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CHAPTER THREE

Sun poured over honey-colored walls and made feathery tracings of the palm fronds that were dancing in the Caribbean breeze just off Matty’s balcony. Matty had been watching the shadows for longer than she cared to admit. She wasn’t sure what she hoped for. That their hypnotic sway would put her back to sleep. That if she concentrated hard enough she would find she was asleep in her lonely bed in Minnesota and that yesterday was just a disturbing dream. That someone would come into her room and tell her that she had not disgraced herself again and again on the trip to Inspiration Cay, that she had not blacked out at the kitchen table at the trip’s end.

That someone, and she was afraid to speculate who, hadn’t carried her up to this room last night and undressed her as she’d slept the sleep of the dead.

She tried to remember the events of last evening. She had tried to make friends with Nanny. She had humbled herself to the point of neurosis, drinking a tea that could have done far more than put her to sleep. Damon had come into the room. Thinking about it now, she suspected that he’d had Heidi in his arms. He had been angry at Nanny, then…nothing.

Except that at a deeper level of awareness she thought she remembered arms around her, arms that had laid her gently on this bed, and hands that had smoothed away her clothes. Warm, strong hands that had lingered against her skin. Had she really moved against those hands, arched her back and sighed as they stripped away her sweater?

She was never going to find the courage to leave this room again.

The light seemed to grow brighter and the shadows sharper. At home she could have judged the time easily, but here the light was bright enough to destroy her frame of reference. It might be morning or late afternoon. She could have slept for days or weeks. As the warm honey of the walls lightened to palest gold, she realized that however long she had slept, it was time to get up. She might wish that she could avoid facing the population of Inspiration Cay, but she was trapped here with that tiny and decidedly odd band, and with her own humiliation. If possible, it was time to start putting yesterday behind her.

A soft rapping sounded at her door, then a voice. “Matty?”

She sat up and pulled a sheet over her breasts just as the door swung open. Damon stood in the doorway, a Damon completely transformed since yesterday. Gone was the man in the tropic-weight sportscoat and neatly pressed slacks. This Damon was barefoot, his hair tousled as if he had just dried it with a towel, wearing ragged cutoffs and a faded green T-shirt. This Damon, too, was outrageously gorgeous. “Good,” he said, with no ceremony. “You’re still alive.”

She hadn’t decided what to say today or how to act. She said the first thing that came to mind. “Am I supposed to be?”

“Look, there are just a few rules here. Don’t let Nanny play doctor, and don’t let Kevin scare you.”

She tucked the sheet under her arms. She was still wearing a bra and panties. That was one of the first things she had made sure of this morning before she set about wallowing in her memories and embarrassment. But she felt curiously naked facing Damon this way, her legs drawn up to her chest, her shoulders bare except for flimsy lace straps the color of her skin.

She was a master at sounding as if nothing bothered her. She was unflappable Matty, everyone’s rock of Gibraltar. “Was Nanny trying to kill me?”

“They’re both harmless. But if I were you, I’d watch my back for a while. And don’t worry. I’ve spoken to Kevin about the suitcases.”

With a sinking heart, she registered the plural. “Do I have anything left to wear?”

“Nothing inside them was damaged. Apparently Samuel retrieved them before they sank. Kevin was just making a point.”

“Well, I’ll have to tell Kevin it’s all right to talk to me if he’s upset. The suitcases are old. I don’t know if they can stand much more.”

“He won’t talk about his feelings. He won’t talk to anybody.”

It was time to talk about her own, or at least some small part of them. “About yesterday…”

“I’m sorry, Matty. I should never have asked you to come.”

Her eyes didn’t flicker. She supposed she had anticipated this, that she hadn’t gotten out of bed before this to avoid it. How could Damon possibly want her after everything that had happened? She was a complete failure. Even if Damon had still been willing to give her another chance, Nanny and Kevin weren’t going to. And she had already seen how fiercely and surprisingly loyal he was to them. “It’s all right, Damon. I understand.” She continued to keep her voice light and struggled with a smile.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you swam back to George Town. I’ve been so caught up in my own problems, I just didn’t try hard enough to put myself in your shoes.”

“You couldn’t have.”

“I should have made arrangements for us to stay in George Town last night. Heidi would have managed without me. And you could have rested. The trip here wouldn’t have been so awful. You wouldn’t have had to face Nanny and Kevin when you were sick and exhausted. I won’t blame you if you tell us all to go to hell.”

She managed a feeble joke. “That would be a long way from paradise, wouldn’t it?”

“Will you give us another chance, then?”

