The Thorn Bearer

by Pepper Basham

  Her hat dipped to one side, obscuring part of her forehead as faint sunlight haloed her face. From her willowy frame to her dark curls, she reminded him of her sister.

  His Catherine.

  He wasn’t so sure anymore. Ten months ago the thought would have never crossed his mind. Seven months ago the tone of her letters changed. Four months ago she wrote to question their engagement, asking to end it – and she never responded to his last three letters requesting a reason for her concern.

  He fisted the paper. He’d find his answer now for better or worse.

  A large advertisement in the center of the newspaper grabbed his attention.

  NOTICE!

  Travelers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or any of her allies are liable to destruction in those waters and Travelers sailing in the war zone of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

  The Emperial German Embassy.

  His blood cooled, caution chilling his skin. Germany sent a warning? He slammed the pages together and stood from his chair, looking to the gray horizon. The calm sea didn’t match the storm brewing in his chest. Why would Germany send America a warning? The horizon gave no answer, but his senses jumped to full alert. Scaremongering tactics? Spineless threats meant to discourage trade with Great Britain? Surely nothing more.

  A shrill whistle pierced the air.

  The ship came alive under his feet, vibrating into motion away from the pier. A new explosion of shouts erupted from the people at the ship’s railing followed by a cloud of flags and handkerchiefs raining down to the pier. He stepped forward to meet Ashleigh, readied to protect her from any threat beneath the seamless sea. Calm down. No need to worry. Germany would never torpedo a passenger ship.

  “I suppose you’ll not be reasonable and leave?” Ashleigh’s dark brow shifted, gaze almost pleading.

  “Nope, I’ve never been very reasonable, you know.”

  Her smile bloomed, and the very sweetness of it drew him closer– as sweet as her violet scent. “Forgive me for speaking harshly to you, Sam.” Ashleigh looked down at her hand against his arm, her teeth skimming over her bottom lip. “I want you to be safe, and there’s no need for you to risk your life on a ship sailing toward war-torn—”

  He blocked her words with his finger against her lips, the heat of her breath warming his skin and traveling up his arm to hook in his throat. A loose tendril of her hair brushed against his hand and he twisted it around his finger, ending with a firm tug. Her entire body swayed forward, face inches from his, and his voice got stuck somewhere between his dry mouth and heavy tongue. “I care about you too, little girl.”

  Little girl. Right. What was he doing? This was Ashleigh, practically his sister, and much too young. For him. He straightened and steadied his breath, untwining the dark ribbon of hair from his finger and stepping back. “You don’t want anything to happen to me? Well, we’re in the same boat.”

  She laughed. “Precisely the problem.”

  The ship jerked as it backed into the bay. Ashleigh stumbled forward into his arms, hat knocked back from her hair and the full scent of violet an onslaught to his senses. She certainly didn’t feel like a little girl either. Heat seeped from his body. Where had that thought come from? He steadied her, but quickly moved back a step.

  Ashleigh adjusted her hat and gave him a stiff pat on the shoulder. “Perhaps you are nice to have about.”

  “Just keep that in mind the next time you start complaining about me. What would you do without me?”

  Her hand fisted at her chest and the unnamed emotion flickered across her face again. “I have no idea, my dear Sam.” She looked back to the horizon and half shrugged a shoulder, the pixie expression in full bloom on her face. “Get a bit of peace and quiet, no doubt.”

  She sent him a wrinkle-nosed grin over her shoulder before she returned to her quiet watch from the railing. The wind tossed her dress, pressing silky material against her frame, and sending his thoughts skittering in a very different direction than he’d ever planned for Ashleigh.

  He cleared his throat and looked away.

  He needed to see Catherine and sort out their relationship for certain. After all, it had been a year since he’d seen her. His gaze met Ashleigh’s. And a lot can happen in a year.

