When Josiah went back inside, he found Rye wielding the adz with a vengeance, all semblance of nonchalance now gone. The old man puffed on his pipe, watching wordlessly while the scowl on Rye’s face warned that his temper was strained.
But it was nothing compared to the rage spawned later that day, when one Ezra J. Merrill appeared at the double doors and stepped diffidently inside. “Good day, Josiah.” He sounded nervous.
“Ezra.” The grizzled cooper nodded. His eyes narrowed as he watched Ezra looking about for Rye, who was working in the rear of the shop. “Somethin’ I can do for y’?”
“Actually, I’m here to see Rye.”
“Well, there he is.”
Ezra cleared his throat and moved toward Rye, who stopped tapping a barrel bottom into place and looked back over his shoulder. “Hello, Ezra.” Rye turned, the hammer still in his hand. “Need something made?”
Again Ezra cleared his throat. “N ... no, actually. I’m here in an official capacity. I’ve been hired by Dan ... er, Daniel Morgan, that is, to act on his behalf.”
The hand holding the hammer tightened perceptibly upon its handle. Ezra’s eyes shifted downward nervously, then back up.
“What the hell’s he up t’ now?”
“Are you the owner of a saltbox house at the end of the lane commonly called Crooked Record?”
Rye glanced at his father, then back at the lawyer. His eyebrows were drawn down into a scowl. “Well, for God’s sake, Ezra, you know as well as I do that I own that house. Everybody on the island knows I own it.”
Ezra Merrill’s face was as red as an autumn apple. “I’ve been authorized by Daniel Morgan to make you an offer of seven hundred dollars for the purchase of the house, exclusive of any furnishings within it that have been there five years or more, which you are free to take.”
The cooperage seemed to crackle in the silence before a storm.
“You what!” Rye growled, took a step toward Ezra, grinding the head of the hammer against his palm.
“I’ve been authorized to make you an offer—”
“The house is not for sale!” Rye barked.
“Mr. Morgan has instructed me to—”
“You go back and tell Dan Morgan my house is not for sale any more than my wife is!” Rye raged, now advancing on the retreating Ezra, whose mouth was pursed tightly while his eyes blinked rapidly in fright.
“You ... I ... shall I tell... er, Mr. Morgan, then, that you are rejecting his offer?”
The roof fairly shook as Rye Dalton backed the trembling attorney to the door, emphasizing his words with nudges of the steel hammer against Merrill’s chest. “You tell Dan Morgan the goddamn house is not for sale and never will be so long as I draw breath. Is that clear?”
Rye watched the lawyer scurry up the street, clutching his hat to his balding head. Rye grasped the hammer so tightly, the hickory handle seemed to depress. Josiah merely puffed his pipe. Ship retreated to the shadows under the tool bench, whined once, laid her head on her paws, and kept a wary eye on her master.
Never in her life had Laura seen Dan as angry as he was that night after his confrontation with Rye. He waited until Josh was in bed before saying without preamble, “It’s all over town that you’ve been meeting Rye in the square, as bold as brass.”
“Meeting? I’d hardly call the exchange of hellos meetings.”
“I saw him today, and he didn’t deny it.”
“You saw him—where?”
“At the cooperage. I had to swallow my pride and troop down there and demand that he stop courting my wife under the curious eyes of the entire town, and making a fool of me in the process!”
She colored and turned away. “Dan, you’re exaggerating,” she lied, the hidden busk seeming to scorch her skin as she spoke the words.
“Am I?” he snapped.
“Yes, of course. Josh and I have talked to him when we’ve gone to do the marketing, but nothing else ... I assure you.” She looked up entreatingly, and her voice softened as she appealed, “Josh is his son, Dan, his son. How can I keep—”
“Stop lying!” Dan shouted. “And stop using the boy to hide behind. I won’t allow it, do you hear? He’s not to be made a pawn while the two of you create a scandal right out in public!”
“Scandal? Who calls it a scandal—we’ve done nothing wrong!”
He wanted badly to believe her, but doubts ate at him, strengthened by things he suspected from their past.
