6
Juliana cried out softly in her sleep when Saint moved away from her, and he whispered, “Just a moment, Jules. I’ll be right back, I promise you.”
He quickly pulled off his boots, then, unable to help himself, turned to look down at her for a long moment. He wished he could see her as the young girl of five years before, but it wasn’t possible, of course. He’d touched her, given her a woman’s pleasure, the first time she’d experienced such intense feelings, he thought again, and it pleased him that he had been the first man to bring her to passion. He could still see the dazed astonishment in her eyes when her body began to convulse in pleasure. He closed his eyes against the image, but only managed to see himself holding her against him, caressing her, knowing her. And he’d been involved in her feelings—no way around that, even though he hadn’t . . . Well, enough of that thinking, you idiot.
As he leaned down to douse the lamp, his eyes took in the long slender lines of her body encased in his ridiculous nightshirt. If only, he thought, he’d met her for the first time this evening, rescued a stranger from Wilkes, not his Jules. But she was alive in his past, warm and loving and vivid, and his memories of Lahaina were rich because of her. He pulled her under the covers and into his arms, settling himself on his back.
I won’t feel guilty about it, he said to himself as he stared up toward the darkened ceiling of his bedroom. I simply did what I had to do. A strange cure for a doctor to employ, he thought, and that made him smile. Then why did he feel a nearly painful throbbing in his damned groin? Sex, he thought, made a man foolish; it overpowered his brain and complicated things. Well, there was going to be nothing complicated about this. But he pulled her closer, and his last thought before he fell into a light sleep was that she had to bathe away that awful pungent perfume.
He dreamed about an afternoon that he’d thought long forgotten, an afternoon some six years before. He was walking along beside his young friend, his step automatically shortened to match hers, not at first realizing that she wasn’t behaving normally.
“The bird of paradise is so forceful,” Juliana said, stopping a moment to sniff and lightly touch the vivid flower. “All sharp lines, beautiful colors, of course, but it’s not delicate like the hibiscus.”
This was her fifth stop to admire flowers. He’d had lectures from Jules on all the flora on Maui over the three months he’d known her. He was hot, tired, and wanted to go swimming, so he stopped her.
“Enough about the graceful hibiscus. Let’s get into the water and you can show me some blackspot sergeants.”
To his surprise, she ducked her head down, and a small “No” barely reached his ears.
“But you always want to go into the water,” he said, patting her shoulder.
She raised her face for just a moment, and he was startled at the strange look in her eyes.
“Jules,” Saint had said finally, giving her his full attention. “What’s all this about? You’ve been acting strangely, I can’t get you to go swimming with me, all you’ve wanted to do is prattle on about flowers. Now, what’s going on?”
To his further surprise, a scarlet flush mounted her cheeks. He waited patiently, watching her pleat her cotton skirt with nervous fingers.
At last he said again, “If you’re not going to talk to me, we might as well get me out of my misery and go swimming. What do you say? Want to change your mind? I’ll make sure you don’t get too much sun. Where is your sarong?”
Her head shot up and she blurted out, “I can’t!”
He stared down at her thin, intense face, surrounded with the riotous red curls. She looked as though she wanted to sink into the soft grass beneath her feet. He frowned, curbing his impatience with her; then understanding hit him, and he wanted to laugh. But he said quite gently, taking her hand in his large one, “Come over here and let’s sit down a minute. It’s a great view, don’t you think?”
He felt her hand trembling, felt her pulling back, but paid her no heed. So it was her monthly flow, he thought. Perhaps he should simply ignore it and leave her on the beach while he swam. But she looked so strange; perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. Once they were seated on a flat volcanic rock, he said matter-of factly, “I’m your friend, and more than that, I’m a doctor. Your doctor. Now, talk to me.”
She wouldn’t look at him. “I’m dying,” she said simply, her girl’s voice high and thin and resigned.
He blinked, looking at her profile sharply. “What the hell does that mean?” Even as he spoke, he realized suddenly that this must be her first time. She was thirteen, and he hadn’t realized, hadn’t considered that she . . . He felt a fool, a big bungling one.
