Jed's Sweet Revenge (8 page)

“Nate Gallagher,” she offered. Jed had unknowingly picked just the subject to cement her argument. “He said I was an ancient intellect. That’s even more intense than ‘old.’ ”

Jed considered her strange comment for a moment. Surely this Nate hombre hadn’t treated such a vibrant lady like an aging book. If he had, he was a fool. “Well, Miss Witch, you may be ancient between the ears, but you’re well-preserved on all other counts.” He reached a hand out to touch her, but she shook her head and moved farther away.

“I can’t, Jedidiah. I won’t. It’s nothing personal, so don’t be offended. I find you very attractive, which is a great compliment considering how much trouble you’ve caused me.”

“Would it be different if we weren’t at odds over this island?”

“Are you hinting that you’d trade Sancia’s future for my physical affections?”

He stood up quickly, and Thena followed. The fire in his eyes would have soldered metal. “No.”

“I’m sorry, Jedidiah. That was an ugly thing to assume. I don’t know much about this sort of thing … how men go about it, I mean.”

“Go about what?”

“Courtship.” Thena watched the amazement register in his lean face. “Uhmmm, not courtship, I know that means something serious. Flirtation. Yes, that’s it. I’m sorry I misinterpreted your routine sexual flirtation for something manipulative.”

Her straightforward manner was as mesmerizing as it was exasperating. Jed ran a hand through his brown hair. “Wildflower, there was nothin’ routine about it. I never met a gal like you before, and I don’t expect to ever meet a gal like you again.” He hesitated, annoyance growing inside him. “I don’t like playin’ word games with you. And quit treatin’ me like I’m a damned bug you’re studyin’.” His tone was full of warning. “If you’re so scared of courtship that you have to call it something else, then that’s your problem.” He turned and stalked toward the horses.

Thena gazed after him in weak surprise. No, no, she thought desperately. He can’t court me. I don’t know how to be courted. I don’t even know how to kiss.

   They rode on through the forest in silence, both of them somber. Jed tried to distract himself by picturing bulldozers ripping into the green glades, scattering the palmetto plants and the flowers, plowing down the huge oaks and their canopies of moss. The only problem was, if he let that happen, this beautiful woman would hate him until the day she died. He winced at the idea.

The thought of invoking hatred had never disturbed him before. As a kid on the rodeo circuit, he’d been tough in defense of himself and his father. Roarke was blustery, outspoken, and often drunk, a bad combination that usually got him into more trouble than he could handle alone.

So from the time he was big enough to fight, Jed had come to his father’s aid. Over the years, more
than two dozen men had cursed Jed’s name viciously. He knew that on rainy days those men rubbed at the twinges of arthritic pain in their jaws and cursed his name anew.

A few of his father’s ne’er-do-well girlfriends probably still hated him too. As a kid, he’d locked them out of the trailer he and Roarke shared, put snakes in their purses, hidden their clothes—anything to drive them away from his father, whose soft heart for the female gender often made him a patsy for unscrupulous women who needed money or a place to stay.

Jed rarely turned his bitterness toward his father. He had a deep sense of compassion, though few people cared enough to notice it, and he understood that a lot of Roarke’s behavior came from a sense of having lost everything when Jed’s mother died. Amanda Gregg Powers had tamed him for a few years, but after her death he spiraled toward oblivion with single-minded disregard for the consequences. He had died in a drunken knife fight in Tucson, Arizona.

A commotion on the right of the forest trail brought Jed’s attention back to the present. Out of a big rhododendron flew a gawky, bottom-heavy bird with a wingspan easily five feet across. It lumbered upward and disappeared over the treetops.

“A wild turkey,” Thena explained. Jed looked at her and found her smiling toward the piece of sky where they’d last seen the monstrosity. “Wasn’t he beautiful?”

“Sure. Just like a flyin’ elephant. But if you say he’s beautiful, then I’ll agree.”

“Why, thank you,” she said primly. “Courtship has made you a more likable human being.”

“You’re welcome. Now about this courtship—”

“You’re going to see a wonderful sight, Jedidiah.” She intended to keep this conversation on impersonal ground. “Close your eyes.”

“Oh, no.” He slapped JackJaw’s neck ruefully. “This little stud is probably trained to throw me when you give some hand signal. I don’t trust you.”

