Night Music

by BJ James

  Against his will, his thoughts turned again to her lips. The gentle bow, the full under lip, as tawny pink as a rose petal moist with dew. How would her mouth look in a smile meant only for him? How would it feel beneath his? How sweet would she taste?

  With more force than he intended, he dropped the coffee in his basket. Even in his mind he wouldn’t be lover or savior.

  If she could be led back to the living, it wouldn’t be by his hand. There was still fire banked there beneath the ice of grief and guilt. Hopefully someday she would be warmed enough by it to reach out and find her own way to resolution.

  There was strength beneath the aloof veneer. Strength that allowed her to cut herself off from pain that might destroy her. So now she lived in limbo. For some, in the long run, it could be destructive…for others only a period of quiet healing.

  Was that the key? Was Kate Gallagher a woman who sought a quiet life denied her? Perhaps that explained why her voice remained quiet and calm, whether she was or not. The outward control was a gift as well as a skill for one who had gone from mediating bitter arguments to leading a team of first response for The Black Watch.

  How many countries, and how many volatile and unstable situations had she gone into? How many times had she risked her life, with only that skill and Paul Bryce to aid her? How many times had she been underestimated and misjudged? How many rebels and dissidents hadn’t looked past the subdued decorum?

  Valentina had called her Simon’s best first weapon of choice. A dangerous trust, a treacherous and threatening existence. One that drew partners close, spurring unrivaled bonds. Even love.

  Losing Paul Bryce would have been like losing a part of herself. Though she might heal in the self-imposed solitude, until she regained that part and rejoined the real world, Kate Gallagher would never be truly whole.

  Like strength, spirit was there. He saw it in her face and her eyes. He heard it in her voice. Perhaps she was even halfway toward awakening it. Wanting only an intermediary, a person or a need, that would draw her the rest of the way.

  Devlin could only hope that person, or that need, would come to her before it was too late. Before she settled into a life that was half what it should be.

  As he watched her slipping unheeding past fellow shoppers, Devlin O’Hara held little hope the mentor she should have was among them. After months of living in Belle Terre, she was as much a stranger as he. Her wall of silence was too much for their native Southern gentility.

  Suddenly he realized Kate had stepped to the checkout line, zipped through with her meager purchases, and was ready to leave. He’d followed and watched her discreetly for some time. After their encounter, if he continued much longer, despite her distraction she would become aware of his scrutiny. Even so, less because of his promise to Valentina than for reasons he couldn’t explain, Devlin wasn’t ready to step back and go away.

  “No. Thank you, the flowers are lovely. But…” Her low voice shook him from his reverie. She’d paused by the door as she spoke to the tiny child who stood by an elderly lady and her pails and baskets filled with flowers of every sort imaginable. The bouquet the child offered was wrapped in a sheaf of green paper and surely contained at least one of each blossom.

  The child said nothing as she held the bouquet out to Kate, a smile dimpling her cheeks.

  “It would please her if you would take the flowers.” The old woman’s voice was quavery and weak. “God knows, there’s little enough in her young life that’s pleasing.”

  “But I haven’t the proper change.”

  “The flowers are a gift,” the woman interrupted. “Tessa hopes they might keep you from looking so sad.”

  Kate hesitated.

  “Please,” the woman pleaded.

  From the place he’d taken in the express line, Devlin could see the sudden glitter of tears in Kate’s eyes. Looking from the young, handsome woman to the fair child who could have been her daughter, he found himself praying she would accept the flowers, for all their sakes.

  Though few of his prayers had been answered of late, his heart lifted when Kate knelt before the silent child. Taking the flowers, solemnly she kissed a dimpled cheek. “Thank you, Tessa. I’ve never had a bouquet or a present as lovely.”

  Tessa ducked her head shyly, saying nothing. Even when Kate said goodbye, the child didn’t look up or speak.

  “Have a good day, ma’am.” The lady spoke for both.

  “Thank you.” Kate paused at the exit. Stroking the flowers across her cheek, she smiled. A blinding, wonderful smile. “How could I not?”

