Touch me in return, she begged him mentally. As if he heard, he slid one hand from where it cradled her around to her breast. Lisbeth saw stars. Her desire became a law unto itself, a reason to draw breath. She wanted nothing but to be naked beneath this man, alive to his touch, his in body and spirit.
Again she broke the kiss, leaving them both gasping. “Where is your bed?”
“Lisbeth, no. We canna’.”
How thick his highland accent became when he was aroused! And oh, he was—Lisbeth could feel the proof of that pressing against her, and it turned any lingering resistance to water.
Even as he protested, his hands explored her clothing, seeking a way inside her bodice—precisely where she wanted him.
She whimpered, “It unbuttons. In back.”
His clever fingers found the row of buttons and made short work of them. Her loosened bodice fell forward.
A shiver traveled down Lisbeth’s spine, almost as if someone watched them. Just the cool air hitting her overheated flesh, she assured herself. No one could see them here in the dark.
The distant music floating down the street changed to the slow rhythm of a Strathspey, the beat of which seemed to match that of Lisbeth’s laboring heart. She shrugged her bodice forward so it fell to her waist, aflame for this man as she had never been before.
He took what she offered, not with his hands but with his mouth. She felt the heat of it slide over her skin in a shower of kisses that ended in a swirl of his tongue at the tip of one breast.
And just like that, she belonged to him. Ah, well, she thought madly, she had been his all the while, she just hadn’t known. Now he pressed closer so he could plunder her, and she gave herself to the heat of his mouth, placing her soul in his keeping.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, his hot breath gusting against her damp skin. “You ha’ always been as beautiful as a star in the heavens.”
“Take me to your bed. Please.” Lisbeth felt as if liquid fire flowed through her veins, uncontrollable. “Do I have to beg?”
He laughed unsteadily, and her heartbeat tripped up a notch. “I canna’,” he protested again.
“Will you deny me, Rab Sinclair? You have never been a cruel man.”
“I will deny you nothing, precious lass! Neither will I do anything you may regret.”
“I have never wanted anything more than I want you.”
“Truly?” That froze him where he stood, hair tumbled over his forehead, one hand caressing her breast. “Even—?”
“Never,” she assured him. “Rabbie—”
He gasped like a man under duress; she felt him fight his impulses. “But—you may not be free.”
Lisbeth faced that fairly, knew it for truth, and struggled to restrain the demands not of her flesh but of her heart. Could she live with the possibility of breaking her marriage vows? Moreover, could Rab live with it?
Before she could answer, Kelpie growled. The sound rose eerily through the dark stable and made Lisbeth’s hair stand on end.
Beneath her hands, Rab tensed.
“Someone is there,” he breathed.
Lisbeth turned. Against the lighter darkness of the open doorway she saw a figure silhouetted—one she knew, with wild red hair, a lithe body, squared shoulders, and that stance like no other.
Her husband, Declan O’Shea.
Chapter Fifteen
Kelpie gave a bark and lunged forward. The very last thing Rab wanted was to let go of the woman in his arms. But her gasp told him the identity of the man outlined in the doorway.
As if Rab needed that confirmed.
He released Lisbeth gently and followed in Kelpie’s wake. The dog, little more than a blur, hurtled after the man who had stood observing Rab and Lisbeth’s embrace. Only, he could not have seen much in the dark, could he? Not unless he truly was a spirit.
Generations of highland superstition made the skin all over Rab’s body prickle. Back where he’d been born, they believed in the Second Sight, the veracity of tea leaves, and the occasional return of the dead—especially from the sea. Scotland, a place of rocky shores, deep lochs, and beguiling mist, contained a surfeit of water spirits. Was the dog that loped ahead of him not named for one?
Declan—if this was Declan and not just his spirit—pounded down Maple Street, making straight for the shore. Charging after him, Rab could see a storm had gathered over the ocean, now moving in fast. The three of them ran straight into a rising wind.
