Нора Робертс - Megan’s Mate

Restless, Coco began to fiddle with the thick gold links around her throat. “I hope he didn't say anything to offend you. He's a bit... rough.”

“No.” Megan poured two glasses of tea, offered one to Coco. “He sort of glowered and told me I needed some meat on my bones. I thought he was going to start stuffing me with the Greek omelet he was fixing, but one of the busboys dropped a plate. I escaped while he was swearing at the poor kid.”

“His language.” Coco seated herself, smoothed down her silk trouser leg. “Deplorable. And he's always contradicting me on recipes.” She shut her eyes, shuddered. “I've always considered myself a patient woman—and, if I can be immodest for a moment, a clever one. I had to be both to raise four lively girls.” Sighing, she tossed up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “But as far as that man's concerned, I'm at my wits' end.”

“I suppose you could let him go,” Megan said ten- tatively.

“Impossible. The man's like a father to Nathaniel, and the children, for reasons that escape me, are terribly fond of him.” She opened her eyes again and smiled bravely. “I can cope, dear, and I must admit the man has a way with certain rudimentary dishes.” She patted her new hairdo. “And I find little ways to distract myself.”

But Megan's attention was stuck back at Coco's first statement. “I suppose Mr. Van Horne has known Nathaniel for some time.”

“Oh, more than fifteen years, I believe. They served together, sailed together, whatever you call it. I believe Mr. Van Horn took Nate under his wing. Which is something in his favor, I suppose. God knows the boy needed someone, after the miserable childhood he had.”

“Oh?” It wasn't in Megan's nature to probe, but Coco needed little prompting.

“His mother died when he was very young, poor boy. And his father.” Her lovely mouth went grim. “Well, the man was little more than a beast really. I barely knew John Fury, but there was always talk in the village. And now and then Nathaniel would come along with Holt when Holt brought us fish. I'd see the bruises for myself.”

“Bruises,” Megan repeated, horrified. “His father beat him?”

Coco's soft heart had tears swimming to her eyes. “I'm very much afraid so.”

“But—didn't anyone do anything about it?”

“Whenever there were questions, the man would claim the boy had fallen, or gotten into a fight with another child. Nathaniel never contradicted him. Sad to say, abuse was something people often overlooked back then. Still is, I'm afraid.” Tears threatened her mascara. She dabbed at them with Megan's napkin. “Nathaniel ran off to sea the moment he was of age. His father died a few years back. Nate sent money for the funeral, but didn't come. It was hard to blame him.”

Coco sighed, shook herself. “I didn't mean to come in with such a sad story. But it has a good ending. Nate turned out to be a fine man.” Coco's damp eyes were deceptively guileless. “All he needs is the right woman. He's terribly handsome, don't you think?”

“Yes,” Megan said cautiously. She was still trying to equate the abused child with the confident man.

“And dependable. Romantic, too, with all those tales of the sea, and that air of mystery around him. A woman would be very lucky to catch his eye.”

Megan blinked her own eyes as the not-so-subtle hint got through. “I couldn't say. I don't know him very well, and I don't really think about men that way.”

“Nonsense.” Confident in her own matchmaking skills, Coco patted Megan's knee. “You're young, beautiful, intelligent. Having a man in your life doesn't diminish those things, dear—or a woman's independence. The right man enhances them. And I have a feeling that you'll be finding that out, very soon. Now—” she leaned over and kissed Megan's cheek “—I have to get back to the kitchen, before that man does something horrid to my salmon patties.”

She started out the door, then paused—timing it, Coco thought, rather beautifully. “Oh, dear, I'm such a scatterbrain. I was supposed to tell you about Kevin.”

“Kevin?” Automatically Megan's gaze shifted to the window. “Isn't he outside with Alex and Jenny?”

“Well, yes, but not here.” Coco smiled distractedly—it was a pose she'd practiced for years. “It's Nathaniel's day off, and he was by for lunch. Such a wonderful appetite he has, and never seems to gain an ounce. Of course, he does keep active. That's why he has all those marvelous muscles. They are marvelous, aren't they?”

“Coco, where is Kevin?”

“Oh, there I go, running off again. Kevin's with Nate. All of them are. He took the children with him.”

Megan was already on her feet. “With him? Where? On a boat?” Visions of squalls and towering waves of water swam through her head, despite the calm, cloudless blue of the sky.

