The Touch of Love Read online

  I ... I ... She gulped air, her hands out as if to ward him off although he was motionless, watching her, waiting for-for what? I-Scott, I-I didn't mean to-to-to do this.

  This? He rounded the end of the bed and when she jerked away, she found herself held by one hand, fingers around her wrist like a steel band. He said steadily, I didn't see you fighting me off.

  She shook her head, feeling the storm inside, the tension that she thought would be with her all through the night. God! She did not even know the man, and his touch, his kiss, had sent her wild. She would have done anything, given anything. Even now she was not sure that it would be different. If his fingers gentled to a caress, the shuddering need could overwhelm her and she would be at his mercy.

  She realized from the way he was watching her that her breathing had turned into short gasps, as if he were caressing her. She whispered, Please, just-just let go of me and-

  His fingers tightened and she gasped. Then he released her abruptly and stepped back, but he was the other man, his eyes cold and his voice lacking the tenderness she'd heard only moments ago.

  You ask for it, wandering around in that bit of nothing. His breathing was still heavy, but under control now. I see you go past every morning, walking by my door with bare feet and bare legs, that shirt on as if it were clothing. With his hands, he traced the curves of her body, neither gently nor roughly, his voice bringing heat to her cheeks. A man's only got to look at you moving to know what's underneath. His hands found the swelling of her breasts and his fingers stilled, cupping, lifting to make the swelling more prominent. One message a man does not get, watching you walk past in that rig, is no.

  She gulped, feeling the hard response of her nipples to his touch, staring at the chill of his eyes, knowing they were cold although the moon was draining its light away from the room as it slid behind a cloud.

  I didn't-I just didn't think. I-Scott, I grew up in the theatre. Clothes, or the lack of them, didn't mean all that much. She was talking fast, desperately, stumbling over her own words. Changing rooms and people ... people running in and out. I-

  His hands freed her abruptly. This is no theatre. Don't issue invitations unless you mean them.

  She stared at him, nodded but could not get words out. He moved and there was space, room to pass him without touching. She walked past him, out of his room, not looking back, but knowing, feeling his eyes on her every step of the way.

  Somehow, she got to her room and closed her door before she sagged against it and let the trembling of her body take over. So that was it. She had tried to call it distrust, discomfort with his easy way of settling into her home. She had never thought to call it sex. Physical attraction, the kind you read about, the sort of thing she had written songs about without knowing. The sort of emotion that knocked a woman off her moorings and left her trembling, aching for a man's touch.

  She had never felt this before. She shuddered, remembering how she had stepped into his arms. Maybe he was right. She had been teasing him, wandering around, past his open door, never really thinking that he might be awake and watching. Wanting her. Certainly there was no excuse for what she had done tonight. Lying with Robbie on the bed, hardly dressed herself. Had some part of her known he would wake and come? Had she wanted him to come?

  He was more honest, reaching to take what she seemed to be advertising. Useless to pretend he had swept her away, carried her into his room against her will. What had he done? The lightest of kisses that shook her to her foundations, then a teasing caress of her bare arms with his fingers. She was the one who had flowed into his arms, who had given up her lips, had groaned his name and wanted, ached for his touch, his caress, his kiss.

  And his loving.

  He had only reached to take what she had seemed to offer. She hugged herself, wondering how she was going to face him in the morning, how she was ever going to get through the days from now until he left. Even now, that crazy part of her wanted to go back to his room, to accept what was in his eyes and his touch and his kiss, and to ask him to love her, to take away the ache that consumed her.

  She heard his step in the hall outside her door and her breathing stopped. Was he coming to her? If he did ...

  She felt herself tremble and knew that if he came to her now, she would not send him away. By morning, she thought she might have the strength to know what was sanity and what foolishness, but tonight all she could feel was the echo of his touch. Sensation had drowned out thought.

