by Tracy Sumner
"I know what I'm doing."
He rolled his eyes at that.
She couldn't summon enough evidence to disagree.
"Granted, perhaps I don't know precisely what I'm doing, but I know who's responsible." She walked forward, stopping before him. "And it isn't you."
He lifted the glass to his nose and sniffed, probably wishing for another drink. "How do you figure that?"
"My life is my choice. Your life is your choice."
His straight white teeth flashed as he released a sarcastic gust of laugher. "My life hasn't been my choice since I was twenty years old."
She didn't understand what he meant; she didn't know much about Zachariah Garrett other than his name and his occupation. Nothing but the trivial bits and pieces about the Garrett brothers that Elle had written to her over the years.
If Savannah wanted more information, pressure was not the way to get it. The man standing by her didn't play father to an entire town because he was a man easily led. "Then you're owed," she said with a small, negligent shrug.
He licked a drop of wine from the glass rim, his eyes finding hers over the edge. For some reason, his half-lidded look brought back the feel of his hands on her body, his teeth nipping her bottom lip. "That so?"
"If you haven't ever done anything completely for yourself"—she moved in close enough to catch the peppery scent of his shaving lotion—"isn't it about time? I believe I'm due as well."
He lowered the glass. "Are we talking about the same thing here?"
She rocked back on her heels. "I agree that the details may require a spot of negotiation."
He laughed then, his glossy hair falling into his face. "Yeah? I'm not at all sure we're talking about the same thing; I'm not at all sure you even have a clue. But damned if I'm not willing to negotiate."
Smiling, she smoothed her hand down her shirtwaist, strangely pleased. "Fine. Excellent, we're getting somewhere."
Tapping her lip, she stepped out of reach, fearful she might give in to temptation and beg him for another kiss if she wasn't careful. "How about tomorrow morning? I'll stop by your office at, say, eleven. I'm having lunch at the restaurant across the way at noon with my committee. An hour should be enough time."
"Can't. Prior engagement."
She glanced his way, studying him to see if he was teasing her. "Truly?"
He nodded his head, but not before she caught the amused glint in his eyes. "Truly."
"Can you reschedule?"
"Hyman Carter is heading to Raleigh on business next week, and tomorrow morning is the only time he can stop by to discuss his situation."
She halted, whipping around so quickly she stumbled. "Hyman Carter? You're meeting with that man without alerting me? I must inform my committee."
Reaching out, he tipped her chin high. "I'm alerting you, Irish. But no committee. You show alone or not at all. And bring the sensible Miss Connor you've been telling me so much about, not the hellion."
He blinked, gazing beyond her for a moment before refocusing. "Better yet, save her for the negotiation."
"What time?" Savannah asked, drawing back, breathless and disconcerted. Too disconcerted to reprimand him for using that childish and highly inappropriate moniker.
He shrugged, back to his good-natured self. "Ten or so."
They walked home in silence, her bicycle standing guard between them. Not an indecent touch passed. Nothing indecent at all occurred aside from the graphic images exploding like last July's fireworks in her mind. Zach had refused to let her travel the two blocks to her rented room alone. Just imagine the nights she had walked alone in New York! If his gesture hadn't made her feel so warm, she would have laughed.
"Why," she asked, as Zach stood outside the gate of the boarding house, waiting for her to climb the porch steps, "did you tell me about the meeting? I thought you weren't interested in helping me. I'm not sure I understand."
"Got to understand everything, huh?" He hesitated, clearly debating how much he should reveal. Finally, with a sigh, he closed the gate and started down the rutted path that served as a sidewalk. Stopping at the junction with his lane, the gleam of a gas streetlamp flooded over him, throwing his arresting features into dull relief. "Why, Miss Connor? I guess because your heart's in the right place, even if your lovely little head is in the clouds. I can't much fault someone for being naïve though, now can I? Even a Yankee do-gooder."
She stayed on the porch, letting the gentle ocean breeze wrap its fingers around her, watching Zachariah Garrett disappear into the shadows. She wasn't sure whether to be affronted or gratified by his comments.
