The Eden Tree (13 page)

He eyed her narrowly. “Quite the saucy little baggage, aren’t you? As fresh as paint.”

Linn stared him down. She wasn’t going to back off on this one.

Con pressed his lips together and bent his head, conceding defeat. Linn felt a flash of triumph. He must care about her to accede to her wishes like this. He was not a man to give in so readily.

“All right, Aislinn,” he sighed. “As they say in the States, let’s make a deal. I’ll tell you what you want to know and then we’ll discuss what’s happening between us. Fair do?”

“Fair do,” she replied, smiling slightly at his idiom.

He took a huge gulp of his tea. “I was called in to spring Christy from the truck taking him to Mountjoy,” he said simply. “We ambushed it and set him free.”

“And how did you open up the leg?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I had to jump off the transport while it was moving,” he explained. “I landed on my bad side and the next thing I knew it was bleeding. I just managed to hitch a ride back here.”

“Where’s your car?”

“With friends. I’ll get it back when the heat’s off.”

“Oh. And is the heat on?”

He glanced at her quickly. “No one is after me, Aislinn. This is a different country, you know.”

“I understand. You run up north and do your dirty work and then scamper to safety back here.”

“It isn’t dirty work to help a friend.”

“The finer points of your scruples escape me,” she said sarcastically. “All I know is that you are involved in that awful situation.”

“I’ve never hurt anyone, Aislinn,” he said quietly, putting down his cup. “Believe me on that. There are things that can be done to help without tossing grenades.”

“Why do you have to help at all?” she burst out. “Why did you have to do this to yourself?”

He had picked up a piece of toast but he set it back down again. He pointed to the bookshelves behind her.

“Over there,” he said, “is a book on the American civil rights movement. One of the marchers in Selma was asked why she felt she had to get involved. She answered, ‘You have got to stand up. Freedom is not something which is put in your lap.’”

“But you’re dashing back and forth across the border like a child playing snatch-the-wallet, just asking to be picked off!”

He shook his head. “No more. I told you once that I was done with that. But I had to help Christy. He’d have done the same for me.”

“That’s very noble,” Linn said. “ ‘Greater love than this no man has, that he lay down his life for his friend.’ ”

“I didn’t lay down my life. You needn’t be so dramatic.”

His implacability was infuriating. “Con, I don’t care about noble sentiments or the cause of freedom. All I care about is you!”

He froze in the act of raising his fork. It clattered to the tray and he pushed the dish aside.

“Do you, Aislinn?” he asked. “Do you?”

“Oh, how can you ask me that? Isn’t it obvious?”

He put the tray on the floor. “Come here to me.”

Linn stood her ground. “No. You’ll just get me all… confused.”

“What is there to be confused about?”

Linn’s mouth fell open. “You tell me! I’m still an American
lady
; I’m still Kevin’s daughter. Those factors seemed very important to you not too long ago.”

Con dropped his eyes. “They become less important every minute,” he said quietly.

Linn held her breath, afraid that he would say something else to qualify that statement. But the silence lengthened in the room. What did he mean? He had changed his mind?

“Do you trust me now?” she asked in a small voice.

He looked up. “I’m trying.”

“That’s not good enough!” she blazed, furious that he could have even the slightest doubt about her after what she’d done for him. “I’m so terribly sorry that I don’t have the right father, and that I wasn’t born in a thatched hut down the lane. Too bad about you and your delicate sensibilities, Connor Clay.”

“Wait a bit,” he began. “You can’t expect . . .”

“Oh,
cahn’t
I?” she demanded, imitating the broad ‘a’ of his accent. “I can damn well expect plenty. I didn’t come here to take care of you because I’m a volunteer for the Red Cross. I came because...” She stopped and shut her mouth. She wasn’t going to say it.

Con watched her in silence. Then he said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she answered evenly. “You never do.”

Con glanced around the room. “You needn’t stay any longer,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “Neil will be here soon. You can go.”

“And you can go straight to hell,” Linn responded without inflection. “I’ll wait for him to arrive. If I leave you alone you’ll probably trip and split your head open before he gets here.”

Con bit his lip reflectively. “Well, as long as you’re going to stay, will you help me to the bathroom? I need a shower. These clothes I’m wearing are about to get up and walk away—and I’ll hear no arguments.”

Linn shrugged, walking to his side and helping him to stand. She held herself stiffly away from him as he hobbled to the bathroom. She released him at the door and was about to turn away when he put his hand on her shoulder.

“You didn’t let me finish before,” Con said. “You have a wonderful facility for misunderstanding what I say.”

“I think I understand very well. You’ve made your position clear and I have my own reservations about our…relationship. So why don’t we just drop it, okay?”

He remained as he was. “But...”

“I said to drop it,” Linn repeated wearily. “Take your shower.’‘

Con moved on reluctantly and shut the door. Linn picked up his tray and started to clear away the breakfast, which he’d barely touched. She heard the rush of water begin behind the door and she carried the dishes to the sink with a heavy heart.

This will never work out, she thought. He wants me but he doesn’t love me. He still can’t forget the past and my father. And I can’t afford to take a chance on a man who might hurt me again. I won’t recover a second time. She made herself another cup of coffee and sipped it slowly, a sense of loss spreading through her like a slow poison.

The cascading water stopped, and then after a short silence the door opened a crack.

“Will you get me a shirt from the shelf there and some pants from the drawer next the bed?” Con asked. “Anything will do.”

Linn selected the clothes and handed them through the door. She pushed it open to reach him and saw him standing just inside.

