All Through The House (26 page)

"Emma and I are on our own," John said.

Marian wasn't sure how to take that—as a warning, perhaps?
She met his eyes when she said, "Jesse and Anna and I are, too. We'd love
to have your company, Emma, if you think you'd feel comfortable with us."

The man replied only indirectly. "Do you have an extra
bed for Emma? Or would she need to bring a sleeping bag?"

"I have a bed," she said. "This place is
three-bedroom, believe it or not. They're tiny, but—" She broke off.
"Would you like to look around?"

He nodded and stood. "If you don't mind."

"Not at all. I'm afraid the dinner dishes are still
piled up." Marian caught herself apologizing. She wasn't one of the
world's great housekeepers and she wasn't about to pretend that she was, just
because the girl's father intimidated her. If that was the right word, she
thought, all too aware of his long, lazy stride as he followed her, of how big
the hand was that hadn't left his daughter's shoulder.

As she led a silent tour from room to room, the shabbiness
of the house made her self-conscious as well. The kitchen cabinets were old
painted wood, the vinyl floor cracking, its finish long worn off. The hardwood
floors needed refinishing, the bathroom could have used new fixtures. She
hadn't been able to afford to do any of those projects. What she could afford
she'd done. The wallpapers were bright and airy, the curtains gauzy splashes of
color. She'd made slipcovers for some of the furniture, stripped and stained
the wood pieces. There were books in every room, and colorful toys randomly
stacked on shelves. It was home, she thought, trying to ignore a clutch of
sadness. Maybe only for another few months, but while the house was still hers,
she refused to feel defensive about it.

The small hallway ended at the three bedrooms. The door was
open to hers, which lay straight ahead. Marian's instinctive reaction was
hurriedly to pull the door shut, as though by doing so she could salvage some
remnant of privacy. But that was ridiculous. He had seen a bed before. Hers
would tell him nothing about her.

But Marian was wrong. Although he didn't allow his
expression to change, John had guessed quite a lot about her from one leisurely
glance. The quilt, in an unusual and striking mix of teal and orange, was
clearly handmade. The room was untidy in a casual, homey way; books were piled
haphazardly on the end table, a stuffed rabbit lay at the foot of the bed, and
one slipper hadn't quite made it into the closet. A ball of bright red yarn had
rolled out of a bag. The bedroom was emphatically hers, without any sign that a
man had ever belonged there.

The two children's rooms duly inspected, John followed her
back into the living room, Emma silent at his side. He should have been
thinking only about his daughter, about her reaction, but instead he seized the
opportunity to admire Marian's narrow hips and long legs, revealed by snug
jeans. Above her slender back, her hair was like thick, dark silk, carelessly
bundled. His fingers almost tingled as he imagined how that silky mane would
feel, slipping through them. He had a vivid image of her naked, slowly turning
to face him, her hair flowing to her waist, an impossibly sensual contrast with
her porcelain skin.

John blinked, and realized he stood beside the couch staring
at her. She had turned to face him, her gaze wary. Before he had thought of
anything to say, she spoke abruptly.

"I keep thinking how familiar you look. Have we met
before?"

"No." He wouldn't have forgotten her. "I'm,
uh..."

"Daddy was a football player," Emma interjected
proudly. "Everybody knows who he is."

"Well, not quite," John said wryly.

"I'm afraid I've never followed football." She
didn't sound apologetic.

"Daddy has scars all over his knees," Emma added.
"Big ugly ones."

Marian's dark gaze lowered to his jean-clad legs, and then
she flushed slightly as she looked back at his face.

"Thank you, Emma," John said, then grinned
ruefully at Marian, who was, if anything, more beautiful with her cheeks
tinted pink. "I retired because of knee injuries," he explained.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding awkward.

He shrugged. "It's a rare football career that lasts
over ten years. I couldn't ask for more than that."

Her small daughter tugged at her sweater, and Marian bent to
pick her up. "This isn't a business trip, then?"

