Jed picked up each food item with loving care. He inhaled the aroma of the fruit and stared at the cookies a long time. Then he put everything back in the sack. Sighing, he sat cross-legged in the sand and rubbed a weary hand over the beard stubble that had turned his jaw into an itchy Brillo pad. Then he began to laugh. He loved this crafty woman. He loved her, but he wouldn’t give in.
Thena found the sack on her front porch when she returned from the south marshes, where she’d gone to check on a nest of birds. She kicked her muddy walking shoes off and sat down by the bag. He hadn’t taken a thing, not even the fishing gear, she discovered. What a man. What a tenacious, hardheaded, wonderful man. He was becoming very easy to adore.
Three more days passed. Thena began to grow edgy as the battle wore on her nerves and concentration. She never heard gunshots, so she knew he wasn’t hunting the island game. He must be living on what few fish he could catch. And she knew that his only water supply was the slightly brackish creek that ran across his side of the island.
On the morning of the fourth day, she went to one of the inlets and gathered a few oysters for dinner. Rasputin and Godiva went with her, and as they neared the house on the way back, their ears perked up and they began to bark. Both big dogs bounded ahead, and Thena hurried after them. When she reached the porch, she halted, her mouth opened in alarm.
A haggard-looking Jed was stretched out on the rough plank floor, his ankles crossed and his head pillowed on his rolled-up sleeping bag. He wore nothing but his cutoffs and the old leather sandals she’d given him. He squinted at her for a moment, then raised one work-scarred hand and saluted. The gesture appeared to take effort.
“John Wayne surrenders,” he murmured weakly. He put his hand down and closed his eyes.
“Oh, Jedidiah.” Thena ran up the porch steps and sat down beside him. He had lost at least ten pounds off a frame that had been as lean as a runner’s anyway. His face, neck, and arms, already bronzed by the Wyoming sun, were the only parts of him that the Georgia sun hadn’t burned. The thick mat of hair on his chest was now more blond than brown, and a fine pattern of blisters ran across the tops of his shoulders. His jaw was covered in thick bristle, and he had new squint lines around his eyes. His lips had cracked from the constant beach wind.
“Go ahead and say it,” he murmured, his eyes still shut. “I look like hell.”
Thena disregarded common sense and patted his cheek tenderly. “L’homme magnifique,” she whispered under her breath.
“What? Who’s home?”
“The beard makes you look like that actor on Miami Vice.”
He smiled at that kind remark and looked up at her wearily. “Just give me something to fish with. I’m tired of trawlin’ for minnows with my leg hairs.”
“Why didn’t you hunt? You could have killed a deer, or a rabbit.”
“I figured you’d never forgive me if I blasted one of the inmates here at Eden,” he grumbled.
“You mean you went hungry just so you wouldn’t hurt my feelings?”
“Pa always said I was dumber than a rock.”
Thena’s eyes glistened with tears. Now she was certain she could change his mind about her island. He had a huge, soft heart that he could no longer keep hidden from her. She took his face between her graceful hands and looked deep into his eyes. Her mind very carefully ignored the surge of physical desire that made her tremble inside. She concentrated instead on a sweet sense that she could trust him, that she liked him more than she’d ever liked anyone in her life.
“What a cowboy,” she whispered proudly. Then she leaned forward and brushed a gentle kiss across his forehead.
“Well … well damn.” His voice was a low rumble. “If I’d known you were gonna act like this, I’d have surrendered three days ago.”
Thena smiled wistfully and sat back. “Stay put,” she ordered. She went inside. When she returned a few minutes later, she carried a glass of milk, a bunch of bananas, and a quart-sized coffee can. “Sit up and eat while I rub something on your shoulders.”
He gulped the milk down and ate a banana before she even had time to kneel behind him and open the coffee can. “What is that stuff? Can I eat it? I could eat the hind leg off a mule, right now.”
“You don’t want to eat this. It’s an herbal poultice that I keep in the refrigerator. My friend Beneba Everett made it.”