  Chapter Five

  She really must learn to keep her imagination where it belonged, in her work. Crazy, but she had been feeling as if Scott had strings that would pull at her from a world away, that he was the man who could whisper her name and send her reeling, body and soul ... today and tomorrow and forever.

  Today and tomorrow and forever, words like a song. Perhaps that was it, the germ of a new song stirring in her. Not real feelings, not a frightening loss of control of mind and heart and life. Melody knew she sometimes went a little crazy when she was working. She always had. Her little bit of artistic temperament, she supposed, and no problem if she kept it inside her own head, or safely inside the soundproofed walls of the music room. But to reach out her arms and whisper his name, to groan and feel the need to beg for his possession, surging and growing and turning wild and unchained within her-

  That was madness.

  Fantasy was her business, poetry. She had to learn to keep that part of her where it belonged, and Jeff's voice got her back on track. She hung up the telephone, then worked on reminding herself that Scott Alexander was a stranger, attractive and pleasant, but not touching even the surface of her life. For heavens sake! What did she know about the man? He was Donna's brother, but she had never met Donna. He could feed a baby and change a diaper, and he was a sea captain who had to be in the Beaufort Sea in less than three weeks. Lord! She wasn't even sure where the Beaufort Sea was, except it was up north in the cold Arctic somewhere. And she damned well wasn't going to go running to her atlas to find out, either!

  It did not matter. He did not matter. Not to her. He was a guest, like all the others, friends of Amanda and Charlie's, friends of Robin's. Here's your room and there's the kitchen and keep out of the music room. Have fun, but don't bother the lady in residence.

  She managed to believe it, almost, so long as she did not look too closely at Scott's eyes. Well, that was right. When had she ever watched those casual guests so closely?

  She smiled at him and breezed out of the house before he could say whatever was in his eyes. She sailed through Island Time without thinking about him. Not much, anyway, and less all the time.

  She was all right now. Unstable, but she knew that about herself. She was too easily vulnerable, needed to keep close to nature, a little isolated from the world. Here, in the space of a few days, a stranger from the wild Pacific Ocean had driven into her life with his big cross-country tires and had turned her upside-down.

  All right. So she was too easily thrown off balance, although she had not realized until the last few days that she had this gasping passion buried inside her. Good for her songwriting, but best kept out of the rest of her life. She needed day following day with order, not with uncontrolled emotion. Look at the trouble she had been having with her work ever since Scott Alexander walked through her door!

  She used the telephone at the radio station to call him. Scott? Look, I won't be able to get home for supper tonight. I've got to put in some overtime in the tape editing booth. It was a lie. John did all the editing. Scott's voice on the telephone told her he knew it was a lie, without words, just undertones. Damn it! Imaginary undertones, as likely as not. Perhaps she was imagining it all, the messages in his eyes, the words unspoken and felt between them.

  No matter. He was not important to her. Too dangerous.

  She arrived home just before net time. She concentrated her hellos on baby Robbie, who was already drooping. She avoided talking to Scott, avoided looking at him. Then she brushed pa
st them, the man and the baby, switching on the radio and muttering about the schedule.

  She heard him going upstairs with the baby as she tuned up. It was not going to work. He was not one of the usual stream of strangers from the theatre world, invaders to be handled without actually touching them. Her people were the islanders, not the visitors, but although she had labeled him an islander at first, he was a stranger. Stranger from the sea. Stranger. Danger.

  For the first time in days, the twenty-meter band was free of static, and Vancouver net control was loud and clear. She checked in, then net control called Robin's call sign and she heard her twin's voice, clear and close in her living room.

  Melody, let's go up thirty. I'll call you.

  She shifted her frequency up thirty kilohertz and tuned in on Robin's powerful voice. His big voice was always a surprise to people who thought a slight form meant a light whisper of a voice.

  The trades are blowing twenty-five to thirty, he told her, his voice excited. I've been making six knots all day. She had been learning nautical terminology in the year since Robin dove headfirst into sailing and yachting. Trade winds. Thirty knots was about fifty kilometers an hour.

