[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

WHEN LOVERS MEET

Flora Kidd

Her island paradise had been invaded

Jilly, recently widowed, knew it was time to reenter the world. So she crewed on a boat sailing from England to the West Indies, and now she was house-sitting there for an absent friend. It was idyllic.

Until the day she found a devastating stranger in the house making himself at home. She was at once horrified—and powerfully attracted.

Edouard Forster, the black-sheep brother of her friend, insisted that the house had plenty of room for two. True, thought Jilly, but did her scarred heart have plenty of room for love?

"Drink this," he said.

It was a command

"What is it?" Jilly asked warily, her senses still reeling from her brush with drowning.

"Cognac," Edouard said.

"I don't want it. What are you trying to do? Make me drunk?"

"Oh, sure, so I can take advantage of you during the night," he scoffed. "What has happened to you in your short life to make you so suspicious of a guy? Did your late lamented do this to you?”

"Of course not! Kevin was kind and gentle, it's just that you—" She broke off, not wanting him to know the effect he had on her.

His glance flashed to her face, and suddenly he stroked a finger down her pale cheek. Hazily she thought, he shouldn't be touching her. That was breaking the ground rules she'd laid down.

His hand continued its caress. She was suddenly filled with an aching need to forget her ground rules....

FLORA KIDD had a romantic dream—to own a sailboat and learn how to sail it. That dream came true when she found romance of another sort with a man who shared her love of the sea and became her husband and father of their four children. A native of Scotland, this bestselling romance author now lives in New Brunswick, one of Canada’s maritime provinces, with the sea on her doorstep.

It was close to sunset time, almost six o’clock on St Mark's, a mountainous island in the West Indies, half under French rule and half under Dutch rule, with many beaches of golden sand that attract hundreds of tourists each winter. Feathery cirrus clouds, stained crimson and gold, streaked the sky, and shadows from exotic shrubs and trees were long and purple across the driveway that curved round to a house on the French side of the island, known as La Maison des Colombiers, the House of Doves.

Jilly Carter turned the small Korean car, provided for her use by the company for which she worked, into the parking-space beneath the down-dipping branches of some poinciana trees. She put on the brake and turned off the engine. She had lived in the house for almost a month and she still felt a wonderful feeling of satisfaction whenever she returned to it each evening. She would live in it for another three months, February, March and April, looking after it for its owner, who was away in France making a film.

Michelle Martin, the owner of the house, was a French film actress who had been born on the island and who could easily have rented out the house for those three months to winter tourists, thought Jilly, as she collected up the groceries she had bought before leaving the car. But because the actress had had a bad experience with tenants the previous year she had decided this time, when she had been called away to France, to have someone she knew and trusted to live in it. At the time Jilly had been looking for accommodation and had been recommended to Michelle by Irma Stratton, a New Yorker who ran a real-estate business on the island, renting out houses and apartments as well as advertising property for sale.

Opening the door of the car ready to get out, Jilly paused, her eyes opening wide. Another car was in the parking-space, parked a little nearer the house. It was dark grey and was difficult to see in the shadows, but she might not have noticed it if the chrome of its bumpers hadn’t glinted in the last of rays of light slanting up from the sun which had sunk below the horizon.

Clutching the bag of groceries, she got out of the car, slammed the door shut and after another puzzled glance at the shadowy grey car, headed for the house, following a path that twisted between oleander and hibiscus bushes. Reaching the wide terrace in front of the house, she stopped in her tracks. The floodlights were on, illuminating the kidney-shaped swimming-pool and the apron of reddish-brown tiles surrounding it. Her glance swerved to the house. The double glass-panelled front doors were wide open and light from inside lamps streamed out of the opening.

Hesitating no longer, she bounded up the shallow steps that led to the entrance of the house, her mind flicking over the possibility that Michelle had returned unexpectedly. Yet that wasn’t the actress’s car parked in the parking-space. Michelle owned a Citroen. The car in the space was definitely American and the Citroen was in a service garage on the Dutch side of the island, where it would stay until Michelle returned.

In the kitchen, which was located in the middle of the sprawling ranch-style house, she put down the bag of groceries and stood still, listening. From the direction of the west wing came the sound of rushing water. Someone must be in the bathroom showering. The question was—who? Her lips tightening, Jilly looked around for a suitable weapon and found none. Pulling open a drawer she searched for and found a carving-knife. The wicked-looking blade shimmered on the light shed from the fluorescent tube overhead. With the wooden handle clutched in her hand and the blade pointing forwards, Jilly made for the passage that led to the suite of rooms in the west wing. Lights blazed overhead and from every doorway. Whoever was in the house didn’t seem to care about being discovered and she probably didn’t need the weapon. Still, it was best to be sure when she was responsible for looking after the house. Someone had entered without her permission and had to be confronted.

