Girl Trouble

That scene was still seared in Cade’s memory. It had been, he supposed, the worst moment of his life. Worse by far than the beating, and that had been bad enough for a young fellow who’d prided himself on his fists.

Somehow Cade’s feet had carried him all the way down to the waterfront. A fish and chips truck was parked outside the market. But his appetite had disappeared and he was in no mood to stand patiently in the lineup and wait for his turn.

He’d go back to the hotel, change into his running gear and head for the park. He had to do something physical, and soon. Or else he’d go nuts.

Twenty-five minutes later Cade was jogging under the tall pines of Point Pleasant Park, which was situated on a peninsula jutting into the waters of Halifax Harbour and which had as its view the knife-sharp edge where the open Atlantic met the sky. He passed the container pier and the war monument, feeling his muscles loosen and his stride settle into an easy rhythm. Lorraine was nothing to him. Nothing.

Quite apart from anything else, she was a married woman. Happily married, by the look of her.

Which, considering the man she’d chosen for a husband, didn’t say much for her.

He forced himself to put her out of his mind, to concentrate on his surroundings. A group of children were playing ball on the grass by the edge of the harbor, their cries like the chittering of sparrows; dogs chased each other through the trees, and other joggers passed him, some breathing easily, some gasping for air. He ran through the woodland trails for the better part of an hour, then stretched out his calves against a tree and found himself a perch on the weathered rocks that overlooked the Northwest Arm. It was time, he thought wryly, wiping the sweat from his brow with the hem of his T-shirt, to think about shock number one. The one that Sam had landed on him when they’d met for breakfast that morning in the little diner across from Sam’s garage.

Sam Withrod. He’d been the area supervisor for a chain of gas stations, one of which had been leased to Cade’s father in the years when Cade had been growing up. Cade had always liked Sam. Liked him and respected him. They’d kept in touch ever since, one or two letters a year, short letters on Cade’s part, long newsy letters on Sam’s. When he’d come back to Canada a year ago and taken the job in Toronto, Cade had phoned Sam, and somehow they’d fallen into a pattern of monthly phone calls.

This morning Sam had offered Cade a job. More than a job. A partnership in his business.

“I’m sixty-four years old,” Sam had said, plastering his toast with butter. “Got no kin, no sons of my own. Not as bright-eyed and busy-tailed as I used to be, either. I’d like it just fine if you’d take over the garage eventually, Cade. When I get ready to retire. In the meantime I’d like you to be a full partner, learn the business, give me your ideas and your input. What d

you say?”

Sam specialized in foreign cars, employed a dozen mechanics and had always had an impeccable reputation for efficiency and honesty. Cade said blankly, “Do you mean it?”

“Sure do. Hadn’t you seen it coming?”

“Can’t say I had.”

“You’re not that happy in Toronto.”

“Hate it,” Cade said economically. “The city and the job. You can’t get out of the city and the job’s going nowhere.”

Sam gulped down the last of his bacon and eggs and swiped at his mustache with his serviette; his mustache, like his hair, was thick, white and bushy. “You’re in town for a few days. Come see me at the garage, look around, ask questions. Then think it over and let me know. No rush.”

Playing with his fork, Cade said awkwardly, “It’s a very generous offer, Sam.”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said, his bright blue eyes both shrewd and affectionate. “I watched you grow up, boy. You work like a demon and you’ve got a way with an engine like some men have with a woman. But most of all, you’re loyal and you’re trustworthy...I’d take your word to the bank any day of the week. And I can’t say that for too many folks I meet.”

Cade, moved, had said gruffly, “Thanks,” had quickly signaled to the waitress for more coffee and had changed the subject. But now, as he sat alone watching the sun dance on the water, he could allow Sam’s words to play through him, warming him inside as the sun was warming his skin. Sam trusted him. That was the gist of it.

Excitement kindled within him. He’d be willing to bet that Sam’s business was flourishing; foreign cars were becoming more and more popular, and in a city as small as Halifax the word would get around that the garage was honest in its dealings. Already in Toronto Cade had gotten himself into hot water because of his refusal to condone shoddy or unnecessary work; and the boss’s son was waiting in the sidelines to take over just as soon as his father gave the word.

He, Cade, could live by the sea again, in a province known for its shoreline and its wilderness, places where a man could stretch his legs and breathe free. Nor would he continually have to be shoving his principles down his boss’s throat; because Sam shared those principles. He could be closer to his mother, too; she still lived in Juniper Hills, a forty-minute drive from Halifax.

Closer to Lorraine? That, too?

Scowling, Cade stared at the far shore. Now that a couple of hours had passed since his impetuous entrance to the photography studio and his ignominious exit, he was appalled by how deeply the sight of that photograph had affected him. In taking him by surprise, it had revealed something about himself that he would have preferred not to know. That he was no more free of Lorraine now than he had been ten years ago.

Not that he’d spent the ten years constantly thinking about her. Far from it. He’d left Juniper Hills before he turned twenty-four, right after his father died. He’d roamed the rest of Canada, then the States, Chile, Australia, Thailand and Singapore, India and Turkey, ending up in Europe and finally Great Britain. He’d worked at everything from sheep ranching to dishwashing, he’d read voraciously, studied whenever he’d had the chance, and in terms of visas had stayed—more or less—one step ahead of the law. He’d grown up. Or so he’d thought until an hour ago.

