Skin Deep

by Marissa Doyle

“How’s the quilt queen of Mattaquason?” Rob said cheerfully as he blew in on a gust of wind, shaking the water from his jacket before he hung it up. “If this rain and wind keep up, you’ll need to teach me how to sail now just so I can make it to the office.”

  Garland took the bottle of wine he handed her. “Happy first day of spring to you, too. For your information, it often rains like this around the equinoxes. Don’t you read the Old Farmer’s Almanac?”

  “Since I’m not an old farmer, no.”

  “Ha. Some farm boy you are.”

  “Ex-farm boy, remember.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Something smells awfully good.”

  “Robert Mowbray, you are without a doubt the sweetest guy on the planet. But I’d better warn you now that I’ve not had much chance to cook before.” She lead the way into the kitchen.

  “That’s all right. I’m a doctor.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” She frowned at him in mock indignation.

  “Whatever you want it to.” He grinned his naughty boy grin and Garland couldn’t help melting a little. There was something forever seventeen about his smile, something lighthearted and carefree.

  “So what’s this I hear?” he asked, going to the drawer for the corkscrew. “You’re going to slipcover the entire town in quilts and life in Mattaquason will come to a standstill while everyone stands about and gawks? That might be bad for business in summer, you know.”

  She made a face at him. “Funny man.”

  “I’m serious. Elizabeth Souza from the Friends of the Library was in to have a wart removed this morning, and I needn’t have bothered with anesthetic because she was still dazed and starry-eyed from stopping in at Kathy Hayes’s gallery to see your quilts. She said you’re doing one for the library and was nearly beside herself with excitement.”

  Garland paused. “You’re kidding. Elizabeth?”

  “I nearly had to sit on her to keep her still, or I might have frozen something else off beside her wart.” He chuckled as he uncorked the wine. “So I went down there myself at lunch to have a look.”

  “And?”

  The bantering tone left his voice. “They’re something, Garland. They—” He stared at the wine that he’d just poured into their glasses, a faraway look in his eyes. “I can see, in a sort of twisted way, why Derek didn’t like you making them. He’d be about as significant as an ant next to them. They’re beautiful. No, magical.”

  Garland busied herself with checking the baking chicken breasts that she’d carefully stuffed with chopped apples and brie. To have other people say such things about her quilts was one thing. To have Rob say them—

  “Kathy Hayes couldn’t say enough about you and the quilts,” he continued in a slightly more normal voice. “I hadn’t really ever had a chance to talk to her before. She said she’s too healthy to see a doctor.”

  Garland smiled. “That sounds like Kath.”

  “She…well, I’m afraid I nearly put my foot in it.”

  A faint warning chill stiffened her shoulders. “Oh?”

  “She seemed to think our friends upstairs were long gone.”

  Garland went to the refrigerator to get the antipasto platter she’d arranged earlier in the afternoon. “I’m sorry, Rob. I sort of…all right, I lied and told her they were gone. She seemed awfully disturbed about my having them here.” An olive rolled off the tray as she lifted it out, and she realized that her hands shook slightly. “What did you say?”

  “What could I say?” Rob sighed. “She went on for a minute about not liking the idea of someone taking advantage of your soft heart. I can’t help agreeing with her.”

  Garland put the plate down on the counter. “I’m not doing this because of my so-called ‘soft heart,’ which by the way is not as soft as you might think. Honestly, what will Alasdair and Conn do if I kick them out now? They’re not ill enough to go into the hospital but they’re too disoriented to take care of themselves. Alasdair can barely navigate how common household appliances work, never mind searching for his past life.”

  Rob held up a hand. “Peace. I know he couldn’t handle going out on his own yet. But if he’s still having that hard a time we could maybe place him in a psych unit somewhere. Cape General Hospital has one, and it’s not too far away so that you could visit him whenever—”

  “He’s not mentally ill!” Garland retorted. “And what about Conn? What will you do with him—stick him in a foster home somewhere? I’m not going to have them put away just because you and Kathy think I can’t run my own life—” She turned her back on him and hugged her arms around herself. Damn it, it was up to her whether or not she let Alasdair stay with her. Why did it bother everyone so much?

