I understand. Manton nodded.
Sam shook Jeannie's arm gently. "What's going on here?"
Turning her radiant smile on Sam, Jeannie hugged up to his side. "We were just planning dinner for tonight." She tugged on his hand. "Come on, let's change clothes before I give you a tour of the house and then the island."
"Change clothes?"
She looked him over from head to toe. "You don't plan on wearing a suit while we're here, do you? After all, Ollie went to a lot of trouble this morning, washing your new casual clothes before she repacked them."
"What should I wear?" He followed her out of the parlor, nodding cordially to Manton as he passed him in the doorway.
"Put on some shorts and a T-shirt. And sandals."
Jeannie led him down the hallway, stopping in front of an open door. "This is my room." She pointed to the next room down, directly beside hers. "And that's your room. To come to my room, all you have to do is walk out on the veranda. Every room in the house has access to the veranda."
He jerked her into his arms. Gasping, she gripped her cane, but did not resist him. "Why don't you come to my room with me?" he asked, with a playful leer.
"Go change clothes, and I'll meet you in your room." Pulling away from him, she gave him a shove in the right direction.
Turning around, not waiting to see if he obeyed her request, Jeannie slipped into her room and closed the door behind her. Sam waited for a couple of minutes, then walked to his room. Inside, he found a sunny space of beige-and-yellow warmth. The Center point of the room was an old walnut tester bed without a canopy. Black-and-white ticking material had been fashioned into a coverlet and into pillows that mixed with beige-and-yellow down pillows. Sam's clothes bag lay across the foot of the bed; his carryall rested on the seat of a large overstuffed chair.
Shorts, T-shirt and sandals. Jeannie wanted their time together to be a vacation, not an escape from danger. He intended to give her what she wanted. An interlude from the real world.
In the next room, Jeannie sat down on her bed, a huge white oak four-poster with a fancy black ironwork canopy. Hooking her cane over the bottom post, she lay down and breathed in the fresh salt air blowing in off the ocean. She looked around her room, loving every precious inch that she had decorated as a teenager. The heart of pine floors and planked ceilings gave this old house a country charm. While examining the room, she saw, lying on the floral chintz chaise longue, the clothes Manton had laid out for her. Her pale pink-and-lavender-striped sundress. Strapless, with a hem that fell to midcalf. A romantic dress. Beside the dress lay a wide-brimmed straw hat.
Hugging herself, Jeannie laughed.
* * *
Manton served their dinner on the veranda. White linen tablecloth and napkins. Polished silver and glistening crystal. After placing their dessert of fruit with a light cream sauce before them, he lit the candles that flanked the small bouquet on the table, then excused himself. The sun hung like a ball of fire in the western horizon, its heat singeing the sky with radiant splashes of purple, magenta and golden orange.
The balmy ocean breeze surrounded Sam and Jeannie, gently flickering the candle flames. They lifted their wineglasses in a toast.
"To heaven here on earth," Sam said. "Thanks to you, my very own angel."
Her eyes glazed with tears. Happy tears. Accepting his toast, she sipped the wine.
"What do you think of Le Bijou Bleu?" She set her glass on the table.
"I see where it got its name. Blue sky and blue water everywhere. I suppose whoever christened this island considered it his own personal blue jewel."
"And now it's my blue jewel," she said. "Our blue jewel," she amended.
"I never thought I'd return to this island. The few memories I have of this place are bittersweet. I wanted to forget what happened before and after I was shot."
"I realized how difficult it was for you to come and see me six years ago, when you got out of the hospital." She looked down at the fresh tropical fruit resting in the crystal bowl. "You came only because you felt you owed your life to me."
"I did owe you my life," he said, watching her pick nervously at the linen tablecloth. "When I left Biloxi, I buried the past deep inside me." He tapped his chest with his fist.
"You didn't want to live." Jeannie lifted her eyes, meeting his gaze directly. "You felt you had no right to live."
"I don't want to talk about the past. Not now."
Casting her gaze downward, she hesitated. He was afraid of the complete truth. If he was ever going to heal, he would have to face a guilt too heavy for him to bear alone.
The sweet, melodic strands of a piano solo drifted in the air, like celestial background music. Sam cocked his head to one side, listening. He could have sworn the music wasn't taped, that someone was playing the baby grand in the front parlor. He glanced at Jeannie, his eyes questioning her.
"Manton plays beautifully, don't you think?"
"Manton? But how is it possible for him to play? He's deaf, isn't he?"
"Totally, irreversibly deaf. But he has the talent of a genius."
"I don't understand how—"
"He feels the music." Reaching across the table, Jeannie clasped Sam's hand in hers. "He's played since childhood. A natural talent, one even he doesn't understand. The piece he's playing is his own creation. I believe his talent is truly a gift from God."
"He can't hear what he plays. He can't—"
"It defies explanation. Yes, I know. But so does my empathic ability." She looked into Sam's eyes and told him what she wanted. "There is magic on Le Bijou Bleu. It drew Manton here first, and then me. And now…" She did not allow herself to even think about what she knew in her heart, what Sam was not yet ready to accept.
He sensed her need to be in his arms, to move to Manton's mystical music—a twilight solo so utterly beautiful that Sam knew, without question, that the composition had been created for Jeannie.
Julian Howell's Jeannie. Manton's Jeannie. But, above all else, Sam Dundee's Jeannie. For she belonged to him now, and in ways she could never belong to another. This night would seal her fate. She would become his completely.
But not forever. Their affair here on Le Bijou Bleu would be days and nights out of time. He had no right to want or expect more. Jeannie was an ethereal creature, truly pure of heart, never meant to belong to a man whose hands were stained with blood. But he could not deny himself the chance to become her lover, to capture, if for only a brief while, the magic and wonder of possessing an angel.
Sam stood, rounded the table, pulled out Jeannie's chair and lifted her. Shivering with desire and anticipation, she kicked off her white sandals and allowed Sam to lift the soles of her small, delicate feet atop his big feet.
She wanted to dance the way they had the night on the riverboat. But here on the veranda of her home there would be no interruptions, nothing to intrude on the enchantment. They would be free to follow their hearts, to seek the fulfillment their bodies desired. Tonight was theirs.
Sam waltzed her around the veranda. Her skirt flowed in the breeze. They didn't speak aloud, but they communicated their feelings, exchanged their thoughts and shared their mutual desire.
Sam had opened his mind to her, no longer blocking her entrance into his privacy. Jeannie wondered if he had any idea that he had taken the first step in the healing process that could lead to his salvation. Only if he could trust her enough to share his guilt and pain could she help him face his demons and learn to forgive himself.
Did she have the strength and courage to be the woman Sam needed? Could she ever reach that golden core of goodness inside Sam and help him become the man he was meant to be?