Sandra Field - Untouched

Ryan had ordered the wallpaper from a nature company; it was replete with partridge, loons and owls on a gloomy green and blue background. She had to match the loon chick under her left palm with the one in the preceding row—which meant she was going to have to decapitate the topmost row of partridge.

As the old pine floorboards creaked behind her, she said irritably, ‘Turn the radio down, would you, Ryan, and pass me the knife? If I hadn’t been in such a foul mood last night, I would never have suggested doing this—and don’t say it serves me right for losing my temper.’

A hand reached up with a yellow-handled knife. It was a tanned, smoothly muscled hand with long, lean fingers; it was definitely not Ryan’s hand. With a shriek of alarm Jenessa twisted on the step-ladder, which gave an unsettling lurch. ‘You! What are you doing here?’

Finn Marston grabbed the ladder with his free hand, holding it firm, and said, ‘From all reports I gather you’re more to be depended on in the wilderness than you’d appear to be at the top of this ladder. Where’s your father?’

‘Father?’ she repeated idiotically. ‘My father’s been dead since I was thirteen.’

‘Ryan’s not your father, then? But you live with him?’ he rapped.

In the morning light, shaven, his hair shining with cleanliness, Finn Marston did indeed qualify as handsome, Jenessa thought grudgingly. More than handsome. There was something quintessentially male about him: he made her think of the proud stance of a caribou stag out on the barrens.

Although he still looked tired out. The kind of tiredness that one night’s sleep did nothing to allay.

She said flatly, ‘My living arrangements are none of your business. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get this piece in place before it dries.’

She took the knife from him with the very tips of her fingers, adjusted the strip of wallpaper so that the loon chicks matched up and sliced the top of the paper level with the edge of the ceiling. The row of partridge heads slithered to the floor. Bending, Jenessa picked up the sponge from the top step of the ladder and started smoothing the wallpaper flat. Finn Marston was still holding the ladder, so close behind her that as the ballad ended, predictably, at the graveside, she could hear his breathing.

She tried to ignore him; when that didn’t work, she waited for him to say something, anything, the silence scraping on her nerves as she bit back any number of questions of her own, none of them polite. When there was not a single air bubble left under the damp paper and she knew she could delay facing him no longer, she turned awkwardly on the ladder and sat down on the top step, her bare feet curving round a lower rung. This put her several inches above him, a position she liked. She hadn’t known Finn Marston long but she already knew she needed every advantage she could get.

She might be aware of her advantage; it hadn’t occurred to her that the smooth curves of her legs and the shadowed hollow between her breasts were now practically under his nose.

His face changed, marred by a cynicism so intense that Jenessa was bewildered. Then, with a jolt, she realized what he was thinking. He thought she was posing for him deliberately. What was the phrase she had used at Ruth’s? Flaunting her sexuality.

Laughter bubbled in her chest, so far from the truth was he, nor did she bother hiding it. Not moving an inch, she watched as his cynicism was gradually replaced by a puzzlement too obvious to be anything but genuine. She had knocked him off balance, she thought, and wondered with a cynicism all her own how many women were able to do that. Not many, she’d be willing to bet.

From her vantage point she was only a couple of feet away from him. His face, close up, interested her in spite of herself. Over the last few years she had become fairly adept at reading character, actively trying to develop this talent as one of her survival mechanisms in the male-dominated environment in which she worked. If she applied her talents to Finn Marston’s face, what did she see?

Overwhelming exhaustion first, an exhaustion ground into the tightly held jaw and dark-shadowed eyes. He had been driven unmercifully for far too long; and she suspected that he himself was the one to have plied the whip, for he would do to himself what he would not allow others to do. Yet there was a formidable intelligence informing his features, as well as the will-power she had had a taste of last night. His eyes, deep-set, were indeed the same navy blue as Stephen’s; however, while Stephen’s were lustrous with the innocence of the very young, Finn Marston’s were guarded and wary. His mouth was a firm, ungiving line. She was suddenly visited with the urge to see it smile.

Her survey had taken her only a few seconds. ‘Now,’ Jenessa said coldly, ‘perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining why you walked in this house without knocking and without an invitation?’

‘The door was wide open and the radio was making so much noise you didn’t hear me knock,’ he said. ‘Where’s Ryan?’

‘He went out to the shed to get a hammer and nails. Ryan frequently gets waylaid, but I’ve no doubt he’ll return sooner or later. Why are you here?’

‘What’s his relationship to you?’

‘Of the two questions, I’d say mine was the more relevant.’

‘Would you, now?’

‘Yes,’ she said sharply, ‘I would. Quite frankly, Mr Marston, after last night I don’t care if I ever set eyes on you again.’

He said evenly, not a trace of apology in his tone, ‘You were right—there aren’t any other guides available. Or, to be accurate, there were two, both of whom I figured were capable of guiding me from the motel to the nearest bar and no further. You’ll also be glad to know that everyone I spoke to sang your praises. Short of Ryan, I gather you’re the best guide in the area. So I came here to see if I could rehire you. You or Ryan.’

‘You’ll have to ask Ryan yourself. I, as you can see, am otherwise engaged.’

‘A thousand a week, all expenses paid.’

Jenessa blinked; she had never been paid that much in her life. ‘And how much would you pay a man? Two thousand?’

‘I’d pay him what I’d pay you.’ He paused and added tersely, ‘I’m sorry I went off the deep end last night. My only excuse is that I was jet-lagged and just about asleep on my feet.’

‘Which is exactly when our true selves emerge,’ she said promptly.

His fingers tightened around the ladder. ‘I’m not going to grovel. You heard my offer. Take it or leave it.’

‘Oh, I’ll—’

The porch door slammed shut and Ryan bellowed, ‘Jenny, we got a visitor; there was a cab sittin’ out in the yard. Who do you suppose came to see us in a—? Well, who’ve we got here?’

Ryan, thought Jenessa wryly, did not look his best. He had a baseball cap jammed backward on his head, his shirt was paint-spattered and one knee was out of his jeans. He was carrying an unpainted decoy instead of the hammer and nails. She said sweetly, ‘Someone who wants to hire you as a guide, Ryan. Allow me to introduce Mr Finn Marston... Thaddeus Ryan.’

She sat back on the ladder, her face lit with an amusement that Finn Marston could not have missed. Ryan grinned at the other man. ‘Couldn’t get anyone else, eh? Figured that’s what would happen.’

‘The joke’s on me,’ Finn Marston said tightly. ‘Maybe we could all have a good laugh and then get down to business.’

‘Oh, Jenessa’ll go. She hates wallpaperin’,’ Ryan said, plunking the decoy down on the table.

‘I will not!’

‘Fifteen hundred,’ Finn Marston said. ‘And that’s my last offer.’

Angrier than she could ever remember being in her life, Jenessa choked, ‘You seem to think that this is about money, Mr Marston—that you can buy me. Well, you can’t! You embarrassed and insulted me in front of a group of my friends last night, and nothing you’ve said or done today has caused me to forgive you. Now, if you’ll kindly let go of this ladder, I’ll put up the next piece of wallpaper. Ask Ryan to guide you—his hide’s tougher than mine.’