by Susan Wiggs
“Very well, thank you. I do get tired—”
“She’s fine,” Jesse said tautly. “She’s well enough to move out—”
“Oh, look!” Mary interrupted him before he could take the thought further. “Lovely oysters.” She hurried toward the table. “I’m told Shoalwater Bay oysters are the best in the world.”
She stood before a vast array of raw shellfish. On the opposite side of the table, men were shucking them and setting them out with lemon wedges in a huge basin of chipped ice.
“You just said you hated oysters,” Jesse pointed out.
“I said I’d never liked oysters,” she corrected him, smiling sweetly at the man opposite them at the table. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs. Swann step forward, but the doctor took the widow’s arm and led her away. They were matchmaking, bless them, and Mary loved them for it. “That probably means I’ve just never had good ones.”
“You came to the right place.” One of the men shucking oysters grinned and stuck out his arm. In the palm of his rubber-gloved hand he held a large opened oyster. “It’s a taste of heaven on the half shell.”
She stared at it. The pale moon-colored flesh glistened in the sunlight.
Jesse placed his hand in the small of her back and urged her forward. “Taste it. You traveled all morning to get here.”
She was trapped by her own big mouth. She never did know when to button her lip, Mum always said. Gingerly she took the rough-edged shell and lifted it to her lips. All around her, people were sucking down the oysters. She tried not to think about the fact that the creature was alive, sitting there innocently, unaware that it was about to be swallowed.
She closed her eyes and gulped the thing, grimacing as it slid through her mouth and down her throat. It tasted of the sea and of some vague muskiness she was better off not thinking of. She opened her eyes and dropped the shell on the growing pile on the ground.
“Wonderful,” she exclaimed, her voice only a little faint. “Thank you.” Clutching Jesse’s arm, she moved down the table. “Do you think I could have a glass of lemonade? Right away?”
He laughed, and she got over her horror long enough to laugh back. After that, Jesse seemed to relax a little, exchanging greetings with people he passed. Many of them knew him by sight, though he confessed he had no idea who they were.
A whole beef was roasting in a large pit on a bed of hot coals, and they gave it a wide berth as they passed, feeling the heat from several feet away. Mary looked around her in a state of wonder. “I feel as if I’m in the middle of a lovely dream,” she said, taking Jesse’s arm.
“Is that so?” His muscles tightened, but he didn’t pull away.
“It is like a dream—the ladies in white, the music, the children dressed in their finest, the fleet out in the harbor. Everything’s so beautiful. How blessed you are to live in such a place, among such people.”
“I suppose,” he said reluctantly. But he was in one of his more agreeable moods today. When he was agreeable, he seemed to let her have her way rather than struggle and clash with her.
“In Ireland, it was lovely,” she said, “but we lived so far from everyone else, and the village rarely had cause to celebrate. We’ve not yet convinced the English of our independence.” She inhaled the smells of cooking and the sea and the human smell of the crowd.
A loud thunking sound drew her attention. She hurried ahead to see an area roped off at the side of the courthouse. On a great flat rock, men were setting up logs and splitting them.
“Try your hand at this for the lady?” called a man in a straw hat, his sleeves held back by bands.
“It’s a log-splitting contest,” she said over her shoulder.
“You don’t say.”
“Oh, Jesse.” She laughed.
“Three tries a penny,” the hawker coaxed. “The prize is a patriotic eagle brooch for your wife.”
Mary felt a chilly wave sweep over her. The dreamworld took on the cold, hard edges of reality. Wife. She chanced a look at Jesse. His face was unreadable as he stalked past the rope barrier and wrenched a long-handled ax out of a stump.
The crier grinned. “Three tries a pen—”
“I don’t need three tries.” Jesse slapped a coin into the man’s upturned palm. He peeled off his frock coat and shoved back the sleeves of his white shirt, baring his sun-browned forearms. He stood in front of a fresh upended log, bracing his feet apart in the trampled ground. Bystanders gathered at the fringes of the yard to watch. Mary heard curious murmurs: “Who is he?” “The lightkeeper of Cape Disappointment.” “Rescued more folks than any other keeper on the coast.” “I’ve heard he’s a strange one....”
