nodded weakly.
“Only as often as you want. We’ll have to go to Nassau to get our wedding license in a few days. But after that you can stay put if you like. The water’s not usually this rough, and you’ll be rested and ready the next time you brave the waves.”
“Never…”
“It’s been a big day, Matty.”
She wanted to tell him to turn the boat around, that the day had been much too big to absorb, and she had made a terrible mistake. But if he did as she asked, the trip back to George Town would be longer than the trip to Inspiration Cay. And she was a slave to what was left of her stomach.
“There are 365 cays in the Exumas, did you know that?”
She had done her reading. She knew cay was pronounced “key” and that many of the Out Islands of the Bahamas, of which the Exumas were a part, were uninhabited. “One for each day,” she whispered.
“I’ve been to a number of them. Some don’t even exist at high tide. Some, like Inspiration Cay, are high enough above sea level to live on comfortably. The house at Inspiration is on a low rise. It makes for spectacular sunset views.”
She tried to hold on to that thought. The sun was setting right now, and had she not been dying she might have termed it spectacular. As it was, she couldn’t watch the heavenly light show, because every time she focused on the horizon the boat dipped and her head went spinning in protest.
“The house has stood on that rise for almost a hundred years.” Damon seemed to know that she was soothed by the sound of his voice and the warm weight of his arm. Matty knew he was trying to offer his support in the only way he could. Both his voice and arm were impersonal, the comfort anyone might offer. In fact, every time he had touched her—and in their hours together he had touched her five times—he had scarcely seemed to notice what he was doing. She, on the other hand, had noticed every pressure, every movement, every texture.
“It’s a wonderful house,” he said. “Spacious and airy, with sun-filled rooms, and breezes sweeping through that keep it cool enough to bear on the warmest days. You’ll recognize the architecture from pictures of Key West. Double verandas, hipped roof and French windows you can step through into the sunshine. My room—” He broke off abruptly.
She sat very still and waited for him to continue.
“My room’s facing east,” he said, after a moment. “I can see the sunrise, and I’m usually awake to do it with Heidi over my shoulder or on my lap. I don’t expect you to share my room right away. Heidi’s room is beside mine in what was probably a dressing room at one time. And then there’s another room that shares the same balcony. That will be yours until…” He didn’t finish.
He was absolutely right, and she knew she should feel relieved. Instead she felt more dispirited, if that was possible. And what had she hoped? That Damon would be so attracted to a seasick mouse of a woman that he would demand that she crawl into his bed on this, their first night together, and make passionate love to him?
“I’m never going to make any demands on you,” he said. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for marrying me, and I’m not going to ask you for anything else. When and if you’re ready, you’ll know where my room is.”
“If I’m ever steady enough…on my legs again…to walk that far.”
He laughed, a spontaneous eruption that almost convinced her that he hadn’t given up on her completely. “You’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you…to it.”
“The cay just ahead,” Samuel shouted. “Follow the wide purple streak to the sea, Matty, and look left.”
Damon got to his feet. “Can you stand?”
She really didn’t know. Theoretically it seemed possible. She wanted to see the island that was to be her new home, to get her first glimpse with Damon at her side, his arm around her waist. Surely she could summon up enough physical and emotional reserves to take her in to shore.
He held out his hand, and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. For a moment she felt fine, as if the mysterious concept of sea legs was a reality in which she shared.
“Rough water here,” Samuel shouted. “Hold on tight. I be takin’ her in to Inspiration slow, and the boat, she gonna shake.”
Samuel’s words were a prophecy. The powerboat began to dance over the water’s surface like a hippo in an out-of-control conga line. Matty had already lost everything she’d eaten. Her stomach was beyond revolt, but her head was not. The world grew black, and just before she lost sight of it, it began to spin. She made one valiant attempt to take her seat again before the deck rushed up to meet her.
* * *
“Matty, this is Kevin,” Damon said.
Matty peered into the near darkness, illuminated by a row of lamps strung along a winding path that rose toward a two-story house set behind palms. Kevin was about ten yards away, nothing more than a hazy man-size shape in the distance.
“Matty’s not feeling well,” Damon continued. “She’s had a rough day. Would you mind helping Samuel with her suitcases, then take him up to the guest house? He’s brought enough food to feed an army, if that’s any incentive.”
Kevin grunted in response, then started toward them, making sure to give Matty a wide berth. She wanted to say something, anything, that might signal good intentions, but she was still trying to cope with ground that didn’t quake and a world that only revolved at its normal speed. “Hello, Kevin,” was the best she could manage to say as he passed.
This time he didn’t even grunt in answer.
“Kevin’s not an easy nut to crack,” Damon said when Kevin was out of earshot. “He liked things the way they were, and until he’s sure you’re not a threat of some kind, he won’t welcome you.”
She nodded, too ill to ask for any pointers on dealing with the teenager.
“Nanny won’t welcome you with open arms, either,” Damon said as they started back up the path. “I’d avoid getting in her way for a while. Don’t make suggestions or changes until she’s sure you’re not trying to get rid of her.”
Despite everything, she was touched that the feelings of two outcasts of such disparate generations mattered this much to Damon. “I’ll be careful.”
“I hope Heidi’s asleep,” he said as they drew closer to the house. “That would be a better introduction for you. She’s tolerable when she’s sleeping.”
She disregarded his attempt at cynicism. She already knew that Damon was head over heels in love with his daughter. Why else would he have orchestrated this amazing situation?
By the time the house loomed just fifty yards in the distance, Matty got her first unimpeded view. It was both grander and shabbier than she had expected, a soft pink twenty-carat jewel trimmed with white latticework along first and second-story porches that wrapped around the house. The roof was metal, a surprisingly homey touch in a house as stately as this one, and the ever-present Bahamian sun had softened the paint
