The Drifter

by Susan Wiggs

  Her cheeks paled. “Then why did I never feel this desire for any other man?”

  “Maybe you never met one who was as persistent about it as I was.”

  “Maybe you’re lying.”

  He’d rarely been caught fibbing, and he wasn’t about to be snared now. “I guess I might be oversimplifying, but believe me, Leah. You’re a beautiful woman. Beautiful to touch and beautiful when you touch me. But what’s touching after all? A physical sensation. Surely you understand that.”

  “Yes, but—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips, those soft, velvety lips he dreamed about every night. “I know what you want to hear. That no one makes me feel the way you do. That you’re the last thought I have when I go to sleep and the first when I wake up. That I can’t let a day go by without touching you, loving you.” Jackson alone knew he was speaking from the heart. But it would be too cruel to let her believe it.

  “Don’t tell me what I want to hear,” she snapped. “Tell me what’s true.”

  “What’s true is that I’ve been with a lot of other women before.”

  “With Carrie?”

  “With a lot of women. And you’ll find something better than we have. With someone else, someone who’ll settle down with you, stay by you, give you the honor of his name.”

  “And you are not that person?”

  “Honey, I never have been, never will be. You know that.”

  “Yes. I know that.”

  “You knew it from the start.” He took away the blanket and kissed her. “So just be with me while I’m here. Let’s not waste any more time talking.”

  “Let’s not.”

  “Let’s...” He leaned forward, whispered a suggestion into her ear. Instead of acting shocked, she laughed low in her throat. God, he loved her. What a cruel joke fate had played on him. Just when he was about to make his great escape, he fell for the one woman who would never come with him.

  Or would she?

  He’d never asked her. He’d never even thought of asking her...until now. Until he loomed above her and saw her dark hair spread across his pillow. Until he looked into her velvet eyes and saw paradise. Until he felt a wave of longing so huge it left him spent...yet craving more. Always more.

  * * *

  Tinny piano music clattered through the waterfront dance hall. The swinging half doors framed a picture-perfect view of San Francisco Bay, the water a blue mirror of the sky and the rock hulk of Alcatraz strangely ethereal, like a postcard Joel Santana had once seen of that place in France—Mont-Saint-Michel.

  He had been combing the city for days, inquiring at bars and boardinghouses along the waterfront. He had a system of searching. He’d enter a place, have a drink, ask a few questions. So far, no one recalled seeing a gambling man and his lady. This was one of the last places on the busy waterfront street known as Tonquin.

  He propped his elbow on the worn walnut bar and sipped cautiously at a dram of whiskey. A man had to be careful in places like this. Whiskey was always watered down to illegal levels, but some places spiked it with chloral hydrate or cocaine shavings. Not a happy combination for a man who needed to keep his wits about him.

  A tired-looking whore sidled up and halfheartedly twitched the tattered hem of her red petticoat at him. He gave his head a brief shake, and she looked relieved, walking away on wobbly high heels.

  Joel put down his drink, for it suddenly tasted too rough and bitter even for his trail-hardened palate. Was there ever a time, he wondered, that he’d found this job exciting? Yeah, probably, but that had been two decades ago when he was still wet behind the ears and absolutely convinced that chasing down bad guys was his calling in life.

  The ensuing twenty years had taught him that there was little actual chasing to be done. Being a marshal consisted mostly of this—a tedious parade of dusty towns and stinking cities, asking questions of people who were either too drunk to answer or who had secrets of their own to hide. Waiting. Watching. Stealing sleep and gulping a meal when he could.

  Joel had taken to dreaming. When he was lost in the desert of Arizona, he’d taught himself to retreat. To go somewhere inside his head where a cool green breeze blew, where a woman’s soothing hand smoothed across his brow, where the smell of an apple pie greeted him at suppertime. He was convinced that his ability to create this world in his mind had saved him from going crazy in the desert and dying of thirst. The strange vision or dream or whatever it was had sustained him, made him focus on surviving, and he had. He’d come out of the desert feeling pounds thinner, uncounted years older—and a lot smarter.