She moved away from the whispering voices. Let them talk. There was nothing strange about Jesse, except that for twelve years, everyone had believed he wanted to be alone. In all that time, she was the only one who saw he was hurting inside. She was the only one who believed he could heal.
The puzzle was to get him to believe it.
He loosened his cravat, letting the ends trail down his chest. Then he regarded the upended log with total absorption, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. What a gift it was, to have that concentration. All around him lay hacked-up logs, strewn there by men who had failed.
It never occurred to Mary that Jesse would fail. There was an almost mystical connection between him and the blade of the ax. His motion was as smooth as the gliding wind as he swung the ax up over his head, then brought it down in the middle of the wood, right at its vulnerable core. A smell of fresh evergreen wafted up. The log split apart in two perfect halves.
A smattering of applause rippled through the crowd. The hawker grinned good-naturedly. “Nobody warned me Paul Bunyan would be here today,” he said, handing over the prize.
Jesse rejoined Mary. She moved close as the crowd jostled them, and she felt the damp warmth emanating from deep within the muscles of his arms and shoulders. A thrill shot through her.
He pushed the brooch into her hand. “I don’t have much use for this,” he said.
“Thank you.” She was about to make some tart reply about his graciousness, but the remark earlier about her being his wife had unsettled them both. A day, which had started out soft and buoyant and full of carefree feelings, had suddenly, with a single word, turned dark and ominous.
And she didn’t know how to fix it.
She pinned the brooch to her bodice and carried Jesse’s coat draped over her forearm. He seemed to have forgotten the coat and certainly didn’t need it; his back and shoulders were damp with sweat.
“Good God, do my eyes deceive me?” asked a clipped male voice.
Jesse and Mary stopped walking. A man in a straw bowler hat, dressed all in white, strode toward them. On his arm was a lady, also clad in white from head to toe.
Mary had only to look at them to see that they embodied wealth and privilege. The whites were too crisp to be anything but brand-new. The smooth leather shoes on the man and the alabaster kid slippers on the woman barely seemed to skim the grass, so light and airy was their step.
The man was fair of hair and eyes. His open grin was both cultured and guileless. “It can’t be,” he exclaimed, “but by God, I think it is.” He stuck out his hand. “Jesse Kane Morgan. Hell’s bells, man, don’t you remember me? Elliot Webber, of the Portland Webbers!”
“Of course I remember.” Jesse shook the man’s hand.
Elliot frowned, taking back his hand, trying to be surreptitious as he wiped it with a white handkerchief.
Jesse cleared his throat. “Sorry. I was just trying my hand at splitting logs.”
“I know,” said the woman. “I saw.”
In those few seconds, Mary understood. The woman had seen Jesse wield the ax, had seen the sun glinting in his hair, had seen the rippling breadth of h
is shoulders and back as he cleaved the log in two.
Mary glared at the woman, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off Jesse. Elliot said, “This is my wife, Sarah.”
Jesse bowed from the waist. “Mrs. Webber.”
Mary had never seen him bow before. She hadn’t yet decided how she felt about that, when Jesse indicated her with a slight tilt of his head. “This is Mary. Mary Dare.”
She felt, with a wave of gratitude, Elliot’s gaze heat with appreciation as it coasted over her hair and face. Mum had cautioned her about being vain, but she indulged herself for a moment. “How do you do?” he asked.
“Quite well, thank you,” she said.
He took off his hat and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Have we met before, Miss Dare?”
“Why, no. Surely not.”
“You look familiar.” Elliot shrugged. “Jesse and I were school fellows,” he explained to his wife. “He was captain of the cricket team, and I was his deputy.” Elliot winked. “Always top dog, weren’t you, Jesse? And that Shoalwater Bay Company! You built it into quite the enterprise. Everyone was shocked when you bowed out after—ah, sorry, old chap. Listen to me, babbling on about the past.”