  Chapter Three

  A cool sea breeze whistled across the Boat Promenade Deck along with the laughter of children playing Deck Quoits or spinning tops. Three days aboard the ship had only reminded Ashleigh of the first-class lifestyle her family used to know. Posh surroundings of golden trim and delicate wooden carvings led the way across floors of lush carpet and marble. Stewards waited on the whims of the rich and famous – who overlooked small oddities or atrocities, as long as the social status wasn’t affected.

  It was a dazzling display of a world as pretentious as her father’s faith, but sadly fitting for the part she played now. She’d attempted to convince Michael to purchase a second class private room to save money, but with his usual flare for the extravagant, he booked the best her grandmamma could afford, thrusting Ashleigh back into pretension at its peak. Even the relationship with Sam stung with unspoken truths. Oh how she craved simplicity and authenticity!

  She’d prayed for two days about Sam – begged for guidance and peace. Pleaded for God to remove this undeniable attraction. Maybe it took such a shocking realization to force her to her knees. It had been too long.

  Sometime before the day waked with dawn, she’d released her fear to God and made a resolution: Friendship first and foremost. Her mind clung to the thought, her heart lagged behind a little, but whether her sister deserved it or not the uncertainty of being jilted should never fall to anyone – even Catherine.

  “A penny for your thoughts?”

  She slowed her pace to a stop and looked up, Sam’s Fedora low over his eyes. He looked like he belonged in one of those new moving pictures.

  “Oh, I have an entire purse full of thoughts, but most of them revolve around a single coin.” She hoped for a grin, but knew she failed.

  “Michael?”

  “I suppose it’s the fact we were to travel together on this ship, but I can’t stop wondering – why did he leave?”

  “None of this was your fault, Ashleigh.” Sam’s voice bit into the words and his jaw tightened. “Michael was the fool and coward. I’m sorry he broke your heart.”

  Her gaze dropped from his. She’d been disappointed and hurt over Michael’s desertion, but heartbroken? “People do many foolish things for want of love, I think.”

  As Sam wrapped his hand around hers, she knew her heart was far from broken. Its rhythm beat too quickly. Why had she been so naive to believe her friendship with Michael could be a substitute for real love? Sam’s nearness, his compassion, marked a stark and painful contrast. She’d been so blind.

  “I’m sorry, Ash. I know you two weren’t deeply in love, but you were friends – and this isn’t the mark of a friend.” He released her hand with a sigh and rammed it back into his beige slacks pockets. “Some things are unforgiveable, and betrayal is near the top of the list.”

  The wind ruffled the curls across his forehead and her fingers twitched a surprising longing to touch one. She fisted her hands at her sides. “I was blind in so many ways.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Confession? Would the truth truly set her free? “Many times people make decisions without weighing the full cost.” She took a deep breath and focused on the gray horizon. “One chooses to see a person as one wants, instead of as he or she truly is.” As he did with Catherine. As she’d done with Michael. An ache for understanding pooled in her stomach.

  “You couldn’t have known Michael would do this, Ash. It
shocked us all.”

  “You’re right, I didn’t see clearly until later. But as time has proven to heal many of the wounds Michael left behind, it has also clarified other feelings. Time is a powerful friend or adversary.”

  He drew in a sharp breath through clenched teeth and removed his hat, moving it from one hand to the other as they walked. “Time has certainly been an adversary for me.”

  His sober expression stilled her reply and she searched his face for clarification.

  “Catherine asked to end our engagement.” He ran a hand over his jaw, his eyes care-worn. “In her letter over four months ago. She doesn’t think we want the same things anymore. Says she’s changed.”

  Words and thoughts of a hundred possibilities crashed into the thousands of emotions pounding in her chest. Sam and Catherine were no longer engaged? Sam was…free? Her throat tightened around a fissure of hope.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” She forced the words out on a whisper.

  “I’m not sure.” He shook his head and squinted, as if the words hurt. “I think speaking it out loud made it real, more painful.”

  “Words have a way of adding spines to our fears.”