When she reached the door of the west-wing bathroom she stood outside hesitating again. Through the door came, not the sound of rushing water, but a pleasant baritone voice singing a popular song. Jilly thumped on the door with a clenched fist and, with the knife pointed towards the door, she waited for a response. The voice broke off in the middle of a word. There was silence. Jilly thumped on the door again and shouted,

‘Open this door. I want to know who you are.’ Another brief silence, then the door was swung slowly back. A tall, wide-shouldered man stood in the opening. His hairy, sun-tanned chest was naked and a bath towel was draped around his hips. Wet fringes of dark hair hung over his forehead, and from beneath level eyebrows his vivid blue eyes regarded her narrowly.

‘Who are you?’ he challenged her. His sharp-angled jaw was blurred by black beard stubble and his teeth flashed white against the darkness of his face. When he saw the knife pointing at him his eyes widened in surprise and he stepped back a pace, watching the knife warily.

‘Tell me who you are first and what you’re doing in this house,’ insisted Jilly, the hand holding the knife dropping to her side. In his unshaven condition with muscles bulging and rippling beneath his tawny skin he looked more than tough but something in the direct glance of his clear eyes and the proud carriage of his head convinced her that he wasn’t criminal in any way.

‘Would you believe I’m a relative of Michelle’s?’ he replied coolly. ‘Her elder brother, in fact.’

‘You’re not French,’ Jilly accused. He spoke English without much of an accent. A slight smile lifted one corner of his mouth as he acknowledged the truth of her accusation.

‘Not entirely,’ he agreed. ‘But then neither is Michelle. Our father was English.’ He frowned suddenly and impatiently. ‘But why the hell should I tell you anything about myself? You’re the stranger here. Not me. What right have you to question me?’

‘I have every right. I’m living in this house and looking after it for the next three months while Mademoiselle Martin is in France making a film,’ Jilly asserted.

‘Oh, yeah?’ he jeered sceptically. ‘When I last talked to Michelle she said nothing about your coming with house.’ His glance swept over her insolently and his wide lips took on a mocking curve. ‘I suppose she guessed I’d be in need of more than food and a place to lay my head when I got here,’ he added suggestively. ‘And she chose well. I’m rather partial to blondes.’

‘Are you telling me that Michelle said you can stay in this house?’ demanded Jilly sharply, ignoring his insolence. ‘When did she tell you that?’

‘I guess it must have been last spring some time before I went to Europe. We agreed that I should come to live in the house when I got here.’ Water dripped from his hair down his face and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘Look, I’d like to get dry and into some clothes so that we can continue this conversation in a more comfortable situation. And without the carving knife.’ A slight grin curved his lips, ‘While you’re threatening to stab me and I’m in a state of near nudity I feel at a distinct disadvantage.’

Jilly looked down at the knife in her hand as if she was surprised to find she was still holding it, then shook her head from side to side so that her straight shining hair shimmered silkily.

‘You have to admit that I have reason to be threatening, coming back here and finding the house wide open, light streaming out of it and a strange car parked in the parking-space,’ she argued. ‘I thought someone must have broken in and I’m still not sure whether 1 should believe your story. No one has said anything to me about Michelle’s brother coming to stay here.’

‘Michelle said nothing to me about having let the house to a belligerent little Brit, either,’ he retorted. ‘The phone is ringing,’ he added laconically and stepping back into the bathroom shut the door.

He was right, the phone-bell was shrilling. Jilly rushed back to the kitchen still armed with the carving knife. Picking up the receiver she spoke breathlessly into the mouthpiece.

‘Hello. Jilly Carter speaking.'

‘Jilly. So glad to get you at last.’ There was no mistaking Irma Stratton’s nasal twang.

‘Irma, listen,’ Jilly broke in impetuously. ‘There’s a man in the house. He says he’s Michelle’s brother and ...’

‘He’s got there already?’ Irma’s voice went up a couple of tones higher. ‘I was hoping to warn you about him before he arrived, and I guess I would have done if only you’d been in the house when I first phoned.’

‘I had to stop to get groceries and there was a big line up at the check-out counter. Is he really Michelle’s brother?’

‘It’s true. Isn’t he something? He walked into my office this afternoon and demanded a key to the house.’