  Devlin caught his breath, dazzled by the woman he’d glimpsed. The woman Kate Gallagher must be again. Impulsively, he moved toward her. An insistent voice called him back.

  “Your change, sir. And your coffee.”

  “Keep it.” Eager for another glimpse of that woman, he flung the words over his shoulder.

  “I can’t, sir. Please.” The clerk’s plea was plaintive, even disturbed. “It would mean my job.”

  Impatient, Devlin returned to the counter. He wanted neither change nor coffee. The purchase had been justification for time spent in the store, an excuse to stay close to Kate. Taking up the coins, mindful not to forget his purchase lest he be summoned back again, he hurried to the exit. Pausing to tweak a golden curl and wink down at little Tessa, he stepped into the street in time to see the lady of his concern drive away.

  He’d come to the coastal town because he’d given his word. All he intended was a quick trip from the Chesapeake, a short stay and a quicker look at Valentina’s latest lamb. Then, home.

  If there was such a place.

  Quickly in, quickly away. An ironclad plan, with no expectations of more. But that was before he’d seen Kate Gallagher.

  “‘The best-laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft agley,”’ he quoted in a muttered undertone. All for a smile.

  Could he leave now? With a ghost of the rueful grin that had once set every young heart it touched aflutter, he mocked his own frailty. “I must. I should. But how, Lady Golden Eyes?”

  Two

  Music washed over him, ebbing and flowing like the tide lapping at his feet. In the time he’d sat on the derelict palmetto washed from another shore, the mood of the pianist changed. From tentative beginnings the tempo had gradually quickened, then swelled, filling this secluded section of shore with its moods.

  First it was wild with the violence of unspeakable torment. Next, fiercely angry, each note resounding as if the musician fought the music, the instrument, and herself. Then the temperament changed, quieted. In slow, muted notes despair reached a deeper level, and Devlin heard the throb of anguish that defied solace.

  As the piano fell silent, one note lingering in the night, he knew he’d been given rare insight into the heart of Kathleen Moira Gallagher, daughter of a roving diplomat. Once a model and an icon of beauty, a gifted pianist and a lawyer, an agent of The Black Watch and Simon’s mediator par excellence, now she was simply a grieving woman whose soul stumbled.

  When he’d followed her surreptitiously from Ravenel’s to Summer Island, the gated, guarded seasonal playground of the wealthy of Belle Terre, it was to quiet a need he thought had died forever on Denali. To subdue a faltering, resurrected impulse to ease the hurts of others, he’d come to make himself believe he, least of all, could lead her back into the life she should have.

  A simple matter, quickly done. So he hoped. Instead he’d tarried long in this single day he’d promised Valentina he would devote to Kate Gallagher. Tramping from one end of the somnolent paradise to the other, seeking proof of peace, the healing panacea Kate needed, he’d delayed and detoured, exploring marshes, docks, and the house that would have been his. Had he decided to stay.

  Before he was ready, before innate urges were stifled, night had fallen. With the lights of Belle Terre sparkling in the near distance, the moon lifted over sea and shore like a great gold and silver globe. Silver and gold, the color of her hair. A reminder he
didn’t want. And, without intending it, he’d found himself on this part of the shore, sitting at the base of zigzagging steps leading where he’d never meant to go. To Kate.

  When the first note sounded, he’d turned from it. The step away wouldn’t come. He willed himself not to stay. He had.

  Crouching on the salt-scoured palmetto, he listened.

  Now the shore was quiet, the spell of her music ended. He was free to go. He knew he wouldn’t. “The blind and the halt, Kate.” He stared up at her house and the light that left more in darkness than it illuminated. “We shall see where one leads the other.”

  He turned again, truly leaving this time, but only to make the calls that would confirm his stay on Summer Island. As he moved deeper into darkness, away from the little light, he didn’t notice the woman on the deck above. He didn’t see her drifting like a waif down the steps to the shore. He didn’t know she knelt in the sand contemplating his footprints as if they would tell a story. Or that when she stood, it was to search him out with a puzzled frown, studying the familiar lines of his retreating figure.

