“I never took you for a coward, Liam.”

“Sometimes a clean break is best. The sole reason I came here was to be alone. The same’s true for you. We were each doing fine, as long as we kept our distance. But it’s not too late to reverse the damage.”

“Not for you, perhaps.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Janie? Are you saying you might wind up…?

“Pregnant? Isn’t it a bit late for you to be asking me that?”

“Could you be pregnant?”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. If you happen to bump into me six months from now and I’m big as a house, you’ll know—”

“Janie!” he exploded. “This isn’t something to be taken lightly. If you find—”

“Don’t worry, Liam, I won’t come running to you, not when you’ve made your feelings so plain.”

“Your being pregnant would change a lot of things.”

CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin romances. Within two months she changed careers and sold her first book to Harlequin in 1984. She moved to Canada from England thirty years ago and lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus two dogs and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs.

Passion’s Baby
Catherine Spencer

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

AFTERWARD, when it was too late to go back and do things differently, Jane looked for someone to blame for the chain of events which led to her first meeting with Liam McGuire.

Her grandfather topped the list, because he was the one who’d assured her, “You’ll have our half of the island all to yourself this year. Steve’s spending the summer with his married son in California.”

But when she discovered that her grandfather’s old fishing buddy hadn’t bothered telling anyone he’d decided to rent his place to someone else while he was away, she tried shifting the blame to him. In all fairness though, Steve had the right to do as he pleased with his own property and, on top of that, was getting forgetful in his old age, so perhaps he couldn’t be held accountable.

Of course, there was Liam McGuire himself, surely the messiest man ever born and one who needed to have someone wash out his mouth with soap to cure his bad language. The way he could curse would make a sailor blush! But again, if she were to be scrupulously objective, Jane had to admit that, as the legal tenant of Steve’s house and with a signed lease to prove it, evil-tempered Liam McGuire was under no obligation to live up to her personal standards of socially acceptable behavior.

So, stymied on that front, also, she then tried blaming her dog. If Bounder hadn’t had such a passion for wrapping his jaws around whatever was handiest and offering it as a gift to whomever he happened to meet, she might have been able to acquit herself with a modicum of dignity. On the other hand, if she’d done a better job of training him when he was a puppy, he wouldn’t have developed such bad habits.

So, much though she loathed having to admit it, when all was said and done the blame ended up where it really belonged: squarely on her own shoulders. Which was why, in the middle of the morning on the first day of what was supposed to be her summer of spiritual and physical renewal, she found herself huddled behind a chunk of rock on the beach below the cottages, her face flaming with embarrassment and her heart staggering with shame.

“I’d have been better off staying in town,” she muttered dolefully to Bounder, who alternated between fixing her in a meltingly sympathetic gaze and staring longingly at the waves breaking on the sand, forty yards away.

But the kind of serenity she craved wasn’t to be found in the hectic bustle and pace of Vancouver’s streets, so she’d returned to the haven of her childhood. Arriving at her grandfather’s cottage late the previous night, she’d climbed the winding stairs to the big square room under the eaves, crawled under the goose feather quilt on the high brass bed, and fallen asleep to the sound of waves breaking on the shore and the smell of the sea filling her lungs.

For the first time in months, she had not been haunted by dreams. Instead, she’d slept deeply, certain that the tranquil solitude of Bell Island would cure what ailed her.

She’d woken early the next morning and, blissfully unaware of the turmoil about to descend, had gone to the bedroom’s north window to take in the view of Desolation Sound which defined the very essence of her happy childhood. But rather than deep blue waters snaking into quiet inlets against a backdrop of mountains, her attention had fastened on the thin column of smoke rising into the still air from the chimney next door.

Even then, she might have managed to avoid making such a colossal fool of herself if she hadn’t also happened to notice the windows were still boarded up to protect them against the fury of the past winter’s south-easterly gales. But it was now June, with summer arrived, which had made Jane very suspicious. Why would a legitimate occupant choose to live in semi-darkness when every room in the place could be flooded with sunlight?

“There’s something very fishy about this,” she’d told Bounder. “I think we should investigate.”

It had been an easy decision to make from the safety of her grandfather’s cottage, but a twinge of uneasiness had fluttered down her spine as she approached the wraparound porch of the house. Suddenly, she’d been glad she had the eighteen-month-old Belgian sheepdog at her side.

The front door stood half open. Grasping Bounder by the collar, she’d knocked and called out, “Hello? Anybody there?”

But the shaft of light streaming through the open doorway revealed only dying embers in the fireplace, a pile of dirty dishes on the counter next to the sink, and a sweater flung carelessly over the back of the couch.

Somewhat reassured, she’d stepped fully inside to take a closer look. A cell phone and a dozen or more books lay scattered haphazardly over the coffee table. Whoever had taken up residence obviously enjoyed reading, not to mention instant communication with the outside world.

But apart from a heap of clothes littering the floor beside an open canvas suitcase, and a sleeping bag and two pillows on the single mattress, the slivers of sunshine filtering between the cracks in the boards covering the bedroom windows gave away nothing of the occupant’s identity beyond the fact that he wasn’t trying to hide his untidy presence.

It had to be a “he,” she’d reasoned. The sweater in the living room was too large for a woman and only a man would treat his clothes so carelessly or leave his sleeping bag in wrinkled disarray from a night’s sleep.

“Still,” she’d told Bounder, “whoever he is could at least have taken down the shutters and given the room a bit of natural light, not to mention a breath of fresh air. It’s musty as a cellar in here.”

By way of reply, Bounder had let out a low whine and pricked up his oversize ears, a clear signal that he’d heard someone approaching the house. Realizing her initial concern had crossed the boundary into outright infringement of privacy, Jane had made a beeline for the bedroom door, anxious at least to get as far as the living room before she was caught intruding. But the dog, tail thrashing in excitement, yanked himself free of her hold, snatched up the nearest piece of clothing, and raced ahead of her.

“Bounder, no!” she begged in an appalled whisper. “Oh, Bounder, please! Drop that! Give!”

She might as well have been speaking Swahili for all the attention he paid. Using his great paws as launching pads, he plowed on his merry way, leaving mayhem in his wake. She caught up with him on the far side of the living room sofa and had barely managed to rescue the item he’d filched from the bedroom when a shadow darkened the patch of sunlight shining across the floor from the open front door.

Straightening, she prepared to offer an introduction-cum-explanation for her uninvited presence. In fact, the words, “I’m Jane Ogilvie from next door and I just stopped by to say hello” were all ready to pop out of her mouth, but her attempt to appear nothing more than a friendly neighbor welcoming a summer visitor faltered and died before she uttered a single syllable.

