Warm Hearts (32 page)

Sitting up, she grinned. “I know.” Many times had she visited that very one. “But how did you? Have you been here before?”

“To St. Barts?” He popped a grape into his mouth, started to toss her one, then, seeing that her hands were full, leaned forward to press it between her lips. “Nope. But I read … and ask. Even guidebooks can be quite informative.” Stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles, he leaned back on his elbow and took a sip of his wine.

He was wearing bathing trunks, black ones this time with a white stripe down each hip. If anything, his bare skin had an even richer tone than it had had the day before—richer and warmer and all the more tempting to touch. Stuffing a hunk of bread into her mouth, Leslie chewed forcefully. Only when she'd swallowed did she give a despairing, “Hmmph! Guidebooks. You're right. They give away every secret worth keeping. As a matter of fact, when we first started coming here, St. Barts itself was a secret. For Americans, at least. Now, Gustavia's that much more crowded. Things have changed.”

“It's still quite beautiful.” His gaze slipped down the nearby stretch of beach. “And very private here.”

Tearing her eyes from the dashing silver wings behind his ears, she followed his gaze. “Mmmmm. We're lucky.”

He offered her a slice of cheese before helping himself to one. “You don't like crowds?” he asked, taking a bite as he waited for her reply.

“I don't mind them. I mean, I guess they're unavoidable at home. If one wants the pluses of a big city, one has to be willing to put up with the minuses.”

“You live right in the city?”

She shook her head. “On the island.”

“Is that where you teach?”

“Um hmm.”

He paused to put a piece of cheese on his bread, ate it, then washed it down with his wine. Then he sat back and turned his avid gaze on her. “How did you get started?”

“Teaching?”

“Mmmm.”

“I started in the city, as a matter of fact. It seemed like a good enough place to begin. I knew I wanted to work at the preschool level and, with the growing number of women working, there were preschool centers cropping up all over the place. After a year, though, I realized that … well … I wanted to be a little farther out.”

“Away from your family?”

He was right on the button. “Uh huh.”

“You don't like your family?”

“I love my family,” she countered quickly. “It's just that … I needed some distance. And there were other challenges.…”

“Such as…?”

She faced him squarely, filled with conviction. “Such as meeting the as-yet-untapped need in the suburbs. There had already been a slew of day-care centers established there, also to meet the need of the working woman. But those centers did just that: they met the women's needs rather than those of the kids themselves. What was required was something a step above day care, a very controlled environment in which children could learn rather than simply pass the time.” She paused to sip her wine. Oliver quickly lifted the carafe and added more to her glass.

“So you found something there?”

“I made something there. Another woman and I set up a small center in a room we rented in a church, put together what we thought to be a stimulating curriculum, found a super gal to teach with us, and it worked. We incorporated a year later, opened second and third branches in neighboring towns the following year. Last fall we opened our fourth. Two more are in the planning stages.”

He cocked a brow. “Not bad … for a teacher.”

“Hmmph. Sometimes I wonder about that. There are times when the managerial end supersedes everything.” Then she smiled. “But I do love it. Both teaching and managing.”

“You love kids?”

“Mmmm.” She tore off the corner of a piece of bread and ate it. “They're such honest little creatures. Something's on their minds and they say it. Something bothers them and they cry. No pretense at all. It's delightful.”

“Doesn't say much for us big creatures, does it?”

“Nope.” She reached for another grape, tipped her face up to the sun and closed her eyes as she savored the grape's sweet juice. “This is great. Thanks. I do love a picnic.”

“So you said.”

She blushed, recalling her stormy outburst. “So I did.”

“That's pretty.”

She opened her eyes to find Oliver's gaze warming her. “What is?”

“Your color.”

“It's the wine. Or the sun.” Far be it from her to admit that his presence might have an effect.

“You look good. You sound good. Your cold really is better.”

“Yes, doctor,” she mocked, then held her breath, mockery fast forgotten beneath the power of his lambent gaze. His heat reached into her, stirring her blood, quickening her pulse. She wondered whether any woman could be immune to this silent command of his, a command as vocal in his eyes as in the long, sinuous strain of his body. She bit her lip and looked away, but he was one step ahead, bounding to his feet and heading for the surf.

