Judy Gill Read online

  GOLDEN SWAN

  A Bantam Book / January 1990

  LOVESWEPT and the wave device are registered

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  Copyright © 1989 by Judy Gill.

  Cover art copyright ©1989 by Garin Baker.

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  ISBN 0-553-44010-1

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Cdnada

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  1

  Cal sat up straighter in his chair and massaged the small of his back with both hands. The motion elicited an eager question from the younger of his two nieces, ten-year-old Kara. "Are you finished, Uncle Cal? Can we have a canoeing lesson now?"

  "Soon," he said absently, and rotated his shoulders to get rid of the kinks. He hated paperwork. He hated government forms, but they had to be filled out every month his lodge was in operation. September, the closing month of the season, meant even more paperwork. He heard a long, gusty sigh behind him, followed by another. He, too, sighed as he turned to face the girls.

  "I wish you two would quit sulking. "

  "We're not sulking," said Laura with all the injured dignity of an insulted eleven-year-old. "We may be feeling sad, but we never sulk."

  He raised his brows and flashed them a quick grin. "You could have fooled me." Laura met his gaze with eyes most definitely sad. Kara stared at him, too, her mouth drooping.

  "If you're so desperately unhappy here, " Cal asked, "why do I hear the two of you laughing and giggling and carrying on when you're in your room, or think I'm out of hearing range? You're only 'sad' when I'm around, so I can only conclude that you're sulking and trying to make me feel guilty for not Inviting your great-aunt to come here with you."

  "Is it working?" Kara asked with Interest and some hope.

  Cal suppressed a smile. "Nope," he said, and turned back to his paperwork.

  "What if we told you that she's really young and beautiful?" Laura asked.

  He laughed and hooked one arm over the back of his chair, turning back to the girls. "You never give up, do you? I'm not asking her here. This is no place for an old lady. She'd hate it."

  "But—" Kara broke off and cocked her head to one side. "What's that?" They could all hear a whining motor, coming closer, growing louder.

  Cal rose to his feet. "I don't know. It's not a plane, and It shouldn't be an outboard. Not on Kinikinik Lake." As a waterfowl preserve, the lake was supposed to be free of powerboats. Float planes, however, were permitted, but the noise certainly wasn't from one of those.

  "It sounds like a motorcycle." Laura said, going to a window that looked up the valley through the orchard. "But how could there be one up here?"

  "There are old logging roads that connect all the way out to Powell River," Cal said, shoving his feet into shoes as he looked out the window over Laura's head. There was nothing to see, but the machine was certainly approaching fast. "Maybe someone's lost and needs help," he continued, heading for the rear entrance. "Though during hunting season, nobody but a lunatic would be out on a motorcycle in the woods."

  "Lunatic?" Laura echoed, crowding past her uncle. "Of course! A lunatic on a motorcycle! Kara, come on! It's B.J.!" she shrieked, tearing out the door. "Our letters worked!"

  "What?" Cal followed their headlong rush outside. "B.J.? Who's B.J.? What the hell's going on and who in the hell is that and—look out!"

  The last was a shout of warning as a motorcycle shot over the brow of the hill, hit the slick mud where Fred had recently cleaned out an irrigation ditch, and went into a skid. The rider righted the bike, jumped on the brakes, and cut the motor. Cal could see he was fighting the machine, dragging his feet, trying to slow it as it continued to slide through the mud. A low moan of horror came from under the visored helmet in the brief seconds before the bike crashed through the rear wall of the greenhouse.

  It came to rest finally, wedged between the potting table and a support beam.

  In the shocked silence glass tinkled musically. Cal stepped into the greenhouse and gingerly brushed broken bits of glass from the hunched shoulders of the leather-clad figure still astride the bike. A heartfelt "whew!" whispered out from the helmet.

  From somewhere behind him, a small, scared voice asked, "B.J.? Are you okay?"

  The girls seemed certain that the rider was the mysterious B.J., Cal thought as a pair of gauntleted hands released the handlebars and the leather-covered shoulders shrugged off his touch. The rider scrambled off the bike awkwardly, turned from the scene of destruction, and removed the visored helmet.

  Shimmering blond hair tumbled around a stark white face. A pair of incredibly blue eyes gazed at Cal almost without seeing him, blinked, and focused on the girls.

  "Hello, my angels," the woman said through blood-less lips, her voice thin but musical. "I got your letters. I came as soon as I could."

  "What happened?" Kara asked. "Why did you crash?"

  "The—the brakes locked." B.J. turned to look at the shattered wall of the greenhouse. Then, with a faint sigh, she keeled over to land with a thud, facedown among the hills of potatoes. Her helmet rolled over to Cal's feet, teetering there like a strange red bowl.

  "B.J.!" Laura cried, flinging herself down beside the unconscious woman. "Oh, Uncle Cal, help her! She must be hurt. Pick her up or something!"

  "Yeah. Sure. Pick her up—or something," he muttered, crouching at the woman's other side. Gently, he turned her onto her back and smoothed the hair off her forehead, feeling the silky strands slide through his fingers. When he brushed the dry soil of the potato bed off her face, he was aware of the satiny texture of her creamy skin, and felt guilty for noticing.

