He checked his pocket watch. With the night in full swing, he was grateful for the lights strung from different levels of rooftops that lit the resort, giving even this tiny room a soft glow. Clearing his throat, Jonas shifted his feet and waited. The ballroom below had impressive acoustics, so he knew they’d alert him to any comings or goings. But all was silent. After a while, he checked his watch again. Twenty minutes past.
He glanced to the doorway. Maybe it was just as well if she didn’t come, because this was a ridiculous idea. If she was to come and they were caught in this place together, it would spell much trouble for the both of them. Worse, likely, for her. That’s when he heard something below. Footsteps? He stood quiet, listening. Someone was there on the stair.
The person gently tap, tap, tapped higher; then the bowed head of a maid appeared as she rose into view. The young blond lifted her gaze, spotting him the moment he did her.
She panted out a breath. “I walked around for an eternity thinking of where room 2100 would be, but all the rooms in this hotel begin with three. It’s a good thing you also mentioned the observatory.”
Jonas hurried to take her hand as she navigated the last two steps.
Finished, he stepped back, any notion of greeting her suavely falling away. “What are you talking about?”
“Twenty-one hundred. I wasted so much time trying to figure out what you meant. I even asked one of the waiters if there was a room twenty-one hundred that I didn’t know about.”
“Twenty-one hundred means nine o’clock at night.”
She blinked several times. “It does?”
“It’s…it’s from the twenty-four-hour clock. Something they use in astronomy.” He took another step to the side and motioned for her to sit. “I’m sorry. It’s a habit from school.”
Her brow pursed and her cheeks flushed. She sat, looking disappointed in herself as she peered up at Jonas. “I fear this is something I should have known. Are there other hours of the day that have this astronomy time?”
“They all do.”
Pulling a small notebook and pencil from her pocket, she went to write something but just looked overwhelmed. She tucked a curling ribbon of hair back under her maid’s cap. Not the type of curls that bespoke hours with a hot iron, or curlers abed, but one that was from birth. A wild mass of hair that seemed barely contained.
Jonas settled a proper width away from her, bumping into the telescope as he did. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been so vague on the note.” He gave her a half smile, and she gave one back. Though she tucked the little notebook away, he could sense her uneasiness.
Best to get right to it.
“This”—he pulled forward the bottle, which he’d wrapped in a pillowcase—“you didn’t need to give it to me. You keep it.” He set it beside her.
“No, it was wrong of me.” When she passed it back, her fingers brushed his.
Her eyes were wide, expression vulnerable, as if she hadn’t a single secret. She was a pretty thing, this bottle thief.
But he needed to stop thinking of her as a thief. “Well one of us ought to take it, and I think it should be you. Or if you prefer, I can cast it back to sea.”
“You would do that?”
“I’ll do what you wish with it. You’re certain you don’t want it?”
“I’m certain. That bottle was destined for someone, but it wasn’t me.”
“It would have been, had I not come along.”
“But you did come along.” She was still watching him in that unnerving way—an unveiled watchfulness. Just as a child might who wasn’t afraid of being caught staring. But she wasn’t a child. She was a young woman with stunning eyes that were yet to leave his face.
“Yes, I suppose I did.” He tipped the bottle and brushed at a few lingering flecks of sand. “Shall we open it and see what’s inside?”
“I’d rather not. Not now, anyway.”
As he tried to make sense of her words, Jonas made study of the cork set into the narrow neck of the bronze vessel. It looked relatively new. Untested. As if it hadn’t been in the water very long. “So what do we do?” he asked.
She took the bottle and turned it slowly. Realizing he didn’t know her name, he inquired gently.
“Rosie Graham.” She settled the bottle in her lap. “At least for the time being.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s just a temporary name because I’ve forgotten my own.”
Jonas blinked. Flexed his jaw just to keep it from falling. “Come again?” In the distance, the night waves crashed and swelled on the shoreline below.
She squinted sheepishly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Miss Graham…”
“Mr. McIntosh.”
Well she remembered his name at least. He shook his head to jar some sense back into it—into this conversation. Time to circle back to their purpose. He touched the cork. “This should be easy to open. Do take it, open it when you’re ready.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know what’s inside.” She accepted it. “And I won’t mix you up like I do the other young men you’re with. You’re the one I seem to find most easily because you have a very remarkable face.” She clamped a hand over her mouth as if she shouldn’t have said that, either.
Despite himself, he smiled. “Is that so?”
Hand still over her mouth, she nodded.
Easily the strangest creature he’d ever met. Yet everything about her seemed to bind together into what was nothing but endearing. All wrapped in the prettiest of packages with her eyes a winter blue—a color so soft and pale it was almost otherworldly. With skin and hair equally as fair, it only added to her mystique. Looking at her now, he was reminded of the fairies in the stories he’d read as a boy.
But something was markedly different about her than other young ladies he knew. Something he couldn’t quite grasp hold of.
Truly, though, he hadn’t the freedom to find out. They each had their places, and he would do well to remember his own before he caused her any trouble. With their business completed, Jonas cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable that he’d brought her here to the highest tower of the del. This window to the stars that was filled with a cool, salty breeze.
