by Sarah Abbot
“Perfect,” she said to herself, regaining her balance.
She forced through the undulating crowd, secretly glad for the press of people. They held her upright when her still-trembling knees threatened to deposit her flat on her butt.
A glance around the room revealed that Ryan was nowhere in sight. She skirted the bar and made her way toward Ryan’s office.
The door was unlocked, and as she slipped inside, she saw him reclining in his chair, his guitar on his lap.
“Hey!” he said, brightening.
She drank in the sight of him, the light in his eyes when he saw her, and that quickly, she was reassured. “You promised to play me a song,” she said, looking at his guitar. Talking about her encounter with Ronnie—dampening the perfect sight of him—was the last thing she wanted to do. Ronnie could wait.
“Well, I didn’t actually promise,” he said teasingly. “I tend not to play for people.”
“Play for me,” she said, walking into the room, holding his eyes with hers and breathing in his scent. “I need you to.”
A wordless exchange passed between them, a moment hanging in eternity. Her chest was hollow as she watched him position the instrument. The revelry beyond the confines of his office was suddenly a million miles away.
Ryan’s eyes met hers, locked there and forbade her to look away. “This means something,” he said quietly. “Me playing for you, I mean.”
“I know,” she whispered.
Ryan plucked a few strings tunelessly. Finally, he lifted his head and looked into her face.
A deluge of notes tumbled from the strings—a bullfighter’s fanfare, an echo of galloping hooves and crackling fires.
Abby’s insides seemed to simmer within her. She swallowed loudly, never taking her eyes from him for a moment. The room was silent, expectant.
Ryan closed his eyes and placed his hand against the wood of his guitar. The fingers twitched, as if feeling the echo of a thousand plucked strings. His hand moved slowly, deliberately, and at last freed the first, quivering note into the anticipating silence.
The stillness vibrated—pierced by the shard of music— and then another stirred in its wake, sending ripples of sound that lapped against her flesh. Three more rising notes simmered with pent-up emotion; then, a slow, haunted chord thrummed deeply beneath the rest.
Abby’s flesh prickled from head to foot, stroked by the whisper of invitation she heard in the sound—and by the richer, humming suggestions that rested in the silences.
His fingers touched the strings again, teasing, as a lover would. Again, the music rose to them, drawn by the inexplicable bond between captive and liberator. His hand lifted and cupped as if cradling the sound that vibrated beneath it—then thudded against the amber grain of his guitar, silencing the trembling notes with brutal finality.
Ryan caught her eyes and held them.
Breath caught in her throat as she sensed his fingers start to move. Without taking his eyes from hers, he strummed and pulled, vibration building upon vibration as his fingers tumbled over the strings in a fervent need to express. Higher and faster rose the fevered pitch of the music.
When she dared not look at him a moment longer, she closed her eyes and felt every shiver of his music—bare, carnal, unforgiving, tripping along her flesh. It tugged at her, enveloped her, threatened to ply every untruth from her heart.
Oh, yes. He is infinitely, infinitely worth the risk.
Abby opened her eyes, saw that his were now closed; the muscles around them tightened as his head tossed and his shoulders leaned into the music.
Finally, as if sensing the twin tensions of the strings and Abby, his music stopped. Ryan at last opened his eyes.
Abby couldn’t speak. Her skin felt as if it were lit from within, as if she had been skillfully and thoroughly loved. “That did mean something,” she said breathlessly.
He was walking toward her, and though she knew he couldn’t have known about the silent conclusion she had arrived at—that he was worth the risk of her heart and more—she couldn’t help thinking that he looked oddly as if he’d come to the same conclusion, that she was worth the risk of his heart.
She looked at him for a sweet, endless moment, and he at her. He was perfectly still, touching her with his eyes in a way that thoroughly disconcerted her. He swept them over and through her, bringing her own to meet his. The scent of him was warm in her lungs—a woodsy smell, mingled with sea air. She took a bracing gulp of the sweet-smelling stuff.
“C’mon.” He took her hand in his. “We’re leaving.”
And Abby knew she was already gone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The autumn air outside Rum Runner’s was crisp and welcoming after the simmering intensity of Ryan’s music. His hand was warm and substantial around hers, giving her the extra measure of security she so desperately needed. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at the lines of his profile. “That was incredible.”
He looked down at her. Smiled. “Just well practiced.”
“You’re too modest.” She remembered what he had said that night in the Captain’s House, about how music had become the outlet he’d needed during the long, sleepless nights of his youth. “You were born with the talent to create, Ryan, and whether you do it with music or with paint, I don’t think it matters. The point is, you’re an artist.” She felt the uneasy tightening of his hand around hers, but she wouldn’t let him go. “And it was your gift that got you through.”
“And what got you through?” he asked, looking at the thick spangling of stars that twinkled overhead.
Abby thought back. She’d had her own share of youthful sleepless nights, and had survived them by telling herself that she wasn’t the first kid to endure the suicide of a parent, and sadly, she wouldn’t be the last. “Telling myself that I wasn’t alone. Losing myself in a book. That’s where the idea for Write Away came from.”
