Love Finds You in Mackinac Island, Michigan

by Melanie Dobson

He looked up at her. “The only occupation I’m good at is entertaining people.”

  She didn’t smile. Parker was supposed to be learning his father’s business, but Mr. Randolph seemed just as reluctant to give Parker work as Parker was to take it.

  “You are good at plenty of things,” she insisted.

  Before he probed further, Jillian walked into the room, glancing uncomfortably at Elena and Parker.

  Elena stood up. “Would you be so kind as to keep Mr. Randolph company for a few moments while I—while I fetch something to eat with our tea?”

  “I don’t think—” Jillian began.

  Elena leaned toward Jillian, her voice a mock whisper so Parker could hear. “That way you can return his letter in person.”

  Both Parker’s and Jillian’s faces colored red.

  Elena lingered for a moment at the archway, watching her two friends. Jillian sat down across from Parker, fidgeting with her hands.

  “How are you today, Mr. Randolph?”

  “Fine. And you?”

  They both reached for the teapot at the same time, their hands colliding, and Jillian pulled away.

  “Let me get it,” she heard Parker say.

  Elena slipped into the kitchen, opening cabinet after cabinet until she found a box of almond biscotti. With great precision, she arranged them on a plate. She was in no hurry to return to the drawing room.

  About twenty minutes later, Mama stopped her in the hallway with a basket full from the village. Mama eyed the dish of biscotti in Elena’s hands. “Why exactly is Parker Randolph sipping tea with Jillian in the parlor?”

  Elena glanced toward the parlor door and then looked back at her mother. “I asked her to wait with him while I retrieved the biscotti.”

  “Retrieved the biscotti?” Mama’s voice began to climb. “That’s Jillian’s job. You are supposed to entertain our guests.”

  “Yes,” Elena whispered, “but I was tired of talking with him. You know how Parker can be, always making a joke out of everything.”

  “So you decided to get Jillian?”

  “Only for a few minutes—” She scooted around her mother, moving toward the drawing room. “I think they’ve been in there long enough, don’t you?”

  “Elena,” her mother called, stopping her. She was smiling now. “Guess who I just met in the village?”

  January 2, 1813

  Nickolas Westmount visited us late last night, dressed in his black cloak and carrying a basket with a half loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and smoked pork.

  I don’t know what he expected to find, but he seemed surprised that the children and I were still at the lighthouse. Or maybe he was just surprised we were alive. He offered Thomas what was left of his meal, and my son devoured the food while Nickolas hovered by the door.

  “Magdelaine.” He said my name twice, as if he were checking to see if I was an apparition. “What are you doing here alone?”

  When I told him that Jonah was gone, that he’d disappeared three months ago and never returned, he didn’t display one bit of surprise.

  I asked Nickolas if he knew where Jonah was. I asked him if he’d seen Jonah, if he knew whether Jonah was still alive.

  Nickolas shook his head, evading every one of my questions.

  Some people are scared of me because of the Indian blood in my veins, but neither Nickolas nor his wife ever seemed frightened of me. Perhaps he is worried now about what will happen if I find out the truth.

  Perhaps he is right to be worried.

  Nickolas said he would be back again soon with more bread and some jam. I thanked him for it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Elena stepped into the dark hallway that night, as quietly as she could, her father opened his door. He held a candle in one hand and his cane in the other, but instead of his nightclothes, he was dressed in his waistcoat, shirt, and trousers. Perhaps he was relieved that she was finally aware of his secret. Their secret. He no longer had to sneak around or hide from her.

  Her father yawned as he eyed her worn riding dress. “Are you going out again?”

  “I am.”

  “But you just went last night…and the sky isn’t clear this evening.”

  “The rain has stopped, Papa.” She didn’t want to sound desperate, but anxiety laced her voice. “I want to get away from the house.”

  “But you’ve barely slept today.”

  She leaned back against the paneled wall. “It was a rather difficult day to sleep.”

