Running Wild

by Denise Eagan

  “Hey.”

  Startled, she turned toward the sound of Nicholas’s deep voice. Dressed casually in blue trousers and a collarless white shirt, he was crossing the white sand of the upper beach.

  “Good morning,” she said when he reached her.

  “Kinda early for you to be up and about.” Narrowed in concern, his eyes skimmed her old gown, then her bare feet, then settled on her face again.

  “Dawn is the best time of the day at the beach,” she defended, and focused on her feet. She’d rather not see the expression in his eyes, for Nicholas, who had learned much about correct deportment these last weeks, could scarcely approve of her rag-tag appearance.

  The next wave came within half an inch of her big toe.

  “Haven’t had a chance to enjoy the sunrise over the ocean,” he said.

  “It’s quite remarkable.” She wiggled her toes again.

  “Water cold this time of the morning?”

  She lifted her head. Not censure in his eyes, but traces of amusement. She’d forgotten that Nicholas couldn’t care less about deportment. “This far north the water is always cold, although I confess it often feels colder in the morning.”

  He smirked at her toes. “Somethin’ I’d expect a body to avoid.”

  “Why yes, but—” She hesitated. “No doubt you’ll consider me all manner of silly. . .” She took a breath and then said in a rush, “It’s a childhood game, you see, that Lee and I used to play. We’d sit at the edge of the water and dare the waves to reach us.”

  She waited for derision, or worse, condescension, to rise in his eyes, for what other reaction could he have to a grown woman, a crusader, fighting a losing battle with the tide?

  His lips twitched. “Didja ever win?”

  “No, but I’ve yet to surrender.”

  He grinned. “Be surprised if you had. Here, I’ll give it a try, too,” he said and sat down next to her. Laughter and relief tickled her throat as he yanked off his boots and socks. He tossed them up to the dry sand. “O.K.,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s get to work!”

  For several minutes they played the game, wiggling toes, laughing or gasping when the water “won,” and gradually scooting up the beach as the tide came in. When the sun appeared on the horizon in a golden curve, though, they fell silent. Star watched Nicholas out of the corner of her eye, noting the hard muscles of his thighs under his trousers. The tight, male cording of his tanned forearms turned different shades of gold under the new sun’s rays, softly seductive. Desire bubbled through her blood, and quite suddenly she wanted to kiss him, feel the softness of his lips moving over hers, feel his body pressed against hers, leaping to life. She wanted to sink to the ground with him, and let runaway passion drive the remnants of sorrow and nightmares and death from her mind. She’d had too much of death—she wanted life.

  Thus far, however, he’d rebuffed every advance she’d made toward him.

  That was before, a little voice said at the back of her mind, which then brought memories to support it. I’d vote for you. . . Already knew they couldn’t be near as pretty as you.

  Presently Nicholas said, “Well you were right, that was some kinda pretty. Reckon I’ll never get tired of looking at the ocean.”

  “Worth an early rising?”

  “Sure.” He paused, running thoughtful eyes over her. “Listen, about Bella. . . .”

  “Yes, I never properly thanked you for . . . that. I suppose it was rather foolish to weep over it, for how she died ought not to matter. She’s gone forever, regardless.”

  “It matters. Violent deaths are always harder.”

  She swallowed and gazed at the horizon, where the rising sun had scattered the clouds. To their left a newly awakened seagull greeted the morning with a squawk. “You must know that Bella wasn’t a good friend. We worked together on reform, but she was motivated by vengeance, whereas I hoped to prevent. . .” Her throat clenched for she had not prevented anything. “I don’t know—I don’t know how her parents can bear this. They had only the two children.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Nicholas said softly, “at what a body can bear.”

  She looked his way. His face was hard, and she abruptly recalled his past—the sudden death of his parents when he was but a youth, leaving behind a ranch to run and a brother to raise. He never talked about it, but Star suspected that part of Nicholas’s attachment to Father came from losing his own. “Like,” she said gently, “when a boy loses both his parents.”

  He fixed his gaze upon her. “I was no boy,” he objected. “I was eighteen.”

