by Nina Bruhns
The year Caleb was diagnosed with leukemia, Don had died suddenly from a stroke.
The doctors had done everything they could to slow the leukemia’s progress in Caleb’s young body. But what he really needed was an infusion of new bone marrow. Unfortunately compatible donors were proving illusive. Family and friends yielded no match. He’d been on the national bone marrow donor list for three years, with no match in sight there, either.
And now he was dying.
Was everyone she loved destined to be taken from her?
As Caleb wasted away, Elizabeth could only watch in growing panic as she was helpless to stop the death of her beloved brother. Until some old papers she came across mentioned an obscure branch of the Sullivan family that had moved to South Carolina at some point in the distant past.
Finally she could do something! She could track them down and maybe, just maybe, someone in this long-lost branch of the family would prove a match for Caleb.
She’d brimmed with renewed optimism. But to her dismay had discovered after weeks of research that just as in Connecticut, the Carolina Sullivans were nearly extinct. Only one member of the family still survived.
Andre Sullivan.
Caleb’s last hope.
Elizabeth decided to avoid Andre for the rest of the afternoon, to allow her roiling feelings to settle. She could hear Mrs. Butterfield, the innkeeper, help him move into his third-floor room, just above her own. Afterward, his uneven gait paced back and forth across the ceiling, floorboards creaking. Was he as restless as she?
Around six, there was a knock on her door and Mrs. Butterfield stuck her head in. “Ten minutes till supper, hon. I’ve made a special Beaufort stew in honor of Chief Sullivan.”
She knew she had to get it together. Avoiding him would not help Caleb.
Still, she hadn’t expected to run into him as soon as she walked out of her room a few moments later. But there he was on the landing, resting between floors.
Her pulse kicked up. Too late to retreat now.
“Miz Elizabeth,” he said in his delightfully unusual accent that had so charmed her this afternoon…among other things. “I want to apologize for my presumptuousness earlier today. I, uh, mistook you for…someone else. My memory since the accident—” he gave a self-conscious shrug “—it plays tricks.”
Her face heated. “Please don’t worry about it, Chief Sullivan.” She stuck out her hand, determined to be friendly but establish the necessary distance. “Hi. I’m Elizabeth Hamilton.”
It wasn’t going to be easy. Even leaning on a cane, the man was a stud. Tall, broad shoulders, a face full of character and a killer smile combined into a masculine package any warm-blooded woman could fall for—and apparently did with regularity.
“Enchanté,” he said. When his large hand e nveloped hers she was surprised by its strength. She could also feel a network of scars crisscrossing the top and calluses on his palm. “Please, call me Sully.”
“All right. Sully it is.” She started down the stairs.
He gripped the banister and came down after her, one step at a time. When she turned and waited, he tried to hide his pain, but it was evident in the strained muscles of his face.
“My physical therapist insisted my room be on the third floor,” he explained apologetically, “in order to exercise my legs. The man’s a damned sadist.”
“Oh, dear. Let me help you,” she said, hurrying back up and offering her arm.
He looked down at it, then at her, and she realized with a rush of heat that a hand on her arm wasn’t going to do it. She’d have to put it around his waist to support his weight.
Oh, Lord. Not good.
But she couldn’t back down now. She slid her arm around him, trying not to notice how good he smelled, or how well their bodies fit together, even in this awkward position.
She was not here to romance the man, she sternly reminded herself.
When they got to the kitchen, Mrs. Butterfield fluttered about, pointing out their places at the round wooden table, then took a seat herself.
“You two are currently my only guests, so I splurged a little on Chief Sullivan’s welcome home supper,” she said, beaming at him. “It’s such an honor having a hero staying at Pirate’s Rest Inn.”
“I’m certainly no hero,” he demurred. “I only did what any man would have done.”
“Well, I’m sure Clara and James Tyler would disagree,” Mrs. Butterfield said jovially, bringing over a huge steaming pot from the stove. “Now, dig in, everyone.”