He was still wet from the shower, his hair in damp, glistening ringlets, droplets clinging to his lashes like crystal beads. Rivulets ran on his arms and chest. A towel was knotted around his waist. He had removed the bandage from his leg, and a freshet of blood stained the towel above his wound.

“Con, your leg,” she said. “You shouldn’t be standing so long.”

“Help me, then,” he said softly. “Come here.”

Linn moved up next to him and he put his arm across her shoulders. His skin glistened wetly, an invitation she couldn’t refuse. Before she knew what she was doing Linn bent her head and licked a trail of droplets from his chest, slitting her eyes like a purring cat.

Con sucked in his breath and pulled her tight against him. His hand slid beneath her hair and closed around the nape of her neck, pressing her close as she kissed him wildly, lost in a tumult of desire.

“Oh, Con,” she whispered, “you can hardly stand up and still I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“Keep your hands on me,” he said thickly, pulling on her hair to raise her head. “I’ve thought of nothing else since I met you.” He sought her lips with his, backing her up against the tiled wall, and Linn ran her hands over his almost naked body. His muscles bunched and flexed beneath her fingers in response to her loving touch. Her mouth opened under his, and then her head fell back as he moved his lips over her throat, pausing to fit her hips to his and surge against her powerfully with a force that made her gasp aloud.

His towel did little to conceal his arousal and Linn’s hands, which seemed to be acting of their own accord, moved to caress him. He groaned and his arms loosened to allow her access. The towel fell to the floor.

Con sighed as Linn’s fingers closed around him and he pulsed strongly in her hand. She encircled him and moved with deliberate slowness, prolonging his pleasure. Con’s fists clenched.

“You torture me,” he moaned. His chest and shoulders were flushed, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His eyes were closed, as if he feared that she would be too shy to continue if he looked at her.

Linn’s eagerness to please him overcame her ignorance; guided by instinct rather than technique, she put her face against his damp shoulder and stroked him as he clasped her to his body in the curve of one strong arm. His soft sounds of gratification made her bold; she nipped his skin with her teeth and felt the answering pressure of his palm in the hollow of her back. He made a deep noise in his throat, almost a growl, and she hesitated.

“Don’t stop,” he begged. “Please don’t stop.” He opened his eyes and his gaze was so blurred with passion that he looked drugged.

There was a knock on the outside door.

“Oh, no,” Con groaned. “Not now. Ignore it.”

“Con, I can’t. It’s sure to be Dr. McCarthy and he knows we’re in here.”

Linn stepped away from him and he slumped backward, raising his arm to cover his eyes. She could see that he was shaking. She averted her gaze from his nude form, picking up his clothes from the floor.

“Get dressed while I let him in,” she said. Then she saw a terrycloth robe hanging on the back of the door. “On second thought, you’d better put the robe on so he can have a look at your leg.”

Con didn’t respond and after waiting a moment she closed the door quietly behind her. She hurried to answer the persistent knocking, which was getting louder and more demandng.

“Hello, Dr. McCarthy,” she said breathlessly, stepping aside to let him walk past her into the room. “We were expecting you.”

“Were you indeed?” he asked mildly. “It seems to me I might have interrupted something.”

Linn could feel her face flaming and knew she was blushing wildly. “You said you would be back,” she replied meekly.

“So I did. Where’s the patient?”

“In the bathroom. He’ll be out in a second.”

“I hope he hasn’t been running any marathons on that leg.”

“I couldn’t stop him from taking a shower.”

McCarthy nodded sourly. He glanced at the sink full of dishes. “Charming domestic scene,” he commented dryly.

“I made breakfast,” Linn answered, growing tired of the doctor’s tart observations. “Doesn’t he have to eat to keep up his strength?”

“It would take more than a short fast to deplete his strength,” McCarthy stated. “That boy’s a bull.”

Linn turned away so that her companion wouldn’t see the effect of that last remark on her face. She busied herself rinsing dishes while McCarthy folded his arms and watched her as a scientist might survey an insect specimen. She glanced at him, and then away. The man’s expression was impassive; she couldn’t tell what conclusions he was drawing about her relationship with his patient.

The bathroom door opened and Con emerged, clad in the terry robe.

McCarthy looked him over. “Just as I suspected, a miraculous recovery. You’re amazing, boy. As often as you’re knocked down you spring back up like a jack-in- the-box.”

“You should know, Neil,” Con replied, looking at Linn.

“Come here and let me have a look at that leg,” the doctor ordered.

Con walked to the bed with the doctor’s assistance and sat on the edge. McCarthy crouched on the floor in front of him, and then threw him a dirty look.

“Who told you to take off that dressing?”

“I got it wet in the shower.”

“And strained the stitches as well. It’s oozing blood.”

“Is it? I thought it was oozing ink. Will you leave off talking and just bandage it for me? You charge a high price for your services, Neil; I have to listen to all this drivel before I receive treatment.”

“The drivel is part of the treatment. You can’t expect to run about like a madman, getting yourself torn up, without hearing a lecture or two from those who care about you.” The doctor glanced slyly at Linn. “Isn’t that right, Miss Pierce?”

Linn didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll bet this young lady here has been telling you to stay out of those donnybrooks up north, has she not?”

“She has,” Con responded tightly.

The doctor removed a package of gauze from his bag and began unwinding a piece of it. “Well, then, we’re in perfect agreement. She sounds a sensible lass to me.” McCarthy looked up from his work and met Con’s eyes. “Not like some who’d send you into danger for their own selfish reasons.”

Con’s mouth became a grim line but he said nothing.

Linn watched this interchange, bewildered. What was McCarthy talking about? Was someone encouraging Con to resume his former activities? She placed a china cup on the drainboard carefully, lost in thought.