Kitabı oku: «A Little Corner Of Paradise»

CHAPTER ONE

MADELEINE was just setting off with Peg Leg for their early walk over the dunes on Thursday morning when Andy Latham’s patrol car swept up her driveway and stopped outside her front door.

‘Glad I caught you, love,’ he said, climbing out. But despite the endearment she knew at once that he’d come on official business because the next thing he did was plant his peaked police officer’s cap firmly on his blond head. Andy always played strictly by the rules, which was one of the reasons Madeleine felt so comfortable around him.

She smiled warmly. ‘You don’t look too worried, so it can’t be serious, Andy. Did I violate a parking by-law or something?’

‘Funny you should ask that,’ he replied, his own smile not quite as brilliant in return, ‘because where someone is parked is what brought me out here—though the someone in question doesn’t happen to be you.’ He bent down to pat Peg Leg, who was hopping around on her three good paws begging for affection as usual, and by the time he looked up again his expression had turned sober. ‘You’ve got uninvited company. Someone’s set up camp down on the old Tyler property. I could see fresh tire-tracks on the driveway when I passed by on my way here. Apparently he showed up in town late yesterday, and stopped by Wickman’s Garage to get directions. A man in a four-wheel drive Jeep, towing a big, flashy RV, according to Brent, and definitely no one from around these parts.’

‘Should I be worried?’ Madeleine asked lightly, but Andy continued to look grave. Since he took his work very seriously, however, that in itself wasn’t too surprising.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘At the very least you should be aware, and take suitable precautions to protect yourself.’

Protect herself? From a camper? ‘Don’t be absurd, Andy. It’s a free country and there aren’t any signs posted on the Tyler land warning against trespassing. He’s probably just some harmless old man looking for a spot to do a little quiet fishing.’

‘He’s not old, and I’m not so sure he’s harmless. He showed too much interest in the area for my peace of mind—found it so fascinating, in fact, that he ended up buying Brent a pint down at the Edgewater Arms after the garage closed for the night.’

Madeleine laughed again, genuinely amused. Brent Wickman was famous for his willingness to gossip with anyone who’d stand still long enough for him to open his mouth. To find a listener willing to treat him to a beer while he indulged in his favorite pastime must have struck him as an abundance of riches far surpassing the usual. ‘That might make the visitor a beggar for punishment, Andy, but it hardly makes him an ax-murderer.’

‘Probably not, but times have changed since your great-granddaddy settled here in the 1900s. This isn’t the safe little backwater it once was, Madeleine, and you’re not a landowner’s wife, living within hailing distance of half a dozen farmhands should you need help. You’re out here alone.’

‘No, I’m not,’ she objected. ‘I’ve got a three-legged Golden Lab who’d give her life to protect me.’

As though to prove the point, Peg Leg continued to circle Madeleine nudging her knee every once in a while and wriggling with ecstasy when Madeleine reached down to pat her.

‘You’re a woman living alone, in virtual isolation from the rest of the community, and you think it’s cute to go out and not lock your doors,’ Andy replied. The decidedly official edge in his voice suggesting that, for once, he was close to losing patience with her. ‘And that, Madeleine, is why I decided to come out in person to warn you, instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing right now, which is reading over last night’s reports on the misdemeanors of Edgewater’s juvenile offenders.’

‘You could have called instead, and saved yourself the bother,’ Madeleine pointed out reasonably. ‘One convenience Spindrift Island does enjoy that wasn’t an option in my great-granddaddy’s day is telephone communication with the rest of the world.’

‘I didn’t phone because I knew that if I did you’d pretend to listen, agree in all the right places, then hang up and promptly ignore everything I’d said.’ Andy sounded justifiably aggrieved. ‘Instead, I drove all the way out here and, before I drive all the way back again, I intend to find your mysterious neighbor and establish his motives for arriving unannounced on a little-known patch of beach separated from the mainland by a five-mile stretch of causeway. I intend to have his license plates checked out and, if I have any reason at all to suspect he’s not on the level, I’ll haul him in for questioning.’

‘You’re making this sound like the prologue to a murder mystery,’ Madeleine grumbled.

Andy sighed and caught her hand. ‘No, I’m not. I’m trying to make you admit to the wisdom of caution.’

Perhaps he was, but all he’d really done was whet her curiosity. Quite eager to meet the object of such manifest suspicion, she assumed her most docile expression and smiled sweetly. “Then let’s go and check him out together.’

