Charmed By You ((Destiny Bay Romances-The Islanders 5)) (15 page)

“I’m still here,” she agreed, trying to smile.

“Well, you just may be in luck,” Kevin went on, not giving her a chance to continue. “Meet Terry Chan and Guy Pardo. They run a nice little charter service—glass-
bottom boats, you name it—out of Guam. They may
have a ride for you as far as Apra Harbor.”

She smiled at the two men, acknowledging the intro
duction. “I’m afraid I can’t leave right now,” she said,
sighing as she took a seat next to Kevin. “In fact, it looks
like I’ll be here for at least another week.”

“Oh?” Kevin’s eyes shone with barely-suppressed in
terest, but he quickly changed the subject and led the
others in a discussion of deep-sea fishing off the Marianas
Trench. Later, while Heather gave Mele her order, Kevin
said good-bye to Chan and Pardo, promising to take them
somewhere mysterious first thing in the morning.

“Now,” he said when they were alone, “give it to me straight. What has our cunning Mitch done to bring about
this change of heart?”

She shook her head, taking a sip of the white wine Mele had served her. “There’s been no change of heart,
Kevin, only a change in the status of the papers I brought
for Mitch to sign. As those papers are now enjoying a cruise of the Western Pacific, I’ll have to bide my time until they return.”

Kevin chuckled. “You mean he... ?”

“I mean they somehow ended up with the penicillin
Dede took last night. You
did
know Dede was here? I take it she breezes in and out at will. Even in and out of Mitch’s house.”

“Wait a minute,” Kevin said warningly, reaching out an upraised hand. “Mitch and Dede have a working relationship, that’s all. Not that there hasn’t been a bit of talk since the day they arrived together. But knowing Mitch as I do and”—he grinned—“knowing Dede, I can unequivocably swear—“

“Never mind,” she interrupted. “He told me there was no affair, and I believe him. But why does she walk into
his place at all hours?”

“Because they’re partners, darling.” He hesitated, then
added. “And perhaps because there’s no reason to think she might be interrupting anything. Mitch doesn’t mess around with the local girls.”

Heather bit her lip, ashamed of the thrill that shot through her at that bit of information. “He doesn’t?” she
asked, trying to sound casual but failing miserably. “How
do you know?”

Kevin smiled knowingly. “I work with the man every day. It always puzzled me that he could stay so much to
himself. At first I assumed, just like everyone else, that he and Dede... Well, that suspicion was crushed when she and I became friendly.”

“You and Dede?”

“For a short time. No longer, I’m afraid. I don’t share her passion for the cause of medicine, and she got impatient with me.” He shook his head in mock sorrow.
“It all came to a head one sunny afternoon. We’d planned
to indulge in a bit of skinny-dipping at Pago Point, but
she insisted on testing the water first with her little bottles
of chemicals. Gave me a lecture on the evils of water pollution that killed my usually strong masculine instincts. When I finally told her I didn’t care how many parts per million were poisoned, she called me a fascist pig and marched out of my life.”

Heather laughed. “Sounds like a case of listening to different drummers,” she noted.

“Absolutely.” He sighed. “Though I sometimes won
der if my own drummer has fallen asleep on me.” He roused himself. “At any rate, back to Mitch. It wasn’t until you showed up that I finally understood the man.” He winked conspiratorially. “I might be able to forego
the island pleasures myself if I were waiting for someone
like you to arrive.”

Her smile was almost tremulous. “Well, thank you, but I hardly feel it’s because of me. He’s just as wrapped up in his work as Dede is.”

Kevin shrugged. “Possibly. But at least you have a week to find out where the truth lies”

Heather stared at him, wondering just what he was expecting, but before she could question him further, he was hailing a newcomer to the room. Within moments, two men and a woman had joined them and the conversation veered away from Mitch.

The evening passed quickly. Kevin introduced her to
a wide assortment of island characters, everyone from a Chinese refugee scientist who bewailed his lot as a man
without a country, to a University of Chicago anthro
pologist looking for evidence of ancient
homo sapiens.
Every person she met was fascinating, but Heather found
her gaze slipping to the doorway again and again.

She knew Mitch ate most of his meals here at Mele’s.
When would he arrive?

Not, of course, that she would speak to him when he did. Certainly not. He deserved a little cold-shouldering.
But deep in her heart she knew she wasn’t planning a
prolonged boycott, just an evening or two to make him
understand how angry she was.

Time passed and the dining room crowd thinned, until
only the die-hard talkers were left. Kevin was obviously one of those, and soon everyone who had stayed was gathered around their table, trading stories of adventures
in the islands or tales of why they had come to the tropics
in the first place. Heather sat listening, waiting, won
dering if Mitch would ever show up.

Naturally, he appeared at the worst possible moment. Kevin had just leaned close, trying to explain to her why a joke the Chinese scientist had just made was really hysterically funny. He’d put an arm around her shoulders
to speak into her ear. As she listened, trying to concen
trate on the involved explanation, Mitch walked in and stopped, his eyes riveted on them, his face impassive but
his eyes burning like hot coals.

Mele bustled up to him, urging him to sit with the
others, but with his eyes still on the arm Kevin had around
Heather’s shoulders, he shook his head. “No,” he said
in a voice that came clearly across the room, “I think I’ll
just go to the bar and have a drink.”

A wave of confusing impulses crashed over Heather.
She wanted to jump up and follow him. At the same time, she wanted him to see her anger, wanted him to
understand how much she resented what he’d done.
 

Yet she loved him. Why not tell him so?

That would never do. He wanted her. He’d said as much. But he’d also said he had no interest in the confining ties of marriage. In other words, he wanted her for now, but not forever.

She sat where she was, still pretending to listen to Kevin, holding her hands tightly, the nails cutting into her skin. One part of her wanted to run to her room; the other insisted on waiting to see if Mitch would join the group later.

