Smoke Screen Page 15

  Julianna frowned. "You stay. I don't trust you behind the wheel of a car by yourself. He keeps driving on the wrong side of the road," she explained to Paige. "I've had more practice than he has because of the time I've spent in Australia."

  Julianna was a successful fashion designer based in Honolulu and specializing in island wear. Paige had some of Julianna's designs in her own closet, and she knew that Julianna was trying to open markets for her clothing on Australia's eastern coast.

  "I'm hungry," Granger warned. "All this fresh air's made me ravenous. Be sure you come back with enough to fill me up."

  Paige watched their affectionate byplay with interest. The last time she had seen Julianna and Granger, they had still been in the midst of a struggle to reestablish the relationship that had begun ten years before and died with the premature birth and death of their child. Julianna's letter had told her little more than that they were giving their marriage another try. Now the undercurrents between them told Paige everything the letter hadn't. Against all odds they had worked through the tragedy of their past to come out on the other side, stronger as individuals and as lovers.

  Julianna was gone before Paige could make herself speak what she was feeling. "It's working, isn't it?"

  Granger nodded. "Beyond my wildest dreams."

  Paige felt suddenly lonely for Adam, which was absurd. "You had so much to overcome."

  "We've both been terrified. It's made us try harder."

  "Julianna seems at peace. She's radiant."

  "We're thinking about having a baby."

  Paige poured boiling water in the teapot. For perhaps the first time in her life she understood the desire for a child. She played devil's advocate. "So soon? Don't you need time together first?"

  "Ellie would be almost ten now if she'd lived."

  "And Julianna's ready?"

  "She's frightened."

  Paige turned. "Don't push her too hard, Granger. She has a right to be frightened."

  "She's going to be frightened until she holds a healthy baby in her arms."

  Paige saw his struggle, and she wanted to offer comfort. "You'll work it out." She slipped her arms around him for a hug. "I know you will."

  They stood together until a noise intruded on the quiet moment. Paige lifted her head to see Adam standing in the doorway. She remembered her surprise at seeing him with Hira in his arms, and more surprise when she'd discovered Hira was his niece. Fleetingly she wondered if he would believe that Granger was her nephew.

  Moving away from Granger, she inclined her head toward Adam. "Granger, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."

  Surprised, Granger looked up at Adam.

  "Adam Tomoana, Granger Sheridan. 'Gray' to everyone but me," she added.

  The two men shook hands, murmuring appropriate greetings.

  Paige smiled at Adam, trying to dispel any tension. He was dressed in black, the way she liked him best, and his eyes were inscrutable. She looked from man to man, and she knew that later, inevitably, she would compare them and the way they made her feel. "Granger and his wife are on their way to Australia. They stopped by to be sure I was doing all right."

  Adam looked around as if he expected to see another person. "Did I miss someone?" There was just a hint of disbelief in his voice.

  "Julianna ran out to get us breakfast," Granger explained.

  Paige realized she was enjoying the situation. "Can you stay and eat with us?" she asked Adam. "She should be back in a few minutes, and I've just made tea."

  "I just came to look in on Rambo. Jeremy was wondering how he'd done." Adam squatted next to the lamb, fingering the blue satin bow.

  "Jeremy?" she chided softly, squatting beside him. "Come on, tell the truth, kaihana, you wanted to see if I'd slept through all his pathetic little baas and starved him to death."

  "Am I imagining it? Did you really give him a bath—" he leaned down and sniffed "—in expensive shampoo?"

  "I dried him with my hair dryer when he came out of the tub. He's just fine."

  For a moment Adam's eyes sparkled. "He'll never live it down in the pasture."

  "If he lives to make it to the pasture."

  "Kept you up all night, did he?"

  "All night."

  Adam stood and helped her to her feet. "Two of the other ewes have given birth with no difficulty, but they both had twins, so they won't be able to feed Rambo, here. There's only one to go."

  "Wonderful!"

  "Are you cheering from empathy for the sheep, or because you'll probably only have one lamb to raise?"