  And yet suffering shone in his eyes, along with a kind of hunger. For a brief spell, she glimpsed the young man he’d been before worry and backbreaking work had drawn lines around his eyes. “And Jim,” she said, “was only fifteen.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it was harder on him. I had my parents through the teen years, when a boy needs his Pa for advice and his Ma for comfort. Jim got neither.”

  She stared, puzzled. Was he denying his own hardships? Or did he truly believe Jim had suffered more?

  He heaved a weary sigh. “I tried to be both, but. . .” He shook his head, grimacing. “Sometimes, I thought that boy’d end up in an early grave for sure.”

  “Because of the feud between him and Melinda’s brothers?”

  “Most particularly.” His brow furrowed in concern and haunted recollection pinched the corners of his eyes. “Made me sick some days, ’specially after Jim and Randy Summers got into that gunfight, and Melinda’s brothers set the law on Jim.”

  “Sick?”

  “Stomach pain. Puking. Like that. Doc Greene thought I might have cancer. It scared the bejesus out of me. I didn’t know what’d become of Jim if I was gone.” He shrugged, which did nothing to allay the anguish in his voice. “Anyhow . . . don’t know about Bella’s parents. Losing your children, that’s a lot worse, but they could pull through all right.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “You don’t think about yourself much, do you?”

  He turned, frowning. “What’s to think about?”

  “Why, about what you wanted and needed after your parents died. I imagine you missed them dreadfully.”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Still do, sometimes. Your father’s a lot like Pa. Stern, and dutiful, to family, to honor. We weren’t the easiest sons, Jim and me. . .” For several minutes he told her about “Ma” and “Pa” and the “hell Jim and me raised” followed by the consequences, which even to Star’s ears seemed just and fair. After a time his voice trailed off.

  “I think you’re a lot like your father,” she offered.

  He looked surprised, and then a big smile spread across his face. “You know that’s about the nicest thing you could’ve said to me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They fell silent for a time. “So,” he ventured by and by, “you figure Burke killed Bella?”

  The tightening in her chest wasn’t as harsh this time. “Quite possibly. Bella bad-mouthed Horatio, and he’s a prideful man. It’d give him reason to kill her.”

  Nick nodded. “Fair enough. Well I reckon the authorities will haul him in. Whaddaya say we leave the ocean-taunting for another day and mosey on up to the house for some breakfast? I’m just about ready to faint from starvation.”

  She regarded him for a minute. She’d come to the beach for a short respite, but somehow Nicholas had provided more. Relief. Renewed strength. And she loved him for it, with every breath of her body. “All right.” She took his hand and he helped her rise. “But I shall beat the tide one day, you know!”

  He chuckled as he scooped up his boots and started, barefoot, back to the house. “Well ma’am, I sure wouldn’t bet against you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

  Here we will sit and let the sounds of music

  Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night

  Become the touches of sw
eet harmony.

  Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  “The fireworks display shall be tomorrow at nine p.m.,” Mother said over dinner as she cut into a lamb chop. “It is, Nicholas, the official start to Newport’s Season.”

  Star bit her lip. Three days had passed since Nicholas had held her in his arms and let her cry out her pain, two days since he’d sat on the beach and taunted the waves with her. In that short time his behavior toward her had subtly altered, from amused wariness to restrained, but still amused, tenderness. Now, every time he looked her way, her heart melted.

  “The start?” Nicholas asked. “I thought it’d already started.”

  Melted, followed quickly by pounding and mounting desire, for love and tenderness did not, as one might expect, cool the passions. It increased them a hundredfold.

  “Not quite,” Mother said. “It’s a splendid display. No mountains in the background of course, or prairie grasses,” she added somewhat wistfully, “but I fancy we won’t disappoint.”

  “Doubt you could, Morgan. We don’t set off many. Too dry that time o’ year, and we wouldn’t want to risk a wildfire. Sometimes, if rain’s been scarce, we don’t do ’em at all.”