  The wise inner voice told him to quit now, to give up his search for Jack Tower and Caroline Willis. He could return empty-handed, report that the trail had gone cold, and still keep his pride—and his pension. The world wouldn’t end if he retired without closing this last job. He’d traveled more than two thousand miles in pursuit of a pair who probably hadn’t survived this far. What the hell was he doing, chasing ghosts?

  He shut his eyes and tried to ignore the overly bright, off-key piano music. He moved toward that cool verdant place in his head. He started to see it, the lush greens, the blues. He started to smell the ripening apples— “Hey, mister, you’re looking a tad lonely there.” A female voice yanked him back to the seamy dance hall.

  Reluctantly, Joel opened his eyes. Another whore, this one tipsy and not so tired-looking. Christ, she even had dimples and ringlets of yellow hair. Young. Small bosoms, but he’d been known to tolerate small bosoms.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “I seen you from across the room. You look like you done lost your best friend.”

  Joel reminded himself of his purpose. “I guess I have, in a way.”

  She cocked her head, looking depressingly vacant.

  He decided to give it a try anyway. “I was supposed to hook up with a buddy of mine, and I guess I missed him. Name of Jack Tower. Tall drink of water, yellow hair, maybe a beard and mustache if he hasn’t been to the barber lately. Had a scar right about here.” Joel indicated the crest of his cheekbone.

  She frowned, concentrating as hard as her beer-washed brain would let her. “I mighta seen someone like that.”

  Knowing it would probably go to waste, Joel pressed a dollar into her palm. “He was a pretty sharp cardplayer. Five-card draw was his game. And he might have been traveling with a woman. Pretty little thing, as I recall. Blond hair, blue eyes. A few years older than you.”

  The whore tapped her temple as if the motion would jog her memory. “Seems to me I seen a pair like that a few months ago. But it’s tough, mister. I see so many folks come through the Tarnished Angel.”

  Fighting exasperation, he handed her another dollar.

  “She liked her whiskey, as I recall. Carried it in a blue glass bottle,” the woman said. She winked at Joel. “You know, mister, I can concentrate a lot better in my own private room.”

  “Is that a fact?” In spite of his disgust—at both the woman and himself—Joel’s body reminded him that he was not as old as he felt, and she was not as bad as she looked.

  “Yeah, hon, that’s a fact.” She took his hand and led him upstairs.

  Thirteen

  12 August 1894

  My dear Penelope,

  I hope this reaches you before you embark on your journey west. This will be my last letter before we meet face-to-face. I never thought I would find myself in the position to confess this, but now I understand what it is to love. It is not the unhealthy attachment I had to my father, worshiping him simply because he was there. I’ve learned that there are other ways to love, better ways.

  Who would have thought I’d find it with a man like Jackson T. Underhill? He is everything polite society frowns upon—he has no family and no home, though he is lately come from Texas—but I cannot h
elp myself. When I am with him, all the colors of the world shine brighter. When we are apart, I go about with a dull feeling inside me, and there is nothing for it but to wait for our next meeting.

  I am not certain where all this is leading but of one thing I am sure. I have only one life. It’s time I stopped living it in fearful isolation. It’s time I discovered what I’ve missed before it’s too late.

  Respectfully,

  Leah Mundy, M.D.

  The breeze blowing across the Sound rippled the day-old newspaper Jackson was reading. He pressed a palm down on the deck to hold it in place and stared at a small boxed article in the Pioneer and Democrat.

  Newly appointed U.S. Marshal R. Corliss, of Port Townsend, is lately credited with the seizure of three thousand dollars’ worth of smuggled opium syrup. On West Beach, a fruit grower mistook the substance for mineral paint and used it to paint his barn a deep maroon color....