She laughed. “Close your eyes. I’ll lead JackJaw.” She reached over and took the nylon line from Jed’s hand. He arched a brow at her and attempted to assess the situation.

“This is silly. I don’t like to play games,” he grumbled. A blush began to creep under the tan on his neck.

“That’s too bad, Jedidiah. You need to learn to relax.” Actually, he looked as if he was never anything but relaxed, Thena thought in dismay. He reminded her of a lazy, watchful wolf, always conserving his energy for the hunt. “Please. I want you to enjoy the full effect of what you’re about to see.”

“Oh, hell, all right.” Feeling very uncomfortable and unprotected, he shut his eyes and put a hand on each taut hip, trying to maintain a nonchalant attitude.

“Oh, you’re so trusting.” She chuckled. “What a sucker.”

“You got thirty seconds, gal. And it better be good.”

“It will be.” She led JackJaw beside Cendrillon, guiding both horses out of the forest onto the edge of what had once been a magnificent rolling lawn. “Smell the air, Jedidiah. It’s sweeter here because there are dozens of magnolia trees.”

He inhaled the scent, and it brought a disturbing, poignant feeling into his chest. There was no world beyond this world, no voice other than Thena’s, nothing more important than staying here, near her. For the first time in his life, he felt at home. The sudden and unexpected idea threw him for a loop.

“Just a few feet farther, Jedidiah. Keep your eyes closed.”

“We’re outside the woods now, aren’t we? We’re in some kind of clearin’.”

“That’s right. Listen to the grass rustling around
the horses’ knees. Doesn’t it sound like whispers? The island spirits are whispering about us.”

“They’re sayin’, ‘Look at that idiot with his eyes shut.’ ”

She laughed in delight. “No, they’re happy that you’re here.”

“No, they’re not.” He was serious.

Thena stopped the horses side by side. For a second she fingered Cendrillon’s white mane nervously, hoping that what Jed was about to see would make all the difference in his feelings for Sancia. She reached over and touched his forearm. The hard muscles tightened in response.

“Now, Jedidiah,” she said softly, “keep your mind and your heart open. Promise me you won’t say anything for a while. Promise me you’ll just be quiet and absorb what you see. It’s only fair.”

“My mind’s open, my mouth’s shut, I’m absorbin’. Okay, I promise.”

“Then look at your mother’s home.”

Shock ran through him as his eyes opened. Every muscle inside him twisted with emotion. Part of it was anger, but part was curiosity too. “Damn,” he said under his breath.

SalHaven stood in the distance with all the wistful dignity of an aging Southern belle. She was closely surrounded on both sides by suitors of live oak who nodded to her deferentially as the breeze moved their gnarled limbs.

Thena listed architectural details in a calm voice, ignoring the knot in her stomach. “SalHaven has three stories. Before the 1945 hurricane destroyed the left end of the house, there were twenty rooms—ten guest bedrooms, a master suite with a bedroom and a living room, servants’ quarters, two kitchens, a formal living room, a formal dining room, and a ballroom. The style is a mixture of classical Greek and Federal. You might say it’s like Tara in
Gone With the Wind
—but instead of big columns across
the front, there’s a one-story portico above raised staircases. You can still see two of the chimneys. There were three. The third was on the side that the hurricane destroyed.”

Thena gestured gracefully with one hand. “These overgrown lawns and magnolias—see the old flower beds everywhere—my grandfather said this used to be beautiful. Your grandmother Gregg’s Arabians used to graze out here. On the back side of the mansion, there’s a semicircular pavilion of white marble. You can almost see the ocean from it. The rest of the house is built of gray blocks made of cement, sand, and crushed seashells from Sancia’s beaches. Think of it, Jedidiah. It’s as if SalHaven rose from the island. It’s a part of the island. It’s not imposing at all, for such a big place. It has a very warm aura. The outbuildings and your grandmother’s big stable are gone. The hurricane got them—”

“Too bad it didn’t wash the whole damned place away,” Jed interjected curtly.

Thena stared at the hard set of his face and the dark distaste in his eyes. Her head drooped with disappointment. “You promised to be quiet and keep an open mind.”

“I didn’t expect for you to bring me to this fancy hellhole without a warning. That’s not fair. I didn’t want to see it.”

“You promised,” she said hoarsely. “This is where your mother spent her childhood. Don’t you at least want to go inside, for her sake?”