“You’ve been ... been doing wrong with him since—” His eyes narrowed on her accusingly. “Since when, Laura?” His voice turned silky. “When did it start with you and Rye? When you were fifteen? Sixteen? Or even before that?”
The blood drained from her face and she could think of no answer, could only stand before him appearing guilty as accused. She was stunned to think he’d known all these years yet had never said anything before.
“Don’t,” she begged in a tiny voice.
“Don’t?” he repeated, a hard edge to the word. “Don’t remind you of the times you left your ... your shadow behind, thinking he didn’t see the berry stains on your back when you came trooping down from the hills with your mouths still puckered, and you with your cheeks rubbed raw from his whiskers before he’d even learned how to shave.”
She turned away, chin dropping to her chest. “I’m sorry you knew. We never meant to hurt you, but it has nothing to do with now.”
“Doesn’t it?” Dan grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn and face him. “Then why do you turn away, blushing? What happened between you two out in the orchard the night of Joseph Starbuck’s party? Why were you missing for so long without a trace? Why didn’t you answer when I called to you? And how do you think I felt when I went back inside looking for you and found you still gone?”
“Nothing happened ... nothing! Why won’t you believe me?”
“Believe you! When I walk through the streets and people snicker behind my back?”
“I’m sorry, Dan, we ... I ...” She choked to a stop.
He glowered at her stricken face, watching her swallow repeatedly in an effort to keep from crying. “Yes, dear wife, we ... you ... what?”
“I didn’t think of how it would look to others when they saw us together. I ... I won’t see him again, I promise.” Immediately, Dan was sorry he’d jerked her around so roughly. Never in his life had he touched her without tenderness or caused fear to spring into her eyes. Forcing the picture of Rye Dalton from his mind, he clutched Laura tightly against his chest, sensing that he was losing her even as she vowed to be faithful. He buried his face in her neck while fear and passion coursed through him. Yet Josh was hers and Rye’s, and Dan was muddled with guilt for denying Rye the right to his son.
“Oh God, why did he have to come back?” Dan said thickly, holding Laura so tightly it seemed he would force the very flesh from her bones.
“Dan, what are you saying?” she cried, struggling out of his arms. “He’s ... he was a friend you loved. How can you say such a thing? Are you saying you wish he’d died?”
“I didn’t mean I wanted him dead, Laura ... not dead.” With a horrified expression, Dan sat down heavily and dropped his face into his hands. “Oh God,” he groaned miserably, shaking his head.
Studying him, Laura, too, suffered. She understood the conflict of emotions that was changing Dan in ways that made him dislike himself. These same conflicts warred inside Laura at times, for she loved two men, each in a different way, yet enough to want to hurt neither.
“Dan,” she said sadly, moving to rest her hands on his stooping shoulders, “I’m very mixed up, too.” Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as he lifted his tortured face to hers. He willed her not to put voice to her feelings, but she went on, a note of growing weariness in each word as she crossed to the far side of the room and turned to face him.
“It would be a lie for me to say I feel nothing for him. What is between Rye and me is of a whole childhood’s making. I can’t cause it to disap
pear or pretend it never existed. All I can do is sort it out and try to make the right decision for ... for four people.”
Her words could have come from his lips and been equally true—what was between Dan and Rye was also of a whole childhood’s making—but the realization only added to his wretchedness. Hearing it at last put into words made him realize that his place as Laura’s husband was tenuous at best, for seven hundred dollars and a deed to this house were not necessarily the deed to her heart.
Dan contemplated her across the shadowed room. Her hands were gripped together tightly, her face a mask of torn emotions. Suddenly, he could not face the truth and made for the door, jerking his jacket from the hook and shrugging it on.
"I’m going out for a while.”
The door slammed abruptly, leaving an absence so profound it seemed about to swallow Laura. It took several minutes before she believed he was actually gone, for he never went out in the evenings, except perhaps to take Josh for a walk or visit his parents. But tonight was different. Tonight Dan was escaping.