He spared a thought for Lisbeth and hoped she would stay at the stables, or go home. He could not hear her coming behind him; he could not hear much with the wind in his ears.
The streets of Lobster Cove lay empty, with most everybody at the dance. No one saw Declan run by, pursued by the great, black dog which appeared to be closing on him, and Rab coming after.
They had nearly reached the harbor when Kelpie leaped—a remarkable act from an animal that had never showed an ort of aggression. Rab saw the man ahead of him stagger, then free his arm from the dog’s grip. He did not fall.
“Declan!” Rab bellowed.
The man turned his wild head. Lightning flashed in the clouds behind him. He raised his fist and brought it down on Kelpie’s head.
“No!” Rab shouted.
Declan took off again. Rab now knew in his heart this was Declan, who had never liked Kelpie and had sneered at Rab when he accepted the pup in payment for a job done.
“You’re nothing but a soft girl, Rab Sinclair,” he’d goaded. “Barely a man at all.”
Rage now stirred in Rab’s heart—as rare as Kelpie’s aggression. He longed to catch Declan and complete a confrontation more than ten years overdue.
It would take more than a blow to the head to keep the big Newfoundland down; Kelpie’s skull likely barely felt that, Rab thought. Yet he burned with anger; he had never raised a hand to the pup. Damned if anyone else would.
Kelpie started off in pursuit once more, and Rab followed, his heart pounding. The delivery of a blow proved Declan no spirit. But if alive, where had he been for the last year? And where was he bound?
Declan reached Main Street and veered right toward the coast road heading southward. The gathering storm now shut out the starlight, and Rab could barely see the man ahead of him. He quickened his pace, not wanting to lose his quarry.
Kelpie once more bounded ahead, and Rab heard Declan yell. He swore to himself, wishing he could see better. As if in answer, lightning flashed and showed him Kelpie and Declan down on the verge and appearing to wrestle together.
An instant of brightness and the image once more disappeared into the dark. Rab pressed forward and reached the place just as the rain began.
He could hear Declan—or whoever it was—swearing and hollering at the dog.
“Leave go of me, you great bastard! Let me go!”
The voice sounded like Declan’s. Rab’s head spun and his stomach knotted. All this while, he had wanted to believe Declan O’Shea dead. Some cruel prank, some impersonation, yes—even a spirit, in truth. But he did not want Declan returning to take up his place in Lisbeth’s life.
Yet the man struggling on the ground with Kelpie must surely be made of flesh and blood.
“Declan!” he roared into the darkness. “Declan O’Shea?”
The man did not respond, but he gave another yell and broke away from Kelpie with a sound of rending cloth.
Rab swore to himself again; a few more steps and he would have had the culprit.
He heard rather than saw the man run on into the night. The storm now beat at the coast road where he and Kelpie stood; the wind played havoc with Rab’s senses. He pressed on but with a sinking heart knew he would not glimpse his quarry again.
So it proved. He and Kelpie walked another half mile, the big dog now keeping close to Rab’s side, but even during the flashes of lightning saw no one ahead. Just the empty track and, to their left, rocks and the wild sea rising.
“Come on, lad,” Rab called at last. “This is daft
.”
Declan could have gone anywhere—most likely off the road and inland. Or back to the sea… Impossible to tell.
He and the dog, now both well-wetted, turned back for town. Rab had not gone far when he saw a figure struggling toward him.
This one he did recognize. “Lisbeth! What are you doing out here? Are you mad?”
They met before she answered, and she tumbled forward into his arms.
“Was it him? Was it Declan?”
Aye, and the answer to that question possessed both their minds, even above the storm.
Rab caressed her shoulders with his hands, trying to lend some warmth to her chilled flesh, before he replied.
“I think so. I could no’ tell for certain. Come on!”
He tucked her beneath his arm and, with Kelpie hurrying ahead, they fled back to town. Lisbeth did not speak again, but he felt her trembling.
He could no longer hear music coming from the hall, but neither did they meet anyone heading their way. The dancers must all be holed up at the church, out of the rain. A blessing, he thought, as he ushered Lisbeth into his quarters.