The man had stationed himself on the cottage threshold, making escape impossible, and the cold, unwelcoming stare he directed at her would have silenced a thunderbolt. But it was neither the justifiable indignation in his eyes, which were the same translucent blue-green as the sea on a cold winter’s day, nor the embarrassment of finding herself caught brazenly snooping through his home, that left her speechless. Instead she stared mutely at his legs, knowing she shouldn’t, but unable to help herself.

From the way he let her squirm in the ensuing silence, it was her guess he was the kind who thrived on other people’s discomfiture. Finally, when she was about ready to choke on humiliation, he said, in a voice so larded with bitterness that she recoiled, “What’s the matter, Goldilocks? Never seen a man in a wheelchair before?”

Oh, yes, she could have told him, had he been at all interested in hearing her answer. But he was much too busy cursing with stunning vulgarity as he navigated the furniture and maneuvered himself farther into the room.

Knocking aside a wooden kitchen chair, he propelled himself around the table and only just missed wheeling over the tip of Bounder’s tail in the process. “Move it, hound!” he snapped, not even pausing to consider that Bounder, had he been equally ill-tempered, could have taken a chunk out of his unshaven face.

Instead, the dog tried to lick the hand which clearly wouldn’t have fed him if he’d been starving. Deciding sensitivity was wasted on such a man, Jane adopted a more confrontational approach. “Does the owner of this cottage know that you’re living here?” she inquired, folding the garment she still held in her hand and fixing him in a forthright stare.

“What business is it of yours?” he shot back. “And what the devil do you think you’re doing with my undershorts?”

She thought she’d already scaled the upper limit of human embarrassment but the realization that she was absently fingering underwear belonging to a man whose name she didn’t even know taught her the folly of that assumption. “Uh…” she mumbled, switching her horrified gaze from his face to the scarlet maple leaves emblazoned on the offending garment. “Um…oh, dear, I didn’t realize that’s what these are.”

“Cripes!” He rolled his rather beautiful eyes in disbelief. “You’ll be telling me next that you didn’t know you were trespassing on my property.”

“But it’s not your property,” she said, latching onto any excuse to change the subject. “It belongs to Steve Coffey who is an old friend of my grandfather’s and whom I’ve known since I was five years old.” Then, realizing she still hadn’t introduced herself, added, “I’m Jane Ogilvie and I’m staying at the house on the other side of the cove.”

“No, you’re not,” her ungracious host said flatly. “I’m Liam McGuire and when I signed the lease on this place, Coffey assured me I’d have the beach to myself all summer.”

“Then we’ve both been misled, because my grandfather told me the same thing. But if you’re worried I’m going to make a nuisance of myself, you can relax. I’m no more anxious to be neighborly than you are.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked pointedly at his boxer shorts. “Is that why you’re having such a good time fiddling with my drawers?”

The flush which rode up her neck rivaled the underwear’s maple leaves in color. “I most certainly am not fiddling…!”

“The hell you’re not,” he retorted with grim amusement. “The way you’re stroking them is downright indecent. You’ll be asking me to model them next.”

She dropped them as hurriedly as if they’d suddenly caught fire. “I don’t think so!”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice laced with slow insolence. “Because it’s not polite to recognize that a man in a wheelchair exists below the waist?”

“No,” she said, refusing to submit to that particular brand of emotional blackmail. “Because you’re not my type.”

“Why not?” he repeated in the same lazy drawl. “Because I’m in a wheelchair?”

“No. Because you’re arrogant, unpardonably rude, about as unappealing as a cockroach, and apparently enjoy living in a pigsty.”

He smiled. At least, she supposed his sudden display of flawless teeth amounted to that. “May I take it then that you won’t feel obliged to stop by every morning to make sure the unfortunate slob next door hasn’t accidentally fallen out of bed during the night and broken his miserable neck?”

“You may safely assume exactly that,” she said recklessly. “In fact, you may wheel yourself right off the end of the dock and drown, for all I care!”

And grabbing Bounder by the collar again, she’d marched past Liam McGuire and out of his house without so much as a backward glance. Not for the world would she have let him see how rattled she was by his attitude, or how appalled at her own behavior. Only when she reached the cover of the rock behind which she now huddled had she allowed the rigid set of her shoulders to relax and the shame to flood through her.

How could she have said such things—she who knew better than most the frustrations and agony of being confined to a wheelchair? Where was the compassion which had come so easily to her when Derek was alive?

It dried up with his death and I will not be drawn into such a web of pain again. I could not survive it a second time.

She closed her eyes, as if doing so would silence the truth echoing through her mind. But one thing she had learned too thoroughly ever to forget: turning away from the facts did nothing to change them. Like it or not, the man next door was disabled. How seriously, she didn’t know, but she understood now why the shutters remained in place over the windows, and why he hadn’t hung his clothes in the closet.

And with a defeated sigh, she knew that, no matter how unwelcome he might find her visits, sooner or later she’d come knocking on his door again, because she could no more ignore him or his plight than she could turn back the tide creeping up the beach.

“Son of a bitch!”

He slumped in the wheelchair and glared at his hands, clenched into fists in his lap. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate without having to contend with a next-door neighbor who had “Good Samaritan” written all over her face!

He’d seen the way she looked, immediately after she’d told him to go drown himself—as if she’d just swallowed a red-hot potato whole!—and he knew what would happen next. The stiff-necked pride which had carried her out of sight along the beach would evaporate faster than that morning’s early mist, and be replaced by a great surge of guilt embroidered with pity. She’d belabor herself for having spoken harshly to the gimp in the wheelchair and feel compelled to come back and be kind.

She’d train her big brown eyes on him and stammer out an apology, with a glimmer of penitent tears thrown in for extra effect. Worse, she’d probably bake something in the form of a peace offering—bran muffins most likely, because everyone knew that not getting enough exercise tended to have a detrimental effect on a man’s innards.

Swinging the wheelchair around, he rolled out to the front porch again and checked his watch. Almost ten-thirty. She’d been gone nearly half an hour and by now was likely wallowing up to her earlobes in remorse. Give her another hour to slave over a hot stove, and he’d bet money she’d reappear shortly after noon.

And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if she did. Since he’d run out of fish heads, he could use her bran muffins for crab bait. Shuffling his sorry backside into the runabout and motoring out to the traps was awkward and time-consuming, but worth every ounce of effort for the pleasure he got in feasting on freshly caught rock crab steamed in wine over a bed of coals in the outdoor fire pit.

Good food and wine were among the few pleasures he got from life these days and, under different circumstances, he might have invited her to join him for dinner. If she had a bit more meat on her bones, he’d probably have tried to get her in the sack, as well, because even skinny as a reed, she was a good-looking woman. Decidedly feminine, elegant, and with something fragile about her that, once, would have brought out his protective instincts.