  “More like spikes.” His palm pressed his chest as though the confession pierced him. “I thought absence was supposed to make the heart grow fonder.”

  The hurt on his face eclipsed her attraction with impressive power. He didn’t need another woman throwing herself at him when his heart was so full of her sister. How selfish could she be? “Oh, Sam, perhaps your presence will remind Catherine of your love for her. She’s never handled distance well.” Ashleigh squeezed his arm and he covered her hand with his. “She’s always been a horrible correspondent.” Ashleigh offered a smile and squelched hope yet again. “When she sees you, it will all be set to rights. How could she deny such a faithful heart as yours? No woman could.”

  His gaze zeroed in on hers, nearly nailing her to the deck planks. “Maybe that’s the problem. I’m not a game-player and women seem to like those sorts of men.”

  “Heavens, Sam, not all women.” She turned from the intensity of his gaze and resumed their walk, her arm still tucked within his.

  “I don’t know.” He absently caressed her hand, the touch sweet and tender, an extension of their friendship. “That’s why I’ve never liked this idea of you leaving. What if—”

  Comprehension dawned and she brought them to a standstill in the middle of the deck. “Our friendship is quite capable of handling time and distance. You must know that.”

  He tilted his head and examined her face, his expression unreadable. His thumb smoothed across her knuckles. “Yes, Ash. I do know it.”

  An almost imperceptible shift in his touch tripped a tingle of awareness up her arm. She slipped her hand from his and looked ahead, her stomach twisted as if pinched by tweezers.

  Movement, small and white, caught in her periphery and wavered like a flag. A boy, no more than three, attempted to climb an empty deck chair propped against the railing. His white, cape-like coat flurried behind him as he pushed one pudgy knee after another onto the chair seat. A matching cap topped the golden curls twisting around his round face. No one along the shaded deck seemed aware of him or his dangerous plan.

  Ashleigh picked up her pace. “Look, Sam.”

  She caught the boy’s gaze just as he came to a stand on the chair, chubby hands wrapping around the railing, and chin tucked over the top. The familiar tilt of his smile and playful glint in his green eyes flickered a warning to Ashleigh’s memory. How did she know him?

  “Hello, Duck. Are you searching for the water?”

  He turned back to the railing and heightened on tiptoe, scratching the chair across the deck until his feet almost slid off.

  Ashleigh drew him up in her arms as the chair toppled. “You are an adventurous one, aren’t you?”

  “Where are his parents?” Sam swept the deck another glance, but the long promenade gave no hint of an answer. A handful of people braved the chill in the open air with a few wrapped in blankets on the deck chairs, and none seemed concerned about the welfare of a toddler.

  The boy pointed toward the horizon. “Me tee water.”

  Ashleigh’s smile bloomed in response to his sweet voice. “Yes, you do. Aren’t you a clever boy?”

  “This big boat.” His green eyes grew as wide as saucers and tugged at her heart all the more.

  “Yes, this is a big boat and you’re quite small to be wandering about on your own.” Ashleigh bounced him against her hip and smiled at Sam. “He’s such a darling. Reminds me of you on one of your good days.”

  Sam bent to eye level with the boy. “Don’t let Miss Ashleigh fool ya, buddy, she’s not all sugar and spice either.” Sam shot her a wink.

  “There’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  His grin arched and the gentleness in it swelled her heart three sizes. Large enough to toss propriety to the wind and wrap him in her arms, if a certain little boy hadn’t taken up residence in them already. Thank God for small favors.

  “What’s your name, little fella?” Sam tickled the boy’s chin.

  “Free,” he answered, holding up two fingers.

  Sam scratched his head and peeked up at her with wrinkled brow. “He’s clever like me too, I see.”

  Their gazes caught just above the little boy’s cap. She couldn’t look away and Sam’s expression faded from gentleness to curiosity. Heat crept up her neck and she blinked out of his stare.

