by Susan Wiggs
“Mary.” Her name twisted from his throat on a pained whisper. “My God—” He spoke no more, but dropped the pen and threaded his hand through the abundant soft hair at the nape of her neck. A hunger reared within him. He could no more control the urge than he could subdue his mirth earlier.
He crushed his mouth down onto hers. The searing intimacy of their embrace consumed him. He delved into her, savoring her warmth and feeling a new awareness inside him unfurl with a painful awakening. The moment took on a vividness, an intense sharp-edged reality. Everything alive and vital he had been trying to avoid for years was suddenly barreling back at him, full force.
He could not tell how long the embrace lasted. The entire world turned upon this kiss. He heard the roar and swish of his own heartbeat and that of the ocean; he heard Mary’s short, breathless gasps as she clung to him. Her small fists buried themselves in the fabric of his flannel shirt.
He had the uncanny sense that kissing Mary was the only way to get from one side of the moment to the next. It was a notion more suited to Mary, who believed in magic and who had no compunction about pouring her soul out onto a public document. But he needed this, needed to engulf himself in the taste and soul and texture of her. He wanted to disappear inside her, to fill himself with her, to remember what it was like to feel again.
She was saving a part of him he didn’t realize needed saving. Just as he had pulled her from the chilly surf, she pulled him toward her own lively radiance. The warmth built higher and higher inside him, a furnace being stoked.
Only when he heard the metallic grind of the machinery did he return to the world. He wrenched away from her. Christ, he had forgotten everything, drowned everything in the honeyed oblivion of kissing her.
“The equipment,” he muttered, stepping back.
“I don’t understand.”
He was already clattering down the stairs to give the gears a turn. He discharged his duty quickly. When he turned, she was standing there with her hair mussed and her lips full and shining—cherry lips—stung by his kiss and her willing acceptance of it.
Someday, she had told him, you’ll kiss me back.
How had she known?
“The—uh—the gears need turning every four hours. In all the time I’ve been here, I’ve never missed a turn.”
“You’re very devoted, then.”
“It’s my duty, no more, no less.” How formal he sounded. The realization that he had nearly forgotten years of training for a moment of lust in a strange woman’s arms had disrupted his routine.
She was pregnant, he reminded himself coldly. She refused to speak of how she had come to be that way or why she was alone. He needed to keep his distance from her. She was none of his affair. As soon as the loggers cleared the road to town, he would be free of her. Free.
“It’s late,” he said after the gears were wound far tighter than they needed to be. “You should go to bed.”
She gazed at him for a long moment, a moment measured in heartbeats and unspoken longing. “I’ll go, then.” She went to the stairs, her hand on the rail. “Jesse?”
“What?”
A sweet-sad smile softened her face. “I wasn’t finished with my story.”
“Perhaps...we could finish it another time.”
“Perhaps.” She took two steps down, then looked back at him. How heartbreakingly pretty she was. And how wasted that beauty was on a man like him.
“But Jesse?” she persisted.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how it ends.”
CHAPTER TEN
When Mary awoke late in the morning, a blurry dreaminess lingered. She lay abed for a few moments, squinting at the bright sunshine coming through the slats of the shutters. She smiled, thinking that the clear, luminous warmth of the sun was exactly what she felt in her heart.
Because of Jesse.
Something had happened last night. Something magical and extraordinary, something Malcolm Stevenson would call destiny.
In the darker moments, when she had been recovering from her ordeal, she had wondered—quite sincerely—why she had been spared from drowning when every other soul on the Blind Chance had been sucked into eternity. She thought perhaps it was because of the baby, but now she knew it was something more.
She had survived because Jesse needed her. She knew it for certain.
It was not for her to question such things, of course. Who was she to guess at the workings of the higher powers of the universe? Whether it was Palina’s legends of the sea or the luck of the Irish or the very hand of God, it did not matter. She was here for Jesse.
She washed and dressed, then brushed her hair until the long red curls crackled with the friction of her vigorous strokes. She slipped out to the privy, stopping on the way back to pluck a just-opening rose. When she walked into the kitchen, Jesse was there, reaching for the enamelware coffeepot on the stove.
“Top of the morning!” she called.
He seized the handle of the pot. “Ouch!” he yelled, jumping back and shaking his hand. “Goddammit, ouch!”
She dropped the rose and rushed forward, grabbing him by the wrist and plunging the burned hand into the bucket of fresh water in the sink. “Faith, and what did you go and do that for?” she demanded.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” He lifted his hand and scowled at the blister forming on his fingertip. His hair, sleep-tousled and rich brown in the morning sunlight, tumbled over his brow. “Didn’t sleep well last night,” he grumbled.
Mary ducked her head to hide a smile. “Well, I certainly did. What a lot of work it is, keeping yourself up on watch at the lighthouse.”
He covered his hand with a dish towel and picked up the coffeepot, pouring the steaming liquid into a thick china mug. Then he carried the mug to the table.
Mary cleared her throat.
He looked at the cup, then held it out to her. “Coffee?”
