was saying that troubled her exactly. But the tone he was using did. He was so polite. His lazy southern drawl scraped across her nerves, like a nail over raw silk, and every time he looked at her she grew more and more tense.
‘Um—how—how’s your mother?’ she asked, hoping to divert the conversation away from herself, and Cole lifted his head.
‘Ma’s OK.’ His eyes skimmed her mouth, and although she had just drunk about a quarter of a pint of lemonade Joanna’s lips felt parched. ‘She’s getting older, like the rest of us. But she still works just as hard as ever.’
‘And—and Ben and Joe?’ Joanna felt compelled to keep him talking about his family. ‘And the twins? I bet Charley can swim now, can’t she? Did they start high school yet? Oh, yes, of course, they must have done.’
Cole regarded her between narrowed lids. ‘Are you really that interested?’ he queried, his brooding gaze bringing a deepening of colour in her cheeks. ‘Sure, Ben and Joe are fine. Joe’s married now, and his wife’s expecting their first baby. Charley and Donna started high school last year, and Sandy’s going to join them come fall.’ He paused. ‘I guess that about covers it, wouldn’t you say?’
Joanna bent her head, the weight of her hair sliding over one shoulder to expose the vulnerable curve of her neck. ‘I was just being—polite, that’s all,’ she said, half defensively. ‘I—like your brothers and sisters. And, I used to think that they liked me.’
‘They did.’ Cole shook the ice around in his empty tumbler. ‘Charley often used to talk about the time you and she got stuck out on Palmer’s Island. If you hadn’t swum back to get help, you might both have been swept away.’
‘Oh——’ Joanna made a deprecating gesture. ‘You’d already discovered we were missing. When the boat was washed on to the bank, you’d have guessed where we were.’
‘Maybe not soon enough,’ he insisted, and Joanna felt a remembered sense of apprehension. She could still recall how scared she had been in the water, fighting her way against the current, feeling her arms getting weaker by the minute. She had been unable to stand, when she hauled herself out of the river. If Cole and his brothers hadn’t been searching for them, it might still have been too late. The flooding torrent of the Tidewater River had left Palmer’s Island under several feet of water for hours. No one could have survived its fury, least of all ten-year-old Charley, who couldn’t even swim.
Joanna grimaced now, unwilling to think of that near-tragedy, and Cole stretched out his hand towards her. She thought for one heart-stopping moment that he was going to touch her, and she instinctively drew back against the chair. But, although his lips flattened for a moment, revealing his awareness of her reaction, all he did was lift the empty tumbler out of her hand.
‘I’ll get rid of these,’ he said, dropping one inside the other, and while she tried to recover her self-possession he sauntered across the deck to dump the tumblers.
By the time she heard the depression of his chair’s plastic slats, she was once again reclining on her towel, on her stomach this time, with her eyes closed, and her face turned deliberately away from him. Surely he would get the message, she thought tensely. She didn’t want to have to spell it out for him again. He was wasting his time if he thought he could get her to change her mind. They had a saying in the south, about catching more bees with honey than with vinegar, but if that was Cole’s intention it wasn’t going to work. He was an attractive man, sure, and, even though she had more reason than most to regret the fact, she wouldn’t have been a woman if she hadn’t found him easy to look at. But that was all. She wasn’t attracted to him. Not any more.
‘You’re going to get burned,’ his lazy voice observed, revealing his skin was thicker than even she had thought, and Joanna clamped her jaws together.
‘No, I’m not,’ she retorted, through her teeth. ‘My skin’s too dark, remember?’
‘It’s also used to a colder climate,’ Cole replied, and she heard him get up from his chair again.
God! Joanna lay completely still for a moment, and then, unable to withstand the suspense a moment longer, she rolled over on to her back—just as Cole was lowering his weight on to the side of her slatted mattress. It was just by a swift removal of her arm that she avoided being sat on, and her eyes sparkled indignantly at his uninvited presumption.
‘What the hell do you——?’ she was beginning, when Cole showed her the tube of sun-screening cream in his hand.
‘This is yours, isn’t it?’ he asked, and she guessed he had rifled it from her bag. ‘Turn over,’ he added, unscrewing the cap and squeezing a curl of its contents into his palm. ‘There’s no point in torturing yourself just to spite me.’
Joanna pressed her lips together and stared up at him, resentment oozing from every pore. The last thing she wanted was his help, in anything. And she certainly didn’t want him touching her. But once again he had her at a disadvantage, caught between the desire to show her real feelings, and the knowledge that by doing so she would be handing him all the cards.
So, instead of snatching the cream out of his hand and hurling it into the pool, she forced a tight smile and obediently rolled over again. Let him do his worst, she thought, stifling her angry reaction against the towel. After all, although her skin didn’t tan, it did burn sometimes, and she could do without that aggravation as well.
Cole’s hands were amazingly cool against her hot flesh. Of course, he had just been handling the tumblers containing the ice, she reminded herself grimly, as his long fingers slid across her shoulders, and his thumbs found the nubby column of her spine. She found it was important to keep a sense of proportion, as his probing hands found every inch of exposed skin. She was relieved she wasn’t wearing a bikini. At least the modest maillot left her some dignity.
But not a lot, she had to concede, as the sinuous brush of his fingers began to lull her into a false sense of security. It would be so easy, she thought, to go with the flow; to allow her flesh to respond to the sensuous touch of his; to admit she was enjoying his expert ministrations. Because of the limitations of the sun-bed, his leg was wedged beside her hip, and although the swimsuit protected the upper half of her pelvis his hair-roughened thigh was against the exposed curve of her bottom. It meant that every stroke of his hands on her shoulders brought a corresponding increase of pressure against her hip, and the images that evoked were all sexual …
‘I—think that will do,’ she declared firmly, arching her back away from his fingers, and getting up on to her knees. ‘I’m not planning to stay out here that much longer.’
‘No?’ With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, Cole moved obediently back to his own chair. ‘What are you planning to do, then?’
Joanna didn’t look at him. ‘I think that’s my business, don’t you?’
‘I guess.’ Cole screwed the top back on the tube of sun-cream and dropped it carelessly into her bag. ‘Only askin’, lady.’
‘And I’m telling you, it’s none of your business,’ said Joanna shortly. ‘In any case, don’t you have a plane to catch, or something?’
‘Not until tomorrow,’ Cole replied, wiping his greasy hands over his knees. ‘Sorry.’
‘I should have guessed.’ Joanna’s impatient gaze darted over him. ‘You obviously came prepared.’
‘You
