Patience followed Nathaniel into the kitchen.
“You chased her away,” she challenged.
“I didn’t want her here,” he said simply.
“What a spread!” she said, forgiving him as she looked around the kitchen, savored the smells, and lost her taste for argument.
“We have boiled salt cod, eggs, boiled Irish potatoes, and Bermuda onions, of course, with sliced bananas and avocados, and a sauce of onions and tomatoes,” he listed.
“A traditional Bermuda Sunday codfish breakfast.” She clapped her hands in delight.
Nathaniel beamed as his heart turned over. He was already in love with the woman. And he was wondering how it had happened so suddenly. He was just sailing through life when she surfaced and somehow reeled him in. He was caught in her net, and he only hoped she wouldn’t throw him back.
But there was a very real barrier between them. Her grandfather’s past and the gold. And, love or no love, he was determined to find the treasure he had come for. No woman was going to run him off course.
After breakfast, Nathaniel offered to clear the table and clean up the dishes, so Patience went into the parlor and picked up where she’d left off with her painting.
When he crept up behind her later, he thought he could watch her for hours. He had grown so used to watching her sleep, watching her read those history books of hers, and paint.
The small watercolor on the stand against the window caught Nathaniel’s attention.
“Did you really paint that?” he asked with sincere interest, approaching the painting.
“Yes,” she said proudly.
The scenic watercolor on the easel was brilliant. She had captured the mood and unique charm of the island. The play of light on the calm turquoise seas, dotted with sailboats and caressed by the curve of a pale-pink sandy beach; the pastels of the limestone cottages; the distinctive white-tiered stone-slate roofs ready to catch the rain water; and a graceful, snowy white, black-tipped Bermuda longtail in flight. The array of yellows, greens, blues, and pinks presented a calming effect that soothed his restless spirit and spoke to his lonely heart. He had to have it.
“It’s wonderful,” he said and meant it. She had signed it with her initials, PKW. “You make the scene come alive.”
“It’s the scene I see from my window. My little window on the world. I’m calling it Sanctuary.”
“Yes,” he observed, because he understood and felt the pull of the place too. Nothing had prepared him for his reaction to the watercolor or the woman who painted it. “You should really take up painting professionally.”
“It’s just a hobby,” Patience dismissed, flustered. “An outlet. It helps me to relax, calms my nerves.”
I’d like to buy this, if it’s for sale,” he said.
“You want to buy one of my watercolors?” Patience asked, a smile of pure delight spreading over her face. “That’s the highest compliment anyone has ever paid me. But I don’t sell my paintings. I could give it to you as a gift, since you like it so much.”
Nathaniel seemed touched by her reaction and by her generosity.
“But I couldn’t possibly take it away from you. You’ve put so much of yourself in it.”
“How did you know?” she whispered. “I can paint another one. The scene has taken up residence in my head, and it doesn’t seem to want to leave.”
Later that night, his heart shifted when he saw the subject of her latest painting. She’d kept it hidden in her room behind a canvas cloth. But he was determined to unveil it and discover what she was hiding from him.
He came up behind her and placed a soft, wet kiss between the curve of her shoulder and the gentle slope of her neck. He was tempted to take a bite out of it. She turned, startled, and fixed him with those unwavering green eyes.
“I thought you were asleep,” she said, attempting to throw the canvas cloth back over the painting.
“And you’re supposed to be asleep,” he chided, “but instead you’re painting.” He stopped her hand and threw back the cloth.
She was painting him, dressed like a swashbuckler, with his ship, the Fair Winds, in the background.
“What will you call this?” he wanted to know, riveted, as he stared at the painting.
“‘Swept Away,’” she said, and blushed, turning her back to him to study the painting.
He moved his hands down her shoulders to her fingers, where their hands connected.
“It’s me, isn’t it?” Nathaniel whispered, trying hard to catch his breath.
“Yes. I can’t help painting you. It was just an urge.”
“Well, that’s a very fortunate coincidence. Because I have an urge too. To do this.”
He turned her around and kissed her until the paintbrush dropped out of her hand.
“Nathaniel,” she said huskily. Her arms went around his neck in unrestrained passion, and he answered with a deeper kiss.
“Patience. I can’t help myself when I’m around you. I want you. Please.”
She held her hand to her forehead like she was in pain.
“Nathaniel. I don’t think we… That is… I don’t think it’s smart for us to…”
“You feel it too, don’t you? I know you do.”
Shaken, she broke the connection.
“What I feel has to be tempered with what I think,” she answered slowly. “And what I think is that you are deliberately trying to soften me up and wear me down. That you’re not interested in me at all but only in how I can help you get what you want. I’m just the shortest route to the gold.”
He opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t bother lying to me. I can see it in your eyes. Don’t worry. I’ll help you, but it’s only to clear my grandfather’s name. To protect him and my family. And then you will leave and whatever we feel will be over between us. So it’s better that we don’t let it begin. Suddenly, I’m feeling very tired. I want to be alone now.”
“I’m going to start digging tomorrow morning,” Nathaniel announced. “I’ve studied the architectural drawings. I’ve decided to start in the garden.”