Placated by her apparent surrender, Andy led the way. ‘He’s probably camped down near the lodge,’ he decided. ‘It’s the most sheltered spot at that end of the island and about the only choice he’s got, since there’s no other road that’s passable except for yours.’

Delighted to be taking a different route from the usual, Peg Leg stumped along behind, her rocking gait perfectly adjusted to her having one leg less than Nature had intended.

It was the last week of September. Already the vine maples had turned scarlet, and the chill of autumn lent a snap to the air. The sand on the dunes was soft as flour, quickly covering the flawless polish of Andy’s boots with a powdery bloom, but where the tide had receded the beach was firm and smooth.

No alien footprints, Madeleine noticed as she followed Andy around Tyler Point, a jagged spit which marked the boundary between her property and the resort, and which made for treacherous passage at high-tide. Whoever he was, the visitor clearly had no interest in intruding on her privacy, and would probably resent their sneaking up and disturbing his.

As it happened, however, he was the one to take them by surprise. Half-hidden, by the shade of the arched stone gateway that topped the steps leading from the beach to the lodge, he was waiting for them, and had obviously been tracking their arrival from the minute they’d rounded the point, but neither she nor Andy was aware of him until Peg Leg picked up his scent.

At about the same time he stepped forward into full sunlight, and the first thought that struck Madeleine was that Brent Wickman had been right on at least one score: the visitor was not old. Probably somewhere between thirty-five and forty, she surmised hazily, feeling almost struck senseless by a bolt from the blue of his eyes.

His gaze homed in on her and wouldn’t let go, and the insane thought occurred to her, Make a clean break now, before it’s too late. Or was it the other way around? Was she the one anxious not to sever the connection? Because, ridiculous though it undoubtedly was, no matter how hard she tried, her eyes fastened on him with the determination of a compass needle swinging to the magnetic north.

Nor was that the end of it. She might have run a mile uphill from the tight constriction in her chest. And then, when it finally eased, she felt a sort of soft implosion, as if her heart had suddenly clenched in on itself in order to release an abundance of sweet-flowing warmth into her veins.

Shaken by so turbulent a reaction, she clasped her hands tightly, but it wasn’t enough to still the jerking of her nerve-ends. They were live wires, sparking electricity despite her best efforts to subdue them.

Every cliché in the book, and then some! she decided disdainfully, but how else could she begin to describe the sheer physical impact of the man standing in front of her?

Although he stood a full six feet tall, Andy appeared almost short beside him. Nor was it just the stranger’s height that was impressive. Power oozed out of every pore to swarm around him, invisible yet almost tangible. Power of muscle and sinew, certainly, but, more potently, power of command, coupled with an almost unholy force of personality.

Here was a man who didn’t understand fear and would never bow before it, but he was not dangerous or violent. Madeleine knew these things at once—partly because he didn’t so much as flinch at the sight of a large, bristling dog charging up to him, and partly because, after a suitable sniffing of his ankles, Peg Leg signified her approval by allowing him to scratch behind her ears.

Andy wasn’t so easily won over. ‘Nice morning,’ he said, civilly enough, but the hand resting on the holster at his hip was anything but friendly.

Still not the least bit intimidated, the stranger merely nodded. ‘Very,’ he agreed, his gaze flicking briefly, dismissively, over Andy before returning to Madeleine with curious intensity.

Still helpless to look away, Madeleine gazed back, her heart stalling and racing erratically.

Beside her, Andy let out an irritable ‘Ahem!’ and planted one boot on the top step. ‘Great day for fishing,’ he observed. ‘Anything biting?’

The stranger shrugged. ‘Search me.’

Andy sounded as if he’d like nothing better. ‘You’re not here to fish, then?’

Sparkling with amusement, the blue eyes swivelled from Madeleine to encompass Andy’s stony features. ‘No. Are you?’ the stranger taunted.

A faint flush ran along Andy’s cheekbones. ‘Perhaps. I’m Officer Latham, Edgewater Police Department.’

‘Congratulations,’ the man replied insolently, his amusement speeding to the corners of a mouth that looked as if it was having a hard time not openly laughing.

Andy turned quite red at that. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Probably because I didn’t throw it out. Since you appear to be so interested, however, it’s Hamilton. Nick Hamilton.’

‘If you’re not here to fish, why are you here?’

Nick Hamilton’s raised eyebrows suggested it was none of Andy’s business, but he chose not to voice the opinion. Instead, tapped at the camera slung around his neck. ‘Photography. I’m a bird-watcher.’

