The Night Mark

by Tiffany Reisz

  back garden, and there you were, on that swing in your white dress and your straw hat with the ribbon on it flying behind you, and I thought I’d walked into a picture postcard. You must not have heard us coming down the path because you kept swinging, high...higher. And Marsh said something to me about how he’d curb your hoyden’s ways when you were his wife, and I said to him... I said, ‘Why? Why marry a girl with spirit and then snuff out her spirit?’”

  “Because he wasn’t marrying me for my spirit.”

  Carrick didn’t seem to hear her. He looked off, out the open window at the night sky.

  “You were so pretty. I’ve never seen a finer sight in my life, before or since. Not even land after a year at sea was a better sight than you in your dress with your white ribbons and that smile on your face and your eyes closed, dreaming whatever girls dream about. Marsh called your name, and you opened your eyes and saw us. And you remember what you did?”

  “Of course,” Faye said, bluffing.

  “You jumped out of the swing and landed right in front of me. Then you stumbled, and I caught you.”

  “How could I ever forget?” Faye said.

  “And you said, ‘My hero.’” Carrick turned his head, met her eyes. “Of course, Marsh didn’t appreciate that.”

  “I don’t imagine he did.”

  “I still remember you giggling—that giggle filled the garden—after he sent you running into the house. I wasn’t worried then. I saw you had a spirit not even he could break. But he tried, didn’t he?”

  Carrick touched her bruised eye with the gentlest of touches.

  “He tried,” Faye whispered.

  “He couldn’t do it.”

  “Because you took me in.”

  “It took more than spirit to run away from him than it took to let you in when you got here.”

  “I jumped,” Faye said, covering his hand with hers. “You caught me. My hero.”

  Carrick kissed her. She’d known he would, and she’d known she wouldn’t stop him when he did. They stood in the cone of light given off by the kerosene lantern as Carrick pressed his lips to hers and she pressed her body to his. They fit together, the two of them, as well as she and Will had. But Carrick wasn’t Will and she wasn’t Faith. She told herself that even as she parted her lips to let his tongue touch hers. She tasted something both familiar and unfamiliar. She’d never tasted it on a man’s tongue before, but she knew what it was immediately. She pulled back and glared at him with narrowed eyes.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You’ve been smoking.”

  “So?”

  “It’s terrible for you.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. Absolutely awful for your health.”

  “It helps keep me up at night.”

  “I’ll keep you up at night.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her whole body into his. She traced a path down his back, following the line of his suspenders to the center of his back and down to his hips. His pants were loose—hence the suspenders, no doubt—and it was nothing to slip her hands under his T-shirt and caress the small of his back and the curve of his hip bone. They’d been two of her favorite spots on Will’s body, and unsurprisingly she enjoyed them just as much on Carrick’s. With her fingertips, she lightly scored the soft skin on his hard stomach, and Carrick inhaled sharply, his face scrunched up tight.

  “Carrick.”

  “Stop,” he said. Faye stepped back, held her hands up in surrender.

  “We did it again,” she said.

  “We did,” he said. He walked over to the railing, gripped it, hung his head down and breathed. “You make me forget things.”

  “Forget what? That I’m married? You can forget that if you want. I’m going to.”

  “Forget that I’m trying to keep you safe. And this isn’t helping. If he finds out you’re here and you’ve been with me...”

  “But I haven’t been with you. Not yet,” Faye reminded him.

  “Oh, good point,” he said. “If we’re going to pay for the crime, might as well commit it first.” He reached for her then, pulled her to him. He pressed his hand into the small of her back, bringing her body even closer to his, chest to chest and hip to hip. Still, it wasn’t enough for Faye. She craved more. She wrapped her arms around his neck, anchoring herself against him. Carrick groaned against her lips—a sound equal parts desire and frustration.

  “Don’t stop,” she said.

  “We have to.” Yet he didn’t stop. He kept kissing, kept grasping at her waist and her back and her neck with those huge hands of his. He wore only his work pants and a sweat-stained white T-shirt and she couldn’t get enough of his arms around her—strong as iron still warm from the forge. She would know if there was Will in his heart by the way he made love to her. Will was forever ready with a smile, laid-back, a laughing soul, until he got her into bed or onto the floor or against the wall or wherever he could have her when he wanted her.

