She went directly to the rock where she’d posed. He wasn’t there, or in his usual spot painting. No easel was set up on the beach. There was no cooler full of cold drinks stuck in the sand. No paints. When she heard the whistling of a familiar Irish tune lilting through the air, she stole softly into the stand of trees near his house and made herself as small as possible.
The hood of Aidan’s pickup was propped open and he was shirtless, bending over the engine with pliers in his hand. The whistling stopped and he stared into the guts of the vehicle, seemingly deep in thought.
Samantha took some steadying breaths as she gazed upon his muscled back—the same back she’d stroked with her nails last night. Her fingers itched with the desire to run them through his long dark hair. Aidan shifted his weight from one hip to the other and she felt her breath hitch. She’d been driven delirious with the thrust of those hips not so many hours ago.
A thrill raced up her spine as she recalled the taste of his lips and the way her body had heated like a flame with his fiery touch.
Unable to stand another moment of quiet torture, she moved slowly from behind the tree where she was hidden so as not to alarm him. Softly clearing her throat, she was about to speak his name when a tiny voice called out from behind the kitchen screen door. Samantha’s head jerked up when the door banged open and a small curly-headed boy of about five bounded out.
“Daddy! Mama says to come inside. It’s time for lunch.”
Aidan laid the pliers down and swung the child into his arms and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, son. Wonder what she’s fixed for us today. I’m so hungry I could eat a bear. How about you?”
The boy giggled when Aidan ruffled his chestnut brown hair and nuzzled his neck.
Another voice, this time a feminine one, floated out the kitchen window. “Are my two favorite boys coming in? The food is ready.”
The beating of Sam’s heart stopped when the profile of a woman passed by the window from inside the house. Mostly hidden by shadows, Sam couldn’t see her features, but she knew this was Remy, Aidan’s wife. The spyglass hadn’t worked this time! Aidan was still married, and it was even more complicated. Now he had a son.
She’d known she might not get her wish just because she’d prayed for things to go back to the way they’d been last night. After all, she’d hoped Chad would be released from the coma and he hadn’t. Still, deep in her soul she’d thought the power of hers and Aidan’s newly formed bond was strong enough to override the slapdash influence wheeled by the spyglass.
Unable to move, Samantha’s feet were stuck to the ground like they were frozen in ice. Dumbly, she watched as Aidan set the child on the ground and the boy ran to the house. The kitchen door swung open and a woman’s hand stretched out to take the little boy’s.
“I’ll grab my t-shirt and be right in,” Aidan said, sauntering back to the truck.
Sam’s gaze followed him as he leaned into the lowered window on the driver’s side and pulled a t-shirt from off the seat and drew it over his head. He took a step forward and stopped. With what seemed like the instinct of an animal protecting its territory, Aidan looked over his shoulder and watched and listened. His gaze swung across the ground at the sound of a small creature scurrying around. Then he looked toward the ocean. Sam held her breath, daring not to move a muscle, as his eyes lifted and searched the blue sky.
What was he thinking about? Could he sense her? Did he feel her presence?
Sweat trickled between her breasts as he turned in a slow circle. Please don’t look this way.
With a flood of emotions bubbling inside, her lips parted and she quietly gulped. The air caught in her throat causing her to hiccup. She slapped a hand over her mouth but it was too late. Aidan’s head pivoted and their gazes connected. His head angled, and she thought she glimpsed a hint of recognition in his eyes.
“Aidan?” Remy called from the screened window.
When his gaze shot to the house, Sam seized the moment and sprinted away, through the trees and onto the beach. With her legs and arms pumping like pistons down the long stretch of sand, she felt heartsick, confused and relieved, all wrapped into one. Aidan had a family, but she was certain he’d recognized her, which meant she’d not been completely erased from his memory. Before he’d looked into the spyglass, he’d sworn he’d come back to her. And he’d been the one constant through this whole mess. She had to believe he still remembered her and there was a way for them to be together.
Her breath was ragged by the time she reached the lighthouse. Bending over and gulping in fresh air, she wondered what to do now. Should she go inside and peer through the spyglass once more, hoping her world would shift yet again? Or wait and see what else had changed this time? Maybe there was a limit to how many times reality would alter. There was no way of knowing and no one to talk to about it. All she wanted was to be with Aidan. He was the only person who understood what she was going through; the one person she trusted.
As she unlocked the door, she realized she’d associated the word trust with him. It felt so good to believe in someone.
She opened the kitchen cabinet door and pulled the mahogany box from its dark hiding place. Dropping into the living room chair, she placed the box on her lap and laid her head back and closed her eyes.
Yes, she did trust Aidan, with her secret and with her heart. But he was another woman’s husband, and a little boy’s father. She drummed her fingers on the top of the box. He had looked so content, sweeping the child into his arms and rubbing his head. Remy was probably a devoted wife and mother. Theirs appeared to be a happy family. Could she ruin all that to be with Aidan and to forge a life with him? To make her own selfish dreams come true?
Hell yes, she could. Her eyes popped open, and she sat up straight and opened the box lid. The brass instrument gleamed up from its velvet nest. Her fingertips skimmed the metal, and it felt cool beneath her touch.
