For her own sake, her own protection, she had to hold him at bay, and she didn"t know if she could. Today, with a few kisses and frightening ease, he had shown her that he could arouse her beyond her own control. She could love him, and that was the most terrifying prospect of all. He was a strong man, in mind and soul as well as body, a man worthy of love. He would steal her heart if she weren"t careful, if she didn"t keep her guard up at all times.
She turned away from the window. Twelve years ago, love had almost destroyed her, leaving only a forlorn heap of ashes from which she had laboriously rebuilt a controlled, protected life. She couldn"t do that again; she didn"t have the strength to once more live through that h.e.l.l and emerge victorious. She had already lost too many people to believe that love, or life, lasted forever. She couldn"t do anything about the people she already loved, the ones already in her heart: her family, old Virgil, a very few close friends, but she hadn"t allowed anyone new to stake a claim on her emotions. She had already paid out too much in pain and had precious little reserve of spirit left. She had almost lost Jason today, and the pain had been overwhelming. Rebecca knew, had realized that if Evie hadn"t been able to find Jason, she would now be mourning a sister as well as a son. That was the real basis for her sister"s fury with Jason.
And Evie knew that Robert Cannon planned to force his way into her life. He would be here for the summer, he"d said; he wouldn"t be looking for anything more than a pleasant affair, companionship during the long, lazy weeks. If she fell in love with him, that would make the affair sweeter. But at the end of summer he would go back to his real life, and Evie would have to continue here, with one more wound on a heart that had barely survived the last blow. Emotionally, she couldn"t afford him.
There were always a hundred and one things to be doing around the marina, but suddenly she couldn"t think of a single one. She felt oddly disoriented, as if the world had been turned upside down. Maybe it had.
She called the hospital and was put through to Jason"s room. Her sister answered the phone on the first ring. "He"s grouchy and has a throbbing headache," Rebecca cheerfully announced when Evie asked his condition. "I have to wake him every couple of hours tonight, but if he does okay, then he can go home in the morning. Paul left just a few minutes ago to take Paige to his mother"s, then he"s coming back here. How about you? Nerves settled down yet?"
"Not quite," Evie said truthfully, though Jason"s close call wasn"t all that had unsettled her. "But I"m over the shakes."
"Are you at home, I hope?"
"You know better than that."
"You should have taken it easy for the rest of the day," Rebecca scolded. "I had hopes that Mr. Cannon would take you in hand. He seems good at giving orders."
"World-cla.s.s champion," Evie agreed. "I"ll come by to see Jason after the marina closes. Do you want me to bring you anything? A pillow, a book, a hamburger?"
"No, I don"t need anything. Don"t come here. Jason"s okay, and you need to go home and rest. I mean it, Evie."
"I"m okay, too," Evie calmly replied. "And I want to see Jason, even if just for a few minutes-" She cried out in surprise as the phone was plucked from her hand. She whirled as Robert lifted the receiver to his ear.
"Mrs. Wood? Robert Cannon. I"ll see that she goes straight home. Yes, she"s still a little wobbly."
"I am not," Evie said, narrowing her eyes at him. He reached out and gently stroked her cheek. Deliberately she stepped back, out of his reach.
"I"ll take care of her," he firmly a.s.sured Rebecca, never moving his gaze from Evie"s face. "On second thought, I"ll take her out to dinner before I take her home. I think so, too. Goodbye."
As he hung up, Evie said in a cold voice, "I despise being treated as if I"m a helpless idiot."
"Hardly that," he murmured.
She didn"t relent. "I suppose you thought that I would feel safe and protected, to have you take over and make my decisions for me. I don"t. I feel insulted."
Robert lifted an inquisitive brow, hiding his true reaction. He had indeed hoped to provoke exactly that response from her and felt an uneasy surprise that she had so easily gone straight to the truth of the matter. She was proving to be uncomfortably astute. "What I think," he said carefully, "is that you were in more danger than you want your sister to know, and that you"re still shaky. If you go to the hospital again, you"ll have to put up a front to keep from scaring both her and Jason, and that will put even more strain on you."
"What I think," she replied, standing with her fists clenched at her sides, "is that I"m in far more danger from you than I ever was from the water." Her golden brown eyes were cool and unwaveringly level.
Again he felt a twinge of discomfort at her insight. Still, he was certain he could soften her stand, and his tone turned gently cajoling. "Even if I offer you a truce for tonight? No kisses, not even any hand-holding. Just dinner, then I"ll see you safely home, and you can get a good night"s rest."
"No, thank you. I won"t have dinner with you, and I can get home by myself."