  “Make love to me,” she said into Carrick’s ear. Carrick pushed her against the wooden wall of the barn. Not hard. Not hard enough to hurt her, not a bit, but purposefully. And making love to her was the purpose.

  Carrick pulled back as she gasped from the force of his passion.

  “Stop me,” he said, and he said it forcefully. He meant it. Only a word from her would stop him, and nothing else in the world.

  She shook her head. They were both already shining with sweat in the little barn, sticky with it and glistening and smelling of the heat and the sweat and the warm bodies of animals.

  Faye’s back was against the bare wood, and Carrick had both his hands against the wall on either side of her head, boxing her in, though no parts of them touched.

  “It’s a sin to take another man’s wife,” he said with his eyes closed. “I’m not your husband.”

  “Does a man like that deserve a wife?”

  “No.”

  “Then why care about betraying him?”

  “Not him. Me.”

  That broke her heart. Here was a man of true faith, and he would flog himself for days to come for sleeping with a married woman. But the need to know him, to know him like she knew Will, was greater than her compassion. She reached for the top button of his work trousers, unbuttoned it and slid her hand inside.

  “Good God” was all he said when she wrapped her fingers around him. The one word, a prayer, and then he shuddered like he’d been stabbed in the heart. His chin went up and she saw his throat like a tower and his strong Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.

  “Please,” Faye said.

  “A girl like you should never have to beg,” he said.

  “Then don’t make me.”

  Carrick’s mouth crashed down onto hers again, the kiss a hundred times hotter and hungrier than before. He slid his hands under her slip, cupped her bottom and pushed her against him so she could feel him against her legs when she sought him with her hand. His mouth massaged her neck and his hot breath warmed every part of her that wasn’t already burning. This was more than the simple warmth of two bodies twined together. She licked a drop of fresh sweat off Carrick’s shoulder, and the sound that came from his throat could have melted iron from the sheer burning heat of it.

  “Carrick,” she said, getting used to his name on her tongue. He started to push her underwear down her hips. As soon as they were at her thighs, he cupped her between her legs, seeking her heat as she’d sought his. His fingers slid inside, and she inhaled so hard she forgot to exhale until dizziness made her faint, and she breathed again out of sheer self-preservation.

  She closed her eyes and pushed her hips into his hand. Will had this way of touching her with his fingers, of moving his hand inside her that made her lose her mind. No lover before had touched her like that, no lover since; yet here Carrick was, touching her exactly the way Will had, the way that made her wild, the way that made her remember she was a woman and forget she was a widow, and all at once. She cried out as she came
in his arms, shuddering until he had to push her into the wall to keep her standing.

  “Carrick, I...”

  “Quiet,” he said.

  “But—”

  “Shh...”

  She slowly opened her eyes. He’d stopped touching her but she still stood framed between his arms. He looked alert, nervous. She didn’t know why. Then she heard something, something she’d almost forgotten existed in this time and on this lonely island.

  A car door shut.

  An engine rattled to life.

  Wheels and axles turned.

  These were all unmistakable sounds.

  “Stay here,” Carrick said, his voice almost a whisper. He left her in the barn with the lantern and went out into the dark, unarmed.

  “No...” Faye called out, her voice breaking into a sob. Anyone out there shouldn’t be, and they could hurt him, kill him. She grabbed the lantern, raced for the door and found Carrick standing at the edge of the garden mere feet away from the dark oak forest.

  “Are you all right?” She threw herself into his arms.

  “All right,” he said, patting her back. “Car’s gone. It’ll be halfway to the bridge by now.”

  “There’s a road on the island?”

  “You would know,” he said. “You were on it.”

  Right. Of course. Someone had to have driven her here. It was either that or a boat that had brought her to the island.

  “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying. I was so scared.”

  “I’m not too pleased about it myself.”

  “You don’t know who it was?”

  “Could be someone from the Maddox family. They own the island. But they always stop by and tell us when they’re coming so we can stay out of their way when they’re hunting.” He narrowed his eyes to peer at the edge of the forest. The trees were so dense Faye couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. It seemed to be all one tree with a thousand trunks and a billion branches and infinite roots.

  “Who else would it be?” Faye asked.

  Carrick looked at her, and she saw fear in his eyes.

  “Your husband.”

  14

  Husband? Faye didn’t have a husband. No, Faye didn’t. But Faith did.