  She smiled warmly. Forgetting Granger was even there, she reached up and touched Adam's cheek with her fingertips. "You would have asked me to raise another? I thought we'd made a bargain."

  "I might even have supplied the shampoo." His gaze trailed down to her lips and stayed there. Then he moved away. "I'm going to search for the mauri on Friday. I thought you might like to come, but since you have guests..."

  Paige had almost forgotten. She glanced at Granger and saw the speculative look in his eyes. "We're only staying for the morning," he explained. "Our plane leaves tonight."

  "What will happen to Rambo if I go?" Paige asked.

  "Granny and Jeremy will watch him." Adam looked from Paige to Granger. "But don't feel obligated to come along."

  "You know I want to."

  "Do I?"

  She felt a lilting jubilation as old as time. He covered it well, but Adam was unmistakably jealous. She didn't even want to analyze how petty, how stereotypical, her feelings were. She just wanted to glory in them for a moment before she discarded them like a dutiful twentieth-century woman. She allowed herself just a hint of a smile.

  "Yes, you do," she said. "You know I want to come, and you know all the reasons why."

  "I'm leaving as soon as it's light. If you still want to come, meet me at my house with the lamb." Adam nodded to Granger. "Have a safe trip to Oz."

  Adam was gone before Granger spoke. "If I'm not already in Oz," he said, still looking at the doorway, "and I'm not dreaming, then I think I may have just met the man."

  "There is no man," Paige said, but when Granger's eyes met hers, she dissolved into laughter.

  * * *

  On Friday, Paige refrained from humming "Mary Had a Little Lamb" under her breath as she walked slowly up the path to Adam's front door. Rambo wobbled on unsteady legs behind her.

  She had groomed the lamb almost as carefully as she had dressed herself. His blue bow had been exchanged for red; his wool was as white as the crisp curtains hanging in Adam's living room window. Paige had chosen scarlet corduroy slacks and a silver-gray sweater decorated with scarlet and yellow sunbursts for herself, and despite her best judgment, she wore new leather high-tops in the same color as the slacks. Her feet were going to suffer, but her image wasn't.

  She hadn't worried so much about what to wear in years, although intuition told her that Adam never noticed what she had on unless it was made from wool. She was glad Granger wasn't here to comment. He and Julianna had gone after a visit that had been too brief. Paige hadn't realized how much she'd needed to see them; she hadn't realized how much she needed to put her past in full perspective.

  She sent a brief, disorganized thank-you to a God who hadn't heard from her in years. As much as she cared for Granger and he for her, their marriage would never have worked. The essential ingredient had been missing. And she, who had ceased to believe love was important or even real, now understood that love was the force that had somehow bound Julianna and Granger to each other for ten years and would keep them together for the rest of their lives. It was as real, as basic, as unquestioned, as that.

  And perhaps they didn't have a monopoly on it.

  Behind her, Rambo tripped over the root of a birch tree and sprawled head first to the ground. Paige lifted him and snuggled his little warm body in her arms. "When you weigh two hundred pounds and have horns a mile long, remember this," she whispered, resting her cheek again
st his fuzz-covered ribs.

  Adam opened the door and found her that way. It was just possible to resist Paige when she was armored with cynicism and brittle sophistication. It was impossible when the little girl he had once been so drawn to showed through.

  "What is it, kaihana? Do you miss him already?"

  For a moment Paige didn't understand. Then she registered his tone. "Are you talking about Granger?"

  "Is there someone else?"

  She lifted her head from Rambo's side and stared at him. "You were jealous, weren't you?"

  "What reason do I have to be jealous?"

  "An excellent question. You have no reason whatsoever."

  He lifted an eyebrow. "After all, I hardly know you. Isn't that so?"

  Paige shook her head in frustration. "You have nothing and no one to be jealous of. I was comforting Granger, just like you comforted your niece that day. You jumped to conclusions."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "It matters to me."

