When Somebody Loves You (27 page)

He didn’t understand what had triggered it. He only knew that he had to fight it.

It was Jo who finally had the presence of mind to break whatever it was that had gripped them and held them suspended.

“Is there a chance you’d feed me first?” she asked, breaking a silence that had become too expectant. “This business of staying out of your way has worked up my appetite.”

He let his gaze drift over her face, then replied in a husky rasp, “Some appetites do need to be fed, don’t they?”

She stared at him boldly. “And others?”

Sanity returned on the wings of her breathy question. He released her hand as if he’d just realized he still held it. “And others, being what they are, shouldn’t be fed at all. Come on,” he said gruffly. “Let’s go do something about yours.”

Six

The cabin steps needed repair, and he’d found some rough tools in a shed out back. Adam had reasoned that the physical labor would provide him with a release, give him something to do with his hands. And it seemed like a small payback to the people whose cabin was providing his shelter.

He fed Jo, then put her to work with him. At the time, it had seemed like the safest course of action. As time passed, however, he questioned the wisdom of his decision.

He turned to grab another peg and became fascinated by the color of her hair. That was when he’d known he was in trouble.

Deep russet by the fire glow and amber-gold in the sunlight, the heavy mass fell in feather-soft waves almost to her waist. He stared, spellbound, as the sun played with the highlights, having a field day with the color.

He knew what it felt like wet. It had substance and texture and the delicate strength of fine silk thread. He was speculating about the feel of it dry and shining and slipping through his fingers when with a quick toss of her head, she flipped the entire length over her shoulder and out of her way. Strand by strand, like sand sifting through an hourglass, it slipped free again until the whole glorious mass was back in her eyes.

The expectant look on her face made him realize he was staring . . . and that he’d been mesmerized by what he’d seen.

This had to stop, he told himself. This preoccupation, this adolescent fascination that was fast becoming an obsession. She might not be a kid, but he was almost old enough to be her father. And he sure as hell didn’t need the kind of headache that involvement with her was certain to bring.

“Got it?” he asked as he lifted a porch step into place.

“Got it.”

Jo managed to hold the wood steady by pressing her hip against the frame and her good hand under the board.

“My father used to make dock chairs out of rough cedar,” she said, then caught herself when she realized she’d been enjoying the memory. “How did you learn to work with wood?”

“Trial and error, mostly. And John and I used to spend a lot of time together in his little shop.”

She said nothing. Her hair fell across her face again, hiding her reaction. He experienced an immediate sense of loss and covered it with irritation.

“Isn’t that annoying?” he asked, nodding toward her hair. “How do you ever get anything done with it hanging in your face all the time?”

She gave him a little one-shoulder shrug. “Takes two hands to braid it.”

Disgusted with his outburst, he forced himself to take a calm breath. “Hold on a second.”

He tossed the hammer to the ground and rose stiffly. He’d spent more time than his leg was accustomed to crouched close to the ground. He limped over to the tree where he’d hung his jacket and with one tug slipped free the string that ran through the casement of the hood.

“This ought to do the trick.”

She straightened and presented her back to him. Slowly he reached out and gathered the heavy mane in his hands . . . and the fascination began again.

Her hair was like nothing he’d ever touched before. Soft as down, fragrant as an autumn morning, it seemed alive with an energy of its own. He couldn’t help it. He sifted it through his fingers, combed it away from her neck, held the weight of it in his big hands. The experience was an artful seduction of his senses, sensual and slow and impossible to fight.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured raggedly, tempted to bury his face in the spun gold.

She stood very still, her slim shoulders tense. “You were right the first time. It’s a nuisance.”

“Well,” he said hoarsely, so close that his breath stirred the fine strands clinging to her neck, “this ought to help.”

With more determination than skill, he gathered the heavy mass and tied it together at the nape of her neck. His hands dropped lightly to her shoulders as he studied the clumsy job he’d done. “How’s that?”

