Candle in the Wind Page 4

  They made their way back to the coast and Sam immediately took off her jeans and went into the sea to cool off. She was still half afraid of the water, it took some courage to try to swim and she went under once or twice, but suddenly it came back to her and she found herself doing an easy crawl through the water.

  'I told you you could swim like a fish.' Mike's voice made her turn and she saw him swimming towards her with long, powerful strokes. When he reached her he playfully splashed her and then laughingly moved out of the way when she tried to retaliate. He went on teasing her and Sam made a lot of noise, squealing with mock indignation and yelling threats at him…

  'Just you wait, you bully!'

  She managed to catch him at last and dived for his legs to pull him under for a minute. He twisted out of her grasp and came after her and Sam headed for the shore fast. Still laughing, she ran out of the water and turned to see him chasing after her, so she kept going up the beach, his footsteps flying behind her. He caught her after twenty yards and seized her wrist, pulling her round to face him, his eyes alight with laughter.

  'Duck me, would you, you minx? There's only one punishment for that.'

  Sam gave a shriek and tried to get away, but he held her easily and bent to pick her up and carry her back to the sea. She struggled against him, but he merely laughed at her and started to wade in.

  'No, don't you dare duck me! Mike!'

  Putting her arms round his neck, she clung on when he went to drop her so that she was leaning against him. Suddenly he stood still, and when Sam looked into his face she saw that the laughter had gone from his eyes, to be replaced by a kind of hunger. His arms tightened round her and he held her close against him.

  'Sam. Oh, Sam, you're so lovely.'

  He began to kiss her and this time his lips were hard and firm, demanding a response. Sam tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her, increasing the pressure of his mouth until he forced her lips apart. Now all she could feel was the strength and warmth of his almost naked body. He wanted her and she could feel the tension growing in him as he held her. He reached for the clip at the back of her sun-top and then she felt his hand, hot against the soft swell of her breast. Instinctively she recoiled and put her hands up to push him away.

  'No! Let me go! Damn you, let me go!'

  Using all her strength, she broke free of his embrace, but his face darkened angrily and he reached for her again. She struggled wildly against him, doubling her fists and, beating violently against his chest. He let her go so suddenly that she fell back into the shallows. For a moment they stared at each other, Sam's face wide- eyed and frightened, Mike's tight-lipped with scarcely controlled anger.

  Harshly he said, 'You're my wife, Sam, I've every right in the world to kiss you like that.'

  He stood glaring down at her, a big buccaneer of a man. No softness blurred his muscular figure, he was fit and hard. Sam realised with sickening clarity that he had only to exert his strength and she would be completely powerless, that he could force her to do anything he wanted. Strength and toughness, and the kind of sexuality that would completely dominate her if she ever gave it the opportunity. Pulling the sun-top up to cover herself, she slowly got to her feet, her eyes never leaving his face.

  Tremblingly she said, 'Mike, please try to understand. Everything is strange to me, it's like being born fully grown. I've got to get used to the idea of being a person with no past. That—-that takes some getting used to, believe me. And you—you say you're my husband. But to me you're a complete stranger, someone I met for the first time just a few days ago. I can't just pick up our relationship as it was before, because I don't know what it was like before. I don't know you and I don't know anything about you, except what you've told me and what I saw on the boat. I know that you're kind and brave and that you saved flay life several times over,' he made an impatient gesture, but she persisted, 'and I'm more grateful for that than I can possibly say, but it isn't enough to make me want to… to let you…' She broke off in confusion and looked at him rather helplessly. 'Mike, I'm sorry, but I don't remember loving you.'

  His jaw tightened and for a moment his eyes grew bleak. Then he put up a hand to push his wet hair off his face and turned to wade ashore. Slowly Sam followed him. He waited for her to catch him up and then said decisively, 'All right, Sam. I won't let things go so far again unless you want it as much as I do. But it's not going to be all on my side, you have to meet me half-way you may not feel anything for me at the moment, but you've got to try and remember that I love you,' his voice roughened, 'very much. And try to think how you must have felt to marry me, will you?'

  She gave a rather jerky little nod. 'All right, I'll try.'

  'Good girl.' He continued to regard her for a moment and then stepped towards her. 'Here.' He picked up the straps of her sun-top and did the clip up for her. Despite herself, Sam began to tremble as his fingers touched her skin. 'Relax.' Deliberately he put a casual arm across her shoulders and led her back up the beach.

  Sam tried to do as he asked, but that wild embrace in the sea had heightened her awareness of him and she found it well-nigh impossible to behave even naturally towards him, let alone meet him half-way as he wanted. Over the next few days she tried, Lord, how she tried, but every time he kissed her, however casually, she grew tense and when he tried to caress her she flinched away, and it was this physical rejection of him that angered Mike most of all. His face would become taut with suppressed emotion as he abruptly let her go, and he would turn to pour all his energy into the job in hand.