He was gone for two hours. Laura was waiting up for his return. When he came in, he stopped abruptly. “You’re still up!” he exclaimed, surprised, a glint of hope lifting his brows.
“I needed your help with my laces,” she explained.
The hope faded. He turned, hung his jacket on the coat tree, but his hand seemed to rest on the prong and hover there for several seconds, as if he were steadying himself.
Finally he turned, still near the door. “I’m ... I’m sorry I kept you up.”
“Oh, Dan, where did you go?” Her expression was grieved.
He stared at her absently for several seconds before his voice came, quiet and hurt. “Do you care?”
Pain darkened her eyes. “Of course, I care. You’ve never gone out like this before. Not ... not angry.”
He tugged the hem of his waistcoat down and came halfway across the room. “But I am angry,” he said, with no apparent trace of that emotion. “Should I stay here and be? Would you prefer that?”
“Oh, Dan, let’s just ... But she didn’t know how to finish. Let’s just what? Let’s just go to bed and forget it? Let’s just pretend everything is the same? That Rye Dalton doesn’t exist?
As they studied each other, they both knew the reason her words had trailed away: there was no pretending. Rye was there between them every hour of the night and day.
Dan sighed tiredly. “Come,” he said. “It’s late. I’ll help you get undressed so we can both get some sleep.” His shoulders drooped as he crossed to Laura and turned her by an elbow toward the linter room.
Beside the bed, she presented her back to Dan, but when he stepped up behind her, she caught the smell of brandy on his breath. But Dan was no drinking man! Guilt swept her as his fingers moved down the row of hooks at her back. When she was free of the dress, she stepped from it and waited. There followed a long, tense moment when nothing happened, and she knew his eyes were on her exposed back. Finally, he untied the stays and worked them loose, but when she bent forward to step out of the circlet of stiff whalebone, her backside bumped him and she realized he hadn’t moved. She straightened and suddenly his arms circled her ribs, jerked her backward, and held her possessively. His mouth came down hard against the side of her neck while his tongue flavored her skin with brandy.
“Oh, Laura, don’t leave me,” he pleaded, cupping her breasts tightly, holding her firmly against his body.
Through the single layer of her pantaloons, she could feel his sexual arousal. The smell of his breath made her want to pull away, but she didn’t. She covered the backs of his hands with her own and let her head tip back against his shoulder.
“Dan, I’m not leaving you. I’m here.”
He ran his hand down the front of her, cradling the mound of womanhood in a tight, upward clutch that almost lifted her from the floor. “Laura, I love you ... I’ve always loved you ... you’ll never know how much ... I need you ... don’t leave me ...” The litany went on and on, desperate, pleading words meant to inflame her, but filling her with pity instead. He unbuttoned her waistband and slid his hand over her bare stomach while she willed her body to respond. But there was only dryness, and she flinched when he touched her intimately. This recklessness was unlike Dan, and she realized the extent of his desperation. She told herself she must reassure him, but when he turned her in his arms and kissed her, the taste of brandy revolted her.
“Touch me,” he begged, and she did, only to be reminded of Rye’s so different body. The thought brought an immediate backlash of guilt, so she put more into her kisses and caresses than she felt. But the thought of Rye released the first faint sensation between her legs, so she went on thinking of him, to make this easier, even as Dan shed his clothes and blew out the light, then took her down. As his body moved over hers, she thought of orange sections—sweet, bright, and juicy—slipping between Rye’s lips, leaving succulent droplets on his smiling mouth. She pictured Rye’s tongue taking the droplets away, though it was Dan’s tongue moving in her mouth. But at last her body was receptive, and his hips moved against hers for a brief time before he plunged hard and shuddered. It was over for him while it had scarcely started for her.
With Dan’s body heavy on hers, Laura pictured the loft over old man Hardesty’s boathouse, remembering all those times with Rye. And she wanted to weep. Oh, Rye, Rye, if only it were you beside me ...
But as Dan settled into sleep, Laura was steeped with shame at her own duplicity, using thoughts of one man to arouse herself for another.