Ryan nodded approvingly, swinging her hand in time to their footfalls. “You know, I think I just figured out why I’m crazy about you.”
Abby lifted a brow. “Do tell.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, leading her down Peg Leg Lane. “You see, a good many women have tried mighty hard to pin me down—”
“I take back what I said about your being modest.”
Ryan chuckled. “But then you came along, and I didn’t have a clue how to withstand a woman who was as strong as I was.”
Abby pulled him to a stop beneath the shadow of a sprawling oak tree. Above them, the branches rattled and scratched amongst themselves, as if leaning in to better appreciate the goings-on beneath the shifting shadows they made. “So you settled upon the old adage: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?”
The eyes that looked into hers were warm and mirthful. “Essentially, yes.”
She rose onto her toes and planted a noisy kiss on his mouth. Oh yes, he is so, so worth the risk.
“You make me laugh, Brannigan,” she said, smiling. “Immodesty and all, you make me laugh.”
He kissed her, this time deeply and soundly, melting the smile from her lips and sending a scorching heat through her body. “Want to guess what you make me?” he asked huskily.
Abby grinned again, but an unexpected gust from the sea made her shiver involuntarily. The image of Bartholomew burst into her mind. She shivered again, but this time, not from the cold, as she remembered his threats about the devil that was coming for her. “First, I have something to tell you. And where are we going, anyway— back to the Captain’s House?”
“No,” he said, linking his hands behind her waist and pulling her tight against his length. “I’m taking you to a place my father took your mother. I can’t tell you what you really want to know about her, but I can show the places I know she’s been. I don’t know if that’s any help to you—”
“Of course it is! Where is this place?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you—that’s why I’m going to show you. Now, w
hat did you want to tell me?”
Abby tried very hard to concentrate—which was a feat, considering the feelings elicited by his body pressing against hers. “I ran into Bartholomew Briggs tonight.”
“And?”
Abby couldn’t bring herself to say it—to make his raving real. Why should his words frighten her so deeply? Bartholomew was a madman and everyone knew it. “He, uh…he said that if I knew what was good for me, I’d leave. He said that the devil was going to come for me, like he came for my mother.”
Even in the dim light afforded by the street lamp, she could see him blanch. The expression was fleeting, but she had seen it in his eyes: fear. “Don’t tell me you believe him, Ryan?” she asked, hearing the panic in her own voice.
He took her into his arms. “No, no, I don’t believe him, Abby. Bart’s crazy, you know that. He only said that to you because you were the first person he saw. He’d have said it to the telephone pole if you hadn’t been there.”
“Are you sure?” Oh, she wanted him to be—she didn’t want to leave Destiny Bay, not now that she’d found him.
His kiss on the top of her head was firm. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Good. There’s one more thing.”
Ryan frowned. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”
She took his hand again, started walking. “I told Ronnie about you and me,” she said, biting her lip. “I hope you’re not angry.”
Ryan’s face clouded. “Not angry, no. I should have done it myself.” He took her hand and resumed walking. “How’d she take it?”
“Not well,” she said, wondering to whom she should nominate herself for Understatement of the Year award. “I’m pretty sure she hates me.”
“She’ll be upset for a while, but she’ll get over it.”
“I doubt that,” she said miserably.
“Ronnie’s a forgiving person. Trust me on that.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. Now, tell me, have you found any new information about your mother?”
“Not yet, but tomorrow I’m going to the gallery to have a look at some paintings. I was told that my mother may figure in one of them. Other than that, I’ve come up against a wall of silence.”
Ryan shrugged. “Maybe that will crumble now as people realize that you know about Cora and Douglas and the part your mom played in their relationship.” He said it without a hint of resentment, Abby noticed, and she squeezed his hand.
“You mean that all this time, people were keeping their mouths shut because they didn’t want to hurt Cora by dredging up her past?”
“Yup. We do things like that for each other, here in Destiny Bay. We watch out for strangers,” he said with a wink.
“That’s sweet. A pain in the butt if you happen to be the stranger—”
Ryan chuckled.
“—but sweet, nonetheless.” She stopped, linked her arms around his back. “Now, where are you taking me?”
Ryan’s answering grin bordered on devilish. “Captain Jack’s pirate cave.”
“What?”
“You can’t come to Destiny Bay and not visit Captain Jack’s cave. Your mom even went.”
“My mother went to a pirate’s cave?” she asked incredulously.
“I know for a fact she was there at least once.”
“Okay,” Abby said at last. “But if we encounter any plundering pirates, it’s on your head.”
“The only plundering pirate you’ll be encountering is me.”
“Aye-aye, captain,” she said, meeting his lips and suddenly wondering how Webster would define the word plunder. Funny…she’d never thought of the word in such delightful terms before.
Abby looked down—and instantly regretted it. Lit by the full moon, the ocean that surged beneath them was menacing, and far, too far away.
According to Ryan, who now walked slightly ahead of her on the path, this was the way to the pirate cave. Abby could see why—there was no doubt in her mind that whatever Captain Jack had put in his pirate cave, it would have been safe up here.