“Huh. I’ve heard of her. Farlo Briggs says she taught you everything you know about bein’ a witch. That stuff’s gonna turn me into a frog, I bet.”
“Farlo thinks she’s a witch just because she grows the best garden in this part of the state. He’s jealous.”
“Aaaah. That’s cold. It feels great. I won’t mind bein’ a frog.”
He ate several more bananas while she smeared the pasty concoction over his well-formed shoulders and back. He was too worn out and sunburned to be a threat, but still Thena felt uncomfortable touching him. His muscles bunched and relaxed under her fingertips, and she had to control the urge to massage the poultice in a little more than required. His skin was disturbingly hot from the sun.
When she finished, she handed him the coffee can. “You do the rest. I’ll get you something else to eat.”
“How ’bout a side of beef and a dozen of those ice-cold beers you kept temptin’ me with?”
She laughed. “I get the idea.”
He settled for two thick cheese omelets and a half pound of bacon. It seemed to her that he ate for hours. Plus, he drank two beers and two more glasses of milk with a gusto that made her want to cry.
“I’m so sorry you stayed out on the beach for five days,” she blurted. “You’re a very dauntless man.”
“Yeah, the sun burned my ‘daunt’ off the first day.”
She laughed, but sounded more upset than amused. “I’m really sorry,” she emphasized.
He gulped down a last swallow of milk and smiled carefully so as not to hurt his mouth. With a milk mustache on his upper lip and his brown hair tousled, he looked like a teenager. “If you’re really sorry, you’ll finish rubbin’ that cool goo on me. I haven’t got any on the front of my legs, and they sting like crazy.” He made himself look pitiful. “I’m so … so weak and kind of … woozy.”
“Can the chatter and lie down, you cheap con artist.”
“Where’d you learn such tough talk?” He stretched out slowly, and it seemed to Thena that every muscle in his stomach moved in a way calculated to draw her attention.
“Edward G. Robinson.” She spread the ointment on his feet, first. “Good heavens, Jedidiah, the membranes between your toes are red. Are you sunburned all over?”
“Will you put ointment everywhere, if I say yes?”
“We’ll get along a great deal better if you don’t flirt with me.”
“You kissed me, wildflower. Right between the eyes. I’m allowed to flirt.”
“That was a … friendly gesture. Sympathy from one human who admires another.…”
“Then explain to me where admirin’ ends and lovin’ begins.”
Thena’s fingers slipped awkwardly over his knees. She ignored his request. Love? This cowboy was pulling her leg. “Bony. Your knees are bony. And you have scars all over your legs.” Oddly enough, they weren’t unattractive to her. Oh, no, Thena thought. When you start to like somebody’s little imperfections, then you’re a goner. She cleared her throat roughly. “What did you do when you were growing up, sir? Play skip rope with barbed wire?”
She rubbed a little ointment on his thighs, feeling the long muscles quiver as she did. Thena plunked the can down. Breathing too fast, she scooted away from him and leaned her back against the side of the house. He rolled over on one side and locked her eyes in a serious, intense gaze.
“I grew up mean and I grew up fast,” he told her. “I quit school in the tenth grade. My father was a drunk and he died in a knife fight. I’ve seen a lot of ugly things and I’ve done a few myself. But I’m honest, and I don’t hurt anybody or anything unle
ss they try to hurt me or someone I love. I don’t drink much and I don’t do drugs. I’m generous with what I’ve got, whether it’s money or food or kindness.” He paused, his eyes searching her face. “I know you and me are light years apart in some ways, but in others I feel like I’ve never been closer to another soul in my whole life.”
Thena took a ragged breath. “You can be very eloquent when you want to be,” she murmured. “Would you like a shave? Then I’ll turn on the attic fan and you can go upstairs and take a nap.”
“Are you tryin’ to get me outta your hair?”
“Yes.”
“Is it because of what I just told you about myself?”
“No. My parents taught me to judge a person by his actions and his nature, not by his past. I meant it last week when I said that I see the beauty in you. But … you want something from me that …”
“I wasn’t hintin’ that I wanted to spoon with you again,” he teased softly. She cut her eyes at him in rebuke. “Well, okay, maybe I do want to spoon a little—”
“Please don’t talk like that.” Her voice broke on the last word. “Are you trying to ruin our friendship?”