‘But how can you be sure he’s Michelle’s brother?’ exclaimed Jilly. ‘He doesn’t look much like her. Didn’t you ask for some form of identification before giving him a key?’

‘I can be sure because I’ve met him before, two years ago when he was here on the island,’ said Irma, with a touch of dryness. ‘And you have to agree that once met he’s not easily forgotten.’

‘You’ll want me to move out then,’ said Jilly, hiding her disappointment as she always did by speaking abruptly.

‘No, no. The arrangement I made was with Michelle for you to stay until she returns. He won’t be there long. Maybe a couple of weeks. He never stays long anywhere. OK?’

‘I suppose so,’ muttered Jilly.

‘If you have any problems with him just give me a call. I have to go now. We’re having people to dinner and this place is just a mess. Must clear up. See you, Jilly.’

‘See you ... oh, wait, just one more thing .. .’Jilly broke off. Irma had already hung up. No chance to ask her what Michelle’s brother was called.

Slowly she laid the receiver on its rest. She was still holding the carving-knife. Her lips twisting wryly as she realised how foolish she must have seemed to the man in the bathroom when she had brandished the knife at him, she opened the drawer and put it away, turning quickly to the doorway that led to the west wing when she heard footsteps.

Freshly shaved, wearing much-faded jeans and a thin white shirt, he seemed bigger and more muscular than ever. His black hair was waving and curling about his ears as it dried and, against the teak-coloured tan of his face, his eyes looked very blue. He paused just inside the kitchen and stared at her warily. Jilly decided to take the initiative.

‘Hi,’ she said, holding out her right hand. ‘I’m Jilly Carter. Irma Stratton was just on the phone. She explained about you. I’d have known about you before you arrived if I’d got here a little sooner than I did. Sorry I was so belligerent.’

His dark eyebrows tilted and his smile flashed giving his face a wicked yet breathtaking charm. Jilly caught her breath and felt her knees wobble. Never in the whole of her life had she reacted like that to a man’s smile. His big hand grasped hers. She could feel hard calluses on his fingers and palms and guessed he had been sailing recently.

‘I’m Ed Forster, Michelle’s black sheep of a brother, always turning up when I’m least expected. And in case you’re wondering why my last name is different from hers it’s because she uses our mother’s family name for professional purposes. Something to do with Michelle Martin being more alliterative and therefore more memorable,' he said with a touch of mockery. ‘Did Irma vouch for me?’

‘Yes, she did. Ed short for Edward?’ she asked lightly, pulling her hand free of his grasp. He had a grip that seemed to possess and then demand.

‘Ed short for Edouard. My mother insisted on the French spelling.’ There was a short silence as they eyed each other cautiously. Then, ‘How long have you been on the island?’ he asked casually.

‘Nearly seven months.’

‘That’s some vacation you’re having,’ he remarked, watching her closely, almost suspiciously. ‘Are you here legally?’

‘I’m not on vacation and I am here legally,’ she replied coolly. She was accustomed by now to having her legal status questioned. ‘I work at Seasails, the sail-making business run by Piet Block at the boatyard in Williamsburg.’

‘The authorities allow you to work on the island?’ he queried on a note of surprise. ‘I thought only natives of the island could work here.’

‘That is the rule, yes, but when it is a job for which no islander is qualified a company is allowed to employ a foreigner. When he found out I’m a trained sailmaker Piet offered me the job of being the chief designer and supervisor of the new sail-loft he was setting up. He arranged with the authorities for my work permit,’ she replied, then swung away to unpack the grocery bag. She was finding his presence rather overwhelming, something to do with the masculine vitality that seemed to radiate from him plus the mesmerising stare of his intensely blue eyes.

Behind her she heard the fridge door open and shut. It was followed by the snap of metal as he opened the can of beer he had taken out. Escaping air hissed. She began to unpack the grocery bag.

‘That doesn’t explain how you happened to be on the island when Piet offered you the job,’ he drawled. ‘How come you were washed up on this particular island? Like all the rest of the Brits, Aussies, and South Africans who live here? Did you come on a yacht?’

‘Yes, I did.’ She turned to look at him again. He was leaning against one of the counters, beer-can in hand.

‘Across the Atlantic? But not alone, surely?’ His glance swept her from head to foot again and dismissed the idea that she was capable of managing a yacht on her own.

‘No, not alone. I was a member of a crew on a sixty-foot ketch belonging to Reg Turner. He was, at the time, commodore of the cruising club where I lived in England. We—that is, the sailmaking company I worked for there— made the sails for the ketch. Reg invited me to be a member of the crew when he decided to cruise to the Caribbean and then up to the States and Canada.’