  “Hey.” A clink told her Rob had put his glass down on the granite countertop. He came around the counter to where she stood, peeled her arms away and slid his own around her. “I didn’t mean to get you upset. We’re worried about you, that’s all.”

  She stood stiffly in his embrace for a moment, then relaxed. It was impossible to stay miffed with Rob, especially when he looked at her with that contrite puppy-dog expression. “I’m a big girl, you know,” she said. “Despite those years with Derek, I didn’t lose all capacity to take care of myself.”

  “I know you didn’t. But Kathy was right. You are very kind-hearted. I just don’t want it leading you into making mistakes.” He reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears.

  “My heart’s quite well acquainted with the rigors of life, thank you very much,” Garland returned tartly.

  “So maybe we should be glad that you’ve stayed kind instead of turning bitter.” He ducked his head and brushed his lips across hers. “You know what? It’s not just your heart that’s soft.”

  A quick shiver ran through her. “Is that so?”

  “Uh huh.” He kissed her again, more decisively that time. “Most definitely. And…” He slid his hands slowly down her back. “Mmm. Soft here, too.”

  His lips skimmed the side of her neck before settling again on her mouth in a firmer, more demanding kiss. She shivered again and her knees went wobbly. Was this it? Had she finally made up her mind to let Rob love her? He’d been so patient, not forcing himself on her. He was another kind man, like Alasdair—

  (his warm hands kneading her shoulders, strong but gentle)

  —and she wanted to be as eager for him

  (his beautiful mouth, so chiseled, so perfect)

  —as he was for her

  (hot and hungry on hers, taking her lips with a fierce, fiery need. She could feel her bones melting in the blaze of his desire, feel her own flare up to meet it. She’d so longed to touch him, to hold him—her warrior angel, her tall, beautiful brown-eyed stranger—)

  “Wow,” Rob murmured, breaking the kiss and leaning his forehead against hers. “That was sure as hell worth waiting for.” His hands trembled as he slid them up and down her arms. “Who taught you how to kiss like that?”

  Garland laughed shakily and turned her face away from him so that he couldn’t see the stunned comprehension that surely must be there in her eyes. “A lady doesn’t discuss those things.”

  Which, right now, was probably a good thing.

  * * *

  Alasdair turned from the kitchen doorway and crept back up the stairs, gently shepherding an indignant Conn up before him. He’d thought they would surprise Garland and come down to say hello to the healer because she’d seemed distressed at their refusal to join them. The healer had helped them, after all. They should at least show him gratitude—especially if it would please Garland, who’d given them so much.

  So he’d checked himself in the mirror to make sure that his blue cloth shirt was buttoned properly, smoothed Conn’s hair, and slowly descended to the ground floor, holding tight to the banister because stairs still made him nervous—there weren’t many staircases in his world. He hadn’t noticed that the low song of Garland and the healer’s conversation had stopped as he crept down, so busily was he watching
his footing.

  He crossed the hall and stopped in the kitchen doorway, the greeting dying on his lips. Conn made a small, angry-sounding squeak and started forward, but Alasdair pulled him back.

  Garland and the healer stood near the refrigerator, wrapped in each other’s arms, engrossed in a kiss. The healer’s hands moved restlessly over her curves, savoring them as he possessed her mouth like a starving man at a feast. Garland breathed a soft sound that made him ache with both anger and desire. How he wished he could be the one to draw such sounds from her!

  Somehow he made it back up the stairs without stumbling and revealing that he’d seen them, keeping a firm grip on a wiggling Conn. Once safe in their room he threw himself onto his bed and stared at the ceiling above him. But for some reason his eyes wouldn’t focus properly, and his throat burned.

  What was wrong with him? Why shouldn’t Garland kiss the healer if she wanted to? The healer certainly wanted to kiss her—Alasdair had seen that as soon as he’d had strength to notice more than his own injuries. The healer burned for Garland like the midsummer sun. Alasdair should be happy that she had found someone who wanted her so ardently.

