Seducing Nell
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Sandra Field
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12
CHAPTER ONE
“OH,” NELL cried, “just look at the view! Please, Wendell…can you stop for a minute?”
“It’s only the barrens,” her companion said. “Nothin’ much to look at.” But, obligingly, he put his foot on the brake pedal and the ancient truck wheezed to a halt.
Nell opened the door, which squealed a metallic protest, and slid to the ground. Dumbstruck, she gazed around her.
I’ve come home, she thought. This is where I belong.
Although it wasn’t the first time in the past two weeks that she had had that thought, it was the first time it had struck her with such intensity. Newfoundland, island province off the east coast of Canada, had captured her imagination and her heart from the moment she had stepped off the plane in St. John’s and filled her lungs with cool, fog—swept air that smelled of the sea. The spell had woven itself around her tighter and tighter every day that had followed. And now she was totally its captive.
Somehow I’ve got to stay here. I don’t know how. But somehow.
She couldn’t go back to Holland and pick up the placid threads of a life that could have taken place on another planet, so remote did it seem, so alien to the woman she had become in just two short weeks.
Wendell cleared his throat noisily. “You ready to go, missie? I got to get to the coastal boat in Caplin Bay on time to unload this stuff.”
Nell turned around, the sunlight twined in her chestnut hair. Wendell’s age was anything from seventy up, and his clothing in a state of disrepair that more than matched his truck. But his bright blue eyes twinkled in a way that she was sure would have been quite irresistible in a younger man; and for the past three hours he had regaled her with hair—raising tales of ghosts and smugglers and shipwrecks. She said impulsively, “I’m going to stay here for a while—just let me get my gear out of the back.”
“Stay? What for?”
Because it’s so beautiful that I could die happy right now? Because I’ll do anything to delay the moment I have to get on the coastal boat in Caplin Bay and go to Mort Harbour?
She said lamely, “I want to take a few pictures—it’s so pretty.”
“Hell of a place in winter.” Wendell scratched at his whiskered chin. “Don’t feel so good about leavin’ you here, missie. This ain’t St John’s, you know. Not much traffic on this road so as you’ll get another ride.”
“I’m used to hiking. Besides, I’ve got my tent and I always carry food with me. I’ll be fine.” She flashed him a quick smile, hurried around to the back of the truck and wrestled with the lobster twine that kept the backboard in place. Then she hoisted her pack onto her back and retied the knots. Feeling the heat reflecting from the pavement, she walked to Wendell’s window and held out her hand. “Thanks so much, Wendell. I really enjoyed meeting you. Perhaps I’ll see you again when I reach Caplin Bay.”
“I hangs out there quite a bit You take care now, missie.” He shook her hand with surprising strength, winked at her and, in a clash of gears, headed down the road. The truck belched a farewell puff of black smoke. The rattle of the engine diminished in the distance. Nell moved to the gravel shoulder of the road and looked around her.
They had been climbing steadily through scrub forest until Wendell had turned the last corner. Spread all around her were the barrens—rounded outcrops of granite surrounded by low shrubs and licked by the pink foam of bog laurel. Delicate tamaracks huddled in the hollows. The afternoon sun glinted on the scattered ponds, turning them into gold coins tossed with a profligate hand over the landscape. The silence was so intense as to be almost a presence in itself.
Nell took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the clean, sweet air. She couldn’t go back to Holland. She’d smother there. Maybe, just maybe, when she got to Mort Harbour, she’d find a welcome…
A slight movement caught her eye. She turned her head. Where the rocks rose to a peak against the horizon on her left, a caribou had just stepped into the open.
She had been told it was rare to find caribou here in summer; they tended to migrate to higher ground in an effort to escape the flies. Her heart tripping with excitement, she crossed the road and carefully traversed the ditch. Caribou, she also knew, were relatively tame. With luck, she could get a closer look. Even a photograph.
