A Summer Affair

by Susan Wiggs

  “They weren’t very helpful,” said Leland.

  “Call back your men. Unless you prefer to be undefended.”

  She could see her point sink home. He summoned the men back with a whistle.

  Isabel had no time to feel relieved. “I’ll just be on my way, then.” She raced down the street, nimbly ducking under the arm of one of the men who was returning to Leland like a trained dog. She prayed the shroud of fog would help her disappear quickly.

  Leland yelled an order, but she kept running, skirts bunched in her hand, feet flying over the wet pavement. She had but a few moments’ advantage, and no real hope of outrunning them. She could not evade them for long. She headed for the open door of an establishment, hoping to find sanctuary there. But when he saw her coming with a herd of armed men in pursuit, the proprietor slammed the door.

  Ordinarily she was adept at vanishing. She had a particular talent for slipping into small spaces like a rabbit down a hole. But tonight she felt winded and clumsy, not at all herself. She tripped over a garbage-strewn curb and lurched into a crowd of people who fell back and dispersed. Frantic, she veered into the street again, blindly running for safety. But safety had never been there for her. She knew better than that.

  She headed for the Rescue League. It was the only place she could think of. Her hat flew off, and she threw a shoe like a panicked mare. Leland’s men meant business. She could hear one of them breathing heavily, closing in on her.

  Around a deserted street corner, gaslight glinted off the polished side of a vehicle. It was an open carriage, as shiny and out of place here as a new penny in a mud puddle. It probably belonged to one of the well-heeled opium traders, but she was in no position to be fussy. She headed for the carriage.

  Someone grabbed at her skirt from behind. At the same moment, a hand reached for her, bunching into her sleeve. She felt two powerful arms grasping her, lifting her up. She landed with a jarring thud. The vehicle lurched forward again, heading up the hill, away from the waterfront.

  She struggled to catch her breath and looked up at her rescuer. Relief and astonishment poured through her. “How did you find me?”

  Blue Calhoun pulled at her arm, setting her upright on the upholstered seat. “I just went where the trouble was.”

  Twenty-Two

  Blue drove home at a rapid clip, following a line of lighted gas lamps up the hill. It did not escape him that this was the second time he’d been down to the waterfront tonight. But this time, he was the one driving.

  And his hands were shaking like leaves in a strong wind. He pressed his wrists into his knees and concentrated on his driving, holding the reins soft between his fingers. The fear that gripped him was a physical force, strangling him, leaving a harsh, metallic taste in his mouth. Though indifferent to his own safety, he hated feeling afraid for other people. This was exactly what he’d spent the past decade trying to avoid. He’d been successful up until now, keeping himself walled off from caring. But Isabel Fish-Wooten had dropped without warning into his life, and everything was changing despite his best efforts to keep everything the same.

  “This truly makes no sense,” she said, correctly reading the fury in his scowl. “You wanted me gone, so I left.”

  “I never said I wanted you gone.”

  “I may be many things, but I’m not stupid. I did you the favor of disappearing. I thought you’d be grateful. Besides, I don’t need rescuing.”

  “You were doing so well on your own.”

  “You kept saying I was better. I felt fine.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re well enough to go chasing around the Barbary Coast.”

  “I didn’t plan that.”

  “Then what the hell were you planning, Miss Fish-Wooten? A tea party? The waterfront’s a thieves’ paradise and worse. You know that. Why did you go back there?”

  “I had business to take care of.”

  God, she frustrated him. Business to take care of. At the Barbary Coast. “The only people who have business down there at night are smugglers and wh—” He stopped, nearly losing his grip on the reins. He looked over at her, a small shadow with waves of light passing over her from the glowing lamps that lit the roadway.

  She gave a bitter laugh. “You wouldn’t be the first to believe I’m the sort of woman who would trade my flesh for money.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “Of course you thought it.”

  Had he? It would be so much easier to dislike her if that was the case. And it occurred to him that, once again, she had skirted a key issue with him. He reached the stables and put up the horse and rig. As he worked, he realized that she’d managed to avoid explaining herself. “You still haven’t told me what you were doing down there.”

  “If you must know, I was trying to get my money and belongings back from someone who swindled me.” She waved her gloved hand in impatience.

  He watered the horses, then held the door for her. As she stepped past, he was assailed by her—the smell of her hair, her skin. Even disheveled, having lost her hat and one shoe, she was wildly attractive to him. In the glow of the occasional street lamp, she looked ethereal. The delicate sweep of her cheekbones and the mysterious wells of her eyes seemed to beckon him to a place he’d never been before, not even with Sancha. This was insane, he thought.

  “Who swindled you?”

  “A ticket agent—at least, that’s who I thought he was. He called himself Mr. Leland, and he sold me a very expensive first class billet aboard a ship bound for Honolulu.”

  “Let me guess. You reported to the pier listed on the ticket only to find a sand barge moored there.”

  “Worse,” she admitted. “It was a garbage scow.”

  He fought the slightest twinge of humor, but she seemed to sense the battle in him. “All right, I deserve to be laughed at. You might as well. There’s certainly no point in crying over it.”