  So why had he felt like storming into the kitchen and snatching her out of the healer’s arms?

  He rolled over, not minding the twinges of discomfort from his deepest, not-yet-fully-healed wounds. At least it took his mind, however briefly, from the other pain.

  Garland had all the right in the world to be loved. After the way her former mate had treated her she deserved it. The healer could give her that love.

  Except he wanted to be the one to give it to her.

  Humans and selkies had often fallen in love over the centuries. But those pairings had never lasted: a human could not live among the waves and a selkie would not be happy away from them. He could never give Garland the love she deserved; he might not even be alive in a year’s time.

  But as the sun was his witness, he longed to try.

  The doorknob clicked. Conn stood turning it the wrong way, a look of determination on his face. Alasdair rose and pulled him away from the door. “I know,” he said gently, hugging the boy. “I don’t like it either.”

  Conn looked at him “Want Garland,” he whispered.

  Alasdair held him tightly. Why should he be surprised that his son’s first words in weeks were about her? “So do I,” he muttered. “So do I.”

  * * *

  “I think you were just fishing for compliments before. That was a delicious dinner,” Rob said as they finished putting away the last of the dishes.

  “You’re just lucky my mother gives good instructions over the phone.” Garland unobtrusively put away the plate and silverware she’d left out in case Alasdair and Conn had decided to come down for supper. In a way she was glad that they hadn’t. She wasn’t sure she could face both Rob and Alasdair at the same time.

  “Nothing wrong with luck in my book. Shall we put the coffee on a tray and take it into the other room so I can corner you on the couch and see if my luck holds?” With a wolfish grin, he used the kitchen dishtowel to rope her into his arms.

  Garland laughed and squirmed away after giving him a quick kiss, but her laughter was forced. As large as the couch in the great room was, she didn’t think there would be room on it for three, even if that third person was only in her head.

  What was wrong with her? Here was Rob—sweet, funny, intelligent, good-looking. He was exactly what she needed to teach her how to trust again. To love again.

  So why couldn’t she get Alasdair out of her head? Why had thoughts of him intruded when Rob kissed her? Why had she only been able to respond physically to Rob by pretending he was Alasdair?

  Yes, okay, Alasdair was so beautiful that sometimes while she sat at her sewing machine her breath would catch and she would pause just to watch him—the endearing frown of concentration in his brow as he ironed her quilt pieces, his powerful frame bent to this careful, delicate task as if his life depended on it. As his wounds healed and his strength returned, the aura of power and grace that surrounded him seemed to increase daily. How could she not find him attractive? He was a like a fairy tale prince made flesh and blood.

  On the other hand, he was a stranger—she had no idea who he was or where he was from. For all she knew, Rob and Kathy were right, and at the worst he was fleeing from some sinister past—taking advantage of her, using her.

  Damn it all, prince charming or criminal, what was it about him that so stirred her to her very core?

  She carried the coffee into the great room and set it down on the table. Rob went to the fire and tossed another log on it, then turned to her.

  “Garland.” He held out his hand.

  The dancing firelight cast shadows over him but she could still see the serious set of his boyish face and the need in his slightly narrowed eyes. A shiver ran down her back. Was it of fear or desire? She swallowed and went slowly to him.

  “Rob, it’s—I—” she whispered as he pulled her to him. “Before, in the kitchen—”

  “It’s all right,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “I’m out of practice, you know. One kiss like that in an evening is all my blood pressure can take at this point. I’m not going to rush you. It’ll come. Will you just let me hold you?”

  “Yes, that would be…thank you.” She rested her head on his shoulder with a little sigh. She should have known better than to worry. Rob would never pressure her into anything she wasn’t ready for. Sometime soon she’d kiss him again, and this time it would be him she kissed, not a fantasy man—

  A sudden, shrill beep split the air. Garland started.

  Rob swore under his breath. “It’s my damned pager. I swear there’s someone out there keeping track of exactly when not to have it go off.” He fumbled at his belt and glanced at the pager’s display. “Oh God, it’s the police department. I’m sorry, Garland, but I have to take this one.”