He gave her a considering look. "In that case, the offer of a truce is null and void."
His tone was so calm that she listened to it first, rather than to the actual words. She hesitated only a split second, but that was enough for him to have her in his arms again, and again she felt overcome by his steely, deceptive strength. His body was unyielding, his grip careful but unbreakable. The male muskiness of his clean, warm skin made her head swim. She had the dizzy impression that his mouth was lowering to hers and quickly ducked her head to rest it against his chest. It was disconcerting to hear a quiet chuckle over her head.
"Such a cowardly act, from one who isn"t," he murmured, the words rich with amus.e.m.e.nt. "But I don"t mind simply holding you. It has its own compensations."
She was a coward, though, Evie thought. She was terrified of him, not in a physical way, but emotional fear was just as weighty a burden to carry. She was handling him all wrong; he wouldn"t be accustomed to rejection, so every time she turned him down it made him just that much more determined to have his way. If she had played up to him from the beginning, gushed over him, he would have been bored and left her alone. Hindsight, though, despite its acuity, was depressingly useless.
His hand moved soothingly over her back, subtly urging her closer. It was so easy to let him take more of her weight, so easy to give in to the strain and fatigue she had been successfully fighting until now. She resisted the urge to put her arms around him, to feel the heated vibrancy of his body under her hands, but she could hear the strong, steady thumping of his heartbeat beneath her ear, feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and that was enough to work its own seduction. The forces of life were strong in him, luring women to that intense strength. She was no different from all those countless, nameless others.
"Robert," she whispered. "Don"t." A cowardly, shameless, useless plea.
That hand stroked up to her shoulder blades, rubbed the sensitive tendons that ran from her neck to her shoulders, ma.s.saged her tender nape. "Evie," he whispered in return. "Don"t what?" He continued without waiting for a reply. "Is Evie your real name, or is it a nickname for Eve? Or possibly Evelyn? No matter, it suits you."
Her eyes drifted shut as his warmth and strength continued to work their black magic on her nerves, her will. Oh G.o.d, it would be so foolishly easy just to give in to him. His skill was nothing short of diabolical. "Neither. It"s short for Evangeline."
"Ah." The short sigh was one of approval. He truly hadn"t known her full name; none of the reports he had seen had called her anything except Evie. "Evangeline. Feminine, spiritual, sensual...sad."
Evie didn"t respond outwardly to that a.n.a.lysis of her name, but the last word shook her. Sad...yes. So sad that for several long, bleak years she couldn"t have said if the sun ever shone or not, because with her heart she had seen only gray. She could see the sunshine now; the relentless current of life as a whole had swept her out of the darkness, but there was never a day when she didn"t realize how closely the shadows lurked. They were always there, a permanent counterpoint to life. If there was light, there had to be darkness; joy was balanced by pain, intimacy by loneliness. No one sailed through life untouched.
He was subtly rocking her with his body, a barely perceptible swaying that nevertheless urged her deeper and deeper into his embrace. He was aroused again; there was no mistaking that. She thought she should move away, but somehow in the past few minutes that had ceased to be an option. She was so tired, and the gentle motion of his body was soothing, like the swaying of a boat at anchor. The ancient rhythms were difficult to resist, linked as they were to instincts aeons beyond her control.
After several minutes he murmured, "Are you going to sleep?"
"I could," she replied, not opening her eyes. Beyond the danger, there was deep comfort in his embrace.
"It"s almost six-thirty. Under the circ.u.mstances, I"m sure your customers would understand if you closed a little early."
"An hour and a half isn"t a "little" early. No, I"ll stay until eight, as usual."
"Then so will I." He stifled his surge of annoyance. He himself let very few things interfere with his work-in actuality, only Madelyn and her family-but he didn"t like the idea of Evie pushing herself into exhaustion at the marina.
"It isn"t necessary."
"I rather believe it is," he replied thoughtfully.
"I still won"t go out to dinner with you."
"Fair enough. I"ll bring dinner to you. Do you have any preferences?"
She shook her head. "I"m not very hungry. I was going to have a sandwich when I got home."
"Leave it all to me."
She said against his chest, "You take charge very naturally. I suppose this is normal behavior for you."
"I"m decisive, yes."
"Don"t forget autocratic."
"I"m sure you"ll remind me if I forget."
She heard the undertone of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice. d.a.m.n him, why couldn"t he be nasty in his bullying, rather than relentlessly, gently cosseting? She never allowed herself to rely on anyone, though Rebecca had been trying to take care of her for years, but Robert simply ignored her resistance.