“Miss Graham, thank you for meeting me.” He pushed aside the telescope just enough to stand. “And thank you for your apology, but it’s I who owe you one. Please keep this, and I hope it brings you pleasure.”
She rose slowly, peering up at him without so much as a blink. “May I ask you a question?”
He gave a small nod.
“Why do you row your boat across the bay without ever going beyond it?”
Her question surprising him, he grasped for an answer. “It’s…uh. It’s practice. For my friends and me.”
“Practice for what?”
“To row around the lighthouse.” He motioned to where the great lantern was aglow across the giant bay. “The point.” She was the first person he’d told this to. Well, apart from Babcock, but the hotel owner already knew everything about their quest.
“You wish to see something on the other side?”
“We’re not aiming to see much, just to get there.”
If that baffled her, he wouldn’t blame her. Their plan made little sense without the full story to explain it. Inching nearer was the desire to detail it to her, but he stepped from that path of thinking. It was wisest to go now.
“Thanks again for meeting me.” To edge by her, he brushed a hand to her side. Though he scarcely grazed the fabric of her black dress, he was struck with how much softer it was than the oars he’d gripped all day. “I’ll see you around.”
She peered up, and that was when he realized that rather than bafflement, her look was one of gladness. As if his declaration of their quest brought her joy. “I’d imagine you will. I’m the one who cleans your room, but I only clean it when you’re not there. So if I do my job well, you won’t see me.”
Smiling again, Jonas
finished stepping around her then scratched the back of his head. “All right, then.”
“I wish you the best. In your boat.”
“Thank you.” He stepped toward the spiral staircase, and while he was pleased to see the cloth-wrapped bottle tucked in her grasp, he also realized that they should head down separately.
He went to motion her first then paused. “How did you forget your name?”
Her mouth parted as if she hadn’t expected him to inquire. He regretted that it had taken him this long.
“Apparently they asked my name, but I didn’t give one. Maybe I was too frightened.” She glanced around the observatory, then back to him as if warring over how much to disclose. She gently pressed onward. “I’ll never remember now because a few years later, I fell into the water and was found by morning fishermen. I was barely alive when they brought me in. I don’t remember any of it. And the doctors said that something about the way I was found—not breathing—is the reason I lost other things.” She touched the side of her head and looked at him with a hint of regret.
It was a look that pierced him, as if she was somewhat ashamed of that. “And you lost your name.”
“In a most final sense, yes.” She adjusted the draped pillowcase around the bottle, making slow work with the folds. “But I have tried not to ever worry about that. More urgent was forgetting who I was. Memories. I also lost what they tell me was once a love of the sea. I forgot about the people who I cared for—the Grahams.” Though she smiled gently as if it hadn’t taken long for that love to bloom anew.
Voices sounded from below, and, not wanting to give away their presence here, he stepped nearer to Rosie, speaking softly. “I’m so sorry.”
When she tipped her head down, a curl that escaped from beneath her cap looked soft as a dove’s feather. “It’s all right. I’ll get them back one day. The memories.”
Then she glanced around, pulled out her notebook, and penciled something in. “I write things down that I mean not to forget. Notes for remembrance.”
His watching her scribble something down must have made her wonder…
“Would you like one?”
He wet his lips. “Um…sure.”
She flipped forward a few pages—seemed to take her time in deciding—then tore out a single slip. Rosie folded it and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
Jonas glanced down at it even as her nearness, the brush of her fingertips to his chest, unnerved him. He took a small step back. “Well, Miss Graham. It’s been remarkable meeting you.” He looked at her once more; if he were the sea, he’d be jealous to have lost her.
She tucked away her notebook, bid him good night, and slipped back down the stairs.
Standing there, dumbfounded, he didn’t move for some time. When he finally did, it was to reach into his shirt pocket and pull out what she’d put there. He unfolded the slip of paper, more than a little curious to find out what it said. What she offered him to remember. But it simply said, Be patient.
Jonas glanced down the coiling stairwell before eyeing the paper again. He waited another few minutes then left the tower, thoughts on who was easily the most interesting girl he’d ever met.
Chapter Five
There was a reason they did a warm-up on the bay yesterday. While both Jonas and Oliver had spent years on various crew teams, Dexter was a rugby player, and Oakes’s athletic career didn’t expand beyond jogging to class when he overslept—or chasing pretty girls.
Jonas stood on the sand surrounding small Glorietta Bay, an early-morning sun blaring down on them, and studied his teammates. As eager as he was to be out on Coronado Bay just on the other side of the hotel, this little harbor had no waves and was calm as glass. Just the place for him and his friends to get their sea legs under them before facing the break again.
He swiped his hands against the sides of his bathing shorts then moved around the front of the quad, a racing shell built for four. “All right, Oakes, you’re in the bow seat.”
“In the back again?” Oakes tipped his chin up, ego showing.
Something Jonas was more than accustomed to handling. “Yeah, but we row backward so you’ll cross the finish line first.”
Morning light glinted on his slicked brown hair as Oakes smirked and climbed in. His seat slid back on its track, and he settled into place.