“I deserve love as much as anyone else,” she said aloud. “I’ve felt alone most of my life. There’s a hole in my heart that needs filled, and Aidan is the man who can fill it.”
Her hands trembled as she raised the spyglass inch by inch until it was at eye level. Her tongue slid over her lips that were as dry as chalk.
“I deserve happiness, too,” she repeated. “This time it’s going to work. Remy and the boy will disappear and Aidan will be mine. He won’t remember them, and we’ll go back to the way we were last night. Then I’ll toss this thing into the ocean so it’ll be out of our lives forever.”
Samantha took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She couldn’t do it. No matter how she felt about Aidan, Samantha wasn’t that self-centered. Most important was for him to be happy, even if it was his destiny to be the husband of Remy and a father to the boy. Right?
She dropped the spyglass back into the box and slammed the lid, trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing by not looking. Aidan’s life had not been a bed of roses either. He deserved contentment as much as her.
Recalling the bits and pieces he’d told her about moving around with his mother made her wonder if there wasn’t more to his story than he’d shared. She sensed his growing-up years might have been very different from hers, but just as difficult. If Remy and the little boy gave him joy (and it appeared they did), Sam knew she should be pleased. After all, she’d only known the man a few days. That didn’t give her the right to feel as possessive as she did. According to Jason, Remy and Aidan had known each other as children. There was a strong bond between them; a connection that had lasted throughout the years.
But there was a connection between her and Aidan as well. The way she’d felt when they’d made love…they’d become one in body and spirit. It was as if they were meant to be together—and always had been. Two souls had joined last night.
She swiped a tear from the corner of her eye and returned the mahogany box to its former hiding place—the cave deep within the re
cesses of the kitchen cabinet.
“If it’s meant to be,” she said, “it will be.” A quote she’d heard somewhere a long time ago came to mind. If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.
A sharp pain in her head made her wince, and another vision began to play out in her mind, as if the scene were happening at that very moment.
Her five-year old self had captured a beautiful butterfly in a glass jar. She admired it for what seemed like hours. By the time she showed it to her mother, the butterfly appeared weak. Its wings were barely fluttering. Mama sat next to her on the wooden porch floor and stroked her hair with her hand. “You must let it go,” she told her.
Sam shook her head and pressed the jar to her chest. “It’s pretty. The butterfly is mine. I love it. I want to keep it forever.”
Mama’s gold cross necklace lay against her suntanned skin and caught a ray of sun as she shifted and leaned in close. She whispered, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
Sam glanced up and over her mother’s shoulder to the window behind them at her aunt, who was looking through, bobbing her head and offering a sympathetic smile.
Joyful screams of children playing outside the lighthouse windows wrenched Samantha free of her trance and the vision faded.
Aunt? Her pulse throbbed so hard in her wrist it felt like her arm was going to explode. “I don’t have any aunts. Where would that have come from?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she conjured the image once more. She hadn’t gotten a clear look at the woman she remembered as her aunt. Like a film moving in reverse, the little white cottage slowly rolled into view, materializing in front of her closed eyes. She saw her child-self sitting on the porch. It was the same cottage on the south end of the beach! Just like that day, a face stared at her from the window. Pale skin and auburn hair hanging to the woman’s shoulders was all she could make out before the dream vanished for the second time.
Shaken by the daydream that felt so real, she grabbed the skeleton key, locked the door behind her, and strode south on foot. When she reached the run-down cottage, the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. An invisible hand touched the small of her back and nudged her forward.
Once again, she found herself standing on the dilapidated porch. Her hands trembled as she cupped them around her face and peered through the dirty window. The room inside was empty except for a tattered sofa pushed up against one wall and a crumbling stone fireplace in the corner. Beyond, in what had probably been the kitchen, stood a rickety looking table.
She tried the doorknob but it was locked, just like the other day. An intense desire to step inside the house drove her to the back of the cottage, in case another door or window was unlocked or the locks were broken. There were no stairs leading to the back door anymore, and she wasn’t tall enough to peek into the windows. Glancing around, there was nothing to stand on in order to reach the door or windows.
Accepting that there was no way to get in, she strolled away from the property feeling disheartened. Glimpsing over her shoulder several times, she tried to tamp down the unexplainable longing. The feeling of having been cherished by another female relative other than her mother preoccupied her thoughts as she strolled back to the lighthouse. Why was she so sure the face in the window in her vision had been her aunt?
Had the face she’d seen in the cottage the previous time been real? A homeless person, Aidan had suggested. Now she had doubts. Something hinted the two faces belonged to the same person. But how could that be? Obviously the vision had something to do with an alternate reality, but what did it mean?
Samantha entered the lighthouse rubbing the gold cross between her fingers. In the vision, her mother had spoken to her in a soft and soothing voice; so different from the actual voice Sam had listened to growing up.
While winding her way upstairs to the shower, she thought about her mom. Assertive and confident, Bev Landers had never had what one would consider a calming voice. Although her field had been social work and she’d helped many families stay together through the years, more often than not, she’d had to take children away from their neglectful or abusive parents and their dire surroundings. Such work demanded an authoritative personality, the ability to remain detached, and nerves of steel. In other words, no wilting rose.