If she was honest with herself, both.
The man seemed to pull her in utterly divergent directions.
But she was smiling as she closed the front door behind her.
Seeing his son take his first breath had been the most astounding feeling of Zach's life. Watching that miniature face contort and burst into color, hearing the impressive bellow roll from minute-old lungs. Of course, he had fallen in love immediately, forever.
It had also been the most frightening day of his life.
Tucking the sheet around Rory's scrawny shoulders, he moved the boy's thumb away from his mouth. It was an occasional habit, nothing more, but Zach had read an article recently about it changing the shape of a child's mouth. No good there.
Walking to the window, he lifted it higher, letting a nice gust of air into the humid room. Lord if it wasn't getting hotter every day. He paused at the door, rechecked his direction, and settled into the rocking chair in the corner of the room. Moonlight spilled across the end of the bed, his feet, and lap. Resting his head on the back of the chair, he rocked in time to the sound of a cricket chirping somewhere close. Could be hiding in the room for all he knew.
Hannah had lulled Rory to sleep every night when he was a baby, right here, until he got too big and wanted only to scramble around the floor, dragging his butt and legs behind him, chewing on every nasty bug or dust ball he could get his hands on. Other than requiring that Zach watch what he dropped on the floor—something as simple as a button could be a dreadful hazard—and see that his son ate regularly and had clean diapers on his bottom as often as a person could make that happen, that first year or two of his son's life had passed without event.
Then Rory's mind had opened up and the questions started.
Excruciating questions. Where did stars come from? Why is the sky blue and not orange? What are oyster shells made of? By God, Zach had wished for Noah then—the professor, as everyone in town except his family called him—to ease the burden of lying all the time about stuff. Making up answers left and right. His other brother, Caleb, wasn't even as smart as Zach, so he was of no use in those instances at all.
It was a big responsibility raising a child. To Zach's way of thinking, there was no bigger and no more rewarding an experience. Unfortunately, it offered the best chance in life to suffer as if you were being roasted in Satan's den.
Anything that hurt Rory hurt Zach ten times worse.
She had wondered—this odd woman he kissed earlier in the evening—why he cautiously considered taking risks. Savannah Connor wasn't a parent and therefore couldn't understand that the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.
The weight of his world.
Zach glanced toward the bed, resisting the urge to tuck Rory's foot back under the covers or trace the shape of his toes just for the simple pleasure of touching him.
Zach's family, his entire meaning, lay snuggled beneath those covers, breathing in raspy, little-boy breaths, probably dribbling spittle on the blue pillowcase, his fist clenched around a tattered rag doll.
Savannah couldn't know that Zach had cried as much at his wife's funeral because his family would never grow any larger, than he did because his wife and unborn child lay in the nicest pine box he could find on short notice in the dead of winter.
He had loved Hannah.
Of course, he had been the worst sort of hu
sband for her: too full of passion and eagerness and dreams. But he'd loved her, soul-deep. And he had tried the best he knew how to care for her, to shelter her. Just as he had tried to do the best by his brothers after his mother's death.
By blind chance, he had come home that month, a pilot who could navigate every inlet and shoal in the Banks with his eyes closed, a young man seeking to grab the world by the short hairs, as cocky and irresponsible and fun-loving as any young man of twenty had a right to be.
Yes, he'd come home to a dying mother and two adolescent boys in need of he didn't know what. One with a temper Zach couldn't control, the other with a mind Zach didn't understand.
That had ended his cocky irresponsibility quicker than a fist against a brick wall.
He hadn't missed the rowdy life. Living in the rank galley of a boat, eating high on the hog right out of port, then watching the supplies dwindle until he'd kill for a cracker that wasn't covered with mold. Working all hours, until his back ached and his knees locked, staring at the damned horizon so long his eyes crossed.