  Garland led him into Derek’s old office and went back to stand by the fire. But even down the short hallway and through the mostly closed door she heard Rob’s exclamation of dismay. Evidently something bad had happened.

  Rob reappeared a few minutes later. Garland could see by his shoulders, tight yet drooping, that maybe “bad” wasn’t a strong enough word. She went to the table and said, “Do you have time for a quick cup of coffee before you go?”

  “Yeah, I’d better. I’m going to need it.” His voice was curt.

  She looked up from pouring. “Do you want me to put it in a travel mug?”

  “Don’t bother. My signing the death certificate now or ten minutes from now won’t make any difference. He’s already been dead several hours.”

  Garland nearly dropped his cup. “Oh, no! What happened?”

  “I’m not quite sure. The officer I spoke to wasn’t terribly forthcoming. Something grisly on a fishing boat involving a slippery deck and the captain not realizing that what he’d hit with the propellers wasn’t a sand bar, I gather.” Rob gulped at his coffee as if the scalding liquid could remove the taste of his words from his mouth.

  Garland’s stomach clenched. “Who was it?”

  “Young man, about nineteen. Just started fishing. It was his uncle’s boat, which makes it worse. Dear God.” He put his cup down and she saw that his hands shook. “I didn’t think I’d have to do this sort of thing in Mattaquason. I hated my rotation in the ER. My job is to heal people, not declare hunks of meat that used to be human dead.”

  She put down her own cup and pulled him into her arms. “I’m sorry, Rob.”

  He hid his face against her hair and was silent for a moment. Then to her surprise he drew back and laughed a short, sharp laugh. “I suppose I should have known. It is March twenty-first, after all. Do me a favor, Garland. Remind me to make sure you’re out of town come mid-September.”

  A chill prickled the back of Garland’s neck. “What do you mean?”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “Nothing. Forget I said it.”

 
“No. Tell me, Rob. I live here too. What’s wrong with March and September?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her with a bleak expression. “I’ve lived in Mattaquason two years now. And for those past two years, some young person in town has died a violent death every March and every September, around the first day of spring and fall. If I weren’t a rational man I’d begin to wonder just what the hell was going on here.”

  Chapter 10

  Garland finished quilting the green forest quilt, machine-sewed the binding to it, and set it aside. Tonight she’d flip the binding over the raw edges of the quilt, hold it in place with the metal clips that looked like little girls’ barrettes, and blind-stitch it to the quilt backing.

  She could have done it all by machine. But somehow this little act of direct handwork, with nothing between her and the fabric but a silver sliver and a length of smooth cotton thread, was important to her. It was work that she liked to do right before she went to sleep because the rhythmic, repetitive motion of hand sewing cleared her mind almost like meditation. She always slept deeply and dreamlessly after binding a quilt.

  Deep and dreamless sleep would be a refreshing change. Ever since her dinner with Rob last week she’d had a hard time sleeping, her mind whirling through the same spirals of thought—the clammer…Mrs. Swain…the boy who’d died on the fishing boat, and the others before him that Rob told her about. Like the boy with a severe bee-sting allergy who’d gone for a walk in a grassy field full of blooming goldenrod on the edge of a salt marsh without his epi-pen kit in September. Or the girl whose car had skidded off an icy bridge into a tidal river last March. Or the surfer caught in an undertow in the aftermath of a nor’easter the September before that. The precision of the dates made it even more horrible, almost like a ritual. Suddenly Mattaquason did not seem like the safe, quiet refuge she’d pictured it as all the long months of hashing out her divorce from Derek with the lawyers. Life was just as ugly and unfair here as it was anywhere else.

  But she didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on any of this right now. She had to get busy and get another couple of quilts made. Kathy had asked for a new wall-sized quilt for the shop every month until July, not to mention the twelve or fifteen for the show in August. The green one would do for May but she needed April and June, and then more for the show. And the library quilt for September, too… Now let’s see, what could she do for September? A nice pictorial quilt of a late season swimmer being attacked by a rogue shark? A skater falling through thin ice on a deserted pond? Why had she made Rob tell her about those deaths after all?