“Thank you,” she said, taking it. “I don’t mind if I do.” She was going to teach this man to live with another person if it drove her—drove them both-round the bend. Putting aside her coffee, she retrieved the rose, set it in a jar of water and placed it on the table.
Jesse poured coffee into a second mug and sat down. He scowled at the rose and moved the jar to the far corner of the table.
Without saying a word, Mary moved it back.
He reached for the jar again. She caught his eye, letting her sharpest glare stab at him. “Don’t even think about it, boyo,” she said. Though she spoke softly, there was no mistaking the command in her voice. Mum had taught her that.
He said nothing, but thereafter ignored the fresh rose on the table. Mary admired the perfect blossom, filled with all the colors of the dawn. The petals embraced one another timidly, still hiding. By tomorrow they would be unfurled. An open-faced, rosy smile would greet her in the morning.
She considered sharing her whimsical thoughts with Jesse, but he looked as forbidding as a bear sitting across from her, his beard dark and bristly on his cheeks and chin, his glacial eyes glaring out the window.
“Soft day,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“The day. In Ireland we’d call it soft. It means there’s a light mist in the air with the sun coming through. A rainbow day. Sometimes we call it that, as well.”
He rewarded her with a noncommittal grunt.
She managed to catch his eye. “Jesse—”
“Mary—”
They both spoke at once.
Mary burst out laughing. “How awkward we are with each other this morning. What is it you wanted to say?”
He cleared his throat and took a sip of his coffee. “I’m sorry about last evening...”
“Yes?” She was not going to make this easy for him. “I’m
afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific. ’Tis a great thick head I have, you see.”
He studied her for a moment. His mouth softened, thrilling her, for she thought he might smile again. Oh, do, she silently urged him. What a miracle it had been last night, at the dead of midnight when his laughter had filled the lonely outpost of Cape Disappointment, as unexpected as the sun in winter. She hadn’t meant to make him laugh, but the fact that she had filled her with hope.
This morning, his face had returned to its customary grimness. She knew then what a rare gift his smile had been. “So it’s begging pardon you are, Captain Morgan,” she said lightly. “And I’ve a mind to accept it, but first I should know what infraction you’ve committed.”
“I should not have taken liberties with...” His voice trailed off. The tips of his ears were suspiciously red.
With a look of wide-eyed innocence, she stirred a spoonful of sugar into her mug and watched him expectantly.
He sucked in a harsh breath, expelled it and said, “It was ungentlemanly to...mishandle you.”
“It was?”
“A man cannot simply force himself on a woman.”
“I don’t remember any forcing last night,” she said with quiet candor.
“Then we were both wrong.”
“Were we? How so?” Her indulgence was melting quickly, like chocolate left too long in the sun. He was the most vexing man she had ever met. She tried to keep careful rein on her temper, though she could feel the resentment roiling in the back of her mind. Anger had begun to wash in like the tide.
“Was there any harm done by it?” she asked. “Any damage caused by two lonely people reaching out to each other? Tell me that, Jesse Morgan. Did it hurt either of us?”
“No!” he burst out. “But it shouldn’t have happened.” He shot up from the table and practically flung his empty coffee mug into the sink. He pressed his hands on the counter and bent his head. She watched him trying to wrestle his temper into submission, visibly calming himself. When he turned to her, his face was expressionless.
He stood beside her, reached down and stroked a finger delicately along the side of her throat. “It’s best forgotten, because it can only mean trouble,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to say.”
Without another word, he stomped out to do chores in the barn. She sat for a long time, sipping her coffee and watching the beams of morning sun that poured in through the window she had cleaned—was it only yesterday? Aye, there was the perfect glass globe he had brought her. A gift. An offering that contradicted every cold thing he said to her.
As admissions of heartfelt sentiment went, “It’s best forgotten” did not rank terribly high, but to Mary’s ears, the words offered a promise she needed to hear.
Absently she rubbed her stomach, where the baby grew. She had seen a fine-looking man sink onto bended knee, had heard him claim undying devotion and she’d been stupid enough to believe the pretty words. She had willed herself to trust a man who offered her pearl earrings and midnight carriage rides. Learning wisdom from the most painful of lessons, she knew better than to put stock in flowery phrases and insincere pledges.
A simple look in Jesse Morgan’s eyes meant more than a thousand false declarations from a handsome man with a waxed mustache and a fancy carriage.
“We’re going to be all right,” she whispered to the baby. It was the first time she had truly believed that since she had packed up her meager belongings and her mortified shame in San Francisco and stolen aboard the Blind Chance.
And because she had new hope for the baby, she started to picture it. A boy, for everyone knew the firstborn should be a boy. Her own family had boasted three strapping lads—Riordan, Alois and Padriac.
She sighed. Rory, Ali and Paddy were long gone now, though it took little effort to conjure an image of the trio of fiery redheads bending over the nets with Da, making the repairs for the next day’s fishing off the coast of Ballinskelligs. Her baby would look like them, she decided with certainty, born of equal measures of hope and denial.
Aye, a great thick shock of Kerry red hair and a fine spray of freckles across the nose. Angel kisses, Mum had told her when Mary had come home crying from church because the Costello twins had poked fun at her freckles.
