by Susan Wiggs
But Annabelle’s husband... The image was seared into Mary’s heart. Even with her eyes closed, she could see his sharply handsome face, the perfectly trimmed mustache and the sleek, sandy-colored hair. The smiling, lying lips. The eyes that seemed to twinkle with mirth, but actually were a mask for malice.
Sickness pushed up into her throat. She swallowed hard, conquered it. Took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Jesse?” Her voice was faint. Quavering.
He stopped reading. “What?”
“I have something to tell you.”
“Now?”
“Yes. I—it can’t wait.”
He folded the letter and set it aside. She handed him the photograph. “Your sister is very beautiful.”
“I know. When I last saw her, she was only twelve years old. It’s hard to picture her all grown up. I suppose I should’ve gone to her wedding, but I didn’t want to leave the station.”
“And her husband?”
“Granger Clapp. We were schoolmates, then business partners.” His voice was flat. She could not tell what he was thinking.
“Granger Clapp.” She repeated the name, tasted the bitterness of it. She forced herself to look Jesse in the eye. “I knew him,” she said.
He frowned. “You knew Granger?”
Her every instinct screamed at her to lie, to deny it, but this was Jesse, and she had to tell Jesse the truth. She forced the words past the shame and mortification clogging her throat. “He told me his name was Jones. Granger Jones. He’s the father of my baby.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Once, while Jesse was training his horses for sea rescue, a wave had sucked him under. He recalled the moment with brilliant clarity. The wave had possessed an otherworldly, malevolent force. Its curved hollow had felt like the inside of a clenching fist as it snatched him off the panicked horse, swept him under. Drew him down to the gray depths and held him there.
The wave had tumbled him round and round in a rolling motion so that he had no idea which end was up. The universe had pulled the world out from under him. He remembered the chest-squeezing panic, the sense that everything was spinning out of control.
He felt the same way now.
Only this time, it was not a force of nature that tilted his world almost beyond recognition. It was Mary, his wife, and the secret she had just revealed to him.
He was a dying man in those first few moments. Chill numbness seethed over him until he felt as if his skin had hardened to an impenetrable shell. Then, only then, did he trust himself to move. He got up and went out onto the porch.
The autumn night had settled over the cape. A swirl of stars lit the sky and, at regular intervals, the beacon light swept past, touching the tops of the trees with silver. The sea boomed hollowly against the rocks. Drying leaves and old roses spiced the air with a faint, evocative scent.
He heard Mary come outside, and he forced himself to look at her. To look at her lovely, fragile face, the eyes wide with fear, the generous curve of her breasts above the huge, prominent belly. Mocking him. Taunting him.
“Jesse,” she said, her voice as sweet as a lullaby, “I wish you would say something.”
“What the hell is there to say? That it doesn’t matter? That I’m not surprised you were Granger’s lover? That I’m going to lay a father’s claim to my niece or nephew?”
She flinched, caught her breath.
Yes, he was hurting her. Lashing her with his words. A part of him understood perfectly that he should not blame her. But he did. Goddammit, he did blame her.
She had offered him his dreams back, only to snatch them away just when he started to believe they lay within reach. She had made him dare to hope again, had made him think it might be possible to love her, and then she had told him this.
Mary’s revelation proved he’d been right all along. Love meant nothing but pain and loss. The absence of love, the numbness of indifference and isolation, were preferable to living with someone who held it within her power to slay his heart.
Though he had made her wince, she recovered quickly. She faced him without fear, without apology. “I never thought Blind Chance to be a prophetic name for a ship, but as it turns out, it is.” She planted herself in front of him, on the top step of the porch. “We have to talk about this. We have to decide what to do.”
“Exactly what choices do you think we have?” His fist thumped against a pillar support of the porch, and his voice rang loudly through the yard.
“This comes as a great shock to me, too,” she said. “So don’t go raging around like an injured bear. I certainly didn’t plan for the ship to wreck and for you to find me.” She took a deep breath, visibly calming herself. “Bert printed the news of our marriage in the Journal, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Granger reads that paper?”
“I imagine he does.” From their school days onward, Granger had always taken an inordinate interest in the affairs of Jesse Morgan. At first, Granger had been motivated by pure envy. Jesse never planned to best him in sports and in studies; it just happened. Jesse never flaunted his loving parents in Granger’s face, but there was no hiding the fact that on mail day at school, Jesse always received a wealth of letters and parcels while Granger got nothing. Jesse never planned to vie with Granger for the hand of Emily Leighton; they simply both fell in love with her.
Yes, Jesse supposed Granger would show a keen interest in the news of his rival’s second marriage—especially since it was to the woman he had used so deliberately.
“Did he know you by your real name?” Jesse asked her.
“My name?”
“Did he know you as Mary Dare?”
She smiled up at him. He wished she wouldn’t smile, for it made her so beautiful, but she did. She could always find a smile for him. “You’re the only one who knows me as Mary Dare.”
