Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) (40 page)

He carefully polished the glass she had just washed. “How long were you and Scott married?”

For once, she didn’t mind talking about Scott. He’s gone, she thought, and it didn’t hurt. Even his memory seemed to be losing its sharpness.

“Nine years. Almost ten.” She moved a stack of plates into the dishwater. “What about you and Hazel?”

“Four,” he said abruptly. “Why didn’t you have any children? You wanted them.”

How did he know that? She stared down into the dishwater, remembering the arguments. Only two things they’d argued about. Her music. Her wanting children.

She said slowly, her eyes riveted to the water, “He didn’t think it was a good idea. I kept trying to change his mind, but…”

Lyle took another glass from the drying rack. He was losing ground with the drying, the dishes stacking up in the draying rack. “Perhaps it’s just as well you didn’t succeed. It’s dangerous to push people into parenting when they’re not ready.”

Maybe that was true. She’d wanted children, but she wouldn’t have wanted to make Scott an unwilling father.

Scott’d had faults, just as she had. Somehow she’d never acknowledged that before.

Lyle’s hair was falling across his forehead again, although now it was short enough that it couldn’t reach his eyes. She wanted to brush it back with her fingers.

He said, “Hazel didn’t want children. I thought she’d feel differently about it once it happened, and I was stupid enough to think it would be all right if there was a child. I tricked her – I told her there wouldn’t be a child, that I would look after it.”

His eyes followed hers into the next room where Robyn was brushing the dog while she talked to her uncle eagerly. “Of course, I’m glad to have Robyn, but it was wrong of me.”

She scrubbed carefully at a stubborn spot on one of the plates. She didn’t know what to say, but she needed to give him something, to tell him he should stop feeling guilty.

“I used to sneak out on Scott,” she said in a low voice, giving him her confession because she had nothing else to give. “He hated when I went to the coffee houses, hated me singing and playing in public. When he was out, I’d take my guitar out of the closet and go downtown. I always felt so guilty about it. Once he came and found me. I felt like a naughty child.” She stared at the plate that was long since scrubbed clean. “I loved him, but he treated me like a child.”

In the beginning it had been a dream come true. “It was years before I started resenting the way he controlled my life. In the beginning, I was so busy clinging to him, I’d have tried to be anything he wanted.”

Lyle took her left hand in his, lifting it wet and dripping from the water. He said gently, “You loved him, and I’m sure he loved you. Even good marriages have their ups and downs. Eventually you’d have asserted yourself. If he loved you, he’d have accepted it.”

Having Scott as the masterful husband had made her feel secure, had comforted the child who’d lost her father. When Scott died, the child had been in the process of growing up, of rebelling against his authority. And, like a child, she’d felt guilty about the rebellion, felt that she’d betrayed him by trying to be herself.

Was that right? Somehow she’d been feeling guilty, as if she were in the wrong, as if she’d never be able to live up to anyone’s expectations of her.

What if that was wrong? What if—

She drew back from the idea.

“Are you going to wear that ring forever?” Lyle asked, his fingers on her wedding ring.

Until death do us part… It was a barrier between her and Lyle. She pulled away. “I don’t know.”

His hand clenched on hers. “Don’t go, darling. You’re like the sun – alive and vibrant, bringing warmth and light. Stay here, George. Let that helicopter go without you.”

She thrust her hands back into the water, wincing as she splashed water onto her face. She said slowly, “Lyle, you want me to stay, but I’m not good at staying. I— I do silly things.”

Was it so bad to be impulsive and emotional? Scott hadn’t liked it, but— Tonight was no night for starting an affair. Lyle had come too close. Anything started now might turn into more than she could handle. “I need time,” she said desperately.

“Take all the time you need.” His hand still held hers as he said, “You know where to find me,” then he released her.

They played canasta after the dishes were done. Robyn was obviously accustomed to playing cards with the adults. She was a sharp player, with surprisingly good concentration. Russ was her partner, but they lost badly because he didn’t have his mind on the game.

George was relieved to be playing cards. If she and Lyle had gone down to the music room, she was afraid he’d have sensed her earlier intention to start an affair with him. This island must be getting to her brain! What kind of insanity was it to think of intimacy with this man? He needed far more of a woman than she could give. He needed a wife and a mother for his daughter, and George was the last person to supply those needs. All her life people had been telling her she was irresponsible and immature. Lyle had already had one irresponsible wife. He surely didn’t need another.

And she didn’t need another husband. It was time she grew up and learned to be happy without needing a man to lean on.

That sounded hollow, an empty fate.

When Robyn started yawning, George pushed her cards to one side and said, “Kiss the men goodnight, Robyn, and I’ll tuck you in. I’m ready for bed myself.”

She watched Robyn giving both Lyle and Russ an affectionate kiss, and an extra hearty hug for her father. She avoided meeting Lyle’s eyes as he looked up from his daughter, but her heart was pounding as she took Robyn’s hand.

“Good night Russ. Lyle.”

Russ nodded. Lyle said, “Have a good sleep,” softly, as if he knew she would be lying awake.

“I will,” she agreed brightly, walking away from him. She clenched Robyn’s hand tighter, felt as if she were walking from the warm into the cold snow. She read a story for Robyn, then let herself be talked into reading another.

In bed, alone, she tried to imagine what her life would be like today if Scott were alive. She couldn’t bring his features to life in her mind.

She would have been a different woman, she decided. Less independent, softer. She’d just spent three years alone, and the image of the woman Scott’s wife would have been seemed far from reality. As Scott was far from reality. Loved, but gone away. She wasn’t the same woman who had loved Scott.

