by Cindy Miles
“I love lighthouses,” Sean admitted, and rested her chin against her knees. “There’s something so mysterious about them. Don’t you think?” She tracked the lighthouse’s beam as it struck through the fading dusk. “I like to imagine what the lighthouse keeper must have looked like way back then.”
“Actually,” Nathan said, “he looked a lot like me.”
Sean’s gaze met Nathan’s, and she cocked her head. “Really?”
Nathan shrugged. “There are photos hanging in the lighthouse museum. Nearly identical, me and Great-Grandpa Patrick.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re teasing me.”
Nathan held up a hand. “Promise.” Then he grinned. “Jep’s father, my great-grandfather Patrick, was the last lighthouse keeper on Cassabaw. Those photos we looked at the other night? Of Jep in his knickers and suspenders? They left Galway for Patrick to come here and work the lighthouse.”
Sean half turned where she sat and looked at Nathan straight on, her eyes wide. Then she looked at the lighthouse. “Seriously?”
“Absolutely.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “We Malones are kind of legendary on Cassabaw.”
“You’re serious.”
“I am completely serious.”
Sean pushed to her feet, walked to the edge of the shore and stared out across the water. “That is so cool!” she exclaimed. She stared a moment longer then looked over her shoulder at Nathan. “Can you show me? The pictures in the lighthouse?”
Nathan rose and walked to stand beside her. The warm July water lapped over his bare feet. “On one condition.”
Sean’s eyes rounded. “What?”
“You and Willa have to go on another date with me.” He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest, casting his gaze out to sea. “That’s the best I can do.”
Sean burst into laughter. “Talk about dramatic.”
Nathan smiled and looked at her. Noticed the various flecks of green in her hazel eyes, the shape of her eyebrows and how her lips curved up in the corners. “Well?”
Sean’s eyes flashed for a moment as she considered.
Nathan ducked his head to get a better look at her. To convince her. “I’ll throw in a personal tour of the lighthouse.”
The smile started small, just one corner of her mouth. Then, she met his gaze and offered a full-on beaming grin that, this time, reached her eyes.
Nathan felt his heart skip.
“Deal.”
“I knew that’d get you.”
Sean shyly looked away. “It sure got me, and Willa will be thrilled. So...when?”
Nathan didn’t hesitate. “Tomorrow.”
Sean laughed. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”
Nathan’s heart squeezed, and he was sure as hell that at some point he would be terrified at the outcome of all this. But for now, he couldn’t seem to help himself. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. “Not when I’m dead set on something.”
Sean’s face softened and she again cast her gaze down. The sea wind whipped at them, and her dark hair fell over her eyes, and with slender fingers she pushed the strands behind her ear.
Nathan wondered then how it would feel to kiss her.
Hell. He might as well find out.
CHAPTER NINE
GOD, NATHAN WAS going to kiss her.
Wasn’t he?
And she wanted him to, right?
Right?
Wait. Yes!
No. Wait! No!
“So! Nathan!” she said in a nervous, laughing voice, and stepped out of the web of electricity that seemed to envelop them both. She knew she sounded like a lunatic, but swear to God, she couldn’t help it. “Other than a Jedi Knight or Pan, what did you want to do with your life? Oh! Is this a shark’s tooth?” Sean bent over and grabbed the triangular-shaped white-gray shell, and turned it over in her hand. She held it up and peered through it. Why? Heck if she knew. All of a sudden she was panicky. Scared. Flustered. And very, very unsure about what she was doing with a man she’d surely never see again after the summer’s end.
She turned just as Nathan bent close and thrust the object at him. “See?”
An intent expression crossed his face, and Sean thought he pretended not to notice how completely awkward she’d become. That he didn’t call her out on it was...gentlemanly. Appealing.
Almost as much as a grown man confessing to want to be Peter Pan when he was a boy.
Something she certainly wasn’t used to, either.
Nathan lifted the object from her palm and studied it.