  They walked round the coastline of the island until they found a break in the reef where a much larger stream, almost a small river, flowed into the sea, and here Mike built a shelter for them not too far from the shore. It was primitive as native huts Went, with a roof and sides of interwoven palm fronds, but it protected them from the wind at night and from the sun by day. He even made one of the sides removable so that they could air the hut if they wanted to. Outside it he built another oven, a bigger one this time, so that whenever he caught a fish they could prepare it and leave it to cook slowly for their evening meal. Next he turned his attention to gathering all the dead wood he could find into a bonfire a little way down the beach and put lots of coconut fibre on it so that it could be lit at once if ever they saw a boat or a plane. He had fully recovered his strength very quickly and he put all his energy into making their lives on the island more comfortable, often labouring from dawn till dusk and tiring himself out. Sam watched him, knowing full well why he did it, and always with a feeling of guilt at the back of her mind because she couldn't give him what he wanted.

  He kept his word in that he never let things get out of hand, but he continued to kiss her often, although he did this less as the days passed and she still failed to respond. Sam did try, but that episode on the beach had given her a glimpse of the passion he was capable of and she was afraid that any yielding on her part would immediately fire it into burning life again. Also she found the sensations he aroused in her whenever he kissed her vaguely disturbing. She felt no love for him, and yet he aroused a feeling of sensuality that heightened her senses and made her afraid of her own reactions. Was it possible to want a man without loving him? She felt confused and unhappy. If only he would leave her alone; she needed time to sort out her own emotions. But he insisted on treating her with an easy familiarity that bordered on possessiveness. It was as if every time he touched her he was stressing the fact that he had done it often before, that she was his to take whenever he wanted. She realised that it must anger him when she was careful not to let him see her when she took off her clothes and bathed in the river, especially when he must already have such an intimate knowledge of her body, but she couldn't help it, she just couldn't behave like a wife when she didn't feel like one.

  When he finished the hut she had tried to make a bed for herself well away from his, but at this his face had grown dark with anger and he had dragged her across to his side of the hut.
>
  'You're my wife, Sam,' he rasped out. 'We'll sleep together, even if it is only in the literal sense of the word!'

  After that the tension had grown between them with every waking hour. Mike had carried on with his work, but there was a grim, set look on. his face, and Sam had given up any pretence of trying to behave naturally towards him. Whenever he came near her, to show her how to prepare a fish or to open a coconut, she felt her heart start to pound and her pulses race. She supposed he was being very patient with her, and she could only guess at what such patience was doing to him. He was a man of dominant masculinity and her rejection of him must be like a physical blow every time. How long he could take it without losing control and forcing the issue she didn't dare to think, but she was terribly afraid that things must reach a climax soon, one way or the other. Her one hope was that a boat would come and take them off the island and back to civilisation, but even then the problem "wouldn't be over, she would still be his wife; but at least they wouldn't be completely alone together for twenty-four hours a day with no respite from the electrically charged tension between them. She spent hours gazing hopefully out to sea in search of a boat and whenever Mike saw her, his mouth grew grimmer and his manner more abrupt.

  Late one evening he walked back to the hut from the beach with some driftwood he had collected for the fire they had lit. A full moon shed brilliance over the island, an immense moon which turned from silver to pale green and showered a pathway of diamonds over the sea. He squatted down not far from her and the firelight flickered across his face, softening his features. A strange restlessness filled Sam and suddenly, without apparent cause, the atmosphere between them was taut as a bowstring.

  She stood up abruptly. 'I'm going to wash in the river.'

  Picking up the blanket, she made her way a little inland to where the river formed a small pool and undressed in the shadow of a jacaranda tree. A thousand scents hung in the night air and the island was very still. Slowly she waded into the shallow river and scooped up the water to wash herself. Moonlight silvered her slim body, accentuating the shadows and curves. Drops of water ran like quicksilver and she languidly raised her arms to watch them run down to her shoulders and on down her breasts. There was an ethereal quality about the island tonight, the moonlight giving it an air of enchantment and unreality. Almost reluctantly, Sam stepped out of the water and, picking up the blanket, began to pat herself dry.

  A twig cracked behind her and she spun round to see Mike ducking under a branch as he came towards the pool. He stopped dead when he saw her and Sam pulled the blanket closer around herself, acutely aware of the holes and rents in it. She felt her heart begin to increase its beat and she said sharply, 'What do you want?'

  For a moment he didn't answer and then he said evenly, 'You were a long time. I was afraid something had happened to you.'

  'No, I'm all right.'

  He began to walk slowly nearer and Sam immediately took fright.

  'I'll be back in a minute,' she said quickly, hoping that he would go away.

  But he kept on coming and she backed away until brought up short by the river.

  'I've told you before,' he said. 'You don't have to cover yourself in front of me.' He reached out to pluck the blanket away, but she hugged it closer around her.

  'No! Mike, please go away and leave me alone,' her voice rose in a panic.

  His lip curled derisively and a contemptuous look came into his eyes. 'Grow up, Sam. You're a woman, not a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. Sooner or later you've got to face up to the fact that we're married. I've given you every opportunity to be natural, but you shy away every time I even touch you. How long do you need to get used to me, for God's sake—a year, two years?' His voice became more earnest. 'Can't you see that time isn't going to make any difference? Every hour that passes only puts us further apart. You say I'm like a stranger, but it's only because you're making me one, pushing me further and further away from you. And what's the point of continually looking for a boat? That's no way out. Even when one comes we still have to live together.'

