The Touch of Love Read online

  She frowned. It sounded cold-blooded.

  He said, My parents died when I was eight years old. I started learning then that it's best not to tie your happiness to someone else's whim. He said it flatly, as if it were a fact that had not changed.

  What about Donna? He did not answer, but his sister was gone, another lesson that might make it hard to trust in someone else. She dropped her fork onto the plate and whispered, What about Robbie?

  In her heart, she was wondering, What about me?

  > He washed up their few dishes. She dried, opening cupboards to find the places for the plates and glasses.

  I thought of getting a dishwasher, he told her as he rinsed out the sink.

  You could put it over there, couldn't you? There's room at the end of the counter. Actually, I only use the dishwasher in my house when company descends.

  Does that happen often?

  Men knocking on my door, handing me babies? All the time. She fell abruptly silent, then, thinking of what she had come to tell him, but she wanted very much to enjoy this evening first. Sometimes it's a madhouse. Charlie and Amanda send friends sometimes. Can we go for a walk? Would you show me the rest of your house?

  Outside first, he said. While there's still light.

  He loaned her a big, bulky sweater that hung halfway down her thighs, then he took her out walking along his rocky beach. He told her about the old man who lived around the curve of the bay, who remembered when the Gorge was wild territory accessible only by private boat. They speculated together on whether the pirates had ever discovered how perfect Gorge harbor would be as a pirate's den, and he told her about his plans to have a wharf put in.

  I've got to straighten out the water rights first, he said, and she memorized the lines that formed on his forehead as he concentrated on the prospect of getting through red tape.

  Would you have a boat? She had never been out in the water in anything but a ferry.

  I don't think so, at least not a big one. He stopped, looking back at his property, his house, as the setting sun bathed it in warm tones. I've got friends who have a sail-boat. It would be nice to have a place for them to tie up when they come cruising up here. I've got a runabout on a trailer in the garage. It's enough for what I want, good for a run into Campbell River in an emergency, or an afternoon salmon fishing.

  Later, she could not have said what else they talked about. Everything. Nothing. It was dark when he brought her back into his house. They went first to her van for her suitcase, which he insisted on carrying for her.

  He did not kiss her. The moon was rising as the sun set, but when he put her case into his bedroom, he said neutrally, You're tired. Get some sleep. The morning is soon enough for a tour of the house. Then he left her alone in the bedroom and she was crazy enough to open the drawers until she found one drawer, empty except for a lacy, black nightgown.

  Melody had never looked good in black. She caught herself before she slammed the drawer shut, knowing that Caroline made no real difference. Caroline was history in Scott's life now. But what was Melody?

  Chapter Eight

  The upstairs was a mess, sawdust and plaster dust everywhere. He told her to be careful not to trip over anything, and that it was going to be two more bedrooms with dormer windows and views of the ocean.

  And this part? she asked, standing in the middle of the biggest, empty room.

  He shrugged and saw her eyes crinkle with laughter. I don't know. I'll finish it, I guess, and wait for all my friends to descend on me, looking for a place to sleep.

  Looking at Melody as she stood at the newly framed window, he almost told her it would make a terrific music room. The window could easily be shuttered. The walls could have soundproofing added. He had not yet put the plaster on them. It scared him, thinking like that. He did not want to be aware of every move Melody made, every breath she took, but when she breathed, he felt the pressure on his lungs. He liked the way she always went to the windows when she entered a room, as if the view meant as much to her as the walls. Caroline had walked around frowning at the exposed joists, the unfinished floors, but Melody seemed to see through the construction to the dream he had of his finished home.

  He did not want to compare her to Caroline, because there was no comparison, and that frightened him most of all.

  Calling home from the Beaufort had suddenly come to mean talking to Melody. He remembered the third time he went to the rig to call her, listening to the empty ringing. He had felt a sick fear that he would never talk to her again, never hold her in his arms again. He had waited for the next week, the next chance to call. Had waited for some message. Had finally flown out of Tuk to Calgary, and then to her island instead of to his own.

  Her van had been gone, her house dark. Empty houses and closed doors. He had managed to guess that she had gone to the recording sessions in Los Angeles. She had not said she was going, but he knew that was the deadline she had been working against in her song writing.

  It was not that she was gone, but more that she had not bothered to tell him, as if it were not important enough. As if he were not important enough. That was when he realized that he had done exactly what he had vowed never to do. An affair, he had told himself. After all, Melody was committed to her songwriting. She liked being a recluse between visits from friends and her brother. She was not looking for a deep relationship, for commitments or risks. Neither was he, damn it!

  He had not expected to find that he was the one with his heart out. The discovery, standing on her dark doorstep, had sent him back here, panicked and determined to throw himself into construction, into reading about geology. Anything but thinking about her.

  He had ploughed into the books. Every year he tried to learn something to fill the gaps in his education. He had never gone back to school, but he tried to make up for it by reading, studying, learning about the world he lived in. This year, he had decided, he would pursue books with a vengeance and to hell with the notion of getting a stereo to learn more about music so that he could share it with Melody.

