Love Unexpected

by Jody Hedlund

  His shoulders loosened, and the lines in his face eased.

  “I was worried I bothered you,” she admitted. “I took you away from your duties. You weren’t concentrating because of me—”

  “Emma, lass,” he interrupted, his lips curving into a half grin, “you don’t need to worry.”

  Next to his experience and knowledge about the intimacies of marriage, she did indeed feel like a lass.

  “Then you’ll come again tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Did she hear a hint of longing in his voice, along with the promise of more of what they’d shared tonight?

  “Aye,” she said. With a smile on her face, she scrambled down the ladder.

  Chapter 18

  Patrick scanned the horizon, gazing out at the emerging sunrise. The storm had rolled through and left in its wake a cloudless sky. While the summer solstice had come and gone, the hours of daylight in northern Michigan were still fairly long. Those extended hours helped save on oil for the lighthouse lantern, something Mr. Yates, the superintendent, would expect when he came to inspect the logbook.

  He couldn’t complain about Mr. Yates. He was a kind man, albeit overworked and underpaid. The Lighthouse Board appointed a superintendent for each district who was responsible for helping maintain the lights and equipment, as well as buying the necessary supplies. Mr. Yates oversaw the lighthouses along Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan—an area much too vast for one man. Since the lakes had thawed, he hadn’t had the chance to visit yet, though he was due any day now. When he arrived, perhaps he would see for himself the wretched condition of Patrick’s tower and send a repair crew.

  Patrick looked back at the house, to the closed curtain of the bedroom window. Emma was still asleep. He learned that she usually awoke shortly after he came into the house and started frying fish from his catch the day before.

  He tried to be as silent as possible, also keeping Josiah’s noise to a minimum, but without exception she stumbled into the kitchen with a yawn and a sleepy smile to join him and the boy. She said good morning, then moved straight to the stove and started making coffee.

  What would she say if he went down to the house early, tiptoed into the bedroom, and kissed her again? The morning was bright enough that he could safely turn off the lantern, sneak in the front door so as not to wake Josiah, and then share a few minutes alone with Emma before their day began.

  He ached to hold her in his arms again, to kiss her. He’d thought about little else all night long. It still amazed him to think that she’d hugged him, that she’d been the one to seek his comfort.

  He’d been afraid to hold her for too long, terrified to kiss her for fear of repulsing her. He didn’t want her to think he’d only invited her to the tower in order to force himself on her, because that wasn’t the case. More than anything, he wanted to get to know her better.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss her and had fought against the urge. But when she’d pressed a kiss to his chest, the simple gesture had ignited him. She might not have meant anything by it, yet it had broken his last resistance.

  She’d melted into him. She hadn’t hesitated to kiss him back, which was so different from Delia, who’d never welcomed his affection. Rather, Emma wanted to be held and kissed by him. How could that be?

  Wonder wrapped around him, warming his heart and stirring his blood. Now that he’d kissed her, he wasn’t sure how he could keep from kissing her again.

  He stared at the bedroom window and swallowed hard. If he kissed her again, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop. He drew a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “Get ahold of yourself,” he whispered.

  Just because he was her husband didn’t mean he had the right to demand anything from her. If she wasn’t willing to give herself freely to him, then he had no right to force her.

  Of course, there were men who claimed that husbands had certain rights when it came to the bedroom, that a wife should submit and meet her husband’s needs no matter what.

  But Patrick didn’t want that kind of relationship. He’d come to this conclusion with Delia when she’d been cold and unresponsive. He decided that if he couldn’t win her affection outside the bedroom, then he didn’t deserve it inside.

  Shaking his head, he turned away from the window, away from Emma.

  She was a sweet lass, and he didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted to court her and win her love that way. He wanted her to see that he was truly a changed man, that he could be good to her despite who he’d once been. Until then, he needed to take things slow, maybe share more about his past.

  He focused again on the lake. Something along the north shore caught his attention. He pressed his face to the glass. Had a small boat wrecked among the rocks?

  Grabbing his binoculars, he looked again. Through the faintness of dawn, sure enough, the stern of a boat and a number of broken boards were strewn over the rocks, with pieces rolling on the waves.

  His body tightened as he strained to see through the binoculars, searching for survivors. Other than the pounding waves, nothing moved. He would have to go check. If the boat capsized during the storm, the passengers might have drowned. Their bodies could have washed ashore anywhere.

  Quickly, Patrick extinguished the lantern and descended the tower. He didn’t want to wake Emma, but he wanted her to be prepared to help should he return with any survivors.

  Soundlessly he slipped into the house, then into the bedroom. At the sight of her curled up on one side of the bed and the other side empty, his body ached with renewed longing. Someday, he chided himself. Maybe someday he would lie next to her.

  He crossed to the bed and crouched beside it, near enough that he could hear her breathing. She’d plaited her long hair, but as usual some silky wisps had come loose. As gently as he could, he moved them off her cheek.

  She stirred and released a soft sigh. In the darkness that still hung over the room, her features were shadowed, though he could still see the slope of her chin and neck.

  He touched her shoulder. “Emma . . .”

