Long-Lost Wife?

by Barbara Faith

  There was a moment of hesitation before she said, “If you want to.”

  He opened the door. She was wearing a short white skirt with a blue ruffled top. There were dark circles under her eyes and he knew she hadn’t slept any better than he had.

  “I haven’t had breakfast yet,” he said. “Have you?”

  “I’ll eat later.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t do this, Annabel. Don’t shut me out this way.” And before she could say anything, he held her bedroom door open and said, “We’ll have breakfast and we’ll talk.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t say anything.

  They ate out on the terrace overlooking the sea. Neither of them ate very much, nor did they say very much. Meadowlark served them, and when she saw how silent they were, she, too, was silent.

  But because he thought it should be spoken of, Luis said to Annabel, “When Rob was hurt—before, I mean, when you almost drowned—it was Meadowlark who took care of him and nursed him back to health.”

  Annabel looked up then. “That was kind of you, Meadowlark.”

  “Rob was a real nice dog, Mrs. Alarcon. I’m sorry he’s gone. If you want, I be askin’ over in the village if there be a dog you might like. Some dog always be having puppies. Rob visited over there a time or two, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them puppies look like him. I could bring one on over to you.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not going to be here much longer. I’m going back to Miami.”

  Something twisted inside him, a visceral pain that had him sucking in his breath. Annabel was leaving him. Again. She was going away. Again.

  He didn’t say anything until Meadowlark left. Then, trying to keep his voice level, he said, “Perhaps some time away from the island would do both of us some good.”

  “Both of us?” She shook her head. “I’m going alone, Luis. As soon as you can arrange it.”

  “You left me once. I won’t let you leave me again.”

  “You won’t let me?” A bitter smile curved her lips. “I’m not the girl you married eight years ago, Luis. I’ve changed, I grew up.”

  “I know that.” He reached for her hand. “I love you, Annabel. I’ve never stopped loving you. There’s been no other woman in my life since the day you went away. There never will be. I know I made mistakes in the past, terrible mistakes, but I want to make it up to you. I will make it up to you.” He tightened his hand on hers. “I love you,” he said again.

  “Do you?” Annabel shook her head. “You’ve lied to me from the beginning, Luis. Since that first day you stood beside my bed in Nassau you’ve done nothing but lie to me. You said I was your wife and you made love to me....” Her voice broke, and because that made her angry, because she wouldn’t cry in front of him, she said, “It was because of the Cantamar, wasn’t it? When you heard about the accident at sea and knew it was close to where we had searched for the Cantamar, you thought I might have been aboard. A woman with no memory had been found and you took a chance that it was me.”

  “It wasn’t that way.”

  Her eyes challenged him, dared him to look away. “It was because of the gold doubloon they found in my pocket, wasn’t it? You thought we’d found the Cantamar and because I was the only survivor that I could tell you where it was.” She looked at him with scorn. “But I couldn’t remember, not about the Cantamar, or you, or that we had been married.

  “It was the perfect opportunity, wasn’t it, Luis? You could pick my brain, hoping I’d remember, and meantime, until I did, until I knew that though we’d once been married but were divorced, you’d enjoy the sex.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” He felt himself tighten with anger, an anger he tried to control before he said, “There’s a difference between sex and love. Sex is easy to get, Annabel. I could have had it anytime I wanted it, here on the island, on any of the trips I made to the States or to Spain. I could have brought a woman back with me. But I didn’t because I loved you, because you were the only woman I wanted to make love to.”

  He leaned closer, his dark eyes burning with all he was feeling. “And that’s the difference, Annabel, making love to someone you love is different.”

  She looked away from the intensity, the passion in his dark eyes. She didn’t want to hear him, couldn’t bear to hear him speak of love.

  In a voice as gray as the threatening sky, she said, “You didn’t come to Nassau because you loved me, Luis. You came because you thought I might know how to find the Cantamar.”

  He lowered his eyes, afraid to meet hers because a part of what she said was true. He’d wanted to see her, to make sure it really was Annabel and that she was alive, and yes, God help him, because he thought she might know where the Cantamar had gone down.

  “I’ll tell you how it was,” she said, “about the Croydens, about Mark—”

  “Was he your lover?” He hated himself for asking and wished he could have bitten the words back.

  “No,” she said coldly. “He wasn’t. There’s been no one since you.” Then, without giving him a chance to say anything, she went on. “When I went to Miami, and after the divorce was final, I wanted to work. I knew a little about boats because of you, and I got a job working for Albert and Louise in their sales office at the marina.

  “Albert was fascinated with the history of the ships that had gone down in the Bahamas and the Caribbean in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He went to Key West to see Mel Fisher. He pored over all of the things Fisher had brought up from the Atocha. There were pieces of eight, emeralds—a fortune in emeralds—gold spoons, gold plates, all the things that Fisher had salvaged. It was all Albert talked about, how one day that’s what he would do.

  “He’d heard about the Cantamar and he’d heard of you. Maybe that’s why, in the beginning, because I still used the name Alarcon, he hired me. He questioned me about the Cantamar and about you, but I didn’t want to talk about it and he finally stopped asking.

