Patricia Potter by Island of Dreams Read Free Book Online Page B

marrying. He preferred experience, not fumbling hesitancy and fear.
    But as clear green eyes studied him with no little puzzlement of their own, he felt an uncertainty, an obsessive longing to be with her, to share in the obvious pleasure she took in everything, to know something of that exultant spirit that seemed to embrace everyone and everything.
    He hadn’t realized how lifeless his own existence had been until he’d seen her laughing with pure joy this morning. With just the joy of being alive.
    Without will, without conscious thought, he held out his free hand, and she glided up from the swing and looped her fingers with his. The contact was jolting in its warmth. Jolting and yet oddly natural.
    “You shouldn’t be here with me,” he said.
    “I know,” she replied.
    “The Connors?”
    “I’m full grown now,” Meara said lightly, yet there was uncertainty in it too, as if she’d made a decision she wasn’t quite sure was wise.
    “Are you?” The question was wondering. “I feel an ancient with you.”
    She paused, holding him back as she looked up and studied his face. Her free hand went up and touched the barely visible lines around his eyes. “Methuselah,” she said with gentle mockery.
    “Perhaps not that bad,” Michael responded, his mouth turning upward at one side. “Not quite nine hundred and sixty-nine years.”
    She laughed. “Is that how old he was? I don’t think I ever knew.”
    “Every bit,” Michael confirmed solemnly.
    “That’s just a guess.”
    “No, I’m a receptacle for all sorts of strange and meaningless pieces of information like that,” he said seriously, but with underlying self-mockery in his tone. “At one port, a man was selling an old set of encyclopedias for the price of a drink. There’s a lot of empty hours at sea, and I went through each book, picking up the damnedest assortment of facts. Nothing useful, mind you, but I did discover how old Methuselah was.”
    They were walking again, down the road that led to the nearest beach. “And what else did you discover?”
    “That lovely young ladies should not walk in the moonlight with strange men.”
    “Are you a strange man? I didn’t think so when we met on the cruiser today. It was almost like…I had known you before, that I’d been—” She stopped, but he knew what she was about to say. The words hung in the air. Like I’d been waiting for you.
    He knew the words, because he felt it too. From the moment he had seen her, he had felt it, that he had been waiting all his life for someone like her without quite knowing it. He was a fool for being here, for wallowing in something that was beyond his reach, that was bound to hurt her seriously if he let this…infatuation go any further. He didn’t want that. God, he didn’t want that. She was too full of joy, too completely alive, too untouched by the kind of violent life he’d lived.
    His attention elsewhere, he stumbled slightly on a rock, and he felt the tightening of her fingers on his. He knew his limp was more pronounced, mainly because he had been on his leg so much today. She stopped suddenly. “Your leg—is it too far to the beach?”
    Michael’s hand tightened on hers. “Remember, I’m here for exercise.”
    “It’s more than a mile,” she protested.
    “Ah, but nothing compared to watching huge turtles lay eggs, and the moon paint the water with silver,” he said with an engaging chuckle as he repeated her words from the afternoon. They were said with a wistful amusement that seeped into Meara’s being and settled cozily there. She had never felt so comfortable with anyone, so comfortable and yet so expectant.
    When they reached the beach, however, there was a bonfire roaring ahead and the infectious sound of young voices. He saw a man stand and call Meara’s name, but she shook her head and started to guide Michael away from the fire, but he hung back.
    Michael looked at them and then at Meara. That’s where she should be. Not