Elizabeth had been shocked upon arrival yesterday to learn that Andre…Sully…had been in the hospital for over three months. Not the kind of news she’d wanted to hear about the man she was going to ask to possibly undergo yet another painful medical procedure.
“What happened?” she asked as they dished up, curious to know the details of his heroic deed.
Sully looked reluctant to answer, so Mrs. Butterfield jumped in. “There was a terrible fire in one of the old historic buildings in the village, the Moon and Palmetto pub. Three hundred years old it was. The fire was set deliberately,” she said, nodding gravely. “A young couple, the Tylers—they weren’t married then, of course—anyway, they had the arsonist cornered in the alley behind the building. Desperate to escape, he stabbed Mr. Tyler badly and shot Mrs. Tyler. Chief Sullivan was dragging her away from the inferno when part of the building collapsed on him. It was a pure miracle all three survived.”
Sully stared down at his bowl, picking at a piece of crab. “I just wish the culprit had been caught,” he mumbled with a scowl.
“He wasn’t?” Elizabeth asked.
“They assume he burned to death,” Mrs. Butterfield said. “Very little was left of anything after the blaze was extinguished.”
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “But surely, his body…”
“Never found,” Sully said, then took a big breath and let it out. “But enough of that depressing topic.” He lifted a spoonful of the seafood stew they were enjoying, an incredibly tasty broth filled to the brim with shrimp and crab, potatoes, corn and hunks of spicy sausage.
“This is delicious, Mrs. Butterfield,” he said with a broad smile. “Reminds me of the gumbo they used to make back home in Louisiana.”
“It is wonderful,” Elizabeth agreed. And completely different from any New England stews she’d ever tasted. No cream and you had to use your fingers to eat it!
She glanced up and noticed Mrs. Butterfield giving Sully a peculiar look. “But Chief Sullivan, all the newspapers said you were born right here, in the Old Fort Mystic Hospital where you recuperated from your injuries.”
Now that she mentioned it…Elizabeth’s research had said the same thing. Although, his accent certainly sounded more like Louisiana French than the Charleston drawl she was becoming familiar with.
There was an awkward pause.
He let out a laugh, but it sounded forced. “Yes, of course. I, um…The truth is, when I woke up from my coma I was suffering from a rather fantastical delusion. It occasionally continues to plague me, tripping me up at the most inappropriate times.” He darted Elizabeth an uneasy glance.
She knew she really should just nod and smile as Mrs. Butterfield was now doing. But she was from plain-speaking Connecticut, not the über-polite South. His chagrin intrigued her.
“What delusion?” she asked.
For a moment he looked taken aback. Then he forced another laugh. “Truth be told, I had no memory of my own identity. I believed myself to be Sullivan Fouquet. The notorious pirate.”
Mrs. Butterfield clucked her tongue in amusement. “I believe I read something to that effect in the papers.”
Elizabeth blinked.
Since her arrival yesterday, she had learned a little about the quaint historical village of Magnolia Cove. Located on Frenchman’s Island, one of the dozens of small sea islands that crowded the southern coast of South Carolina, it was lush, tropical and all but forgotten by the passage of time. The w
hole place basked in an atmosphere of lazy, sultry Southern dissolution.
And pirate mania.
Specifically the infamous Cajun pirate, Captain Sullivan Fouquet, who had called Magnolia Cove home while executing his most daring escapades during the late 1700s and the Revolutionary War. In fact, an article in Adventure Magazine had recently made the startling revelation that Fouquet had been a patriot, working as a privateer for the American revolutionary forces.
Made famous by the lurid nineteenth-century penny dreadful novel, The Pirate’s Lady, written by village historian Maybelle Chadbourn, the town had cashed in on its adventurous past in a big way. Shops, restaurants, streets, a museum, the boardinghouse she was staying in and even an annual festival were named in honor of the pirate Fouquet and his swashbuckling cronies.