  Adam was surprised that she was still pursuing it. "Hira is my niece. I imagine Granger was your lover. If I were a jealous man with an interest in you, my jealousy might have been fueled by finding you in his arms."

  "Whatever Granger was once, now he's nothing more than my friend. His wife is my friend, too." She searched his eyes and saw that he didn't believe her. She felt a flare of anger. "And you are fast losing that designation."

  "Have we ever been friends, Paige?" He reached out and took Rambo from her arms. He wanted to hurt her as he had been hurt, and he didn't even question his feelings. "Could a woman of your background ever be friends with a shepherd of Polynesian ancestry whose chief goal in life is to make a home for his bastard son?"

  For a moment she couldn't believe she had heard him correctly. Then she was trembling so hard she couldn't control it. She pushed him hard, slapping her hands against his shoulders. "Damn you! How dare you accuse me of that kind of prejudice! Do you think I care about your pedigree or your son's? Or your occupation? Or your ambitions? I care about you! Or I was beginning to." She whirled and started down the path, anywhere to get away from him.

  Adam caught up with her easily, gripping her shoulders. Rambo bleated unhappily behind them. "Maybe you don't love Granger anymore, but you love all the things he is." His words didn't begin to tell her of the desolation he'd felt at seeing her in another man's arms. Somehow she had crept into his dreams, and the awakening had been brutal. She could never be his. New Zealand was a diversion, a change of pace. And he was a diversion, too. He knew what it was like to be a woman's diversion, and so did his son.

  Paige could see nothing but Adam's anger. "What things do I love about Granger? His honesty? His decency? His warmth? You're absolutely right, shepherd." She twisted the word so it was the cruelest slur.

  "You know what I meant."

  "Oh? Are you talking about his money? His social position? His American Express card?" She struggled in his arms. "Would you please let go of me?"

  "You can make fun of all those things because you take them for granted."

  She wrenched free and faced him. "I can make fun of them because they mean nothing!"

  "What does mean something to you, then? You've had it all, haven't you? Has anything or anyone ever mattered to you? Or is your life just one casual affair after another?"

  She felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. "You can't see what's right in front of your eyes."

  The eyes she challenged burned with emotion, but he said nothing.

  "Don't you want to know what I mean?" she taunted.

  "No."

  "Too bad, because I'm going to tell you anyway. You're right, we aren't friends. Friendship has nothing to do with what's between us. I know something else, too. We're both going to be devastated if we do anything about it, and that doesn't seem to make any difference."

  Adam went absolutely rigid.

  "And you, Adam. What do you call what's going on between us? Is all that seething anger about our business relationship? About the coincidence that's made us neighbors? You've said we're not friends, so it can't be that."

  "That's enough, kaihana."

  She had never lost control of herself this way, but she didn't care. Twenty-nine years of feelings were pouring out, with or without her consent. "Maybe it's sex," she taunted further. "Maybe that's all that's between us. Shall we find out? It's still early. Nobody else is up. Let's go out to the barn and roll in the hay and see if we can get this out of our systems. After all, that's the only thing I'm after!"

  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Stop it right now!"

  But she was beyond stopping. She felt the dampness of tears on her cheeks. "Damn you for making me cry! Damn you for making me think you cared! She pulled away and ran down the path. She was in her car and halfway down his driveway before Adam could make himself move.

  Behind him Rambo baaed in protest.

  Mihi came to stand silently in the doorway until she felt Adam's presence in front of her. "He nui pohue toro ra raro."

  He grimaced in response. If, as the proverb said, his thoughts were as many and secret as the roots of a tree, he knew they were also gnarled into knots he couldn't untie. "You were listening?"

  "I heard only the end." Mihi reached out and, with unerring instinct, touched his arm. "Go to her."

  "No."

  "Will pride warm your bed and heart?"

  "Both have been cold too long to matter."

  "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps there's nothing left of the man you once were. Perhaps you let Sheila change all that." Mihi turned slowly. Then she stooped and felt the floor in front of her until she found Rambo. "Take her the lamb," she commanded. "You've taken everything else from her this morning. I won't have you take this, too."

