She nodded, too ill to ask for any pointers on dealing with the teenager.
“Nanny won’t welcome you with open arms, either,” Damon said as they started back up the path. “I’d avoid getting in her way for a while. Don’t make suggestions or changes until she’s sure you’re not trying to get rid of her.”
Despite everything, she was touched that the feelings of two outcasts of such disparate generations mattered this much to Damon. “I’ll be careful.”
“I hope Heidi’s asleep,” he said as they drew closer to the house. “That would be a better introduction for you. She’s tolerable when she’s sleeping.”
She disregarded his attempt at cynicism. She already knew that Damon was head over heels in love with his daughter. Why else would he have orchestrated this amazing situation?
By the time the house loomed just fifty yards in the distance, Matty got her first unimpeded view. It was both grander and shabbier than she had expected, a soft pink twenty-carat jewel trimmed with white latticework along first and second-story porches that wrapped around the house. The roof was metal, a surprisingly homey touch in a house as stately as this one, and the ever-present Bahamian sun had softened the paint into swirling patterns, as if a pricey decorator had hired a crew to sponge it with a dozen different shades of rose. The porch floors were a deep sapphire blue, and so was some of the window trim. The overall effect was of a doll’s mansion, Caribbean-style.
“Like it?” Damon asked.
“Oh yes.”
“It’s called Inspiration. The cay was named for the house. The man who built it wanted this to be a place where artists and creative people of all kinds could come and spend time to gather their thoughts or start work on their next projects. Over the century some very important people spent time here, but no records have been kept. The owner didn’t want people stopping by to ogle Inspiration’s guests. The next owner carried on the tradition, and Arthur is trying to, as well.”
“And that’s why you’re here…”
“Time will tell if Arthur’s made a mistake or not.”
She wanted to ask him more about that, and planned to later. She knew very little about what Damon was doing or why he was doing it on a remote Bahamian island. He had told her that he had needed a place and time to do his research, and Arthur had provided them. But everything else was foggy.
“Can you make it up the steps?” Damon asked.
“I promise…I won’t throw myself at you again.”
“Something tells me that was a new experience for you.”
She apologized, as she had when she had regained consciousness in his arms. “I started out training as a surgical nurse. I never felt dizzy no matter what I had to do.”
“I wasn’t talking about fainting. I was talking about throwing yourself at a man.”
She laughed, embarrassed. “I don’t seem to have much talent for it, do I? I was unconscious during the best part.”
“I don’t know. You made sure I was right there to catch you. That shows some talent. Maybe you just need practice.”
“Not if the aftermath is a pounding headache and total humiliation. I’ll have new sympathy for my patients when I go back to nursing.”
He had been walking beside her without touching her. Now he took her arm, his fingers just barely brushing her skin. “Let’s get the introductions over, then we’ll get you to bed. A couple of aspirin and a good night’s sleep. I bet you won’t even radio for help tomorrow.”
“You’re safe. Getting off the island would be worse than staying.”
“You’ll probably never have to endure another trip in by boat like that one. Normally we can fly in to Staniel Cay and be here by boat in twenty minutes. But I couldn’t charter a flight to Staniel yesterday.”
“Oh…”
“I’ll make this up to you.”
The thought of that sent heat skidding down her spine. She felt suddenly giddy, even without waves tossing the deck beneath her. “I’ll hold you to that.”
He looked down at her and smiled a little. Nothing as wonderful as a promise showed in his eyes, but neither did he seem disgusted with her for all her weaknesses. Their gazes caught and held, and for a moment she couldn’t draw breath. She was standing in paradise with Damon Quinn at her side, a Damon who was set on marrying her. And Minnesota seemed very far away.
He lifted a hand, as if to smooth a lock of her hair back into place. Before she could even smile or breathe, the front door was flung open with a bang and a wizened old woman appeared, silhouetted against the light of a central hallway.
“Your li’l girl, she be crying for an hour, and not a thing Miss Nanny done for her turn the tide.”
“Nanny…” Damon dropped Matty’s arm and started forward. “Did you feed her?”
“What is it you t’ink I do, Damon Quinn?” She said his name as if it were one lyrical word. “You t’ink I stand there, bottle in hand, and tease her with it? You t’ink I wave it in her face? That what you t’ink?”
“I think you’ve taken excellent care of her, as usual. I’m just trying to find out exactly what you’ve done.”
“This your woman?”
Damon turned, as if he’d forgotten Matty. “I’m sorry. Nanny, this is Matty.” He reversed the introduction, clipping off his words. “Where is she?”
“She be in the screen porch, Damon Quinn. I rock her in the hammock. She cries I not rock, so I rock an hour. More.” She lifted narrow bony shoulders almost to her earlobes.
“I’ll get her.”
“You do that. She stop you pick her up. She know I be tired of rocking.”
Damon disappeared into the house and left the two women to confront each other. Nanny folded her arms. She wasn’t much more than four and a half feet tall, although she might have been taller in her youth. She had a wiry body that seemed to have folded and compacted with age. Her dark face was furrowed with deep lines, as if life had plowed that field and harvested what it had sown again and again. She wore a faded cotton print dress and a red kerchief tied at the back of her thin gray curls. Right now the curls bounced as she shook her head.
“Somet’ing wrong with you?”
Matty managed a smile. “More than you’ll ever want to hear about. Let’s just say I’m a terrible sailor.”
“No one in my family ever git sick on the water.”
“No one in my family’s ever even been on the water. At least, nobody who lived to tell about it.” Matty started forward.
“You come here, you don’t like the sea, maybe you don’t like Inspiration, either, or people on Inspiration. Maybe you don’t like coming at all.”
Matty had never felt less like passing tests, but her smile only faltered a little. “Right now I don’t. I’m glad you’re so perceptive. It’ll make getting along that much easier.”
Nanny frowned, but she seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
“The thing is,” Matty continued, “I don’t like anything right now because I’m exhausted and my head feels like someone’s inside it playing kettledrums. I wouldn’t even like my own mother right now. So thanks for understanding.”
“You got drums in your head, I got tea.”
“I would kill for a cup