Under the Millionaire's Mistletoe(19)

At the water's edge, they negotiated age-old granite boulders. As she  clambered between two rocks, he offered his hand. Her glance flicked to  his face, she took his hand-hers cool and fragile in his-and then eased  it free as soon as the need passed, sliding it into her jacket pocket.  He could almost want it back. He shoved his own hands into his pockets.  "You were telling me about Jason. That at first he was suspicious … "  Jason was an unscrupulous slimeball with a talent for ferreting out  people's weaknesses. But he hid that side of his nature well and knew  how to ingratiate himself with people.

"Then something changed. Once he accepted our … marriage," she glanced  away as she said the word, " … he got a whole lot nicer, started offering  to help me with things. But he had a lot of questions about where you  were, why you weren't home with me. I'd told him, like you suggested,  that you'd stayed on to straighten out things with the charity on the  island and that you'd be home in a couple of months."

The track along the shore narrowed, forcing them to walk close,  down-padded shoulders occasionally brushing. "Did you accept his help?"  he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"A simple question."

"But there was something weird in the way you asked it, like you were accusing me of something."

"I wasn't accusing you of anything. Jason's offers of help have been known to take many forms."

"I don't really understand why you hate him so much. He can be a bit creepy, but he's had a tough life."

Not like you. The implication was clear. That was how Jason had got to  Luke, too, playing the sympathy card, explaining how hard done by he'd  been because of Luke's dead father, their father, a man who'd never  acknowledged him, playing on Luke's feelings of guilt. So he'd given him  a house, a job, money. And then Jason had betrayed him by blackmailing  his mother. A fact he hadn't discovered till he was in Indonesia going  through some of her possessions. He'd threatened to very publicly expose  her dead husband's indiscretions, which according to Jason, were many  and damning. In doing so, he'd not only stain the memory and reputation  of their father, but more importantly, would harm the image of the  charity he'd founded. A charity that meant the world to Luke's mother.

Luke had told Meg none of the details. Maybe he should have because it  sounded as though Jason had been playing on Meg's sympathies, too. All  Luke had shared with her, when his death was looking like a distinct  possibility, was that he didn't want to die knowing Jason, as his  closest living relative, might benefit in any way. "So how much help did  you accept from him, and what did you mean by creepy?" The very thought  of Jason anywhere near Meg was creepy. The man had the moral code of a  hyena.                       
       
           



       

She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. "He has an … unusual way  about him. But he tried to be helpful. He gave me names of people and  professionals for if I needed any work done, told me which restaurants  were good. Things like that. But it was Mark who suggested the private  investigator I used to try to track you down."

"You looked?"

"Of course I looked. But the investigator didn't turn up anything. So I went back there as soon as I got my visa renewed."

"To the island?"

"Yes." Sorrow clouded her eyes. "Where did you go? Where did everyone go?"

He hated the thought of her going back there. That it was for him made it even worse.

She'd left because the situation on the island had deteriorated rapidly  into one of chaos and violence. She'd actually argued that she should  stay with him, but the local staff had convinced her that they could  care for him until the plane arrived to airlift him and a wounded  islander to the nearest hospital for treatment.

"I don't know what happened to it, but the plane never arrived. We gave  it a day, but after fresh fighting broke out, we fled the village and  then the island."

She nodded. "No one I spoke to had heard of you or any of the villagers  we knew. At least they said they didn't. There was nothing left of the  village itself. Or the school."

He heard the bleakness in her voice. It had made her sad, and it had  made him angry. But there was nothing either of them could do about it  now. The village had been caught in the middle of an escalating dispute  linked to a decades-old conflict. "I know some of them got away. Were  able to start afresh." That small truth was the best he could offer her.

She walked on, visibly subdued. Despite his earlier resolve to keep his  distance, Luke slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her  closer to him. The future would separate them, but they shared a past  that no one else would understand. And he would offer her what comfort  he could-the comfort of a friend-inadequate as it might be.

He still had questions, but now no longer seemed the time to ask them.  They walked the rest of the loop in silence. His arm still about her  shoulders. Her leaning subtly into him. He should let her go, but  something about walking like this, with her, was deeply peaceful. He  remembered that about her, a feeling of stillness and calm when she'd  been the one nursing him.

The house, festooned with Christmassy boughs of greenery, came into  view. In the eight years he'd lived here he'd never once decorated for  Christmas.

He'd thought about putting up a tree one year, but if he put a tree up,  then he'd have to buy ornaments. And, well, it just never happened.  There was no point for a man living on his own. But this morning he'd  noticed festive touches everywhere. Red bows on the uprights of the  stairs, Christmas towels in the guest bathroom, a Christmas tree  decorated in only white bows and white lights, simple but effective.  "Where will you go?"

She stiffened. "That's not your problem or your concern. But," she drew  in a deep breath that lifted her shoulders, "can I stay till Monday?  Till my car's ready. It's at the mechanic's. That's why the committee  meeting was here last night."

He stopped, forcing her to stop with him and looked at her. "Of course  you can stay." He should be grateful. He'd been thinking two or three  weeks, maybe a month, would be reasonable. But the thought of her  leaving Monday was like having the rug pulled out from under his feet.  Now that she wanted to go, he wanted to keep her near. Surely he ought  to at least know his wife a little, if only so that he knew how she was  likely to play it during their divorce.

Plus it would look strange to both his friends and hers if his wife left  so soon. Ultimately, of course, they'd have to deal with it. But there  was no hurry. "Stay as long as you need."

"Thank you," she said softly. "But Monday will be good." She gently  turned down his offer. He'd wanted her gone, so he had no call to feel  rebuffed. It had been like that back on the island. The conflicting  feelings she evoked. The desire to have her near, the resenting of that  desire and then the desire to have her back when she left. Turns out it  wasn't contrariness caused by being bedridden.                       
       
           



       

She smiled at some hidden thought. She had the sweetest-looking lips.  Eminently kissable. For all the admonishments he'd delivered to himself,  he couldn't help wondering what she'd do if he kissed her again. No  mistletoe, no audience.

She'd kissed him once. Back at the camp. The minister had left his  bedside after marrying them. Darkness had fallen and Meg sat quietly by  his side. She used to sometimes sit there and talk to him as he dozed,  telling him stories from her childhood, as outside, unseen night insects  sang.

The evening after their marriage she'd kept his hand in hers and Luke  had lain there, eyes closed, trying to listen to what she said, but  mainly just listening to the sound of her voice, the sound of home.

When he'd asked, after realizing it was something he should have asked  first, she had talked about the boyfriend whose desertion had  precipitated her trip to work with the foundation. About how she  specialized in finding men who needed her for a time, emotionally,  financially or physically, but then dumped her when the need had passed.  Initially, she laughed at her own stories, but then, as she talked  about her dreams of a family of her own, her voice changed, there was a  catch to it, and then she stopped talking altogether. He opened his eyes  to see a tear rolling down her cheek.

She tried for a smile. "Some wedding night, huh."

"Come here."

And she did. She moved from her chair to sit on the side of his bed.