  “Ahh—all the noise.”

  She nodded. Mama talked for an hour after she returned from her shopping trip into town. Not only had Mama finally been introduced to Chester Darrington—by far the most handsome man on the island and probably in all of Detroit—but Mrs. Darrington had agreed to visit their house for tea. In anticipation of the visit, Mama had sent the household staff into a frenzy of dusting, washing, and scrubbing of both walls and floors.

  Mr. Darrington wasn’t only handsome, he was refined and took good care of his mother. Any man who cared for his mother, Mama had informed Elena, would care well for his wife.

  But they must hurry, Mama said, for Mr. Darrington was preparing to leave the island on business. They would have Mrs. Darrington here for tea and then find a way for Elena to meet her son before he left. If Mrs. Darrington liked Elena—and according to Mama, how could she not?—she would secure an invitation for her to meet her son.

  Elena was sent off to rest before lunch, but no one bothered to curb the amount of noise in their house. Doors banged below her, and furniture was scraped across the floor. Servants were talking loudly, and her mother’s voice trumped them all. Even as she tried to sleep, the smell of lemon polish drifted into Elena’s room along with the noise. One would have thought President Cleveland and his young wife were coming to visit them for the week.

  She’d leaned back against her pillows and tried to read, but her mind kept traveling back to her refuge and the stranger who had wandered into her space. It almost felt like she’d dreamed of him last night, but it hadn’t been a dream. She remembered well the brief touch of his hand when she had leaned down to look through his magnificent telescope.

  In the midst of her unsuccessful attempts to rest, the doorbell rang below her. Her mother had rushed up the steps and burst into her room, Mrs. Darrington’s reply flitting about in her hands. Mrs. Darrington would join them for tea on Tuesday. Only three days from now.

  It would be a long three days.

  “If the rain has stopped—” her father hesitated, blinking in the candlelight. “Why don’t we go for a walk instead?”

  She studied her father for a moment. It had never occurred to her that perhaps her father enjoyed escaping from their house as much as she did. He might have allowed her to sneak away to the lighthouse in secret because it gave him a good reason to leave too.

  “We could walk down to the lake,” he offered.

  As much as she wanted to see Chase, Papa would be hurt if she refused to go with him, especially since he didn’t know she was planning to meet someone at the lighthouse. She would never willingly wound him.

  She looped her hand through his arm. “I would love to walk down to the lake with you.”

  Papa moved slowly, relying on his cane as he limped beside her, and the two of them walked away from the city lights, along the coastline that alternated between rocks, pebbles, and sand.

  A boat was anchored between their island and Bois Blanc, and she watched it for a moment. What would it be like to climb aboard one of those and sail away? And what would it be like to steal away with a man like Chase?

  Her cheeks grew warm in the darkness, and she was glad that her father seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. He didn’t know what she was thinking, nor would he ever. She could never leave her family like that, but still she wondered.

  They walked closer to the shoreline and she let go of his arm, dipping her hand into the coolness of the lake. The water trickled off her fingers, a
nd it seemed to awaken her heart to the realness of God’s creation, the substance of it. It was so different than the falsities that threaded through her life.

  She wanted to jump into the water and splash it with her feet. She wanted to twirl around like a girl and feel the wind in her hair. She wanted to draw.

  And not just any picture. Her fingers suddenly itched for her pencils, her paper. She wanted to draw Chase while she remembered what he looked like. She didn’t want to forget a single detail of his face or the warmth in his eyes.

  “I have some bad news,” Papa said.

  Her hands trembled, and she clasped her hands behind her back. “What is it?”

  “Your mother—she doesn’t know yet.”

  When he paused, she prompted him to continue. “You got a telegram today.”

  He looked out at the dark waters again. “Last fall, when my partnership with Oliver Randolph crumbled, I had to take out a loan from the bank.”