Moments passed before she realized what he’d said. There was no particular warmth in his voice, and he wasn’t looking at her directly. Despite his casual clothing, his posture was anything but. He looked like a man who was preparing himself for an assault.

“You mean you’ll let me stay?”

“Let you?”

“I disgraced myself, didn’t I? Why would you want me?”

“I still need you, Matty. The question is whether you’re willing to live here under these circumstances. I doubt if you see any reason to after yesterday.”

She was flooded with relief, swimming in it, surfing in it. She didn’t know what to say. When she could speak, she continued to keep her voice light and make no emotional demands with her tone. “I can think of one very big reason.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I can swim as far as George Town.”

“Thank you,” he said gruffly.

“Just so you know. I almost never get sick. And I never faint. And I don’t usually succumb to a cup of tea.”

“You don’t have to be superhuman. You just have to be here.”

“A warm, maternal female body?”

This time his gaze met hers directly, nearly pinning her to the spot. “The maternal part remains to be seen.”

Heat rose in her cheeks, but before she could say anything, he went on. “Have some breakfast, but I’d advise fixing your own. Then I’ll introduce you to Heidi, and you can see just how maternal you feel.”

He closed the door, and she was left alone to wonder exactly how warm and how female he had found her.

* * *

“All right. For some strange reason she’s willing to give the two of you another chance, and me as well.” Damon glowered at Nanny and Kevin, who was clasping Heidi like a football under one arm, crosswise against his chest. They were standing on the back veranda, screened from view by some wildly fragrant vine that was perfuming the air from its vantage point on the lattice-work. “She’s more forgiving than I would be under the circumstances.”

“Not’ing in that tea they arrest me for.” Nanny was glowering, too, glowering and sucking on a pipe that one of her sons had carved for her. Damon and Arthur had forbidden her to smoke it inside, but she spent hours each day with it clamped unlit between her lips. He had no idea what she burned in it each evening when she went outside to sit on the beach and stare in the general direction of George Town, but she had assured him that whatever it was, it was nothing they could arrest her for, either.

“You knocked her out with that tea,” Damon said. “And you knew you would. No more of that, Nanny. And, Kevin, there’s no point in trying to chase Matty away. You might as well write yourself a ticket back to Miami if you do, because I’ll be moving back there with Heidi to deliver pizza if this custody issue can’t be resolved in my favor here on Inspiration.”

“I can leave anytime.” Kevin’s posture was defiant, one hip thrust forward, his chest puffed out, the hand not holding Heidi thrust deep in the pocket of his jeans. He looked like a young Blackbeard, angry and violent and aching for trouble.

“No, you can’t,” Damon said shortly.

“You can’t stop me.”

Damon wasn’t in the mood to argue. Kevin was partially right. If it ever came to it, Damon couldn’t stop the boy from leaving. But Kevin owed Damon money for his medical care, for room and board, for clothing and incidentals, and Kevin, despite appearances and despite the way they had met, always paid his debts. For his part, Damon made sure that Kevin never came out even in any exchange. That way he knew Kevin would stay on Inspiration, and he could continue to keep an eye on him. He didn’t know how much of this Kevin understood, and he didn’t even care. So far it was working, and that was all that mattered.

“I’m putting Matty’s suitcases on your bill,” Damon said.

“Why? She’s still got ‘em, doesn’t she?”

“We’re going to have to have them cleaned professionally. And it won’t be cheap.”

“You ever heard of child labor laws?”

“You ever heard of juvenile detention centers?”

Kevin sank into a sullen silence.

Damon ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, Kevin, you’re very good at making your point. You don’t want her here. We all know that. But give her a chance. Please? She’d like to be friends.”

Kevin made a noise that was every bit as descriptive as the profanity that Damon insisted he eliminate from his vocabulary.

“All right. You don’t have to be friends,” Damon said. “Just don’t make her life miserable. Got it?”

“I’ve got work to do.” Kevin swung Heidi forward, and Damon was left with no choice but to take her. Kevin ambled off, both hands deep in his pockets and his back hunched defiantly.

“He don’t stay, I don’t stay,” Nanny said.

“He’ll stay. And this is not a contest. It’s not you and Kevin versus Matty. For Pete’s sake, Nanny. Give her a chance.”

“Don’t know no Pete. Don’t want to.” She went back into the house and slammed the door behind her.

Heidi wiggled in Damon’s arms, and he noticed for the first time that she was wearing a diaper and nothing else. “You cold, sweetheart?” He lifted her so that she was hanging in front of him. “Is Daddy’s little sweetheart cold?”

