Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) (30 page)

But he wasn’t Scott.

George had left Mexico quickly, without explanation, escaping for the solitude of
Lady Harriet
, sailing north too early in the season, riding the spring winds towards Alaska.

Now she was on this rocky island, and it must be her hormones telling her that Lyle could give her the loving she needed.

She knew better. It was Scott she needed. No one else could take that place in her life. She didn’t want anyone else.

She broke the long silence abruptly, blinking and tossing her curls back. “So I can get up? I’d love a shower.”

His eyes dropped to the swelling of her breasts beneath the big sweat shirt, telling her without words that he could visualize her naked under the spray. He looked up, and saw the flush growing on her cheeks.

He knew! Somehow he knew the thoughts she’d been thinking.

“I think a shower would be all right. Then, afterwards, we’d better bandage the leg again. You won’t overdo it, will you?” He stood up, hooked his thumbs in the belt of his jeans, a frown growing on his face. “I have a feeling you’re inclined to throw caution to the winds, and it wouldn’t be a good idea with that leg.”

She started to contradict him, but found herself saying instead, “I won’t. At least—”

He covered her lips with light fingers that tingled against her mouth. “Leave it at that, George. I know you’re a wild girl, but be tame for a couple of days, anyway. How are the ribs? Okay?”

A wild girl. She winced at that, but it was true. She’d always been the wild one, driving her mother to distraction, worrying Scott. She wouldn’t change now, at the age of thirty.

“I’m mending,” she told him. “I hurt, but I deserve that for going sailing in a storm.”

“I won’t argue that.” For a moment she thought he was about to give her a lecture on water safety, then he met her eyes with his own and she saw worry deep beneath the blue.

“George, yesterday, you and Robyn— if she tells you anything you feel I should know…”

George smoothed the quilt with her hands. She tried to imagine the woman who was Robyn’s mother. What had the marriage been like? Had Lyle looked at his wife the way he sometimes looked at her?

Had they slept together in the bed across the hall? George pushed away that strangely disturbing thought, and said, “Robyn told me that her mother left because she didn’t want her.” Lyle’s hands clenched in an involuntary spasm. She broke out, “That’s a terrible thing for a girl to believe!”

He swung away from her and went to stare out of the window. “Unfortunately, it’s partly true.”

She pushed herself up, her voice rising, “How could anyone—” What was it about his eyes? They held none of the overt sexual challenge that she’d learned to ignore in men’s eyes, and yet… “How could Robyn’s mother leave? Because— Robyn’s such a sweetheart!”

He held out a large bathrobe for her to step into, saying, “I don’t imagine it was all her fault.”

She climbed out of the bed, letting his hands tie the knot at her waist. Against her will, she found pleasure in the sensation of his hands brushing her midriff through the robe. “What do you mean?”

“She didn’t want motherhood, or marriage, for that matter.” He walked away from her to the window, his voice muffled. “I suppose they were all my idea, the marriage and the baby and— well, she just reached the point where she couldn’t handle it.”

George pulled the robe more tightly around her, frowning, trying to see this nameless woman, trying not to wish his hands had remained at her waist. She couldn’t help wondering about the irony of Lyle’s wife not wanting children when she, who was childless, had wanted them so badly. “When— what was her name?”

She hoped he wouldn’t answer. His life was coming too close. If she started hurting for Lyle and Robyn, the other feelings might all come back.

“Hazel,” he said, turning back towards her. She thought he was looking right through her. “She left five years ago. Robyn was three, and she’s never talked about it. I haven’t asked, because—” He spread his hands, his face showing an uncomfortable vulnerability. “I haven’t asked, because I didn’t want to make her think about it, and also— it wasn’t nice.” He laughed bitterly. “God! That’s the understatement of the year! There were fights, and I would imagine Robyn heard at least some of them, however hard I tried to— well, it seemed better to leave it and hope it would become part of a forgotten past, a bad dream.”

George whispered, “She hasn’t forgotten anything. She thinks the only reason her mother left was to get away from her, and she thinks it was mainly because of her leg.”