  She felt Scott's presence behind her, but managed to keep her eyes from him by staring at the pencil in her hand, at the numbers on paper. Robin's latest position, longitude and latitude.

  Robin, when do you expect to be in Hawaii?

  She could hear the faint sound of Morse code from another amateur station, the quiet swish of Scott's shoes on her carpet, then Robin's voice saying, Four days, plus or minus the wind. You know how it is. No schedule out here.

  Robin had taken to the sea to escape the pressure of deadlines between appearances and recording sessions. Or had he been escaping his love for Donna, a woman who wanted more than he could give?

  What had Donna asked? That Robin give up his career, move into a house and stay in one place. That he give up his identity. Better, she thought, that Robin had resisted. Robin without music would be a pale shadow of himself.

  She could feel Scott at her side. Did he expect her to tell about the baby? About Donna's death? On the radio? She keyed the microphone. Robin, be sure to telephone me the moment you get to shore.

  Her brother's voice snapped across the miles of ocean that separated them. Is Charlie's heart kicking up again?

  No, nothing like that. It's-nothing like that. Just a snarl-up you'll have to deal with.

  Behind her, Scott moved restlessly. Angrily?

  Okay, Robin said with relief in his voice. She knew he would assume that the problem related to the upcoming recording sessions. It was forbidden to deal with business matters on amateur radio, so he said only, All right, Melody, if that's all, I'll sign and go change my Genny for the hundred percenter. The wind's picking up. Eighty-eight, twin.

  Eighty-eight; love and kisses. Genny; Genoa jib sail. She smiled slightly and signed off, echoing his endearment. When Robin's voice had faded to memory, she threw the switch that brought silence flooding over the room and sat, staring at the radio, knowing she had to turn and meet Scott's eyes now. All day, she had been avoiding that.

  Why didn't you tell him?

  On the air? Her voice was rising as she stood up, defensive. Anger made it easier to stare it him coldly, with criticism. Do you know how many people are listening? Ham radio operators on several continents, not to mention the short wave listeners! And you want me to tell him the woman he loved is dead? Flat, like that, while he's in the middle of the ocean? He'd be alone with it, out there, and I- Her voice faltered to a gasp as she swung around to him, her hands on her hips and her head tossed back in preparation for battle.

  The man who had fed the baby with tenderness in his eyes, that man was gone. Along with the man who had touched her, kissed her and lifted her into his arms as if his possession were total. Trapped by the harshness in his eyes, Melody felt her breath go short and her chest tighten.

  Silence. Tension. What's wrong? she whispered finally.

  A spasm jerked across his face, then he relaxed as if he had forced the tension away. I'm leaving on tomorrow's ferry, he said, and his voice held nothing more than the bare words.

  What about ... She swallowed. You wanted to see my brother first. Robin. To be sure-to check him out.

  I've a friend waiting for me. His jaw tensed. I'm supposed to be in Campbell River this week, then going on a trip with ...

  To Mexico, with a friend. The woman he had telephoned? Caroline. Another sister? Girlfriend? Lover?

  Go, then, she said, drawing the old defenses around her. Always, until Charlie and Amanda dumped their children on the Queen Charlotte Islands, friends had been brief and transitory, here and gone, every new warm contact leading to the pain of parting. Melody's childhood years were littered with half-memories of half-friendships, of people left behind and never seen again. As she became older, friendships took longer to grow, and she became the one on the outside. Robin had fused with the world of the stage, reveling in its excitement, but not his twin.

  She had come to accept it, told herself that it was a songwriter's lot, always being a misfit, that it was essential to the poet to view the world from the edge. Even here on her islands, she was an oddity. A good place, though, for people who did not quite fit. Among the Haida, the fishermen and the loggers, the island was scattered with intriguing misfits who had found a home on the misty isles where an individual was allowed to be different without penalty.

