The Drifter

by Susan Wiggs

  I would like to tell you that I saw through her and answered her need, but this is not true. It took a charming newcomer to make this lady see that she is an attractive and worthy woman, corset or not.

  A simple thing.

  So why was I blind to that? My temper, I suppose. I should learn to hold it in check. But honestly, I get so frustrated when I do the right thing and get kicked in the teeth. Then a stranger comes along and charms everyone into forgetting it all—

  Leah sighed and rubbed her temples where an insidious headache pounded. She knew why her head hurt, and she knew what she had to do to make it stop.

  She’d been too proud to thank Jackson Underhill for what he’d done. Too proud to admit that her method of dealing with her patient was inferior to his. Too proud to acknowledge the wit and intelligence of a man she considered a drifter.

  Yet he’d recognized the reverend’s wife for who she really was—a woman in need of a little attention and flattery. Jackson had a way of seeing people that Leah lacked.

  How does he see me? she wondered.

  She glanced back over the letter to Penelope Lake, then put it in a drawer to finish later. “Ah, Penny,” she said. “It’s so easy to tell you what is in my heart and mind. Why is it so impossible to say it to him?”

  Because he was a stranger with a shady past.

  Because he was leaving, never to return.

  Because if she told him the truth, she’d have to admit that she was lonely, that she ached, that she feared she would never belong in anyone’s life, or have anyone who belonged in hers.

  She drew in a long, shuddering breath and blinked until she was dry-eyed again. Then she made a decision. She had to thank Jackson Underhill. How hard could it be anyway?

  Nine

  Impossible, thought Leah as she stood on the dock beside the Teatime. There was no way on earth she could look Jackson T. Underhill in the eye and say “Thank you for helping me. You were right and I was wrong.” So when he began to emerge from the belly of the old wooden hull, shirtless and dazzlingly handsome in the high summer sun, she didn’t say thank-you at all. She said, “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you some lunch.”

  His grin widened. “Thank you, Doc. Much obliged.”

  She waited in heated discomfort while he extracted himself from the impossibly tiny hatch. His hair was tousled, his tanned face smudged with dark grease and sweat. He shouldn’t look attractive, but damn him, he did. He angled his body slightly to fit through the opening. It was then that she feared he might be naked. Like a genie coming out of a lamp, he exited from the portal, his broad bare chest glistening in the sun, a line of golden hair leading downward from his navel. Leah told herself to look away from the indecent display, but instead, she gaped like a lingcod.

  He wore jeans slung low from having the pockets overloaded with tools. She gave an audible sign of relief.

  “Doc,” he said, “you’ll have to excuse me while I wash up. Then I’ll have lunch with you, and you can thank me for saving your butt yesterday.”

  “You did not save my butt!” Leah blurted before she quite realized what she was saying. When she did, her hand flew to her mortified mouth.

  “You’re mighty cute when you say butt,” he declared, then disappeared into the stateroom to wash and dress.

  By the time he came out, Leah had worked herself into a fine temper. “What makes you think I came to thank you?”

  “Because I deserve it. The preacher’s wife was planning to run you out of town, and I made her think you did her a favor by burning her drawers.”

  “It was her corsets, and I did do her a favor.”

  “She didn’t see it that way. Not until I pointed it out.”

  “Ah, that you did. You’re an impossible flirt, Mr. Underhill.”

  “It generally works on the ladies,” he said.

  “It doesn’t work on me.”

  “Who said you were a lady?”

  “Certainly not you.”

  He sauntered over, moving with lazy grace. He’d put on a clean blue shirt, but he hadn’t buttoned it yet. Beads of water spangled his chest. “Then what works on you? Tell me that. What sort of flirting makes your heart beat faster?”

  “No flirting works on me. I despise flirting. It’s pointless and demeaning behavior.”

  “It’s sort of fun sometimes.”

  “Fun?”

  “Yeah, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Fun. You wouldn’t know it if I took your fancy hypodermic needle and shot it into your arm.”

  “But I brought you a picnic.”

  Slowly, keeping his eyes on her, he buttoned his shirt. “Are we having a good time yet?”

  The conversation had grown so absurd that she gave in to a smile. “I think we are, Mr. Underhill. Yes, I do believe we are.” It felt alien. Yet not at all unpleasant. She looked left and right, at a loss. “So, where shall we have our lunch?”

  She surveyed the boat in dismay. All the flooring had been taken up to give access to the pumps and lower compartments. A decidedly bilgelike smell came from somewhere in the bowels of the ship. To add to the atmosphere, a fisherman had just docked nearby with a reeking load of Penn Cove mussels. Gulls screeched and wheeled over the wharf area.

  “Let me get some boots on, and then we’ll go,” Jackson said.

  “Fine.”

  She heard him banging around in the stateroom below and started to feel faintly ridiculous. Here she was, the town’s spinster physician, boldly calling on a handsome widower. The thing was, the world hadn’t come to an end. That was a surprise. There had been a time when her father had convinced her that if she so much as stepped a toe outside the realm of sober study, life as she knew it would end.