Lyle replied bitterly, “Marriage and motherhood were bad enough from Hazel’s point of view, but she didn’t know how to begin to cope with specialists and surgery and— and a daughter who wasn’t physically perfect. George, I wouldn’t know how to start trying to tell Robyn that, and I can’t lie to her about it!”

She searched his face.

He had a cheerful mongrel dog that had been cast off by a fisherman, two cats that had been rescued from the SPCA, and a daughter unwanted by her mother. As far as George could see, he loved them all.

She said softly, “I think Robyn will be all right. After all, she knows you love her… and a girl’s father is the most important thing.”

“I hope so. I— thank you, George.” His hand was so soft against her face. She found herself turning to rest her cheek against the callused palm. It was a long moment before he said softly, “You’d better get into that shower before your leg tires. This standing around can’t be doing you any good.”

He moved to let her pass. As she was going through the doorway to the bathroom he asked softly, “What about your marriage, George?”

Why had she let this happen? Couldn’t they just be strangers, with secret lives?

“I loved him,” she whispered. “We were very happy.”

He said nothing. She added, “We were married for nine years. He died three years ago.”

“And you haven’t stopped missing him?”

“I’ll never stop missing him,” she said flatly, limping away and closing herself into the bathroom.

She wished it wasn’t true, that she didn’t have to go on hurting like this forever, never able to stop without the loneliness welling up and drowning her.

As the water streamed down over her shoulders, she was abruptly enveloped by a brief fantasy that Scott was in the next room waiting for her.

How many times did she have to lose him?

Once in reality. Forever in her mind.

Did Lyle feel like this about Hazel? She hoped not; she didn’t want those eyes to conceal such a painful, desperate loneliness.

She scrubbed her hair hard under the pounding water, washing the last traces of the sea away, soaping every part of her body that could stand to be touched. She had red marks and black and purple marks that would be with her for a long time, but she was alive and it was time to get active, get away from the misery and self pity that seemed to go with being stuck in bed.

Lyle was nowhere in sight when she came out of the bathroom, but he had left a soft jogging suit that must be Dorothy’s on her bed. She pulled it on thankfully. She thought she could get away without a new bandage on her leg if she stuck to soft, loose pants for a while.

The house was empty. She moved down a long corridor, past the room that must be Lyle’s.

A warm room, in brown and rust and gold. Masculine, yet comfortable. A big mirror on an oak wardrobe reflected a lighthouse painting with waves crashing on the rocks. On another wall, a modern rendition of colors communicated a strong mood, although she couldn’t have identified the subject matter of the painting. The modern and the traditional, mixed together.

The more she learned about Lyle, the more she liked. If it weren’t for this restless need to move on, she might have been able to enjoy getting to know him better.

But it was too easy to think here, too easy to let her emotions get the better of her. She kept having dreams that brought Scott back. She’d managed to keep control ever since Scott died. She certainly couldn’t let go now.

A book lay open on Lyle’s bedside table. George resisted the temptation to step closer and read its title.

Robyn’s room next, its door open on a profusion of stuffed animals. A big orange cat stretched and rested its head on the back of a stuffed bear as George passed.

The living room was filled with books, CDs, and records. She browsed through them, finding all her favorites. There was classical music, too, but she had never developed much of an ear for classical. She loved guitar music of almost any sort, loved playing the guitar herself, and she was going to ask Lyle if he minded her playing some of these CDs while she was here.

Most of the CDs were commercial ones, but some were labeled by hand, in a firm handwriting that she knew would belong to Lyle. It was like him. Square and even, with a flourish here and there. The song titles written in his hand intrigued her. They must be special favorites of his.

The books were a surprising assortment. Some of the books were on music, more on flying. An assortment of novels that ranged from Robert Ludlum to Ernest Hemingway. Children’s books, some on how to raise rabbits.

Rabbits? Here on Green Island?

A book of poems by Tennyson.

Two copies of a volume entitled
Verses in Flight
, by Lyle Stevens.

Lyle?

She took one off the shelf, opened it and found the dedication.
For my daughter Robyn
.

She sank down on a big overstuffed chair, turning the pages slowly. Poems of flying, verses of love for his daughter and the animals he took under his wing.