As soon as they got inside she swung to face him. “It must have been Declan. He always comes with a storm!”
“Whisht!” Rab told her. Wet to the skin and white to the lips, she looked like he’d just fished her out of the ocean. “Warm yourself, lass, and put on some dry clothes.”
He stirred up the fire before snatching a cloth and going to work on the big Newfoundland’s coat.
When he looked up, Lisbeth still stood staring at him. “Where did he go?”
“I could no’ tell, love.”
“Oh, Rab!” Once again she stumbled forward into his arms. “If it is Declan, why would he do this? Why would he stay so long away from me and play such terrible games now? Where has he been?”
Rab’s stomach dropped. Why would he stay so long away from me? Was that the cry of Lisbeth’s heart? Did she want Declan yet? He tucked her head beneath his chin, and his chest ached. He longed for this woman with every part of his being, but if he loved her, indeed he must want what proved best for her.
Could that be Declan—selfish, feckless, and unfaithful—back in her life?
“He was watching us,” she whispered. “He saw us together in the stable, what we were doing.”
“List, now.” Rab shook her very gently and leaned back to gaze into her eyes. “I will no’ have you torturing yourself over that.” Of all things. If Declan O’Shea got an eyeful of his wife in the arms of another man, it proved no more than he deserved.
Rab had to find a way to tell Lisbeth about Maggie Grier. But how? All the words and phrases he formed in his head sounded like attempts to turn her from Declan.
“But—”
“Lisbeth, he could not have seen much, it was far too dark. He may have followed you there—if ’twas he.”
“Who else could it have been?”
“I ha’ been thinking about that. It might be Pat playing these tricks on us.”
“Pat?”
“Aye. You know how alike they were, to look at.”
“But he’s away.”
“Is he?”
“Even if he’s come back, Rab—why would he do such a thing?”
“That’s what we need to find out. I mean to go looking for Pat. If I find him elsewhere—well, then we will have to think again.”
Very gently, he told her, “Now change your clothes. I will change mine in the forge, so you have some privacy.”
She nodded. Rab gathered his things and went out into the gloom of the forge, his heart aching. Overhead the storm still raged, but no wilder than the tempest in his blood.
Chapter Sixteen
“I want to come with you to look for Pat O’Shea.”
Resolute and insistent, Lisbeth greeted Rab when he arrived at the forge. Behind him, clear morning sunlight spilled across the floor. Last evening’s storm had flown half way through the night.
Lisbeth, lying in Rab’s bed with the scent of him warm all around her, had not slept. Rab had insisted on leaving Kelpie with her when he returned to the stables. She’d listened to the big dog breathing and then snoring, but her mind refused to quiet.
Now she stood with her hand resting on the Newfoundland’s head. Kelpie seemed to understand he’d been assigned to protect her, and he would not stir from her side.
“I do not know where Pat is,” Rab replied after giving Lisbeth a searing glance. That look touched her to her soul. Half the agony she endured during the night had centered on the way it felt, being in his arms. How different it was from being with Declan—how deeply Rab moved her, stirred her, made her desire to bond completely with him.
Now he had only to look at her with those deep blue eyes and it heated her blood. What, oh, what, to do with these feelings?
Rab went on, “I mean to speak wi’ Billy Dixon. Sam at the Hogshead thinks Billy might know where Pat’s gone.”
Or if Pat had returned. Lisbeth contemplated that possibility. Could it have been Pat she saw those two times at the cottage and again last night? Maybe. She could not let herself contemplate anything else.
“When?”
Rab shot her another look. “I hope to see Billy today. He should be going over his boat after last night’s blow.”
“Then I will come with you.”
“Lisbeth, I do no’ think ’tis a good idea, that.”
“I am tired of playing the grieving widow. If someone’s pulling a prank on me, I want to know.”
Before he could object further, she ducked back into his quarters and snatched up her shawl. “No time like the present.”