Patience turned and fixed him with a frigid stare.
“If you pull up one flower in my grandmother’s garden, I will have you arrested!”
“Patience,” he pleaded. “Please be reasonable.”
“It’s all I have left of her!” she protested. “My grandfather wouldn’t have buried anything in her garden. It was too important to her. And he knew that. But you wouldn’t understand that kind of devotion. Now get out.” When he had walked through her bedroom door, she locked it behind him.
****
Patience lay on the bed. Her head sagged back on the pillow and she wept. She heard Nathaniel hesitate at the door, then walk away.
Was she crazy? Nathaniel was a complete stranger who had barged into her home uninvited. A stranger who didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. So why was she willing to share her precious paintings with him, to give away her heart?
Sometime later, she slept and dreamed.
She had come home from a morning shopping trip in town, and when she wandered with one of the grocery bags into her grandfather’s study to show him a special treat she’d brought home for him, she’d found the blood on the rug. Dropping the bag she ran wildly around the house.
“Grandfather, Grandfather, oh God, Grandfather! Where are you?” She followed the trail of blood that led into the parlor, through the kitchen, and out to her grandmother’s garden, where she saw her grandfather struggling to reach the moon gate.
The sun was beating down on him from high in the sky.
“Grandfather, you’re bleeding! Have you been shot?”
“It’s nothing.”
“I’m calling 9-1-1,” she said and had started to run inside when he called her back.
“No,” he said. “No time.”
“Who did this to you?” she screamed.
“It’s not important. Your grandmother. Where’s your g
randmother?” She could barely hear him now, his voice had grown so faint. “Is she safe?”
Patience was confused. “Grandmother is in town at a meeting. She’ll be home soon. I’ve got to call for an ambulance.” She headed for the house.
“Don’t leave.”
“Grandfather,” she cried, running to him, and held him against her, the thick, dark blood soaking through her yellow sundress.
“Diana,” he whispered. “You’re wearing your special dress for me.” Now the lights in his eyes were fading, glazing over, and she could tell he had gone back in time and thought she was her grandmother.
“Under the moon gate, my love,” he whispered and smiled.
How many times had she seen her grandparents dancing together, wrapped in each other’s arms, swaying in the moonlight under the moon gate? The one he had built for her after their marriage. A replica of the moon gate at the Castle Harbour Hotel where they had kissed for the very first time.
Then his eyes grew dim, and he reached for her hand. Her hand turned cold in his.
“Sun, sun,” he said, struggling to speak, so she did her best to shield his eyes from the glare.
“Please forgive me. Goodbye, Liebchen.”
She screamed and pulled herself away to get to a phone.
By the time she’d returned from calling emergency services, he had crawled away and was lying face up, dead eyes staring into the sun, smiling, under the moon gate.
It was too soon. She needed more time with him.
Patience was crying in her sleep, and something was pounding in her head. The police, were they pounding at the door?
“Patience, Patience, open this door. Let me in. Let me in now or I’ll break down the door.” The pounding was getting louder, and suddenly Nathaniel was there and she was in his arms.
“Just a dream,” he soothed, smoothing one hand rhythmically up and down her back and gently stroking her hair with the other. “You were having another bad dream. I’m here now, sweetheart.”
Almost hypnotized by the motion and the soft words he murmured, Patience leaned closer into him.
“Under the moon gate. Under the moon gate,” she sighed. “Kiss me.”
And he did. Even though he knew she was half asleep, barely conscious. He kissed her, not just because he wanted to, but because he had to.
When she blinked, she looked up at him.
“The door. I locked the door.”
“I broke it down,” he smiled crookedly. “Sorry. I thought you needed me.”
She did, she thought. She did. More than she wanted to admit.
“The blood,” she said. “You’ll need to clean up the blood, Nathaniel. There’s so much of it.”
“Blood? Are you hurt?” Anxiously examining every inch of her shaking body, he could find no blood.
“In the study. It’s in the study. I can’t go in there.”
“It’s the dream again. I was just in the study, and there’s no blood there.” He held her tighter in his arms. “What did you mean when you said ‘under the moon gate’?” Nathaniel asked.
“The moon gate at the entrance to the garden. My grandfather built it for my grandmother right after their wedding. She planted the garden for him as a wedding present. He said it reminded him of home, of his past, but that the moon gate was also a symbol of his new home here in Bermuda and their future together.”
Nathaniel was deep in thought. “Do you suppose, Patience, that he buried the gold under there? It makes sense.”
“Under the moon gate? He’d never have buried anything there, because he’d never dig it up. Desecrating it would be sacrilegious to him. That was their sacred spot. He died there, crawled there so he could be closer to her in the end.”
“Yes, but you said he didn’t finish it until after they were married. Maybe he meant to bury something there and cover it over.”
“But why would he bury it in a place he would never access?” she said, puzzled.
Patience bit her lower lip and twisted her nightgown. Then she broke into a smile. “Nathaniel, what if it is true what you said? What if he did bury the gold under the moon gate? He’d never have dug that up. So that would mean he never intended to use it. And we know the move against Bermuda was never actually made by the Nazis. Maybe he left it there because he changed his mind about what to do with it.”