Dreamer’s eyes, she’d thought. Poet’s eyes.

When she looked up and saw him standing there, it wasn’t a surprise.

“I found your book,” she said slowly, her eyes far off.

He sat on the arm of the chair, leaning over to read with her, bracing his arm on the chair behind her head. She could smell the tangy scent of after shave and wondered why a man out in the middle of nowhere would bother to use a tangy after shave lotion. For her?

“I wrote that one in Stewart,” he said, reading over her shoulder. “Glacier country. They were shooting a movie and I was flying people around, taking them up to the glacier, back down.”

“Tell me about it,” she invited eagerly.

He grinned. “It was fun. What an insane amount of running around they do for a movie! And money flowing like water. The studio spent a fortune on helicopter time – spent a fortune on everything.”

He named the movie.

“I remember seeing that! There were helicopters
in
the movie too, weren’t there? Were you flying in any of them?”

“Yes. In one scene – the rescue scene.”

“You mean the avalanche?” The book went slack in her hands as she twisted to see his face. “That must have been dangerous flying!”

He nodded, his eyes sparkling with the memory. “It was risky, all right.” He laughed. “My brief run as a stunt man! My mother gave me hell when she saw the movie, but I wasn’t married at the time, didn’t have Robyn. There was no one depending on me.”

“So it was all right to risk your life?” Her voice sharpened and he chuckled. He took the book from her hands and tipped her chin up so he could see into her eyes.

“You sounded a bit like my mother there,” he teased her. “My dear George, you’re hardly the lady to talk sharp about people risking their lives, are you? Single handing a sailboat through some of the most dangerous waters in the world!”

“But I had no intention of killing myself at it.” Nor had he, of course. “You come from a big family, don’t you? A close family.”

“Not that big. My parents, and three of us. Russ and I, and Conrad. Con’s my older brother.”

She shifted, drawing her legs up and turning to see his face without strain. He was relaxed, leaning back on the arm that rested so close to her head. “And you’re all close?” she asked.

“So so,” he told her, grinning. “Russ and I get on okay, but Con and I always fought. He was bigger than me, but I usually didn’t have the sense to stay out of his way. I used to tease him, drive him nuts. Then he’d lose his cool and clobber me. Nowadays I stay out of his way. We see each other at Christmas. Last time I saw him was at Russ’s wedding. We got into an argument and Mom threw us out of the house to cool off.”

“Is he married?”

“Oh, yes. And I may not be scared of Con any more, but I’m sure the hell terrified of Betty. She’s almost six feet tall, never a hair out of place, and a voice like a sergeant major. They’ve got two kids – a boy and a girl – who never have a hair out of place either. I keep getting the urge to take them out fishing, get them covered with seaweed and smelling of fish, then bring them home. Con would never forgive me, but I’m sure the kids would be better for a bit of dirt and adventure.”

His hand had dropped to her shoulder and was kneading gently. She found herself relaxing against his arm. “It sounds nice,” she said slowly. “Robyn told me about your parents. They live on a farm near Victoria, don’t they?”

“Not exactly a farm. A couple of acres, kind of a hobby farm. They’re retired and puttering around. When I was a kid we lived on a lighthouse further up Vancouver Island, but my parents bought the Victoria property when I was in my teens. After that, we always went there for holidays. That’s a habit we’ve all kept over the years. Robyn and I still go down there for at least a few days every year.”

She was smiling until he said, “You’d like them – you’d like my family, I mean. And they’d like you. Especially my father.”

Lyle wanted to tell her that he would take her to see them, but the urge frightened him a little, and he knew it wasn’t time. “Tell me about your family, George.” She shrugged and winced and he said, quickly, “Are you all right? Those ribs still hurt?”

She shook her head, shifting away from his touch. She’d been enjoying talking to him – until he started asking questions.

She didn’t want to talk about her family. They were nice people, but, except for Jenny, there was no one who gave her a feeling of homecoming. And talking about her family would lead to Scott.

When she moved, the dog moved too, his toes clicking on the kitchen floor as he padded towards them. He stopped in front of them, placing his head carefully on George’s lap. She stroked him. Her hand came away covered with dog hair.