So he had settled in Pilot Isle for good. Married Hannah, and then along came Rory. And his life was no longer his at all. Even if he loved them with everything he had to give, and he did, Rory, Hannah, Noah, and Caleb had exacted a price. A price he was willing to pay until the day he kicked.
Still, a price.
Then, today, surprise of all surprises, Savannah Connor—bold and brash and maybe a touch crazy—had offered him a mirror.
When he'd looked into it, he'd seen that fun-loving young man staring back.
The temptation to take what she offered seemed more than he could refuse. Touching her had been like standing inside one of Edison's bulbs: the glow had dazzled, warmed, and enchanted. He had been Zach Garrett and nothing more, kissing a woman for the unadulterated joy of it, feeling her nails lightly scratching his neck, her firm breasts flattening against his chest, her sweet breath stealing into his throat.
He had forgotten the pleasure of a woman's touch.
Zach breathed deeply of little boy, paint and dog, wondering if Savannah understood the road she had started down. It was a treacherous road, a ruinous road for an unmarried woman. He was a bit older, and wiser by far, even though she was from New York City.
The good deed would be to turn her away.
Right now. Tomorrow.
Only, the wicked side of him, a side no one in Pilot Isle would have guessed existed, was hard at work building a wall around good intention. He had not been lonely those piloting years; he learned things he had never considered bringing into his marital bed. Hannah had been too fragile, too sweet and innocent.
Savannah Connor was another case altogether.
Untried, he had no doubt. Gullible in her own way, he reckoned, but fearless.
A fearless pain in his ass.
He laughed as he thought it: just as he'd once been.
Was it insane to imagine he could find that young man with her, not for love's sake but simply for life's sake? For his sake and his alone?
Noah and Caleb told him, sometimes daily, that he had to move on, remarry and have more children.
He didn't want that.
He couldn't love that deeply or give of himself in that way again. Yet, he was tired, dog tired, of apologizing for wanting to live.
Smiling softly, he closed his eyes, imagining what it was going to be like negotiating with that hellion.
And since he'd decided to take her up on her life-and-choices challenge, imagining if she'd let him negotiate her right out of her fancy clothes.
4
Getting along with men isn't what's truly important. The vital knowledge is how to get along with a man, one man. ~Phyllis McGinley
The next morning, Savannah lost her train of thought about the time she noticed the teensy half-inch scar running alongside Zachariah Garrett's bottom lip. It was pink; fresh enough to mean he had received the wound recently. If she hadn't known the man better, she might guess it was a brawling injury. Too wide for a razor nick.
"Miss Connor, are you still with us?"
She blinked and pinched her thigh where her hand rested beneath her parasol. Daydreaming during a meeting about the atrocities at the oyster factory. What would Miss Anthony, her mentor and the first woman to see any value in her as a freedom fighter, think of that? She would think that Savannah had unearthed her wayward impetuosity, that's what.
"I'm sorry, my mind drifted. Come again."
Zach slid a dawdling look her way, the lazy grin on his face making her want to crack her parasol atop his head. He could kiss her feet and that's all he would kiss, the charlatan. He was no more a slow-talking Southern gentleman than she was a monkey's uncle. She had sat in New York state courtrooms with less gifted mediators. Without him, Mr. Carter would have been a blind man swimming in a sea of sharks.
"Mr. Carter has agreed to review his policies and submit a pay increase for female employees to his partner," Zach said, bringing her back to the issue at hand.
"How much?" She retrieved paper and a pen from her reticule. Licking the tip of her pen, she poised it over the page. "I'd like your hourly proposal and your monthly. I assume full-time workers will be compensated more copiously than part-time. This agreement will include my suggestion for minimal rest periods for expectant mothers, I take it?"
Hyman Carter glanced from Zach to her and back, a beseeching grimace drawing the edges of his mouth to his chin. Tufts of reddish-blond hair stood on end on his head, giving him a look of complete astonishment. Or perhaps it was her. She did occasionally have that impact on people.
"Gentlemen?" Tapping her pen against her knee, she smiled at Mr. Carter and kept herself from making a nasty gesture with her finger at the capable Constable Garrett.