  Oh, Papa, she thought, why didn’t I see how wrong you were? She remembered how hard she had worked all her life to please him. From the moment she awoke until the moment she fell asleep, her every act was directed at earning his love.

  She’d failed, of course. She had gained his esteem, perhaps, but that was a cold substitute for the needed warmth of a father’s love.

  “Why the long face?” Jackson demanded.

  Leah snapped to attention. “Oh! Is my face long? I didn’t mean for it to be.” He laughed at her, and she glared. “I don’t get the joke, Mr. Underhill.”

  “Call me Jackson.”

  “I won’t. I refuse to.”

  “Call me Jackson.”

  “No.”

  “By the end of the day, you will.”

  “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged and leaned down over the side, untying a small, weather-beaten dinghy. “Give me your hand, and I’ll help you in.”

  She stared at the little wooden rowboat. “You expect me to go somewhere in that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I—”

  “Get in, Doc.”

  As she was gathering breath for a protest, he braced one booted foot on the dock, took the basket in one hand and Leah in the other. She felt her feet leave the planks, and the next thing she knew, she was in the boat. He settled her in the bow, sat astern and took up the oars. In moments, he had the boat gliding out past the cove and heading slightly northward where evergreen-topped cliffs lined the coast.

  “The house looks kind of pretty from here,” he said.

  She had been watching the way he moved as he rowed, and his comment startled her. “My house?”

  He nodded behind her. “I was just saying it looks mighty pretty.”

  Clutching the sides of the boat, she swiveled around and looked. The bright whitewash gleamed against the green-carpeted hills. The wraparound porch, its railings aligned like perfect
ly straight teeth, seemed to take on the shape of a smile. Jutting out from the roof was the front gable, its round colored window depicting the ship at sea. She couldn’t fault her father in his choice of a house. The place had been a wreck when he’d gone into debt to buy it, but thanks to the boarders, Leah was slowly restoring it to its former grandeur.

  “I’ve never looked at it from the water like this.”

  “Must be nice, seeing a place like that and knowing it’s your home.”

  She thought about it for a moment. Home. Why did hearing the word spoken in Jackson’s voice sound so warm and hopeful? “It was my father’s choice,” she said. “He always did have excellent taste.”

  “You sound disapproving.”

  “Our means rarely matched his taste.” Her cheeks flamed as soon as the words were out. “I’m sorry. I should know better than to say such a personal—”

  “Leah, you don’t have to be so prim and proper around me. So your father lived beyond his means. He wouldn’t be the first.”

  It was a relief to be able to admit her troubles. She nodded, heaving a sigh. “He always wanted the best, expected the best. But he couldn’t afford it.”

  “Did he expect the best of you, too?”

  “Of course. What father wouldn’t?”

  He shrugged. “That’s not something I’d know about.”

  The sun sparkled on the water as he brought the dinghy ashore at a little protected beach. A family of seals lazed on the rocks at low tide, blinking at the newcomers, unafraid. Jackson stood and held out his hand to her. Gentlemanly gesture or step toward a forbidden intimacy? Leah wondered. But this time, she took it.

  They walked together along the beach, a secluded stretch inhabited by no one. “How’s Sophie?” he asked, scanning the area.

  “Mourning her kinsman,” she said. “Neither the sheriff nor the Indian agent seems inclined to find out how the murder actually came about.”

  “Finding out is not going to bring a dead man back to life.”

  “It might stop another murder from happening,” she said.

  They walked in silence for a while. He chose a spot in the shade of a stand of madrona trees, their bare red trunks and thick green leaves bowing over a section of the beach. “Hungry?” he asked.

  She nodded, opening the basket. “I don’t know what I’d do without Perpetua.”

  The boardinghouse cook had fixed fried chicken and flour-dusted soda biscuits, a jar of cold grapes, wedges of cheese and thick slices of peach pie topped with cinnamon. Two cold bottles of home-brewed beer provided the liquid refreshment.

  With a sigh of contentment, Jackson leaned back against a rock. “I could get used to this.”

  “To what?”

  He swept his arm out, encompassing the scenery and the lunch, as well. “All of this. Living in a place where the food’s good every day, day in and day out. Where you can walk out your front door and be at the water’s edge. Where you can earn an honest living. You’ve got it good here, Doc.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “So what’s the matter?”

  She frowned. “There’s nothing the matter. Why would you suggest such a thing?”

  “You almost always eat by yourself. You spend your evenings with a book rather than company.” He counted the examples off on his fingers. “You almost never smile, Leah. You never laugh. All you do is work.”

  She bristled. “Did it ever occur to you that work makes me happy?”

  “I know. I’ve been watching you. You care so damned much. I’ve never heard you complain about having to get up in the middle of the night or treating someone you know won’t pay you.”

  “I have to. I took an oath.”

  “You don’t need an oath. You made a miracle with—” He broke off, clearly regretting the direction the conversation had taken.