She gave a toothless grin, and his heart kicked into overdrive. The day she had learned to smile had been the best day of his life. He clasped her close and wrapped his arms around her, noisily kissing the soft top of her head. She was going to have dark hair like his, despite the fact that Gretchen’s hair was nearly—and naturally—white. Her eyes looked as if they were going to stay blue, but he didn’t know enough about babies to tell anything about the final decision on her coloring. Whatever the details, he knew for certain that she was going to be the most beautiful little girl, teenager and, finally, woman in the entire world. He could tell that much, and the rest didn’t matter one bit.

“Let’s put some more clothes on you,” he said with that peculiar timbre in his voice that he’d developed since their first meeting. He couldn’t seem to talk to Heidi as if she were an adult. She wasn’t, after all. She was so tiny, so fragile, so unbelievably…cuddly. He was certain there was a biological reason why babies evoked baby talk. Something about pitch and decibels and the fragile auditory system of infants. He was certain that he was just playing along with Mother Nature, who couldn’t always be understood, but who always seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

Inside the house he started upstairs to find Heidi more clothes. It wasn’t really cold outside. She was probably perfectly comfortable just as she was, but he had an ulterior motive. She was charming in diapers, charming any way, for that matter. But dressed in one of those ridiculous outfits that grandmothers the world over seemed to favor she was absolutely…perfect. And he wanted Matty to see just how perfect she was.

In Heidi’s room he settled her on the change table and set her mobile of fuzzy yellow ducks spinning so that she could bat her fists in their direction as he chose something else for her to wear. The room was tiny, just large enough for a crib, the table and a rocking chair. The house had eight bedrooms, and he was welcome to make a nursery in any of them that weren’t in use, but he had chosen the old dressing room because he could enter it directly from his bedroom.

He had never allowed Heidi to cry at night and never intended to. Until she was old enough to need more space, he wanted her nearby, where he could hear her when she wriggled or sighed or laughed. He had never realized just how short childhood was, but he was all too aware at the end of each day how swiftly it had passed and how much his daughter had changed.

He was a hopeless sap.

In the bottom drawer of the change table he sorted through sunsuits and dresses, T-shirts and overalls. Gretchen hadn’t wanted custody, but she sent their daughter clothes as if that would somehow make up for her lack of maternal instinct. Arthur Sable, the man who owned Inspiration Cay, seemed to have bought stock in a baby boutique and was taking his dividends in merchandise, and even Nanny and Kevin had pooled their funds to buy Heidi whatever caught their eye among George Town’s meager baby supplies. Damon wondered what Matty would think when she saw how packed these drawers were.

He wondered what Matty would think, period.

The subject of Matty stilled his hands, and for a moment he stared at the heap of baby clothes and tried to imagine what she must be feeling. He couldn’t imagine a worse beginning for them all. He had dragged Matty through hell yesterday. Even he had felt queasy after the boat trip in from George Town, and he was an experienced sailor. He could so easily have made the day easier for her, but he hadn’t thought it through well enough. He wasn’t good at putting himself in anyone else’s shoes. He had always found it easier to concentrate on ideas, on theories, on statistics, rather than on people and what they were feeling. Feelings confounded him, his own included. He suspected that was why he’d never had any serious thoughts about marriage or parenthood.

Until he’d been presented with Heidi.

He supposed something valuable must have come from yesterday’s experiences. He had observed Matty under the worst of conditions, and he had seen that she was a trouper. She had taken Nanny and Kevin in stride, and struggled gamely with her own physical discomfort. She hadn’t uttered a word of complaint, not even this morning, when she’d had plenty to complain about. Everything had to feel strange to her, insecure and overwhelming. Yet she had managed to stay cheerful. She hadn’t blamed anyone else; she hadn’t insisted he apologize.

In every way Matty was a surprise. He had believed that he knew everything important about her. The retired police detective who had investigated her had been thorough. But no one could have prepared Damon for how guileless she was, how completely feminine, how trusting. She had sat at the kitchen table last night drinking Nanny’s outrageous tea as if it were something rare and delectable from the choicest fields of Sri Lanka. She must have suspected that Nanny was up to no good. But she hadn’t been willing to hurt the old woman’s feelings. She was tactful and funny and…

She was more than the sum of her good qualities.

Despite himself, Damon remembered the way Matty had felt in his arms as he’d carried her upstairs to her bedroom. He had tried to wake her. He’d had no desire to play Rhett Butler after all they’d been through getting to the cay. But Nanny had done her work well, and there had been no hope of Matty waking before morning. So he had lifted her in his arms, which had been easier than he’d expected, and carried her through the hallway with a satisfied Nanny trailing behind.