She shivered, cold under the warm blankets. If Scott had lived, they both might have changed, but he’d died. And she had changed. And today, now, she didn’t want to be Scott Dobson’s wife.

Morning came. She found the kitchen empty, a pound of bacon open on the counter, the frying pan warming on the stove. Lyle and Robyn must be close by. George started cooking the bacon. When Lyle came she was thankful that he was alone. She didn’t want to mention leaving with Robyn present.

“Have a good sleep?” He was half-smiling, seeing her face still flushed with sleep.

“Yes.” She hadn’t expected to sleep well, but she had. “Lyle, if I’m leaving tomorrow—”

“If?”

His eyes narrowed and she said quickly, “I mean, when I go— I forgot about it, but what you said before—” She sounded like a foundering teenager. She took a deep breath, and tried to sound as if she had control of her mind and her tongue. “I don’t have any money, and no identification. I should have called Jenny, but it’s too late now. Can I— do you have any money you would lend me?”

He took her place at the stove. “I’ll look after that. It’s one of my culinary talents, making bacon. I’ve got a bit of cash, not a lot. You’re welcome to what I’ve got. There’s not much need for money out here, and in Prince Rupert I write checks mostly. But don’t worry about it. I’ll give you my VISA card. You should be able to do pretty well anything with that – hotels, restaurants.”

“I can’t use your credit card!” You used a husband’s credit card, not a friend’s. Not even— a lover’s. Using Lyle’s card seemed like a commitment, a statement that they had a relationship. That she was dependent on him.

“You don’t have much choice, if you want to go into town. Where’s your bank? Vancouver? Victoria? Use my card until you get there, then you’ll be able to get your identification straightened out, get a new checkbook and so forth. You can pay me back and return my card by registered mail.”

She glared at him. “Lyle, you can’t give your credit card to a total stranger! Only an idiot would do something like that. Why, I could do anything with that card!”

He wanted to tell her he didn’t care, that she could spend his credit limit and it would be more than worth it, just to have had her near for a few days. He wanted to tell her that giving her the card might make a tie that would bring her back. Perhaps she’d come and return it in person.

He couldn’t say any of it. He wanted to reach out to her, take her in his arms. Last night he had almost asked her down to his music room again, knowing that her presence there might end with them sharing a bed. Every time he looked at her, thought of her, he ached with wanting her. More than once he’d seen indications that she shared at least some of his need. He thought that he could seduce her if he tried. He was terrified that he would lose control of himself and his sanity, and actually find himself using their sexual attraction as a lever to try to make her stay with him.

Hadn’t he learned his lesson from Hazel? He wanted George, needed her with a desperation that shocked him, but he dared not exert pressure on her. A gift of love was worthless unless it was freely given.

The smell of burning bacon brought his attention back to the kitchen, to George staring at him. He couldn’t help smiling at her anger at his apparent carelessness with his credit card.

“You’re no stranger,” he said mildly, reconstructing their conversation, turning the bacon. “I’d trust you with a lot more than my credit cards. Are you going to Vancouver first?”

“Yes. I’ll go to Jenny’s for a few days while I get organized.”

What then? What would she do next? She had to have a plan, a goal. If she wasn’t going somewhere, doing something—

Maybe it was time for that. Time to stop and face everything, stop running from herself.

“Would you do me a favor? While you’ve got my card, could you go shopping for a present for Robyn for me? Her birthday’s coming up at the beginning of May and I honestly don’t know what she wants. You’ve been spending a lot of time with her. If you could think of something she’d like, I’d appreciate it if you could pick it up and mail it to me here. Would you mind?”

Her face cleared. She’d go shopping as soon as she got to Vancouver. “Of course, I don’t mind!”

He hoped she would never learn that he had Robyn’s present already bought and paid for, safely hidden in a cupboard at Russ’s house. Meanwhile, he was glad to have found a way she could accept the use of his credit card without any further protest.

He wanted to spend the rest of the day with her, but he didn’t trust himself not to put pressure on her to stay. She wasn’t ready to stay. Perhaps she never would be, but she had said that she needed time, and he was determined to give her whatever time she needed, to hope she would come back one day.

He had to fight his frightened conviction that she would walk away and he would never see her again. He did it by spending the day doing a series of tasks that could easily have been put off until tomorrow, or even next month. He tested the drinking water in the cisterns, went up the light tower to check that the changeover relay was working, and to clean and polish the tower windows.

When he looked down from the tower and saw George and Robyn walking slowly along the beach, he resisted the impulse to go down to be with them.

When the day was over, he encouraged Russ to stay for a game of cards again, playing until Robyn was yawning and George took her off to bed.

For a while he even had himself believing that when she left, he would stop wanting her. Then, the instant she walked down the hallway, he was afraid she wouldn’t come back, that he wouldn’t get a chance to say good night to her properly, that the chopper would come early the next day and she’d leave before he could have the chance to say any of the things burning inside him.

Russ asked, “Why don’t you ask her to stay?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Lyle said harshly, then immediately wished the words unsaid because Russ was pushing to his feet, angry and sulky.

“I don’t need telling twice,” his kid brother muttered, pushing the chair in to the table, slamming out of the kitchen door.

Damn! Lyle started after him, hesitated, then shrugged. What could he say? It wouldn’t help anything to rush after his baby brother to talk about his love for a woman he’d known only days. Maybe Russ would understand. After all, he said he’d loved Dorothy the instant he saw her across that smoke-filled room.

Love.

He listened to George’s door close, strained his ears for the sounds of her getting ready for bed. Might she come back out? Could he go down the hallway, knock softly on her door and ask her to sing for him again tonight?