He turned brooding eyes on her, studying the way her expressive features molded themselves in sadness. She already held a power over him that no one else ever had, and he couldn’t bear to leave that wistful pain on her face. “For your sake,” he muttered. “I’ll go inside for your sake.”

A little stunned, Thena simply nodded.

Her grandfather, the caretaker hired by H. Wilkens Gregg, had boarded up the mansion’s windows and
doors forty years earlier, but the wood had fallen away from the main entrance. They left the horses to graze on the front lawn. Curving stone staircases flanked the portico on both sides, and Thena led the way up the left set. She glanced at Jed out of the corner of her eye, watching him as they stepped through the tall, arched entrance into a spacious foyer. He looked tense and unhappy.

“Italian tile,” she said wearily, and pointed to the dirty floor. “It’s a beautiful oyster color underneath all this grime. When I was little, I used to come here to play. I scrubbed these tiles with a brush once, just to see how pretty they were.”

“You weren’t scared here?” Dappled sunshine came through cracks in the boarded windows and the open door, making odd patterns on the peeling walls. Jed listened to the slight echo of his voice in the empty rooms.

“No. I’ve never felt afraid of SalHaven. It has a serene atmosphere that I enjoy.”

“Good spirits, huh?” He sounded sarcastic.

“Yes.” Her chin up, Thena walked down a hallway and stopped outside a triple doorway easily ten feet tall. Jed’s breath caught at the ethereal sight she presented, standing in the shadows. She belongs here, he thought suddenly. This old house loves her.

He rebuked himself for such nonsensical thinking and followed her. They entered a big, empty ballroom, and Jed couldn’t help but feel awed. Plaster crumbled from the high walls and the ceiling, and the patterned marble floor was cracked in places, but the room had a grandeur that reminded him of the Greek ruins pictured in school books.

“Grandfather said this room used to have a beautiful crystal chandelier almost twenty feet in diameter,” Thena commented. “It was sold along with all the other furnishings, after your grandmother was killed in the hurricane.” She pointed to the far side of the ballroom, which was open to the elements.
“There used to be five sets of French doors with beveled glass across that side of the room. They were sold too. The opening was boarded over, but the salt air and wind finally destroyed the wood, just as it did the wood that covered the front doorway.”

“What’s that outside?”

“The pavilion. It’s magnificent. I’ve read newspaper accounts of the parties your grandparents used to give here, and the writers always mentioned that guests loved to dance outside.”

Jed walked onto the magnificent curving porch. Its ornate marble columns were interspersed with filigreed marble benches. Overhead, in a vaulted roof, the remnants of stained-glass skylights framed jagged squares of blue sky. At the left end of the porch, where the hurricane had wreaked its damage, the roof had crumbled. Only a large pile of rubble and broken columns remained.

“Look past the edge of the pavilion,” Thena instructed. “See where the formal garden used to be? And if you squint across the marshes farther out, you can see the beach dunes. That crumbling foundation over to your right marks where the stable was. It had forty stalls, Jedidiah. Can you imagine? And beside it, stretching for three hundred acres back into the forest, were the pastures. The oaks have taken them over now, but”—Thena swung around in a circle, her arms out—“can’t you see SalHaven the way it must have been when your mother was a little girl? I can see her playing here, right here on this pavilion. She must have had a fantastic childhood.”

She swung around again, smiling, and met Jed’s gaze. Then she saw the sheer grief and fury in its hazel depths. He looked as if he wanted to tear SalHaven apart with his bare hands.

“Don’t hate her father so much,” Thena begged. “Don’t take that foolish hatred out on SalHaven. Don’t ruin Sancia because of some misdirected bitterness—”

“You don’t know anything but fairy tales and secondhand stories.” His voice was terribly strained.

“Tell me the truth, then. I don’t know what happened to your mother. Tell me.”

His struggle to find the right words was painfully obvious. A muscle quivered in his jaw. He put his hands on his hips and stared tensely out at the overgrown gardens.

“You don’t have to be eloquent, Jedidiah. Say what you feel.”

“Her family killed her.”

“How?” Thena asked in a stunned voice.

“She met my old man at a charity rodeo and ran off with him. She was a fancy socialite and he was livin’ hand-to-mouth on the rodeo circuit. But by God, they loved each other, even though nobody understood why. The Greggs had a fit, especially her father. Pa told me old H. Wilkens actually hired men to come get her, but they were too late. By the time they caught up with her and Pa, the two of them had been married a month.