The barrens had looked smooth and inviting from the road. But Nell had been in Newfoundland long enough to know that the smoothness was deceptive and the invitation a mockery; walking anywhere past ten feet from the highway could be extraordinarily difficult. Especially when laden with a heavy backpack. The first hollow she came to, she shucked off her pack and tucked it among some scrub spruce out of sight of the highway. After unzipping her smaller haversack, she loaded it with her camera, a couple of apples and her water bottle, and took off again. Her boots gripped the granite, slithered over clumps of wet grass and plunged into the dark brown peat, which sucked hungrily at her heels. She stopped to apply repellent, and saw with a jolt of pleasure that a yearling had joined the other caribou; Nell’s binoculars brought it so close she could see the tag ends of leaves hanging from its blunt muzzle.
Slowly, Nell lowered the binoculars. She was standing knee—deep in rose pink laurel blossoms. Flecks of mica in the granite sparkled and shone like tiny jewels; a sparrow was piping its small, clear song from a wizened spruce nearby. For a split second, she became a part of her surroundings, engulfed in a wave of happiness so pure it was as though she was bathed in the gold of the sun.
The moment passed, but the memory of it was hers. With a sigh of repletion, she counted a third caribou as it ambled into the open. It was a cow, like the other adult. Nell scrambled over a series of outcrops and jumped from rock to rock across a puddle. All three caribou had stopped to graze. She edged closer, keeping hidden from them as much as she could, until she reached a clump of feathery tamarack near enough to give her an excellent view. Crouching down, she made a seat for herself by a granite boulder and stretched out her legs, focusing the binoculars. Across the barrens drifted the click of caribou hooves; she was convinced she could even hear the animals’ jaws munching on the dry lichens. Their coats were glossy with health, the hair a blend of thick cream and a lustrous dark brown. Like café au lait, she mused, smiling to herself.
Time passed. Nell munched on an apple and took a couple of photos. And then, from the dark ribbon of the road, she heard the distant murmur of an engine. The vehicle that appeared was a cross between a Jeep and a van. To her intense annoyance, it slowed, pulled over and came to a halt. She saw light glint from what could only be binoculars.
She tucked herself lower, thankful that she was hidden from sight Scowling, she watched the driver get out and stretch. A man. She didn’t want to share her solitude with a man. She didn’t want to share it with anyone. Maybe once he’d had another look through his binoculars, he’d be on his way.
Instead, he shut the van door so quietly she didn’t hear the sound and headed across the road toward the caribou. Even from her faraway perch, she could see that he was limping slightly.
Go away, she thought fiercely. Get lost. Go to Caplin Bay, or Drowned Island, or St. Swithin’s. But don’t come here.
A sparrow flitted into a nearby shrub, momentarily distracting her. Rather horrified, she discovered that she was glowering at the man as though he was her mortal enemy. She wasn’t normally so antisocial. But then, nothing had been normal ever since that day, late in May, when she’d decided to clean up the attic of the house in Middelhoven where she’d grown up. In an old trunk pushed against the chimney, she had found a diary belonging to her grandmother, Anna, a shadowy figure whom she only remembered meeting once, long ago, when she was a little girl. She’d taken the diary downstairs and had sat up late that night reading it from beginning to end.
Only two months ago. It felt like a lifetime.
The man, Nell was glad to see, was struggling with the bog and the underbrush just as she herself had. Unfortunately, if he kept going in the direction he had chosen, he would end up tripping over her. In these vast stretches of wilderness, where people were so few and far between, it seemed a supreme irony that an intruder should shatter her peace and happiness. Damn him anyway, she thought vengefully.
He was closer now, near enough that she could hear the crackle of twigs from his passage and the rasp of his boots on the rocks. He was wearing jeans and a dark checked shirt, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His binoculars were slung carelessly over one broad shoulder. With a faint twinge of unease, she noticed his height, the strength latent in those shoulders and the grim lines of his face. No moment of perfect happiness for him. He looked like he was on his way to the funeral of his best friend.
She had to do something. She couldn’t let him fall on top of her. Not with that face. Definitely not the kind of man to find a chance meeting on the barrens amusing. She tensed, bracing her knees to stand up, wondering if she should clear her throat to warn him of her presence before she spoke.
And then he solved the dilemma for her. His foot slipped. He lurched forward, grabbing for the slender trunk of the nearest tamarack, his involuntary cry of pain raising the hairs on the back of her neck. As she instinctively twisted to help him, he began to swear, with quite astonishing virtuosity, in French.