‘Were you the only woman on board?’ he asked casually, seemingly more interested in the can of beer than her, but she guessed what lay behind his question. He wanted to know if she had been Reg’s sleeping companion.

‘No, I wasn’t. Reg’s wife and daughter were on board too,’ she replied and turned back to the groceries. She wasn’t going to tell him any more about herself, why she had jumped at Reg’s invitation to leave England and sail away to the tropics. ‘I’m having chicken for dinner tonight,’ she went on rather reluctantly. ‘You’re welcome to have some.’

‘Does this show of hospitality mean you’re going to stay in the house?’ he asked.

‘Irma said you’ll only be here a couple of weeks and that Michelle would prefer it if I did stay,’ she replied diffidently. ‘Do you mind if I stay on? It’s awfully hard to find accommodation on the island right now. Until Irma arranged with Michelle for me to stay here I had to live aboard a boat belonging to Gerry and Sue Leigh. There wasn’t much privacy.’

‘No, I don’t mind. I noticed you’d chosen a room in the east wing so I moved into the west wing. We shan’t get in each other’s way too much. Probably we’ll see more of each other at the boatyard than here. I’m having my boat hauled out there and hope to be working on it.’

‘Where have you come from?’ she asked, opening the fridge door and pushing packages of frozen food into the freezer compartment.

‘Just now I’ve come from Miami. I sailed there from Newport, Rhode Island last November. Which part of England do you come from? I was in Plymouth before I left to sail across the ocean to Newport last June.’

‘The south coast. From a little village near Portsmouth. You won’t have heard of it, I expect. It’s called Felton,’ she said distantly and began to busy herself searching cupboards, opening and closing doors, in an attempt to hint to him that she had no wish to continue the conversation.

‘Do you always slam cupboard doors when you’re mad about something?’ The pleasantly drawling voice held a note of amusement and she swung round again to find he was standing close to her. He advanced a step, the glance of his blue eyes lingering provocatively on her hair, her eyes, her lips. ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin,’ he murmured, adding when she looked puzzled, ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.

It’s the title of a piano piece by Debussy. He could have had someone like you in mind when he composed it. Is your hair naturally flaxen or is it dyed?’

Jilly made a great effort to control a sudden turmoil of emotion. The time had come, she decided, to lay down some ground rules if she was going to share this house with him.

‘It’s natural,’ she said tersely. ‘And I think I’d better make something quite clear before we go any further, a rule I hope you’ll keep. It’s to be strictly hands off. I’m not available. Just because I’m going to be living in this house while you’re staying here doesn’t mean I’m willing to sleep with you.’

‘Now whatever put it into your head that I might want to sleep with you?’ he taunted. ‘You seem much too young and too inexperienced for a guy like me and ...’

‘I’ll have you know I’m twenty-five, nearly twenty-six, and I’ve been married,’ she interrupted him angrily, falling into the trap he had set for her.

‘Really?’ Tilted black eyebrows mocked her while blue eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘I would never have believed it. Such fine smooth skin, such clear eyes, such an air of innocence. So you’ve been married. And divorced, perhaps?’

‘No. Kevin died. In an accident. He was driving too fast, as usual,’ she said tonelessly. She’d managed it. For the first time since Kevin had been killed she had managed to tell someone without her eyes filling with tears and her voice trembling. Yet still this man hadn’t taken the hint that she didn’t want to talk to him any more.

‘Too bad.’ Much to her relief, he didn’t pretend to console her on her loss. ‘When did it happen?’

‘Nearly a year ago.’

‘Is that why you left England?’ he said shrewdly.

‘Yes. How did you guess?’

‘It’s what I’d have done if it had happened to me. A change of scene, change of people is the best way to go about healing a wound like that.’ He gave her a strangely speculative, underbrowed glance. ‘I guess you’re pretty well over it by now,’ he murmured.

She thought about that. He was right again. She was pretty well over the loss. The past ten months, sailing across the ocean and then settling into her job on this island, had done wonders for the state of her emotions and nerves. She was almost back to being as she had been before Kevin’s death. But not quite. Now she had a few reservations about falling in love again and getting married.

‘I suppose I am,’ she murmured and having found the frying-pan at last, added, ‘Have you decided? Are you going to share my supper?’

‘Not tonight, thanks. After being away from the island for a couple of years I’d like to look up some old friends and dine with them. Is Jilly the only name you have?’