"I'm a color commentator for network television,"
John said. "Which means I'm on the road a lot for five or six months a
year, and home the rest. We've had a housekeeper for the last couple of years
who took care of Emma, but she left to get married and the woman I hired to
replace her called today to let me know her father had a stroke and she
wouldn't be able to come. Obviously, I'm going to be hunting for a new
housekeeper. In the meantime..." He shrugged again.

As he talked, her expression changed, becoming shuttered as
her brow crinkled and she studied him. Suddenly the warmth was gone from those
velvet dark eyes. But, damn it, what had he said?

"Is something wrong?" John asked, taking a step
toward her.

She held her ground, raking him with an unexpectedly cool
gaze. "No. No, nothing." And then she turned away from him as though
he didn't exist, carefully setting her own daughter down before crouching in
front of his. He saw again her gentleness as she smiled at Emma. "I'll be
delighted to have Emma this weekend if you'll feel comfortable leaving her
here."

John glanced at his daughter, but her face stayed averted.
"Suppose I bring her about noon?" he said.

"Good." She hesitated, then looked up at him.
"Would you like a cup of coffee? Or tea?"

The offer was obviously no more than polite, and even so he
refused only with reluctance. "You must be tired. And Emma and I both have
to pack."

Marian told herself firmly that she was relieved. He had a
strangely unsettling effect on her, one she didn't even like to acknowledge. If
she were ever to fall in love again, which at this point in her life she found
difficult to imagine, it wouldn't be with a man who spent more time away from
home than he did with his motherless daughter.

When he and Emma were gone and Marian was involved in the
nightly rituals of bathing her twins, of cuddling them and reading stories and
tucking them in, a peripheral part of her consciousness puzzled over the two
who had left—the child with the frightened brown eyes and the man who had
looked so tenderly at his daughter but was prepared to leave her with a
stranger for the weekend—not just this weekend, but all the ones to come in the
next—what?—three months? Four months? Did all men lack some basic instinct for
nurturing? she wondered, giving her own sleepy children a soft kiss as she
pulled the covers up to their chins and left them in the warm glow from their
mouse nightlight.

Tired, she began to run soapy water into the kitchen sink
automatically, wanting nothing more than to finish cleaning up so that she
could go to bed herself. But tonight her thoughts were relentless, the
remembered ache of betrayal sharp in her throat. She knew the unfairness of
turning her bitterness on John McRae, who at least had not abandoned his child.
But he had sparked too many memories, ruffling the hard-won serenity she had
achieved. Unfair or not, she resented that.

Megan Lovell hesitated at the stop sign, then finally turned
her small red Civic to the right, onto the lake road. The highway would be
faster, but the evening was too beautiful to waste.

Peach and pink and golden, the sky glowed like a
stained-glass window above the pine- and fir-cloaked ridge beyond the lake. But
for the plumes of some power boats out in the middle, the water was uncannily
still, reflecting the sky and the deep purple shadows that moved down the
valley, bringing dusk here sooner than it came to the world beyond. It was a
display that made her wish she had her camera.

Lights were on in the cluster of waterfront cottages she
passed as people cleaned up after dinner, got the children ready for bed,
settled down with a book. Already the gaudy tint had faded, softened, and the
ridge was black. The water still shone like a mirror, but it would be dark
soon, too.

Megan left the cottages behind as the narrow road rose to
follow an empty cove of the lake. Sheer granite rocks sloped down into the
water. A few small twisted firs and hemlock clung to cracks. On impulse she
steered the car into a dirt turnoff, then parked it and climbed out. She found
a comfortable rock to sit on as she watched the show. The colors were incredible,
incandescent and yet soft and subtle like the merest wash in a watercolor, with
the ridge forming a black silhouette. The sight tightened her throat. It was
moments like this, utterly peaceful and achingly beautiful, that made living
here worth the price of isolation.

The low coughing sound of a boat engine broke the stillness,
coming from beyond the point. When it came in sight, the big white powerboat
was moving slowly, at about trolling speed, cutting a silver wake in the still
water, making tiny waves slap at the rock walls of the cove. Megan couldn't see
any fishing poles, but the boat was familiar: she was fairly certain it was
rented from the marina. The engine was turned off as the boat drifted into the
large, deserted cove. Megan watched with idle curiosity, wondering if the
boaters were having engine trouble, or simply enjoying the evening as she was.
She doubted they could see her or the road above, and even they were indistinct
in the increasing shadows.

