A Northern Romance: Atlantic Island Romances (Retro Romance Book 1)

by Liz Graham

  There would be no reasoning with Enoch. He would see any attempts to get him to change his mind as the Devil’s temptations, and would only become firmer in his stance.

  ‘What can we do?’ Conor asked despairingly as she looked across the table at Sharon, not really expecting an answer. Her mind was working to answer her own question. She knew that Glover sympathized with the artists’ retreat, or Sharon would not have broken the confidentiality of her job. She was here with her boss’s blessing. But she also knew his hands were tied with politics and he had to appear to be impartial.

  ‘Enoch’s a wing-nut, everyone knows that,’ Sharon assured her. ‘No sensible person would want to give the base to him rather than you. God only knows what he’d get up to there in the wilderness.’ She shuddered.

  ‘He’s crazy enough as it is,’ the woman added ‘Your plan is sensible, but Enoch seems to have serious backing on his side, and l don’t mean just from God. It’d be best if we could keep the whole matter at the Departmental level, but you never know.

  ‘Be prepared to take it higher,’ Sharon continued with a warning in her voice. ‘There’s too much local politics involved. Glover is the Minister of Crown Lands, but he’s also the MHA for this region, so he can’t make the decision. He’ll have to pass it to the Premier. Just hope that Enoch shows how crazy he really is.’

  Conor looked at her companion glumly.

  ‘You know politics,’ Sharon said with a shrug. ‘Votes are votes.’

  THE FIRST SUNDAY IN JUNE brought a promise of the summer to come on the warm breeze from the south. This was merely nature’s tease of summer weather, but it was enough to bring the townspeople out of doors. Housewives took their time hanging laundry on the line, wearing tee shirts with winter-white arms exposed and not a goose pimple in sight. Others, more devout, lingered on their stroll to church that morning, their children dawdling with heavy feet at the prospect of being penned up for even an hour on that glorious day.

  Seamus, although brought up in a strongly Catholic family, had never felt the urge to introduce Conor to organized religion of any form, preferring that she find her own gods in the ocean waves, forests and boglands surrounding the cove.

  Yet she bowed to tradition in one way, for Sunday was her day of rest, and the bakery was closed for that one day of the week.

  So it was that she felt no guilt in enjoying a walk in the fine weather that Sunday morning. Her wandering footsteps took her along the water and through the town of St Anthony, up past the hospital but with no particular destination in mind. It was noontime, and the only thing that was on her mind was her stomach. Seamus loved to cook a large, traditional breakfast Sunday mornings, and the two would relax in the morning sun with the weekend papers from the city. But that had been hours ago. The teabun and banana she’d eaten since then didn’t count, and the familiar growling was just beginning to stir. It might be nice to step into a restaurant and indulge in a rare meal out. Perhaps the small café on West Street where they served a delicious chicken salad sandwich, and chocolate cheesecake to die for. Yes, definitely the cheesecake for she was in the mood for something yummy. A Sunday treat.

  ‘Conor!’ a voice hailed her, breaking through her thoughts.

  Oh, man, talk of delicious. There was Devon leaving the hospital, waving his arm to get her attention. How did he manage to keep his tan this far north? His blue eyes sparkled and his straight blonde hair was freshly brushed. He had abandoned his scruffy green jacket for a more seasonable denim jacket over an old cotton navy crewneck sweater. She was sure she remembered those clothes when they were new, five long years ago.

  ‘Out for a walk?’ he asked her, having sprinted the last few yards and not out of breath at all.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said as he fell into pace beside her. ‘It would be a crime not to enjoy this weather.’

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ she replied. Yeah, she thought to herself, it’s my pleasure to see you without Melissa. Their arms brushed, and a thrill went deep into the pit of Conor’s chest. She consciously shifted away from him.

  ‘I thought I’d spend the day looking around the town,’ he said, unaware of the thoughts in her head. ‘Haven’t had a chance yet to see all the sights around here.’