Just as well he was confined to fantasizing about sex these days, though, because she was also the type who’d expect a lot more in return than respect the morning after! When he got on his feet again and was good for something other than swallowing painkillers and feeling sorry for himself, he’d make up for lost playtime but, if he was half as smart as he liked to think he was, it wouldn’t be with Jane Ogilvie. Because she was clearly the marrying kind. And he definitely was not.

A movement down on the beach caught his attention. Uh-oh! There she went, right on cue: a woman on a mission if ever he saw one, climbing the sloping path to the house next door with an unmistakable sense of purpose in her step, while her dizzy hound gamboled clumsily at her heels. Talk about the odd couple!

Something about his face felt strange—an odd sort of ache as if he were bringing into play muscles which hadn’t seen much use lately—and he realized that, for the second time in less than an hour, he was genuinely amused. He even laughed, though he was so badly out of practice that he sounded like a seal with a bad case of laryngitis.

Well, what the hell! A bit of free entertainment on the side would help pass the time.

Letting a smile settle on his mouth, he leaned forward in the chair and waited for scene two to unfold: Goldilocks on a mission of mercy—except with that mane of dark brown hair, the name Goldilocks didn’t exactly suit her.

For the rest of that day and most of the next, Jane turned a deaf ear on the urgings of her guilty conscience. In light of the way Liam McGuire had received her the first time, he was unlikely to welcome another visit anytime soon. It would be best if she gave him time to simmer down before inflicting herself on him again.

But it wasn’t easy staying away, and for all that she managed to keep herself busy around her own house, no amount of self-discipline could prevent her from looking out of her bedroom window last thing at night to make sure lamplight showed between the cracks in the shutters on the cottage next door. Or from checking first thing in the morning for the telltale column of smoke that showed he was up and about.

“It’s absurd that he’s living there alone,” she complained to Bounder. “In fact, it’s unconscionable. He has no right burdening total strangers with responsibility for his welfare.”

But that line of reasoning soon fell by the wayside and it was all the fault of those darned shutters. Well…theirs and the heat wave which struck out of nowhere two days later and showed signs of staying awhile. How, after all, could any woman with an ounce of charity to her name ignore the fact that, with temperatures suddenly soaring to the mid-eighties, Steve’s place, boarded up as it was, would be like an oven by the end of the day?

So, armed with a small crowbar and a hammer, she set off after breakfast on the third morning, determined that nothing Liam McGuire could fling at her in the way of insults would provoke her into leaving before she’d accomplished the task she’d set herself.

Once again, she found his front door open, propped wide this time with an old flat iron acting as a stop, and she could see that he’d made some attempt to clean up the kitchen. A plate, two coffee mugs, a frying pan and a handful of cutlery were stacked neatly in a dish rack next to the sink, and he’d spread a tea towel over the porch railing to dry.

She’d learned her lesson, though, and didn’t repeat the mistake of walking in when he didn’t respond to her polite knock. With both feet planted on the porch, she leaned forward and gave the door a mighty thump with her hammer. “Are you there, Mr. McGuire? It’s Jane Ogilvie from next door.”

Still no reply, nor any movement but Steve’s old hammock strung from the porch rafters and swinging in the hot breeze. Assuming Liam McGuire wasn’t deaf or dead, he must be out again, though where he went, given his condition and the uneven terrain around the cottage, was a mystery not hers to solve.

To do what had to be done, all she needed was the ladder Steve kept in his woodshed, and in all honesty, she was just as glad not to have an audience. Carpentry, even the crude kind she was about to tackle, had never been her forte. She could very well do without the sarcastic running commentary Liam McGuire would no doubt have offered, had he been there to witness her efforts as she wrestled the boards away from the windows and stored them under the porch where they normally spent the summer.

Things went well enough to begin with, though having to move the ladder every few yards used up an astonishing amount of energy, but the real trouble began when she tackled the bedroom windows. All the others opened onto the porch which offered a nice stable platform from which to work. The ground below the bedroom, however, fell away steeply and was knee-deep in grass, stinging nettles and wild honeysuckle.

Doubtfully, she sized up the situation. Finding a firm footing for the ladder was difficult enough, but scaling rungs fully fifteen feet in the air taxed her dwindling courage to the limit. She’d never had a good head for heights. And to make matters worse, the glare from the sun hitting the uncovered glass half blinded her.

“Careful, Bounder!” she exclaimed at one point, clinging to the window frame as he charged past and headed up the slope toward the house with more than usual exuberance. “Up-end this ladder while I’m on it and you and I are going to have a very serious falling out.”

From somewhere on the deck, Liam McGuire’s sardonic tones floated back a reply. “That’s assuming you live to talk about it, Goldilocks. In case you didn’t notice, your dumb dog just disturbed a wasps’ nest and unless you want to risk being badly stung, you’re going to have to stay where you are until it gets dark which, by my reckoning, isn’t going to happen for another eleven hours.”

Given his sour disposition, there was every chance he was lying, just to provoke her. But the buzzing sound which she’d vaguely noticed and attributed to the electric generator gave undeniable credence to his words. “When did you get back?” she said, suddenly and deeply regretting having yielded to the whim to do him a favor.

“More to the point, when did you?” he said. “I don’t recall inviting you, though I do distinctly remember your assuring me you wouldn’t bother me again.”

The buzzing grew ominously closer and she cringed, certain that at any minute she’d feel insect feet crawling up her bare legs. “Do you think,” she said, hanging on by her fingernails, “that we could pursue this discussion after I’ve figured a way out of my present predicament?”

“You?” He gave a bark of contemptuous laughter. “You couldn’t figure your way out of a brown paper bag without help. Face it, honey, you’re the one needing favors from me, this time—unless you think Blunder’s about to come to the rescue.”

“His name’s Bounder,” she said from between clenched teeth. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d appreciate it if you’d try to keep him away from the foot of this ladder. I don’t want him to get stung.”

“Well, heaven forfend!” He was jeering at her again but, to his credit, he snapped his fingers sharply and, in quite a different voice, ordered, “Blunder, come!”

Amazingly, she heard the faint click of claws on the wooden porch, followed by a thump as Liam McGuire rapped out, “Sit!”

“Pity you don’t have an equally winning way with people,” she couldn’t help observing.

“I’d save the smart-ass remarks until I was safely on firm ground again, if I were you,” he said. “You’re in no position to be passing judgment on anyone, least of all the guy you expect to come to your rescue.”

She ventured a look down and hastily closed her eyes as the ground swam up to meet her. “How are you going to get me down, with all those wasps swarming around?”

“I’m not,” he said. “And if that’s what you’re hoping for, you’re in for a disappointment. Your only choice is to haul the rest of the boards off that window which I’ll then open from the inside so you can crawl through.”

Swing one leg over that narrow sill? Heavenly days, it was all she could do to maintain her balance with both feet planted on the ladder rung! “I…don’t think I can do that, Mr. McGuire.”