“I need a dip,” he muttered on the run, leaving Leslie to admire his athletic grace as he hit the water and dived.

“You'll get a cramp,” she murmured to the breeze alone, for he was well out of earshot, intent on stroking swiftly from shore. She glanced back at the food spread on the blanket, then up at the house. Old habits died hard, but he was trying. And he was sweet. Dinner last night, a picnic today. He really
had
left her alone most of the time. Once more it occurred to her to simply disappear and leave him in peace; he'd obviously had something quite different in mind for his vacation than the innocent cohabitation she'd agreed to. But he'd suggested it, and he could leave at any time, she reasoned, though she found the thought vaguely disturbing.

With a sigh of confusion, she settled back on her towel, closed her eyes and gave herself up to the soft caress of the sun. It was far less complicated than any man, she mused. Less complicated … less satisfying. Even now, with her body alive in heretofore forgotten crannies, she pondered the risks of each. While the sun could cause skin cancer, a man could break her heart. Yet here she lay, complacent as a basking lizard, taking her chances on the goodness of the sun. Could she take her chances with Oliver?

What she needed, she mused, was Oliver-block—something to optimize the pleasure and minimize the risk of overexposure to such a potently virile man. Did such a thing exist? She laughed aloud. It was the wine. Straight to her head. The wine.…

Moments later Oliver emerged from the sea. Eyes still closed, Leslie listened as he panted toward the blanket, caught up the towel he'd brought inside the basket, rubbed it across his chest and face, then settled down on the sand by her side. For a brief instant she felt her skin tingle and knew he was looking at her.

“All right?” he asked softly.

“All right,” she answered, then relaxed when he closed his eyes.

They lay together in a companionable silence, rising every so often to munch on the goodies he'd brought, to dip in the water and cool off, to turn in the sun or move into the shade and read. It was Leslie who excused herself, first, gathering her things and returning to the house, phoning to have a rental car delivered, then showering. Donning a strappy yellow sundress and sandals, she drove into town to eat at a small port-side café.

The sunset was beautiful, tripping over the harbor with its pert gathering of assorted small boats. Time and again, though, her eye was drawn to the couples surrounding her at other tables on the open-air terrace. Healthy and tanned, they sat close together, hands entwined, heads bent toward one another with an air of intimacy she envied. She wondered where they'd come from, whether they were married, whether the happiness they appeared to have captured was simply a product of the romantic setting or whether the setting had enhanced something that had been good from the start.

Leaving without dessert, she returned to the villa, only to find it empty. For a time she wandered from room to room making a pretense of admiring the fresh tropical decor before she settled at last in the den with the book she'd abandoned earlier. This was what she'd wanted, she reminded herself pointedly. Peace and solitude.

Three times she read the same page before finally absorbing its words.

*   *   *

By Monday morning her cold was nothing more than a memory. She rose in time to spot the dark-haired figure swimming in the early-morning sun, and, not daring to join him, retreated to the kitchen to fix a breakfast of bacon and eggs and muffins. There was more than enough for two. Quickly eating her share, she left the rest on the stove and returned to her room. Then, on a whim, she packed up a towel, a wide-brimmed straw hat, her lotion and a book and went into town to buy a newspaper, which she read over a cup of coffee before heading for the public beach.

Spreading her towel on the sand, she shimmied out of her terry cover-up, then, with a glance around to assure herself that the mode hadn't changed, gracefully removed her bikini top and lay down in the sun.

It felt wonderful, as she'd known it would. Strange that she could do this so easily on a public beach, while she'd persisted in wearing her one-piece suit in the privacy of the villa. But the villa wasn't totally private this time round, was it?

Squinting in the sun, she wrestled her lotion from the bag and squirted a generous dollop onto her stomach. It spread easily beneath her hands. She worked it up past her ribs, around and over her breasts to her shoulders, finally smoothing the remainder down her arms before lying back. Better. Warm. Relaxing.

