. Shuffling his sorry backside into the runabout and motoring out to the traps was awkward and time-consuming, but worth every ounce of effort for the pleasure he got in feasting on freshly caught rock crab steamed in wine over a bed of coals in the outdoor fire pit.

Good food and wine were among the few pleasures he got from life these days and, under different circumstances, he might have invited her to join him for dinner. If she had a bit more meat on her bones, he’d probably have tried to get her in the sack, as well, because even skinny as a reed, she was a good-looking woman. Decidedly feminine, elegant, and with something fragile about her that, once, would have brought out his protective instincts.

Just as well he was confined to fantasizing about sex these days, though, because she was also the type who’d expect a lot more in return than respect the morning after! When he got on his feet again and was good for something other than swallowing painkillers and feeling sorry for himself, he’d make up for lost playtime but, if he was half as smart as he liked to think he was, it wouldn’t be with Jane Ogilvie. Because she was clearly the marrying kind. And he definitely was not.

A movement down on the beach caught his attention. Uh-oh! There she went, right on cue: a woman on a mission if ever he saw one, climbing the sloping path to the house next door with an unmistakable sense of purpose in her step, while her dizzy hound gamboled clumsily at her heels. Talk about the odd couple!

Something about his face felt strange—an odd sort of ache as if he were bringing into play muscles which hadn’t seen much use lately—and he realized that, for the second time in less than an hour, he was genuinely amused. He even laughed, though he was so badly out of practice that he sounded like a seal with a bad case of laryngitis.

Well, what the hell! A bit of free entertainment on the side would help pass the time.

Letting a smile settle on his mouth, he leaned forward in the chair and waited for scene two to unfold: Goldilocks on a mission of mercy—except with that mane of dark brown hair, the name Goldilocks didn’t exactly suit her.

For the rest of that day and most of the next, Jane turned a deaf ear on the urgings of her guilty conscience. In light of the way Liam McGuire had received her the first time, he was unlikely to welcome another visit anytime soon. It would be best if she gave him time to simmer down before inflicting herself on him again.

But it wasn’t easy staying away, and for all that she managed to keep herself busy around her own house, no amount of self-discipline could prevent her from looking out of her bedroom window last thing at night to make sure lamplight showed between the cracks in the shutters on the cottage next door. Or from checking first thing in the morning for the telltale column of smoke that showed he was up and about.

“It’s absurd that he’s living there alone,” she complained to Bounder. “In fact, it’s unconscionable. He has no right burdening total strangers with responsibility for his welfare.”

But that line of reasoning soon fell by the wayside and it was all the fault of those darned shutters. Well…theirs and the heat wave which struck out of nowhere two days later and showed signs of staying awhile. How, after all, could any woman with an ounce of charity to her name ignore the fact that, with temperatures suddenly soaring to the mid-eighties, Steve’s place, boarded up as it was, would be like an oven by the end of the day?

So, armed with a small crowbar and a hammer, she set off after breakfast on the third morning, determined that nothing Liam McGuire could fling at her in the way of insults would provoke her into leaving before she’d accomplished the task she’d set herself.

Once again, she found his front door open, propped wide this time with an old flat iron acting as a stop, and she could see that he’d made some attempt to clean up the kitchen. A plate, two coffee mugs, a frying pan and a handful of cutlery were stacked neatly in a dish rack next to the sink, and he’d spread a tea towel over the porch railing to dry.

She’d learned her lesson, though, and didn’t repeat the mistake of walking in when he didn’t respond to her polite knock. With both feet planted on the porch, she leaned forward and gave the door a mighty thump with her hammer. “Are you there, Mr. McGuire? It’s Jane Ogilvie from next door.”

Still no reply, nor any movement but Steve’s old hammock strung from the porch rafters and swinging in the hot breeze. Assuming Liam McGuire wasn’t deaf or dead, he must be out again, though where he went, given his condition and the uneven terrain around the cottage, was a mystery not hers to solve.

To do what had to be done, all she needed was the ladder Steve kept in his woodshed, and in all honesty, she was just as glad not to have an audience. Carpentry, even the crude kind she was about to tackle, had never been her forte. She could very well do without the sarcastic running commentary Liam McGuire would no doubt have offered, had he been there to witness her efforts as she wrestled the boards away from the windows and stored them under the porch where they normally spent the summer.