“Yep. A shark’s tooth.” His gaze rose, and the green in his eyes rivaled that of the sea. He didn’t look away as he handed the tooth to her. “That’s luck of the sea, Sean Jacobs.” He drew a deep breath. “I always wanted to be a rescue swimmer. Just like Jep and Dad.” He busied himself then, collecting the empty soda cans and shaking out the blanket. She helped him fold it, and his eyes remained on hers as they joined corners. His hair whipped in the wind. That smile lifted a little more. She thought he looked feral, like a wild island animal.
She thought he was possibly the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
Sean felt the space around her close in. Why was he affecting her so much? “Why did you leave? The Coast Guard?” she blurted out. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t.
He stood there though, all six-foot-plus of him, a solemn expression etched on his features, replacing the playful one he’d worn earlier. Regret struck Sean like a load of bricks.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Still, he watched her with that profound stare. “I lost my fiancée to the sea. She drowned. I was there with the chopper and team, and we were going to pull her and her shipmate from the water. Her ship was going down. I saw her one second, the next...” A faraway look lit his eyes, and he was silent for a bit.
“She waved, and then was just gone. She never resurfaced. I was right there and couldn’t save her,” he admitted, and his deep voice stirred the salty air around them—so much that Sean felt it inside her. “The Guard no longer held the appeal it once did after that.” He kneeled, packing the blanket into the canvas bag he’d brought, then stood. “I mean, if I can’t save my own fiancée...” He left the sentence open, unforgiving. “Anyway. Yeah. So, I packed it up and headed home to Cassabaw.” He gave a short laugh. “Where my poor family members had to put up with a whole lot of hell from me for quite a while.”
She should have kept her mouth shut. She, of all people, knew not to ask personal questions. She dodged them to the nth degree. What made her think Nathan would want to drag up the past? Now she felt horrible, because it was quite obvious that the memory pained him greatly. He’d quit the Coast Guard because of it, and she couldn’t blame him for that. He must have loved his fiancée a great deal. She wondered what that felt like, being that loved.
She shoved that thought aside and focused on what she knew. She’d done a lot of running in her lifetime, too.
“Nathan, I didn’t mean for you to—” Sean let out a sigh, and touched his arm. “I’m really sorry you went through that. And I’m sorry to have made you go back there.”
Nathan stood still, his gaze far off, as though revisiting that hurtful memory. The wind tossed his hair, long pieces of sun-bleached blond and caramel strands that had escaped the tie at the nape of his neck. Then he sighed, and looked down at her. And smiled.
“For the first time, Sean Jacobs, it doesn’t hurt so much to remember.”
Sean couldn’t take her eyes off his, that profound stare he had gripped her in a vise right there in the sand. She could hear the tide lapping at the shore. The wind rustling the sea oats and saw grass.
And a silent roar inside of her head. A warning? To run away?
/> Run toward?
“Now, this is living, huh?” he suddenly said, interrupting her anxiety.
Sean glanced over her shoulder. The sight drew her full attention, and she turned around.
Standing side by side, arms brushing but not invasively so, Sean and Nathan watched the sun as it hovered over Cassabaw. The sky had shifted from blue with white puffy clouds to a palette of red, orange and heathery purple.
Nathan pointed. “See how the sun reflects off the water?” he said. “Jep always told us as kids that the sparkles you see there were sea diamonds, and that mermaid princesses and warriors were tossing them back and forth to one another.” He chuckled. “Treasures of the sea.”
Sean looked, and the surface of the Atlantic was truly covered in sea diamonds. She imagined mermaids and seahorses frolicking just beneath the water, an entire world hidden from mankind. It struck within her the desire to put the whimsy of Cassabaw, of a boy, his brothers and grandfather to story. It was the first time since arriving that she felt driven to write something new. Perhaps she would now. Briefly, she wondered what Nathan and his family would think of their family tales being put to paper.