“What brings you to the area?” Jesse asked stiffly.
“We summer here every year,” Sarah said.
She spoke oddly, Mary thought. “Yee-ah” for “year.” Silly affectation.
“Today I aim to trounce the local oystermen in the regatta,” Elliott said, hooking his thumbs into his white gallowses. He had the arrogance of a man to whom everything—from a wife to money to victory in a regatta—came easily. “Had a bit of trouble yesterday—one of my crewmen drank too much and he’s under the weather.” Elliot snapped his fingers. “Say! How would you like to take his place, Jesse? You used to be a fine sailor back in our school days. Remember when I crewed for you in the Willamette regatta? You’d have a high time. After the first cannon fire, we sail out into the bay, and—”
“Sorry, Elliot, but no.”
Only Mary heard the tautness underlying his voice. Only she understood. She slipped her free arm through his.
“But it would be just perfect,” Sarah interjected. “The two of you would make the ideal team against these unwashed locals. You could put them in their place once and for all.”
Mary felt the tenseness in Jesse’s arm muscles. He, who was so strong and so fearless in all things, feared going to sea.
“You must go.” Sarah pouted appealingly. “It’s simply beyond anything to think that the silver cup will be won by some common fisherman, maybe even a foreigner. One of those strange Norwegians or dirty Irish or—”
“No.” Jesse’s voice cut like a knife. “In fact, we’ve got to go somewhere right now.”
But he hadn’t spoken soon enough. Mary felt as if someone had set fire to her. Shame and rage and frustration burned inside her, not just for Jesse but for herself.
“And God forbid,” she burst out, proudly rolling the brogue over her tongue, “that a dahr-ty Irish should take the prize.” With a dramatic flourish, she swung Jesse’s frock coat around her shoulders.
And realized her mistake.
She could feel both their gazes drifting down to her middle. She could see the small, tight workings of their minds, assessing the situation. Their conclusions crackled invisibly in the air like heat lightning. Sarah spoke at last. “Well!” With a huff of breath and a brush of her skirts, she swept away.
Elliot gave Jesse a lame grin and went after her.
Mary was at a loss. She couldn’t believe how hot her throat burned. How deep the ache bit into her chest. The fragile contentment, the dreamlike happiness of the day, had vanished. In the space of just a few minutes, she had been called wife and then regarded as a whore.
Both of them dug at her, taunted her with what she wanted and all she could never have. Blinded by sudden, shameful tears, she started quickly toward the edge of town.
Somewhere in the distant meadow, a horse whinnied and the wheels of a buggy rattled. In front of her, tall heaps of oyster middens framed a view of Shoalwater Bay, the fleet lying at anchor, the sun a dazzling strip of liquid amber on the water. It was as if someone had melted a pot of gold and spilled it across the surface.
Mary clung to the image, trying to do everything at once. To tamp down her rage. Shrug off her shame. Blink away her tears. She was failing miserably at all three.
“Mary.” Jesse’s hand touched her shoulder.
She spun away from him and stepped back. One step. Two steps. “Don’t touch me. Not now. Don’t touch me...unless you mean it.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—”
“Help!” A frantic voice screeched across the fairgrounds. “Oh, someone, please help—”
“I have to go,” Jesse said, already running in answer to the call.
Mary leaned against the fence as he raced off to investigate. Part of her went weak with relief. She was coming so close to loving him. It was starting to hurt too much that he wouldn’t let her. She needed to collect her thoughts and harden herself against the callous judgment Sarah Webber had made.
But nothing would change what she was. An unmarried woman, pregnant, boarding with a reclusive man.
“Help!” the woman shrieked again. “My baby!”
It was Mrs. Hapgood, the reverend’s wife. Suddenly, Mary’s troubles shrank to small, petty annoyances.
* * *
Bone-weary, Jesse trudged back to the courthouse yard. In his arms he carried a precious burden. The little Hapgood boy clung to Jesse’s neck.