  As a child he had vowed never to give anyone the power to hurt him again by walking out on him or kicking him out. So why was he up here, showing her his home and hoping she would like it? Why was he fighting the impulse to tell her how he could change it for her to share?

  An affair, for God's sake. A friendship. Not a life.

  What's wrong? she asked, turning to him as if she could see the turmoil inside him. She was wearing his sweater again, because the heating was not installed upstairs yet.

  Nothing. He pushed his hair back. I've got to work on the siding at the back today. I want to put stain on before it rains. It would be better after she was gone. Then he would make himself remember that she was Robbie's aunt, too dangerous for touching.

  Oh? She made it a question, adding, Do you want me to leave?

  He shoved his hands into his pockets to avoid touching her. You're likely to get paint-spattered if you don't. He tried not to think about making love to her with the firelight playing on her glowing, naked flesh, with her eyes dark and passionate as he bent to kiss and possess.

  How's Robbie? he asked desperately, pushing away his over-active imagination. She had been here since yesterday afternoon, yet somehow there had been no time to talk about his nephew.

  He listened to her talking about Robbie, about her brother, and he knew it wasn't going to work. He was going to touch her, and if she did not run or scream, he was in trouble.

  You could stay a while, he said, harshly cutting across her account of Robin's running into a reporter when he was out walking the baby in his new carriage.

  She fell silent, staring at him, her eyes wide and black and unfathomed. What the hell was he doing? Setting himself up to be slapped in the face. So she had made love with him. Once. It didn't mean-No, damn it! He didn't want it to mean more! He made certain nothing showed in his voice. He said, If you're taking a holiday, you could do some painting, some hammering if you like. You nee
d a holiday. She half-smiled and he grinned, although inside he was afraid she would say yes and he knew he was in too deep. Or just sit around and read, he added, and heard the hopefulness in his own voice.

  Her hands moved to push into her pockets, but the sweater was in her way. He let his own hands free and possessed hers. Her fingers were cold, trembling. He rubbed them between his hands, to warm them.

  She said, I'd better help you paint. You don't have a lot of light reading in those shelves.

  We can go into Campbell River and raid the book stores, he offered. Then he released her hands because he could feel the tension growing inside himself. He tried to tell himself it was nothing more than a shared holiday, an affair that would be a pleasant memory next year, but he kept remembering how he had felt standing on her doorstep, knowing she was gone and not knowing where.

  Melody linked her hands together when he released them. In a second he would kiss her. She could see his eyes turning from hazel to a low fire, his firm lips parting just slightly. She knew she must stop him.

  No? he said, and it was only half a question. He was picking up something from the tension in her, or did he simply read the thoughts right out of her mind? He stepped back and she saw relief in his eyes, as if he had not really wanted to want her.

  Not- Not right now. Not yet. She licked her lips and knew the words were not going to come. Practicing saying it was one thing, but this was impossible. She wanted to stay, take the holiday he had offered. She wanted to put on an old shirt of Scott's and stand beside him, painting stain onto his siding. She wanted to read his books, to watch him lighting the fire in the fireplace. She wanted to talk and listen and share the silences ... to make love with him again.

  She knew, though, that she could not possibly stay without telling him first. She gulped and said, I guess I'd better go.

  Why did you come?

  She could nothing in his face. He was waiting, watching, the ship's commander suspending judgment. Crazily, that made it easier, because she could harden her own voice too, and her mind. She turned away from him so that he could not see into her eyes. She stared through the window at the smooth, shining water of the little bay, the narrow gorge that opened out to the ocean.

  She said, I thought you should know, that you had a right to know ... I'm pregnant.

  She turned and he was staring at her. She wasn't sure what it was in his eyes. He blinked and she thought maybe it was shock. Of course it would be shock. She had wanted it to be joy, but she should have known to keep the fairy tales in her music room.

  He said slowly, Say that again.

  She didn't. He had heard her the first time. She could not keep staring at him, wondering what on earth he was reading in her eyes. Was he reading her young dreams of happy-ever-afters? Dreams that had been twisting their way into her mind ever since that morning when he had turned up on her front doorstep.

  He pushed a rough hand through his hair, frowned and asked, But how-

  I wasn't on the Pill or anything.

  It was anger now, in his eyes, although his voice was as cold as the ocean where he piloted his ships. I asked you and you said ...

  She remembered the warm fire, the heat that had flashed between them, undeniable as if they were two halves of one soul aching for unity. She gulped and admitted, You asked if I was prepared, and I-I didn't mean birth control. I just-

  He turned away from her. She did not realize he was going downstairs until she heard his boots on the stairs, steady and deliberate. She followed him, her sandals clattering down the stairs. She came to a stop in the living room, out of breath, staring at him across the room. He was standing at the door and she wondered if he was intending to walk out on her, or to kick her out.

  Scott-

  He said flatly, I don't believe it. You can't be that naive!