"I realize I"m rushing you," he murmured into her hair. "Today is only the second time we"ve met. I"ll back off, sweetheart, and give you time to get to know me better and feel more comfortable around me. Okay?"
Her head moved up and down. She didn"t want to agree to have anything to do with him, but right now she would grasp at any offer to cool down the situation. He had knocked her off balance, and she still hadn"t regained it. Yes, she needed time, a lot of it.
Robert cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to lift her head away from the shelter of his chest. His pale green eyes were glittering with intensity. "But I won"t go away," he warned.
EVIE SLEPT HEAVILY that night, exhausted by the stress of the day. When she woke at dawn at the far-off roar of an early fisherman"s outboard motor, she didn"t rise immediately as was her habit but lay watching the pearly light spread across the sky.
For twelve years she had kept herself safe inside her carefully constructed fortress, but Robert was storming the walls. Had stormed them, if she was honest with herself. He was already in the inner court, though he hadn"t yet managed to breach the defenses of the keep. Since Matt"s death, she hadn"t really seen any man, but Robert had forced her to see him. She was attracted to him, mentally as well as physically; it was only with effort that she had kept her emotions still safely locked away. She didn"t want to love him and knew she risked doing exactly that if she continued to see him.
But she would see him, time and again. He had warned her-or was it a promise?-that he wasn"t going to leave her alone, and he wasn"t a man who could be easily distracted from his purpose.
He would kiss her, hold her, caress her. Eventually, she knew, all of her caution would vanish under the sheer force of physical desire, and she wouldn"t be able to stop him-or herself.
She closed her eyes and relived the way he had kissed her the afternoon before, the way he had tasted, the calm expertise with which he had deepened the kiss. She thought of his lean fingers on her breast, and her nipples throbbed. For the first time since Matt, she wondered about making love in relation to herself. She thought of the feel of Robert"s hard weight pressing down on her, of his hands and mouth moving over her bare skin, of his muscled thighs spreading hers apart as he positioned himself to take her. The appeal of her fantasy was strong enough to make her entire body clench with desire. Yes, she wanted him, as much as she feared the pain he would leave behind when he walked out of her life.
A prudent woman would immediately see a doctor about birth control, and Evie was a prudent woman. She could protect herself in that way, at least.
Chapter Six.
EVIE SLID TWO food-filled plates onto the table, one in front of Rebecca and the other in front of her own seat, then refilled their coffee cups. "Thanks." Rebecca sighed, picking up her fork. Her eyes were dark-circled after the long, sleepless night spent with Jason in the hospital.
Evie sat down. After making a doctor"s appointment for the next day, she had called the hospital to check on Jason. He was fine, but Rebecca had some definitely frayed edges. Not only had she been awake all night to keep watch on him and wake him regularly, evidently Jason had become as fractious and ill-tempered as he"d been as a baby whenever he was ill. He had complained about everything, griping about being woken every hour, even though both the doctor and Rebecca had explained the reason for it. In short, his mother"s wrath was about to come down hard on his sore head.
So Evie had gone up to the hospital to take care of the myriad details involved in releasing Jason. Then she"d followed them home, helped get the restless teenager settled, pushed Rebecca into a chair and set about making breakfast for them all. She knew her way around Rebecca"s kitchen as well as she did her own, so the work went smoothly, and in no time at all they were digging into scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. Jason was enthroned on the couch with a tray on his lap and the television blaring.
The coffee revived Rebecca enough that her big-sister instincts kicked in. She gave Evie a shrewd look over the rim of her cup. "Where did you have dinner last night?"
"At the marina. Sandwiches," Evie clarified.
Rebecca sat back, looking disguntled. "He said he would take you out to dinner, then make sure you got home okay."
"I didn"t want to go out."
"Really," Rebecca grumbled, "I"d thought the man was made of stronger stuff than that."
If he"d been any stronger, Evie thought wryly, she would have slept in his bed last night. "I was too tired to go out, so he brought sandwiches there. It was kind of him to do everything he did yesterday."
"Especially hauling both you and my brat out of the river," Rebecca said judiciously as she demolished a slice of bacon. "I need to thank him again for you. I"m reserving judgment on the wisdom of saving Jason."
Evie chuckled at Rebecca"s sardonic statement. A sharp turn of phrase was a family trait that she shared with her sister, and even Paige had been exhibiting it for some time now.
"However," Rebecca continued in the same tone, "I know a man on the hunt when I see one, so don"t try to throw me off the subject by telling me how kind he was. Kindness was the last thing on his mind."
Evie looked down at her eggs. "I know."
"Are you going to give him a chance, or are you going to look straight through him, like all the others?"