  With infinite care, he ran his hands over the one-piece leather suit she wore. Even as he wondered if he'd recognize a life-threatening injury when he felt one, he was very much aware that injuries were not what he was most interested in. Her legs were slender, her hips flared with feminine grace, and her breasts were full and rounded. Her arms, when he forced his hands to tend to them, seemed intact, and she had been able to stand. She had spoken to the girls. He didn't really think she was hurt badly. The impact of her bike with the greenhouse hadn't been all that hard, her speed having been slowed by her boots dragging furrows in the garden. Still, he was careful as he slid his arms under her and lifted her limp form against his chest. She was light, yet there was a warm substance to her that made a solid impact on his senses. Something shuddered through him that had no right to be there, but he couldn't quite eradicate it.

  He watched her for indications of discomfort as he moved her, but her face, though white, remained relaxed. He was
deeply grateful she'd worn a visored helmet. It would have been a desecration if her face had been cut. Her face . . .

  He swallowed again as he shifted her in his arms and stood up. Whoever she was, she had the most exquisite face he had ever seen. Her skin was like porcelain. No, alabaster. No, mother-of-pearl. Oh, what did it matter? It was perfection. Her lashes, dark and thick and luxuriant, lay in long sweeps below her eyes. Her eyes . . .

  Had he imagined the blueness of them, the intensity of their color, the depths he had seen in just that one flashing instant?

  "Is she dead?" Kara asked fearfully. Cal shook his head. "No. I think she's just passed out. Probably from fright. I guess skidding into a greenhouse on a bike with locked brakes isn't listed among life's most pleasant experiences."

  As he spoke Cal carried the woman to the house, standing aside while Laura lunged forward to open the door. He sat down on the couch, still holding her. Unable to help himself, he stroked her face again, removing any remaining traces of garden soil, sensitive once more to the satiny texture of her skin.

  "Wake up," he said gently, patting her cheek, watching color slowly return to tinge her cheeks and lips with pink. "Come on, beautiful. Wake up. Get a cold cloth, Laura. Kara, go look in the medicine cabinet in your bathroom. I think there's smelling salts in the first-aid kit.

  "Wake up," he repeated as the girls hurried off. "Open your lovely eyes, Sleeping Beauty. You're safe now, you know." She failed to respond beyond a faint parting of her luscious lips, and a fluttering of dark lashes. He stared at her mouth. No lipstick. That rosy color was natural. He studied the rest of her face. Again, no makeup. Completely natural. And she was still the most incredibly beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  Impulsively, he bent his head and brushed his lips over hers. If she could be Sleeping Beauty, why couldn't he be Prince Charming and wake her with a magic kiss?

  Something in him quivered when her lips moved gently under his. He felt her breath on his cheek, smelled the sweet, fresh outdoors scent of her skin and hair, and succumbed to the insistent demand drumming within. His arms tightened around her. He groaned softly, then parted her lips with his own as they hardened over hers and kissed her more deeply. She sighed into his mouth and her tongue flicked almost shyly against his lower lip.

  Astonished delight ran through him as her hand came up and cupped his cheek, so soft and warm and delicate, and her tongue tasted him again. . .

  B.J. heard a deep, resonant, male voice speaking to her through a cloud of purple gauze. It was a wonderful voice, a caring one, vibrant with concern. The man's hand touched her face with callused fingertips, and that, too, was wonderful. She kept her eyes closed, drifting in a wide, slow circle, and then she felt the pressure of his mouth on hers.

  Her heart stilled for an instant, then hammered hard in her chest. Her throat tightened at the taste of this man with the velvet voice. His arms were stronger, yet gentler, than any arms that had held her before. His chest was broader, harder, and the warmth that emanated from his body reached right to her core, even through her leathers.

  Leathers? Yes. She was wearing her biking clothes. Where was she? Why was she in this man's arms? Why had he told her to wake up? Had she fallen and knocked herself out? From somewhere came the knowledge that she shouldn't be enjoying this so much, that there was another reason for her having come here—wherever "here" might be—but if that was so, why did his kiss, though it tasted slightly odd, feel so right?

  She had no answers to those questions, but it didn't matter, did it? What mattered was that this was happening and it was sensational and she didn't want it to end. She flicked her tongue out, wanting to taste him again, wondering what that intriguing flavor was, and heard the soft, explosive sound of his breath, felt the warmth of it against her cheek. She wanted to touch him, and touched him, because it was easier to give in to the desire than to struggle against it.

  She was conscious, Cal realized as her hand slid around to the back of his head and clung to his hair. She was conscious, and she was kissing him back. She was participating equally in this heady, unbelievable delight, enjoying it with the same abandoned pleasure as he.

  He groaned softly as he lifted her higher in his arms, feeling her soft hair caress his throat, her bottom nestle against his lap, the quickening rise and fall of her chest as her breathing became as tremulous as his own. She felt like heaven in his arms. She felt better than any other woman had ever felt. He wanted to hold her like this for the rest of his life, and he didn't even know who she was!

  "Uncle Cal! What are you doing?"