In fact, it was time to go. She was suddenly aware of how
hungry she was, and how tired. The heat of a new sunburn singed her shoulders
and cheekbones and her eyes felt the strain of a day spent staring at water
reflecting the sun's brilliance. From fall to spring Megan taught kindergarten
in the small local school, but from the time she'd quit competitive swimming
she had spent summers lifeguarding at the public beach. The county had been good
about giving her time off to do endorsements; in return, she'd been something
of a tourist attraction for the first few years. She had worked at the beach
for six years now and as the manager for the last four.

"You ought to be sick of the lake," she said
aloud. But somehow Megan knew that she wasn't and never would be. Devil's Lake
was home. If she sometimes felt she had to pay a price for the right to belong
here, it was a belief she kept to herself.

Megan was about to slide off her boulder and retreat to her
car when motion out on the boat arrested her attention. Two men were standing.
She thought they were men. The boat rocked as they seemed to be lifting
something bulky, struggling to get it over the gunwale. Then the long dark
shape fell, raising a small splash as it hit, sending ripples to shiver over
the mirror-like surface of the lake. For a second the shape seemed to move, to
struggle, although that might have been an illusion. For then, slowly, it
slipped beneath the water in quiet surrender.

Megan's mouth was open, a cry trapped in her throat. For a
moment stillness reigned as the men stared down at the water and she tried to
comprehend what she had seen. Already the ripples were fading, the dark shape
gone as if it had never been. By the time the boat engine roared harshly to
life, Megan had jumped from the rock and was running.

Over the guardrail, sliding down a slab of granite,
desperately pushing past small firs. The soles of her canvas tennis shoes
slipped and she fell to her knees, but she didn't even notice the pain. The
rocky point that protected the cove sloped downhill, not wide enough to have
been built on, but a faint trail showed that fishermen or teenagers out for a
skinny dip sometimes came this way. Megan let her feet find their own path,
faster than was safe. Her eyes were glued to the spot where the ripples had
begun. The boat had sprung away, the powerful engine at full throttle, and in a
wide curve disappeared out into the open lake.

Stumbling to a stop where the point dropped into the deep,
cold water, Megan kicked off her shoes, ripped off her jeans. She hadn't even
stopped to think. A lifeguard didn't, when someone was drowning. Knowing it
was probably futile, still she was about to dive in when something white broke
the surface of the water out in the middle of the cove. A splash, an arm
reaching for the help that wasn't there. Another splash. That much she could
see. The struggle was weak, desperate. She hit the water, scarcely aware of the
shock from the cold. Head down, she sprinted, faster than she had ever gone
back in her racing days. She didn't want to take her eyes off the victim, but
there was too far to go. Speed was more important.

Several times she lifted her head, focused just long enough
to be sure she was aiming in the right direction. Near the end she swam with
her head up, her crawl stroke choppy but fast. Ahead, the struggles diminished.
Hold on, Megan screamed silently. Hold on. For a second she lost sight, as if
the lake had won, but then a dark head reappeared, a feeble splash.

It was a man, floating on his back, eyes closed, water
sliding over his face. He looked dead.

Megan slipped up behind him, cupped his chin and swiftly
tucked her other arm over his chest, locking his long body against her hip. She
was prepared when he fought briefly, though she was submerged by his weight and
strength. When he collapsed into quiescence again, Megan shook the water from
her face and said urgently, "It's okay. I'm going to help you. Can you
hear me? Just relax."

For a second he stirred and she tightened her grasp, but
then she heard a hoarse voice. "Can't swim."

"It's okay," she said again, her legs opening and
closing in a powerful scissor kick. He was heavy, too heavy for her. She had to
snatch breaths as water rolled over her face. Darkness was closing with
frightening suddenness. It was a miracle that she had seen him thrown
overboard. Ten minutes later she wouldn't have. If only she could swim for the
nearest shore, but the rock slabs dropping into the cove were too steep. Only
at the tip of the point would she be able to pull him out. Already she was
exhausted.