  She nodded. A lot of people had to secure loans after the panic last year.

  “I thought the business would recover quickly, but we’re not even close to recovering. If I don’t pay the loan back by August—” He paused. “The bank will be taking the factory first and then our home.”

  For a moment, Elena felt as if her legs might fail. She’d known they might lose their cottage on Mackinac, but she never thought they would lose their home in Chicago. She didn’t dare ask where they would live, for fear of what the answer would be.

  “But you have other bonds and stocks,” she persisted.

  “Most of them are almost worthless, and the ones that are still good—it isn’t enough to cover the loan.”

  She sighed. With their family finances in such a dreadful state, the pressure to marry someone like Mr. Darrington would only increase now. It wouldn’t matter if she wanted to marry another man for love.

  “I need to tell your mother soon.”

  She nodded.

  “I will do everything I can to save our home,” he assured her.

  She didn’t tell him, but she would do everything she could to help save it as well.

  The rain started to fall again, splashing on her nose and soaking her dress.

  Papa opened their umbrella. “We’d better hurry home.”

  She held the umbrella for them in one hand and lifted her skirts with the other as they hurried as quickly as they could back up the bluff. As soon as they stepped under the roof of the patio, her father took the umbrella from her, shook it off, and left it by the door. She collapsed onto one of the patio chairs.

  Papa opened the door into their house and then tapped on the floor with his cane. “It’s time for bed, Elena.”

  The rain pattered on the rooftop as the fresh air drifted through the open windows. She didn’t want to move. “I think I’m going to sit here for just a few minutes longer.”

  “You need to get some sleep before church.”

  “Just a few minutes, Papa.”

  Her father kissed her wet hair and then stepped back, looking at her. “Promise me you won’t sneak away tonight.”

  She thought for a long moment and then kissed his cheek. “I promise, Papa.”

  * * * * *

  Andy wasn’t at the lighthouse. Chase called her name several times when he stepped into the parlor, not wanting to frighten her, and then he jogged up the circular steps to see if she was waiting upstairs.

  The clouds hid the stars tonight, but he’d still hoped she might want to see him again, as much as he’d wanted to see her.

  There might have been a reason for her to be detained. Or perhaps she never intended to come back. She might have run away quickly from the lighthouse last night, away from him.

  He leaned back against a post and clutched his hat in his hands. He wasn’t used to women running away.

  His parents had gone to bed early after their long journey, and Sarah and Edward were out dining at the home of another potential buyer for Edward’s newly acquired land. They hadn’t bothered to invite Chase this time. He would wait for a bit tonight, just in case Andy came later. He’d hoped she had enjoyed his company enough to return—or, at the very least, enjoyed his telescope.

  He twisted his hat in his hands. As the minutes passed, he grew more anxious. He couldn’t bear sitting here alone another moment, waiting for her.

  Standing, he moved downstairs into the lighthouse keeper’s old residence and opened the desktop to look at Andy’s artwork, but her drawings weren’t there. He smiled to himself. Andy might pretend to be strong, but she was still a little scared—not of him taking her work as much as of him exploring the emotion in them. Which was exactly what he intended to do.

  He stepped back from the desk and looked under the braided rug and the davenport, but her book wasn’t in either of those places, so he pulled out the drawers on the sideboard and then got on his knees to look underneath it, as well.

  Perhaps Andy had taken her sketches with her if she’d come back earlier tonight, but if she hadn’t…

  Surveying the room, he tried to determine where else she could have hidden the sketchbook, but the options were few in the parlor. He moved on to the bedroom, looking under the bed and then opening the dresser drawers. There were clothes inside the dresser—women’s things—and he felt strange rummaging through the clothing of a woman who’d probably died long ago.

  When he stepped back, he looked around the room again. Besides the double bed in the room, there was a crib and a trundle. He’d imagined a lightkeeper would live in solitude, but this man must have had a family with him. What kind of family lived out here, on the edge of the island? And how had Andy discovered their home?

