Seducing Nell

They had moved beyond the shelter of Caplin Bay into more open water; the boat was heaving on the swell. Balancing against the rail, Nell turned to face him. “Just my own,” she said lightly. “How long will it take us to get there?”

“At least two hours—it’s on the far shore of the peninsula. And what are your problems, Petronella Cornelia?”

“Whether or not I’ll get seasick,” she said dulcetly.

“Right,” he replied wryly. “The wind’s sou’west—it’ll get rougher yet.”

He was standing astride, his hair a dark tangle, his jacket flattened to his chest “I bet you don’t get seasick,” Nell said.

“My dad was a fisherman—I was brought up around boats.”

Unable to contain a strong curiosity to know more about Kyle, Nell asked, “Here in Newfoundland?”

“A little outport on the northern peninsula. In those days, the coastal boat came twice a year, and there were no roads.” He grimaced. “It’s all too easy to romanticize the outports, especially in these days of urban blight But even though the fishing was good, my family was always dirt poor. Worked day and night and never got ahead.”

Although his clothes were casual, they weren’t cheap; she had instantly recognized the label on his rain jacket “You don’t look poor now,” Nell ventured.

“I got out—as soon as I could. And I stayed away.” He scowled at her. “Why am I telling you all this? I never talk about myself.”

“Are you married?” Appalled by her wayward tongue, Nell added in a rush, “Scrap that question. It’s nothing to me whether you’re married or not”

The bow of Fortune II rose to meet the swell, and spray lashed her cheek, plastering her hair to her head. “We’d better move forward before we get soaked,” Kyle said. He grabbed her arm, and together they lurched to the shelter of the bridge. Bracing himself with an arm above her head, he said, unsmiling, “No, I’m not married. Came close once, but it didn’t work out. Is there a man in Europe waiting for you to come home?”

She shook her head. The wind was snapping the flag at the stern and flinging rough—edged curtains of spray against the shed, and perhaps it was this that made her blurt, “I don’t want to go back to Holland. I want to stay here.”

“In Newfoundland? Forget it, Nell. The economy’s the pits.”

Her need had nothing to do with the economy; somehow she had expected Kyle to understand that. Obscurely disappointed, she watched the spume streak backward from the caps of the waves.

“Holland’s your home,” he added reasonably. “That’s where you belong.”

“No, I don’t! I don’t care if I ever go back.” She suddenly couldn’t bear the closeness of his big body. Ducking beneath his arm, she lunged for the railing that was on the lee side of the boat and stared out over the wind—whipped water, knowing that her eyes were stinging with tears. Then she saw his hands grip the rail on either side of her so that she was encircled by him. Twisting around, she choked, “And don’t you dare laugh at me!”

“I hate to see you cry,” he said in an odd voice. “You’re running away from a man, aren’t you, Nell?”

“I don’t let men close enough to me that I have to run away. It’s this place…there’s something about it. I feel as though I’ve come home, as though I’ve found what—ever ever I was searching for without even knowing I needed it.”

The boat plunged into a trough. Nell staggered, banging her nose against the zipper on Kyle’s jacket He drew her closer, steadying her. “Why don’t you let men close to you?”

“Why haven’t you ever married?” she countered.

“We both have secrets. That’s what you’re really saying.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” she asked with a touch of bitterness. She had grown up in a household of secrets. Secrets that made her the woman she was.

“I sure have,” Kyle said, and for a moment his irises turned the same color as the black and depthless ocean. Then, in an abrupt change of mood, he grinned down at her. “I’ve got an idea—why don’t we go up on the bridge? We can look at the charts and see where we’re going.”

When he smiled at her like that, her very bones seemed to melt in her body. I’d probably jump off the bridge if he asked me to, she thought foolishly. “Okay,” she said.

“Newfoundland’s a hell of a place to live, Nell,” he said with sudden violence. “Nine months of winter and three months of moose flies.”

She had the impression he was talking more to himself than to her. “Where do you live?” she said.

“At the moment, precisely nowhere. Come on, we’re going to the bridge. First thing you know, I’ll be spilling out my entire life story to those big blue eyes of yours.”

She said impetuously, “I wish you would.”

“I’ll tell you this much—I’m in no position right now to meet a woman, Nell.” He let go of the railing. “Now head for the ladder.”

“You’re giving orders again.”

“You’re damn right I am. Move it.”

“Only because I want to,” she said haughtily, and began climbing the narrow stairs, clutching the wet railings as hard as she could.

The view was worth the climb. Fortune II was skirting the coastline, with its long range of rugged, tree—clad cliffs against which waterfalls spread their lacy white palms. Ragged, gray—edged clouds raced through the sky, daubing the hills with light and shadow. The captain pointed out deserted graveyards and abandoned settlements of indescribable loneliness, and in a manner that reminded Nell of Wendell, told her about the harrowing winters of the early settlers from Cornwall and Devon. Kyle drew her attention to nesting terns and the huge white gannets swooping close to the waves. And Nell fell in love even more deeply with a landscape as different from her homeland as it could be.

It’s my grandfather’s blood in me, she suddenly knew in a flash of insight. That’s why I love this place. Of course it is. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Somehow this realization seemed to conquer the fear that had been gnawing at her ever since she’d embarked on the coastal boat. But when, two hours later, she caught her first glimpse of the tiny outport of Mort Harbour through a gap in the cliffs, all her fears rushed back in full force. She glanced around to see where Kyle was, hoping he wasn’t watching her.

He, too, was gazing at the little patch of houses whose presence seemed only to magnify the terrible fragility of human striving and the vastness of sea and land. The emotions on his face were as raw as the slash in the cliffs. Dread, Nell reflected, and a terrible reluctance, as if he’d rather be anywhere else than here. Emotions that were so akin to her own that she had to suppress the urge to rush over to him and offer him comfort.

He didn’t look like a man who was simply visiting friends.

Secrets. He had as many as she.

She turned away, not wanting him to know she had seen feelings that were intensely private. The boat was entering the harbor, which was ringed by gaunt hills; like a womb it enclosed a long, low island in its calm inner waters. As they approached the government wharf, Nell saw little fish sheds on stilts at the cliff base, small square houses huddled together for solace, and brightly painted Cape Islanders rocking gently in the wake of the coastal boat’s passing. What if her grandfather was away? Or ill? What if he wouldn’t see her?

Her knuckles white with strain, she gripped the railing so tightly that her nails made tiny moons in the paint, and if she could have miraculously transported herself back to Middelhoven and her parents’ old brick house with its tall windows and its yews in the front garden, she might well have done so. Then a hand dropped onto her sleeve, a man’s hand with long, lean fingers and a dusting of dark hair over the taut bones. Kyle’s hand. She wished him a thousand miles away.

“Nell, what’s wrong?” he asked urgently.

She tried to pull her arm away. “Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that—something’s up. You’re not just a tourist checking out the quaint little Newfoundland outports. I know you’re not.”

“Stop it, Kyle!”

“You can trust me, you know,” he said.

She couldn’t tell anyone why she was here, not until she had spoken to Conrad. That much, at least, she owed her unknown grandfather. “Please—just leave me alone. You’re imagining things.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Whereas you don’t seem able to understand when you’re not wanted,” she declared, and saw an answering anger harden his features.

“That’s the second time you’ve told me to get lost Guess I’m kind of a slow learner,” he snarled. “Why don’t we just agree to have nothing to do with each other from now on? That, it seems to me, would be simpler all round.”