  “Stephen?” A woman emerged from the main companionway, her gaze frantically searching the length of the deck until landing on the boy in Ashleigh’s arms. “Stephen.” She tossed a glance back through the companionway, sprigs of brown hair flying about from a gust of wind. “Stephen’s here. On this side.”

  She stomped toward them, her button-boots clapping a thunderstorm of noise, her pale eyes aflame. “There you are, you little devil. I can’t turn my back on you for one second.” Her deep southern accent softened the harshness of her words in a sickeningly sweet contradiction. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

  Ashleigh instinctively drew the little boy closer. “I found him atop a deck chair, alone.”

  The woman registered her slight by aiming the full fire of her gaze. “Hand him to me.”

  “Annette? You found him?”

  A man emerged from the companionway in a slight jog, brown jacket flapping behind him like broken wings.

  She knew that voice.

  Ashleigh’s breath clung to the roof of her mouth, not even strong enough for a whimper. No. The shadow of the black fedora could not hide the familiarity of his face.

  Michael Craven.

  She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Her gaze trapped in his, trying to make sense of the obvious mistake. How was Michael here? He’d disappeared. Gone from her life forever.

  “Daddy!” The child’s squeal split through her mental fog and drove the confusion deeper.

  Ashleigh looked into the little boy’s face and back to Michael, who stood frozen in place halfway across the deck.

  The brunette snatched the boy from Ashleigh’s numb arms, sending her mind into motion. Slow motion. One by one, as rocks dropping into a pond, each truth pierced into her heart, rippling shock out to her arms and legs. Clarity, nauseating clarity, weakened her.

  Michael’s disappearance. The secrecy. The little boy’s familiarity. It all pieced together and forced an unbelievable and heart-wrenching picture. She gripped the railing for support. Eight months peeled away to unearth insecurity and hurt afresh. He’d lied to her, deceived her, and abandoned her.

  “Ashleigh?” Michael’s voice broke like a nervous youth’s.

  And now he was using the ticket purchased for their wedding cruise to travel across the Atlantic with another woman? Her hand tightened around the railing. Energy exploded through her limbs with added adrenaline and pushed her to her full height.

  She gritted her teeth. “Michael, if t
his is your idea of a surprise to our wedding cruise...” She sent a glare to the woman holding Stephen. “…I think you over packed.”

  Without warning and out of her periphery, Sam darted forward with enough fire in his step to ensure one thing: Michael Craven might not make it off the Lusitania alive.

  Sam wasn’t sure how he made it across the deck so quickly, or exactly when he fisted Michael’s shirt with enough strength to lift him from the deck boards. All he knew for certain was what Michael Craven deserved. A little dent in those pretty-boy features to humble him a notch or two. He reared his fist back to make its mark against Michael’s nose only to see a flutter of white in his periphery.

  The little boy, green eyes wide, stared at him in wonder, or silent reprimand. No child should see his father bested and bruised, inside or out. Some of the fight in his veins fled. He shoved Michael away and stood between him and Ashleigh.

  “Goin’ soft, pal?” Michael’s lips cocked into a grin. “I’m sure you’ve been waiting to give me a good saucer or two, haven’t ya?”

  “Get the kid out of here and I’ll tell you what I really feel about you – without a single word.”

  Michael shook out the wrinkles Sam’s fist had formed on his shirt, his smile fading. “I can’t say I don’t deserve it.”

  The declaration stole Sam’s words. Did he regret hurting Ashleigh or was this another act of charm to diffuse responsibility? Oh, the past months built a stack of Michael’s sins to justify a solid pounding, with hurting Ashleigh at the top of the pile.

  “Didn’t take you long to move in on my fiancé, did it, Sam? I knew it would happen sooner or later.” Michael straightened his tie and cleared his throat, his voice more confident than the look in his eyes.

  Sam started back to place a fist in Michael’s stomach, but Ashleigh held a vise-grip on his arm.