  Her eyes fluttered, and at the sight of him hovering over her, they flew open.

  He half expected her to recoil, to scramble to the other side of the bed or to yank the sheet up to her chin to cover her nightdress. Instead, she lay very still and studied his face. Was she thinking about their kiss? Had she felt the passion of their encounter too?

  He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she smiled. “For a second I thought I was still dreaming.”

  “You were dreaming about me then?” he teased softly.

  Her lashes fell, and she tilted her head away from him. But her smile remained. “I was having very sweet dreams.”

  “Then you were definitely dreaming about me.” Her neck and cheek taunted him. It would be so easy to bend down and let his lips linger there, to breathe her in and bury his face in her hair.

  “I admit, you were in my dreams somewhere,” she whispered, and when she looked up, her eyes fixed on his lips and he knew she was remembering their kiss.

  He fought the urge to bend closer. He couldn’t. He needed to show her that he really cared before he could share intimacies with her, and he had to earn her trust and love first. Besides, he had to hurry to the site of the wreck.

  “I have to go,” he said, brushing his finger across her cheek.

  “Where?” She pushed herself up onto her elbows.

  “A boat has wrecked near the shore north of here. I need to go see if there are any survivors.”

  “Do you want me to help?”

  “I wanted you to be prepared. Just in case.”

  She nodded, her innocent eyes staring at him. She was so beautiful. And now after stepping into the bedroom, he needed to plunge himself into the lake to cool off. He stood and left the room before he got himself into a situation where he wouldn’t be able to tear himself away.

  As he hiked along the shore, he splashed his face with cold water and prayed for the strength to be patient
.

  Before long he came upon the wreckage of a rowboat. He sorted through the flotsam, tossing boards onto the shore so they wouldn’t wash away before he had time to investigate them.

  He wound his way farther north and was about to turn back when he stumbled over a body facedown in an area of tall sea grass. Dropping to his knees beside the unmoving form, he braced himself for the worst. He rolled the body over. The man gave a groan, and Patrick felt a small measure of relief. The man was alive.

  But at the sight of the pale, bruised face, the relief evaporated and Patrick pulled back as if he’d been bitten by a snake. He sprang to his feet and retreated several steps.

  It couldn’t be. Yet the black curly hair and beard belonged to only one man. Mitch Schwartz.

  He stared at the man’s wide back and the oilskin coat that was twisted and ripped at one sleeve. He was tempted to sprint back to the lighthouse and slam the door behind him. No one would have to know there had been any survivors of the wreck. He could pretend he hadn’t found anyone.

  He could leave Mitch to die, for that was what Mitch had done to him. He’d left Patrick bleeding and gasping for breath in a puddle of vomit in an alley after he’d been tossed out the back door of a warehouse into a pile of garbage.

  He could admit he’d been about as worthless as trash. But he hadn’t expected his friend and partner to desert him quite so easily. At the very least, he’d thought Mitch would have a couple of the crew carry him back to the ship.

  Mitch moaned again.

  Patrick took another step back. It wasn’t that he was angry with Mitch. In fact, in hindsight he could see now that the loss of the match and the abandonment had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. He ought to thank Mitch for leaving him. If he hadn’t, Holy Bill might never have rescued him.

  No, he was grateful to Mitch.

  Even so, he didn’t want to see the man again. He was a part of his past that he’d tried to run from. And now that he’d built a new life for himself out here in the remote wilderness, he didn’t want to jeopardize anything.

  Patrick crossed his arms over his heaving chest and stared out over the choppy waves and the debris left in the wake of the storm.

  If Mitch knew he was alive, there was no telling what the man would do. And Patrick couldn’t afford to have anyone in the Presque Isle community learn the true nature of his past. The people in the area wouldn’t want him there anymore. They’d ask him to leave the only job he’d ever loved. They’d toss him out into the lake as far as they could throw him.

  That was why Holy Bill and even Delia’s father had all agreed to bury his history.

  And what about Emma? Even if she’d accepted him so far with all his flaws, he’d wanted to wait longer before revealing more about himself.

  He wiped a hand across his eyes and groaned. Oh, Lord, help him. He didn’t want to lose Emma. But he’d told her she could leave if she wasn’t happy with their arrangement. And there was the very real possibility that once she learned the truth about him and his past crimes, she’d catch the first steamer out of Burnham’s Landing.

  “No!” he cried into the damp morning air laden with the scent of fish and wet grass. He couldn’t lose her now. The thought of Emma leaving him was too painful to bear. “What should I do, God?” But even as he lifted his thoughts to heaven, his entire being resisted God’s answer. He didn’t want to hear what God had to say, because he knew he wouldn’t like it.

  He glanced again at Mitch’s body. After the recent moon-cussing incident, he’d hoped Mitch would be long gone from the area by now. “Why are you still here?” he shouted at the prostrate form. “Why didn’t you just die?”

  As the words slipped out, the whisper of God’s presence admonished him. God had rescued him from the pit of hell, had given him a new life, and had blessed him beyond anything he deserved. If God could do that for him, why couldn’t He do it for Mitch too?