Chapter 9
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Josiah said nothing when Rye went upstairs at the usual time, then came back down with fresh comb marks in his hair and his shirt tucked tightly into his waistband.
“I won’t be gone long,” the younger man said, setting off through the wide double doors with a confident step.
But he was gone longer than usual, having waited and watched and searched the square only to give up after thirty minutes. His booted feet clumped out a warning even before he strode angrily through the door of the cooperage, his lips narrowed tightly, a look of suppressed rage about him.
Josiah squinted behind his pipe smoke; his gaze followed Rye.
“So, she didn’t show up t’day,” he noted tersely.
Rye’s fist came down like a battering ram on top of the tool bench. “Goddamnit, she’s mine!”
“Not so’s Dan’s admittin’.”
“She wants t’ be.”
“Aye, and what does it count for when the law’s on Dan’s side?”
“The law can free her, just as it tied her to him.”
Josiah’s scowl nearly hid his blue-gray eyes beneath grizzled eyebrows. “Divorce?”
Rye pierced his father with a look of determination. “Aye, it’s what I’m thinkin’.”
“On Nantucket?"
The two words needed no further embellishment. The rigid Puritanical beliefs of Nantucket’s forefathers still clung; in his whole life Rye had never heard of any couple from the island divorcing.
With a sigh, he sank onto an upturned barrel, bending forward to twine his fingers into the hair at the back of his head while staring at the floor.
Josiah braced one handle of his drawknife on the floor, withdrew his pipe, and abruptly changed the subject. “Been thinkin’. Y’re not much good t’ me lately, swingin’ tools as if y’d like t’ kill somebody, breakin’ perfectly good staves and forgettin’ y’ left the wet ones out of the water.”
Rye looked up: his father never complained—Josiah was the most patient man Rye knew. Now his dry New England drawl continued.
“Be needin’ t’ set up our agreements with the mainlanders for our winter supply of staves.”
With no source of wood on Nantucket, Josiah got his rough-rived staves from the mainland farmers, whose wood supply was limitless and whose hands would otherwise have been idle during the long winter. Each spring a full year’s supply of dimensional boards was deli
vered in exchange for finished barrels and pails, the arrangement benefiting both farmer and cooper.
“Best be gettin’ over there and talk t’ them Connecticut farmers.” Here Josiah pointed his pipestem at Rye. “Thought y’ might be talked inta goin’ and gettin’ the job done.”
At Josiah’s words, Rye’s anger began losing sway.
Josiah bent his curly gray head over his work again, and the drawknife created more spiral shavings and the smoke wreathed and dissipated overhead. As if to himself, Josiah muttered, “If it was me sittin’ on that barrel, I’d be thinkin’ about chattin’ with them mainland lawyers about what my rights was. Wouldn’t take the word of Ezra Merrill that things was all cut ’n’ dried.”
Still leaning his elbows on his knees, Rye studied the old man’s back. It flexed rhythmically as his burly forearms pulled, then retreated for a new bite at the cedar billet. Watching, mulling, Rye felt a softening about his heart. Silently, he unfolded, got to his feet, and crossed to stand behind his father, on whose tough, flexing shoulder Rye clasped a hand. Beneath his touch the muscles bunched and hardened as Josiah completed the stroke. Then, wordlessly, he let the knife rest and lifted his wise gaze to his son, who looked down at Josiah with eyes erased of anger. Josiah’s lips pursed closed. They opened and a puff of smoke came out. Rye squeezed the shoulder and said quietly, “Aye, I’ll go, old man. It’s just what I need ... thank you.” Josiah nodded agreement, and Rye squeezed his shoulder once more before his hand fell away.
***
Laura heard that Rye had left the island, and it made it easier for her to keep her promise to Dan. But she felt as if her husband could see into the hidden recesses of her mind. More and more often she’d glance up to find him watching her with a look of consternation on his face, as if he had detected secret thoughts at work in his wife. It became an irritation to her to realize he had a right to mistrust her, for though in body she remained true to him, in her mind she again wandered the hills with Rye.
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