  ‘They’re all recently opened, now it‘s June,’ Conor pointed out. ‘And definitely worth the viewing.’

  They were approaching the museum, the large dark green building a perfect foil for the fresh green of new leaves in the trees surrounding it. The architecture was reminiscent of a large English country cottage.

  ‘This is a good place to start,’ Conor said, stopping in front of the house. ‘This was where Dr. Grenfell lived with his family.’

  ‘Ah yes, the good doctor,’ Devon said as he paused to look up the hill. On the right hand side a glass conservatory sparkled in the sunlight.

  ‘Did you know that he and his wife actually designed this house?’ Conor said as she climbed the few stairs to the door.

  ‘He was a talented man,’ Devon noted.

  Once inside, they paused to pay the admission fee, then entered the first room. The house was furnished much as it would have been when inhabited, the heavy drapes, wooden furniture and carpets popular in the years between the world wars.

  Devon paused in front of the large photograph of Grenfell and his wife Anne.

  ‘He was an inspiration to me,’ he said with a slight smile.

  Conor raised an eyebrow. This was the first she’d ever heard of that. When she’d known Devon after they both graduated, the young medical student was more inspired by German automobile makers than anything else.

  He turned and caught the expression on her face.

  ‘No,’ he laughed ‘Not when … not when we knew each other.

  ‘Later,’ he continued. ‘After I’d been abroad a few years and seen a bit of the world.’

  He looked thoughtfully back up at the portrait.

  ‘It was hard work, but l enjoyed the feeling of being useful,’ he said. ‘But I had to come back for a while. I wondered how l could get that same feeling of satisfaction back home, when I remembered Grenfell.’

  ‘Hard work?’ Conor asked him, disbelieving. ‘What, were you repairing broken legs and twisted ankles at Klosters?’

  The famous ski resort was the only definite place he had planned on visiting dining his year away, she remembered. And she remembered also that she had almost been a part of that lifestyle. Conor turned away from him, an unaccustomed stab of regret piercing her heart. It wasn’t regret for the way of living, but for the time they would have had together.

  ‘Klosters?’ he cried, taking by the shoulder and looking down at her. ‘You think I spent the last few years living like a…’

  He stopped himself.

  ‘Like a rich kid?’ Conor coolly finished the sentence for him. ‘Weren‘t you?’

  Devon’s eyes searched out her own as he shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he replied, simply.

  ‘What were you doing then?’ she flashed at him. She had thought of him often over the years, though she would never have admitted it. She‘d pictured him in every city in Europe, living the life most people could only dream of. Every time she saw a news clip of rich and famous people gathering, like the royals at their famous Klosters resort, she would surreptitiously scan the surrounding crowd for that tall blonde man. She never saw him in those places, but it didn’t stop her from looking again the next time.

  ‘Don’t tell me you actually got yourself a job,’ Conor said with a slight sneer in her voice. She immediately regretted her words as she saw the hurt spread over his open face, then his eyes narrowed.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but looking around, abruptly shut it again.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said in a low voice, keeping a firm grip on her shoulder. Devon propelled her out of the museum and down the front stairs. They marched along the road for a few moments until Conor stumb
led in her effort to keep up with him.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, looking down at her again as he stopped. ‘Sorry, l didn’t realize I was pulling you along.’

  He let go of her arm. She rubbed the sore spot where his fingers had dug in deeply. It was probably as bruised as her feelings at this treatment by him.

  ‘That hurt,’ she mumbled, refusing to look at him. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt, hunched her shoulders, and started marching on down the road again, willing him to stay away.

  ‘Wait up,’ he said, annoyance rising in his voice as he followed. ‘I said I was sorry, didn’t I?

  ‘Look,’ he continued in a calmer tone, pulling at her arm again, this time to make her stop. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing these past four years?’

  She halted. A cool breeze sprung up from the water, lifting her brown hair from her face.

