couldn’t
quite meet his eyes. She didn’t want to watch his hopes dim, and
the words were hard enough to say without him looking inside her
and finding the truth of her loneliness.
“If I could leave the island and have a life
to live, I would,” she said. “But I can’t, ever, and for now,
neither can you.”
Four
Two days later Sugar wasn’t sure she was
going to survive having Jackson Daniels dropped on her doorstep. He
was the ultimate invasion of privacy, an immovable wall and an
unstoppable force all rolled into one.
Sweating and swearing under the midday sun,
she laid another bead of caulk down the last glass window on the
place. She lived in an ever-changing, never-ending tableau of the
handyman’s dream. On Cocorico, if it was metal, it rusted; if it
was wood, it warped; if it was paint, it peeled; and if it was a
roof, it leaked.
The caulk stopped running, and she set her
jaw, squeezing harder on the trigger of the caulking gun. The
upkeep of the cottage and the bungalow was too much for one person,
especially if that person was more conversant with
Bactris gasipaes palmae
than a hammer and saw. Adding the
baby-sitting of other people’s long-lost, half-wild brothers didn’t
make her job any easier.
After
Jackson’s first night on the island, Jen had found a cache of
supplies in a hollow of limestone above the high-tide mark. Sugar
had put everything back in the pantry and had talked again with her
“guest” abut Shark Alley and the folly of leaving. The next day Jen
had discovered a partially completed raft hidden in the shrubs and
undergrowth at the base of the cliffs. The two of them had spent
most of the morning dismantling the rough craft. She hated to think
of what Jackson might come up with next.
She
finished the seam with the last dollop of caulk and lifted her head
to survey her work. It looked like hell. Fortunately, a certain
degree of shabbiness could be interpreted as tropical ambience.
People paid thousands of dollars for tropical ambience. She
probably ought to quit fooling with Cocorico’s before she wore
herself out. She reached for the glass of lemonade she’d put in the
window’s flower box, silently admitting that Henry wasn’t the only
person who’d gotten the gumption sucked out of him by the Caribbean
sun.
Proving her point again, Jackson Daniels chose that moment to
step onto the bungalow’s verandah. She took one look at him walking
over to gaze at the ocean, leaning with his hands on the porch
rail, and her heart sank.
“Damn it all,” she muttered under her
breath, setting her lemonade back in the geraniums. He’d found the
box of clothes she’d put in his room, a box he should have had the
sense to go through before giving him carte blanche.
On the front of the T-shirt he’d chosen to
wear, the words
I get my Sugar Caine in the
British Windwards
were silk-screened in letters two inches
high. She couldn’t read it at that distance, but she didn’t need to
be able to read it. The white shirt was distinctive, with both
sleeves ripped out, the bottom cut off, and the letters painted in
bright aqua over a map of the islands. The darn thing was supposed
to have ended up in the ragbag years ago, when her father had run
off the boy who’d had the gall to make it.
“Ah, hell.” She wasn’t cut out for
subterfuge. Shulan should have known better than to bring him to
her. All her hemming and hawing about his location had been a waste
of breath, because he was standing there with the information
plastered across his chest.
And he knew it. He had to know it.
She lifted her hand to shade her eyes,
watching him from across the courtyard. The striped shadows of the
verandah’s thatched roof veiled his face and hid his expression,
but she thought she detected an easiness in his stance that hadn’t
been there before. She’d left him in a fit of temper—again—when
she’d gotten up a few hours before dawn to check on, and if
necessary curtail, his nighttime
quite meet his eyes. She didn’t want to watch his hopes dim, and
the words were hard enough to say without him looking inside her
and finding the truth of her loneliness.
“If I could leave the island and have a life
to live, I would,” she said. “But I can’t, ever, and for now,
neither can you.”
Four
Two days later Sugar wasn’t sure she was
going to survive having Jackson Daniels dropped on her doorstep. He
was the ultimate invasion of privacy, an immovable wall and an
unstoppable force all rolled into one.
Sweating and swearing under the midday sun,
she laid another bead of caulk down the last glass window on the
place. She lived in an ever-changing, never-ending tableau of the
handyman’s dream. On Cocorico, if it was metal, it rusted; if it
was wood, it warped; if it was paint, it peeled; and if it was a
roof, it leaked.
The caulk stopped running, and she set her
jaw, squeezing harder on the trigger of the caulking gun. The
upkeep of the cottage and the bungalow was too much for one person,
especially if that person was more conversant with
Bactris gasipaes palmae
than a hammer and saw. Adding the
baby-sitting of other people’s long-lost, half-wild brothers didn’t
make her job any easier.
After
Jackson’s first night on the island, Jen had found a cache of
supplies in a hollow of limestone above the high-tide mark. Sugar
had put everything back in the pantry and had talked again with her
“guest” abut Shark Alley and the folly of leaving. The next day Jen
had discovered a partially completed raft hidden in the shrubs and
undergrowth at the base of the cliffs. The two of them had spent
most of the morning dismantling the rough craft. She hated to think
of what Jackson might come up with next.
She
finished the seam with the last dollop of caulk and lifted her head
to survey her work. It looked like hell. Fortunately, a certain
degree of shabbiness could be interpreted as tropical ambience.
People paid thousands of dollars for tropical ambience. She
probably ought to quit fooling with Cocorico’s before she wore
herself out. She reached for the glass of lemonade she’d put in the
window’s flower box, silently admitting that Henry wasn’t the only
person who’d gotten the gumption sucked out of him by the Caribbean
sun.
Proving her point again, Jackson Daniels chose that moment to
step onto the bungalow’s verandah. She took one look at him walking
over to gaze at the ocean, leaning with his hands on the porch
rail, and her heart sank.
“Damn it all,” she muttered under her
breath, setting her lemonade back in the geraniums. He’d found the
box of clothes she’d put in his room, a box he should have had the
sense to go through before giving him carte blanche.
On the front of the T-shirt he’d chosen to
wear, the words
I get my Sugar Caine in the
British Windwards
were silk-screened in letters two inches
high. She couldn’t read it at that distance, but she didn’t need to
be able to read it. The white shirt was distinctive, with both
sleeves ripped out, the bottom cut off, and the letters painted in
bright aqua over a map of the islands. The darn thing was supposed
to have ended up in the ragbag years ago, when her father had run
off the boy who’d had the gall to make it.
“Ah, hell.” She wasn’t cut out for
subterfuge. Shulan should have known better than to bring him to
her. All her hemming and hawing about his location had been a waste
of breath, because he was standing there with the information
plastered across his chest.
And he knew it. He had to know it.
She lifted her hand to shade her eyes,
watching him from across the courtyard. The striped shadows of the
verandah’s thatched roof veiled his face and hid his expression,
but she thought she detected an easiness in his stance that hadn’t
been there before. She’d left him in a fit of temper—again—when
she’d gotten up a few hours before dawn to check on, and if
necessary curtail, his nighttime
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