‘You’re not local.’

It was as much an accusation as a statement, a fact which prompted Nick Hamilton to restore his attention to Madeleine. Once again, that amused insolence baited a man who was truly one of Edgewater’s finest. ‘No,’ Nick Hamilton agreed, bathing Madeleine in a conspiratorial smile. ‘Is that against the law, Officer?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Andy snapped, stepping protectively closer to Madeleine.

Nick Hamilton didn’t miss the move. His gaze narrowed. ‘Ah, I see,’ he murmured ambiguously. ‘I’m trespassing on someone else’s property and in danger of being arrested if I don’t move on?’

‘No.’ Andy seethed in frustration.

‘In that case…’ Smiling broadly, Nick Hamilton shrugged his formidable shoulders and strolled away across the fractured paving-stones of the lower terrace. Raising his camera, he focused the lens on a flock of seagulls circling and squawking a few yards out to sea.

But Madeleine continued to stare at him, fascinated. He had the voice of a late-night disc jockey—smoky, sexy, alluring. And devastating bedroom eyes—also smoky, sexy and alluring. A thatch of dark, unruly hair. A mouth that had her swallowing to ease the persistent dryness in her own throat. A smile so potent that she almost melted in its warmth.

Andy would probably arrest her if he knew what she was thinking!

‘He seems harmless enough,’ she muttered in a cracked voice. ‘I think you can leave me with an easy mind, Andy.’

‘I don’t.’ Andy glared at the stranger with cold suspicion. ‘I’d bet my last dollar that that guy’s no more a bird-watcher than I am.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Gut instinct, Madeleine. And I’ve been on the force long enough to trust my instincts—plus the fact that no bona fide bird-watcher would waste time or film on common seagulls when there are colonies of bald eagles and blue herons not half a mile away.’ He sighed and touched her elbow. ‘I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay away from the beach until I’ve had a chance to check him out?’

‘You suppose right,’ Madeleine said, at last recovering something of her poise, ‘but, if it’ll make you feel better, I promise I’ll call you at the station when I get home.’

‘Make sure you do. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. And don’t forget we have a date tomorrow night.’

Madeleine sighed, mildly irritated that, like too many other people around town, Andy insisted on acting as if she needed a keeper—as if, because she’d been fooled once by a man, her perceptions were permanently impaired. Would she never be allowed to forget one bad judgement call?

‘Quite the knight in navy armor,’ a voice at her shoulder remarked drily, as Andy strode back the way he’d come. ‘Does he have a white horse waiting to transport him back to duty?’

Madeleine realized that, far from concentrating on his bird photography, Nick Hamilton had witnessed the entire exchange between her and Andy, although she couldn’t be sure he’d been able to hear what had been said over the rush of the surf. ‘About two hundred horses, actually, contained under the hood of a car painted dark blue to match his uniform,’ she replied, loyalty to Andy compelling her to hand back to the stranger a taste of his own sardonic medicine. ‘He’s a very capable police officer, and you were unkind to tease him like that.’

‘I suppose I was.’ But the admission didn’t wring forth any indication of remorse. Indeed, the little smile tilting the corners of Nick Hamilton’s mouth suggested that he was quite pleased with himself. He bent down to fondle Peg Leg’s soft ears, then straightened up and subjected Madeleine to another thorough examination. ‘You live around here?’ he asked, squinting against the sun.

‘About a quarter of a mile down the beach.’ She pointed. ‘You can just see the chimneys sticking up above the dunes.’

‘By yourself?’

She hesitated, torn between truth and evasion. ‘Not quite.’

He saw through that little subterfuge in a flash. ‘Just you and your dog, you mean?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, and tried deflecting his curiosity by firing a question of her own. ‘What about you? I think we’ve already established that you’re not local, so where are you from?’

His glance slid away, over the sea to the horizon, where a cluster of small islands floated in the morning mist. ‘Down south,’ he said vaguely, and from that she assumed that he meant that he was American, not Canadian.

‘How did you find this spot? It’s not on any of the maps.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like your blue-uniformed friend,’ he chided her softly. ‘Will it help ease your mind to know that I don’t have a criminal record? That I’m gainfully employed and pay the balance on my credit cards every month?’

She flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that we don’t see too many tourists out here as a rule, and I wondered what attracted you to the area.’ She shrugged and looked around—at the weeds growing up between the paving-stones, the unpruned shrubs, the rose garden half buried in sand where the beach had crept up to reclaim its own. ‘The resort’s hardly a visitor’s mecca any more.’

