The Drifter

by Susan Wiggs

  Leather creaked as he holstered the weapon. “It’s not loaded.”

  She blinked into the darkness. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

  “Lightning does sometimes strike twice in one place.”

  Leah swallowed. She felt frozen, immobile. She didn’t remember how to be intimate with him anymore. Two months had passed since she had seen him, heard the sound of his voice, kissed him, touched him. Two months that felt like forever. She’d spent an eternity wondering if he’d ever realize he could stop running. An eternity trying to forget him, because that was the only way she could live without him.

  Rain hissed on the windowpanes. A loud male snore drifted down the hall, and he turned his head toward the noise. “House looks good,” he commented.

  “There’s still a lot of finishing work to be done. But everyone cooperated in rebuilding it. The whole town. It was extraordinary.”

  He shifted restlessly. She caught the scents of rain and brine on him. Rain and brine from the sea and something else... She just didn’t know this man anymore.

  She jerked the covers up under her chin. She should be bubbling over with elation. But losing him had made her wary of loving someone as much as she loved him. “Are you still running?”

  “Would it matter to you if I was?”

  She swallowed hard. He was a man who couldn’t stay. That was one thing that would never change about him, no matter what had happened in the past. No matter how hard she loved him.

  “Leah, come with me,” he said. “To the boat.”

  The Teatime. She had spent the past two months trying not to think about it. She didn’t want to remember the time she’d spent there, the dreams she’d dreamed.

  “No,” she whispered, clutching the covers tighter.

  “Please. Trust me. Just one more time.”

  She was terrified because so much was at stake now. She had resigned herself to staying here, raising her baby alone. Now Jackson had come along to threaten the quiet world she’d built for herself. But she knew she had to see him. She was braver now, more sure of herself when it came to matters of the heart.

  “Turn your back while I get dressed,” she said.

  “Isn’t that like closing the barn door after the horse ran off?” he asked, the old teasing note lifting his voice a little.

  Hoping the darkness would conceal her condition, she yanked the covers off and shoved her feet into the sturdy boots she usually wore when making her calls. Then she wrapped herself in a robe, tugging the tie snugly around her waist—or what was left of her waist.

  She tried to pretend this was an ordinary call on an ordinary night. Tried not to think about the fact that a man she had given up on was back, that he still had the power to make her knees weak and her mind swirl with colors and hopes more vivid than the brightest dream.

  “We have a lot to talk about,” she said over her shoulder, her hand on the banister, making her way into the darkness of the foyer.

  “We need to do more than talk,” he whispered, his mouth enticingly close to her ear as he helped her into an oiled slicker. His voice had a curious raw edge to it.

  She stepped out into the wind-driven rain. In the flash of a lightning strike, she turned to look at her captor. Lank hair the color of straw, lean cheeks chapped by the wind and stubbled by a few days’ growth of beard. A wide, unsmiling mouth. He pulled down his dripping hat brim before she could see his eyes.

  Yet she knew that face, those eyes. They were more dear to her than life itself. She had died a thousand deaths thinking she’d never see him again.

  She could feel him behind her, his height and breadth intimidating, uncompromising. The rain drummed relentlessly on her hood. Her booted foot splashed into a puddle, stuck briefly in the sucking mud. She looked back at the boardinghouse. What a wonder it had been, watching the whole town pitch in for weeks on end to make the house livable once again.

  A new tradesman’s shingle hung above the front porch. In the faint gaslight, the lettering was barely legible:

  Drs. Mundy & Lake, Physicians. Rooms To Let.

  A shiver passed over Leah as she approached the schooner. A lamp burned low in the stateroom porthole.

  Just what the devil did Jackson Underhill want now?

  * * *

  Nervously, Leah made her way onto the ship. It was cozier and better kept than she remembered. She sat on the bunk and looked up at him. “Now can you tell me where you’ve been?”

  “I’ve been to hell and back. It’s hell without you, Leah.”

  Her breath caught. “Is that why you came back?”

  “Yeah. And that’s why I plan to stay.” He swallowed. “If you’ll have me.”

  She felt the tears start and blinked fast to keep them at bay. “I won’t, Jackson. Not unless I know it’s forever.”

  “It’s forever. I swear it, honey. Forever and ever.” Wearily, he drew his hand down his face. “It took what amounted to a war party to make me understand that I didn’t have to run anymore.”

  Leah frowned. “A war party?”

  “Skagits. They found me at the Inside Passage in Canada.”

  She blinked in wonderment. “Sophie’s people.”

  “Yep. Joel and Davy were with them.”

  “Sweet heaven.” She knew Santana and Davy Morgan had gone off somewhere, but she’d had no idea they were searching for Jackson. “So they’re back?”

  “Yeah. They told me what I didn’t stick around to hear the day I took off.”

  “That Joel Santana knew it was Carrie all along.”

  “Yeah.” He looked miserable.

  “You couldn’t keep trying to protect her.”