“That was quite a ride you took,” Jesse remarked. “I’ll bet you weren’t expecting the horse to take off like that.”
“I was scared, mister. Real scared.” The boy clung tighter.
Jesse was struck by the smell and the feel of the child. There was something unique and impossibly sweet in the smell of a little boy. It evoked images of innocence and laughter and the joy of endless possibility.
Jesse thought of the careening buggy the lad had set off, and the image hammered home just how fleeting life was. How a single moment could snatch it all away.
He caught himself doing something impulsive and unexpected just then. He lifted the boy higher and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. The brush of his lips across the silk-fine hair raised an ache in Jesse’s chest.
He had little time to ponder it. Portly as a bowling ball, Mrs. Hapgood came barreling down the road. Her husband raced along in her wake. “My baby,” she shrieked. “My baby! My baby!”
The boy twisted in Jesse’s grip. “Mama! Papa!” There was such utter relief in the shrill call that Jesse shivered. Gladly, he relinquished the child. The Hapgoods made a sandwich around the boy, pressing him between them and covering his face with kisses. From the father’s eye squeezed a single tear. He looked up and mouthed the words “thank you” to Jesse.
But the glint of the sunlight on that single tear was all the thanks Jesse needed. He nodded and went in search of Mary.
He didn’t have far to look. And it didn’t take long for him to remember their quarrel.
Elliot and Sarah Webber. Damn them. Damn them to bloody hell. The look on Mary’s face when Sarah had said “dirty Irish” had been, to Jesse, a glimpse of hell. He knew it wasn’t the first time Mary had endured this sort of slight. And suddenly he wanted to make sure it was the last.
He wanted to protect her. If only she were like the Hapgood boy, in a runaway cart, shrieking for help. All he’d have to do was stop the buggy, and she would be safe.
She hadn’t moved from her spot at the edge of the lawn. Her gaze was turned out to sea, her profile a stark statement of everything wrong between them.
The child. Her belly displayed it proudly now. That silent threat. That taunt.
Jesse’s arms still remembered holding the boy. The preciousness of life. He could never feel that tenderness for the baby Mary carried. He didn’t even want to try. The very thought made him recoil. He couldn’t imagine acting the father to a child he had made, let alone a stranger’s bastard.
But Mary wasn’t a stranger, his conscience argued.
Feeling torn, he approached her. Never had her eyes looked so large, so soft, so deep with despair. Where was the joy? Why wasn’t it there? No matter what happened, Mary always took joy.
“You’re quite the hero again,” she said quietly. “That family is lucky you were here today, Jesse Morgan. Aye, you’re a lucky man to have around.”
The irony of her words bit at him. Like a storm cloud, the encounter with the Webbers shadowed the rest of the day. He could feel her effort to keep up a brave front as they strolled through the crowd and cringed as cannon fire signaled the start of the regatta.
She perked up a little when an oyster boat manned by a local Finnish crew won the race, rounding the buoy and surging into the bay well ahead of the fancy rigs of visiting folk from Portland and Astoria. As the sun slipped down past the peninsula and summer color gilded the sky, Jesse looked at Mary and realized that it had been forever since the happiness of another person had mattered so much to him.
Perhaps it had never mattered so much. He had loved Emily, yes, but with a young man’s brash confidence and carelessness. Now he was older, and he knew tomorrow was only a promise, not a guarantee.
“What are you looking at, boyo?” Mary asked.
He cleared his throat. “You. I hope you don’t think I give a rat’s ass what Elliot Webber and his wife said.”
She tossed her head. “Certainly not.”
“Let’s get something to eat at the banquet.”
She hesitated, then nodded, holding her chin high as they took their place at a long table set up on sawhorses at the edge of the courthouse lawn.
People congratulated Jesse, thumping him on the back, remarking about his heroism, and he never once believed it. Didn’t like the attention, either. The Hapgood boy had been in trouble. Jesse had moved quickly and unthinkingly to get him out of it. That was all there was to it.