"Hyman?" Zach coughed and dug a discreet elbow into Mr. Carter's ribs.
Hyman swallowed and fidgeted, knocking the toe of a polished boot against the worn plank floor. "Uh, well, you see, ma'am, Miss Connor, I'm going to have to sit a spell and figure on this. Draw up papers and talk with Mr. Henry in Raleigh. Mighty important decisions, all of these. Mighty important. And, well, uh...." He twisted his hat in his fist until she presumed he'd crushed it beyond repair. "I would like to keep these, um, talks in place, seeing as Mr. Henry and I wouldn't like any bad newspaper reports, you see. And everything we're discussing is for the good of the workers at C and H Oyster Producers. I'm not lost there."
"Indeed they are, Mr. Carter." Making a notation on her pad, she calculated a fair date in her head. "How about setting the next meeting for the fifteenth? That gives you two weeks to discuss changes with your partner and draw up any plans we need to review."
"Just us, you mean." He gave his hat another twist. "No, um, no committee of darned women or anything like that."
Savannah smiled, feeling the hook sink deep in Hyman Carter's hide. "No committee, no reporters, no further rallies. If, and I do want to stress the determined nature of my pledge, if changes are made." Sliding her writing materials into her reticule, she spanked the end of her parasol on the floor and rose, shaking her skirt for good measure. "Soon, of course, though I'm sure that's unspoken. We can't have women going into that factory for much longer with conditions as they are today."
Zach's gaze found hers. You're winning; no need to kill the man.
"Thank you for meeting so promptly, Mr. Carter," she offered as he stomped past, huffing like a steam engine in overload. "I enjoyed it tremendously."
Turning her head, she smiled as she passed Zach on the way out, proving she could be gracious when the situation called for graciousness.
"Whoa, Irish, where in the world do you think you're headed?" Kicking the door shut, he took two steps back and propped his bottom against it, crossing his arms to further the intimidation. His wide-legged stance, the way he held himself in perfect balance, told her he wasn't about to forget their negotiation.
A sizzling burst of heat lit her stomach and rose to her face in seconds w
hile she decided that she, wine, and Zachariah Garrett didn't mix. "I'm sure I have no idea what you mean."
He grinned, gesturing with his elbow to her face. "Oh yes, you do. That flush in your cheeks tells me you know exactly what I mean."
"I've decided to renege on my offer due to your unscrupulous practices."
"Unscrupulous?" He puckered his lips and seemed to think on that. "Oh, oh, yes, I see. Because I didn't let you chew poor Hyman up and spit him out like a piece of gristle, I wasn't being honest." His gaze drilled into her, and it lacked all the rosy promise of a moment before. "You think because I talk slower than you do that I think slower? Irish, you've got an awful lot to learn about people."
"I can't help if I object."
"Object to what?"
"To your brazenness and your indolent grins, to your unhurried answers and your pointed observations. To your assumption of rightfully being in charge, even if you rightfully are. To the dreadful nickname Irish." She also objected to the slim fit of his trousers and the way he left two buttons on his shirt unbuttoned, allowing a patch of crisp black hair to show. And why did the hair on his head always look as though some woman had been running her hands through it? It was also a shade longer than was fashionable.
However, she was charitable—he didn't have a wife—so she would omit those grievances.
Laughing softly, Zach pushed off the door and headed for her, his stride listless when she knew it, knew him, to be anything but. She glanced around, drawing her parasol before her like a sword.
"Only one door, Irish. Better for keeping prisoners in, you know."
"Am I a prisoner?" she whispered.
Gripping her wrists between the fingers of one hand, he lowered the parasol and let it drop to the floor. The other hand rose, tilting her head until she couldn't help but stare into his face. "Do you want to be my prisoner, Miss Connor? Seeing as I know the town constable so well, I could probably make arrangements."
The blood beneath her skin heated to such an extent that Savannah feared her veins would melt. "I'm not sure... what I want."