  “Have you attempted to get your money back before?” As soon as he asked the question, realization dawned on him. “Ah. That’s what you were doing the night you were shot.” Her silence confirmed it. He stepped aside and motioned her through the stable door, rolling it shut behind her. “If you were swindled, you should have gone to the police.”

  “I did, but it was fruitless, of course,” she said. “We both know that when one’s fortune goes missing in a place like that, the police aren’t likely to be of any help.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m accustomed to solving my own problems.”

  Exasperated, he led the way up the service alley and along the concrete walkway to the house. She stumbled a little in the dark, and he slipped his arm around her waist to steady her. She exhaled a small exclamation, then leaned gently against him. She was just a wisp of a thing; her power over him wasn’t derived from physical strength. Despite her evening at the waterfront, she smelled of floral soap and some unnamable essence that drove straight through him. Beneath his guiding hand, she felt curiously fragile.

  He wasn’t prepared for such an abundance of sentiment, particularly in relation to this woman. Yet caution didn’t seem to matter when it came to Isabel Fish-Wooten. The very air between them felt charged with invisible energy. His senses were filled with her—the dainty press of her slight weight against him, that luxurious scent, the softness of her hair.

  In his mind, he enumerated all the reasons he should not want her. They came from different worlds. She believed life was an endless journey, while he wanted only to settle and stay in one place. She was mysterious about her background, a sign that she harbored secrets he would not like. Though she talked far too much, she disclosed little about herself. Her explanation of shady dealings at the waterfront was probably only a small part of a sordid story. She was wholly inappropriate.

  Yet as they walked together toward the house, his arm stayed around her and she pressed even closer. All those well-thought-out reasons evaporated. Worse, his heart was tangling into a knot over her. He
simply couldn’t understand it. He was the type of man who planned his days and marched through them according to schedule. This was not supposed to be happening to him.

  A faint glow from the parlor window cast a pale fan of light over the lawn. The thick perfume of Ligustrum and mimosa filled the air. In the distance, a foghorn blasted into the night. He felt Isabel hesitate and slow her steps.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, holding out his hand in case she needed to steady herself. “Do you feel faint?”

  She placed her hand in his. “It’s all so beautiful.”

  He scanned the yard and the view of the city and the bay far below, a necklace of misty lights strung along the waterfront. “I suppose it is.”

  “Not just the city,” she said. “Your home and your son… Your whole life.”

  How could anyone look at his life and see something beautiful? He wished he could view himself, his world, through her eyes.

  She glanced from their joined hands to his face and back again. Boldly, deliberately, she moved his hand to her waist. As she tipped back her head to look up at him, light and shadow flickered across her face. “You live in a world of blessings, yet you’re not a happy man.”

  Her statement seared him deep enough to hurt. But instead of letting go, he slipped his other arm around her and pulled her closer. No one, not even his family, had ever dared to say such things to him before.

  “How could my happiness—or lack thereof—possibly matter to you?” he asked.

  She rested her hands on his arms, perched them there like a pair of doves poised to fly away without warning. “I think you should tell me about your wife.”

  “Between Delta and my family, you’ve heard all you need to know.”

  “That’s not so. It’s your story to tell.”

  “For God’s sake—”

  “You’re a physician. You make it your business to understand the nature of wounds and healing. Has it never occurred to you to liken such a terrible loss to an injury?”

  She was watching him expectantly, and he was stunned to feel a singular urge to share his heart with her. But he said, “I never speak of what happened to Sancha.”

  “Perhaps you should.”

  “What would it serve?”

  “What would it hurt?”

  Blue tore his gaze away from her. Behind her, the house loomed like a fortress, an imposing presence he had never fully appreciated. He had been indifferent to luxury and style, but not to his wife.

  “Words are easy,” he said, resisting the idea of sharing his heart with this woman. “They’re nothing but noisy air. They won’t change a thing.”

  But then he remembered a time when words had been impossible. When he was very small, his mother had died and he’d simply stopped speaking. He recalled his elation and utter relief when he’d finally been persuaded to speak again.

  He gazed down at Isabel Fish-Wooten, and a voice that didn’t even seem like his own said, “We lived together in this house for five years. Lucas was born here. Sancha lavished love and attention on this house as though it was a second child. We were—” He paused. “Happy doesn’t begin to describe it. But I was less content with my medical practice.”

  “You didn’t like being a doctor?”

  “It’s the only thing I ever wanted to be. But my practice… It was the one source of friction between us. Sancha wanted me to confine my work to the Hill, and I tried that for a while. Well-heeled gentlemen sought treatment for gout and ladies consulted me about discreet but curable female ailments.” He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering, regretting. The practice had flourished, but so had a pervasive restlessness. Years later, he could see himself clearly, a selfish young man, enamored of the heroics of his profession, blind to his wife’s need for security and contentment. He had not ignored Sancha’s desires. He simply had not paused to consider that they might not match his own. Certainly he’d never thought to ask her.

  “Let me guess,” said Isabel. “You wanted your work to matter more. To help more people.”