“Jules, you’re not dying,” he said. “You’re bleeding, aren’t you, for the first time?”
She looked at him, aghast, and her tongue flicked over her lower lip. “Yes,” she whispered.
In that moment he wished he could see that wilting, pallid mother of hers and shake her until her teeth rattled for being such a damned prude. He proceeded in a calm, practical voice to explain to her the process of becoming a woman. “Do you understand now, Jules?” he finished. “There’s nothing to be worried about, I promise. You’re just fine. It’s all very natural.”
“You mean I’m going to do this forever?”
He bit his lip at her horrified tone. “Well, not forever, but for quite a few more years.”
“But I want to go swimming!” she wailed, very much the thwarted child again.
He laughed and ruffled her hair. “You’re just going to have to watch me for a couple more days. You don’t hurt at all in your belly, do you?”
“Yes, but I don’t care. I don’t like this, not at all! It’s not fair!”
He hadn’t thought about it in that way. “No,” he said thoughtfully, “I guess it’s not. But then again, Jules, I can’t have babies. Do you think that’s fair?”
He’d watched her playing with one of the native women’s infants the previous afternoon, and enjoyed her maternal display. But she didn’t take the bait, and repeated stubbornly, “It still isn’t fair. You can still be a father, and that’s almost the same thing. And you can swim all the time, all year around.”
So much for that argument, he thought. Thank God, she at least knew where babies came from, at least had a general notion. He supposed he should tell her that she could swim, but he could just imagine what she’d say to that.
Saint turned in his sleep, suddenly uncomfortable, then awakened with a start. There was a soft, pliable body pressed against him, a slender leg, knee bent, flung over his belly. Saint blinked away the dream. It was dawn, dull morning light filtering through the bedroom window. Slowly he raised a hand and smoothed her tangled hair away from his face. She wasn’t a child anymore, hating what her body had done to her because it kept her from being a mermaid for five days. Why had that ridiculous dream come to him anyway? Because it was sexual in nature, he realized, even though at the time he’d merely been a good friend talking reassuringly to a young girl. Nothing more.
Saint suddenly realized that he was hard again, his manhood pressing against her thigh. Damned randy goat. He had to get away from her, get things back into proper perspective. As he slowly eased out of her hold, he wondered if she still remembered that long-ago afternoon, and her girl’s embarrassed confession, and her outrage at the unfairness of it.
She slept on, murmuring a bit, but not stirring.
Perhaps, his thinking continued as he bathed and shaved in the small bedroom down the hall, he’d had that dream as a guide. Yes, that was it. If she remembered her wild behavior of the previous night, he would simply treat it as naturally as he’d treated her young girl’s first monthly flow. He was still her friend, and her doctor. Nothing more.
She slept on even after his housekeeper, Lydia Mullens, arrived. He joined Lydia in the small kitchen, telling her about their guest over a cup of scalding black coffee. He told her what had happened the previous night, omitting only what had ha
ppened after he’d brought her here. He also mentioned that he’d known Jules when he’d lived in Lahaina.
Lydia looked aghast. “Wicked,” she said finally, shaking her gray head. “I’ve heard of the Crooked House, of course. You did a fine thing, Saint, yes, a fine thing.” She looked toward the ceiling, a frown crinkling her brow. “Poor little mite. What are you going to do, Saint?”
He downed the rest of his coffee, and rose from his chair. “An excellent question. Right now, I want her to wake up. Lord only knows how much opium that bastard gave her.
“I’ll cook up a big breakfast for her,” Lydia said. “Good food will clear out her system.”
Saint nodded, and walked from the kitchen. Lydia stared after him, a thoughtful look in her sharp blue eyes. She was fond of Saint, more than fond, she thought. He was like a son to her, a son to be proud of. She thought of her only son, dead now for three years. Rory had wanted gold so much, too much, and he’d died of dysentery in a wretched mining camp near Nevada City. And she’d come here alone with practically no money. She’d worked in the Stevenson home for two months, until the daughter of the house, Penelope, drove her so distracted she’d simply walked out. She blessed, every now and again, that awful cold she’d gotten, for it had given her Saint. And now there was a girl upstairs, a young girl who had dropped into his life out of his past.