  Did Nicholas feel the same way? He must and she’d decided that the fireworks display would be the perfect venue for their final surrender to love. A surrender she hoped would hurl them into the hot, fierce liaison that she’d been dreaming of for months. Just in time, too, to take her mind off Bella and Minnie and the case being currently tried in the Court of Gossip.

  And off Romeo’s increasingly creepy behavior. In the last three days, he’d taken to telephoning. Thankfully, thus far, only Lee and Port had had the misfortune of receiving the calls.

  “Well we haven’t any such problems,” Jane chimed in, “and we’ve got the ocean too. I do love fireworks. They are ever so exciting.”

  Even more so, Star thought acerbically, the men attending them.

  She quickly shoved the thought from her mind, for Jane and Del were not her problem. Her problem—her reward—was Nicholas. “I’m sorry,” she said, schooling her voice into just the right pitch of sadness. “I believe I shall skip it this year. I—” She hesitated for effect. “I’m not feeling quite up for festivities.”

  Father scowled at her from the end of the table. Those who did not know Father well would think it an expression of anger, but Star marked anxiety in the creases around his eyes. “It’s your favorite event, Star. It would be very ill of you to miss it.”

  “Truly, Father, I should be but a blight upon the party. I’ll see it next year.”

  Lee glanced across the table at Jess. She nodded and regarded Star somewhat warily. “I’ll stay with you,” she offered. “I’m not very—comfortable—these days.”

  Oh no!

  “I will as well,” Lee said. “We’ll watch the fireworks from the veranda.”

  “Not necessary,” Nicholas interjected firmly. “I’ll stay. You’ve been talking about it for a week, Jess. You go ahead.”

  Oh yes! Nicholas to the rescue, just as she had hoped. Star’s heart jumped. “No,” she said dutifully. “I couldn’t ask such sacrifice of you, Nicholas. I’ll be fine by myself, I assure you.”

  “No indeed,” Lee said. “Jess and I are happy to join Star.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “No sacrifice a’ tall, ma’am. I’m tuckered out from the parties and dinners and teas. Not,” he added hurriedly, “that I haven’t enjoyed—”

  “No apologies necessary, Nick,” Father interrupted, holding up his hand. “We understand. Lee, you and Jess must join us. She’ll be withdrawing from Society soon enough, and social intercourse will be severely curtailed. Nick may see the show from the veranda, or, if he so chooses, more spectacularly from the beachfront.”

  “Dad,” Lee objected.

  As Father, King of Deceit frowned at Lee, Star fought to sound weary. “That’s true. Perhaps I’ll take a stroll later this evening if I’m not too tired.”

  “You can see them from the beach?” Nicholas asked, his eyes lighting up. “Reckon I’ll join you.”

  She smiled. “Why that is an excellent idea. I look forward to it. Perhaps we’ll bring refreshments as well.” She was going to have her cake and eat it too—and my, oh my, what a cake!

  ***

  A crescent moon hung in the sky as Star and Nicholas strolled across the thick green grass to the shore. A warm breeze flowed off the water, lifting the skirt of her peach-flowered poplin, and blending the fragrance of newly mown grass with the lovely tang of the ocean. The quiet splashing of the waves against the shore echoed in her ears. Yes, this was the perfect place for her introduction to womanhood: the perfect sound, the perfect smell, the perfect man.

  She glanced at Nicholas walking beside her, tall and straight with the breeze ruffling his hair. For their late-night feast and fireworks, he’d shed his waistcoat, and upon exiting the house he’d unbuttoned his suit coat as well. Although she knew it to be heavy, he swung their basket of refreshments lightly, testament to the strength hidden under that coat. She had the distinct impression he wished to yank off his tie and collar, as well, but had refrained.

  “You sure we’ll be able to see ’em, then?” he asked as they stepped off the path and onto the dry, mushy sand. “Seems to me like we’d see ’em better from the east corner of the house, instead of looking out across the ocean. Crane our necks a deal less, anyhow.”

  “It wouldn’t be quite as spectacular as watching them over the ocean.”