Kelpie pacing at Lisbeth’s side, the three of them started down toward the harbor, where Lisbeth knew Billy Dixon docked his trawler. Folk were out this morning as they had not been last night, some cleaning up storm damage. They greeted her and Rab as they passed.
Overhead, the cloud cover had cleared as the storm bank slid to the north. Last night felt like a dream—all of it, the terrible chase with her in pursuit of Rab and Kelpie as well as what had come before in the dark stable. Had Rab truly held her with such searing tenderness? Had she kissed him with that wild hunger? Had she bared her breasts for him? Had his hot mouth covered them?
She shivered in response, like a woman with a fever, and Rab glanced at her. “It will be all right,” he assured her.
“How can it?”
“You have to believe.” He gazed out over the ocean, now turned the deep blue shade of his eyes. “Aye, sometimes it’s harder to do that than other times. When I landed here on this shore as a lad, I did not see how anything could ever come right again. Now”—he turned his gaze back to her—“I would be nowhere else.”
Lisbeth thought of him as she’d first seen him, so pale, skinny as a whip, his eyes too big for his face, and that air of haunted longing about him.
Who would have thought that lad would grow into the man who lit her world? The thought shocked her even as she acknowledged the truth of it. She belonged at Rab Sinclair’s side, and in his arms. Why couldn’t she have seen that back then? Instead she had seen only Declan.
And now she faced the most impossible desire: wishing Declan truly gone.
****
They found Billy Dixon going over his trawler, which was still tied up at the dock, his eldest son, who sailed with him, at his side. At Rab’s hail, Billy straightened and came to the rail.
“Morning, Rab, Mrs. O’Shea. Nasty blow last night, eh?”
“It was,” Rab agreed. “Any damage?”
Billy scowled. He had a squat body, an unlovely face, and the habitual half-worried expression of the typical lobster fisherman.
“Nothing major. She hit the dock a few times. Soon as I go over her, we’ll put out.” He spat over the rail. “What’s with these storms, anyway? Seems no end to them. Don’t the sea gods know it’s September, for pity’s sake?”
“We get some of the worst storms in September,
” Rab replied, “when the hurricanes move up the coast.”
Billy grunted. “Well, I can do without it.”
“Agreed. Were you at the dance last night?”
“Me? Dance? I’m in my bed by nine o’ the clock.” Billy jerked his head at his son. “This young scamp was there, though, chasing after the lasses.”
His son grinned sheepishly.
Rab said, “I hate to delay you putting out, Billy, but I wondered if we might ha’ a word.”
Billy shot a look from Rab to Lisbeth and back again. He nodded and jumped onto the dock beside him. “Something wrong?”
“Not sure, Billy,” Rab replied.
Lisbeth wished she could reach for Rab’s hand. Instead she tangled her fingers together and watched Billy’s face.
She felt rather than heard Rab draw a breath. “When’s the last time you heard from Pat O’Shea?”
“Pat?” A guarded expression came to Billy’s face. “What d’you want with him?”
“His sister-in-law, here, wishes to speak wi’ him.” Rab nodded at Lisbeth.
“It’s very important, Mr. Dixon. I think Pat may have something belonging to Declan, that I need returned.”
Like his identity, she thought unhappily.
“Well, now.” Billy rubbed at his stubbly chin. “Last I heard of Pat, he’d gone up to the Grand Banks. Signed on some fella’s crew.”
“Aye, and he’s no’ been back since?” The heightening of Rab’s highland accent betrayed his agitation.
“Back here? To Lobster Cove?” Again Billy glanced at Lisbeth. “No, lad. No.”
“Did not stop by, maybe, to visit his friends?”
“Here now, what’s this all about?” Billy no longer looked so friendly.
Lisbeth stepped forward. “Mr. Dixon, can you tell me why Pat left Lobster Cove so soon after Declan’s death?”
Billy shrugged.
“But you were his closest friend,” Rab pressed. “Was he in some sort of trouble?”
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