It was kind of charming, in a kitschy sort of way.
But…good Lord. Sully must have really hit his head hard in that accident.
“Wow,” she said, trying not to grin. “Your memory really does play tricks. You honestly thought—”
His brow creased in a fierce scowl, which she suspected was more due to embarrassment than anger. “I’d prefer not to talk about it,” he growled.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Sure. I understand.”
A fire chief who secretly yearned to be a pirate.
For some reason, she found that little bit of absurdity about him unbelievably endearing.
After they finished eating, they retired to Mrs. Butterfield’s antique-filled parlor for coffee and conversation—well, mainly Elizabeth and Sully listened to their hostess chatter on about the history of the village, the tourist sights Elizabeth should visit and where Sully might best start his search for a new place to live.
At the reminder of his former girlfriend, Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably. Though why she should care with whom he had lived or not lived, she had no idea.
No, that was a lie. She knew exactly why.
Because of that kiss.
Try as she might, she could not forget the feel of his lips on hers, nor the bald emotion and longing she had felt behind them. She’d never had a man kiss her like that before. The thought of him living with someone else, kissing another woman with such feeling, well, as irrational as it was, it bothered her. How stupid could you get? But damn it, it even made her jealous of the unknown woman he’d mistaken her for!
Who was that mysterious woman she’d reminded him of?
Suddenly she recalled a romantic tale she’d read last night in one of the guidebooks on her nightstand. The pirate Sullivan Fouquet had died in a duel with his best friend and partner, fellow-pirate Tyree St. James, after his friend had accidentally shot Fouquet’s beloved fiancée, a woman whom, by all accounts, he had loved to distraction.
And her name had been…
Elizabeth.
Chapter 2
L ater that night, unable to sleep, Elizabeth was lying in bed thinking about Sully. Why did she have to be so darned attracted to him? Even if he weren’t slightly balmy—okay, charmingly so—Lisa Grosvenor’s description of him left little doubt as to the kind of man he was. And then there was the reason Elizabeth had come to find him.
She really must keep her distance from Andre Sullivan, for all those reasons.
Too bad he was such a wonderful kisser.
A soft knock on her door brought her out of her musings.
“Elizabeth?” Sully’s low, masculine voice drifted in from the hall. “You awake, chère?”
She sat up in bed, surprised. “Yes…Is there something wrong?”
“Can I come in for a moment?”
She glanced down at her sleep attire—an oversize T-shirt. Not exactly glamorous, but decent enough for company. She slid out and unlocked the door.
He stood there looking rumpled and apologetic, gripping the doorjamb with white-knuckled fingers. “Sorry to disturb you. But—” he grimaced “—I can’t seem to make it up to my room without a rest, and there’s no seat out here. I saw your light on….”
She quickly moved aside. “Of course, come in.” She glanced at the sole chair in the room. It was a squat, deep easy chair that would be difficult for him to rise from once he’d sat down. “Here, sit on the bed,” she said, straightening the covers.
He limped over and eased down onto it with a sigh. “Merde, I hate being a weakling like this.”
“Don’t be silly. Healing takes time. You almost died.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he mumbled, set aside his cane and kneaded his thigh with his fingers.
For a reckless second she thought about offering to massage it for him. Then thought better of the idea. Yikes.
“I suppose you face death regularly in your line of work,” she ventured, wondering where the heck sh e should sit. The easy chair was in a dark corner on the other side of the room.
“It’s a dangerous life,” he agreed, working his leg muscles. “Every time you go into battle, you are prepared to die. But this…this is almost worse.”
Interesting analogy. She stepped closer, thinking of Caleb facing each day’s battle knowing it could be his last. And Sully, choosing to risk his life to save others. They were both so brave. Braver than she.