“Are we friends, Thena?”
She nodded and sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t help myself. We’re friends. At least temporarily.”
“Could it ever be more?”
She shook her head. “Not with you. Not with anyone.” A tear slid down her cheek and she hurriedly brushed it away. She looked at him in despair. “Can we please just not discuss this subject again? Please?”
His mouth opened in protest, but he caught himself in time to hold his bewilderment and frustration inside. She must have loved that professor like life itself, Jed thought dully. And she’s not over him yet. Patience, he told himself. She can be gentled. She can be won.
“You got it, wildflower.” His voice was sincere. “I know you’ve been hurt. I can pretend to be a gentleman, when I have to. And I will. Relax.”
“You are very much a gentleman, in all the ways that are important. You don’t have to pretend.”
“So I’m Jedidiah, not Jed, and a gentleman, not a rich saddle tramp. You’re good for my ego, gal.”
“You’re good for me … because you’re a challenge. I have so much to teach you about this island. You have to give me a chance.”
The look in her eyes beseeched him in a way that made him feel he held the key to her happiness. A sense of protectiveness swelled up inside him, and at that moment he would have cheerfully fought dragons with his bare hands on her behalf. He figured this magical place probably had a few, puffing around somewhere.
“All right, gal. You keep feedin’ me, and I swear I’ll listen with an open mind.”
Her face brightened. “I’ll raise your consciousness yet.”
He smiled at her wickedly. “Give it a chance to get over bein’ sunburned, first.”
Six
He slept all day. At dusk, Thena gave into an odd, restless impulse to see him and hear his voice. She tiptoed upstairs, found the door to the bedroom open, and peeked in furtively. It was too hot to keep the door closed. She expected that. She didn’t expect to see his shorts and white briefs lying on the old plank floor or his lying naked on his stomach with his head burrowed in a pillow.
Stunned, Thena studied his relaxed body with an awe she usually reserved for magnificent sunrises. The sheets curled around him like a milky river, their pale softness a startling contrast to his hard angles and sun-baked skin. Of course he’s not sunburned everywhere, she thought blankly, staring at the smooth white skin on his rump.
Thena tilted her head to one side and looked at it with an artist’s eye. How lovely and symmetrical it was. Her academic nature noted the well-toned appearance of the muscles. Yes, the gluteals—maximus, medius, and minimus—were in excellent shape. Quite excellent. Quite appealing and vulnerable. Quite touchable, really, and her fingertips were very interested in proving it.
Aghast, Thena tiptoed away, went downstairs, and curled up in an overstuffed chair with comfortably sprung springs. The summer twilight and the island’s night sounds slipped inside and surrounded her. Thena sat in the dark a long time, trying to decide at what point her chemical reactions to Jed Powers had gotten totally out of control.
Her father had been taller than Jed, but not much bigger around. Thena went into a back storage room, where she unpacked a pair of blousey white work pants and rolled up the legs. She also aired out one of the faded Hawaiian shirts her father had adored. Tom Selleck attire it was not, but at least Jed would be adequately covered. Getting him covered was a crucial project to her.
At ten o’clock he ambled downstairs, the denim cutoffs slung low on his hips. Seated in her chair again, a floor lamp creating a pool of light around her, Thena looked up from her latest sojourn through the world of Oliver Twist. The dogs, stretched out on the floor near her feet, watched Jed with growing acceptance. They only growled once.
“Bathroom,” he mumbled sleepily.
Her face taut with the effort of not staring at the descending V of hair on his stomach, she pointed down the hall. He smiled at her and started toward it.
“There are fresh clothes in there for you.”
“Thanks. What’re you readin’?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Charles Dickens. My favorite.”
“I remember him. Wrote about England. Hmmmm, David Copperfield. Only book I didn’t fall asleep over in class.” Thena stared at him in pleased surprise, her lips parted.
“I’m reading Oliver Twist.”