She turned slowly away from the table and began to lay strips of bacon into a skillet. Saint needed a wife, but first she had to get to know this Juliana DuPres.
Jules felt a hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her, heard a soft man’s voice speaking to her. She froze inwardly, terror consuming her, until her mind, less dull and heavy now, forced her to open her eyes. She saw Michael leaning over her, his face concerned, his eyes intently studying her. She felt so sluggish, it was an effort to keep her eyes open. Michael, she thought. He was here, with her. It didn’t surprise her.
“How do you feel, Jules?” he asked, taking in the physical signs as he spoke. He knew how she felt without having to ask.
“I remember,” Jules said, trying to weave her wayward and tangled memories together.
He tensed, afraid to say anything.
“Is Jameson Wilkes dead? Did you kill him?”
He was relieved at her tone—angry, aggressive. “No, but I did slam my fist into his face. I don’t imagine he’ll feel very well for a while.”
“Yes,” she said again. “I remember. He drugged me, forced wine down my throat when I refused to drink it.” She fell silent, her brow furrowed in concentration. “I remember now that you hit me. My jaw hurts.”
“I’m sorry, Jules, but I had to get you out of there fast. I think you believed I was one of those bas . . . rotten men, and you fought me.”
“Well, I just hope that you hit Wilkes much harder.” She yawned, and raised her hand to cover her mouth. She paused, staring at the long sleeve that fell over the tips of her fingers. She looked at him, puzzled.
Saint became all professional. “I’m a doctor, Jules. I had to make sure you were all right. That’s one of my nightshirts, my only one, in fact. It’s yours until I can buy you something else.”
His very bland, cool tone would have worked if she hadn’t spent two weeks faced with what men did to women. He’d stripped off that awful gown. He’d seen her naked. She’d seen Wilkes’s leering looks when she’d been without any clothes in front of him. How had Michael looked at her? It was too much. Tears shimmered in her eyes and began to course down her cheeks.
“Jules! Come on, now, sweetheart. That’s no way to greet an old friend after five long years.”
He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but he held himself still. He said roughly, “Buck up, Jules, the world hasn’t ended. Nothing happened. You’re safe here. Don’t turn into a watering pot on me now.” God, at least I pray nothing happened.
She sniffed, trying to swallow the tears, and dashed the back of her hand across her eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re not like Wilkes.”
“No,” he said very gently, “I’m not.”
“I don’t understand how you saved me,” she said, her attention wandering inward even as she spoke. Something was gnawing at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t remember what it was.
“I was told by one of the Sydney Ducks that Wilkes had a missionary’s daughter from Lahaina. When I heard the description, I knew it had to be you. The rest was planning, that’s all.”
He saw that she was frowning at a point beyond his shoulder. He waited patiently, knowing that if she remembered the happenings of the previous evening, he would simply have to deal with it.
Jules said abruptly, her eyes suddenly intent upon his face, “You haven’t changed at all, Michael. You’re still large and hard and handsome, and your eyes still crinkle.”
He wished she’d used some word other than “hard.” “I’m nearly an old man now, Jules.”
“Ha! You’re ten years older, that’s all. I remember you used the same argument on me when I asked you to marry me at the advanced age of fourteen.” She flushed at her words. A child’s words from the past. Something nibbled insistently at the edge of her thoughts, but she couldn’t seem to grasp it, to understand. It was frustrating and disconcerting. Slowly she raised her hand to touch his face. “You still feel like you used to,” she said. Then suddenly she said, her voice intense, “I dreamed you came back to me in Lahaina, and we were together again.”
“A dream,” he said cautiously. “And I did come back to you, in a sense.”
“Yes, I suppose. Your eyes are so beautiful. The hazel is so much nicer than my . . . slime green.”
He laughed at that. “Oh no, not slime, Jules. Don’t you remember how you got your nickname?”
