Sorry. He moved his hand and shifted in his seat, and she became aware that hers wasnt the only body with a memory. She could feel him, hard and ready, against her buttocks. And, God help her, she wanted him with a deep, insistent pulse she hadnt managed to conquer in the time theyd been apart.
She was no better than her mother, willing to accept so much less than she deserved because of an illusion of love.
They bumped past a low collection of cottages with a No Vacancy sign and a few cars in the lot. Turn in here, Dale snapped, his voice rough with a tone that sent a ripple of memory through her. I left a message reserving rooms.
Rooms, plural. Tansy hated the flash of disappointment. Of course they werent staying together. They were broken up. Finished. She was only on the island because HFH management had insisted Dale take his partner. Tansy thought she might strangle her boss when she got home, which would be sooner than later, if Dale got his way.
Home. It was tempting. She was out of her depth, not in control of the situation. But at the same time, it was clear the outbreak wasnt as small an issue as shed thought. If patients were dying, if people needed her, shed stay.
Especially since her plane was at the bottom of the ocean.
Chilled, she leaned back against Dale. His arm tightened across her waist as Mickey passed the motel and said, Sorry, there arent any vacancies. He turned onto a dirt track, barely visible in the thin headlight beams. Stunted island trees closed in, reaching soggy branches toward the travelers. The clinic is too small for all the patients. Were using the motel as a hospital, and the only available room is being rented by a big-shot real estate developer named Roberts.
She felt Dales body tense. Where are we sleeping, then?
In Tehru they had picked the dying up off the streets, carried them into the crumbling hotel rooms and treated them on the beds. The HFH doctors had slept on the floors when theyd slept at all. The lodgings werent important. The patients were.
So why did Dale sound upset? Why was his body tense beneath hers? She looked back over her shoulder and saw his eyes dart from the road to the passing land, as though he wanted to look around but couldnt bear to.
Your uncle kept the place up, Mickey said, turning into a narrow drive, toward a sprawling house that looked a few degrees better maintained than the cottages near the water. Painted it every few years and kept the utilities going, just in case.
Just in case what? Tansy wanted to ask, but she choked it down.
Fear and curiosity battled with a growing sense of disillusionment as she realized how much of himself Dale had kept hidden. How little hed really trusted her.
How little he had loved her.
I couldnt care less what Trask has or hasnt done. The chill in Dales tone reminded Tansy of the times shed pushed him for more and hed given her less. Cold. He could be so cold.
And she was so confused. What the hell was going on here?
She slid from the jeep and stumbled in a muddy rut. Dale caught her elbow and propped her up. When her feet were steady, he stepped away, attention focused on the cousin, who could have been his weather-beaten twin.
Mickey shook his head. Your uncle has changed, Dale. I swear it. Hes sorry for what he did back then. You should talk to him.
Not if my life depended on it. The uncivilized spark crackled in Dales eyes and his voice heated a degree. Not even if he was dying.
Mickey stared at him for a long moment before nodding. If you say so. He touched Dales shoulder briefly, and something akin to regret flickered in Mickeys faded blue eyes. Theres no agenda here, Cousin. I wouldnt have asked you to come back if I had another choice. And I wouldnt make you stay in this house if there was someplace better. But there isnt, unless you want to stay at Churchills mansion.
No, Dale said flatly, staring up at the house. No, this is fine. He dipped a hand into his pocket, and Tansy saw his fingers work. It was a habit he never seemed aware of. Shed come close to searching his pockets once, to find out what sort of talisman he carried, but shed stopped herself. That was her mothers game, not hers.
Mickey glanced at his watch and jerked his head toward the sagging porch. Go on in and get showered and changed. My wife, Libby, left you some basicstowels, clothes, a few odds and ends. Our doctor, Dr. Hazel, will meet you at the motel to go over the patients when youre ready.
As Mickey backed the jeep down the narrow trail, Tansys confusion and anger tumbled together in a righteous buzz. Still feeling Dales touch on her flesh, and hating the frigid control he used like a shield, she rounded on him. What the hell is
Later, he interrupted with a short, chopping motion of his hand and a hard look in his eye that sent her back a step. Ill explain later. He paused, and his eyes softened into something more familiar. Something she almost understood. Something that tugged at her and made her wish things were different. Lets go inside and get warmed up. I want to have a look at that bump on your head, too. You may need a stitch.