  At ten years of age Melody and Robin had been thrown from their rambling backstage life into a housekeeper-supervised existence in Queen Charlotte. The islanders might have shunned the twins as outsiders, but instead they gave the newcomers the chance to prove themselves.

  For Melody, the islands had become her refuge, her home, although Robin had always resented fiercely the fact that the authorities had caught up with Amanda and Charlie, insisting that two ten-year-old children could not spend their childhood without regular schooling. Robin had been singing regularly on stage that last year, while Melody had refused to join the act in front of an audience.

  Now Scott nodded and said tonelessly, Yes, I will go. It's time. Do you need anything? Money?

  Money? she squeaked. Why should I ask money from you? I-

  His hand caught her arm as she flung it out in anger. His fingers burned her flesh through the loose knit of her sweater and he said angrily, For the baby. Is there anything you need for Robin Scott before I-

  No. The tight breathing was making her chest rise and fall visibly. Oh, Lord! What had she thought he meant? He was staring at her, could see her face flame. Her color was always high, but now her cheeks were blazing, even her lips and her forehead, her throat. She gasped and saw the sound echoed in his eyes.

  She could feel the tension in him, explosive emotions boiling through her once-peaceful home. It was in her, too, a violent something about to take her apart. She swallowed and jerked away, but his hand remained on her arm, burning through her sweater.

  Let go of me. The words were only a whisper. Her eyes got caught in his. The granite had changed to hazel and, as she stared into his gaze, his eyes turned dark and she forgot to breathe. She said, Tomorrow? You're going tomorrow? and it was not her voice at all. Some part of her recognized the husky vulnerability that was a childhood memory of Amanda singing a love song to Charlie on stage. She shook her head to reject the parallel and he nodded, understanding something she had not formed into words.

  His thumb moved, calluses sliding along, catching the wool of her sweater, stirring the tender flesh at the inside of her upper arm as the heat of his moving fingers flowed through to her. He saw her swallow, saw her eyes widen and lose their focus. Mesmerized, his thumb stroked more gently, slipping over the barrier of her pushed-back sleeve, feeling out the softness of her forearm as his breathing paced hers. Tomorrow, he echoed as her lips parted unconsciously. Or now, he growled, and he was closer, his eyes on her lips, on the soft smoothness of her long neck, the
trembling at the base of her throat.

  She managed to say shakily, Now would be better. Go now. Far better. This was dangerous, playing with explosive unknowns. She could get badly burned if she let herself drown in this trembling vulnerability. She might drown, never find herself again. She told her arm to pull away, but his fingers slid down and his thumb found her inner wrist. The caress shot right through her, but she managed to turn her groan into words, to whispers. Scott, I-please, I want you to go away now.

  His lips were closer. Her tongue slipped out to moisten her own swollen, dry lips and her teeth caught her lower lip.

  He did not smile, just stared at her in the reddish glow that was the sun setting outside, draining light from the world. He lifted her hand and bent his mouth, not to her lips, but to her inner wrist. She felt the trembling in her knees, the weakness, but she would not give in to the soft agony of his lips, his tongue playing along her pulse. Her fingers clenched on nothing.

  He muse have felt the movement, because he whispered, If you want me to go, you'd better decide. Now.

  Yes, she gasped, but his tongue did not stop its erotic journey along the nerves of her inner arm, her wrist, the curve of her palm. As his lips moved, his eyes traced the motion of her breathing, finding the full swelling of her breasts under the oversized sweater. What if he touched there? His lips moved back to her wrist, towards her elbow, but his eyes were everywhere and she could feel the reaction in her body, tightening and aching. Go, she gasped. Please go.

  He was not even holding her in his arms. What if he did? He was a foot or so away, the only contact his fingers on her wrist, his mouth along her forearm. And she could feel the hunger swelling inside herself. Her legs did not want to hold her. If she sagged closer he would touch and hold and take over what would happen. Go, she whispered again, wanting him to pull her into his arms and end the tension.