“Much better. Thanks.” She faced him. “It was getting hot.”

He felt her shiver despite her comment. His body responded with a burning warmth of its own. Too aware of that heat, he dragged his gaze away from hers, only to have it snag on the slender column of her throat, where a light sheen of perspiration clung like dew.

Her skin was delicate. His hands were not. Yet he ached to touch her there. Gently, he framed the fragile tendons of her neck with long, work-roughened fingers. Skimming his thumbs across her skin, he drew away the glistening moisture, then studied the spot he’d just caressed. He swallowed, enthralled by the faint rhythm of her pulse beat. He wanted to press his lips there, to taste the salt and the sweat and the sweetness of her.

The voice of reason growled at him, warning him he was acting like a fool. He let his hands fall away. “Let’s get back to work.”

Though her eyes were soft and questioning, she bent back to her task.

They worked quietly the rest of the afternoon, keeping words and looks to a minimum. Accidental contact was pointedly ignored. Adam sensed she was struggling with the same tenuous control that he was. The guarded way she looked at him, the silence that spoke of her uncertainty, all indicated the extent of her tension.

By the time he’d finally hammered the last peg into place, he was in a rare mood, fueled by his frustration. He needed to put some distance between them before he did something they’d both have cause to regret.

Gathering the hand tools, he mumbled his thanks, then handled this problem much as he had handled other problems in his life of late. He walked away from it. Without a word or a backward glance, he strode off into the woods.

Jo stood, watching him go. A lump lodged in her throat. The heaviness in her chest pressed hard as she remembered the feel of his long, strong fingers tying her hair with such gentleness, of how those hands had caressed her.

From the beginning, she’d been too aware of his physical presence. His brusquely executed escape told her he was wanting too. The dawning realization stunned her. The wonder of it astounded her. Yet as she stood there, bathed in the autumn sunlight and the knowledge that a man like that could want her, the why of it ceased to matter.

She knew that when she left this island, she would leave a different person than when she came.

Walking slowly into the cabin, she looked at his bed where he’d moved it into the corner. She looked at her own in front of the fire. And she wondered if another night would pass before he came to her . . . or before she went to him.

New resolve and old regrets marked each footstep as Adam approached the cabin a couple of hours later. Control was critical. It was the only thing that would keep him from embarking on a journey that could only end in pain. She was innocent and clean. He was jaded by experience and soiled with the sins of his profession. He was going to stay the hell away from her.

Then he saw her and resolve snapped like the twigs beneath his feet.

She looked every bit of sixteen years old as she sat at the top of the cabin steps, bathed in the vibrant rays of the setting sun. Her feet were perched on the step below her, her forearms crossed over her knees. Despite his determination to remain distant, he wondered what it would have felt like to steal her first kiss.

There was nothing good he could give her, and there was so damn much he could take away. He vowed again that he wouldn’t touch her. But the hesitant smile that broke across her face when she saw him shook both his purpose and his conviction.

“Hi,” she said softly, her eyes shining with a guilelessness he doubted he’d ever known.

“Hi,” he grunted, and forced himself up the steps and past her into the cabin.

“I heated up the soup if you’re hungry.”

“Fine.” He closed the door and leaned back against it, trying to forget the look of bewilderment that had clouded her eyes. He hissed a vivid expletive under his breath. Wasn’t it better to leave her wondering than wounded? And that was exactly how he’d leave her if he got close enough to touch her again.

“This from a man who once prided himself on control,” he muttered in disgust as he slammed around in the cupboard looking for a bowl. He found one and filled it. Propping his elbows on the table, he hunched over his supper like an angry bear guarding his last pot of honey. He’d shoveled down two mouthfuls when he stopped, drew a deep breath, and dropped his spoon.

He flattened his forearms on the table and looked toward the door. Who the hell was he mad at? Her? Not fair, Dursky.

He strode across the room and opened the door.