For the first time it occurred to him to wonder if it perhaps hadn’t been the smartest of moves to bury in the depths of his unconscious everything that had happened with Lorraine so long ago. Because it had all lain there waiting for him, a bundle of dynamite with a coiled fuse; to which, today, that damned photograph had touched the blue flame of a match.

Cade’s mind made a sudden leap. Maybe Lorraine was the reason he’d never married. Although he hadn’t been celibate in the last ten years, he’d confined his occasional affairs to women for whom he’d felt a certain affection, yet who’d clearly understood that commitment wasn’t on his agenda: he’d be moving on as soon as his visa ran out. Moving on by himself. Trouble was, some of those women would happily have marched him up the aisle to the stately strains of Mendelssohn. Which had always made him feel as skittish as a fox kit and twice as wary.

Because he’d never really freed himself from Lorraine? From all the tangled emotions that had bound him to her? Was she his albatross, the weight who kept him from flying free?

Or was he, quite simply, a loner? A man who’d always felt most comfortable in his own company, free to follow his own instincts wherever they led him? In essence, ever since he’d started school he’d been on his own, fighting one battle after another in defense of his father in the school grounds: fights that at first he lost consistently. He could remember as easily as if it were yesterday the Martin brothers, who’d found it roaringly funny to lurch up and down outside the school library imitating the drunken staggers of Cade’s father. No one had ever come to Cade’s help when the Martin boys had pinned him to the ground and pummeled him until—sometimes—he’d cried. He must have realized way back then that he was on his own, alone in a world often hostile. Certainly he couldn’t have run home for solace from his mother.

So perhaps Lorraine had nothing whatsoever to do with his unmarried state.

She’d looked so goddamned happy in that photograph! So carefree. Yet her husband, unless all Cade’s radar had been way off base, was a sleaze.

A rich sleaze, though. A high-society sleaze. Not like himself, plain Cade MacInnis, whose dad used to run the local gas station. And Lorraine, as a teenager, had been a crashing snob. Why should she have changed?

Cade surged to his feet. Enough. This afternoon he’d go to Sam’s garage, and then he’d make his decision. Unless it was already made. Was he was going to move back to Nova Scotia to live by the sea? And then do his best to engineer a meeting between himself and Lorraine Cartwright, so that once and for all he could lay that particular ghost to rest? He didn’t want his emotional life on permanent hold because of her, nor did he want her lodged so deeply in his being that the sight of a photograph knocked him right off balance.

His mother probably knew where Lorraine and Ray were living. He’d ask her, track Lorraine down that way.

It’s a plan, he thought savagely. Yeah, it’s a plan. Because it’s time I get on with my life. Alone or not. If I have to see Lorraine Cartwright once more in order to leave the past where it belongs—nicely in the past, thank you very much—then that’s what I’ll do.

A good old-fashioned exorcism, that’s what I need.

Because I hate like hell feeling tied to that woman. In any way at all. She’s not worth the time of day, and never was.

CHAPTER TWO

THREE months later, on a Saturday morning in September as sunny and warm as that morning in June had been, Cade pushed open the door to the gymnasium of one of Halifax’s universities. Just yesterday he’d joined as an off-campus member. He’d been so busy the last few weeks settling into his new job as Sam’s partner and into his apartment, not to mention buying the property at French Bay, that he’d been neglecting his usual fitness routine. Past time to get himself in better shape.

He spent three-quarters of an hour in the weight room going through his regular routine. Although he didn’t overdo the weights, Cade felt much better for the exercise.

Once he’d showered, he’d go to French Bay to check out what the carpenter and plumber had accomplished in the last couple of days. His purchase four weeks ago of ten acres and a rundown house on the shores of a bay only twenty minutes outside the city had been unchar-acteristically impulsive. Yet Cade knew in his bones it had been the right decision; just as coming back to Halifax and taking Sam’s offer of a partnership had been. After his many years of wandering, he’d come home.

As he left the weight room, a woman’s voice suddenly overrode the chatter of the students who were lounging in the corridor waiting for a class to begin. “I’ll be right there,” the voice called. “Just let me get the tapes.”

Cade’s head swiveled around. All the hairs lifted on the back of his neck. Lorraine. That voice belonged to Lorraine. He’d swear it did.

But it couldn’t be her. What would she be doing in a crowded university gym on a Saturday morning? He was out of his mind to even think it was her. He hadn’t seen her for years, and lots of other women must be gifted with attractive contralto voices that had that edge of throatiness he recalled so well.

He turned and strode down the hallway toward the voice, went around the corner and collided head-on with its owner.

It was Lorraine.

Cade’s heart gave a great thud, as though he’d dropped a 20-kilogram weight on the carpet. Automatically his arms went around her, steadying her. In one startled and all-comprehensive moment he saw that she was both totally different and absolutely the same.

Her hair, which used to be a sleek, polished fall curving around her cheeks, was now pulled back into a ponytail with wisps Curling over her eyes. But it was the same warm blond, streaked from the sun. Her eyes—blank now with shock—were the smudged blue he remembered, a blue the color of kingfisher feathers. She looked tired; the shadows under her eyes were tinged a translucent shade somewhere between blue and mauve.

Her fingers, lying against the chest of his sweat-damp singlet, were slim and strong. But Lorraine at nineteen had had nails painted all shades from scarlet to garish pink; her nails were now bare of polish. Her hands were bare of rings, too, he saw with a ripple along his nerves.

The gentle curve of her belly was pressed against him, and as he looked down at her he was rewarded by an enticing and altogether disturbing view of her cleavage. Her breasts were fuller than they used to be, he thought, his mouth dry.