It wasn't a complete lie. Neither was it the complete truth. "Do you have patients here?" she said suspiciously.
"I come out here sometimes, yes." That at least was the truth, he thought. "Hop in, it'll save you waiting for the bus."
She was chewing on her lower lip; if she had felt joy, it wasn't showing now. "I am tired," she admitted, slowly walking toward his car.
She was standing in the sunlight now; the faint shadows under her eyes filled him with a helpless yearning. "All the more reason to get a lift," Travis said casually as he leaned over and opened the passenger door.
She got in, closed the door and did up her seat belt. His heart thudding against his ribs, Travis said inanely, "Friday afternoons … what would we do without weekends?"
"You said it." She gave him a faint smile. "I thought this job would be a sinecure after some of the overseas stuff I've done. But it's really hard work … although more rewarding than I'd expected."
As he drove out of the grounds, he asked her a few technical questions, pleased for more than one reason when she launched into a discussion of some controversial new treatments. By the park, instead of turning right, he turned left; only five minutes later did she say, puzzled, "This isn't the way downtown. You're not heading for Old Port … you're going toward the Veterans' Bridge."
His mouth dry, Travis said calmly, "That's right. I'm abducting you."
"What?"
"It's summer, you have no plans and neither do I, and there's a wonderful resort on a beach a few miles south of here."
"You're taking me away for the weekend?"
"Yep."
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"I won't go!"
"Relax, Julie. Live a little."
"Don't you tell me what to do. The next traffic light, I'm out of here."
Travis hadn't rehearsed what he'd do if she reacted this way. "You can do that if you want," he said. "Although if you really don't want to go, I'll drive you home-"
"Oh sure," she interrupted, "you think I believe one word you say?"
"If you're dead set against changing the smallest thing about yourself, I'll drive you straight home," he said in a hard voice. "And that's a promise."
"I did change something! Last Sunday afternoon. I never behave like that, leading a man on, just about hauling him into my bed and then behaving like some kind of sex maniac … I never behave like that. Never!"
He glanced over. Her voice had had a telltale quiver, and tears were filming her eyes. "I know you don't," he said.
"You believe me?"
"Of course I do. For Pete's sake, I was the man you were in bed with. You think I didn't learn a whole lot about you while we were making love?"
"You did?"
"Innocent, trusting, generous, wild … you were all those things. And then you showed me the door faster than you can say bed."
She reached into her purse, pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. "That's because you scare the heck out of me."
"You think I'm not scared?" he asked; and with an uncomfortable lurch realized it was true.
She looked full at him. "Come off it, Travis. You, scared?"
"I've never abducted a woman in my life. Never wanted to until you came along. Listen to me for a minute. When I was six, my mother vanished … when I went to bed she was there, and when I woke up in the morning she was gone. I was told she was in New York. But then a few days later, my father told me she'd died. I can't remember a single detail of the funeral, or if any of the relatives came to stay over. When I tried to ask where she was, my father ordered me never to mention her name again. Then he took me to a boarding school outside Boston and left me there. So I lost the island, too, which was a place as near to heaven as I could imagine."
Travis paused. His blue eyes had been very far away; slowly he brought them back to rest on Julie's face. "Something shut down in me after that, and I suppose you could call it love. I don't know what I feel for you, Julie. I only know it's stronger than anything I've ever felt before, and that if I turn my back on it, I'm shortchanging myself and possibly you as well."
He seemed to have run out of words. But he'd just spent two minutes stopped at a red light and she hadn't jumped out of the car.
Julie said blankly, "Well, that was certainly honest."
"Don't ask me why we're pulled to each other the way we are because I don't have the answer," Travis said roughly. "But it's got to mean something. This might sound as conceited as all get-out but I'm going to say it anyway-I think it means something for you, too. Don't run away, Julie. Life's too short for that."
She was gazing down at her clasped hands. "You really were okay with the way I behaved on Sunday?"
"Okay? I loved it … couldn't you tell?"
"I-I guess so."
She didn't sound convinced. He said with all the force of his personality, "You took huge risks, you followed your heart and allowed yourself to be who you really are. That made me feel about ten feet tall-why wouldn't it?"
"Passion," she whispered. "It's such an overused word and I never knew I was capable of it."
"If you spend the weekend with me, neither one of us knows where that'll lead us. But the alternative is to close down. Bury something that's both rare and precious. I don't think we should do that."
She swallowed hard. "Working in Tanzania was a piece of cake compared to this."
"So was Angola," he said wryly.
"I don't have anything to wear except my uniform."
"I bought some stuff for you." He smiled at her. "In the hopes that you were abductable."
"Clothes? For me? How did you know my size?"
"Photographic memory," he said solemnly, and watched her blush. "A couple of dresses, a swimsuit, sandals, underwear and a nightgown."
Her blush deepened. "A nightgown, hmm?"
"There's not much to it."
"I'm frightened, Travis," she muttered.
"I'll do everything in my power to make you happy this weekend," Travis said forcefully. As for what happened after the weekend, he was as ignorant of that as she was. And maybe just as frightened. One day at a time, he told himself and accelerated to the maximum speed.
Half an hour later he'd checked in at the main lodge, and was driving along a narrow dirt road overhung with silver birches toward their chalet. It was the end one, sheltered by thick spruce, with a wide deck facing the beach, where waves danced in the evening sun and rocks gleamed in the wet sand. Julie got out of the car, stretching her legs. "It's a lovely place," she said.
She'd been very quiet for the last part of the journey. He could have asked her about her parents, but something had held him back. Now he said casually, "Why don't we go for dinner, you must be hungry."
The inside of the chalet was luxuriously furnished, the bed king-size, the bathroom fitted with a whirlpool tub. Travis dumped the bag of clothes on the chesterfield that overlooked the ocean. "I hope you like them."
She took out the dresses, her face lighting up with spontaneous pleasure. "They're great-but you must have spent a wad of money."
"We can talk about that later … I'll wait for you on the deck."
He stood by the railing, gazing out to sea, aching to hold her in his arms and reassure himself that she really did want to be here. Don't rush her, Travis, you've got all weekend. And you know perfectly well what'll happen if you touch her.
He went back inside in a few minutes. Julie was just emerging from the bathroom, wearing the sundress he'd picked out because it was as green as her eyes. It also showed rather a lot of bare skin. He said lightly, "Ready to eat?"
She nodded, hurrying for the door. Side by side they walked back to the lodge. The dining room was on an inlet, overlooking the bay and the sunset's orange and saffron glow. They discussed the menu, the wine list, the weather, his job and hers, meanwhile eating fish chowder and game hens with wild rice. The waiter cleared away their plates, passing them dessert menus. Julie read through hers, chattering away about her addiction for dark chocolate. He'd never thought of her as a woman who had to fill the silence with idle talk.
The waiter left. Travis said with no finesse whatsoever, "I don't want chocolate. I want you."