The Touch of Love Read online

  She said, I thought you would be gone by now, and was shocked at the rudeness in her own voice.

  I'm sticking around. His whole face was rigid, and his voice. I want to meet your brother before I entrust my nephew to his care.

  She gasped, then snapped, You weren't so fussy yesterday. You were in a hurry to hand over your problem and get the hell out of here.

  He swung away from her and prowled to the window. He sounded like the sea captain she had fancied he was, handing out decisions, orders. But I've had second thoughts since yesterday. So, Ms Connacher, I'm afraid that I'm staying, whether you like it or not. He turned and faced her.

  Arrogant, she thought. Bossy. She did not like him. She glared at him and he stared back, but she realized he was determined to stay. Short of calling the police and having him thrown out, Scott Alexander was staying.

  I don't like it. I don't want you here.

  I know. Lines drawn between them. Battle lines, although what was there to fight about? He said, Don't worry, I'll survive it. It won't be the first time I've stuck around when I wasn't wanted.

  There was something ominous about the way he said the words, as if the man's will was as strong as his body. Easy to get along with yesterday when he seemed to approve of her, But since last night there had been coolness and anger instead of a friendship in its infancy. She was trying to send him away, and he was damned if he would go.

  Better, he said softly, if you don't try to fight me. I'm staying.

  She could call John, ask him to come and throw out her unwanted guest. But John was too civilized for that kind of aggressive act, and he was her colleague, not a man to run to. There was Luke, Laurie's husband. Luke and Scott would probably be about a match for each other, both tough and hard and mostly hidden inside themselves.

  Would they actually fight? Would Scott go that far, physically insisting on staying, even to the point of a fist fight?

  Luke would want to know why, so would anyone she asked to help. She would sound like an idiot, because Scott would smile as he had yesterday and anyone would wonder just what her problem was. The baby's uncle, and she herself had invited him to stay only yesterday. She would never be able to voice the way this man made her feel, as if he could crush her will with one of those muscular hands.

  So I'll stay, he said, conversationally but coolly. He turned the book in his hands. I'll enjoy your library. You've several books I've wanted to read.

  She wanted to hit him, but her small fists would make no more impression than her screaming voice.

  We have a deal, of course, he said tonelessly. It's time for you to be upstairs writing Robin Conners' next hit song, isn't it? I'm the baby-minder, and I'll make lunch. How about a quiche?

  Her lips twitched and she felt the tension flowing away like a mysterious, wild river. He was smiling, saying, I know. Real men don't eat quiche. I've heard that one. We'll call it egg pie, shall we?

  She realized then that he had won. He had turned her anger into laughter, and he was staying. She turned her smile to a frown and walked out of the room. There was nothing she could say that would not acknowledge his victory, so she would remain silent.

  Chapter Four

  Melody tried to pretend he was not there. Hopeless, but she managed a cool distance. Polite co-existence with Scott, while he chopped wood and devoured her music and her books, smiled coolly and made her uncomfortably aware that she was behaving badly.

  He asked if he could use her telephone to make some long distance calls, adding, I'll put them on my calling card, of course.

  Why bother asking? she snapped, wishing the words unsaid. He had been polite. She was the irrational one, telling him to stay, then turning surly and irritated at his presence in her home.

  He called someone named Caroline. His wife, for all she knew. She heard him say the name and she walked away, not listening, or trying not to, but she felt relieved that his voice on the telephone sounded cool, not loving. He made other calls, but she made sure that she did not hear them.

  Bev came Wednesday morning and looked at the baby. Bev was a nurse and a mother herself, the nearest thing to an expert that Melody had available. Bev and Robbie gurgled at each other, then Bev asked Scott questions about formulas and nap times.

  Scott and Bev seemed to like each other on sight. Melody felt uncomfortably tense listening to the easy conversation between her friend and Scott. He had hardly smiled in two days, and now he was laughing when Bev asked him how the baby had traveled, telling her about his disastrous trip north on the ferry.