  “Everybody around the marina, and probably in Key West, knew about Albert’s interest in the Cantamar . One day Zachary Flynn came into the office. He told Albert he’d worked for you and that he was pretty sure he knew the location of the Cantamar. He said he had charts—”

  “The charts he stole from me,” Luis said.

  “I didn’t know that.” She waited, and when Luis didn’t say anything, she went on. “He told Albert he would provide the expertise if Albert would finance a search. First they would go out on the Drum on a scouting trip, then they would arrange for the salvage boat. Albert deposited a million dollars in a special account in his bank in both his and Flynn’s name.”

  “Insanity,” Luis said. “Pure insanity.”

  “That’s what Louise told him. Mark tried to talk to him, too, but Albert was so positive Flynn could lead him to the Cantamar that he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Why did you go along with them?”

  “Flynn suggested it. He knew I’d been married to you and he thought I could help them find the galleon.”

  “And did they?”

  “I think so. Flynn and Albert had brought a...I don’t know what you call it. It’s a type of hose you put way down in the sand and it sucks up sand and shells. Albert said that was how Mel Fisher brought up all the emeralds.”

  Luis nodded. “Go on.”

  “We were out for almost two weeks, near Eleuthera, where you and I had searched. Mark and Flynn did most of the diving. I didn’t like Flynn. He tried to question me about where you and I had searched, and he tried...” She hesitated, then with a shrug said, “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “He tried to move in on you?”

  “Yes.”

  Luis swore under his breath.

  “Mark saw him. Flynn had backed me into a corner. I was trying to get away from him. He had his hands on me. Mark hit him and after that they barely spoke. I didn’t like Mark diving with him. I was afraid of Flynn, afraid he might do something to Mark.” She turned away. “And he did. He killed
him first.”

  Luis wanted to touch her, to tell her to stop, tell her she didn’t need to go on with this. “It’s all right, Annabel,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes I do.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Two days before it happened—the murders, I mean—Zachary Flynn and Mark found the gold doubloons. They were encrusted with sand and shells, but Flynn cleaned and polished them. They were perfect and he knew... he knew they’d found the Cantamar .”

  “And that’s why he killed them, killed everybody on the Drum and pretended he was dead, too,” Luis said. “He would have assumed a new identity, maybe had some plastic surgery, and in six months or a year he would have hired a crew and gone back to salvage the Cantamar.”

  “What about the money in the bank? How could he get to it if he was supposed to be dead?”

  “He’d probably siphoned most of it off before you and the Croydens left Miami on the Drum. He had it all figured out. There was only one flaw in his plan.”

  “Me.”

  Luis nodded. “You were alive. You knew what had really happened aboard the Drum. He didn’t know you’d lost your memory. He only knew he had to get rid of you.”

  “He almost did,” Annabel whispered. “If it hadn’t been for Rob...” She stopped, unable for a moment to go on.

  Luis poured more coffee for both of them before he said, “Why did you go up to the cliff yesterday, Annabel? You knew it might be dangerous. Why did you go?”

  “I needed to be alone. I had started remembering, just fragments of memory of...of how we met, the first time we danced...” She turned away. “And Spain. My pregnancy.”

  He gripped her hands. She tried to pull them away but he wouldn’t let her. “There is no way I can ever tell you how sorry I am about what happened that day. If there was any way I could relive those days I would. I’d do anything to make them up to you.”

  His grip on her hands tightened. “It’s not too late, Annabel. We could make it right. We could have a child, as many children as you want. We could—”

  “No!” She pulled her hands away and stood. “No, I won’t go through that again.” She faced him, hands behind her back so that he wouldn’t touch her. “Don’t you see, Luis, it wasn’t just the baby, it was the marriage. You wanted me to be something I wasn’t, a perfect Spanish wife. You told me how to dress, what wine to drink, what books to read and what music to listen to. And I let you.”

  “Annabel, please—”

  “Maybe some of it was my fault. I know I was young, and naive... God, I was so naive. But I should have stood up for myself. I should have said, ‘This is who I am, this is the woman you fell in love with. Take me this way or let me go.’” She shook her head. “But I didn’t because I was so in love with you. So much in love...” She waited, and when she could speak again said, “I would have done anything for you, anything to please you.”

  He felt as if he’d received a mortal blow, as if his insides were being ripped apart. Somewhere in the distance he heard the rumble of thunder. The sky darkened and he felt the first hard drops of rain.

  “I love you, Annabel,” he said. “I’ve never stopped loving you.” His dark eyes filled with anguish. “Don’t leave me again,” he pleaded. “Marry me, Annabel. Let me make it up to you. We’ll have a child. We’ll—”

  “There is no we,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  The rain came harder, but neither of them moved or made an attempt to go inside. He put his hands on her arms and brought her closer. In a voice that broke with all that he was feeling, he said, “I can’t lose you.”

  He held her there and kissed her, unmindful of the rain beating down, desperate to have her respond. She didn’t fight him, she simply stood there, her lips cool and unresponsive.

  He knew then that he had lost her. He let her go and stepped back.

  The rain came harder. Thunder rolled and a sudden wind picked up one of the chairs and sailed it across the deck.