“Then I hope you remembered to go pee before you came over here, because you’re stuck up there for the duration,” he said bluntly.

Oh, he was the most vulgar, insensitive man ever to walk the face of the earth and, forgetting to be cautious, she swung her head around to tell him so. But the ladder gave a shudder, as though to remind her that it wouldn’t take much to send it—and her—sliding down the slope.

“All right, we’ll do it your way,” she said faintly.

“Good girl.”

Was it possible that was a hint of sympathy—of kindness even, that she heard in his voice?

“Stay put until I get myself into the bedroom,” he went on. “Then do exactly as I tell you.”

The wheelchair whispered away and a moment later his voice came again, this time on the other side of the shutters. “This is your lucky day, Janie. The window slides open so all you need to do is pry off a couple of boards and make an opening wide enough to get your butt through. I’ll take care of the rest.”

She had no reason to believe him, at least on the last point. Not only was he wheelchair-bound, he’d shown no inclination to be chivalrous. Yet what choice did she have but to put herself at his mercy?

“Well?” he asked, impatience already eroding his temporary show of kindness. “Make up your mind. Do we have a deal or not?”

“We have a deal,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. McGuire.”

CHAPTER TWO

HOW he managed it, she didn’t know—nor, given her precarious situation, did Jane choose that moment to demand any explanations. It was enough that one minute she was teetering in midair, almost afraid to breathe as she wrestled the first board loose, and the next, he’d reached through six inches of open window to bring the whole operation to a speedy conclusion.

That solidly muscular forearm and the unshakeable strength in his hand reassured her as nothing else could. In no time, the rest of the glass was uncovered. All that remained was for her to gather up what was left of her courage and climb inside the house.

It should have been easy; would have been, if she hadn’t immediately realized that the ladder was positioned too far to the left of the open end of the window. A full two feet of empty space separated her from safety, and the mere idea of launching herself across it was as far-fetched as trying to leap the Grand Canyon.

Liam McGuire saw her hesitation. “You haven’t come this far to chicken out now,” he said. “Quit scaring yourself witless and get on with it.”

Perspiration prickled all over her body.

Perspiration, nothing! It was sweat, pure and simple, imprisoning her in clammy fear. “I can’t do it,” she quavered, eyeing the chasm between them.

“You can’t not do it, woman!” he said flatly. “You got yourself into this mess and since I’m damn near useless in this wheelchair, you’re going to have to get yourself out. So stop the hyperventilating, grab a hold of the top of the window frame, and climb onto the ledge. There’s nothing to it.”

Nothing to it? Her voice rose nearly a full octave. “Are you out of your mind? That ledge is scarcely wide enough to hold a seagull!”

He glared at her from eyes turned brilliant aquamarine in the reflection of sunlight on water. It was the kind of look which, all by itself, probably had subordinates leaping to obey his every command, but when all she did was stare back in frozen terror, he lost his temper and bellowed, “Oh, for crying out loud! Just what the doctor ordered for a full and speedy recovery—a hundred and fifteen pounds of catatonic woman perched on a ladder twenty feet in the air, and expecting Superman to fly to the rescue!”

Letting go of her hand, he abruptly disappeared from view and, for one horrified moment, she thought he was going to resolve matters by abandoning her to the wasps and stinging nettles down below. From somewhere inside the room she heard a shuffling and a string of curses that, even in her panic-stricken state, left the tips of her ears burning.

Then, just as abruptly, he reappeared, except this time there was more of him to see than just his head and shoulders. The entire upper half of his body was visible, too.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try this again.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t. I’m too scared.”

“I’ll be nice to your dog if you don’t chicken out on me,” he wheedled in what she supposed he considered to be his most winning way. “I won’t use him for target practice the next time I feel like shooting the pellet gun Coffey keeps under the bed. I won’t even tell anyone that I caught you messing around with my underpants.”

What he no doubt perceived to be irresistible bribes struck her as nothing short of blackmail. “You’re a horrible man,” she whimpered.

He wasn’t one to tolerate having his suggestions thwarted. “What the devil is it you want of me?” he roared, immediately reverting to his usual confrontational self. “A pint of blood? A pound of flesh? I can’t maintain this position indefinitely, you know!”

Only then did it fully sink in that he’d hauled himself out of the chair and was propping himself upright by taking all his weight on one arm, while he reached out to her with the other.

The sweat pearling his face attested to what the effort was costing him and shamed her out of her own cowardice. “All right, you win,” she said faintly and quickly, before the foolhardiness of the undertaking had time to impress itself on her brain, she crabbed one foot onto the ledge and literally hurled herself at him.

Her knuckles and knees scraped against the cedar shingles and she managed to clip the side of her head on the ladder in passing, but the pain scarcely registered beside the utter relief of feeling him grasp a fistful of the front of her T-shirt and yank her the rest of the way to safety.

“Aah!” she gasped, landing in a winded heap at his feet. “Thank you so much! I owe you big-time for this.”

He expelled a mighty breath, literally falling like a sack of potatoes into the wheelchair, and swung it toward the living room. “Oh, please, no! The last thing I need is any more of your favors. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to show a bit of gratitude, as well, you know,” she said, picking herself up and trailing after him. “Most people would be happy to have windows they could open, rather than live in a place as dark as a cave.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Goldilocks, I’m not ‘most people.’ If I were, I’d have taken care of the problem myself, instead of having to fall back on the services of a semi-competent woman with a bad case of acrophobia.” He positioned himself in front of one of the lower kitchen cabinets and hauled out a bottle of Scotch. “I could use a drink and so, I imagine, could you.”

“At this hour of the morning?” she protested. “I hardly think—”

“And you can spare me your homilies on the evils of booze, as well! I’ll get plastered any time I feel like it, and right now, I feel like it.”

She opened her mouth to tell him that drowning his sorrows in alcohol wouldn’t make them go away, then thought better of it when she saw that a grayish pallor undermined the deep tan of his face. Even his hand shook as he unscrewed the cap on the bottle.

Moved by a compassion that had its roots in another time when she’d been equally helpless to alleviate suffering, she covered his hand with hers and took the bottle away. “Let me,” she said quietly, and splashed a scant half inch of whiskey into a glass.

He tossed it down in one gulp, cradled the glass in his hands, then leaned back in the chair with his eyes closed. He had a rather wonderful face, even with that devastatingly direct gaze hidden, she decided, taking advantage of the chance to study him unobserved; a face that revealed far more about the man who owned it than he probably realized.

She saw strength in the line of his jaw, laughter in the fan of lines beside his eyes, passion and discipline in the curve of his mouth. His recent proclamation notwithstanding, he was no drinker. He showed too much pride for such self-indulgence.

“You can leave anytime,” he said, not moving a muscle more than was needed to spit out the words. “I’m not going to do the socially acceptable thing and invite you to stay for coffee.”