The minutes crawled by, turning to hours. The music
from the jukebox was becoming more and more annoy
ing. She thought she would scream if she heard “... ten minutes to heartbreak...” wailed in full falsetto one more time.

“Oh, Mele,” she cried in desperation when the owner of the Coconut Club came to sit with them at last, her duties of the evening completed. “Can’t you do something about that music?”

“Not a chance, honey,” the woman replied, smiling complacently. “The boys would string me up.”

“You know what you should do,” Heather said, suddenly getting an idea. “You should hire local talent one
night a week. That might wean the boys away from their
favorites. They might even find out they like a little variety.”

“Isn’t that just like a newcomer?” Mele told them all good-naturedly. “Wants to come in and reform us all.” She grinned at Heather. “And just where do you think we’re going to find this local talent?”

Heather shook her head. “I don’t know. There must be someone... Oh, wait, I do know after all. I heard a
marvelous guitar player today. His name’s Danny Ca
brillo.”

“Danny Cabrillo?” Kevin asked. “From Titano vil
lage?”

“Right,” Heather replied, getting excited. “You really
ought to hear him play, Mele. I’ll bet he could get the
boys tapping their toes in no time.”

But Mele was shaking her head. “It’ll never work. Believe me, the boys know what they want, and they
don’t want some wet-behind-the-ears kid to come in and
mess with their music.”

As she spoke, the sound of “Ten minutes to heart
break” drifted in again, and Heather gritted her teeth. She couldn’t wait all night for Mitch to show up.

“When do you think Mitch will be finished in the bar?”
she whispered to Mele.

The Polynesian woman looked surprised. “Why, he left half an hour ago, honey. If you want to talk to him, why don’t you just go on over to his place and catch him
before he falls asleep?”

Despite the evening’s stultifying heat, Heather felt suddenly chilled. “Oh. I guess I’ll... go on to bed,” she managed as she rose from the table, smiling blindly at
the others. “See you all tomorrow.”

There was a hush in the room as she left, and she
knew they were waiting until she got up the stairs before beginning a long debate about what was going on between her and Mitch. But she didn’t really care. The only thing that concerned her was the man who was sleeping
in the house across the road. Her heart was with him,
even if she didn’t dare go herself.

Chapter Seven

“Can you hold him still?”

Heather moved along the bank of the shallow muddy
river, trying to get an angle for the picture she wanted to sketch.

“Will he stop and graze or something?”

Three grinning brown children waved at her from the
back of a tremendous water buffalo. She’d asked if she
could make a quick sketch of their ride and they’d agreed
happily, but the beast they were astride had other ideas.

“Stop, stop!” the children all yelled. The lead boy tugged on the cord tied to the animal’s nose and pulled at his wide flat horns. But the buffalo was old and contrary, and he stopped only long enough to turn his huge wide-eyed face in Heather’s direction. The jaws chewed
a few times, drooling green residue along the side of his
mouth. Then, with what Heather would have sworn was a grin, the beast began to walk away, totally ignoring the children’s cries.

“We come back later, lady,” the lead boy called to her as they rode off.

“You do that,” she muttered back, laughing in exasperation. She’d have to improve her technique of cap
turing subjects or stick to houses. At least they didn’t
walk off in the middle of a sketch.

But she’d tried houses already. She ruffled through her sketch pad, glancing at those she’d drawn the day before at Titano village, and the ones she’d done this morning here in Ragonai. They had nice enough lines
and form, but no soul. Why couldn’t she capture the
spark she wanted so badly?

She began to walk back to the Coconut Club, letting her thoughts drift from her troubles with her drawing to her troubles with her ex-husband. It was hard to believe
she’d arrived on this island less than two days ago. She
felt as though she’d been through enough emotional tur
moil to last a lifetime.

The night had gone badly again as she tossed and
turned, wondering if Mitch was as sleepless as she. But when she’d gone to her window and looked down, she’d
found no light on in his house. She’d sat watching the
wind bend the palm trees, thinking of how it might have
been if he’d been standing at his window, too, if they’d
seen one another and both walked out into the night to
meet.

They would have come together in an ardent, wordless
embrace. He would have told her he loved her, that he
realized he couldn’t live without her. Their divorce had
been a terrible mistake, and he wanted to come back with
her to Flagstaff to try again.

That dream had looked very nice around three o’clock
in the morning, but in the bright daylight, sharing break
fast with Kevin and watching for a Mitch who never came,
it had evaporated like the pipe dream it was.

“Does Mitch usually come here for breakfast?” she’d
asked Kevin casually.

“Not always. He’s often too busy to take time to eat.”

“The archetypal physician dedicated to his job?” That
description didn’t jibe with the picture she’d formed in Flagstaff, but she had to admit it seemed to apply here.

“Exactly.” Kevin had eyed her for a moment. “What gives, Heather? Are you going to punish him until the papers come back with Dede? Somehow that doesn’t seem your style.”

She flushed. “My style right now is survival, Kevin, my dear. Emotional survival.”

When she’d come out of the club, Mitch’s Jeep had been gone. She supposed he was off for another day of tending patients across the island. She’d taken out her flat case of artist’s supplies and gone looking for sights to draw. After three hours at it she still hadn’t found what she was looking for.

Restlessly, she strode into the yard of the Coconut Club, wishing she could still the churning in her soul.

Suddenly she stopped. Mele had planted a large veg
etable garden in back of the club, and right now she was bent over between rows of tomato plants and runner beans, digging energetically with a short-handled hoe.
Something in the angle of her body suggested to Heather
the timeless image of a thousand generations of island women just like Mele. Quietly, for the woman hadn’t
noticed her arrival, she opened her case and reached for
her supplies.