  The sun still held the warmth of high summer. But as he checked the Teatime from stem to stern, Jackson felt a slight chill. Restlessness nagged at him. He’d always had an uncanny sixth sense for danger, and that sense—coupled with the mention of a federal marshal in the area—told him he’d overstayed his welcome here on this green, too-friendly island where the town sheriff thought he was a do-gooder and the town doctor had captured his heart.

  “She’s looking good, Skipper,” Davy Morgan said, coming along the dock, his red hair blowing out behind him.

  Jackson folded the paper and stuffed it into his back pocket. “You think she’s seaworthy?”

  “As much as an old blue-water boat can be in these parts.” His piercing blue eyes were filled with a wisdom that made him seem older than his years. He checked the row of belaying pins stuck in the fife rail and nodded in approval. “Just keep a weather eye out, follow the charts for the shoals, and you’ll be fine.” Lithe as a cat, he slipped up the ratlines to the midmast, aligning a pulley. “Where you planning on going anyway?”

  “Do I have to know precisely?”

  “It sort of helps with the travel plans.” Davy shinnied down the mast and landed with a barefooted thud on the deck. “I hear the Sandwich Islands are fine.”

  “Yeah.” Jackson pictured Robert Louis Stevenson seated under a banyan tree, writing his tales of adventure while girls with flowers in their hair brought him coconut milk. “I might go see that for myself.”

  “When do you weigh anchor?”

  Never, Jackson wanted to say. But he knew better. He knew the past would find him here if he stayed long enough. Yet even that chilly certainty lost its urgency when he thought of Leah. Christ, how could he give up what they had?

  “No one’s going anywhere on this yet,” he said. “Today I’m just hoping I can make it to the cove and back.” He bent to secure a fender to a new cleat.

  “Take the dinghy just in case. Is Dr. Mundy going with you?”

  Jackson looked up sharply. “The doc?” He shrugged, elaborately casual. “I suppose, if she’s of a mind to join me.”

  Davy smiled, his old-soul eyes twinkling. “I imagine the doctor’s of such a mind.” Since the fire, both he and Bob Rapsilver took care to address Leah as Doctor.

  Jackson went on working. For Leah’s sake, he was discreet about their liaison. He supposed Davy, who bunked at the harbor house, couldn’t help but notice the long visits she paid to the schooner, but the youth kept mum.

  Later, as he was getting ready to set sail, Leah appeared at the head of the pier. Davy conveniently slipped away, nodding courteously to her as they passed on the dock.

  Damn, Jackson thought, watching her approach from his perch on the bowsprit, she was a good-looking woman. Not some pale china doll, but rock solid, her brown-eyed gaze direct and filled with an intelligence that should have intimidated him, but didn’t.

  As she drew nearer, his heartbeat sped up. He recognized what he was feeling now, even though he’d never felt it before. Never even thought himself capable of it. At first, he’d tried to dismiss it as lust, and he certainly felt that, but then after the lust, a quiet, settled feeling took over, reminding him of home fires at twilight, of earnest conversations and private jokes and close-knit families.

  Ah, Leah. Make me stop loving you. Do it now, before I hurt you.

  She smiled as she stepped aboard. “I finished my rounds early.”

  “Those rounds sure keep you busy.” He looked at her hands—clean, strong, capable hands. Who had they touched today? Who had they healed?

  “It was a quiet afternoon. Summers aren’t usually too bad for sickness.” She took in the schooner with a sweeping glance. Alarm flickered across her face. “You’re ready to cast off.”

  “Uh-huh. A trial run.”

  Relief washed the tension from her face. “You were waiting for me.”

  “That’s what Davy says.” Jackson was eager to weigh anchor, enjoy the sail, get the feel of the water under him once again. “Ready?” he asked Leah.

  She smiled. “You’re supposed to shout orders down the decks.”

  “That’s only if you have a crew.”