  He paused to see what effect his words had had on her, then he said roughly, 'I'm a man, Sam. I want you and I need you. I've been as patient with you as I know how, but I'm damned if I'll put up with this situation for much longer. You've got to come to terms with yourself!' When she still didn't answer, he said savagely, 'Don't force me to take you, Sam. I don't want to. Not that way. But you're leaving me with no choice.'

  He looked at her searchingly, but her eyes were lowered and he couldn't read her expression.

  'Oh, hell, what's the use in talking to you!' Abruptly he turned his back on her. 'Get dressed, I'll walk you back to the hut.'

  But Sam didn't move. She stared at his broad back and almost for the first time she assimilated the fact that he was her husband, that he loved her and cherished her. What he had said was true; she was pushing him ever further away from her, making him even more of a stranger because she was afraid, afraid of giving herself to the closest relationship a woman can ever have with a man. But just because she had lost the memory of the love she felt for him it didn't give her the right to deny his love for her. She felt suddenly mean and selfish. And perhaps, if she let him do what he wanted, let him make love to her, then her feelings for him would develop, into love. That he had the power to rouse her physically, she knew full well; surely something deeper might grow from that. And it would bring to an end all this unbearable tension and unhappiness between them.

  She continued to stare at him, trying to find the courage within, herself to take this, for her, gigantic step. She was so afraid, and yet there was no reason to be. Nothing was going to happen that hadn't happened before, she had just forgotten it, that was all. And then suddenly a thought came to her that gave her added strength: that perhaps—just perhaps—in his arms she might find the memory of that old love, so that for ever afterwards she could give herself to him in joy and thankfulness.

  Very softly and chokingly she said, 'Mike.' He didn't hear her and she timidly reached out to put a hand on his bare shoulder.

  It was the first time she had deliberately touched him, and the shock of it spread through his body like ripples on the river pool. His shoulder jerked and he swung round to face her, a guarded expression in his eyes. Still more than half afraid, Sam gazed into his tight face for a long moment and then bit her lip and looked away. Very slowly she lowered the blanket to her waist. She heard him take in his breath sharply and then say her name on a soft note of wonderment. He didn't attempt to come near her or touch her, he seemed to be waiting, and Sam instinctively knew for what. Her trembling fingers tightened convulsively on the blanket for a moment while she fought the need to cover herself again, and then she let it drop to the ground so that she stood naked before him. She began to shake with anticipation and fear.

  Mike stood perfectly still for a long moment, letting his eyes drink their fill of her tall, slim body. All the emotions and passions which he'd been forced to hold back came surging to the surface and had grown and magnified a hundred times while under restraint. He longed for her, with a deep, yearning, wanting ache. When he took her in his arms she trembled violently but didn't try to draw away. He held her close to him, her head buried in his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair. He didn't say a word but turned her face to him and kissed her on the mouth. It was the kiss given by a man to the woman he loves, a kiss of fierce hunger and growing passion. After only the briefest hesitation Sam submitted, and her senses reeled under the impact. Her eyes closed and she felt as if she was falling. She gave a little moan and moved sensuously closer to him.

  Mike groaned, deep in his throat, and straightened up. The moonlight lit his face, revealing the great light of triumph in his eyes. He stooped for the blanket and wrapped it round her, then picked her up and carried her to the hut.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A cry of pain and fear broke the peace of the night and when he at last let her go, Sam lay in a tight ball an
d wept convulsively. Mike reached out to comfort her, but she fought him off.

  'No! Leave me alone! Don't touch me!'

  'Sam, sweetheart…'

  ''Don't call me that! You liar! You rotten liar.' Great sobs racked her body and she buried her face in her hands.

  'Sam, listen to me…'

  'No, I don't want to hear anything more from you. You lied to me! You said we were married, but it wasn't true. I'd never been with a man before—I was a virgin! Did you think I was so stupid that I wouldn't realise?' she cried bitterly as fresh sobs shook her.

  'We are married, it was just…'

  'No, we're not. I don't believe you. You said we'd been married for over a week, what possible reason could there be for—for not consummating the marriage?'

  'There were reasons.' He put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off angrily.

  'What reasons? You're just telling more lies. I don't believe you,' she said again, her voice drowned in misery and humiliation. 'I've never felt as if I was married to you, and this proves it.'

  Mike's voice hardened. 'All right, I'll tell you. We weren't able to choose the day we got married, we had to do it when we could. And I couldn't make love to you because—well, because it wasn't a convenient time of the month for you.'

  'Oh I' Sam's face suffused with embarrassment in the darkness as she realised what he meant. Her crying stopped abruptly and she lay still for quite a long time, her back towards him. He didn't attempt to touch her, leaving her alone to recover, and presently she said in a painful whisper, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

  Mike sighed and she felt him give a rueful shrug. 'If I had, you'd have been even more frightened of me. You seemed so afraid, and everything I tried to do only seemed to make things worse. If I'd warned you what to expect you'd have been so scared that you'd never have let me make love to you.'