  “I wish my intentions had been that selfless. The fact is, I craved the excitement of saving lives and performing critical procedures. When the army offered an opportunity to practice medicine at a remote frontier fort, I leaped at it.”

  “You were called to duty. You can’t hold yourself responsible for that,” said Isabel.

  Anger snapped through him. “My wife was shot by a U.S. Army bullet. She died with our five-year-old son in her arms. If you can see a way to remedy that, Miss Fish-Wooten, then you’ve more talent as a healer than I.” The stark anger in the revelation startled even him. He watched her reaction—not pity but understanding. She couldn’t know the first thing about his suffering. And yet she did.

  Unfazed by his hostility, she touched his cheek briefly, and he felt the gentle caress all through him. Then, too soon, she lowered her hand. “I wish you’d call me Isabel,” she whispered.

  It was uniquely unsettling, the way she stared at him, seeing deep, perhaps seeing the things he tried to keep hidden. Why was it so hard to resist her, or better still, dismiss her? He was tired, that was all. It had been an unusually busy summer, juggling his work and his son, his visiting family and his duties at the Rescue League.

  “We should go inside.” But something was the matter. He couldn’t seem to let go of her, couldn’t escape the softness of her, the scent of her hair and skin, the probing tenderness of her gaze.

  “No, we should continue to discuss this.”

  “What the devil is the point?” he demanded. “It changes nothing.”

  “It’s true that there’s no remedy,” she conceded, still holding him captive with a touch as light as mist. “Nothing can change the terrible thing that happened. But there is such goodness in your life. In your work and family and your fine son. You simply need to give yourself over to the joy in that.”

  “I forfeited joy, Miss Fish-Wooten, when I took my wife to a fort in the wilderness.”

  “You can spend the rest of your life atoning for that decision,” Isabel told him. “I suppose it wouldn’t matter if you were the only one affected. But you force Lucas to live with a father who has forbidden himself life’s joys, all because of a terrible accident that happened a decade ago.”

  His confession to Isabel had drained him. Emptied out, he could not reply, could only hold on to her, even though the proper thing to do would be to set her aside, draw back into himself. Perhaps she was the only one to view him as a damaged man. Or perhaps she was the only one dauntless enough to put it quite so bluntly. And she didn’t seem inclined to stop now. She pressed her thumbs into his arms as though probing for wounds. “I’m so sorry you lost her. But ending your grief doesn’t mean ending the way you felt about her. It simply means embracing the things I imagine were important to her—your son, your family.”

  How did this woman, utterly alone in the world, with no one to care that she’d been shot in the back, possess such knowledge? Who had taught her these things? “You presume to know a lot about my late wife.”

  She lifted her chin a half inch. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He couldn’t, God help him, because she was absolutely right. Sancha had lived to love him and Lucas, to take delight in each day.

  He hadn’t thought about that aspect of Sancha in many years. But it was the truest thing he knew about her, and the reminder brought a fleeting, phantom warmth into his soul.

  And now, for reasons that completely eluded him, he looked into a woman’s eyes and felt a small flicker of possibility. Just that, nothing more. But for the moment, it was enough.

  He leaned down and kissed her lightly, lips brushing, as though taking the smallest sip from a goblet of wine. The kiss seemed to surprise her as much as it did him. She responded with a quick intake of breath, though she didn’t pull away. And Blue, God help him, could not have let her go in that instant if she’d held a gun to him.

  Her fists tightened into the fabric of his sleeves, not
in protest but in supplication. He pressed his mouth deeper, hungry now and incautious with wanting. The wild need she sparked in him was a compelling force, equal parts lust, tenderness and a host of nearly-forgotten sentiments he refused to name.

  Yet despite the demands clamoring inside him, he drew back. He let go and stepped out of the circle of light cast through the window. No, he told himself. No. An adventure of any sort with her would be ill-advised. She was not the kind of woman who could be brought out and put away like the good china when the occasion warranted it. Isabel Fish-Wooten was the type who would infuse each moment, waking or sleeping, with her presence.

  “We should go in,” he said again, this time in a brusque voice he barely recognized.

  She touched the fingertips of her gloved hand to her lips as if to hold his kiss there, and the expression on her face nearly undid his composure once again. She dropped her hand, opened her mouth as though to argue, then shut it and walked toward the door.

  Twenty-Three

  As though to atone for her escapade, Isabel stayed alone with her thoughts all through the next day, suffering silent daggers of censure from Delta when she came to change the dressing.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asked Isabel, seated sullenly at the edge of the bed.

  “Not a blessed thing. I was wondering the same about you.”

  “The wound broke open again,” Isabel confessed, though she knew Delta could see that for herself. “It made for a bad night.”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised if you came down with another infection,” Delta scolded. “I swear, you don’t have the sense God gave a mushroom.”

  “I did nothing wrong.”

  “Only went down to the waterfront at night, got chased by hooligans and nearly caught, too. I can’t abide a fool who takes risks.”

  “Ah. And you didn’t take a risk running away from Royal Oaks plantation?” Isabel said.

  “Some things are worth the risk.”

  “And who gets to decide?”