by Sarah Abbot
“And I saw love do the same kinds of things. I saw it leave my mother brokenhearted. I saw it turn my father into a wreck of a human being.” The thud of his head against the wall behind him was as resolved and certain as a death knell.
She watched as the tentacles of his pain oozed into the dimly lit room. She grasped him tighter and burrowed ever closer to him as if he were now the drowning soul, and she the savior on the life raft.
“I used to think he’d wake up and realize that I was worth more than a passing glance or a pat on the head. Used to think I deserved to be called by name in the school yard, and not ‘the Artist’s bastard.’”
Abby’s stomach turned at the thought, at the memory of the subtle ostracizing that she, too, had felt in the school yard. “What did you do?” she asked.
“I learned how to fight,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “I took on every kid who dared look at me sideways. I think that was when my heart started turning. I decided that I wouldn’t be powerless anymore,” he said, his tone hardening.
Abby looked up at his face and saw that it, too, had become set and stonelike.
“I hated my father,” he said through his teeth. “I hated what he did to my mother. I hated that he wasn’t even man enough to see that we had food to eat. I hated that he was a drunk, and everyone knew it. I hated his precious art. And I hated that no one thought I’d amount to anything more than he did.”
Ryan rose and strode toward the pillars that flanked the entryway to the living room. He placed a hand on each pillar, let his head fall low, and braced his arms against them. His back flexed in futile effort as he pushed against the pillars, and Abby was reminded of Samson, the warrior doomed to destruction because of Delilah, the woman whose love was his undoing.
The sinking in her heart was a weight in her chest that almost made her gasp. Her hand rested there, ever so lightly.
“I made myself everything he wasn’t. Successful. Loyal. Honest. I even opened a bar just to prove that I wouldn’t be a drunk. And when I started to draw, I destroyed everything I was compelled to create. I wouldn’t let him in. Did my best to weed him out, in fact. Then you came.”
Abby’s spine stiffened. Was this the moment that his hatred would return?
“You came, and for the first time in my life, I was completely out of control. I hated that you could do that to me without even trying, just like your mother did to my father. I swore that I wasn’t going to be that man—the man who forgets everything that ought to matter; who gets left behind to wither away and die.”
Ryan strode the expanse of the room in three huge steps, coming to a crouch before her. “I swore I wouldn’t be him… and never in my life have I broken a promise, Abby,” he said, his voice ragged. “But here, now…I know that’s a promise I can’t keep anymore.”
He grasped her shoulders, and the moon beyond the window lit his face, throwing it into stark relief. “Abby, I can’t outrun who I am. I can’t ignore half the blood in my veins. I can’t deny the pain that’s stalked me all my life…and neither can you.”
The air in the room was electric, trilling over her flesh as she stared into his eyes.
“Before we were born, our paths crossed. I don’t know what happened between my father and your mother, but it was profound enough to draw us to this night, over thirty years later.”
Abby’s heart was in her throat. Never had she felt such palpable intensity from another human being, and just as Ryan now understood his father, she understood her mother…and the inescapable attraction she had seen in her mother’s eyes in the portrait that had brought her here in the first place.
Ryan stroked her face. “You talked about love hurting people, making them end their own lives, diminishing them enough to let them forget they have a child who needs holding. That’s not love, Abby. That’s fear.”
“Do you believe that, Ryan?” she asked, searching his face, desperately needing to know if it was true.
“I didn’t until now.”
Abby lifted her hand and touched his face. She felt her own fear drain away—the fear that had insisted she hold life at arm’s length; that had masqueraded as mistrust; that had robbed the color and joy from her life for so many years. She looked into Ryan’s face and saw that he, too, seemed somehow free.
“All this fear started somewhere, Ryan,” she said.
“That’s what I’m here for, to find that seed of fear and destroy it.”
Ryan ran his thumb over her lips. “I know, and I want that healing you talked about to start right here. This is the place for those hearts to wake up, Abby. This is the time.”
Abby gasped, looked up at him in time to feel his mouth press against hers in a way that made her forget everything she wasn’t, remember everything she was. This was the abandon of Abandon Bluff, and it was in her, around her, seeping into the air they inhaled in gasping breaths and transforming them both. Her heart was full in her breast, thumping out the anthem of her glorious awakening.
She put her arms around his neck, pressed her body to his, and Ryan’s response was as explosive as a sunburst.
His arms were around her, his hands stroking her back and bringing her higher, deeper into their kiss.
Somewhere in the distance, his phone was ringing again. Mercifully, it stopped.
Abby drew Ryan down with her to the smooth, wooden floor of the Captain’s House; she seemed to feel the countless yesterdays this house had known enfold them as their passion grew in the soft candlelight.
“Abby,” he groaned…but the phone started ringing again.
“You’d better get that,” she said, feeling unaccountably concerned, feeling that somewhere, something was very wrong. Ryan looked at her with an expression that bordered on pained. There was no mistaking that the last thing he wanted to do was talk on the phone. Still, it rang out incessantly. “Ryan, go get it.”