Why
couldn't
she do this at the villa? Was there truly safety in numbers? Peeking through the shadow of her lashes, she scanned the growing crowd. The bodies were beautiful, few of them covered by more than slim bands of material at their hips. Men and women. Lean and fit. Well, she was lean and fit, too. What objection could she have to Oliver's seeing her like this?

Oliver was lean and fit. She recalled how he'd looked this morning with the sun glancing off his limbs as he swam. She recalled how he'd looked yesterday, lying beside her on the sand. His shoulders were sturdy and tanned, his hips narrow, his legs well formed. She liked the soft matting of hair that roughened those legs, the broader patch on his chest, the tapering line down his stomach. His body was every bit as beautiful as that of any man on the beach today. And his hands—those hands that had so deftly poured wine, sliced cheese, popped a single grape into her mouth—had those fingers touched her lips? She remembered how easily they'd circled her wrist to tug her back down to the sand. What might they have been like spreading lotion on her body…?

To her dismay, she felt her breasts grow taut. Peering down in embarrassment, she flipped angrily over onto her stomach and silently tore into herself for the foolishness of her thoughts. Was she that starved for the touch of a man? True, it had been a long time since she'd been reckless enough to trust one to the point of making love. But she'd never known the kind of frustration that would make her body respond out of sheer imagination. Opening one eye, she skimmed the bodies nearby, pausing at that of one attractive man, then another. Nothing.
Damn him!

Defiantly she rolled over once more and concentrated on her life back home. The preschool centers were thriving. Six by next fall … quite an accomplishment. What now? Should she continue to teach? Go back to school for a business degree? Focus on the managerial skills she'd inadvertently picked up? There were many options, not the least of which was to take Tony up on his offer of signing on with the corporation. Even in spite of the distance she purposely placed between it and herself, she was neither deaf nor blind. Had she not caught talk at family gatherings of the corporation's spreading interests, she had certainly read of them in the newspapers. There were new divisions forming all the time, any one of which she could take over if she showed the slightest inclination.

But she didn't. And she wouldn't. There was something about high power and the almighty buck that stuck in her craw. Misplaced values. Misguided loyalties. Marriages of convenience rather than love.

Look at Tony. He'd married Laura because she'd promised to be the kind of wife every chief executive needed. Only problem was that every
other
chief executive needed her, or wanted her … or simply took her, so it seemed.

Sensing the dry, parched feel to her legs, Leslie sat up and smoothed lotion on them liberally, then lay down again. And Brenda—she was working on number two. Number one had been her high-school sweetheart and had unfortunately developed a penchant for gambling away every cent she earned. Poor Brenda. John had been a disappointment. Perhaps Larry would be better for her.

And then there was Diane. Slim, petite Diane, who'd wanted nothing more than to be a gymnastics star until she'd discovered that all the money in the world couldn't buy her the gold. Unable to settle for silver or bronze, she'd quit gymnastics and, by way of consolation, had been awarded the sporting-goods division of the corporation.

From the start she'd been in over her head. Even Tony had seen that. When she'd quite opportunely fallen in love with Brad Weitz, himself a senior vice-president of his family's development firm, things looked good. What with Brad's business acumen and that of the circle of lesser executives he helped Diane gather, she was able to focus her own attentions on the content of the Parish line, rather than its high-level management.

Unfortunately, while the business flourished, her marriage floundered. Brad wandered, always returning to soothe Diane's injured pride, yet inevitably straying again before long. More than once Diane had eyed Leslie in envy at the latter's unencumbered state.

If only she knew
, Leslie reflected wryly as she turned onto her stomach and tuned in to the sounds of the gentle Caribbean air. They were soft sounds—the murmur of easy conversation from parties nearby, the light laughter of those near the water's edge, the occasional cry of a bird flying overhead. How delightful it was to be here, she mused, to leave that other world where it was. Soon enough she'd be back to face it again. Soon enough she'd have to decide where she wanted to go with her life. But for now she wanted to relax and enjoy. That was all … that was all … that was all.…