Things went well enough to begin with, though having to move the ladder every few yards used up an astonishing amount of energy, but the real trouble began when she tackled the bedroom windows. All the others opened onto the porch which offered a nice stable platform from which to work. The ground below the bedroom, however, fell away steeply and was knee-deep in grass, stinging nettles and wild honeysuckle.

Doubtfully, she sized up the situation. Finding a firm footing for the ladder was difficult enough, but scaling rungs fully fifteen feet in the air taxed her dwindling courage to the limit. She’d never had a good head for heights. And to make matters worse, the glare from the sun hitting the uncovered glass half blinded her.

“Careful, Bounder!” she exclaimed at one point, clinging to the window frame as he charged past and headed up the slope toward the house with more than usual exuberance. “Up-end this ladder while I’m on it and you and I are going to have a very serious falling out.”

From somewhere on the deck, Liam McGuire’s sardonic tones floated back a reply. “That’s assuming you live to talk about it, Goldilocks. In case you didn’t notice, your dumb dog just disturbed a wasps’ nest and unless you want to risk being badly stung, you’re going to have to stay where you are until it gets dark which, by my reckoning, isn’t going to happen for another eleven hours.”

Given his sour disposition, there was every chance he was lying, just to provoke her. But the buzzing sound which she’d vaguely noticed and attributed to the electric generator gave undeniable credence to his words. “When did you get back?” she said, suddenly and deeply regretting having yielded to the whim to do him a favor.

“More to the point, when did you?” he said. “I don’t recall inviting you, though I do distinctly remember your assuring me you wouldn’t bother me again.”

The buzzing grew ominously closer and she cringed, certain that at any minute she’d feel insect feet crawling up her bare legs. “Do you think,” she said, hanging on by her fingernails, “that we could pursue this discussion after I’ve figured a way out of my present predicament?”

“You?” He gave a bark of contemptuous laughter. “You couldn’t figure your way out of a brown paper bag without help. Face it, honey, you’re the one needing favors from me, this time—unless you think Blunder’s about to come to the rescue.”

“His name’s Bounder,” she said from between clenched teeth. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d appreciate it if you’d try to keep him away from the foot of this ladder. I don’t want him to get stung.”

“Well, heaven forfend!” He was jeering at her again but, to his credit, he snapped his fingers sharply and, in quite a different voice, ordered, “Blunder, come!”

Amazingly, she heard the faint click of claws on the wooden porch, followed by a thump as Liam McGuire rapped out, “Sit!”

“Pity you don’t have an equally winning way with people,” she couldn’t help observing.

“I’d save the smart-ass remarks until I was safely on firm ground again, if I were you,” he said. “You’re in no position to be passing judgment on anyone, least of all the guy you expect to come to your rescue.”

She ventured a look down and hastily closed her eyes as the ground swam up to meet her. “How are you going to get me down, with all those wasps swarming around?”

“I’m not,” he said. “And if that’s what you’re hoping for, you’re in for a disappointment. Your only choice is to haul the rest of the boards off that window which I’ll then open from the inside so you can crawl through.”

Swing one leg over that narrow sill? Heavenly days, it was all she could do to maintain her balance with both feet planted on the ladder rung! “I…don’t think I can do that, Mr. McGuire.”

“Then I hope you remembered to go pee before you came over here, because you’re stuck up there for the duration,” he said bluntly.

Oh, he was the most vulgar, insensitive man ever to walk the face of the earth and, forgetting to be cautious, she swung her head around to tell him so. But the ladder gave a shudder, as though to remind her that it wouldn’t take much to send it—and her—sliding down the slope.

“All right, we’ll do it your way,” she said faintly.

“Good girl.”

Was it possible that was a hint of sympathy—of kindness even, that she heard in his voice?

“Stay put until I get myself into the bedroom,” he went on. “Then do exactly as I tell you.”

The wheelchair whispered away and a moment later his voice came again, this time on the other side of the shutters. “This is your lucky day, Janie. The window slides open so all you need to do is pry off a couple of boards and make an opening wide enough to get your butt through. I’ll take care of the rest.”

She had no reason to believe him, at least on the last point. Not only was he wheelchair-bound, he’d shown no inclination to be chivalrous. Yet what choice did she have but to put herself at his mercy?

“Well?” he asked, impatience already eroding his temporary show of kindness. “Make up your mind. Do we have a deal or not?”

“We have a deal,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. McGuire.”