“Has it got a few laughs in it?”
“A few.”
“Will you read some of it to me after I take a shower?”
“Well … certainly. I’ll fix something to eat, if you’re hungry. How do you like hot dogs?”
“By the dozen.”
Hot dogs and Dickens. They spent several hours indulging in both. The warm, fragrant night air sifted through the screen door and the open windows. The tame hawk Jed had seen the first day landed outside the door and delicately ate morsels of canned tuna that Thena left in a bowl for it. Thena sat in the easy chair and Jed lay down on the couch nearby. The room was lit only by the floor lamp.
Jed listened to Oliver Twist with sincere interest, his eyes dark with intrigue. Thena felt them on her, never moving, as still as the shadows that pooled in the corners of the house. When an ancient grandfather clock next to the television chimed twice, Thena put her book down and looked at it in surprise. She’d been reading to Jed for several hours.
“Not a bad story. Makes me wish I’d read more good books when I had the chance. I’d like to hear the rest, and you got a pretty voice. How about tomorrow?”
“Are you serious?”
“Damn pretty. You sort of sing when you talk—”
“I meant, are you serious about Dickens? About Oliver Twist?” Flustered and secretly pleased, Thena nearly dropped her book. And not because he was interested in literature.
“Yep. I feel content to be still and listen.” He blinked languidly. “You know what? If I hadn’t nearly turned into a french fry on your beach, I would have enjoyed livin’ there. I can see why people like the ocean. It makes you feel peaceful.”
“See? You’re learning to appreciate Sancia already. Would you like to go back to SalHaven tomorrow?”
“Nope. I’ll go anywhere but there.”
“All right. Then you can follow me around.”
“Now that’s a right interestin’ idea—”
“And count crabs.”
He clasped his chest dramatically. “She shot him down bad, right through the heart.”
Thena chuckled. “I count sand crabs regularly. Over the years, my records might reveal dramatic changes in their population. That could be important to everything they eat, and everything that eats them.”
“I’ll eat them unless you get me another hot dog.” They shared a companionable laugh.
Companionable. That was t
he perfect way to describe the relationship that developed between them during the next few days, Thena decided. He seemed to relish her talkative, animated presence, and in return, she enjoyed his unhurried attitude. He didn’t indulge in moods. He was solid and quiet, calm to the point that a stranger might have thought him completely indifferent to everything around him.
But she was no stranger—sometimes a poignant, puzzling sense of closeness made her feel that he and she had never really been strangers—and Thena knew that under his facade lay an intensely observant nature. Because she was often the recipient of both the disturbing intensity and the observation, she never mistook his nonchalance for indifference.
Thena talked carefully about SalHaven, mentioning innocuous facts that left his grandfather Gregg out of the conversation. The “Sal” came from his grandmother Sarah’s nickname, Sally, she told Jed. The old-timers on the mainland had never forgotten her kindness, her lack of snobbishness, and her charity work. A tall, athletic woman with auburn hair, she rode her beloved Arabians with incomparable grace.
“I’ve seen pictures of her,” Thena said. “You have her eyes.”
“Is that good?” Jed asked in his slow, teasing way. “What do my eyes look like?” Everything he did and said seemed to have a sensuous undertone, or else her chemicals had infiltrated her imagination and were making it work overtime, Thena decided.
“You have very intelligent eyes.” She paused slyly. “But then, so does a wild goat.”
They were sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch, having just returned from counting loggerhead turtle nests on the beach. Jed’s wet, dirty sandals lay near his feet. In one easy motion, he scooped a sandal up and lobbed it into her lap. It spattered grit and water on her white shorts. In the lighthearted battle that followed, she chased him into the front yard, her own dirty sandal raised to throw.
He stubbed his big toe on a cactus plant and, true to his nature, didn’t make a sound. Instead, he grinned nonchalantly and limped with haste to the safety of her big water cistern. He climbed the ten-rung ladder that ran up one side and hoisted himself over the barrel top. Thena heard a splash as he disappeared from sight. This was childish and absurd, but she couldn’t remember when she’d had a better time.