"What others?" Evie asked, puzzled.
"See what I mean? They were invisible to you. You"ve never even noticed all the guys who would have liked to go out with you."
"No one"s ever asked me out."
"Why would they, when you never notice them? But I"ll bet Robert asked you out, didn"t he?"
"No." He"d told her that she was going out to dinner with him, and he had told her that he intended to make love to her, but he"d never actually asked her out.
Rebecca looked disbelieving. "You"re pulling my leg."
"I am not. But he"ll probably ask the next time he comes to the marina, if that"s any consolation to you."
"The real question," her sister said shrewdly, "is if you"ll go with him."
"I don"t know." Evie propped her elbows on the table, the coffee cup cradled in her palms as she sipped the hot liquid. "He excites me, Becky, but he scares me, too. I don"t want to get involved with anyone, and I"m afraid I wouldn"t be able to stop myself with him."
"This is bad?" asked her sister with some exasperation. "Honey, it"s been twelve years. Maybe it"s time you became interested in men again."
"Maybe," Evie said in qualified agreement, though privately she didn"t think so at all. "But Robert Cannon isn"t the safest choice I could make, not by a long shot. There"s something about him... I don"t know. I just get the feeling that he"s coming on to me for another reason besides the obvious. There"s a hidden agenda there somewhere. And he puts up a good front, but he"s not a gentleman."
"Good. A gentleman would probably take you at your word and never bother you again, after a hundred or so refusals. I have to admit, though, he struck me as being both gentle and protective."
"Possessive," Evie corrected. "And ruthless." No, he wasn"t a gentleman. That cold force of will in his green diamond eyes was the look of an adventurer with a predator"s heart. A hollow look of fear entered her own eyes.
Rebecca leaned forward and touched Evie"s arm. "I know," she said gently. And she did, because Rebecca had been there and seen it all. "I don"t want to push you into doing something you"ll regret, but you never know what"s going to happen. If Robert Cannon is someone you could love, can you afford to pa.s.s up that chance?"
Evie sighed. Rebecca"s arguments to the contrary, could she afford to take that chance? And was she going to have the choice?
TO HER RELIEF, Robert wasn"t at the marina when she arrived to relieve Craig. Huge, black-bellied clouds were threatening overhead, and a brisk, cool wind began to blow, signaling one of the tempestuous thunderstorms so common during summer. Both pleasure-boaters and fishermen began coming in off the lake, and for an hour she didn"t have a moment"s rest. Lightning forked downward over the mountains, a slash of white against the purplish black background. Thunder boomed, echoing over the water, and the storm broke with blinding sheets of rain blowing across the lake.
With all of the fishermen who had put in at the marina safely off the water and the other boats snugly in their slips, Evie gladly retreated to the office, where she could watch the storm from behind the protection of the thick, Plexiglas windows. She hadn"t quite escaped all the rain, though, and she shivered as she rubbed a towel over her bare arms. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees in about ten minutes; the break from the heat was welcome, but the abrupt contrast was always chilling.
She loved the energy and drama of thunderstorms, and settled contentedly into her rocking chair to watch this one play out against the background of lake and mountains. Listening to the rain was unutterably soothing. Inevitably she became drowsy and got up to turn on the small television she kept to entertain Paige and Jason. A small logo at the bottom of the television screen announced "T"storm watch."
"I"m watching, I"m watching," she told the television, and returned to the rocking chair.
Eventually the violence of the storm dissipated, but the welcome rain continued, settling down to a steady soaker, the kind farmers loved. The marina was deserted, except for the mechanic, Burt Mardis, who was contentedly working on an outboard motor in the big metal building where he did all the repairs. She could see him occasionally through the open door as he moved back and forth. There wouldn"t be any more business until the weather cleared, which it showed no signs of doing. At the top of the hour the local television meteorologist broke in on the normal programming to show the progression of the line of thunderstorms that were marching across the state, as well as the solid area of rain they had left behind, stretching all the way back into Mississippi. Rain was predicted well into the night, tapering off shortly before midnight.
It looked like a long, lazy afternoon ahead of her. She always kept a book there for such times and pulled it out now, but so much time had lapsed since she had started the thing that she didn"t remember much about it, so she had to start over. Actually, this was the third time she had started over; she would have to carry it home if she ever hoped to finish it.
But she was already fighting drowsiness and after ten minutes she knew that reading was going to tip the scales in favor of sleep. Regretfully she put the book aside and looked around for some ch.o.r.es to do. Craig, however, had cleaned up that morning; the floors were freshly swept and mopped, the merchandise impeccably straight on the shelves or hanging on pegboard hooks.