  “No.” Out of habit Kate pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. The insidious thrum of tension was there. The encounter with the dangerously attractive but enormously annoying man hadn’t helped. Then, as if that weren’t enough, Jericho Rivers, sheriff of Belle Terre and the surrounding county, called to say the island might soon have another resident.

  In the confusion of the abrupt interruption by an emergency call, Jericho hadn’t given her a name, but managed to assure her that the newcomer was a friend, a good man. High praise from the taciturn sheriff. Surely it stretched the realm of coincidence to imagine the man in the grocer’s and Jericho’s friend were the same.

  It couldn’t be. Letting her hair fly in the wind, Kate remembered Devlin O’Hara. The mischievous look, his fascinating eyes at odds with his smile. A deep voice with an edge of uncertainty, as if it had been a while since he’d laughed or teased.

  Despite her annoyance, she hadn’t been blind to his charm. Or was it that he was charming and she noticed that annoyed her? Did it matter? The new islander wouldn’t be Devlin O’Hara.

  If it should be, they needn’t meet again. Though the land mass was considered small with three miles of beach, there were only six houses lining the shore. The property of each was bounded on the west by the narrow river separating the marsh from the mainland, and on the east by the sea. With each possessing docks on the riverside and decks at the front with promenades to the shore. Trailing north to south, each house was set in the middle of a half-mile tract. Except Sea Watch, her home in recent months.

  Indulging a penchant for privacy, the owner of Sea Watch set his house on the southernmost tip, where sea and river merged. Thus, with nearly a mile setting the house apart from the others, she needn’t trip over anyone.

  “No matter who he is.” Peering after him, she discovered he’d moved beyond the natural curve of the island and out of sight. That was as she wanted him.

  Keeping solitary spaces had never been difficult. Falling within the domain of Belle Terre, the island was populated exclusively by local residents. Townies, wealthy enough to keep second homes for the island’s namesake season. Most houses were closed for the year and for the social season the first of August.

  Some of the owners returned for rare weekends. Others for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Except for that possible influx, with Hobie, the elderly guard, controlling the mainland gate and protecting against interlopers, Kate had what she counted the best of all seasons virtually to herself. Until now.

  There was no need to waste time in worry. Two did not constitute a crowd. The bastion of water and sand that kept the world away needn’t change.

  “He won’t.” As a gust of wind swept the words from her lips, Kate clenched a fist. “One man won’t change my life.”

  A lonely figure caught in moonlight, she crossed the sand. It was late, she was tired. But as she climbed the steps, she knew she was not tired enough. Tonight she’d played long and forcefully, and still the music failed her. Neither its therapy nor exhaustion numbed her mind.

  Retracing her steps, she entered the house, intent on closing it for the night. For a half hour she moved about restlessly, avoiding the inevitable. When there was no more to be done, she drifted to a window to watch the surf, to lose herself in the alternately dark and luminous rhythm. Hopefully, to forget.

  Longer than was prudent, she watched the wash of waves. Sometimes the past intruded, with thoughts of Paul Bryce. Other times she thought of nothing. Once, she recalled the solitary figure whose footprints told a story of pausing beneath her window. Had he stayed to listen, or only to rest before walking on?

  The newcomer, roaming farther afield than she wished. A stranger on the beach that had been hers alone.

  A good man, the sheriff had assured her. Jericho wouldn’t lie. And the stranger did not trespass. The beach belonged to everyone. As she conceded that reality, Kate realized the hour had gone from late to early. It was time to face her demons.

  Turning out the lamp, she went to her bed knowing sleep would not come quickly. When it came, because the music failed, it would not be blessedly dreamless.