  “With Carrie,” she finished for him. “And that was no miracle. It was hard work for all of us, especially for her, and in the end, nothing we did mattered as much as her craving for the drug.” Leah forced herself to keep her gaze trained on him. “Mr. Underhill?”

  “Mmm?” He took a pull on his beer.

  “Do you miss her very much?”

  “Hell yes, but—” He broke off again and scowled.

  “But...?”

  “Everyday living seemed to be wearying to her. Each day was a trial. Maybe she’s in a better place.”

  “And what about you? Now that Carrie’s gone, what are you running from?” she asked bluntly.

  He looked at her for a long time, shadows of darkness flickering in his eyes. “You got no call to be asking me that.”

  “I think I do,” she said. “I think it’s time you told me why.”

  His face hardened, suddenly looked distant and strange. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because telling you won’t change what’s done. And if anyone ever asks you about me, I don’t want you to have the answer. If I don’t tell you anything, you won’t have to lie.”

  She took a long swig of her beer. “You think I’ll be shocked. You think I have no knowledge of the shady side of the law. Well, let me tell you, I was raised by a man who slept with his entire fortune and a pistol under his pillow. He kept one step ahead of the law all his life.”

  There. She’d spoken the truth. It felt good to admit it at last—that her father, whom she’d revered from the cradle, was a charlatan. The admission hurt, yet it was liberating.

  “You won’t shock me,” she said to Jackson.

  He exhaled loudly. “Right. Because I got nothing more to say on the matter.”

  “I’ve just confessed a deep secret of the soul to you,” she burst out. “You! The man who abducted me from my bed!”

  His gaze probed her, caressing, touching places she shouldn’t want him to touch. “I remember that night, too, Doc,” he said, and his voice was low and rough as if speaking an endearment.

  But he wasn’t, of course. She must really be falling under his spell. Because she loved it when he called her Doc.

  “Promise you won’t get mad if I tell you something?” he went on.

  “I’d never make such a silly promise. But tell me anyway.”

  “Right before I woke you up to ask for the doctor, I looked at you. There was a storm that night, remember? When the lightning flashed, I could see you clearly.”

  She shivered despite the warmth of the day, picturing Jackson standing over her with a gun, watching her sleep while lightning seared the sky. “And...what did you see?”

  “I saw what you could be if you’d relax and let go a little. Someone who could take the time to enjoy life. You’re real pretty when your face is all soft and your hair’s loose—”

  Embarrassed, she leaped to her feet. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

  “No, Doc. No, you don’t. That’s part of your problem. You want to know everyone else’s business, but when it comes to your own, you don’t lis—”

  She stalked away, her feet crunching over the broken shells on the beach. She walked blindly, not heeding where she went, vaguely noting a break in the trees and heading for it. He called out to her, but she ignored him. She went into the woods and climbed a steep incline that wound through the forest of alder and cedar. She was appalled to feel a lump in her throat, the burn of tears in her eyes.

  He laid her soul bare, made her see things about herself she didn’t want to see. Made her want things she shouldn’t want and could never have.

  She heard him walking behind her, but she forged ahead. Thick shade darkened the pristine woods, and the cool green air rushed past her, welcome on her hot face. Through a gap in the trees, she saw a sunny open space, and she headed for it, knowing it led to a road back to Coupeville.

&nb
sp; At the edge of the clearing, Jackson caught her arm. It occurred to her that he could have caught her anytime; he was that much taller and faster than she, but he’d held back. Until now. He pulled her around to face him.

  “Leah,” he said, his voice gravelly and intimate. “What the hell are we doing?”

  She yanked her arm away and stalked into the middle of the clearing, welcoming the battering heat of the sun. “I thought we were going to have lunch.”

  “We had lunch.”

  “Then we should go back.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. What the hell are we doing?”

  She set her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You’ll have to explain that question. Or better yet, answer it yourself. You seem to know everything.”

  “I don’t know a goddamned thing,” he said, sounding harsh. “But there’s something going on between us. Something that neither of us will admit to.”

  “Then we should keep it that way. Don’t you think that would be best?” She studied him; his face in the sunlight was harsh, its angles and planes stark, the squinting eyes assessing, the color like ice in the middle. “I am bound to stay here, Mr. Underhill. In this town. With these people who need me. And you seem bound to go sailing off Lord-knows-where. So there really isn’t any point in pursuing our...our...friendship, is there?” she finished lamely.

  “Does everything have to have a point?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t it?”

  He shifted his weight to one foot and looked around, studying the sweep of the clearing and the emerald fringe of the tall trees, the marbled blue sky in the distance. “Where are we?”

  “North of town.”

  “And what’s that?” He pointed to a hazy blue-green land mass to the northwest.

  “Why, that’s Canada. On a clear day, it looks so close you can almost touch it.”

  “Canada,” he said, almost to himself. “That’s Canada.”

  “Yes. Just beyond the San Juan Islands.”