Her own little lad would wear those angel kisses with pride, because he would know they were a legacy from a proud Irish family.
A family that was no more.
A terrible wave of grief threatened to swamp her. She stiffened her spine, refusing to dwell on the past. What would she name the child? As she washed up after breakfast, she pondered the beautiful Irish names she knew, but all the time, she kept thinking, Jesse.
Jesse. In the Good Book, the story of Jesse was an extraordinary tale of faith. And the Biblical Jesse had named his son David.
Mary smiled, hanging the mugs on cup hooks and placing the lid on the jar of coffee beans. David was the most beautiful name she could imagine.
She spent the first part of the morning putting to rights the valance Jesse had torn in his rage. He wanted so badly to be a bear, full of anger and lashing out at everything. He might not realize it yet, but he had met his match.
He had been alone too long. The uncaring world had left him alone. Palina and Magnus and Erik were pleasant enough, but they had one another and were far too respectful of Jesse’s insistence on privacy.
Mary had no such respect. She would fill his days like the sunshine flooding this lonely house on the hill, and before he knew it, he would be smiling and laughing again.
It was the least she could do for the man who had saved her. The man who had been moved to laughter by the words she’d spun. The man who had taken her in his arms and kissed her as if his very life depended on it.
A dark remembrance clouded her mind. She suddenly recalled another man’s arms, another man’s kisses. Would she ever be free of the past?
Thrusting aside the worrisome thought, she decided to give the entire house a good tidying. Aye, she had devoted the previous day to digging in the garden. Today she would take the cleaning of the house in hand. She sang as she worked, using strong lye soap and great buckets of water from the artesian well in the yard to scrub floors and walls and windows. She went over every inch of the kitchen. The place wasn’t precisely dirty; in fact, it was painstakingly neat. But there was a neglected feel to it.
As if the house had no soul.
She worked her way to the stairs and went up to Jesse’s room. Another place with no soul. It might have been a room in a boardinghouse, belonging to no one in particular.
She shuddered. Her residence in San Francisco had been more opulent, with rich red draperies dangling with golden tassels, but it had felt the same as Jesse’s room.
The abode of a stranger who was taking care to leave no mark. The difference was, Jesse had been here twelve years and had still not made it his own.
She cheered up the window with a bright swag of yellow gingham left over from her efforts downstairs. The bed was made military-style, with its drab blanket of rough wool, the pillow lying flat and lifeless. She fetched one of Palina’s quilts from her own bed and spread it carefully over Jesse’s.
The intimacy of the gesture gave her a deep, secret thrill. She had chosen the quilt with the mermaid on it. Although not depicted in detail, the figure was naked from her waist up. Aye, let him sleep beneath that each night and see if he could keep his thoughts pure.
As she bent to plump the pillow, she frowned at the meagerness of it. Surely she could find another pillow somewhere. She opened a tall pine cupboard and peered inside. She found a rifle and a supply of bullets. A long knife such as a tanner might use.
She spied another pillow high on a shelf. Standing on tiptoe, she pulled the corner toward her, yanking hard when the ticking caught on something.
T
here was a scraping sound, and the pillow sprang free. In its wake came a polished box, falling first upon her foot, then to the floor with a loud crash. “Ouch,” she cried, grabbing her foot. She bent to pick up the box.
Low and flat, the coffer had brass fittings. The pain in her foot forgotten, Mary studied it for a moment. A deep-colored, fine-grained wood, like walnut or cherry—maybe even rosewood—shone with the patina of age. In the center of the lid was an oval plaque. Three letters were stamped in the brass. Mary traced her fingers over them, remembering her alphabet. “E...L...M,” she said aloud.
Someone’s initials, she decided. Not Jesse’s, though. She knew the shape of the J, and there was no J here.
She lifted the box to replace it in the cupboard. A spring gave way with a soft, tinny ping, and the latch flew up. With a gasp, she fastened the catch. But it refused to stay. The hinged latch kept flipping up, again and again.
Frowning, she set the coffer on the floor, its lid hanging askew. The first thing that struck her was the stale, musty scent of old perfume—not an unpleasant smell, just an old one.
She knew she was looking into the past. Jesse’s past.
The top layer of the box contained thin, crinkled sheets of paper. Carefully lifting the tissue, Mary discovered a lovely white chemise of the finest batiste she’d ever felt. A pair of lace gloves with buttons so dainty they surely had to be secured with a crochet hook. An ancient dried rose, crumbling between folds of tissue. A fan with ivory ribs and forget-me-nots painted on the silk.
She sat on the floor and stared at her discovery. A woman’s prized possessions. Things of surpassing fineness, too. Surely they had belonged to a lady of quality. Jesse’s mother, perhaps?
Mary drew her knees up and rested her chin on them, feeling an unaccustomed tightness where the baby grew. Something told her these things had nothing to do with Jesse Morgan’s mother. At length she picked up a tooled-leather picture frame. The two halves were hinged and closed like a book. Slowly she opened it.