  He hadn't told Melody about the trip at all.

  She felt like a child, left out, not knowing how to get in, telling herself she did not care. Bev was being friendly, and he was being the charming man he obviously could be without much trouble. No wonder he preferred to talk to Bev. Melody had frowned and snapped and, perhaps, even sulked. No wonder he had none of those smiles for her, with the laughter sparking in the crinkles around his eyes, breaking out in his low voice.

  What are you? Bev asked, laughing at his account of trying to nurse a baby on a heaving ferry. You're a seaman, aren't you?

  Master of an icebreaker in the Beaufort Sea.

  Melody supposed that he would have told her if she had asked.

  Scott Alexander. Hard body and smiling eyes that could turn to stone. Dangerous. Bev obviously did not think so, but Melody had felt unsettled ever since she opened her door to him. Even when she was away at the radio station, just thinking about coming back, she could feel turmoil inside her.

  Her instincts for self-preservation told her to deal with him as she had the other unsettling influences in her life. Shut him out.

  She tried.

  On Wednesday night the net frequency was nothing but a mass of static. Melody had a noise level of twenty over nine, hopeless for talking to anyone. She wondered how long it would be before she could talk to Robin again.

  Scott gave the baby his feeding while Melody tried the radio, then put him to bed.

  Melody disappeared into her music room while Scott was in the bedroom with Robbie. She worked alone until eleven, then went silently to bed. The light was shining up the stairs from the living room, so she tiptoed carefully past the stairwell to her own room and closed the door. Her new policy, she decided. She was avoiding Scott Alexander. Much easier on her equilibrium if she did not see him.

  She lay for a long time in the dark, listening to the sounds of trees and wind and a fine rain outside. Scott was very quiet downstairs. She closed her eyes and tried to form shapes and colors, to drift on a dreamy tide of music to a place far away.

  She jerked back to consciousness abruptly, lay awake listening to nothing, then heard the soft sound of a man's tread outside her door. A board creaked. A light switched on. She saw the crack of brightness under her bedroom door. She lay very still, breathing very quietly, trying to catch at sleep again, not listening, yet hearing every step he took.

  He walked across the hallway to the baby's room. Silence, hushed. Back to the room he slept in. She had to stop thinking of it as Scott's room. It was not anybody's room. A spare bedroom. An assortment of people had used it. Robin's friends. Her parents' friends who turned up saying Hello, Charlie said you might have a bed for me for a few nights. Just passing through, getting away from it all. Resting, you know.

  She had put up so many of them since she came back here. Amanda and Charlie had sent a string of guests up here over the years. Most of them had been tended by Mrs. Winston who had lived in until Melody came back to take up residence.

  Melody lay in her bed in the darkness, not listening, or trying not to listen for Scott's sounds, trying to make sense of her own strange reaction to this one man. All those friends of her parents, friends of Robin's. She had invited them in and said, Here's the bed, and there's the kitchen. Help yourself. The beach is that way, four blocks downhill. Make yourself at home, just remember that if the door to the sound room is closed, don't knock on it and don't open
it!

  None of them had disturbed her peace, not since she had learned to stop feeling guilty about putting her work first. So what was different about this one man with his easy smile and his impenetrable eyes?

  The crack of light under her door disappeared. The house groaned. She could hear a slow drip, water in the drainpipe. A very light rain, typical of the misty isles.

  She must have slept. The sound of rain was gone when she opened her eyes again. Soft light drifted through her window from the rising moon. Her bedroom window looked out on the forest and she never closed her blinds.

  There was no sound at all, not even the house making night groans. She got up and went silently barefoot to the baby. She had forgotten to open her door. He might have cried out and she would not have heard.

  Scott would have heard, she supposed, because his door was open a crack.

  Robbie was just starting to stir when she got there. She lifted him and changed him while he was still half-asleep and had not found his voice. Then she carried him downstairs, because it was time for his night feeding. Scott usually woke for this one. Melody seldom heard the baby until later in the morning.

