Free Jade Star by Catherine Coulter Page B

Lahaina. When I heard the description, I knew it had to be you. The rest was planning, that’s all.”
    He saw that she was frowning at a point beyond his shoulder. He waited patiently, knowing that if she remembered the happenings of the previous evening, he would simply have to deal with it.
    Jules said abruptly, her eyes suddenly intent upon his face, “You haven’t changed at all, Michael. You’re still large and hard and handsome, and your eyes still crinkle.”
    He wished she’d used some word other than “hard.” “I’m nearly an old man now, Jules.”
    â€œHa! You’re ten years older, that’s all. I remember you used the same argument on me when I asked you to marry me at the advanced age of fourteen.” She flushed at her words. A child’s words from the past. Something nibbled insistently at the edge of her thoughts, but she couldn’t seem to grasp it, to understand. It was frustrating and disconcerting. Slowly she raised her hand to touch his face. “You still feel like you used to,” she said. Then suddenly she said, her voice intense, “I dreamed you came back to me in Lahaina, and we were together again.”
    â€œA dream,” he said cautiously. “And I did come back to you, in a sense.”
    â€œYes, I suppose. Your eyes are so beautiful. The hazel is so much nicer than my . . . slime green.”
    He laughed at that. “Oh no, not slime, Jules. Don’t you remember how you got your nickname?”
    She smiled, two dimples deepening in her cheeks. “Yes, but it’s you who have forgotten, Michael. My nickname is from my awful hair, not my eyes.”
    He remembered the young girl telling him that she hated the name Juliana, and he’d said, looking at her glorious, wildly curling hair, “Why not ‘Jules’ then? That’s close enough to ‘jewels,’ and that’s like your hair. All right?”
    â€œNot slime,” he repeated, smiling gently at her. “Your eyes, like your hair, are jewels, green jade in this case.”
    â€œYou make me sound like a gawdy piece of jewelry. Rubies and jade!” She paused a moment, then said, nodding, “I like the jade. That makes me sound exotic.”
    He heard Lydia call up and frowned. They’d spoken of nothing really. But at least she was responding to him normally. He said, “There’s the sterling voice of my housekeeper, Lydia. I told her about you, Jules, and she’s made you breakfast. Are you hungry?”
    â€œYes,” she said, surprised. “You know, I really am. For the first time in a long while.”
    He saw a flash of pain in her eyes, but for the moment he ignored it. “Let me invite Lydia up to meet you. You’ll like her.”
    Jules did like Lydia, but the housekeeper clucked over her until finally Saint sent her out of the room.
    Some minutes later, Saint was thinking between bites of fluffy scrambled eggs that she was responding much better than he’d believed possible. And her eyes were brighter; she was more alert.
    And she was so damned beautiful that it made him ache just to look at her. And she was in his bed, and not fourteen years old anymore.
    When Lydia came back to remove the breakfast trays, she looked closely at Jules. “Good, you didjustice to my food. You let Saint take care of you, young lady.”
    â€œYou and that crazy name,” Jules said.
    â€œNo one else calls me Michael,” he said. He reached out his hand to touch her jaw. To his consternation, she jerked away from him, her eyes widening in terror.
    â€œI’m sorry, Jules,” he said, immediately dropping his hand. He forced a rueful grin. “I just want to feel your jaw. I did smack you pretty hard.”
    Get hold of yourself, and stop acting like a ninny! He’s not Jameson Wilkes! “I’m being stupid,” she mumbled, trying to make herself