“Then I’ll invite myself,” she said, and without waiting for permission, filled the kettle and set it to boil on the stove. “How do you take yours?”

“Alone, thank you very much.”

She shrugged and inspected the contents of the refrigerator. Beyond a block of cheese, a couple of eggs, an open carton of milk, some bread and the remains of something which, under the layer of green mold, might have been meat, the shelves were empty.

She sniffed the milk and immediately wished she hadn’t. “This milk went off about a week ago, Mr. McGuire.”

“I know,” he said, a current of unholy mirth running through his voice, and when she turned back to face him, she saw he was observing her with malicious glee. “I saved it on purpose, just for the pleasure of seeing your expression when you stuck your interfering nose into yet another part of my life. Would you like to taste the ham, as well, while you’re at it?”

She emptied the milk down the sink drain and tossed the ham into the garbage can. “Whoever does your shopping is falling down on the job, but since I’m planning on going across to Clara’s Cove later on today, I can stop by the general store and pick up a few staples for you, if you like.”

“What is it you don’t understand about ‘Mind Your Own Business’?” The question ricocheted off the walls like machine gun bullets. “What do I have to do to make it clear that I’m perfectly able to shop for myself? How do I let you know that you can take your charity and shove it, because I neither want it nor need it?”

She recognized the insults for what they really were: bitter resentment at only recently finding himself confined to a wheelchair. When the same thing had first happened to Derek, he’d reacted much the same way and it had taken months for him to come to terms with how his life was going to be from then on.

“I know how difficult you must find all this, Mr. McGuire,” she said, “and I certainly didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Unless you’ve been where I am now, you don’t know beans about how I feel!”

She washed and rinsed the plate which had held the ham, placed it in the dish rack, and made the coffee. “Actually, I do,” she said. “My husband—”

“Oh, goodie, you have a husband, you have a husband!” he gibed. “That being the case, why don’t you run along and minister to him, instead of foisting your attentions on me?”

“Because he’s dead,” she said baldly.

Shock, and perhaps even a little shame, wiped the sneer off Liam McGuire’s face. “Oh, cripes,” he muttered, examining his hands. “I’m sorry. That must be tough. You’re kind of young to be a widow.”

She dried her scraped knuckles tenderly, folded the dish towel over the edge of the counter, and turned to leave. “I’m not looking for your sympathy, any more than you’re looking for mine, Mr. McGuire. But take it from me, people can and do adapt—if they’ve a mind to. Of course, if all they’re interested in is wallowing in self-pity, they can do that, too, though why they’d find it an attractive alternative baffles me since it must be a very lonely occupation. Good day.”

“Hey!”

She was almost at the door when he stopped her. “You called?” she inquired sweetly, not bothering to turn around.

“Are you by any chance a schoolteacher?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Why do you ask?”

“Because you talk like one.”

“I see. Is there anything else, Mr. McGuire?”

“Yes,” he said irritably. “You can stop calling me Mister McGuire in that snotty way. My name’s Liam.”

“How nice! Will that be all, Liam?”

He thumped the flat of one hand on the armrest of his chair and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as though calling on divine intervention to save him from himself. “I’m going to regret this later,” he announced morosely, then swung his gaze back to her. “Since you’ve made the damn coffee anyway, you might as well stay and have a cup. There’s canned milk in the cupboard, if you want it.”

“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure, but I just remembered that Bounder’s outside and I don’t want him running loose all over the island.”

“Bring the benighted hound inside, then. It won’t be the first time he’s made himself at home here.”

“My goodness!” she said, unable to quell the mean-spirited pleasure of having finally wrung a concession from him. “How can I refuse such a gracious offer?”

He waited until the coffee was served, she had taken a seat on the couch, and Bounder was snoozing beside the wheelchair, before he spoke again. “Have you been…by yourself for very long?”

“Just over two years.”

He stared into his mug. “What you said, about understanding how I feel in this chair, was your husband…?”

“Yes, for the better part of the last three years of his life.”

He averted his gaze, but not before she saw the grimace he couldn’t control. “I’d go mad if I was facing that length of time,” he said.

“It’s amazing what people come to accept when they don’t have any other choices.”

“Not me,” he said. “I’m not handing over control of my life to anything or anyone else, especially not a bunch of doctors who don’t know what they’re talking about. According to them, I should settle for being alive with both legs still attached, and never mind expecting to walk again. But I’ll show them! It’ll take more structural failure at the bottom of an offshore oil rig to keep me tied to a wheelchair for the rest of my life.”

Good grief, the man lived dangerously! She’d seen news reports and documentaries about offshore drilling for oil. The rigs had struck her as frighteningly inhospitable, even those parts above the water. She couldn’t imagine how much worse they’d be fathoms deep in the ocean. “I gather,” she said, treading delicately, “that you had an accident of some kind?”

“You could put it like that, yeah. I found myself pinned under a steel beam and had a bit of trouble getting free.”

Since he was so determined to dismiss what had clearly been a life-threatening incident as something of no great consequence, she deemed it wise to respond in like fashion. Tilting one shoulder in a faint shrug, she said, “Well, there’s no doubt that, given the will and a reasonable amount of luck, some people do make remarkable recoveries. May I pour you more coffee before I leave?”

“You’re leaving already? Why? Where’s the fire?”

If he hadn’t already gone to such lengths to try to get rid of her, she’d have thought he wanted her to stay a bit longer. But, Wishful thinking, Jane, she told herself. You’re just dazzled by those beautiful sea-green eyes.

“No fire,” she said, as much to refute her own foolishness as to answer his remark. “Just the opposite, in fact. I want to take Bounder down for a swim before the tide turns.”

At the mention of his name, the dog reared up in excitement, a running shoe clamped in his mouth.

“He needs a few lessons in obedience, if you ask me,” Liam said, grabbing the shoe and flinging it under the table, then seizing his coffee cup before it was swept on the floor by Bounder’s thrashing tail. “He’s out of control. Settle down, idiot!”

“He’s not much more than a puppy,” Jane said defensively. “He’s still learning and I have to be patient.”

“Patient, my eye! He’s already mastered one lesson and that’s how to control you! If you were as dedicated to making him behave and keeping his teeth off other people’s property, as you are to nosing around in business that doesn’t concern you, you’d be a sight better off and so would he. He’s too damned big to be galumphing around like this.”

She swallowed a laugh. “Well, the truce was nice while it lasted, but it’s clearly over so I’ll get us both out of your hair before you start tearing it out by the roots. Thanks for the coffee. Come on, Bounder.”

“Yeah, well…thanks. For what you did. With the shutters, and all.”

He might have been having all his teeth pulled without benefit of anesthetic, he sounded so pained! But she made allowances because she knew that his pride was injured at least as badly as his leg. Anyone could see that Liam McGuire wasn’t accustomed to being helpless and that it particularly went against the grain for him to have to watch a woman take on what he considered to be a man’s job.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

“It’s the only way I could think of to get rid of you.”

