"Exit, stage left," Jo murmured when Lexy strode out again. 'Yes, she said, turning back to Nathan. "Thanks in large part to David Delaney, I'm a photographer. If it hadn't been for Mr. David, I might be as frustrated and pissed off at the world as Lexy. How is your father?"
"He's dead," Nathan said shortly and pushed himself up from the stool. "I've got to get back. Thanks for breakfast, Brian."
He went out fast, letting the screen door slam behind him.
"Dead? BriAn accident," Brian told her. "About three months ago. Both his parents. And he lost his brother about a month later."
"Oh, God." Jo ran a hand over her face. "I put my foot in that. I'll be back in a minute."
she set the mug down and raced out the door to chase Nathan down. "Nathan! Nathan, wait a minute." she caught him on the shell path that wound through the garden toward the trees. "I'm sorry." she put a hand on his arm to stop him. "I'm so sorry I went on that way."
He pulled himself in, fought to think clearly over the pounding in his temples. "It's all right. I'm still a little raw there."
"If I'd known-" she broke off, shrugged her shoulders helplessly. she'd likely have put her foot in it anyway, she decided. she'd always been socially clumsy.
"You didn't." Nathan clamped down on his own nerves and gave the hand still on his arm a light squeeze. she looked so distressed, he thought. And she'd done nothing more than accidentally scrape an open wound. "Don't worry about it."
"I wish I'd managed to keep in touch with him." Her voice went mistful now. "I wish I'd made more of an effort so I could have thanked him for everything he did for me."
"Don't." He bit the word off, swung around to her with his eyes fierce and cold. "Thanking someone for where your life ended up is the same as blaming them for it. We're all responsible for ourselves."
Uneasy, she backed off a step. "True enough, but some people influence what roads we take."
"Funny, then, that we're both back here, isn't it?" He stared beyond her to Sanctuary, where the windows glinted in the sun. "Why are you back here, Jo?"
"It's my home."
He looked back at her, pale cheeks, bruised eyes. "And that's where you come when you feel beat up and lost and unhappy?"
she folded her arms across her chest as if chilled. she, usually the observer, didn't care to be observed quite so clear-sightedly. "It's just where you go."
"It seems we decided to come here at almost the same time. Fate?
I wonder-or luck. " He smiled a little because he was going to go with the latter.
"Coincidence." she preferred it. "Why are you back here)"
"Damned if I know." He exhaled between his teeth, then looked at her again. He wanted to soothe that sorrow and worry from her eyes, hear that laugh again. He was suddenly very certain it would ease his soul as much as hers. "But since I am, why don't you walk me back to the cottage?"
"You know the way."
"It'd be a nicer walk with company. With you."
I told you I'm not interested."
"I'm telling you I am." His smile deepened as he reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "It'll be fun seeing who nudges who to the other side."
Men didn't flirt with -her. Ever. Or not that she had ever noticed. The fact that he was doing just that, and she noticed, only irritated her. The inherent Pendleton Fault Line dug between her brows. "I've got work to do."
right. Bed stripping in 201. See you around, Jo Ellen."
Because he turned away first, she had the opportunity to watch him walk into the trees. Deliberately she shook her hair so that it fell over her ears again. Then she rolled her shoulders as if shrugging off an unwelcome touch.
But she was forced to admit she was already more interested than she wanted to be.
atnan took a camera with him. He felt compelled to retrace some of his father's footsteps on Desire-or perhaps to eradicate them. He chose the heavy old medium-range Pentax, one of his father's favorites and surely, be thought, one that David Delancy had brought to the island with him that summer.
He would have brought the bulky Hasselblad view camera as well, and the clever Nikon, along with a collection of lenses and filters and a mountain of film. Nathan had brought them all, and they were neatly stored, as his father had taught him, back at the cottage.
But when his father hiked out to hunt a shot, he would most usually take the Pentax.
Nathan chose the beach, with its foaming waves and diamond sand. He slipped on dark glasses against the fierce brilliance of the sun and climbed onto the marked path between the shifting dunes, with their garden of sea oats and tangle of railroad vines. The wind kicked in from the sea and sent his ha'r flying. He stood at the crest of the path, listening to the beat of the water, the smug squeal of gulls that wheeled and dipped above it.