“Oliver, you and I are the powerhouse again.” The middle rowers, this was the spot for the strongest team members. “And Dexter, right here at the stroke seat.” Not only was Dexter strong, but he was calm and steady: a good leader, which made him born for one of the most important seats in the wooden shell.
“I’ve been wondering…what’s this seat in front of me?” Dexter thumbed a portion of his black bathing tank and used it to swipe his jaw.
Jonas glanced to the stern of the boat. “That’s the cox seat, but we don’t have a coxswain so won’t need to worry about that.” As difficult as it was going to be, Jonas would have to make the calls.
“And what about you?” Oliver eyed him as Jonas fetched oars. “Any instructions for our noble leader?”
The words were light, but Jonas heard his cousin’s warning. Really, a concern. “I’ll be fine.”
He’d brought a thermos of extra-strong coffee with him—something that worked in a pinch should his lungs need stimulation. Even as he thought it, he made sure the thermos was stashed against the floorboard. Oliver watched him, not seeming pleased.
Jonas straightened, and his cousin stepped nearer, concern tight in his freckled face. “You waynough when you need to, okay?”
“I really will be fine.”
Looking doubtful, Oliver stepped away.
Standing beside the boat, Jonas held an oar out. He angled the paddle to face straight up and down for one more reminder to Oakes and Dexter. “Now remember, this is for the catch, offering the most resistance. But when you lift your oars, remember to feather.” He turned the handle 25 percent so that the blade was flat, floating as a bird’s wing above the sand. “Which will take the least resistance. Just like we practiced yesterday.”
Oakes rubbed what had to be a sore shoulder, and Jonas and Dexter pushed the boat into the water. They climbed in, and when Jonas settled into his seat, he gripped the handles of his oars. The quad rocked and Jonas called over his shoulder, “Oakes, let us know when the bow is clear.”
“Bow clear.”
“Set ready,” Jonas responded.
Everyone took their oars and dipped the shafts toward the water. The boat swayed gently, water lapping against the shell.
Time to straighten it. “Two rows starboard,” Jonas said.
They followed his lead, and the boat lined up with the harbor—the bow pointing out toward smooth, open water.
“Set ready,” he said again, and they all took a steadying breath. Water lapped against his oar, and he loosened mind, tightened body, and with a call for them to pull, they each dug deep. A second stroke and then a third. “Pull.” He called it with each stroke, and they settled into a smooth rhythm.
“Place your blade with care, Oakes,” Jonas said with a grunt. “You’re the one keeping us balanced. And Oliver, give all the muscle you got.”
“Sure thing,” Oliver panted.
Catch, send. Catch, send. It was a slow, easy row. Just one to get the pace of working as a team. Though the water didn’t churn here, it seemed to have a force all its own as they dug oars in and used that tension to power the boat across the water. In the distance, a fisherman paused with his nets to watch them pass.
“Easy, steady strokes, Dexter,” Jonas panted. “We’re following your lead.”
Dexter nodded.
“Rotate…a little sooner…on the release, Oakes.”
Oakes did and caught onto a smoother rhythm with the rest of them. The wooden shell skimmed in a smooth glide, and Jonas called out for them to all quicken the pace. Now was the time.
“Pull!” He said it louder—a cue to row harder.
They pulled
as he did. Blades dipped for the catch. Then the burn of muscle for the drive—the force that pushed the boat along. The hardest part. Then the finish where the pain loosened. Finally the recovery—the feathering as they turned their blades to skim back across the water, seats sliding forward. All in the blink of an eye before they sunk oars in for the next catch. At the drive, Jonas panted out, “Pull,” but already it was getting hard to breathe. Drive. Finish.
Recover.
“Pull.” Drive. Finish.
Recover.
Catch. Jonas stayed quiet as they slid into the drive. He grunted at the finish with the others then feathered his oar back, the four of them in perfect synchronization. He smiled. The feeling of this overriding any tension blooming between his ribs.
It was just them and the sound of screeching seagulls. The pull of water against wood and the creak of a boat that had borne rowers—always four at a time. Four souls. Four panting beings who knew that the burn would be worth it in the end. That the pain they were feeling now as their bodies stretched and coiled and complained would all be worth it at the finish line.
Regardless of how peculiar that finish line might be.
In front of him, Oliver’s arms worked in perfect rhythm with Dexter’s, and Jonas kept the metronome, knowing that by the sound of Oakes’s breathing behind him, their bowman was synched, too. Catch and drive and finish.
His lungs were slowly beginning to tighten. Jonas tried to ignore it.
On the recovery, he called that they had less than a hundred meters left to go.
The July sun steamed the air. Sweat slid down the front of his chest, slicked his shoulders. Feeling their rhythm weakening, his directions slipped into panting words.
And with his last call to pull, that was all he had as he gasped for air. Fifty meters to go. Jonas’s lungs were on fire. He coughed. In his mind, he kept the tempo, but even that was starting to falter as his body struggled for air that was suddenly coming too thin, too shallow.
“We’re sprinting too fast,” Oliver gasped between breaths.
The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection Page 46