“It’s breathtaking, Nathan.” She shifted her gaze to him, only to find he already had that weighty stare directed at her.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Breathtaking.”
Sean felt the heat rise to her cheeks, yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his. She felt drawn to Nathan Malone, and in this moment, in this time, she wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms, to let his strength pull her in tight, shield her from the things she feared every night, and every day. She wanted to forget that she ran, that she hid—and that she pulled Willa right along with her in that fear.
God, she wished it would all go away.
She wished she could just...be. That she and Willa could have a normal life.
Could it even be possible?
Nathan’s mouth shifted, and a soft grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “Thank you,” he said quietly—as quiet as could be expected over the tide.
Sean cocked her head. “For what?”
By the way he rubbed his bearded jaw and shook his head, he was just as amazed by this moment as she was. “I’m not sure,” he confessed. “But it’s been a long time since my heart has felt so light,” he said, and placed his hand over his chest. Sean’s gaze fell on the ring he wore—Coast Guard, maybe?
“It’s you,” Nathan said, his eyes shimmering like the sea diamonds. “It’s because of you.”
The air in Sean’s lungs caught, and she could only return his smile, unable to speak.
Nathan studied her for a moment; wordlessly, yet his eyes seemed to speak volumes. “Ready to sail?”
“Yes,” Sean answered, and it came out breathy, shaky. She cleared her throat. “I am, yes. Of course. Absolutely.”
Nathan gave a soft chuckle, shouldered the canvas bag and grabbed the cooler, then they climbed into the raft and he started the small motor. At the Tiger Lily, he guided Sean up the ladder then he followed, and by the time everything was loaded and the raft secured, the sun had fallen out of sight, and dusk was fully upon them.
Sean wondered about Nathan as she watched him walk around his vessel; moving with such confidence, as though each thing he touched, he’d done it a thousand times before. It came naturally, so it seemed. As if he hadn’t lost faith in himself after his fiancée had drowned. As if he didn’t hold himself responsible.
Sean could tell he did. She’d seen it in his eyes, and there’d been pain there. A lot of it.
For the first time, Sean Jacobs, it doesn’t hurt so much to remember.
Nathan had said those words to her. Had spoken them with his voice, accompanied by that profound emerald stare. He’d meant it. And Sean was stunned by how happy that fact made her. To watch him now? To see his confidence as a live thing? He did indeed look like a fierce pirate. Maybe one who wasn’t feared, but rather one admired.
Her eyes followed him, his movements, and when he caught her staring, she blushed and pretended she hadn’t been so engrossed by turning her gaze to the sky.
She didn’t miss the sound of his soft laugh.
Sean leaned back, watching the darkening sky and the twinkling stars that were beginning to make an appearance. “How do you think Willa and Jep are doing?”
“We didn’t get a distress call on the radio,” Nathan commented, “so I imagine they’re still knee-deep in the chess game. Jep can play for hours.”
“Is that why no one can beat him?” Jep had claimed as much, saying he was, by far, Cassabaw’s one and only chess champion.
Nathan nodded. “That’s exactly why no one can beat him. No one else has his patience.”
The Tiger Lily purred to life, and Nathan set sail. As they continued along, seagulls kept pace with the trawler. Sean again glanced skyward. “How can you navigate in the dark?” she asked. “How do you know the way home?”
Nathan pointed upward, and Sean noticed a rather large star blinking in the sky.
“First star to the right, then straight on till morning,” he said with a grin as he quoted Peter Pan’s directions to Neverland. “Want to take the wheel?”
“Oh,” Sean said, shaking her head. “I probably shouldn’t.”
“Come on,” Nathan urged, and beckoned her. “There’s nothing to it.”
“Really?”
Nathan nodded, his gaze steady. “I give you my word.”
Somehow, Sean felt that Nathan’s word, no matter in what context it was given, was a big, big deal.