Ryan heaved himself up, stalked across the floor and snatched the phone. “Yeah?”
Even in the dim light she could see his face blanch. She stood up, wrapped her arms around herself and walked over to him.
Ryan looked at her as if her face were the last thing he would see before dying, as if he was trying to grasp hold of one solid, stable being before his world started spinning out of control. He slapped the phone shut and burst into action. “Help me blow out the candles!”
Immediately, she obeyed. She was gripped with panic but had no idea why. “What is it?” She snatched her coat, grabbed his, and was hot on his heels as he raced out of the house.
The sky outside was lit with an eerie glow that seemed to come from the waterfront. Ryan grabbed her hand and started running.
“What’s going on?” she shouted.
“It’s Brannigan Fisheries—it’s on fire!”
Chapter Twenty-one
“Slow down, Ryan!” Abby gripped the door handle, foot pumping involuntarily on the nonexistent passenger-side brake pedal. She thanked the good Lord she’d insisted on coming. If she hadn’t, he’d surely kill himself. “You’ll be no help to anyone if you’re dead!”
The Navigator cornered dangerously around the last bend, putting them in view of the blazing inferno that was Brannigan Fisheries.
Abby clapped a hand over her gaping mouth just as she heard a stifled curse from the driver’s side of the truck.
Ryan jammed the vehicle in park and jumped out, sprinting down the road toward the red flash of lights, the crack and groan of timber, the withering heat that billowed from the flaming building.
“Ryan! Stop!” she screamed, kicking off her high heels and ducking her head as she raced behind him, splashing through rivers of water that coursed over the roadway.
The heat was intense. From fifty feet back, Abby felt the heat of the flames that shot out the windows, licking the darkening sky with tongues intent on devouring the world.
“Ryan!” she shouted, louder this time. He was gone— swallowed in the press of firefighters, police officers and spectators.
She was sick for him. Sick with worry that he would do something stupid; sick at the unbelievable sight of his business going up in flames. Sick.
“Stand back, stand back.” Police officers were placing cones along the opposite sidewalk of Brannigan Fisheries, holding the spectators at bay.
But where had Ryan vanished to?
Frantically, Abby searched the crowd, looking for Ryan, and then seeing him at last, in the arms, in the embrace, of a woman who looked into his face with heartbreaking concern and obvious love.
Ronnie.
One A.M.
It was officially morning.
The lingering scent of smoke clung to her, along with the dampness of the firefighters’ spray. She needed a bath in a big way, but the thought of dragging water to the tub made her cringe.
Instead she stood in front of the window, tea in hand.
A thick fog oozed out of the east, nestling against the coast like a fur muffler.
Abby peered down into the ambiguous billows of gray that cloaked the cottage footings. Her little house seemed eerily bereft of substructure, swaddled, as it was, up to the window sash in folds of gray fog. She at last withdrew her scrutiny. If there was, in fact, a solid foundation somewhere in the swirl of mist, she was unable to discern it.
Her entire life seemed as if its foundation had vanished in a sea fog. What was happening to her? She had kissed Ryan Brannigan, for crying out loud…and she had liked it!
She touched her lips, closed her eyes, wishing the raspy feeling of his face would come back to her; wishing to feel the soft, demanding pressure of his mouth against hers just once more. And another fragment of her foundation seemed swallowed into the cottony mouth of the fog.
This wasn’t like her—not in any way, shape or form. She was actually fantasizing about a man she had detested mere days ago. But oh, that kiss! She shook her head in a vain attempt to shake away the undeniable feelings that were growing within her.
The memory of his voice made her insides simmer with secret warmth as she remembered his warning…that logic and all of its bland counterparts were forgotten on Abandon Bluff.
Abandon Bluff indeed! She had certainly abandoned her logic—or it had abandoned her.
She raked her fingers through her hair in frustration.
Unbidden, the image of Ronnie and Ryan—bathed in the amber light of flames—appeared before her mind’s eye. Ronnie had held him as he looked up at the fire, but it was the way she held him…with a certain familiarity that spoke of possession. Is a fire of another sort beginning to kindle between Ronnie and Ryan? It was no secret that Ronnie was crazy about Ryan, but was the emotion reciprocated? Just the thought made Abby’s insides turn.
“Well, this is a fine kettle of fish,” she whispered to herself.
Her head was aching—had been since the smoke of the fire twisted its way into her lungs—and the last thing she needed was to add to that incessant throbbing by confusing herself over Ryan.
Ryan. The fire.
Had they been able to salvage anything from the wreckage of the flames? She sighed quietly. It would have been impossible. Even to her untrained eye, she could tell the fire was massive; complete in its destruction.
What would he do?
Her head throbbed all the harder. She had to clear her mind, had to sleep, had to erase the deafening confusion that gonged through her soul.
She looked back at the fog, concentrating on the nothingness of it.
She was beginning to understand it; the parallel that existed between the two native forces of Destiny Bay: the people who lived here, and the fog that occasionally claimed ancient dominion.
Gray seemed not so much a color as an actual dimension for people who lived by the sea. She’d seen it shadow the thoughts of people who permitted it; infiltrate homes with its distinctive dampness. Life moved more slowly when the sky turned gray.