  Obedience and respect were ingrained in him. He couldn't refuse. Bending, he reached down to lift Rambo from her arms. "Then I'm going to find the mauri."

  "Would you know it if you saw it?" Mihi scoffed. "Can you recognize a thing of such value? Or will you let that slip through your fingers, too?"

  Chapter 11

  If nothing else was clear, one thing certainly was. Paige knew she couldn't stay in Waimauri any longer. She could not, would not, face Adam again. She had made fools of both of them. The best solution was to disappear.

  The woman who had shouted and sobbed was a woman she didn't know. Paige was still shaken by the emotions that had spewed out of her like whitewater through a shattered dam. Her hands trembled as she folded clothes and placed them in her luggage. They trembled more when she came to the sweater Mihi had given her.

  She sat on the bed, holding it to her cheek. It was Rambo-soft, and warm with the love that had gone into each stitch. She had never known anyone else who seemed to have all the secrets of the universe at her fingertips. Paige wondered if Mihi's wisdom had somehow been knitted into the sweater, each knitted stitch a question, each purl an answer. Perhaps now she held a world of knowledge in her hands and didn't even know it.

  A sharp bark destroyed the poignancy of the moment. Paige heard the chug-snort of an automobile engine, and she let the sweater drop to her lap. Another bark was followed by the sound of footsteps on her porch. The knock at her door was loud and demanding. She knew who it would be.

  Adam stood on the porch, Rambo in his arms.

  "May I come in?"

  Paige felt the muscles in her neck knot with the strain of holding her head high. "I'm sorry, but I'm busy."

  "I brought you the lamb."

  "I can see that." She made no move to take him. "I won't be able to take care of him anymore."

  "Oh?"

  She didn't answer. She didn't move, even though her hands flexed with the urge to snatch Rambo from his grasp.

  "Then I'll tell Granny."

  "Please tell her I'll be in touch."

  "That has a final ring to it."

  "Someone will be here at our deadline to hear your offer."

  He set the strug
gling lamb on the porch. "Someone, but not you."

  "That's right."

  "You don't have to run away."

  "I prefer to think I'm going back where I belong."

  Her hair swung forward as she stepped back to close the door. Adam watched the glossy mass settle at one high cheekbone as he slid his foot against the doorframe. "Would an apology stop you?"

  "It would embarrass me."

  "Will you help me look for the mauri?"

  "I don't believe there is a mauri."

  "Or that I would recognize it if there were?" he asked, echoing Mihi's words.

  She was still too hurt to let the warmth in his eyes sway her. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Come with me." He shifted his weight forward until they were almost touching.

  She shook her head slowly. "You must be kidding."

  "I was jealous." Hesitantly he lifted his hand, and then, at the faintest glimmer of emotion in her eyes, he touched her hair. "I don't want to be jealous. I don't want to fall in love. I don't want to feel what I feel." He paused, and then told the whole truth. "I don't want to be hurt again."

  She refused to let her melting heart alter her words. "Oh, surely a shepherd of mixed ancestry has no feelings."

  "Shall we find out?" He smiled a little as her expression softened more. He could see her battle not to give in. He knew she was going to lose, and, strangely, it humbled him.

  "I think not." Paige tipped her head to avoid Adam's pursuit, but instead the movement brought her mouth directly in line with his. At the first touch of his lips, she stiffened.

  Adam felt her resistance. "Forgive me," he whispered, his lips feather-light against hers. He drew his head gently back and forth, moistening her lips with his tongue. "I don't know how to be jealous. I've never been jealous before."

  "Perhaps you should be taught, then."

  "I think not." He kissed her until her lips were as soft as the expression in her eyes. Then he pulled her into his arms, no longer gentle but hungry and aching, and terribly afraid. His hands slid under her sweater and up the silken skin of her back, making short work of her bra clasp. Everything his hands touched, his body ached for. Everything his body ached for, his heart embraced.