They walked in silence along the rocky inclines, dips and peaks that edged the heightening cliffs, choosing footholds seconds before leaping onto their precarious surfaces. Ryan led as though he had been born climbing, moving fluidly over the jagged profusion of lichen-edged stone.
The path—a narrow thread tracing the ascending curvature of the cliffs—was near enough to the edge to allow them both a spectacular view. Rising from the thundering surf at the base of the cliffs were gracefully curved stones, too numerous to count.
Ryan pulled her closer and pointed toward what appeared to be a darkened slash in the stone. “Over there. See?”
Abby looked more closely. “Is that the cave?”
“Yup.”
Ryan led her over and slipped through the opening. Abby made certain that she was close on his heels. She emerged on the other side of the opening in a tunnel of stone.
They began inching down the slick decline of moss-covered stone, searching for dry footholds as they progressed. Conversation was forgotten, their steps slowed, as they peered down toward the darkened cave floor, both falling into a similar pattern of cautious, halting steps.
“Catch the rope,” he said, then reached up and gripped an aged length of twisted hemp that was suspended near the top of the cave wall.
Abby gladly followed suit.
The rope ran the length of the cavern, and though it was enshrouded in several varieties of slime, she felt a great relief holding the substantial thickness of it in her hand.
The smell of the ocean was intensified, as were the earthy aromas of moist, green mosses and perpetually damp soil. With every breath, their cloying scents and warm, salty moisture filled her lungs.
Ryan’s labored breath echoed her own as they descended farther into the ever-darkening tunnel. New aromas rose around them, seemingly stirred with each footfall. The scents were far less earthy and familiar and were heavy with the carnality of dark, moist places.
“What is this place?”
“You’re about to find out.” Ryan disappeared through a narrow opening.
She froze in her tracks, then let out a held breath as his hand reemerged.
She bit her lip in effort as she shimmied, feetfirst, through a narrow opening that revealed a shaft of welcoming light. Her heart beat faster as she squeezed through the oblong tear in the stones, and at last, lowered herself onto a ledge of rock beneath.
She looked around in amazement.
They stood on a ledge of stone maybe twelve feet square that seemingly jutted into space. Around her feet, spent candles slouched in glossy puddles of wax. Ryan lit the tallest of them.
The rich, mineral walls of the massive cavern surrounding them glistened with moisture. It dripped from a kaleidoscope of shapes that loomed eerily in the cave’s muted light.
Water lapped at the bowed, seaward opening of the cave, and reached halfway to its apex. Beneath them surged the rising tide. The dark watermark of high tide reached a place about four feet beneath the shelf of rock supporting them.
“Wow,” she whispered.
Ryan grinned smugly. “Brace yourself,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘brace yourself’?”
Ryan turned to watch the glistening water rise and obliterate the opening of the cave.
The water swelled, a slow, immense undulation that climbed the posterior wall of the cave. Then another swelling could be heard.
Curiosity overcame her apprehension. She watched the water as it was seemingly sucked through the back of the cave, and unraveled the mystery of it as a thunderous boom reverberated through the stone walls and echoed somewhere in the base of her abdomen.
Her eyes shot open in simultaneous shock and delight. “There’s another cave!” she shouted over the amplified rush of water.
“Just behind this one, in fact,” he said.
The flow was receding, leaving its glistening mark on the reddish walls.
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br /> “That other cave—is that where Captain Jack hid his treasure?”
Ryan frowned. “I didn’t say he kept his treasure here. I don’t even know if he ever came here—it’s just a legend, about this being his cave.”
“But I thought—” A tingling rushed over her skin. Abby felt suddenly feverish. No, it wasn’t Ryan who had mentioned treasure in relation to the cave. It had been her mother. “How could I have forgotten?”
“Are you okay?” Ryan asked, rubbing her arms. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Remembered one, more like.” She looked up at Ryan and took a deep breath. “It all came back to me just this second. My mother kept a diary. I found it years ago. There were only two or three entries, but the last one was a story, of sorts, of a secret cave where pirates once hid their treasure. In the story, a poor young artist takes his love there, because she was his treasure, and promised her that one day, he would crown her with jewels fit to make pirates mad with envy. But the lady dies before he can keep his promise, so he paints a portrait of her there.” Abby swallowed loudly. The cave felt suddenly haunted, as if the pirate, the painter and the lady had crept from the sea to hear her tale. She clutched Ryan tighter, and he pulled her into the folds of his jacket. “He painted the finest jewels on earth onto his lady—the silver of the moon on her skin, the glow of the sea in her eyes, the gold of the sun in her hair. And after he, too, had died, the portrait was hung on the wall of the finest palace, a testament to the love they shared.”
Ryan’s eyes were intent upon hers, his expression guarded. He grasped her shoulders and turned her gently toward the cave wall.
Abby looked over her shoulder, searched his face, then turned her attention to the rough stone, where a rash of explicit graffiti was scrawled.
“Who’s Helen?” she asked, staring at the praises paid to her upon the wall.
“Uh, she was regarded as a tutor, of sorts.”
“I see,” she said. “Your tutor?”
Ryan cleared his throat loudly. “Uh, sort of,” he said, rocking back on his heels.