  “I know. Damn.” He leaned back on the bench seat. “I spent so many years of my life chasing a dream, Leah. Chasing an illusion. What the hell does that make me?”

  “A dreamer,” she said softly.

  He sank onto one knee in front of her and took her by the shoulders. “You’re my dream now. You. You always have been. I just didn’t know you were real until I met you.”

  “Jackson...” She couldn’t say anything else. Her heart was in her throat. And in her hands as she stroked his face and his damp hair. And in her lips as she leaned forward to kiss him at last, to taste him, sobbing against his mouth.

  “It’s all right, Leah,” he whispered, pulling back, his own smile wavering. “It’s all right now.” He began kissing her again. His hands threaded into her hair and then moved down, cradling her cheeks before dropping lower. She felt his thumbs skim along her collarbones and wondered how she had survived without him, without this touch, without the precious taste and scent of him near her every moment.

  A slight chill slid across her when he parted her robe. He bent to kiss her breasts and then moved lower...and then he stopped.

  “Damn, Leah.” He looked up at her with eyes full of pain and wonder. “When the hell were you going to tell me?”

  She tucked her knees up against her chest. “I told you we had a lot to talk about.”

  He bristled. “You might have been a little more specific. Christ, you’re pregnant!”

  She remembered his reaction to Carrie’s pregnancy. He’d been terrified, furious. But this was different, she told herself. This had to be different. Still, she didn’t like his harsh tone. “You say that as if you had nothing to do with it.”

  He unwound her hands from her knees and pressed her back onto the bunk. He slid his hand down along her belly, cradling the small rise in his palm. “My Leah,” he said. “My beautiful Leah. What a beautiful baby you’ll have.”

  “We,” she corrected, then lifted herself against him, undoing the buttons of his shirt. The unfamiliarity and awkwardness started to dissolve. She remembered the texture of his tongue as he outlined her lips. She rememb
ered the sound he made deep in his throat when she stroked him. She remembered the exquisite delicacy of his large hands as he moved them over her body, touching her breasts and her thighs, cupping her against him.

  He hovered over her, the lines of his face taut. “I can’t...wait much longer.”

  “No one asked you to.”

  He sank into her as he had in the past, sinking into the middle of her life where everything felt so right. She nearly wept with the unhurried tenderness of their lovemaking. Their rhythm and their release spoke of forever.

  Afterward they slept, replete, in one another’s arms. The rain stopped, and the sun came up just as they awakened.

  Jackson nuzzled his face into her hair. “Doc, that was the first good night of sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

  She stretched, sliding her body against his. “I was almost afraid to wake up. I thought this might be a dream.”

  “It is.” He reached under the bunk and took out a jug of water and two fresh apples. “But it’s a dream that just came true.” A fresh wind sang through the shrouds, and he handed her an apple. “What do you say to a sail?”

  She thought of the agenda she’d planned today. Penny was making the calls, but Leah had planned to work at the surgery on the endless, tedious task of restoring the books and records damaged in the fire. The old Leah would have clung to duty, insisted on keeping to her schedule. But Jackson had changed everything. Today was for them, a stolen time, a time to heal from the past two months of separation.

  “Perfect,” she said.

  * * *

  The Teatime cut cleanly through the hard autumn swells of the Sound. The schooner was truly a thing of beauty and power. No wonder Jackson loved it so. No wonder he kept sailing away.

  They made love during the day, feeling decadent and spoiled under an Indian summer sun. In the late afternoon they lay against each other in the cockpit, warm and languorous with the intimacy they’d shared. Jackson held one hand lazily on the helm while his other one caressed her bare shoulder.

  “Leah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “The one I asked on the porch two months ago.” He kept his eyes on the horizon. “Will you marry me?”

  The haze of sexual contentment cleared away. She drew back, forced herself to look at him, really look. “That depends.”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “On what?”

  “On what you mean.”

  “I mean I want to marry you.” He skimmed his thumbs lightly across her cheeks, catching the tears she didn’t realize she was shedding. “I love you, Leah. I always will. Just showing up and saying the words doesn’t seem like enough. I wish I could have come back on a white charger, bringing you the whole world.”

  “Don’t you see?” she said, her voice breaking as she thought of the day he’d set the painted globe at her feet and walked away. “You’ve already given me the world.”

  He was quiet for a long time. He adjusted his course so that they were sailing due west. Into the sunset.

  “Where are we going, Jackson?”

  “To Coupeville. I reckon we have to, seeing as how I’ve been appointed sheriff.”

  The tears fell freely now; she didn’t try to stop them. “You? Sheriff?”

  “Hired on the recommendation of a recently retired U.S. Marshal.” Letting go of the helm, he turned and took her in his arms. In his eyes she saw the reflection of clouds and sunset. She saw all she had ever dreamed of.

  She bit her lip, tasting the salt of tears and of the sea. “But you wanted to sail to paradise. You talked so much about it. Remember the picture in my office?”

