Seducing Nell

“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.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_95c68496-53ef-5e00-8aeb-89346232c2fc)

AS NELL tramped along, she could hear Kyle following her across the barrens. Why should she be surprised that she had reacted to him with such terror? Hadn’t her mother spent years instilling a fear of men in her?

Not men, Nell. Sex.

With the result that Nell, who was twenty—six years old, who loved a good party and who had dated men all the way from France to Italy, was still a virgin.

Scowling, she clumped her way through the laurel and Labrador tea, blind to their beauty. Her virginity, so oldfashioned, so anachronistic, was a close—held secret. Probably still would be when she was eighty, she brooded irritably, swatting at a mosquito on her wrist

“Nell—look at the eagle!”

Startled, she turned around. Kyle was several feet behind her, pointing into the sky. She looked up and saw a great dark wingspan outlined against the blue as the eagle rode the thermals, its tail and head as white as the scattered clouds. She found the bird in her binoculars, almost certain she could see the hooked golden bill, and a few minutes later heard Kyle join her. She let the binoculars drop and looked right at him. “I’m sorry, Kyle,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made that crack about wolves.”

Absently, he rubbed his left thigh. “It was a cheap shot”

“Mmm…nothing like sighting an eagle for making one’s shortcomings obvious.”

He grinned at her. “Let’s agree on something. I’m not a psychopath and you’re not a bitch.”

She hauled out her water bottle. “I’ll drink to that” She took a big gulp and passed him the bottle. As he tipped back his head and drank, she let her eyes wander from his throat muscles down his chest to his taut belly, then the length of his legs in their faded, close—fitting jeans. Beware, said her mother’s voice. He’s as beautiful as the eagle, Nell thought And quite possibly as wild. “How’s the knee?” she asked in a carefully neutral tone.

“It’s been better.” He passed back the bottle. “Thanks, Nell.”

“I could lend an arm, you know.”

“I can manage.”

The grimness was back in his face. She didn’t know what it meant and already she hated it “Are there many eagles around here?” she asked.

“They’re making a comeback, yeah.”

“It’s the first one I’ve seen—thanks for pointing it out”

She picked out what looked like the easiest way back to the road and started out again, going more slowly this time. Ten minutes later, she dug her toes into the gravel of the ditch and was back on the tarmac.

She turned and held out her hand; after the briefest of pauses, Kyle took it, and she hauled him up the slope. He was rubbing his thigh again, tiny beads of sweat at his hairline. She said brightly, “Sunsets must be spectacular here.”

“You don’t have to be so damned tactful,” he grated. “Where’s your gear?”

She had been so intent on Kyle’s footsteps behind her that her backpack had not once crossed her mind. Blushing, Nell muttered, “I forgot about it—I’ll be right back.”—

A few minutes later, they were on their way. True to her promise, Nell taught Kyle a number of rather choice words in both German and Dutch, told him about her work as a translator and about some of the contracts she’d been getting with large multinational corporations. It wasn’t until they were winding down the hill toward the small cluster of houses that was Caplin Bay that she realized she had talked a great deal about herself and knew nothing more about Kyle other than that he was a very fast learner of foreign swearwords and a very good listener.

Quickly, she looked around. The village curved around the bay, where a sturdy wharf jutted into the sea; to her great relief there was no sign of the coastal boat. The headland at the far end of the bay was edged with a gray stretch of beach. She’d camp somewhere down there. “Could you drop me at the grocery store?” she asked.

“Aren’t you staying at the bed—and—breakfast?”

“No. I’ll camp.”

“Nell, it’s Saturday night—do you think that’s wise?”

Wiser than staying in the same place as you. “I’m traveling on a shoestring,” she said patiently. “I can’t afford to stay at bed—and—breakfasts.”

“At least let me buy you a hamburger at the takeout. Which is the nearest thing to a restaurant in Caplin Bay.”

“It’s nearly six. I have to get groceries and I need to get settled in.”

“You sure are stubborn. How long are you staying here?”

She wasn’t going to tell him about Mort Harbour. “Oh, a day or so,” she said vaguely.

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t want to see me again—that’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?”

If she was to borrow one of his favorite words and tell the absolute truth at the same time, she would say that he scared the hell out of her. “I don’t know why you’re so angry,” she said. “We met by chance, I don’t know the first thing about you, and now we’re going our separate ways. No big deal.”

And whom are you trying to convince, Nell? she mocked silently. Kyle or yourself?

He pulled up in front of the grocery store, his tires skidding in the gravel. Banging the ball of his hand against the wheel, he said, “Is that what you want? That we never see each other again?”

What she wanted was to be transported miraculously into her unknown grandfather’s living room in Mort Harbour. Into his living room and into his heart, she thought painfully. That was her priority; after all, hadn’t she traveled thousands of miles and used up all her savings just to come face—to—face with Conrad Gillis? So the time wasn’t right for any other emotional complications. And if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Kyle Marshall could very easily become a major complication.

If he hasn’t already, a little voice whispered in her brain.