  “You’d better go in,” he said.

  But she stood there for a moment looking at him, her face set and solemn. Then she swiped her wet hair back and, with a barely perceptible nod, turned and left him there.

  Alone on the terrace. Alone in the rain.

  Chapter 16

  It rained all that night, and though it stopped for a while the following morning, by noon it started-again, harder than ever, and the wind picked up. It was too late in the fall for a hurricane, but Luis was worried, and that afternoon he checked the weather station on the shortwave radio.

  “There’s a severe tropical storm that’s affecting most of the Bahamas all the way from the Turks to Grand Bahama Island,” the forecaster said. “Batten your hatches and pour a tot of rum. This blow is going to last for three or four days.”

  That’s what Luis did, at least the batten the hatches part. He and Samuel and some of his other men made sure the Straight On till Morning was securely moored. Equipment had to be moved from the sheds to the house in case of heavy tides, and the windows facing the sea had to be boarded up.

  On the second day of the storm they lost the generator. That night he and Annabel had dinner by candlelight.

  “How long do you think the storm will last?” she asked.

  “Another day at least.”

  She looked out at the turbulent water. “I’d hate to be out on a boat in this weather.”

  “Boats would have been warned and hopefully had time enough to put in to a port. But this storm came up suddenly. If someone was far from land, finding a safe harbor might be tough going.” He poured more wine into her glass. White wine. And looking at her, he almost wished the generator would never work again because in the candlelight she looked so extraordinarily beautiful. And because as long as the storm raged she could not leave him.

  She’d had little to say to him these past two days. He’d been busy working outside much of the time so he’d only seen her in the dining room when they had dinner. He had a hunch she didn’t want to see him then but that she hadn’t wanted to make it obvious to the servants.

  She was polite but withdrawn and spoke when spoken to. Tonight she seemed unusually quiet. And nervous. But finally, when Meadowlark had cleared the dishes and served their coffee, she cleared her throat and said, “I’d like to leave San Sebastián as soon as the storm is over.”

  He looked down, steeling himself, waiting a moment before he answered, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  She stared across the table at him, her face set, angry. “What do you mean?”

  “There’ll be a lot of cleanup work to do after the storm. I won’t be able to leave for at least another two weeks. Even then I’ll have to make sure the boat’s all right, make whatever repairs have to be made....” He was stalling. It didn’t matter. He’d do anything to keep her here. Drive a hole in the Straight On if he had to.

  “I want to fly back to Miami,” she said.

  “There aren’t always planes available.” He reached across the table for her hand. It lay pale and cool in his. “I don’t want you to go,” he said again. “I know I was wrong in not telling you the truth when we were in Nassau. But if I had, you wouldn’t have come with me.”

  She tried to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  “I thought if you were here with me we could begin again, that I could make you love me again.” He tightened his hand around hers. “I’ve never stopped,” he said. “All those years we were separated I never stopped loving you.”

  “Luis, please—”

  “When I saw you again in the hospital in Nassau...” He had to stop for a moment to control his voice. “Your head was bandaged, you were scratched and bruised and pale. Oh God, so pale. But it was you, and you were alive, and I knew I’d never stopped loving you, that I would love you till the day I die.

  “Everything came back to me, the times we’d spent at sea together, the nights we’d slept up on deck and made love under the stars. I knew then tha
t I’d do anything to have you back with me, even if it meant lying to you.”

  He looked at her through the candlelight, his face so serious, his eyes so filled with love. “I told you we were still married and I brought you back to San Sebastian because it was an opportunity to try to make you love me again, to wipe out the past and begin anew.”

  She wanted to believe him. She almost wished her memory hadn’t come back, that there had been no past. She wished that her love for Luis had begun in the moment when she opened her eyes and saw him standing by her hospital bed.

  But it was too late. She couldn’t block out the past, or Spain, or the baby he hadn’t wanted. There was a coldness in her heart that only time, pray God, would soften.

  She rose from the table. “I’m tired,” she said. “I want to go to my room.”

  “The corridors are dark. I’ll go with you.”

  “No, it’s all right Finish your dinner.”

  But he got up and, taking the candelabra from the table, motioned for Annabel to precede him.

  The flickering candles cast a ghostly light against the pale walls when they left the dining room and went through the hall that led to the living room. In the reflected candlelight she could see their two shadows, phantom figures, surreal and strange. He saw them, too, hesitated, then held the candelabra higher. Their figures became elongated, one taller than the other, but a pair. Still a pair.

  Rain slashed hard against the roof and thunder rumbled overhead, and still they stood there, looking at their shadowed forms.

  He said, “Annabel,” in a voice she could barely hear above the clash of thunder. She looked at him, caught for a moment in the intensity of his gaze, then at the shadow looming over her shadow.

  “No,” she said. And turned away.

  They went out into the corridor without speaking. When they stopped at the door of her room, he said, “Let me come in and light the candles for you.”

  The room, except for the candelabra, was in darkness. Rain slashed against the windowpanes and beat hard against the glass doors. He lighted the candles she bad on the dresser and the one on her bedside table.