His jaw was tight, and Nell could still see the deeply bitten lines of pain around his mouth. But her sense of humor, which had gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion, managed to ignore these symptoms. She half stood up and demurely, in French, added a couple of very crude expressions that she had learned in her younger days in Paris and that he had omitted.
The man whirled. Before she had time to even croak a protest, she found herself slammed on her back against the granite boulder, his body pinning her so hard that the rock dug into her spine. His hands bit into her shoulders, his face only inches from hers. His eyes were blazing like those of a man demented.
He’s mad, Nell thought blankly. Out of his mind. I’ve come all this way to be murdered by a psychopath.
But Nell hadn’t roamed Europe on her own without learning a thing or two; and she had never been one to lie down tamely to fate’s blows. Fueled by a mixture of sheer terror and adrenaline, she brought her knee up to his groin with lightning speed.
The man’s body wasn’t there. Her knee knifed empty air.
Before she could strike again, he had hauled her roughly to her feet, shaking her as if she were of no more account than a carpet to be beaten. With a truly impressive degree of rage, he snarled, “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, sneaking behind a tree like that?”
She should have said something conciliatory to calm him down. Rule one. Don’t fight back. Shoving against his chest with all her strength, Nell seethed, “Are you a raving maniac? How dare you attack me like that! I wasn’t sneaking—I was watching the caribou.”
“You little idiot! I could have killed you.”
He was still shaking her. She might as well have been yelling at the caribou for all the effect she was having, she thought furiously, and kicked him hard in the shins. “Let go!”
The toe of her boot connected with bone. He swore again—in English this time—his voice as rough as the granite against which he had flung her. But then, mercifully, he stopped shaking her, although his fingers remained clasped around her shoulders. In all honesty, Nell was just as glad, for she wasn’t sure she could have stood upright.
He took a deep breath and said flatly, “Hell and damnation.”
Nell stayed very still, watching as the light of sanity returned to eyes so dark a blue as to be almost black, feeling the shudder rip through his body as though his frame were her own. Her anger vanished, and with it her terror. Briefly, the man closed his eyes, swallowing hard. His shoulders sagged so that she felt the weight of his hands on her shirt. The weight and the warmth, a warmth that was oddly disturbing.
He was no madman. Of that she was sure. Although she couldn’t have said where that certainty came from.
She said with a lightness that very nearly succeeded, “It seemed a pity that you’d left out a couple of quite effective swearwords. French can be so expressive, can’t it? And I really was about to stand up and speak to you when you fell.”
His eyes flew open, all his anger rekindled. “Goddammit, do you have to remind me?”
“Goddammit, do you have to yell at me?”
“You’re yelling, too!”
“Little wonder,” she snorted.
The sun was slanting across her face, shadowing her cheekbones and her straight nose, dusting her skin with gold. He took another of those deep, shuddering breaths; his eyes were roaming her face as if he had never seen a woman before, as if he was striving to commit each one of her features to memory.
Nell stood very still, shaken by the intimacy of his gaze, feeling as if every secret she had ever held was exposed to him. Then he said quietly, “When I was a kid, we used to pick bunches of blue—eyed grass to give to the teacher. Have you ever seen it? The flowers are like little stars that are blue and purple at the same time. Your eyes remind me of them.”
“Oh,” said Nell, feeling her cheeks grow warm and trying very hard to repress the knowledge that he was easily the most attractive man she’d ever come across.
Although that admirably succinct North American word “hunk” would express her opinion far more accurately.
With an exclamation of self—disgust, the man dropped his hands to his sides, and the mood was shattered. “You saw the caribou from the road, too. That’s why you were hidden.”
She had forgotten about the caribou. Glancing toward the bluff, she whispered, “They’ve gone.” Across her face flitted regret and the memory of that moment of shining happiness.
He said heavily, “I scared them when I fell.”
Her nostrils flared. “I expect you scared them when you jumped me. A starving wolf’s got nothing on you.”
“There aren’t any wolves in Newfoundland.”
“A bear, then,” she said pettishly.
“Bears don’t starve in the summertime.”
There was a gleam of humor deep in his dark eyes. “Hunk” also began to seem a very wishy—washy concept. Devastating? Gorgeous? Sexy? Any or all of the above? Nell said, “It might be nice if you could bring yourself to apologize. I don’t usually expect total strangers to wrap me around a chunk of granite and then shake me out like an old rug.”