  She warmed the bottle, then went back upstairs, settling on her brother's bed with pillows behind her, holding the baby in her arms. Watching the little mouth sucking intently, she relaxed into a half-sleep herself. She had never really thought about having babies. It had not seemed to go with her life.

  She tilted the bottle to stop little Robin from sucking air, drew her leg up to support the baby's little bottom. He was so small, curled into the curve of her arm, his legs lying across her abdomen.

  There was no sound, but she felt her heart stop, then smash into her ribs. She looked up and he was there. Scott. Standing in the doorway, watching her, and she realized that the moonlight had bathed her in its pale gleam.

  She licked her lips without realizing, staring at him. He was in shadow, a black form in the doorway. He moved and she could see the lines of him, the smoothness of his broad shoulders telling her that he wore no shirt. Then, closer, and she could see him in sharp silhouette. He had put on his jeans, but she would swear he wore nothing else. He watched her as if she held his attention against his will. Staring at her.

  Her eyes flew down, to the baby in her arm, to the pale nakedness of her legs curled casually across the bed, the white edge of her T-shirt against her upper thigh. He moved and she jerked her gaze up, and now the moonlight showed his face, still and intent on her. She did not need to look down now, to know what he saw. Her free breasts, swelling under then thin cotton knit of the shirt. The baby pushed his fist into her breast and she heard Scott take in a shaken breath.

  Melody ...

  It was just a whisper. She had never heard his voice like that, lower than ever, filled with tenderness and desire.

  Somehow, she must move, must talk and break this spell. She swallowed and licked her dry lips, but his eyes were on her throat, her lips. She could see him clearly now, and his man's body did not try to hide that he wanted her. He had hardly touched her, not even casually, in the days he had been her guest, but right now his eyes were blazing through the moonlit room.

  It was the moonlight. Her fault, not thinking to put on a robe. She shifted the baby and tried to arrange herself more modestly, but it was impossible because she was wearing next to nothing. The moonlight showed every curve she had in sensuous, gentle glowing.

  I- Her voice sounded like his, low and seductive, like an invitation. She cleared her throat and said, It's all right. I'm feeding him. He didn't move and she stumbled on, S-Scott ... you can go back to bed. You don't need-

  Bed. She half-choked, her arms on the baby. The bottle made a noise and she shifted it, but it was empty. How could she get up without that shirt shifting even higher on her hips?

  Scott said, He's done that bottle. Give him to me and I'll put him back to bed. His voice sounded normal now, but his eyes were heated, filled with golden fire. She gulped as he reached down for the baby.

  She scrambled to her feet as Scott turned to lay the baby in the playpen. Better, she thought in relief. The shirt hung halfway down her thighs now. She was uncomfortably aware that her breasts were two soft, sensuous swellings free under the soft knit, but when she started to cross her arms over them, he stood up and she saw his smile growing, but it was more than a smile. It was a touch, a caress.

  He said softly, That just makes it more obvious.

  She gasped softly and looked down, saw that she had pushed the swelling of her breasts up and dropped her arms abruptly. I-you-I'd better go back to ... Good night!

  She moved, quickly. He moved, too. She stopped abruptly, but he was only half an arm's length away, between her and the door. She could see the bulge of his chest muscles, his heavy biceps pressing against his naked chest. She looked down, could not seem to stop herself, and his chest hair thickened as she followed it, then thinned as it trailed down to the waist of his jeans.

  He had not taken time to put his belt on.

  He was watching her, seeing everything. The way his naked chest affected her, her own awareness of his eyes on her. Her body, breasts swelling in some mysterious woman's reaction to this man's chemistry. No words, but so much said. He was closer, and in a second his lips would take hers. She felt it coming. Not his hands on her. She thought she would jump, run away, if his hands touched, but he held that back.

  The softest brush of hard, full lips against hers. She shivered and the touch returned, brushing, caressing, light, not demanding. She tried to breathe and she could not. She tried to step back, but he held her trapped with only those teasing lips.