  “Yeah, I remember. Back then I thought it was a place in the middle of the ocean. Or a place on a map.”

  “And now?” She hardly dared to breathe.

  “It’s here, honey.” He tightened his arms around her. “With you. Only I don’t call it paradise anymore.” He set a course for the harbor, and the newly painted boardinghouse hove into view. “I call it home.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE LIGHTKEEPER by Susan Wiggs.

  “Wiggs paints the details of human relationships with the finesse of a master.” —Jodi Picoult

  If you loved The Drifter, don’t miss your chance to download The Lightkeeper and the historical romance trilogy Chicago Fire by #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs.

  Be sure to also join Susan Wiggs as she brings readers to the lush abundance of Sonoma County in The Apple Orchard—a novel of sisters, friendship and the invisible bonds of history that are woven like a spell around us.

  Susan’s emotional Lakeshore Chronicles series is also available wherever ebooks are sold.

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  Chapter One

  Washington Territory

  1876

  On Sunday, something washed up on shore.

  The morning had dawned like all the others—a chill haze with the feeble sun behind it, iron-colored swells gathering muscle far offshore, then hurling themselves against the huddled sharp rocks of Cape Disappointment. The rising sun looked like a wound trying to break through the clouds.

  All this Jesse Morgan saw from the catwalk high on the lighthouse, where he had gone to extinguish the sperm-oil lamp and start the daily chore of trimming wicks and cleaning lenses.

  But it caught him, the sight down on the strand.

  He wasn’t certain what made him pause, turn, stare. He supposed he had always looked but rarely paid attention. If he gazed too long at the gray-bearded waves slapping the fine brown sand or exploding against the rocks, there was a danger that he would remember what the sea had taken from him.

  Most days, he didn’t look. Didn’t think. Didn’t feel.

  Today he felt a disturbance in the air, like the breath of an invisible stranger on the back of his neck. One moment he was getting out his linseed oil and polishing cloths; the next he was standing in the bitter wind. Watching.

  He experienced a sensation so subtle he would never quite understand what made him go to the iron rail, hold tight with one hand and lean out over the edge to look past the jut of land, beyond the square-jawed cliffs, down onto the storm-swept beach.

  A mass of seaweed. Strands of golden-brown kelp shrouding an elongated shape. For all he knew it could be no more than a tangle of weeds or perhaps a dead seal, an old one whose whiskers had whitened and whose teeth had dulled.

  Animals, unlike people, knew better than to live too long.

  As Jesse stood staring at the shape on the beach, he felt...something. A dull knife-twist of...what? Not pain. Nor interest.

  Inevitability. Destiny.

  Even as the foolish thought passed through his mind, his booted feet clattered down the iron spiral of stairs. He left the lighthouse and plunged along the flinty walkway.

  He didn’t have to watch his step as he followed the winding, rocky path to the desolate strand. He had made the short trek a thousand times and more.

  What surprised him was that he was running.

  Jesse Morgan had not been in a hurry for years.

  Yet his body had never forgotten the feeling of pumping thighs and of lu
ngs filling until the sharpness hovered between pain and pleasure. But once he reached the object on the strand, he halted. Stock-still and afraid.

  Jesse Morgan had been afraid for a very long time, though no one ever would have guessed it.

  To the people of Ilwaco, to the two thousand souls who lived there year-round and the extra thousand or so who migrated to the shore for the summer, Jesse Morgan was as solid and rugged and uncompromising as the sea cliffs over which he brooded in his lighthouse.

  People thought him strong, fearless. He had fooled them, though. Fooled them all.

  He was only thirty-four, but he felt ancient.

  Now he stood alone, and the fear scorched him. He did not understand why. Until he saw something familiar within the heap of seaweed in front of him.

  Oh, God. Oh, sweet Jesus. He plunged to his knees, the chill of the sodden sand seeping through his trousers, his hands trying to decide, without consulting his head, where to start. He hesitated, awkward as a bridegroom on his wedding night, about to part the final veil that draped the sweet mystery of his bride.

  The strands of kelp were spongy and cold to the touch. Clinging thick and stubborn to— To what?

  He encountered a piece of fine-grained wood. Smoothed, planed, varnished. Part of a ship. A section of mast or bowsprit with rope lashed to it, the tarred ends trailing.

  Stop, he told himself, already anticipating what he would find. The old horror, still raw after all these years, reared up inside him.

  Stop now. He could stand and turn his back this moment, could climb the path, wend his way through the woods and rouse Palina and Magnus. Send the assistant lightkeepers to investigate.

  But his hands, still the eager, persistent hands of a bridegroom, kept digging and pulling at the slimy shroud, digging and pulling, finding more and more of the mast, the broken-off end, the— A foot. Bare. Cold as ice. The toenails like tiny seashells.

  He drew a harsh breath. His hands kept working, the movement frantic, a rhythm pumped by his own pounding heart.