Once again, Jesse felt the sick spinning sensation of being sucked under by a wave. “You lied about your name.”
“It seemed prudent at the time. Dare is my mum’s maiden name. My real name is Mary O’Donnell. Mary Dare O’Donnell. I never told Granger about the Dare part.”
“And you never told me about the O’Donnell part.”
She set her hands on her hips. “I woke up after a shipwreck to find myself with an angry stranger. Why would I simply tell all? I was running from Granger. Up until the moment I married you, I was running from him. What you might concern yourself with, boyo, is your sister.”
“Annabelle?” A chill sped through Jesse. “He was inexcusably indecent to you, but Annabelle is his wife, not his—” He shut his mouth. Too late.
“Not his whore, as I was,” Mary finished for him.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did, and you were right.” She shivered. “The reason he had such frightening plans for me was that his wife is barren. At first I didn’t know he was married, but he told me the truth after we...” She ran her hand down her stomach. “He told me she longed for a baby, that she would raise mine as her own, give it a lovely home and a fine education, all the advantages I could never offer a child.”
Jesse wasn’t surprised that the line of reasoning had failed to convince Mary. She believed fiercely in the power of love. She considered no one, no matter how wealthy or well-intentioned, was better equipped to love a child than its own mother.
He felt a twinge of sadness for Annabelle. She had been such a sunny, happy-go-lucky child, skipping through the ornate houses in Portland and San Francisco without a care in the world. What was she like now, all these years later?
And what in God’s name would she think when she learned her brother had married her husband’s lover?
A raw fury, bitter with the taste of futility, engulfed Jesse. “We can’t discuss wh
at could have been or should have been,” he said. “We have to discuss what is. The fact is, I married you without knowing who fathered your child.”
“I didn’t mislead you deliberately.” She leaned against the porch rail and rubbed the small of her back.
“Nevertheless—”
“Why must this be such a problem?” she asked, clearly exasperated. “You—” She broke off and tilted her head, as if listening to a faint noise. Her hand kept rubbing the small of her back.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Is something wrong?”
She frowned. “Nothing. And you didn’t answer my question about Granger. You have a different life here. You haven’t seen him in years. Can’t you go on like that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if Granger has become the sort of man you describe—a man who would lie to an indigent woman, dishonor her, then try to take her baby—then he’s a danger to my sister.”
She swallowed hard. He could see her throat move in the bluish starlight. “You have to go to Portland. To see Annabelle.”
“Yes.” He hadn’t left the cape in twelve years. He would have to make the voyage by boat. By boat.
“And you have to tell her the truth about me.”
“The truth?” he demanded hotly, rounding on her. The answer thrust itself into his mind, propelled by a dark malevolence that had been born in his heart the moment Emily had died. Without hesitating, without weighing the effect the words would have on Mary, he said, “We’ll just explain to Annabelle that we’re about to become the parents of Granger’s child. It’ll be a bit awkward at family gatherings, wouldn’t you say?”
She stumbled as if he had struck her. She clutched her stomach and kept moving, back down the steps, back into the yard, back into the night.
“Mary—”
“Stay...away from me.”
He leaped down the stairs toward her. What the hell had he been thinking? “Mary—”
She cried out, and in the milky starlight he saw her stumble and sink to the ground. Racing to her side, he scooped her up in his arms. She was wet, not with cool evening dew, but with a heated liquid.
“What the hell—”
“My waters broke,” she whispered, her face contorted. “The baby’s coming.”
* * *
Moving as fast as he could, Jesse brought her to the birth-and-death room adjacent to the kitchen. Panic boiled in his veins as he laid her on the bed, then rushed to stoke the stove beneath a huge kettle of water.
Of all the times for Palina and Magnus to be away. Jesse was alone with a laboring woman, and he had no idea how to bring a baby into the world.
Especially since the woman was his wife. His Mary.
Working with feverish speed, he fetched a clean nightgown and a pile of blankets. She lay unmoving on the bed. Her eyes were wide open and her face was flushed.
“Dear God,” she said between her teeth, “I wish Mum were here.” She brought her knees up, clenching her teeth. Jesse found himself holding his breath as she grappled with the pain.
After an eternity of agony, it passed, and she looked up at him. “Can you help me get into the nightgown?”
He didn’t know if he could stand to see her in this state, ripe to bursting and about to give birth to Granger’s child. But he had no choice. She gave him no choice.
“Here.” He knelt beside the bed. His hands were clumsy as he fumbled with buttons and laces. The dress...what a time to remember the last time Emily had worn this dress....
“I have no idea what a lady wears to a baseball game, Em,” he said in exasperation. “You’ll look fine no matter what you wear.”
“Is it anything at all like tennis?” she asked with a pretty pout. “If so, then I can wear my tennis—”
“It’s not like tennis, Em.” He laughed, filled with warmth for her amusing ways. “Wear that nice blue dress with all the pleats in the back.”
“You just like that one because it shows off my bosom.”