Its fine. And if I needed a stitch, Id do it myself, she replied, feeling the adrenaline and the fear, the cold and the confusion, all catching up to her at once. Your sutures are lousy. And dont think youre getting out of an explanation, Metcalf.
His eyes softened further, though something dangerous still lurked at the back. Atta girl. Come on.
He led her up the porch. A hollowed-out shingle near the scratched brass mailbox yielded a key that slipped easily into the simple lock. The faded plaque beside the door contained a single word.
Metcalf.
As she passed through the door into a bare hallway, she murmured, Welcome home, Dale.
She got a pithy curse in reply. For some reason, it made her smile. But when she turned, she found him watching her with cold, angry eyes.
This isnt a joke, Tansy. You dont belong here. There are things going on that you have no part of, and I dont want you hurt.
Though his words and expression were hard, she couldnt help the quick lift of her heart. He cared what happened to her. The hot, wanting pulse returned. Oh? I assumed you didnt want me along because of what happened between us.
Emotion, or maybe desire, flared hot in his eyes, then iced as quickly as it had sparked. Dont fool yourself. There is no us anymore. He turned away and toed a pile of towels and clothes near the staircase. The showers the second door on the right. The water takes a few minutes to warm up.
Then he walked away, leaving only an echo of footsteps on dry floorboards to mark his presence. Tansy dropped her salty, aching face into her hands.
That was what shed wanted. No regrets, no hard feelings. Nothing between them. He hadnt been able to give her what she needed, and theyd parted ways. Simple, right?
But there was nothing simple about the ache in her heart. There was nothing simple about the landing gear ripping off, or about an outbreak that was too deadly, too virulent to be shellfish poisoning.
And worst of all, there was nothing simple about the man shed once thought herself in love with. The playboy doctor whod looked like a leading actor among extras in the Tehru clinics, and instead had turned out to bewhat? A lobstermans son? The prodigal returned?
And worst of all, there was nothing simple about the man shed once thought herself in love with. The playboy doctor whod looked like a leading actor among extras in the Tehru clinics, and instead had turned out to bewhat? A lobstermans son? The prodigal returned?
She had no idea.
Let me inside, she had pleaded during one of their last real fights. Dont keep shutting me out. I cant help you if you wont let me in.
Now, she glanced around the cold, bare entryway, noting where squares of darker wood on the walls suggested pictures long gone. If this was the inside of Dale, she might be better off back in Boston. At least there, she understood the rules.
Here, she understood nothing.
WHEN HE FINALLY HEARD the shower thump to life, Dale pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the kitchen window and closed his eyes. If she had followed him and demanded answers, he wasnt sure what would have come out of his mouth. There is no
us anymore. It was the truth. It had to be the truth. Everything that had happened between them was based on a lie.
He wasnt the son of a wealthy Boston shipper. His familys single boat had gone down one night amidst a ferocious spring storm. Or so hed been told. Nobody, not even the uncle whod lost his wife in the accident, had wanted to hear Dales suspicions. The day a drunken Trask had tried to beat the questions out of him was the day seventeen-year-old Dale had fled the island with Walter Churchills help.
Make yourself into someone else, Churchill had demanded, and sent him off with enough money to do it. Youre better than Lobster Island. You dont be long here.
But hed never felt like he belonged where hed ended up, either. Boston, and the wealthy doctors life, hadnt sat easily on his shoulders. Hed worked hard to make it fit, even harder when Tansy had come into his life, but the more he tried, the worse the role had pinched.
The shower rumbled overhead, shifting his attention. When he was a child, the noise had made him think of monsters. Now it made him think of Tansy, naked, slick and pink beneath the water. Suddenly, his clothes were more irritating than cold, sticking to the sensitive places. Dale pulled off his ruined shirt and winced as his bumps and bruises throbbed. His quick arousal faded with the memory of those last moments on the runway.
They could have died in the plane crash. They could have sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Dead. Like his parents. And it would have been his fault for bringing Tansy along.