  ‘Doing what you intended to do,’ she replied, turning to look at him. ‘Hanging out in Europe, you know, rich kid stuff.’

  He shook his head and smiled at her, the blue eyes reflecting the clear sky. When his eyes were full on her like this, that familiar melting feeling began deep inside her again. She couldn’t tear her gaze from him.

  ‘We really need to talk,’ he said. ‘Look, why don’t we drive out to L‘Anse aux Meadows? I want to see those Viking sod huts. We can talk on the way.’

  His car was parked in the hospital lot, not far away. He said little until they pulled out onto the highway.

  ‘After that afternoon,’ he began, his eyes not straying from the road ahead. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice, knowing very well which afternoon he meant.

  ‘And after you disappeared,’ he continued. ‘I couldn’t get your words out of my mind, and I started to look around me. I realized you were right!

  ‘They are all shallow people,’ he said. ‘And so was I.’

  The car sped down the smooth highway through the barrens.

  ‘I decided to start looking for a life with more meaning,’ he said after a pause. ‘Took me a while, but I found it.

  ‘It’s a long story. I ended up in Sudan, working with an international aid agency,’ he said ‘The conditions, the pain, the suffering I saw… it was awful.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’ve spent the past years in various trouble spots around the world,’ he said. ‘But finally l felt I had to come home. I looked around, as I said, for work that would be as fulfilling and as satisfying as I had found my life over there.’

  ‘We may be isolated,’ Conor said through tight lips. ‘But St. Anthony is hardly a third world country.’ Although Melissa would certainly not agree, she added to herself.

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘It’s just as modem as any place in North America. I just wanted a small town practice, where I could use all the skills I’ve learned. The thought of specializing, or just working in an office… l couldn’t do that, not now.

  ‘Besides,’ he said. ‘There’s this woman…’

  Conor could feel him glance over at her as he said this, and felt her face begin to burn. Okay, that was it. End of conversation. She had no desire to hear the rest of the story, how he finally figured out that Melissa was the woman for him and he would follow her to the ends of the earth. Why else would he have chosen this particular small town? There were lots of communities which needed a doctor more than St. Anthony did. It might appear isolated to some, being at the tip of the Northern Peninsula as it was, but it was the hub of the area. Why didn’t he choose the coast of Labrador, even way up north like Nain if he really wanted a challenge? She set her lips in a firm line and was determined to change the subject.

  ‘You haven’t been out to L‘Anse aux Meadows before, I take it?’ she said, as if his words had meant nothing to her.

  He glanced over at her again with a hint of perplexity in his eyes.

  ‘My father,’ she said. ‘My father used to tell me a funny story. The Ingstads, the couple who discovered the Viking settlement remains, were asking along the coast where they could find a grassy spot among all the rock, in accordance to the Viking descriptions of the voyage. Someone sent them here, assuming the place was named after the green meadows. Turned out they hit the right spot, but they might not have found it if the place had an English name.’

  ‘Why is that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because the original French name was L’Anse aux Meduses,’ she replied. ‘Which translates to Jellyfish Bay. The name got warped over time with the colonization of the area by English speakers.’

  He pulled into the parking lot of the National Historic Site. In the distance, they could see a large knoll with the modern interpretation center on the top, and below that small grassy humps in the meadow.

  Conor kept up this mindless chatter as they hiked the distance down to the replicated Viking sod huts, determined to avoid any more intimate conversation. The chatter also helped drown out the audible evidence of her rising hunger pangs, and she regretted not going for a bite before they started the drive. The wind was colder here than in town, on this exposed land so close to the ocean, and she wrapped her arms around her as they made their way down the boardwalk over the marshy land. A small shiver escaped her.

  Devon stopped as they reached the woven sapling fence around the replica sod houses, and grinned as he spied people coming out of one low doorway. Among a small group of tourists in windbreakers, one large man stood out, distinguished by his rough woolen garb and leather helmet.

  ‘They have real Vikings here?’ he exclaimed.