The smile which accompanied his remark, though meager, transformed his face. Charmed more than she cared to admit, Jane smiled back and said, “I’ll make a deal with you. I promise not to bother you again, provided you agree to call on me if you need help.”

“And how do you propose I do that, Goldilocks?”

“Tie a towel or something to the post at the end of the porch railing so I can see it from my place.”

He chewed the corner of his lip thoughtfully, then shrugged and extended his hand. “Sounds like a one-sided deal to me, but if that’s what it’ll take to keep the peace….”

Since he’d shown a near-aversion to touching her any more than was absolutely necessary, she expected his handshake would be brief and businesslike. But, noticing her raw knuckles, he stroked his thumb carefully across her fingers and said, “You’ve chewed yourself up pretty badly. Do you have something you can put on these to prevent infection?”

“Yes.” His concern, though impersonal, left her foolishly misty-eyed.

He noticed that, too. Misinterpreting the reason for her distress, he said, “Are they hurting that badly, Jane?”

“Uh-uh.” She swallowed and shook her head. “It’s just that I’m not used to having someone be concerned about me. It’s usually the other way around.”

Raising his eyes, he subjected her to a brief, intense scrutiny before dropping her hand and turning the wheelchair toward the door. “Then go put some salve on your scrapes and look after yourself for a change. You’ve wasted enough time on me for one day.”

She felt his gaze following her all the way along the path. Before climbing the steps to her own front porch, she looked back and sure enough, he’d stationed himself beside the post at the edge of the porch. When he saw her turn, he lifted his hand in a salute. She did the same and, fanciful though it might be, it was as if a small flame sprang alive in the cold, empty wasteland which for so long had been her heart.

That simple gesture set the pattern for the days which followed. Whenever they happened to see one another from a distance, they’d mark the occasion with a wave, an acknowledgment which, though wordless, nevertheless conveyed a sense of cautious awareness of each other.

Once, she saw him seated at the wheel of Steve’s eighteen-foot runabout and heading across the stretch of water separating Bell Island from Clara’s Cove on Regis Island. Another time she caught sight of him hauling driftwood up the ramp from the beach. But though her every instinct screamed for her to go over and make sure he was coping by himself, she honored their pact and kept her distance.

The heat wave softened to the more typically temperate warmth of early July, with cool, refreshing nights and mornings cloaked in milky haze. The leisurely days worked their magic and Jane found the healing, the sense of contentment and peace within herself, which had for so long evaded her.

She spent evenings sitting on the porch in one of the wooden Adirondack chairs her grandfather had made years before, and watching the first stars come out. Early each morning she left a trail of footprints along the newly-washed sand at the water’s edge. She swam in the sun-warmed waters of the cove, and hiked the lower slopes of Bell Mountain to pick wild blueberries. She taught Bounder to sit and stay on command.

Her skin took on a sun glow and she gained a pound or two because her arms and legs no longer seemed quite so scrawny. She slept like a child—deeply, dreamlessly—and rediscovered a serenity of spirit she’d thought she’d lost forever.

Sometimes, she thought she could live like that indefinitely, hidden away with only Bounder for company and the bald eagles and killer whales to witness her comings and goings. But nothing stayed the same for very long. Time, life—they moved forward. Change occurred.

For her, it began the morning she went outside and found a pail of fresh clams at the foot of her porch steps. He didn’t bother leaving a note, but she knew Liam had to be the one who’d left them there, though how he’d found the stamina to navigate the rutted path from his place to hers she couldn’t begin to fathom.

In return, she waited until she saw him take the boat from its mooring, then sneaked over and left a loaf of freshly baked bread outside his door.

And so they established another tenuous line of communication: half a small salmon from him, a bowl of wild strawberries from her; apple pie still warm from her oven as thanks for prawns the size of small lobsters which he hauled out of the deep water of the mid-channel. And all done furtively so as not to contravene the terms of their pact of peaceful but independent coexistence.

Then, one time, she noticed his unoccupied wheelchair leaning drunkenly against the post at the top of the ramp leading to the house. Afraid that he’d somehow lost control of it, she sneaked over and crept up the ramp to his cottage, dreading what she might discover.

She found him stationed on the seaward side of the porch. Using the railing for support, he was testing his weight on his injured leg.

Be careful! You can’t rush recovery! she wanted to cry out, because he was a big man, tall and powerfully built. And the fact that he was trembling with the effort it cost him to put himself through the exercise told her he was pushing himself too hard, too soon.

Her concern wasn’t entirely altruistic. She knew a tiny disappointment, too, because as his recovery progressed, the likelihood that he’d call on her for help grew increasingly remote. And solitude, she was beginning to learn, had its drawbacks. There was only so much intelligent conversation one could hold with a dog, even one as smart as Bounder.

Apparently, Liam McGuire reached the same conclusion because a few days later, instead of leaving an offering of food, he left a note.

You can come for dinner tonight, if you want to, and bring the dog. Seven o’clock.

Not the most gracious invitation, perhaps, but a gilt-engraved summons issued by royalty could not have thrilled her more. “See you at seven,” she scribbled back, anchored the reply under a rock on his porch railing, and, in a fever of anticipation, rushed home to make wild raspberry tart.

While it baked, she hauled the big tin bath tub in from the back porch to the middle of the kitchen floor, filled it with water heated in a pail on the stove, and soaked luxuriously. She shampooed the sea salt out of her hair, then rinsed it in cool water from the rain barrel outside. She creamed perfumed lotion all over her sun-dried skin and fished out the meager supply of cosmetics which hadn’t seen the light of day since she’d arrived on the island. She ironed one of the few dresses she’d brought with her, a sleeveless, delphinium blue cotton affair with a full skirt and fitted waist.

After all that, when seven o’clock rolled around, she knew the most frightful attack of nerves, wiped the lipstick off her mouth, threw the dress to the back of the closet, and put on a clean pair of red shorts and a matching top.

“As if it matters what I wear,” she told Bounder. “I could show up stark naked and he probably wouldn’t care, as long as I don’t presume too much on his hospitality.”

He’d acted against his better judgment and was living to regret it. Had regretted it, if truth be known, ever since he’d slunk away from her front step after leaving the note. Cabin fever must have taken hold without his realizing it. Why else would he deliberately sabotage his well-ordered life by inviting her and her demented dog to intrude on it? And why would he waste the better of the afternoon trying to tart the place up to look more than it really was? The picnic table on the grass below the porch had seen better days, and paper towels hardly qualified as fine linen.