‘Someone I know mentioned it in passing as a place worth seeing and, now that I’m here, I’m so fascinated by what I’ve stumbled across that I’ve got no desire to move on. A man’s heart and soul went into the construction of this place.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the lodge. ‘But dreams are all that are holding it together today. It deserves a more dignified fate than the slow and painful death it’s presently undergoing.’

Madeleine heartily agreed. ‘It was a magnificent private resort at one time, a sort of scaled-down Hearst Castle,’ she told him. “The man who built it used to fill it with guests from all over the world.’

‘And now it’s abandoned.’ He shrugged, all cagey insouciance. ‘Does anyone else live out here—besides you?’

Just for a second, Madeleine wondered if she was being naïve to believe he was harmless, and debated telling him that a skeleton staff still worked at the resort. But, as he’d so accurately pointed out, the building was practically sagging at the seams. The lie would have been pointless as well as a violation of her principles.

Furthermore, Peg Leg—the dog who’d perfected the art of conveying utter contempt for people she disliked by removing herself as far as possible from their presence—had settled down at this man’s feet, wearing that grinning canine expression of hers that signified total trust and relaxation.

In view of such overwhelming evidence in his favor, and the fact that Nick Hamilton was smiling at her again and turning all her moral fiber to mush, Madeleine shelved her uneasiness. ‘No. Just me and my dog.’

‘Don’t you find it lonely?’

‘Not at all. The peace and quiet are what make it so special.’

‘Good. I could use a little peace and quiet for a change.’

Madeleine took that as her cue to escape the scene gracefully, before she made a complete fool of herself. ‘Well, you’ll find plenty of that. Apart from beach-combing and bird-watching, there’s not much else to keep you entertained out here.’

He looked her over again. And again that vibrant jolt leapt the distance separating them. ‘Oh, I don’t know that I agree with that,’ he said gently. ‘I can think of a couple of other very pleasant ways to pass the time.’

His approach was more polished, but not since Martin had any man so overtly plied her with sexual innuendo. Only by drumming up a reminder of the disaster that had ensued from succumbing to male flattery that first time was Madeleine able to resist it now. ‘I’m sure you can,’ she replied coolly, and turned away, snapping her fingers for Peg Leg to follow.

To her dismay, Nick Hamilton’s hand closed over her shoulder, detaining her, and another stab, of alarm this time, underscored her discomfiture. Beyond the fact that he was incredibly good-looking—the worst kind of recommendation in a man!—she knew nothing about this person holding her with such subtle strength. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she said, unable to suppress the shiver that skated over her.

He let go of her at once. ‘I’ve made you uncomfortable,’ he mourned, his voice charmingly, ingenuously, contrite. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention at all.’

She really did feel like a fool then, especially since Peg Leg seemed not the least disturbed by the fact that he’d dared touch her mistress. Madeleine managed a faint smile. ‘That’s all right’

‘No, it’s not,’ he said, beguiling her all over again with his sexy, sandpapery voice. ‘I’ve frightened you, when all I meant to do was let you know what a very delightful woman I think you are.’

She blushed like a thirteen-year-old with a bad case of hero-worship, and went a little weak at the knees. ‘Thank you. I…um, I have to get back now, but if there’s anything you need during your stay—use of the phone, perhaps, or fresh water—you know where I live.’

‘Yes,’ he said, his gaze roaming warmly over her face. ‘I know where you live.’

Watching her leave, Nick pursed his lips in a silent whistle and shook his head in mystified disgust. When the gregarious garage attendant had let slip who lived next door an instant picture had sprung to mind of the sort of woman Nick expected to find. Long, slender legs and sweetly flaring hips had no more place in that picture than eyes the soft gray-green of wild sage, or the dense fluting of lashes half a shade darker than the hair tumbling wildly around a face that belonged in a Renoir painting. Nick had itched to run his fingers through that hair. Any man would.

And the blush! Women today didn’t blush when a man tossed a compliment their way, for Pete’s sake; they smacked him in the mouth. And where was the sober tweed skirt and twin-set, the graduated pearls and prim, horn-rimmed glasses he’d justifiably envisioned? By what right did the local Heritage Society come by a president who was so stunningly desirable?

This was going to throw a monkey wrench in the works and no mistake! She belonged in another era. Hell, another century! How was he supposed to contend with an opponent soft-hearted enough to own a three-legged dog and who, when he had the temerity to touch her, prefaced her request for him not to do so with a softly uttered ‘please’? She didn’t play fair.