  Laura's shocked voice, as much as his own realization, brought him to attention and he abruptly lifted his mouth away from the woman's. What had he been doing? Even more important, what had he been thinking? Crazy thoughts, that was what! Stupid ones. Completely out-of-character ones.

  "Um . . . I . . . Didn't you ever hear of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?" he snapped, then tenderly settled the now fully conscious woman into the corner of the sofa. He arranged a plump pillow behind her head, then stood and swung her legs up to where he had been sitting. All the while he tried to avoid getting caught in the web she cast with the intense gaze of those blue, blue eyes. He couldn't avoid it. They were there, those eyes, calling to him, beckoning him. He looked, promising himself it would just be one tiny glance, that he couldn't be captured if he only looked for an instant. But they ensnared him, pinned him, gazing at him with an odd mixture of bewilderment, confusion, and . . . yearning? Could it be that she felt it, too? The wonder, the promise, the instant attraction he felt for her?

  From a long way away he heard Laura say, "Oh. But. . . she wasn't drowned, Uncle Cal." The woman, still looking at him, blushed a lovely shade of pink, enchanting him further.

  "I can't find anything that says 'smelling salts,' " Kara wailed from along the hall.

  Suddenly those blue eyes smiled into his, offering to share amusement, making his head spin. In that melodious voice, stronger now, she called out . . . "Try 'sal volatile,' honey, but don't worry about it. I'm fine now and don't need smelling salts."

  Because something better had come along to wake her up? Cal wondered. His heart pounded so hard, he thought it might not stay confined within his chest.

  "Oh, B. J.!" Laura launched herself into B. J.'s arms to be joined by her smaller sister only seconds later. "You're here! You're really here! I can't believe it! When did you get our letters? You see, Uncle Cal? She really is young and beautiful! Oh, please say you don't mind! You'll let her stay now that she's here and you can see how really nice she is, won't you?"

  Cal felt his knees grow watery as he sank onto the edge of a chair. He stared at the two girls wriggling in delight as they hugged and kissed the woman on the couch, the woman he wanted to hug and kiss, too. But if he joined that tangle of arms and legs and kisses, he'd wriggle in more than just delight. It was much, much better, he decided, to stay completely out of that—reunion?

  "I don't believe this," he said, looking at the woman over the heads of his nieces. "You aren't . . . you can't be. You aren't trying to tell me that you're Melody's aunt Barbara? The girls' great-aunt? My God! You can't be!" he repeated. "You can't be anyone's great-anything!"

  "But I am." She smiled at him. "I come from a weirdly spaced family. I have two brothers, ages fifty-seven and fifty-six, and one sister, Melody's mother, Phyllis, who's fifty-four. They were all grown—Phyllis was twenty-four—when I was born."

  She smiled at him again and the world started spinning faster. She had dimples, adorable, trembling dimples, one on either side of her mouth. He knew he must look vacuous and inane, with his mouth hanging open while he grinned like a lunatic.

  That reminded him. "The minute I said 'lunatic on a motorcycle,' Laura, you knew exactly who was out there. Why? How?"

  B.J. laughed lightly and little bells rang in his ears, making him dizzy. "Because" she said, "that's what her dear father calls me every time he sees me on the bike."

&nb
sp; "Are you?" The thought appalled him. "Do you ride dangerously?"

  "No. I'm a very safe rider, today's incident notwithstanding." She smiled again and those cute dimples danced and winked. Cal knew he'd always been a sucker for dimples—he'd just never noticed it before.

  B.J. watched as the girls' uncle Cal got up, took a step toward the couch, and tripped over an ottoman. He staggered three feet forward and fell into another chair. There he remained, his gaze pinned to her face with . . . could it be fascination?

  B.J. stared back. What was the matter with him? He was gaping at her like a stunned fish, and she certainly hadn't expected what Melody called the "dolt reaction" from him, of all people. Other men, on other occasions, sure, but never him. Since her transformation, men had tended to take second and third looks, and once in a while even to stutter, especially if they'd known her before, but nobody had ever tripped over the furniture because of her. In the back of her mind, she heard Melody's voice: Go on up there, B.J., and knock him right on his patookus.

  Well! Had she done that? For a moment she thought that maybe she had, but though it was a pleasing idea, it was so ludicrous she abandoned it. She hadn't knocked Calvin Mixall onto anything. He hadn't expected her, that was all, and she must be a bit of a shock to him because she didn't look like a typical great-aunt. Most people were startled by the relationship.

  "Uh—" He swallowed visibly. "Welcome to Kinikinik Lake, Miss Gray."

  She smiled. "Thank you," she said, and to his delight, blushed again. "But please, won't you call me B.J. . . . Cal?"

  Cal experienced a surge of desire in response to that alluring smile, then tried to negate its effect by returning it, but his didn't seem to do to her what hers did to him. She simply looked down, hiding her eyes with those thick dark lashes, and his in-sides flipped over. Dammit, he had to get himself together. This was insane! She was a woman, for heaven's sake. He'd seen plenty of women before. He'd held plenty of women before. Kissed them. But not recently, a little voice inside him said, and he heard it with relief.