“Yeah…”
As he hesitated, Nell saw that any approach to humor had fled from his features. It was interesting that “handsome” wasn’t one of the words she had come up with, she mused. His face was too rough—hewn, too individual for mere handsomeness. Too used, she added thoughtfully. Hard used. Ill—used. And for rather a long time, unless she was mistaken.
He said in a staccato voice, “I—hurt my leg a couple of months ago. I’ve done very little hiking since then. It drives me nuts when I fall down like a two—year—old.”
“Real men don’t trip over rocks?”
“Real men can at least stand on their own two feet!”
Lines of frustration had scored his face from cheek to chin. His mouth was clamped shut. He had a beautiful mouth. Nell said hastily, “Keep going—apologies at some point are supposed to include that ordinary little phrase, ‘I’m sorry.’“
“That’s why I was angry,” he snapped. “I’ve just explained it. What more do you want—a diagram?”
“That may indeed have been why you were so angry,” she snapped right back. “But it doesn’t explain why I’m going to have bruises all over my back tomorrow morning.”
“Are you French?”
“I’m from Holland. Don’t change the subject.”
“You speak English extremely well,” he said suspiciously.
“Hooray for me. Are you with the CIA? Is that why you jumped me? Or do you fancy yourself as the next James Bond?”
“No wolves in Newfoundland and no CIA, either. What the hell would they want with this chunk of rock?”
“So you’re a policeman.”
“I am not. You’re the most persistent and inquisitive female I’ve ever met.”
“Only because you’re avoiding the issue,” Nell returned pleasantly. “Out of interest, do you go around attacking everyone you meet? Or do you just pick on women who are smaller than you?” It was difficult to see exactly how tall he was because of the uneven ground, but he definitely topped her five feet eight by several inches.
He ran his fingers through his hair, thick, wavy hair, worn a little too long and as dark as peat. As dark as the caribou fur, Nell realized with an inward shiver and hurriedly continued her survey. His nose was slightly crooked, he could have done with a shave, and there were frown lines in his forehead that shouldn’t have been there. No wonder she hadn’t considered him merely handsome, Nell thought, and waited for his reply.
As if the words were being pulled from him one by one, he said, “For the past few years, I’ve been in some rough places. The kind of places where you act first and ask questions afterward. You startled me. I didn’t even take time to think.” His smile was more of a grimace.
“So I immobilized you instead.”
“You sure did.”
His eyes narrowed. “You even speak like a Canadian. Are you sure you’re Dutch?”
“I first learned English from a Canadian couple who lived in the village where I grew up,” she said shortly. “I’m still waiting.”
“What for?”
“How about this? Petronella Cornelia Vandermeer, I’m extremely sorry that I terrified you witless and I apologize for acquainting you so intimately with a granite boulder. That’d do for a start.”
He held out his hand. “Kyle Robert Marshall.”
His handshake was firm, his palm warm, and she could lose herself in those midnight blue eyes. She said, tugging at her hand, “I’m called Nell.”
As though the contact had freed something in him, Kyle added, “I’m really sorry, Nell. I must have scared you.”
She stopped tugging, letting her palm rest in his. “The word ‘psychopath’ did cross my mind.”
Although his laugh was rueful, it made him look years younger. “You reacted pretty fast yourself.”
“Just as well you moved.”
He grinned. “Just as well, indeed. I’d have been singing soprano for the rest of my life.”
His voice was a rich baritone. Nell pulled her hand free and said with careful restraint, “A mosquito has just landed under your left ear.”
He brushed it away. “I left my repellent in the van.”
“I’ve got some.” Nell bent to her haversack, passed him the little plastic bottle and found herself watching his every move as he smoothed the liquid over his throat and arms. In the course of her work, she’d met a lot of men from countries all over Europe. Sophisticated Frenchmen, sexy Italians, devastating Norwegians, hunky Hungarians. But never one to pull her to him as instinctively as this man pulled her.
As he passed her back the bottle, Kyle said, “Where’s your car? I didn’t see it on the road—one reason why you took me by surprise.”