Sam had been proud of her mom and the way she’d provided for the two of them. But warm and fuzzy was not a way she ever would have described her.
As the hot water pulsated over her tired shoulders and down her back, she once again tried to summon the memory of Mom presenting her with the cross necklace. She couldn’t do it. Was it a birthday gift? It was an assumption she’d always made. Although she’d been told she received it at six years old, there was no recollection of opening a box and being surprised.
What did that signify? As important as the necklace had been to her all her life, why couldn’t she remember the event in which it had been given to her? Never having considered it before, now it was all she could ponder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was raining when Jason arrived to pick her up at six o’clock. Samantha heard the beep of his horn and ran down the walk with an umbrella over her head.
“What a mess.” Climbing into his truck, she laid the wet umbrella on the floorboard. “I didn’t know it was supposed to rain tonight.”
“Weather report called for it,” he replied, while backing out of the gravel driveway and turning onto the main road. “Don’t you watch television or listen to the radio?”
“There’s no TV in the lighthouse and I haven’t even turned on the radio since I got here.”
Beneath his baseball cap, he scrunched up his face like he couldn’t imagine it. “I like television.”
The steel-blue sky grew dark and gray in a hurry. Sam’s palms perspired as she stared out the passenger window watching the massive ocean churning. As the waves broke on the shore, her thoughts wandered back to that terrible day when the storm hit Portland. Shuddering with fresh pain, she vowed inwardly not to let the memory of that tragedy ruin her evening.
“It was nice of your mother to invite me to dinner,” she said to spark conversation. Glancing sideways, Jason hovered over the steering wheel, intense with concentration.
“Can’t talk,” he said. “Mother told me to drive defensively and to get you home in one piece.”
Samantha smiled and no more words were exchanged between them until he parked in a garage and cut the motor. “The garage and house are connected by a breezeway so you won’t need your umbrella.” He led the way through the breezeway and tapped on the back door before pushing it open. “Mom, we’re here.”
The delectable scent of something spicy drifted into Sam’s nostrils. Claire appeared in the doorway that separated the mudroom from the kitchen and greeted her with a friendly smile.
“Come in, dear. Sorry to make you come out on such a bad night, but we sure are glad you’re here. Aren’t we, Jay?”
“Yep.” He flicked the baseball cap off his head and hung it on a hook on the wall and followed Claire and Samantha into the kitchen.
“Have a seat at the table,” Claire said, pointing to a chunky butcher-block table that was set with placemats and fiesta dishware. “Everything’s ready. Jason, pour us some iced tea, please.”
“Can I help?” Sam asked.
“We have it.”
She took a seat and looked around, noting the outdated appliances and simple furnishings, but feeling the welcoming warmth of the small home and Claire’s genuine kindness shining through. Wishing she’d never been so mean-spirited as to think of her as a gossipy busy body, she promised not to judge people so quickly in the future.
“Thanks for having me, Claire. What smells so delicious?”
“Spicy shrimp with rice. We’ve got tossed salad and fresh bread, too. Hope you’re not allergic to shellfish,” she said as an a
fterthought.
“I love shrimp.”
Claire placed the dishes on the table to serve family style and Jason returned the iced tea pitcher to the fridge after filling their glasses. “I should have asked before I made shellfish tonight,” Claire said. “We don’t have many guests for dinner so I didn’t think about it.”
“It’s all right. I appreciate you going to so much trouble.”
As Jason scooted into the table, a crack of thunder boomed outside, shaking the house. Jumping, Sam felt her stomach lurch.
Claire saw her jump. “It’s just a summer storm, dear. Don’t worry. It’ll pass by in no time. But we’ve got plenty of candles just in case the power goes out. We’re always prepared for such things here at the cove, ya know. Don’t be shy now. Help yourself.” She sat down and passed the bowl of salad and the platter of shrimp and rice to Sam.
Once everyone’s plates were full, Claire said, “Did you get your spyglass back from Daniel?”
Sam’s gaze flitted between Claire and Jason, who seemed oblivious to anything except his shrimp, which he heartily devoured.
“It’s okay,” Claire assured. “Jay knows what happened. He won’t tell. He’s good at keeping secrets.”
“Oh. In that case, yes, he returned it without a fight. We made an agreement. I don’t think anything like that will happen again.”
“I’m certain it won’t.”
“Did Daniel tell you anything more about the spyglass?” Sam ventured. She wondered if Claire held back some knowledge about knowing of its special powers. Perhaps in his excitement, Daniel had spilled the beans about Eamon McBride’s reality-altering experiences in the 1800s.
With her head tilted and her gaze pointed, Claire chewed her food slowly before answering. “Are you asking if I believe in parallel universes?”
Samantha nearly choked on her shrimp. When she coughed, Jason slapped her hard on the back. She swallowed and squeaked, “Thanks.”
“Okay now?” he asked.
The Spyglass Portal: A Lighthouse Novel Page 17