‘You mean I’m going to do this forever?’ He bit his lip at her horrified tone. ‘Well, not forever, but for quite a few more years.’
‘But I want to go swimming!’ she wailed, very much the thwarted child again.
He laughed and ruffled her hair. ‘You’re just going to have to watch me for a couple more days. You don’t hurt at all in your belly, do you?’
‘Yes, but I don’t care. I don’t like this, not at all! It’s not fair.’
He hadn’t thought about it in that way. ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I guess it’s not.
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But then again, Jules, I can’t have babies. Do you think that’s fair?’
He’d watched her playing with one of the native women’s infants the previous afternoon, and enjoyed her maternal display. But she didn’t take the bait, and repeated stubbornly, ‘It still isn’t fair. You can still be a father, and that’s almost the same thing. And you can swim all the time, all year around.’
So much for that argument, he thought. Thank God, she at least knew where babies came from, at least had a general notion. He supposed he should tell her that she could swim, but he could just imagine what she’d say to that.
Saint turned in his sleep, suddenly uncomfortable, then awakened with a start. There was a soft, pliable body pressed against him, a slender leg, knee bent, flung over his belly. Saint blinked away the dream. It was dawn, dull morning light filtering through the bedroom window.
Slowly he raised a hand and smoothed her tangled hair away from his face. She wasn’t a child anymore, hating what her body had done to her because it kept her from being a mermaid for five days. Why had that ridiculous dream come to him anyway? Because it was sexual in nature, he realized, even though at the time he’d merely been a good friend talking reassuringly to a young girl. Nothing more.
Saint suddenly realized that he was hard again, his manhood pressing against her thigh. Damned randy goat. He had to get away from her, get things back into proper perspective. As he slowly eased out of her hold, he wondered if she still remembered that long-ago afternoon, and her girl’s embarrassed confession, and her outrage at the unfairness of it.
She slept on, murmuring a bit, but not stirring.
Perhaps, his thinking continued as he bathed and shaved in the small bedroom down the hall, he’d had that dream as a guide. Yes, that was it. If she remembered her wild behavior of the previous night, he would simply treat it as naturally as he’d treated her young girl’s first monthly flow. He was still her friend, and her doctor. Nothing more.
She slept on even after his housekeeper, Lydia Mullens, arrived. He joined Lydia in the small kitchen, telling her about their guest over a cup of scalding black coffee. He told her what had happened the previous night, omitting only what had happened after he’d brought her here. He also mentioned that he’d known Jules when he’d lived in Lahaina.
Lydia looked aghast. ‘Wicked,’ she said finally, shaking her gray head. ‘I’ve heard of
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the Crooked House, of course. You did a fine thing, Saint, yes, a fine thing.’ She looked toward the ceiling, a frown crinkling her brow.
‘Poor little mite. What are you going to do, Saint?’
He downed the rest of his coffee, and rose from his chair. ‘An excellent question. Right now, I want her to wake up. Lord only knows how much opium that bastard gave her.
‘I’ll cook up a big breakfast for her,’ Lydia said. ‘Good food will clear out her system.’ Saint nodded, and walked from the
kitchen. Lydia stared after him, a thoughtful look in her sharp blue eyes. She was fond of Saint, more than fond, she thought. He was like a son to her, a son to be proud of. She thought of her only son, dead now for three years. Rory had wanted gold so much, too much, and he’d died of dysentery in a wretched mining camp near Nevada City. And she’d come here alone with practically no money. She’d worked in the Stevenson home for two months, until the daughter of the house, Penelope, drove her so distracted she’d simply walked out. She blessed, every now and again, that awful cold she’d gotten, for it had given her Saint. And now there was a girl upstairs, a young girl who had dropped into his life out of his past.