On the other hand, neither did he—which was the chief reason he’d earned the reputation among his colleagues for ferreting out world news before it happened.

Frowning, he swung back along the path to where he’d parked the RV next to the lodge, a plan of attack already taking shape in his mind. Wooing the lady next door could conceivably backfire. But, as the old saying went, a man could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and, as long as he never forgot that the sweet-talk was merely the means to an end—in this case winning the right to do as he saw fit with the Spindrift property-he could circumvent any complications that might arise.

Looked at from that perspective, the fact that his only neighbor should turn out to be young and gorgeous was a distinct advantage, and simply made his task a lot more agreeable than it would have been had she turned out to be old and ugly.

Phase One of Operation Tyler began to take rather tantalizing shape in his mind. Always provided, of course, that good old home-town Andy Latham hadn’t already staked a firm claim on her affections. Because there was a limit to how down and dirty even Nick Hamilton was prepared to act. He drew the line at poaching on another man’s territory.

Madeleine hadn’t expected to see him again but, just after ten on Saturday morning, Nick showed up on her back doorstep. ‘Hope I’m not calling at a bad time,’ he said, ‘but I cut myself trying to open a can of coffee.’ He held up a thumb wrapped in a bloodstained handkerchief. ‘I think I need a Band-Aid.’

‘I think you do, too.’ She opened the door wider and ushered him into the kitchen. ‘Have a seat and I’ll see what I can find. Are you sure you don’t need stitches?’

‘No.’ He slouched in a chair at the table and with his good hand petted Peg Leg, who greeted him like a long-lost friend. ‘It just needs something to bind it closed for a day or two.’

Madeleine found the first aid kit and sorted through it for the package of waterproof dressings and the iodine she always kept handy. “This should do the trick. Let me have a look.’

She reached for his thumb but he drew it back, nursing it gingerly, and regarded the bottle of iodine with fearful suspicion. ‘That’s OK. I can take care of it myself. If I could just rinse it off…?’

Madeleine contained a smile. Strange dogs and un-friendly police officers might not faze him, but threaten him with minor surgery and he was ready to keel over. The god had clay feet, after all. Thank the lord! ‘There’s a powder-room just down the hall. You’ll find clean towels in the cabinet under the sink.’

‘Thanks.’

While he was gone she started a fresh pot of coffee and popped an apricot strudel in the oven. By the time he reappeared, his thumb securely taped, she had set out two mugs and a couple of paper napkins. ‘I thought you might need something to revive you.’

He smiled wanly. ‘Are all men cowards at the sight of blood, or is it just me?’

‘You’re braver than most. You dressed the injury yourself.’ She held the coffee-pot poised over his mug. ‘Cream and sugar?’

‘Just sugar. Three lumps.’ He laughed, a light, rusty snort of amusement. ‘I need a lot of sweetening.’

From what she’d witnessed he seemed plenty sweet enough, but she realized it was an opinion based on very meager evidence. For all she knew, he could possess a foul temper and a wicked tongue, and be a wife-beater to boot—a reflection which raised the rather interesting question of his marital status. Offering him first aid, however, scarcely entitled her to pry into his personal life.

He suffered from no such reticence concerning hers. ‘How was your date?’

‘Date?’ She paused in the act of slicing the strudel.

‘With the knight in navy.’ He grinned unashamedly. ‘I eavesdropped the other day. Are the two of you, as they say in trendy circles, an item?’

‘I…er, no.’

He didn’t miss her hesitation. ‘But he’d like you to be?’

‘When are you going to marry me, Madeleine?’ Andy had asked lightly just before he’d dropped her off after dinner the night before. It wasn’t the first time he’d proposed, nor the first time she’d turned him down with the joking suggestion that he was married already, to his work.

‘Andy’s a good friend,’ she told Nick. ‘We’ve know each other since we were children.’

‘I take it from that that you were born here? Have you always lived in this house?’

She looked around the big country kitchen, scene of so many happy times. In winter, when she’d come home from school, there’d always been a fire glowing in the tiled woodstove in the corner.

Among her earliest memories was one December when she’d come down with bronchitis. Her mother had wrapped her in a quilt in the big rocking-chair that still sat next to the hearth, and she’d fallen asleep to the smell of hot mincemeat, the sound of carols on the radio, and the sight of flames flickering through the heavy glass window on the stove door. The way she remembered it, it had been Christmas when she woke up, and she had been all better again.