“Have you eaten?” he asked, bracing his hand above him on the door frame.

She didn’t turn around. She just wrapped her arms around her legs and dropped her chin on her knees. “A little while ago.”

He stared at the top of her head, working the muscle in his jaw. Sighing with resignation, he walked out onto the porch.

“Mind if I join you?”

She looked at him over her shoulder, clearly trying to read his mood. “I can go in, if you want the porch to yourself.”

She started to rise. He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “No. Stay. I’d like the company.” Before it was too late and before it started to feel too comfortable there, he pulled his hand away.

He eased to the bottom step and crossed his outstretched legs at the ankles. Propping his elbows on the step by her feet, he stared in the direction of the bay. The first evening star was a winking pinhole in the rosy blush of twilight. They watched in silence as dusk slowly relinquished its last bit of daylight to the gunmetal blue of the darkening sky. Only the distant and profoundly constant wash of water infiltrated the quiet.

“How do you get used to it?” he asked, not looking at her. “The silence. The solitude.”

He felt her shift on the step above him. “How do you get used to the sulfur and gas fumes of the city? I guess it’s a question of what seems natural. If you grow up with solitude, you feel comfortable with it. I never got used to life in Minneapolis. I always felt misplaced there.”

He twisted around to face her. “It must have been rough for you.”

She looked off into the darkness, absorbed with something only she could see. When she met his eyes, her face was stripped of emotion. “I hated it. But I stayed because I had nowhere else to go. Aunt Grace and I were of the same mind about the decision. Neither of us wanted me there. It was the only thing we ever agreed on.”

She stopped abruptly, clearly uncomfortable with his frowning attention.

“Doesn’t exactly sound like you received an open-arms welcome.”

“I’m sure it was a shock for her too,” she said generously.

Too generously, he thought, unaccountably angry with some faceless old witch who could have provided a cushion instead of another blow.

“Anyway,” Jo went on, “she put a roof over my head and clothes on my back, then pretended I didn’t exist. I made it easy for her by staying out of her hair. The day after I graduated from high school I moved out. I worked my way through college, then got a job at an ad agency in St. Paul.”

“And then?”

She shrugged. “And then I saved my money, and this spring, I came home.”

He was sure she wasn’t aware of it, but when she said the word “home,” her eyes softened and all the tension eased out of her voice. At the same time, a corresponding warmth stole the last of his determination not to react to her. He didn’t have to be her lover to be her friend.

“I guess you knew what you were talking about all along,” he said thoughtfully.

“Excuse me?”

“You really do know how to take care of yourself.”

She took his cue with a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. “By damn near getting myself drowned?”

He grinned, feeling too much pleasure in her smile. “So,” he said speculatively, breaking the spell, “it was the solitude, or lack of it, that made you come back?”

“Yes, but more specifically, I came back because of Shady Point. I’d kept up-to-date with what was happening to the lodge through Steve and just bided my time until the right opportunity presented itself. This spring, I thought it had.”

He stared into the night. “Life hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for you, has it?”

“It’s definitely been a challenge.”

“What now, Jo?”

She shrugged and lifted her chin. “Something will turn up. I’ll get by.”

“I’m sure you will,” he said softly, then smiled to himself as he turned back to face the lake. “And may God have mercy on any mere male who might try to help you.”

“I heard that,” she said, joining the attempt to keep things light. “I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid. If I truly need help, I accept it.”

“But it hurts like hell, doesn’t it?” He rose, brushed off the seat of his pants, and countered her silence with a gentle smile. “I bet I know something else that hurts.”

She tilted her head warily.

“That skirmish you had with the lake last night was probably equivalent to hitting a truck broadside.”

“I’m fine.”

He laughed. “See? You’d chew nails before you’d admit that you’re hurting. Your hand is broken, you took a beating in that storm, yet you’ll sit there on your bruised pride and your black-and-blue butt and deny it.”