At the top of the steps he’d shooed Nanny away and taken Matty to her room. The room hadn’t been readied, as he’d requested. The windows had been closed all day, and the stale air was smothering. The linen was clean enough, but not fresh, and the bed was heaped with blankets. He’d been forced to prop Matty in a chaise longue while he opened the windows to allow the fresh sea breezes to chase away the heat and at least rattle the cobwebs that Nanny and Kevin had left in place like ghoulish welcome streamers.

He had folded the blankets, leaving just one at the foot of the bed, then pulled down the spread and the sheets. And at that moment, as he’d realized that he was ready to move her to the bed, he’d realized something else.

There was no one else on the island who could undress her. Either she was going to sleep in a bulky cotton sweater and thigh-hugging pants, or he was going to have to strip off her clothes.

She was about to become his wife, but he had stood there helplessly staring at her cuddled against the terry cloth of the chaise. And that was when he’d no longer been able to deny what he’d tried to ignore since spotting her at the gate.

Matty Stewart was an attractive woman, and he was not immune to her attractions. And he certainly hadn’t been immune last night when he undressed her.

Someone made a sound in the hallway outside Heidi’s room. He knew who that someone was. Matty hadn’t yet come downstairs, and he knew she was finally ready to risk seeing them all again. For a moment he considered calling to her and introducing her to his daughter here in Heidi’s room. But just as he opened his mouth, Heidi began to whimper. The baby’s patience was amazingly short, and she had already reached her limit. He grabbed the next item of clothing he touched before he straightened. He had done everything wrong yesterday, but today was going to be different. He would wait until Matty had eaten something and wait until Heidi was smiling again. He would introduce them to each other when they were both at their best. And then he would pray.

* * *

Matty couldn’t really blame Damon for not calling to her when she passed Heidi’s room. She had made enough noise to let him know she was there, but he hadn’t responded as she’d hoped. And how could he be faulted? He had brought Heidi to meet her last night, and she had fallen sound asleep without even looking at the baby. Despite everything he’d said to her this morning, she knew she was on trial. How could she not be? He was giving her time this morning to adjust, or so he said. But she suspected that he was giving himself time to reconsider, too.

At the bottom of the steps she looked around to see who might be lurking to make her feel even less sure of herself. Blessedly—if the silence was to be believed—both Nanny and Kevin seemed to be somewhere else. The island didn’t present a lot of possibilities, but she hoped they were outside taking advantage of the white sand beaches or the waves frothing happily at the shoreline. Anywhere except where they could aim their hostility at her before she had her first cup of coffee.

She started toward the kitchen, admiring the highly polished wood floors, the pastel walls and the exotic furnishings in every room in between. The house was exquisite, each room a little museum of fascinating antiques, of paintings and sculpture and fine porcelain. Light rushed in from every window, and the air sweeping through was heavy with the salt spray of the sea and the perfume of exotic flowers.

“Toto, we’re not in Minnesota anymore,” she whispered. For a moment everything she had suffered yesterday faded away, along with her insecurities. How could things not go well here? She pushed open the kitchen door with new resolve, only to find Nanny waiting for her.

“I made breakfast. You didn’t come, so I t’row it in the garbage.”

Matty considered a dozen rejoinders, some surprisingly un-Mattylike. “That’s too bad. I’m sure you went to a lot of trouble.”

“You always sleep so late?”

“No. I wonder why I slept so late this morning?” Matty let that hang between them for just a moment before she continued. “Do you suppose it’s the air?”

Nanny lifted her chin. “I never sleep so late. Same air.”

“Since I seem to be on a different schedule from everyone else, I’ll fix my own breakfast. Please don’t worry about me again.”

“I’m the cook.”

“And I’ll bet it keeps you busy. This will be one less job you’ll have to worry about.” Matty turned her back before the old woman could argue and went to the pantry. As she’d hoped, there was an assortment of cereal, all repackaged in glass jars. She chose what looked like cornflakes and brought the jar with her as she backed out. When she turned, she saw that Nanny had gone.

She sighed, half in relief, half in sympathy. She wished she knew exactly what to say to convince Nanny that she was no threat, but she supposed that time would make it clear.

Either Nanny would realize that she meant no harm or Damon would tell Matty he didn’t want to marry her after all. Either way, the relationship with Nanny would improve.

She found a coffeepot on the counter, and a good sniff indicated that it really was coffee, warmed too long and much too strong to start with, but coffee nevertheless. The smell made her homesick for the coffee in the nurses’ lounge at Carrollton, and she poured a mugful. She pulled down a bowl from a cupboard, found silverware and a carton of milk, and took them all to the table.