Somehow she knew that in this land of gray and riotous color, life could be as simple as the breeze running salty fingers through her hair; anthems could be as elemental as sandpiper’s songs. Her life, however, seemed to have taken a decided turn for the complicated.
First, the mysterious footprints, then the bouquet. Now the ring, and always, the unsettling feeling of being watched.
But perhaps even more perplexing was Ryan.
Her head fell against the windowpane with a soft thud. There he was again.
How? How was it possible that she was feeling what she was feeling? And that she had shared with him the things she had shared? How was it possible that the man who had so mistreated her was suddenly her champion? How was it possible that she felt so compelled toward him—so riveted by his presence that she could scarcely take her eyes from him?
Was it some inexplicable awakening of memory she had experienced since setting foot on the island? Was she drawn to him because her mother had once loved his father?
Stranger things had happened.
She rested her head against the window frame, exhausted both physically and emotionally. In the moonlit forest beyond the glass, tendrils of fog snaked through the spindly trunks of birch and wind-crippled pine.
She had heard tell of a phenomenon called genetic memory; that sometimes, when a personally cataclysmic event occurs, it changes the chemistry of a person, intertwines with the double helix of their DNA and becomes an intangible inheritance for generations to come.
Then later, a descendant touches the rounded cheek inherited from grandma, and remembers a flash of something impossible—something that happened to another person in another time.
Maybe there was something to genetic memory. Maybe, just maybe, the feelings she had for Ryan were nothing more than a primordial synapse in her brain, a reminder that once, before she was even born, some of her blood had loved some of his.
She nodded her head minutely, smiling. Of course. That was all it was. And now that she had figured it out, she could finally go to bed.
Chapter Twenty-two
Ryan sat behind his desk at Rum Runner’s, rubbing his aching temples. He was exhausted, but there was too much on his mind to even think about sleep.
Brannigan Fisheries packing facility was a complete loss. That fact alone put fifty people out of work, and not one of them could afford it. His fleet was undamaged, but if he had nowhere to process and pack the harvest, what would be the point of keeping men on his boats? He calculated that that left another forty people out of work.
The mantle of responsibility rested heavily upon him. These were people he’d grown up with, people he liked and respected. People with children at home.
His head pounded harder. It always made things worse when there were kids at home—kids who might go without.
A flood of memories hit the heart of him, steeling his resolve. He wouldn’t do it. He would not put these people out of work, and no child on this island would go hungry because of him. He’d find a way to get the business operational again if it was the last thing he did.
His spirits rose just a little. Hadn’t a fisheries company in Marriott’s Bay been shut down when the police had learned it was a front for drug trafficking? How long ago had that been? A rough calculation placed it at about ten years ago. The equipment wouldn’t be as modern as his, but it might work until he could rebuild the packing facility. Would the present owners be willing to rent it to him? It would mean that his employees would be driving over an hour to work, but at least they’d still have jobs.
He jotted a number one on his list, and beside it wrote: Find out who owns abandoned packing facility in Marriott’s Bay. Inquire about a tour/possible rental.
Number two was a no-brainer. His eyes almost glazed over as he looked at the fan of insurance papers spread on his desk. And about that…the initial suspicion was that the fire had been deliberately set. Sheriff Flynn had discovered what he believed to be traces of an accelerant, likely gasoline.
Was finding out who hated him enough to burn Brannigan Fisheries to the gr
ound number three?
Sheriff had to be wrong. Things like that just didn’t happen in Destiny Bay.
Before he began searching for the culprit—if indeed there was one—he’d wait to hear the official findings of the fire chief.
So number three became: Ronnie. He didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to hurt her, but the truth was, it was happening again.
He’d felt it when Ronnie had held him as Brannigan Fisheries burned to the ground, felt it even more strongly when she went home with him and demanded he shower and eat.
Ronnie was in love with him…again. Or maybe still.
He dragged his hands down his face. He loved Ronnie in the comforting way of old friends, but he knew that she cared for him in a way he could never reciprocate.
And then there was Abby. His chest squeezed at the thought of her.
Abby was a woman he could love. He could lose himself to her, find himself, change cataclysmically, and though they had made major strides toward healing their past wounds, he wasn’t ready for cataclysmic change.
Women of her blood and men of his were a dangerous, volatile combination. They made the kind of combustible heat that devoured everything else in their lives; that consumed them until there was nothing else left.
That was the kind of passion that made a man lose control—and if he didn’t have a firm grasp on his heart and soul, then who was he? What good would he be to anyone?
Yes, he could be at peace with her, but he couldn’t— especially in light of this new and unexpected catastrophe— involve himself in something that might consume him completely.
His skin prickled with heat at the thought of her; at the thought of them, together at the Captain’s House. There was no doubt in his mind that if that phone call hadn’t come when it did, he would have made love to her.
Even now, in the face of the fire, she was all he could think about. It made him panic, made him feel out of control and…there was no denying it—vulnerable.
The thought made his head throb.