  “Marshall,” she said.

  “Come on,” Carrick said, tugging her gently by the arm. “I’m taking you back to the house and putting you in bed, and I’m going to sit outside your door all night long.”

  “What about the lighthouse? Don’t you have to man it or something?”

  “I’ll go up when it’s time to turn the clockwork.”

  “Carrick. Stop.”

  He stopped on the back porch, looked at her by the lantern light.

  “You can’t protect me every second of every hour of every day,” Faye said.

  “Who says?”

  “The car is gone. If it was my...Marshall, do you really think he’d leave without me?”

  Carrick took a thoughtful pause. “No. If it was him, he would have tried to kill me so he could take you back. He wouldn’t have driven away. Especially not if he knew what we were doing in there.”

  “You know, we didn’t get to finish what we started back there.”

  “No, and we’ll call that a blessing,” he said, opening the back door for her. She went inside reluctantly. Carrick followed her to her bedroom and no farther. He stayed on the other side of the threshold, holding the lantern.

  “Are you angry at me?” Faye asked when she saw his grim and stone-faced expression.

  “Why in God’s name would I be angry at you?”

  “For what happened back in the barn.”

  “I’d be near as worthless as your husband if being inside a beautiful woman made me angry.” Carrick’s fists were clenched, and in the lantern light she saw the corded muscles flexing in his arms. Anger, yes. But not at her. At himself?

  “I know you’re trying to be true to your faith, and I’m not helping,” she said.

  “Nobody is to blame but me. I got carried away and carried you with me.”

  “I like it when you carry me.”

  “Faith. Love, please...” Carrick rested his forehead against the door frame, sighed and looked at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and truly meant it this time. “I know we shouldn’t. I know it’s wrong for a lot of reasons. It’s just...”

  “What, lass?”

  “You remind me so much of someone I loved a long time...well, in a different time.”

  “He must have been a fool.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you loved him, and any man you loved ought to be by your side right now.”

  Faye smiled sadly. “He died.”

  Carrick didn’t look impressed by that.

  “Nothing in the world more foolish than dying when a girl like you is in love with him.”

  Faye laughed softly and touched Carrick’s face. He let her. She knew nothing more would happen tonight. It was safe to touch him. She stroked his beard. It was a well-groomed beard, not much more than thick stubble, and she could feel the contours of his face through it. The strong jaw, strong chin...just like Will’s beautiful face.

  “He didn’t have a beard,” Faye said. “Once, he did, but only for a couple weeks. I told him it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of, but he swore it brought him luck.”

  “It worked,” Carrick said.

  “Did it?”

  “You loved him, right?”

  “More than life,” she said.

  “Then it worked.”

  “Carrick...” Faye blinked back her tears. There was only one other man she’d ever known who’d said such sweet things to her, and he wouldn’t be born for another sixty-six years.

  “I’m trying to protect you,” he said. “What happened in the barn... If I got you with child...”

  “I couldn’t stay here, could I?” Faye asked. Of course she couldn’t. An unmarried woman pregnant in 1921? She’d have to go away, far away, to protect herself and Carrick. If not, the scandal would be enormous. She would be a pariah. And Carrick would never forgive himself for doing that to her.

  “I should go up,” he said. “I am going up. Right now.” His gaze shifted and it seemed he wanted to say something more, but stopped himself. “Good night.”

  Faye had so much to say to him, so much to ask him, and yet all she could do was what Faith would do in her place, and that was say, “Good night.”

  Carrick gave her another look without speaking, then turned and walked away down the hall. Even his walk was like Will’s walk, with that loose-in-the-hip rolling amble. Carrick might be a lighthouse keeper, but he walked like a baseball player. She almost called him back to her. Old habits died hard. Faye shut the door at last and crawled into bed. She curled up into a ball and whispered into the deep, dark quiet.

  “Will, baby? He looks like you and he talks like you and he touches me like you. Is he you? Or am I just crazy?”

  Of course there was no reply because Will was dead. Except this was 1921 and Will wasn’t dead in 1921. Will wasn’t dead in 1921 because Will hadn’t even been born yet. Maybe that was why she couldn’t hear his voice in her head the way she could sometimes back in 2015. Or maybe she didn’t need to hear his voice in her head because she had Carrick’s.

  She rolled onto her back and stared out the window at the beam