“I don’t have one. I was hitching a ride.”
He frowned. “On your own?”
She looked around. “No one else here. Besides, didn’t you tell me there aren’t any wolves in Newfoundland?”
“Newfoundland is not peopled entirely by saints.”
“You sound like my father,” Nell flung back, then instantly wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Don’t tell me how to live my life—is that the message?” As she nodded, he added softly, “Trouble is, I’m used to giving orders. And used to being obeyed. So I’ll drive you wherever you’re going, Petronella Cornelia. As a rather more concrete way of apologizing.”
“And what if I say St. John’s?” The capital city was an eight—hour drive from the barrens.
“You were headed south if you got out when you first saw the barrens. The options are therefore limited. Caplin Bay, St Swithin’s, Salmon River, Drowned Island…that’s about it.”
She liked matching wits with him, Nell realized breathlessly. “Where are you going?”
“Caplin Bay.”
She bit her lip. Wendell had been going to Caplin Bay and now Kyle was. Maybe it was time she went there, too. After all, she didn’t have to take the coastal boat for Mort Harbour right away. She could camp in Caplin Bay for a couple of days. Try to plan some kind of strategy.
With a sense of taking a momentous step, she said, “I’m going to Caplin Bay, too.”
“Good,” Kyle said briskly. “Let’s go.”
But as he half turned away from her, putting his weight on his left knee, it buckled under him. His features convulsed; his harsh intake of breath echoed in Nell’s ears. She grabbed for him, bracing herself against the nearest rock, aware for the second time of the lean length of his body. As though he resented her help, he pushed himself upright and shook free of her.
“Say it,” Nell said. “You’ll feel better.”
“You don’t let up, do you?” he said nastily.
“Would you rather I had hysterics? Or fluttered around you doing the helpless—female act?” Nell wrung her hands, batted her lashes—which were thick and dark and one of her better points—and simpered, “Oh, Kyle, where does it hurt?”
He gave a reluctant laugh. “Okay, okay. Unfortunately, I’ve used up my entire stock of French. And my mother’d be horrified if she ever found out I’d sworn at you in English.”
“German can be very expressive. I’ll teach you, if you like. Sounds to me like you could use a few more good cusswords.”
Gingerly, Kyle placed both feet on a patch of smooth granite and straightened to his full height. “For once, we’re in complete agreement.”
“We have all the way to Caplin Bay,” Nell said. He was over six foot, broad shouldered and narrow of hip. Dark hair, dark brows, dark eyes, and a dark past, too, unless she was very much mistaken. If she was smart, she’d head for St. John’s and not Caplin Bay. Then, uncannily, he responded with a similar train of thought.
“You know what? I can’t say I’ve ever met a woman quite like you.”
“My mother always said I was mouthy.”
Something must have shown in her face. He said gently, “Is she no longer living?”
“She died four months ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He had invested the phrase with genuine feeling. She wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not now. Not in front of a stranger. “Let’s go,” she muttered.
“Perhaps you could use a few of those cusswords yourself.” As she glanced up, her eyes liquid with unshed tears, Kyle took an awkward step toward her, brushing her lids with his fingers, then smoothing her hair back from her face. “You have beautiful hair,” he said thickly. “Where it catches the sun, it shines like copper.”
Quite suddenly, the level of emotion was too much for Nell. She tilted her chin and said, “It’s awful hair—dead straight and too fine. That’s why I keep it bundled up.”
He said evenly, “It’s beautiful hair, Nell.”
As he tucked a strand into her braid, his fingers brushing her neck, she couldn’t hide her involuntary shiver of response. Terrified for the second time in their all—toobrief acquaintance, she said meanly, “Guess what? The wolfs just made a reappearance in Newfoundland.”
He flinched, and with bitter regret she knew she had cheapened his gesture beyond repair. He said in a hard voice, “Let’s get the hell out of here. You go first.”
And don’t offer to help…He hadn’t said that, but he hadn’t needed to. The look on his face had said it for him.
Nell adjusted her haversack over her shoulder and clambered out of the hollow where the tamaracks were waving their feather—green branches in the breeze. Not even looking around to see if Kyle was following her, passionately wishing her words unsaid, she headed for the little stream that she’d crossed on the way up.