  A woman followed the group out of the hut, holding her long woolen skirts out of the springtime mud. She too was in everyday Viking garb with her hair pulled simply back from her face and a rough cloak covering her homespun dress.

  Conor and Devon continued on through the gate as the tourists left through the exit escorted by the guide dressed in his authentic costume. Soon the two were alone by the sod huts. The long low grass covered houses blended into the landscape and would be invisible from the sea save for the smoke of a fire escaping from the doorway and a hole in the roof.

  They paused before entering the humble home. Devon placed his arm on her shoulder.

  ‘I used to have a costume like his,’ Devon mused, looking back at the man now leading his group back up the boardwalk to the interpretation center. Conor stiffened at his words. Surely he hadn’t forgotten the first night they’d met. Had their short time together meant that little to him?

  ‘I didn’t have a mere mortal Viking woman, though,’ he said slowly in a low voice, turning to face her. ‘I met an actual goddess that night.’

  A tremble started in her midsection as his eyes found her face. Oh yes, there was no doubt he remembered it as well as she did herself. The entire evening was still engraved in her mind, her costume and his, what they had spoken of, the thrill when he first touched her hand. And that kiss outside her apartment building on that starlit night.

  Devon’s other hand reached to stroke her hair as if drawn by a magnet He tilted her face up to meet his as he bent down, the sun glancing off his golden hair. Yes, that first kiss, when the thrill of their lips meeting had blotted out all else. The chill in the air, the passing cars, the streetlights… everything else had disappeared, to be replaced by the feelings surging through her body, the fire burning up her spine and spilling over her whole body as he pulled her closer to embrace the whole of her. Four years later, her body remembered that first kiss, and longed for more of the same.

  She lifted her face and put her hand up in protest but could not find the strength to push him away. The cries of seagulls on the nearby shore canoe dimly to her ears. It was warm inside his aims, protected from the ocean wind.

  Conor opened her mouth to tell him no, that she couldn’t let him play with her like this, that he shouldn’t open her heart again. She had gotten over him once, but would she be able to do so again? After all, he had Melissa now�
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  His lips were warm on hers, and his breath hot with passion, as she felt herself drift down that almost-forgotten path inside her body, giving herself over to that energy flow, the excitement pulling her closer and closer to the hard body she could feel under the thick cotton of his sweater.

  Chapter 7

  T he sound of voices on the breeze interrupted that endless moment, and lifting his head, Devon saw a new group of tourists making their way along the boardwalk. The two broke apart, silent and not touching save for Conor’s hand lightly clasped within Devon’s larger one.

  They half-heartedly poked their noses into the sod houses, peering past the smoke-filled entrances into the dark depths within, neither of them very interested in the historic site anymore.

  Even her hunger was forgotten momentarily, and though she said nothing, her heart was singing as if Devon’s warm hand grasped it instead of her hand. As they wandered back along the wooden walkway through the green grassy marshland, the gulls cried in the distance and the wind rustled in the bushes, and a large black dog barked in the distance as he roused the waves by shore. Conor was conscious only of the warmth which flooded her, that familiar joy flooding through her, remembered from all those years ago. Her world was only her, him, and the bright air around them.

  The boardwalk led directly to the interpretation centre on the hill, the only exit from the site. Devon held the glass door open for her, smiling down to her glowing upturned face. He made as if to bend and kiss her again, but was stopped by the presence of people inside.

  Once inside, he paused as a painting caught his interest, a portrait of Leif Erickson the founder of the Viking settlement as painted by a modern artist.

  ‘Hey, isn‘t this by the same artist whose work you have in the bakery?’ he asked, interested.

  Conor looked at the painting and dropped Devon‘s hand as if scalded. She’d forgotten about this piece, possibly the only commissioned work her Dad had ever done. It was the first work he had completed after her mother’s death, while he was in the worst throes of his drinking. Amazing that he could have worked so well at a time when he had been more drunk than sober for weeks on end. This painting held bad associations for her.