She was desperate, he knew, to believe the best about her grandfather.
“Maybe. Maybe it happened just that way,” he said. “But if we’re ever to find out, we’re going to have to do some digging ourselves. So get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow. You’ll have to bundle up. Even though it’s warm outside, you always get so cold. You don’t have enough meat on your bones. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning, and then we’ll get started.”
“I’m not going to help you dig under the moon gate.” She frowned.
“I don’t expect you to,” he countered. “You’re a featherweight. The shovel probably weighs more than you do. You’re going to settle yourself into a nice comfortable lounge chair, under a warm blanket, with a nice thick history book or a racy romance, and watch me dig.”
“You make me sound like a frail little old lady,” she pouted. “I’m not a featherweight. I’m stronger than I look. But I’m not going to help you nail the lid on my grandfather’s coffin or sully my family’s reputation.”
“That was never my intention,” Nathaniel objected, and, trying to get her mind off more serious matters, he added, “But I could knock you over with a feather.”
He picked her up and whirled her around the bedroom. “That book you’re reading weighs more than you. Featherweight, featherweight.”
She beat her fists against his chest.
“Take that back.”
“Featherweight,” he teased, tossing her onto the bed. Then they took one look at each other and moved together.
“Oh, Patience,” he sighed, and kissed her as she came into his arms.
“Nathaniel.”
He gave her a deep kiss, and she brought her arms around his neck.
“Hold me, just hold me,” she murmured.
“You’re scared, aren’t you? Of what we might find.”
“Yes. A little. Although I don’t really think we’ll find anything.” And if you find the gold, after you find it, you’ll leave. I’m scared of that most of all.
He rubbed his lips against hers and nuzzled his face in her neck.
“Whatever we find, Patience, I won’t let it hurt you. I would never hurt you.”
If you leave me, that will hurt me.
“And what about my family?”
“They’re a part of you,” he whispered.
Nathaniel brought his hand up to her face and stroked her cheek. “Patience, about what’s happening between us—”
“I’ve already forgotten it,” she said, as she turned away so she wouldn’t have to face the hurt and confusion in his eyes.
Chapter 23
The next day dawned bright and beautiful. Today was going to be the day, Nathaniel thought, if his luck held. The weather portended excellent prospects. Part of him didn’t want to find the gold. But his reluctance wasn’t going to stop him.
After Patience came out of her bedroom, wearing shorts and a body-molding T-shirt, Nathaniel fixed some tea and baked some biscuits. He broke apart one fluffy biscuit, smothered it in marmalade, and fed it to her.
“I could get used to this, sailor.” She laughed, and he realized she’d been doing more and more of that lately. He hoped it was because she felt good, natural, with him and had begun to trust him and stop suspecting him. He had come here for the gold. That hadn’t changed, but somewhere along the way perhaps she had captured a piece of his heart. He hoped the reverse was true, as well.
“And I could get used to you, in those shorts,” he said, raising an eyebrow and looking at her appraisingly, “and that T-shirt.”
“You like the way I look?” She smiled.
“More and more each day,” he replied softly.
After breakfast, they were headed outside when the doorbell rang.
“Damn,” Nathaniel fussed. “Who the hell could that be? We can’t afford to be disturbed. Whoever it is, send them away.”
“Calm down, Nathaniel. It’s probably just some delivery person with more food or a condolence note.”
Nathaniel listened, even peeked around the corner as Patience answered the door. Standing before her was a tall, lanky man, attractive with his curly blond hair, dreamy blue eyes, and poet’s face. He had the look of a Greek god—Apollo incarnate in a banker’s suit.
“Patience Whitestone?” he queried.
“Yes, that’s me. May I help you?”
“No, but I hope I can help you,” he said, bringing from behind his back a magnificent arrangement of yellow roses and presenting it to her. “Guaranteed to lift your spirits.”
“Yellow roses!” she gushed. “My favorite! Are they for me?”
“Of course.” His smile revealed perfect teeth.
“Yellow roses are so hard to get in Bermuda, especially this time of year. Who sent them? Is there a note with the arrangement? Let me get you something for your trouble.”
“Oh, no. I think you misunderstood. I’m not the delivery boy. And there’s no note. I’m delivering them in person. They’re from me.”
“Do I know you?” she asked, puzzled, trying unsuccessfully to place him.
“Not exactly, but your grandmother did.”
“My grandmother?” Her shock was evident. “But my grandmother is…”
“If you will just invite me in, I’ll explain.”
“Of course.” She was obviously flustered but thought this man was no threat as she ushered him in and closed the door behind him.
“Let me just get a vase to put these in. They’re lovely. I’ll be right back.”
Holding the mammoth arrangement in front of her, her view was blocked, and she collided with Nathaniel.
“What the hell are those?” Nathaniel demanded.
“Yellow roses.”
“I can see that, but who sent them?” Nathaniel allowed suspicion to fill his words.
“A friend of my grandmother’s.”
Under the Moon Gate Page 17