‘Yes, it is. Why?’

‘Sounds like some sort of candy,’ he mocked. ‘I’ll have to find some other name for you.’

‘It’s short for Gillian,’ she said primly.

‘That’s even worse,’ he remarked with a grimace of distaste. Taking a couple of steps towards her, he reached out a hand and ruffled her hair then smiled down into her eyes. Again her knees wobbled. ‘I think I’ll call you Blondie,’ he murmured, his mouth taking on a taunting slant as if he knew such a nickname would annoy her. ‘I’ll be back late so don’t bother to wait up for me,’ was his next aggravating remark. ‘See you around, Blondie.’

And, putting his empty beer can down on the counter by the sink, he walked out of the kitchen and the house.

Alone in the kitchen, Jilly swore to herself as she sliced tender chicken meat. All her peace of mind had been shattered because this house, in which she had enjoyed living so much for the past month, had been invaded by a handsome annoying male. Would she have been so disturbed if the invader had been female? The point was worthy of consideration. She faced up to it and had to admit that it wasn’t just because he was male that Ed Forster had rattled her. It was because he attracted her physically in a way no other man had ever done, not even Kevin. At their first meeting too! Surely she wasn’t going to fall in love with him?

Perhaps she should leave, pack up and go, look for somewhere else to stay. The problem was where and at a rent she could afford. Tomorrow. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she would think about it tomorrow. Right now a shower was in order to sluice away the sweat and the problems of the day while the dinner cooked.

In spite of her determination to put the problem of Edouard Forster out of her mind she didn’t sleep at all well, waking that night every hour, so it seemed, to wonder if he had returned to the house. Towards dawn she fell into a heavy sleep only to be rudely awakened an hour later by the sound of the alarm clock pinging. Feeling like a piece of chewed string she blundered into the kitchen to put on coffee then blundered back to the bathroom to have a quick cold shower.

Coffee, hot and black and sinful, did much to revive her, and after munching a croissant filled with jam she left the house, dressed in a crisp, short white skirt of white cotton and a cotton top, V-necked and sleeveless, striped in red, white, blue and green.

The sight of the grey car parked close to her car reminded her that she had a problem to solve and she sighed. Edouard Forster had come back at God-alone-knew what hour of the morning and was now sleeping, not caring at all about how he had wrecked her night. Glancing up at the window of the bedroom in the west wing, she made a face at it and shook her fist. She hoped he had had a rotten dinner last night and that his friends hadn’t been as welcoming as he had hoped. Then she got into her car, turned on the engine, revved it long and loud in the hopes of waking him up and then reversed fast and noisily, tearing up the gravel, as he had done last night, before shooting down the drive at high speed.

Distances on the island were never great, since it was only about eight miles wide and eleven miles long, but in order to get from the peninsula where the house was situated to the boatyard where she worked Jilly had to drive from the French side to the Dutch side, a journey which could take either twenty minutes or an hour depending on the state of the roads, the traffic or whatever other man-made disaster occurred to cause a detour or a blockage.

That morning the weather was good, sunny and sparkling. Against the clear blue sky the pointed hills curving round the stretch of water known as the lagoon glowed green. Tiny waves stirred up by the trade wind ruffled the surface of the lagoon making the yachts anchored in it swing at their moorings. As she drove over the swing bridge that spanned the entrance to the lagoon from the sea, Jilly glanced sideways at the Caribbean Sea. Brilliantly blue, crested by white waves, it seemed to beckon, inviting her to go sailing and to probe its distant violet-blue horizon.

It was mornings like this one that always made her glad she had stayed on this island and it had been on a morning like this that she had first seen the green hills from the deck of the Artemis, Reg Turner’s yacht, seven months ago. Of all the islands she had visited while crewing on Reg’s yacht she had liked this one best, not that it was any more beautiful than Martinique or Antigua, but because on shore she had met so many young people like herself, all searching for a way to make new lives for themselves, nearly all driven there either by lack of opportunity in their own countries or because, like her, they wanted to turn their backs on distress and unhappiness and to start over again.

How grateful she would always be to Reg and Dora Turner for inviting her to come with them partly as a crew member and partly to be a companion to their teenage daughter Julie. The weeks at sea, most of them amazingly storm-free as the ketch had run down the old trade route from the Canary Islands to the West Indies, had been more than beneficial. Away from everything associated with Kevin and their brief year-long marriage, Jilly had gradually recovered from the shock of his death. The company of the other members of the crew had helped too. None of them had known Kevin and none of them had been m...