  Scott- It was a gasp, air sucked in, his name distorted. His tongue slipped in, taking advantage of her whisper, a warm invasion along her inner lips. She tried to say his name, a protest, but the sound might have been anything. Her heart was panicked, thundering. Her chest felt like the frightened trembling of a sparrow.

  He stepped back before the shivering could grow to push him away. Her eyes flew wide, staring at him, and he said softly, Stop looking at me like a trapped animal. You're free.

  She did not feel free. She was at the mercy of his touch, her breath falling into short, quick gulps as she saw his hands move and thought of his touch sliding along her screaming nerves.

  He caught her wrists lightly and turned them, his thumbs stroking her inner wrist where the pulse throbbed, his eyes holding hers. She could not even seem to find the will to look away, although she could feel her pupils widening in a gasp as his light touch caressed the soft flesh that led towards her inner elbow.

  Melody, he said on a whisper. With a name like that, I should have known you'd be all softness and nerves. He swallowed and she felt his lips on hers, although he did not move. Just his fingers, sliding along her arms, sending her body trembling with heat.

  She had to get away, wanted to get away, but it was she who moved closer as his callused fingers slid along her bare upper arms, fingertips slipping under the sleeves of her shirt, wrists brushing the fullness of her breasts.

  Then his lips were close and her breath turned to a gasp as he bent to take her mouth. She shuddered, felt him tremble, and his hands closed on her arms, pulling her against his hard chest, trapping her hands which had somehow found their way into the curling hairs on his chest.

  She tried to stare up at him, to say something that needed to be said, some protest perhaps, but his mouth took hers in a deep invasion that she could only return as her body sought the hard contours of his.

  Moonlight. Starlight. The heavens spun as something wild surged up inside her. His tongue explored the gift of her mouth and she learned that there were wild, shattering sensations that could curl along her nerves just from the touch of tongue and teeth, lips that made hers engorge and tremble with sensations of flame and a deep, shuddering urge to surrender more, to feel more, to drown in sensation.

  His hands, sliding along her back, claiming her flesh, branding her with h
is hardness, the rough gentleness of his chest hair through the thin cotton, the gasping surrender that exploded in her when his hands slid to her hips and pulled her closely against his implacable need.

  His groan, against her face, in her ear. Oh, God, Melody, how can you do this to a man?

  Her head fell back, somehow against his shoulder, her eyes opening slowly, unwillingly, his voice hardly a whisper.

  Your lips always look like ... as if they're waiting for a man's kiss. Full and red and sensuous. He took them and she lost the reality her mind had started to grasp for.

  Sensation. Warmth. The wonderful, deep trembling of heated need. Her hands found some freedom as he shifted to caress the curve of her back, the calluses on his fingers scratching slightly on the cotton of her T-shirt as they explored lightly the shape of her spine, the hint of her ribs, the full swelling that was her free breasts.

  She gasped and suddenly she was heavy in his hands, his fingers forming her breasts, holding them up for the soft seeking of his lips. She groaned in the instant his lips touched. The cloth was not a barrier, but a teasing, sensuous tool, passing the warmth of his breath, the seeking firmness of his lips. She trembled, her fingers clenching in the hair of his chest to try to keep some kind of sanity ... her legs, weak and trembling, collapsing against his as he brought her hips close with one arm, holding her firm and safe from falling, but losing all feeling for up or down or ...

  She heard it, her voice but not hers, a moan that invited touching, kissing, possession. He heard it, felt it, and swept her up into his hard arms. Her head fell back against his arm, his shoulder, and she saw his face above her, a tenseness holding some kind of control. He swallowed, and she saw the spasm all along his throat, and the control, what there was of it, was going to end when he got her through that door, into that room.

  Onto his bed.

  She felt the softness as he lowered her and she scrambled, breathing shallowly through her mouth, coming off the bed on the other side and halfway to her feet in a crouch like an animal facing a hunter.