“No, no, to his house. He's building a deck or something, and the children were dying to go along and help. It would be such a favor to me if you could go by and pick them up.” And, of course, Coco thought cannily, Megan would then see Nate's lovely little home, and his charming way with children. “Suzanna expects the children to be here, you see, but I didn't have the heart to deny them. She won't be back until five, so there's no hurry.”

“But, I-”

“You know where Suzanna and Holt's cottage is, don't you, darling? Nathaniel's is only a half a mile past it. Charming place. You can't miss it.”

Before Megan could form another word, the door closed gently in her face. A job, Coco thought as she strode down the corridor, very well done.

Kevin didn't know which was the coolest. It was a very close call between the small fire-breathing dragon on the back of Nathaniel's shoulder and the puckered white scar on the front. The scar was the result of the knife wound, which ought to have put it far ahead in the running. But a tattoo, a tattoo of a dragon, was pretty hard to beat.

There was another scar, just above Nathaniel's waistline, near the hip. At Alex's eager questioning, Nathaniel had said it was from a moray eel he'd tangled with in the South Pacific.

Kevin could easily imagine Nathaniel, armed with only a knife clenched between his teeth, fighting to the death with a sea creature on the scale of the Loch Ness monster.

And Nathaniel had a parrot, a big, colorful bird who sat right inside the house on a wooden perch and talked. Kevin's current favorite was “Off with her head.”

Kevin figured Nathaniel Fury was about the coolest man he'd ever met—a man who had traveled the seven seas like Sinbad, and had the scars and stories to prove it. A man who liked puppies and talking birds.

He didn't seem to mind when Kevin hung back while Alex and Jenny raced around the yard with the puppy and killed each other with imaginary laser pistols. It was more fun to crouch close while Nathaniel hammered nails into boards.

It took Kevin about six boards to start asking questions. “How come you want a deck out here?”

“So I can sit on it.” Nathaniel set another board in place. “But you've already got one in the back.”

“I'll still have it.” Three strikes of the hammer and the nail was through board and joist. Nathaniel sat back on his haunches. He wore nothing but a bandanna twisted around his head and a pair of ragged cutoff jeans. His skin was bronzed by the sun and coated lightly with sweat. ”See how the frame goes?”

Kevin followed the direction of the deck frame as it skirted around the side of the house. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, we'll keep going till we meet the other deck.”

Kevin's eyes brightened. “So it'll go all around, like a circle.”

“You got it.” Nathaniel hammered the next nail, and the next, then shifted positions. “How do you like the island?”

He asked the question in such a natural, adult fashion that Kevin first glanced around to see if Nathaniel was speaking to him. “I like it. I like it a lot. We get to live in the castle, and I can play with Alex and Jenny anytime.”

“You had friends back in Oklahoma, too, right?”

“Sure. My best friend is John Curtis Silverhorn. He's part Comanche. My mom said he could come visit anytime, and that we can write letters all we want. I already wrote him about the whale.” Kevin smiled shyly. “I liked that the best.”

“We'll have to go out again.” “Really? When?”

Nathaniel stopped hammering and looked at the boy. He realized he should have remembered from his exposure to Alex and Jenny that when children were raised with love and trust, they believed just about everything you told them.

“You can come out with me whenever you want. 'Long as your mother gives the go-ahead.”

His reward for the careless offer was a brilliant smile. “Maybe I can steer the boat again?”

“Yeah.” Nathaniel grinned and turned Kevin's baseball cap backward. “You could do that. Want to nail some boards?”

Kevin's eyes widened and glowed. “Okay!”

“Here.” Nathaniel scooted back so that Kevin could kneel in front of him. “Hold the nail like this.” He wrapped his hands over Kevin's, showing him how to hold both the hammer and the nail to guide the stroke.

“Hey!” Alex rose from the dead on Planet Zero and raced over. “Can I do it?”

“Me too.” Jenny leaped on Nathaniel's back, knowing she was always welcome.

“I guess I got me a crew.” Nathaniel figured that with all the extra help it would only take about twice as long to finish.

An hour later, Megan pulled up beside the long, classic lines of the T-Bird and stared. The house itself surprised her. The charming two-story cottage, with its neatly painted blue shutters and its window boxes bright with pansies, wasn't exactly the image she had of Nathaniel Fury. Nor was the tidy green lawn, the trimmed hedge, the fat barking puppy.