Moving toward Nathan, Sean slid behind the wheel. Behind her, the hulking sea captain of the Tiger Lily reached around her, grasped her hands in his large ones and placed them correctly on the ship’s wheel. His presence, his body so close to hers, caused her to shiver even in the sweltering Carolina summer evening.
“Just keep your eyes fixed straight ahead,” he said, bending close to her ear.
Sean did as he said and watched the water ahead as she gripped the wheel.
“You’re doing great,” Nathan said, and he ducked around to look at her. “I think you’re ready to be promoted to lieutenant.”
“Really?” Sean said, chancing a glance at him. “So soon?”
“You catch on pretty fast. Confidence,” he replied and leaned closer. “I like that.”
Sean couldn’t help but wince against the wind. She was anything but confident. How could he not see it? Fear raced through her, even as she gripped the wheel as tightly as she could.
As evening grew hazy and shadowy, Nathan took the wheel, directing them through the sound and up the river. Overhead, more and more stars gathered to twinkle. Before the Malones’ dock came into view, a little voice carried over the marsh.
“Captain Nathan! Mama! Is that you?” Willa called out.
Nathan flashed Sean a grin, then reached over and blasted the horn.
When it stopped, Willa’s squeals of laughter rang out.
Sean couldn’t stop smiling at the sound of it, and when she turned to thank Nathan, he wiggled his eyebrows. Sean shook her head and giggled.
It almost made her breath catch. Giggled? When in God’s name had she last done that? Other than with Willa?
She couldn’t even remember.
Nathan navigated the Tiger Lily close to the dock, and Eric was there to lash the tie-downs. Willa hopped, waving a large...something in the air with one hand. Nathan climbed down then helped Sean over the edge and onto the dock.
“Mama! Look what me and Jep made,” Willa said, waving a large cookie that was almost too big for her one little hand. “They got raisins.”
“They have raisins,” Sean corrected.
“They do!” Willa agreed, and hugged Sean around the waist. She looked up, re
vealing the cookie crumbs that dusted her chin. “I missed you, Mama. Did you have fun with Captain Nathan?”
“I sure did,” Sean confessed, and noticed Nathan grinning as he finished tying down the trawler.
“Mama, can we get a chessboard?” Willa asked. “Jep taught me to play and it’s really fun. I beat Mr. Eric at a game.”
“Did not!” Eric teased.
“Oh, yes, I did!” Willa called back.
“Everybody beats Mr. Eric,” Jep joined in. He turned a gaze to Sean. “She’s got a good eye for the game.”
“I hope she didn’t cause you any trouble,” Sean said. She knew Willa minded her manners, but she wanted to check all the same.
“She’s fine company,” Jep admitted. “Was quite a good help in the kitchen, too. We made oatmeal cookies.”
Sean laughed. “So she told me.” Placing her hands around Jep’s, she gave them a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for watching out for her.”
By the beam from the dock lights, Jep’s tanned cheeks stained red. “Well. She was no trouble.” He eyed her daughter. “I imagine I’d like it if she came and visited some more. Since she can carry a decent conversation and all.”
“Can I, Mama?” Willa begged. “King Jep’s fun.”
Nathan and Eric burst out laughing, and Sean had a hard time not joining them. Instead, she eyed first Jep, then Willa. “Yes, since you were such a good girl and minded your manners, you can come back some time.”
“Thanks, Mama! And Mama, do you think we can get King Jep a pair of wings like mine? I think he really likes them.”
Sean smiled and slipped a glance at Jep. On his weathered face was the funniest of expressions, with his eyebrows furrowing into a mock frown but the corners of his mouth lifted into an unstoppable grin.
“I like ’em good enough,” he agreed.
Sean looked at Willa. “What do you tell King Jep?”
Willa ran to Jep and threw her arms around his waist. “Thank you so much, King Jep, for letting me come over to play chess with you and make cookies.”
Jep’s expression softened. He gave Willa a firm pat on the back. “Well, you’re welcome, missy. You’re very welcome. Come again soon, will ya?”