  He glanced at her, appeared to be about to argue, but thought better of it. Shrugging, he set down the basket and handed her the blanket to spread. He hesitated, then reached for the lapels of his coat. “Warm out here tonight. You mind?”

  Mind? Good gracious, she could not possibly get it off him fast enough!

  “No, by all means, make yourself comfortable.”

  He took it off. The white linen of his shirt stretched tight across his hard, muscular chest. A warm flush crept across her face, hidden by the darkness as she spread the blanket on the sand. Nicholas carefully laid his jacket behind them at the edge of the blanket, then settled down and started digging through the basket. “What’ve we got in here?”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Hungry already, Nicholas?”

  He grinned as he pulled out a bottle of port. “Always hungry,” he said amusement deepening his voice.

  “You ate but an hour ago.”

  “Got myself a hollow leg, I reckon. You aren’t thinkin’ on drinking this whole bottle yourself, are you? No, there are two glasses here.”

  “I thought, however, to have more than one glass. No one is here to prevent me.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I could.”

  “But you wouldn’t.”

  He glanced at her as he pulled the cork. “No, I guess I wouldn’t.” His eyes narrowed a bit, and his forehead wrinkled in concern. “How are you doing?” His voice took on the newfound tenderness that set her heart to fluttering.

  “I’m better, thank you.”

  He studied her for a moment more. “O.K. Good,” he said pouring a glass of wine. He handed it to her, poured himself one, and then carefully stuck it and the bottle in the sand at the edge of the blanket. As she savored the smooth-sweet taste of port, he dug in the basket again. “Hey, look! You packed some of that Frenchy cheese I like so much! And grapes.”

  “Brie. Yes, I remembered how you enjoyed it. If you’ll dig deeper, you’ll uncover a box of chocolates for me,” she said, laying on her side.

  He chuckled. “Sure enough. Here they are.” He handed them to her. While he merrily consumed a plate of cheese, bread and grapes, she ate the chocolates. “I’ll say this for you blue-bloods,” he said, taking a sip of port. “You sure know good chow.”

  Such a wonderful mouth, she thought dreamily, watching his lips curl around the rim of his glass. The port relaxed her muscles and warmed her skin. “Yes, we do know good chow. Although I must confess, I
miss Melinda’s cooking.”

  “Me too, a mite,” Nicholas answered. “Hey, they’re starting.” He pointed to where the sky was lighting up in the distance. Seconds later they heard the explosions. “Man alive,” he said and whistled. He dropped his empty plate back into the basket, then settled back on his elbows. “You’re right, it sure is pretty over the ocean. Dam—blast, will you look at the way they light up the sky!”

  As Nicholas watched the sky, she watched him, enjoying the way wonder flattened the planes of his face, then almost split it in half with a smile of boundless joy. That joy searched out her heart, stroking it, soothing the wounds left by the Kingstons’ deaths. It was one of the many aspects of Nicholas’s nature that she loved so much. Few of her friends would admit to such unfettered delight in matters that Society viewed as mundane; presenting a façade of ennui was fashionable. But Nicholas was who he was, fashion be damned.

  Smiling, she swallowed the last of her port to bolster her courage, put the glass back in the basket and sidled closer to him. He turned to look down at her, eyes brilliant with enthusiasm, yet still marbled by tenderness. “Did you see that? They’re red now!”

  “I did see it,” she said.

  He grinned. “’Course you did. Seen it all before, haven’t you?”

  “For many summers, but it’s prettier through your eyes.”

  He regarded her for a spell. “You’re awfully sweet sometimes, you know that?” The sky lit up again, and he jerked his head around. “Hey, they’re blue now. And red and white. Man alive!”

  He watched the fireworks, and she watched him, breathing the heady scent of ocean air, pine and gun smoke into her chest and letting it flow through her body. As she focused upon his mouth, her lips tingled in anticipation, remembering his kiss and the seductive brush of his tongue against her lower lip. At length the breeze brought the sounds of music, and then the finale erupted in a culmination of color and light. Nicholas’s muscles tightened in awestruck wonder, and her heart skipped a beat as desire, fueled by port, sparkled in her belly. She sat up.