He poured himself a glass of wine from the ice chest at his side and wheeled himself over to the railing overlooking the beach. It was almost a quarter after seven and she struck him as the punctual type, so the odds were she’d changed her mind about joining him for dinner, which was fine by him. It wasn’t as if her share of the food would go to waste. The energy it had taken for him to organize the meal had left him ravenous.

Funny thing, though, how a man’s mood could shift. That afternoon, while he’d readied the outdoor fire pit for action, he’d found himself whistling under his breath. He’d believed he was looking forward to the evening, to watching her face break into a smile, to hearing her laughter.

After a while, a guy got sick of the sound of his own voice, and sicker still of the same old thoughts chasing around inside his head. Was he ever going to walk under his own steam again? Was he finished as the expert everyone called on to design a new offshore project?

He needed distraction and under normal circumstances, he’d have found it with other people. With women—though not with a particular woman because that usually led to complications.

No, Jane Ogilvie had done him a favor by canceling out, no doubt about it. Start feeding her, and she’d be moving in before he had time to bolt the door. She had a thoroughly domesticated look about her, and if proof was what he needed to back up the opinion, she’d provided it with all that home baking. So what if she’d never actually produced bran muffins? She managed to make just about everything else, which amounted to the same thing.

He took another swig of the wine and rubbed his newly shaven jaw irritably. Scraping off several days’ growth of beard had left his skin tender as a newborn baby’s backside—and that was all her fault, too. If she hadn’t moved in next door, he’d have remained a contented, unkempt slob of a hermit, instead of jumping through hoops trying to make himself look half decent when the only facilities at his disposal were a cold-water shower and a pint-size mirror hanging over the kitchen sink.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement to the left of the porch, a flutter of red and a blur of black, followed shortly thereafter by the thud of paws galloping up the wooden ramp to the porch, and the unmistakable whiff of ripe berries.

To counteract the completely absurd rush of satisfaction threatening to wipe out his ill humor, he shuffled lower in the wheelchair and glowered determinedly at the sun sliding down in the west. Why the devil couldn’t she have stayed at home where she belonged?

CHAPTER THREE

“SORRY we’re late,” she said, balancing the raspberry tart on one hand and trying to control Bounder with the other.

“I didn’t notice you were,” Liam said, apparently too mesmerized by the ribbons of lavender and rose strung across the western horizon to notice the time, let alone her. “Is it seven already?”

“Almost half past, actually. I was afraid you’d have given up on me.”

“The thought never crossed my mind.” Rousing himself to a less supine position, he inspected the contents of his glass and said sullenly, “I was too busy enjoying my solitude.”

So it was to be like that, was it? Pressing her lips together in annoyance, Jane gave silent thanks to whatever minor god had urged her not to overdress for her role in what promised to be nothing short of a dinner farce. “I hope my coming here hasn’t put you out too much.”

“Not a bit. We’ve both got to eat, and it’s not as if we plan to make a habit of joining forces.” He slewed a glance her way and gave an exaggerated start of surprise at the sight of the tart. “Oh, gee, you baked a pie! Why doesn’t that surprise me? Stick it in the cooler over there, why don’t you? And while you’re at it, pour yourself a glass of wine. I’d get up and do the honors myself but—”

“Oh, please! I wouldn’t dream of expecting you to bestir yourself.”

Obtuse as he was, even he caught the edge in her tone. “Exactly what are you expecting, Jane? That I’m going to treat you as if you’re a date? Because if so, you’re in for a disappointment. I happened to catch enough crab for two and since you’re my nearest neighbor, I invited you to share the feast. The fact that you’re reasonably young and not too ugly has no relevance. I’d have done the same if you’d been seventy-nine and toothless.”

“I’m more relieved to hear that than you can possibly begin to guess,” she cooed, the “not too ugly” label stinging worse than anything a wasp could inflict. “Because, loath though I am to damage your massive ego, if a date had been what you had in mind, I’d have been obliged to turn you down. You’re not my kind of man.”

“And what kind of man is that?” he asked offhandedly. “Someone with two good legs who can chase you all over the island, then throw you over his shoulder and carry you off to his lair to have his wicked way with you?”

“No,” she said shortly. “But a working brain is a definite must and yours, I begin to suspect, has yet to be taken out of the box it came in.”

Her observation caught him squarely as he drained his glass, turning the chuckle he couldn’t quite smother into a coughing fit as the wine went down the wrong way. “Okay,” he croaked, when at last he managed to regain his breath, “you win this round. I admit I was ticked off when it seemed you were a no-show and I acted like an idiot. Can we start over, if I promise to polish my skills as a host?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, even though trying to hang on to her annoyance in the face of such a disarming confession was a lost cause, particularly with Bounder fawning shamelessly all over the object of her displeasure. “I can’t say I was flattered by your description of me.”

Steering his chair around the hammock to where Steve’s old kerosene storm lantern sat on a shelf on the wall, Liam put a match to the wick. Just briefly, before he swung around to face her again, the aura of light limned his features in gold and revealed the smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. “You mean the bit about your being not bad-looking?”

“That’s not quite how you worded it, but since we’re aiming for a fresh start, I won’t quibble over semantics.”

“In that case,” he said, heading down the ramp to the grassy area below, “if you wouldn’t mind pouring the wine, I’ll get the fire started, and we can engage in idle gossip and watch the sun go down while we wait for the water to boil.”

Somehow, she doubted Liam McGuire was the kind of man who ever wasted time being idle about anything. He was too full of a restless energy turned inward by the physical restrictions he was forced to endure. Talk about an inquiring mind! He didn’t just look at a person, he looked inside her, his cool gaze probing her most private thoughts.

She’d no sooner joined him at the fire pit than the inquisition began. “Cheers,” he said, raising his glass to hers, and before she had time to acknowledge the toast, let alone take a sip of the wine, went on, “Tell me how your better half wound up in a wheelchair.”

“What?” She stared at him in offended disbelief. Was the man completely insensitive to everyone’s pain but his own?

“Tell me about your husband. I’m curious.”

“Well, that’s certainly stating the obvious! The question is, why do you want to know?”

“Well, we’ve got to talk about something and the last time you were here, you made some remark about understanding my frustration at being in this damned contraption because you’d seen him go through the same thing.” He shrugged, and poked at a chunk of driftwood which had fallen away from the flames. “But if talking about it touches a nerve, we can always debate the vanishing ozone layer or the migration of the otter flea.”

“I didn’t know otters had fleas,” she said stiffly.

Leaning toward her, he planted his elbow on the arm of his chair, rested his chin on his fist, and fixed her in that disturbing gaze of his. “His death’s still too painful to talk about, huh, even after two years?”

“It’ll never be easy. But I’ve come to terms with it.”

“What went wrong? An accident of some sort?”

“No. He had ALS. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, although most people call it—”

“Lou Gehrig’s disease.” He grimaced. “Yeah, I know. It’s one of those things that…well, I don’t have to tell you. You lived it. How long was your husband…?”