  She muttered about the folly of sailing solo, but was quick enough to untie and push off into the open waters. Jackson’s sense of wonder took over. The newly patched sails rode up without a hitch; he set them to the gentle summer wind, and the schooner coursed along with the grace of a seabird.

  “Damn, Leah!” he shouted from the helm. “It worked. We’re sailing!”

  From the bow of the ship, she lifted her arm and waved at him. The sharp teeth of the bow cut a white-lipped wake, the sails snapped taut, wrapping around a friendly wind; the hull rushed over the rocking swells. And perched proudly on the foredeck was a dark-haired woman with her head thrown back, laughing with delight.

  In that moment, Jackson knew his life was as close to perfect as it was going to get. His heart felt big, as if it was pushing up into his throat. She looked so fine and joyous just then that she took his breath away.

  He experimented, tacking back and forth, setting a course and then changing it, lashing the helm in place and going below to see how the pumps were holding up. Everything worked. It was almost scary. Almost.

  After an hour’s sail, he came about and nosed into the cove they’d found earlier in the summer. “We’ll drop anchor here,” he called to Leah.

  She frowned. “Why here?”

  “I thought we’d check out that smugglers’ cave, make sure it’s not full of guns again.”

  “Last time we tried to interfere with the smugglers, people almost got killed and the chandlery burned.”

  “Yeah, and the sheriff hasn’t done a damned thing about it.” Jackson felt a spark of anger. He’d delivered the evidence to the sheriff’s door, all but finding the culprits for him. Why hadn’t St. Croix staked out this place? Why hadn’t he kept a watch on the cave?

  They rowed the dinghy to shore, then grabbed a pair of blankets from the boat, climbed to the top of the bluff, and checked the cave. Empty.

  “I hope it stays that way,” Leah said.

  He thought of that night, the blood and fire and violence, and some impulse made him grab her and pull her against him. “Stay safe, Leah,” he said, inhaling the fragrance of her hair.

  “Of course I’ll stay safe,” she said, pushing back to eye him inquisitively. “Why wouldn’t I be safe?”

  “You live in a place where pirates attack.”

  Thunder pulsed in the distance.

  “I think that’s like lightning striking. Never twice in the same spot.” She tilted her head to one side. “You’re like that, aren’t you, Jackson? You never go back to a place.”

  He kissed her temple. “Nope.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Never had a reason to.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you tol
d me?”

  Christ. He wanted to tell her everything. About his mother leaving him on the stoop. About Brother Anthony with his ring of office and his belt. About the endless dark nights at St. I’s. About the lost years that had turned him from a desperate young boy into a man hardened by life. About the night in Rising Star when he’d sold his soul for a woman who was not worth the price.

  He wanted to share it all with Leah, and then he wanted to hold her close and know she loved him anyway. The panic came again, the sense that he had no right to feel what he felt for her.

  “A man like me makes his share of mistakes. And enemies,” he added. “On both sides of the law.”

  “What mistakes?” she persisted. “What enemies?”

  “I won’t put you at risk by naming names,” he snapped, frustrated.

  She turned away to watch the boat riding at anchor.

  He hated to think of her alone, living out her life here, year after year, vulnerable to the world.

  It started raining, a typical summer rain swishing down in a great curtain. With an almost angry tug, he turned her toward the woods. “Let’s go look at the forest house.”

  She balked. “I don’t think—”

  “Then don’t think. Let’s just go, Leah.”

  The grove had grown even more lush with summer foliage. And like the first time, a hush hung in the air as if the trees were holding their breath and waiting, waiting...for something. Fanciful as the notion was, Jackson couldn’t shake it any more than he could shake the sense of awe and reverence the greenwood grove evoked.

  Leah didn’t speak; she kept her hand in his as they approached the strange, hidden little house. He thought of her coming here after he was gone. Would she sit inside on a rainy day and think of him? Is this the place she would come to hide from the world for a while?