She had a sudden urge to reach out to Sully, to soothe the frown from his brow. “The pain from your injury must be awful. But surely, the alternative—”
He glanced up and smiled wearily. “Aye. Death is no good substitute. Yet, I’ll admit, there have been moments…” His eyes softened, then he looked over his shoulder at the bed. “Vien, slide back into bed and relax while I prepare myself for the final ascent.” His smile tipped up at the corners. “Or the sight of such pretty bare legs just might give me the notion to linger for reasons other than resting.”
Her jaw dropped. Without stopping to think, she scrambled past him onto the mattress and pulled the sheet over her.
He gave her a wry look. “You needn’t have moved quite so quickly. For future reference, a man’s ego is easily bruised.”
“I didn’t mean—” she started, but he waved her off.
“It’s all right. I don’t blame you.” To her consternation he lifted his leg onto the bed and stretched out full length next to her. “After that scene with Lisa this afternoon. I should explain—”
“There’s no need,” she assured, watching him uneasily. But he did nothing except wince as he moved his legs into a more comfortable position. “I understand.”
“Non,” he said, “you do not begin to understand. Dieu, how could you? I don’t understand any of this myself.”
She couldn’t help but notice his accent had slipped back into a Cajun patois sprinkled with French words, unlike earlier this evening when he’d made an effort to correct himself anytime that happened. It was weird, but he seemed much more unguarded, more natural, now.
He let out a long breath. “I lost my memory, you know. Everything about myself and the world around me. I didn’t remember what cars looked like. How to turn on a television. Or even what it’s for. Even now, everywhere I turn there are things I don’t recognize.”
“It must be tough. Is that why…?” She let her words fade, not wanting to embarrass him again.
“Why I thought I was a pirate who died two hundred years ago, when life was simple and straightforward?” he completed for her. Irony colored his tone, but no discomfiture. “Perhaps.”
A warm, humid breeze wafted in from the open window, bringing with it the scent of gardenias from the garden below. Ivory lace curtains billowed lightly, creating intricate patterns that danced on the wall. A soft chorus of frogs croaked in the distance, accompanied by the rhythmic hum of cicadas.
Instinctively knowing she had nothing to fear, she lay down, too, and pulled the sheet up under her arms. For several minutes they simply lay there listening to the sounds of the night.
Then he turned to his side, propped his head on his hand and looked at her searchingly.
My God, he was good
-looking. Not in the usual way—he’d never grace the cover of GQ. But handsome in the best tradition of a movie bad boy. Really bad boy. Rugged. Intense. Masculine. A touch of danger lurked in the harsh angles of Sully’s face. His hair was black as the night, thick and shiny despite the shortness of its hospital cut. He had a strong, square jaw, straight white teeth and sculpted lips that beckoned her to come closer. And his eyes…warm and brown as rich chocolate, ringed with a fringe of dark lashes…contained promises that made her heart flutter madly.
She swallowed.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?” he murmured.
The question threw her. “I, uh…” She refocused her badly flagging attention. “I don’t know. Do you?”
His smile was enigmatic. “I didn’t used to.”
“Sully?”
“Aye?”
“Does this have anything to do with Sullivan Fouquet?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re looking at me funny.”
“How, funny?”
Like he wanted to devour her alive, funny.
“Like you know something I don’t.”
He continued to regard her for a moment in the dim light of the bedside lamp, then his eyes shuttered and he said, “I don’t know how I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“Go on with this life I know nothing about. Andre Sullivan has important responsibilities. What if I can’t do them justice?”
“You will,” she said. Despite his melancholy, he didn’t strike her as a man who would let anything defeat him. “You’ll start remembering. And if you don’t, you’ll learn them again.”
He reached out and lightly touched a curl that lay on her pillow. “You just met me. How can you be so sure?”
“Because,” she said with a smile, “at dinner you said you were barely alive when they got you to the hospital after your accident. You said at one point on the operating table they even pronounced you dead. But you refused to die. You came back to life. I firmly believe you were brought back for a reason.”