She smiled, two dimples deepening in her cheeks. “Yes, but it’s you who have forgotten, Michael. My nickname is from my awful hair, not my eyes.”
He remembered the young girl telling him that she hated the name Juliana, and he’d said, looking at her glorious, wildly curling hair, “Why not ‘Jules’ then? That’s close enough to ‘jewels,’ and that’s like your hair. All right?”
“Not slime,” he repeated, smiling gently at her. “Your eyes, like your hair, are jewels, green jade in this case.”
“You make me sound like a gawdy piece of jewelry. Rubies and jade!” She paused a moment, then said, nodding, “I like the jade. That makes me sound exotic.”
He heard Lydia call up and frowned. They’d spoken of nothing really. But at least she was responding to him normally. He said, “There’s the sterling voice of my housekeeper, Lydia. I told her about you, Jules, and she’s made you breakfast. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised. “You know, I really am. For the first time in a long while.”
He saw a flash of pain in her eyes, but for the moment he ignored it. “Let me invite Lydia up to meet you. You’ll like her.”
Jules did like Lydia, but the housekeeper clucked over her until finally Saint sent her out of the room.
Some minutes later, Saint was thinking between bites of fluffy scrambled eggs that she was responding much better than he’d believed possible. And her eyes were brighter; she was more alert.
And she was so damned beautiful that it made him ache just to look at her. And she was in his bed, and not fourteen years old anymore.
When Lydia came back to remove the breakfast trays, she looked closely at Jules. “Good, you did justice to my food. You let Saint take care of you, young lady.”
“You and that crazy name,” Jules said.
“No one else calls me Michael,” he said. He reached out his hand to touch her jaw. To his consternation, she jerked away from him, her eyes widening in terror.
“I’m sorry, Jules,” he said, immediately dropping his hand. He forced a rueful grin. “I just want to feel your jaw. I did smack you pretty hard.”
Get hold of yourself, and stop acting like a ninny! He’s not Jameson Wilkes! “I’m being stupid,”
she mumbled, trying to make herself relax.
“No, you’re being very brave. I’m proud of you.”
She gave him a pitifully hopeful look that made him flinch inwardly. “I’m glad you haven’t changed,” she said. “You may feel my jaw. I won’t be silly anymore.”
She leaned forward and watched his face as his fingers, long, blunt, yet so gentle, touched her sore jaw. Without conscious thought, she leaned against his fingers, years of absolute trust inherent in the simple movement.
Saint felt a treacherous weight descend. She was so vulnerable, so unsettled and confused, and he was her anchor. He looked at the gentle arch of her slender neck. So delicate, he thought, so fragile. He drew his hand away, appalled at himself. Again.
She smiled at him, a dazzling smile. He sucked in his breath. “You’ve turned into a beautiful woman, Jules,” he managed.
“Me?” She laughed incredulously. “Well, maybe passable. John Bleecher did want to marry me, you know,” she added on a mischievous grin.
“Bleecher? The planter’s son? That gangly boy who had pimples?”
“Yes, but now he doesn’t. And besides, I didn’t want to marry him, so I’m not certain if that counts or not.”
“Just why didn’t you want to marry him?”
Jules frowned. “Kanola asked me the same thing . . .” She broke off abruptly, memory flooding her. Kanola was dead. She felt tears well up. She turned her face away.
“What’s wrong, Jules?”
“Kanola’s dead. Wilkes’s men . . . hurt her, I know it. I saw them holding her down and she was fighting them. She’s dead.”
He closed his eyes a moment against her pain. Had Jules seen her friend raped and murdered? He wanted to ask her how Wilkes had captured her, but at that moment he heard a knock on the front door. A patient. Damnation! “Jules . . .” he began.
It was someone sick to see him, she thought. I’ve got to stop acting like a helpless child. She swallowed the bitter bile and forced a smile. “I’ll be all right.”
“I’ll be back up as soon as I’ve seen my patient.” He rose. “I want you to rest, Jules. We’ve got to clear the opium out of your system.”