  Couldn't she? She had turned thirty last Christmas Day, but she had never really loved before, not in the way a woman loves a man. All her loving had been in songs, in fantasy. Perhaps she had hidden in her own fantasies, finding them safer than what she felt now.

  She had been insane to come. She had thought-

  He had a right to know, that's what she'd thought, but under that, some crazy part of her had yearned for him to feel what she did, a wild warm excitement, a rightness that the touch of a loving stranger had given birth to a life. Fate. Belonging.

  She did not want to love anyone like this, so painfully, not unless he could love her back. She pushed her hands into her pockets. She was cold in spite of the fire he had lit in his fireplace, despite the warm cedar. It was his eyes, and she knew there was never going to be anything for them.

  Except the child they had created.

  He was tensed up like a wire, his eyes glazed, his jaw clenched. Even his hands were clenched into fists at his side. What did he think she was going to do to him? Did he think she was trying to trap him into marriage?

  She jerked her eyes away from him, but he was all around. The picture, the books, the fire, even the glimpse of water outside. She said raggedly, Look, I'm not interested in being lectured. I only came to tell you because- she gulped -because it's not the sort of thing you put in a letter. And I thought you had a right to know.

  She had thought he would welcome her, welcome her child. Secret fantasy, not acknowledged even to herself. Crazy woman. Fantasizing songwriter. Poet.

  He said flatly, What do you expect of me?

  He was staring at her and she could feel her eyes burning, her lids open too wide and her skin stretched too tightly over her face. If she didn't get out of here, she was going to cry. She must not let him see her cry, not when he was looking at her like this, his eyes harsh and his mouth a line of judgment.

  She saw him swallow. His nostrils flared, his voice bitterly angry. What did you expect, Melody? Did you think I would welcome your news? What was I supposed to say? Let's get married and have a happy ever after?

  She shook her head, although maybe that was what she had dreamed. He prowled angrily across his living room and came back to confront her.

  What the devil do I know about families? About babies? Nothing! His face was all harsh lines and angles. I can barely remember my own mother. All I know is from the outside, looking in. I haven't a damn clue in hell how to be on the inside, and you'd be crazy to think we could-we could ...

  Love each other? It hurt to swallow, hurt more to whisper, Couldn't we try?

  If that's what you thought- He cleared his throat, turned to stare grimly at a tree outside. Why do you think I brought Robbie to you in the first place? I was desperate to get him off my hands. A baby needs a father who knows what the hell he's doing. All I know about families is what I learned as a kid. I learned how not to get thrown out. If I did enough chores, I got to stay. Maybe.

  Her hands reached out towards him, wanting to soothe the pain she could feel in him. Scott-

  He jerked away. A woman needs a man who can love both her and her baby without messing it up. He started prowling again, came to rest in front of her, staring at her bleakly.

  You're afraid to try, afraid to take a chance. We could-

  No, we couldn't! He crammed his hands deeply into his pockets and turned to glare at the fire.

  She stared at a place in the middle of the window and said tightly, This baby's not going to go away, Scott.

  I'll-We'll make some kind of-some sort of financial arrangement.

  Oh, God! She could feel the tears coming. This was worse than she could have imagined. She walked past him. Then she was on the veranda, staring at nothing, and he was behind her. She made herself move, across the open expanse to the stairs, down to the grass.

  She got to her van and the keys were still there. She had not even thought of keys, of her purse. She stared at the dashboard and knew she could not walk back into that house for her purse. It was in his bedroom, with her suitcase.

  She turned the starter, but nothing happened except for the whine of the buzzer telling her to do u
p her seat belt. She sat there, staring at the windshield, and finally she realized that she had forgotten to put the car in parking gear when she stopped. The emergency brake was on, but the gearshift was in gear.

  If she sat here long enough, messing up the simple job of driving away, he would come through the door and she would have to look at his eyes again and know he was never going to care for her in the way she needed. Never going to love her.

  She must not cry. Whatever she did, she had to keep from letting the tears out until she was somewhere far away. The engine caught, finally, and she started reversing.

  He was there, standing in the doorway, at the back door, staring after her, blurry through the moisture in her eyes. She kept going, trying to go straight back and steady. He did nothing to stop her.

  A giggle escaped her, but it was half a sob. What was he going to do about her suitcase? Would he send it to her? She might open her door to a knock and find a courier there, her suitcase returned. If this went on, his bedroom would be littered with mementos of women who had once shared his touch but not his heart.

  She was out of his driveway before she realized that she could not go on. She would willingly have risked driving forever without her driver's license, just to avoid facing him again. But she could not even get off his island without her purse. No money for ferry fares, no credit cards for gasoline. Not even a bankcard to get cash from some strange, shiny bank.

  Chapter Nine

  Percussion instruments drowned out the tempo of the bass guitar. Then nothing, just the echo of rhythm in the silence of the room.

  Melody dropped her hands from the synthesizer. The multi-track recorder turned silently, recording nothing. She stared at the equipment, knowing it was useless. She had no idea if the song was good or bad. It felt dead, the words without meaning, the notes disconnected. She did not know if the lack was in her, or in the music she had written.