  Patrick fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Why now, when everything’s going so well?”

  He pressed his fingers against his eyes, trying to block out the images that haunted him—images of the loot collected after a night of pillaging crops, timber, and liquor. They’d crept into ports in the dead of night and loaded their steamer with anything of value. They’d poached deer and delivered the venison to a company controlled by Chicago’s criminal bosses.

  For a time, they’d even turned a profit running a gambling and prostitution operation from their ship. That was when he’d done the most shameful of things, when in a drunken stupor he’d taken advantage of a woman.

  His shoulders slumped, and the will to go on seeped out of him. He’d been the worst of sinners. It was only by God’s grace that he was alive at all. God had given him a second chance, and he had to do the right thing now.

  He had to give Mitch a chance, no matter the consequences. Even if, in the end, he lost everything.

  Chapter 19

  At the stomp of Patrick’s boots and the loud knock on the door, Emma was there, swinging it open. She’d been waiting and pacing while also trying to keep Josiah occupied.

  Patrick barreled into the front hallway, a body slung across his shoulder and hanging down his back. He was breathing heavily and sweating under the exertion of carrying what she presumed was one of the survivors from the wreck.

  Without a word, he brushed past her and headed directly to the bedroom. She hurried after him and watched with surprise as he dropped the man onto the bed. When Patrick backed away, she sucked in a breath as she found herself gazing upon the face of the man who’d come to visit the night of the storm when Patrick was injured.

  “Is this the pirate?” she asked.

  Patrick nodded but didn’t say anything. His expression was a stormy mask, his shoulders rigid. He set to work yanking off the man’s boots.

  She approached the bed to help Patrick, but he spun toward her with fury in his eyes. “Don’t come near him.”

  She took a rapid step back.

  “I’ll be the one to help him,” he said. “You stay away.”

  Josiah poked his head around the door.

  “And keep Josiah away too,” Patrick said.

  She reached for Josiah’s hand and held him by her side. The situation was serious if Patrick was this upset. She’d never seen him so distraught, almost angry.

  “When he regains his senses, I don’t want you talking to him. Do you understand?”

  “Aye,” Emma replied. She wasn’t sure which frightened her more, Patrick’s tempestuous mood or that they had a dangerous pirate in their house. She tugged Josiah. “Come, little love. We’ll have breakfast.”

  They ate a cold breakfast of leftover biscuits with wild strawberries she’d picked yesterday. Later, when she was heating a kettle of water for laundry, she sensed Patrick’s presence in the doorway.

  She turned to find him watching her, his expression serious and drooping with weariness. “Would you like some breakfast?” she asked, giving him a tentative smile.

  He didn’t smile in return.

  Josiah came out from under the blanket she’d draped across the two chairs to form a fort. She’d learned that the fort was a perfect way to occupy the boy when she needed him to play quietly. “Bad pirate, Daddy?”

  At Josiah’s question, Patrick’s face blanched. “He’s just a man, lad,” he said in a strained voice. “A man in need of the Savior.”

  “Do you think we should report him to the authorities?” she asked. “Maybe he’s a part of the group of pirates that’s been robbing ships in the area. Maybe if we turn him in, no one else will get hurt or lose their property.”

  At Patrick’s headshake, she fell silent.

  Something was wrong, she could sense it, something that went beyond the danger of harboring a pirate in their home. If only she could reassure him.

  She poured Patrick a mug of coffee. More than anything, she wanted him to look at her again the way he had that morning he came into t
he bedroom and woke her with his gentle touch.

  He stared at the blanket under which Josiah had crawled again, hiding himself within the makeshift shelter as he pretended to stay away from the pirate in the bedroom.

  She pressed the cup of steaming coffee into Patrick’s hands. When he took a sip, she waited for his usual compliment about her coffee, but it never came. Instead, he continued to stare at the fort.

  “You’re a good mother,” he finally said.

  “Nay. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and still have so much to learn.”

  “You love Josiah.” His voice was low and insistent. “You’re what he needs.”

  “I do love him,” she admitted, smiling at the sound of his chatter coming from beneath the blanket. Even with his temper tantrums, the boy had captured her heart.

  Patrick set his mug on the sideboard and reached for her arm with a swiftness that took her by surprise. He tugged her toward him, his grip tight. He brought her against him so that she could smell the coffee on his breath and see the desire in his eyes.

  It wasn’t the same look as earlier or even last night, but it radiated his wanting her nonetheless and sent a flood of warmth through her.

  “Promise me one thing,” he said, pressing his mouth against her ear.

  “Anything.”

  His lips slid to the base of her neck, and she sagged into him. How did his merest kiss hold such power over her?

  His mouth returned to her ear, grazed her lobe. “Promise me you’ll take Josiah . . . when you leave.”

  Leave? She stiffened. And before he could make her forget herself with another of his kisses, she pulled back. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Not yet. But you will.” His tone was ominous.

  “Please don’t speak that way—”

  “Promise you’ll take Josiah,” he said again, louder this time. “You can give him a better life than me.”

  “But you’re his father—”

  “Promise me.” Patrick’s expression was as anguished as his voice.