“Seven years. We’d been married only eighteen months when he was diagnosed.”

Liam inhaled sharply. “Barely past the honeymoon stage! You can’t have been much more than a kid. And you hung in over the long haul?”

“Well, of course I did!” she said indignantly. “What did you think? That I’d walk out on him because he didn’t remain the perfect, healthy specimen I’d married?”

“A lot of women would have, wedding vows about sticking it out in sickness and in health notwithstanding.”

“If you believe that, then you obviously don’t know much about love.”

“Maybe not, but I know a lot about women.”

Jane stared at him, taken aback by the surge of bitterness which colored his remark, and suddenly as curious about his past as he was about hers. “I don’t suppose you’d care to elaborate on that?”

“Not particularly.” Awkwardly, he bent to wedge another piece of wood under Steve’s old metal crab pot. She could have done it for him in a fraction of the time, but she knew better than to offer.

“It’s going to take a while for this water to come to a boil,” Liam said, “but I’ve got nuts and stuff to snack on while we’re waiting. If you want to make yourself useful, you could get them—they’re in the kitchen—and bring another bottle of wine out of the refrigerator.”

He’d tidied the place up in her honor she noticed when she went inside. The floor had been swept and the counter was empty except for a cardboard box holding cutlery, plates and a roll of paper towels, a loaf of bread, a bag of prepared salad greens, and some packages of nuts and pretzels.

She found the wine and a corkscrew, and emptied the snacks into a wooden salad bowl. When she went back outside, the fire had taken hold and Liam sat with his gaze fixed moodily on the flames licking up the side of the blackened old pot, and Bounder sleeping next to his chair.

Taking a seat at the picnic table, Jane helped herself to a handful of nuts before passing the bowl to Liam. He nodded his thanks and for a while nothing disturbed the silence except the occasional cry of a seagull and the spit and crackle of the driftwood fire. The sky had paled to winter melon green with the sun’s passing and the first faint stars twinkled to the east.

From where she sat, Jane was able to take in the sweep of ocean and distant mountains and, much closer at hand, her host’s unruly mop of dark hair and width of shoulder.

What happened to make you so wary of other people? she longed to ask, and knew a shocking urge to reach out and touch him. There was such a loneliness about his still figure, such a need for gentleness.

Suddenly, as if he knew she was burning up with curiosity, he announced, “You aren’t the only one who’s been married, you know. I tried it once myself.”

He flung the information down like a challenge, as if daring her to take issue with it. “Did you?” she said mildly.

When he didn’t immediately reply, she left it at that and for a while the silence came swarming back, seeming deeper with encroaching night. The flames grew brighter, higher, and a mist of steam rose from the crab pot. Bounder stirred and shifted to a more comfortable position, with his nose nudging the wheelchair’s foot-rest.

“I’m divorced, in case you’re wondering.”

In light of his caustic tone of voice, she’d have had to be mentally defective not to have figured that much out for herself. But it seemed politic not to say so, so she stuck to a sympathetic, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not!” His shoulders jerked in bitter amusement. “I consider myself lucky to be rid of her.”

“Don’t you find that rather sad?”

He tossed her an incredulous glance. “Hell, no! Why should I?”

“Because presumably you were in love with each other once, and when those feelings died, you lost something precious.”

“I lost a money-hungry parasite, sweetheart! Caroline kept a calculator where her heart was supposed to be. Her chief hobby was adding up how much a man was worth, and whether he could afford her or not. Love wasn’t part of the equation.”

“In that case, why did you get married in the first place?”

“I asked myself the same question for years and never did come up with an answer that made any sense. Put it down to a combination of lust, wilful blindness on my part, and great acting on hers. Around the time I found out she wasn’t what she’d first seemed, she decided she didn’t like the demands of my job and found comfort in some other guy’s arms while I was away on a project. Last I heard, she’d dumped him for somebody with a fatter wallet.”

“I can’t imagine any wife behaving like that,” Jane said, wondering if his abrasive front was really nothing more than camouflage to hide a broken heart.

“Oh, trust me, it happens! Just because you spent all your free time polishing your halo, don’t assume every other woman does the same.”

“I resent that,” she said, the surge of compassion he’d awoken in her evaporating just as rapidly as it had arisen. “There was nothing long-suffering about my devotion to Derek. I loved him and he loved me, and we both honored our wedding vows. So don’t you assume just because your marriage fell apart, that mine was held together by baling wire and pity, because it wasn’t! It was strong enough to stand on its own merits, regardless of what life threw at it.”

“And it ended before the strain began to tell.”

“Why, you…you…unfeeling brute!”

“That’s me, all right,” he said, supremely unmoved by her distress. “Stroking fragile egos isn’t one of my talents. I prefer to deal with reality.”

“Oh, who do you think you’re kidding?” she snorted. “You’re so busy trying to ignore the fact that you’re handicapped that you can’t even accept a little help without getting all bent out of shape. You could give lessons on stroking the fragile ego, as long as it’s yours that’s getting stroked!”

He bent to scratch Bounder’s ear and she heard the laughter in his voice when he said, “That’s women for you, Blunder, old pal! Going straight for the jugular. Take my advice and steer clear of the lot of them.”

Bounder reared up, placed a paw on Liam’s lap, and gazed at him adoringly. Talk about male bonding! The whole performance was enough to turn Jane’s stomach. “I’m beginning to wonder why I ever agreed to come here this evening,” she said.

Liam gave another of those annoyingly self-satisfied chortles, as though, having his vented his disillusionment with women in general, he could now afford to take a warped kind of pleasure in her company. “Well, it’s too late to back out now, sweetheart. The water’s boiling and the crabs need to be thrown in the pot.”

“I’d offer to help,” she said sourly, “but I’m afraid I might give in to the urge to shove you in, as well.”

He laughed outright at that, and rolled the wheelchair dangerously close to the fire. “Watch it, Janie! Your halo’s slipping—though I have to admit, I like you better this way. Keep it up and you just might get asked back again. In fact, if things were different, I might have tried to put the moves on you.”

His arrogance, she decided balefully, was exceeded only by her foolishness. She had no business feeling all warm and fuzzy inside at his backhanded compliment, and no business at all wondering what it would take to change his views on love and marriage. He was a confirmed bachelor, and just as well because he’d make a lousy husband. Not that she was interested in finding one. She was perfectly content to be remain single, despite what her friends thought.

Two years is long enough to put the grieving behind you and get on with your life, Jane, they’d scolded kindly, and she’d have agreed with them if it weren’t for the fact that, to them, “getting on” with her life meant finding a new man. They hadn’t understood that she needed time for herself.

“In case you didn’t realize, I just paid you a compliment,” Liam said, flinging the last of the crabs into the pot. “So why the grim expression?”

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