  He hung his lantern in the middle of the room and sat down on the side of what was probably once a straw mattress. There was no straw or any stuffing left over the bands. He hadn’t planned on coming back to the lighthouse after tonight, but now he couldn’t imagine not returning.

  It seemed crazy, but he wanted to learn more about Andy. Not just her real name or who she worked for on the island, but why she drew herself on the beach, looking out at the lake—like she wanted to be set free.

  Walking to the corner, he opened a trunk. Inside was a quilt, and he riffled through the clothing under it to look for her drawings. There was some sort of book at the bottom, though it felt much too small to be Andy’s book. He pulled it up, and in his hands was a brown booklet not much wider than an envelope, with leather cracked along the edges.

  Chase held it up to the light and flipped through the handwriting on its pages. It looked like some sort of journal.

  He read the first line.

  Where are you, Jonah?

  Chase lowered the book to his side and sat down on the bed frame, brushing his hands over the cover. Someone had written this plea more than eighty years ago, but even so, he felt strange reading it, like he was invading someone else’s story.

  But someone had left the journal here. Perhaps whoever wrote their story wanted it to be read.

  He moved to the parlor with his lantern and opened the book again. The pages were filled with writing, but some of the words were smeared, as if tears had mixed with the ink.

  He read the first entry. And then the second and third.

  The lighthouse keeper’s wife was the writer, he assumed, and she was searching for her husband.

  When Chase looked around the parlor again, he could almost imagine this Jonah and his family in the evening hours, singing or reading together around the fireplace before he disappeared. Eighty years ago Jonah’s wife had still been here, worrying and wondering what happened to her husband. Had her children been playing while she wrote this journal? Or were they sleeping in their beds? The lighthouse was now a beautiful refuge, but it must have felt like a prison to her at the time. Or maybe more like a fortress, protecting her from whatever had happened to her husband.

  He slowly closed the dairy. He didn’t want to read anymore without—

  The very thoug
ht startled him. He didn’t want to read anymore without Andy.

  She might have already read the diary, but if she hadn’t, he wanted to share it with her, like he had shared the telescope and the wonders in the sky.

  He started to tuck the journal into his satchel but took it back out. If the writer of the diary had left her story behind, it needed to stay in this place. He would leave it here, and perhaps if Andy decided to return, they could read the story together.

  He took his watch out of his pocket and checked the time. It was almost two. He sighed. Andy wasn’t coming tonight, and he was supposed to meet his family for breakfast before church in the morning.

  He put the diary back in the trunk and covered it with the clothes and the quilt.

  When he stood up, he heard something brush against the door. He turned his head sharply toward the parlor. Perhaps Andy had come to see him—or at least to visit the lighthouse. He didn’t want to startle her, but surely she’d seen his light through the window.

  Something moved against the door again, but no one opened it.

  Why wasn’t she coming into the house?

  Perhaps someone else was coming to visit the lighthouse, or maybe Andy was debating whether she should come inside.

  He moved quickly to the door, afraid she would leave, and threw it open. His gaze dropped quickly to the animal on the forest floor. The dog who’d befriended him in town.

  The dog looked up at him, his tongue hanging out.

  Chase may have been surprised, but this animal wasn’t the least bit surprised.

  “You’re following me, aren’t you?” Chase asked.

  The dog replied with a short bark.

  Chase stepped outside and pulled the door shut. “Well, you might as well follow me home.”

  He picked up his lantern and slipped back into the darkness with the dog at his side. And the mysteries of two women on his mind.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “There he is,” Mama said, nodding ever so slightly toward the front of the sanctuary.

  Elena stretched her neck, looking over the rows of people streaming into the pews. She didn’t know which man her mother was referring to, but she didn’t dare tell her this for fear that she would point to him. Most of the attendees were facing the front of the sanctuary, but someone would certainly see her mother pointing and wonder.