  Sun streamed through an open window striking unshielded eyes with a vengeance. Throwing an arm over her face, Kate pondered her day. But what was there to ponder? What would be different? She would rise, sit on the deck drinking endless cups of coffee, hoping to stave off the threat of a migraine. While she drank, she would watch shorebirds strafe for their first meal of the day. After her own meager breakfast, more homage to a habit than for nutrition, she would tramp the land for hours.

  She might collect shells, she might not. Maybe she would gather driftwood, maybe not. But she would climb the tallest dune. There, she would watch herons and egrets moving in the grasses of the marsh and through the surf. Perhaps she would catch a glimpse of a night heron, home late from a long hunt. Or the elusive green, that favored the minnows in the tidal pool beneath the dune.

  Then there were the dolphins, sleek, graceful, common in the autumn season. “And the whales.”

  Enthusiasm colored her voice as she braved the sun. Would they be back? Days before, on her morning ramble, she had sighted them. Two mammoths of the sea, cavorting in the still warm waters of the Carolina coast. Yesterday, after her trip into town, she hadn’t looked for them again. But maybe today.

  Rolling out of bed more eagerly than she had in longer than she could remember, she threw on a shirt and dashed to the kitchen. A rattle of canisters and cabinet doors later, she stopped short. No coffee. Which meant no caffeine. Leaning against the cabinet, she recalled the day before.

  “I gave it to him.” Then, hurrying from Ravenel’s and the crowd, she’d forgotten all about coffee.

  No problem. Lifting a shoulder, she shrugged aside the error. There were other remedies or other ways. Even a return trip to Ravenel’s, this time with no Devlin O’Hara to set her in flight.

  But that day hadn’t been a total loss. She had met Tessa. A glance at the bouquet standing in a teal and copper vase on the kitchen counter drew an uncommon smile from Kate.

  The child was exquisite with her blond curls atumble, brown eyes shining. Could even Scrooge have refused her flowers? Touching them, Kate remembered the old lady’s words…. A gift. Tessa hopes the flowers might keep you from looking so sad.

  As she remembered, Kate realized she was smiling. Yesterday, Tessa had made her smile. And now again, she was truly smiling. In that moment, the darkness in her heart weighed a little less heavily, her thoughts were clearer.

  Tea! Tea would be a nice change. “How long has it been?”

  A knock at the door interrupted her monologue—a habit she’d fallen into during the days she spent alone. Strange. But not so strange as morning visitors, she decided as she went to answer.

  Her smile vanished as she opened the door. “You!”

  Before she could stop them, suspicions
she’d spent an evening denying spilled out. “It was you on the beach last night.”

  “Devlin O’Hara, ma’am, paying a neighborly call.” As he inclined his head slightly, his hair falling over his forehead gleamed blacker than black.

  “Neighborly.” Kate crossed her arms before her, remembering the state of her nightclothes. “Which, I suppose by association of words, means we’re to be neighbors.”

  “For now,” he amended. “Only for a while.”

  His smile was the same, but with the light of morning falling on his face, she realized any expression left his remarkable eyes untouched. Was there a coldness beneath the banter, or an unfeeling void?

  Whichever, it wasn’t her concern, and the sooner he went away, the better. “Ahh, so for only a while we’re to be neighbors. I suppose that means you’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar?”

  “Not this time. I’ll save that for later.” If he felt the cut of her mockery, it didn’t show. His smile altered, his mouth curving generously. Taking his hand from behind his back, he produced the foil packet of coffee. “I have two, so I came to share.”

  “You’re so sure I need a share?” There might be no emotion in his eyes, but his piercing gaze missed little. Barely resisting the urge to smooth her hair into order, she caught at her shirt, drawing it closer about her breasts.

  Leaning an arm on the doorjamb, his forehead resting on his wrist, he looked down at her. “You left Ravenel’s without any.”

  Kate wasn’t short, but in her bare feet, the upward tilt of her head required to meet his gaze was significant. As he shifted positions, the sun striking her face turned him into a looming shadow. A ploy to hide his expression, or lack of it? Was Devlin O’Hara far more complicated than he seemed? A man guarding secrets? But if there were secrets, they were none of her concern.