The pipes rattled again, making him think of the shower again. Of Tansy. Without trying, he could imagine steam wreathing her soft, rosy body. Briefly, he let himself remember their time together, let the memory beat back the shadows and the ghosts. The fear.
They had first made love on a pallet in Tehru, barely taking the time to loosen the clothing they wore to bed, to be ready for the next emergency. They had come together in need and despair, wanting to forget the dead and the dying at a time when the outbreak had seemed unbeatable. Then, theyd wanted to feel alive. Later, theyd just wanted to feel. After that first time, theyd stolen moments for quick, furtive couplings when they were too tired to save lives but too wired to sleep.
With the outbreaks source discovered and the disease leveled, theyd headed home, stopping halfway to rent a room with lush plants, marble, brass and silk. And a shower God, what a shower.
Theyd made love in that shower, naked together for the first time, as perfect for each other as two people could possibly be.
Except that she was perfect for the man Dale had createdwealthy and pedigreed. And that man was nothing more than fiction. If Tansy ever met the real Dale Metcalf, shed be horrified.
Worse, shed be disappointed.
And maybe that was why he hadnt fought harder against bringing her. Maybe Lobster Island would do what he had failed to do. Maybe it would kill the attraction between them. Kill the want, and the desperate kick of his heart every time he saw her.
He stepped out of his ruined shoes and eyed the pile of clothes Mickeys wife had left beside a flashlight and a small box of staples. He scowled at the worn jeans and the rough Irish-knit sweater. Dr. Metcalf, infectious disease specialist, didnt own jeans or bulky sweaters. But hed grown up in them. Shrugging, he scooped the warm clothes off the floor near the stairs and set his foot on the lowest tread.
With the motion, his blood buzzed, and emotions, those things he so often avoided, threatened to swamp him. Hed never needed Tansys quiet strength more than he did right now. And he had no right to it.
Did he dare go up? If he paused outside the bathroom door and heard her singing in the low contralto that never failed to set his body afire, would he have the strength to keep walking?
Dr. Metcalf would have the strength to walk by, just as hed had the nobility to push her away. But Dale Metcalf, lobstermans brat, knew nothing of nobility. He knew nothing of honor or civility, but he knew about desire. About the want that had chased through his veins ever since hed held Tansy in his lap on the drive over and remembered how she smelled. How she tasted.
How she felt wrapped around him. Needing him. Loving him.
Oh, yes. He knew about those things. And the memory burned in his lungs. Fighting for strength, for sanity, he turned away from temptation.
And heard Tansy scream.
Chapter Three
Dale! Dale, get up here! Hurry! The terror in her voice kicked him up the stairs at a dead run. Hed never heard Tansy scream before. Ever.
Moving fast, he shouldered open the door and slid to a halt at the sight of her perfect, round derriere. She was leaning out the bathroom window, dripping on the floor.
Tans? He plunged into the small, steamy room, slapped the shower off and heard rustling thumps down below.
There was someone outside.
Dale! She turned, clutching a towel to her chest. There was a man looking in the window. He was watching me! What the hell is going on here?
The tree.
Damn it! He brushed her aside and threw a leg out the window. It had been fifteen years since the last time hed snuck away from Trask and broken into his old house, but the tree still stood outside the bathroom window. And the sounds of running footsteps below told him it was still strong enough for climbing.
Omigod, what are you doing? Her voice bordered on shrill, but he didnt pause.
He grabbed the gutter and swung a leg over to the thickest limb. The motions came back easily, and within seconds he was halfway down the tree. A shadow of movement from the garden gate caught his eye. Stay put, he yelled to her. Ill be right back. He dropped to the ground and sprinted for the lane that ran behind his mothers overgrown garden.
There were two sets of footsteps and a frantic shout of, Hurry! Jeez, here he comes! from the running shadows.
Dale chose the one on the left and made a leaping tackle. He and his quarry went down in the lane amidst a flurry of arms and legs. A pointy elbow cracked Dale under the chin and he swore, realizing hed landed on maybe fifty pounds of skinny kid.
Quit! he barked, and the squirming subsided. A nearby rustle told him the other boy hadnt gone far, so he rolled off his captive. Sitting in the dirt, Dale shook his head. What do you think youre doing, looking in while a ladys showering? Does your ma know about this?