The blue fabric tore as he pulled it off Mary. He flung the dress away, flinging away the memories along with it. Somehow, he managed to get the flannel nightgown on Mary and to light several lamps around the room. Then he strode for the door.
“Where...are you going?” she asked in a thin, strange voice.
“To town. To fetch Dr. MacEwan.”
“And leave me alone?”
“I’ll tell Erik to stay with you. The beacon will have to do without watching tonight.”
“Erik? Bless the boy, he’s got a heart of gold but not a lick of sense. All this—” she cradled her huge stomach with her arms “—is bound to frighten him. Can’t he go for the doctor?”
“He’d get lost in the woods.” Jesse lifted his mackintosh from a hook behind the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“You’re taking one of the horses.”
“Yes.”
“It would be quicker to take the pilot boat.”
Jesse froze in the act of shoving an arm into the cloak. Years-old dread thudded in his gut. “I’ll take the horse.”
“You’ll be gone two hours at least,” she said. “Jesse, please don’t go.”
He didn’t want to hear the pleading in her voice, but he couldn’t ignore it. “I have to.”
“You don’t. You could stay with me. You could help me bring this baby.”
“I don’t know the first thing about bringing babies.”
“Neither do I.”
“See? You need Fiona—”
“I need you.”
He jammed his hat down on his head. “Look, every minute we argue about this is a minute lost.” He grabbed a lantern from the kitchen and turned away.
“Jesse.” Her voice called to him, faint and sweet.
He stopped. He didn’t want to turn and look at her, to see the pallor on her cheeks or the fear in her eyes. But he made himself do it. She was his wife. He had pledged an oath to her.
For better or worse.
He turned. The sight of her tore at his heart. She was pressed against an untidy bank of pillows, the quilt drawn up to her chin. The fragility that always haunted her beautiful face had never been more apparent as she gazed at him with beseeching eyes.
“Yes?” he asked.
“I’m afraid.”
When she said the words, he felt as if everything had been drained out of him. He had no resistance to the stark honest need in her voice, in her face. He had no argument for the truth she admitted. He had no choice.
He set down the lamp. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jesse was afraid. During the breathless respites between the blinding twists of agony, Mary could see that. She made her eyes focus on him, because she didn’t know where else to look. And what she saw on his face was fear.
There was so much to fear. That she would perish and leave him with a baby he hadn’t made, didn’t want. That the baby would die, and with it, her heart. Or that they would both survive and be his family, whether he wanted them or not.
The only solution likely to suit Jesse Morgan, she decided, was for both her and the baby to die. Then he could retreat again into his world of grief and loneliness, never to emerge again.
But he didn’t want her to die. She knew that by the way he gripped her hand through the pains. By the way he whispered things—nothing and everything—in her ear.
As the night wore on, the periods of respite, when the pain ebbed, grew less and less frequent. Eventually, the lulls ceased altogether. Taut bands of agony shoved her deeper and deeper into darkness. As she slipped in and out of fitful awareness, she kept telling herself that she had come here for a reason. Not to die. Not to bring more grief to Jesse Morga
n. But to give him life. As she was trying with all her might to give life to the baby.
But trying wasn’t enough, and hope darkened to despair.
“Why...is it...taking so long?” she gasped. “Oh sweet Jesus, I want my mum...” Though barely able to draw a breath, she lapsed into disjointed prayers. Shadows blanketed her and blurred at the edges, then grew light, undulating and lurching. She lost all sense of who and where she was. She heard Jesse’s voice; it sounded as if he was calling down a well, the words swirling and echoing, then dispersing to nothing.
She knew what he wanted, to call her back, to urge her to fight, but she couldn’t. She was so weak, so hopeless now, with no sense of resolve, no sense of herself, only an overwhelming fatigue. She just wanted to let go, let go, let go....
And then, like a pinpoint in a velvet void, she saw first a flicker, then a sparkle, then a sustained bright light shining small, but starting to glow around the edges. And the image threw her into another time, another place....
Timbers groaning in protest. Men shouting. The whine and thud of pumps. Feet scrabbling along a crazily slanting deck. Barrels and crates being jettisoned. And chill water all around her, slipping over her, crawling along her scalp and holding her under, pressing at her chest.
She had seen that same patch of darkness, had felt the same drifting sense of nothingness. Until she remembered the baby. Resolve came to her on an upsurge, a fountain inside her, and she grasped at some floating object—anything—and surfaced, gasping.
And there was the light. The beacon. A sweep of silver across an endless glistening field of black.
Again. She saw it again. Felt the pull of its life force. Just as she had before, she went toward the light, not quite knowing what it was, just knowing that she had to reach it. She had to.
Did he know? Did he know he was her salvation? And did it matter to him? She felt his hands gripping hers, and his voice rumbled deeply. She thought she could make out the words: “Try, Mary. Please. You have to try. Please.”
The “please” rang in her head. Jesse Morgan never said please. He must be desperate.