by Renee Roszel
Sara blinked, not understanding.
“I mean when we heard you’d come out here to spend some time with him, we were happy he’d found someone* that’s all.” She pointed to a spot near the cliff. “Over there’s a good spot for gathering eggs. I’ll go down and hand them up to you. Okay? Then we’ll split ’em later. Half for you and half for me.” She turned to her toddler. “Danny, sugar, you sit here and wait for mama.” She fished a lollipop from her coat pocket and handed it to him.
The boy plopped down obediently and began to tear at the cellophane wrapper. Sara wordlessly followed Lilly’s lead, but when they got to the cliff and the black-haired woman began descending, she said, “I think there’s been some misunderstanding, Lilly. I didn’t come here to visit Ransom. I’d never even met him until I got to the island. My sister ran away from home and came up here in answer to an ad for a mail-order bride. Tag’s idea. And since the phones are out and the fog kept Krukoff from flying in yesterday, we’re stuck.”
Lilly looked up. “You’re kidding!” Her dark eyes grew wide. “Tag advertised for a new mother?” She scanned Sara, then smiled again, this time with sympathy. “Poor kid. I never could figure out why Rance sent him away to that school. You’d think, when someone you love dies, you’d cling to your kid.” She glanced lovingly at her son. “I know I would. Any mother would.”
Sara nodded, frowning. “There’s something wrong between them. But I can’t figure out what it is.”
“Yeah,” Lilly agreed sadly. “When Dan asked if he wanted Tag to go fishing with them, Rance got this hard look on his face and said no.” She reached into a nest and took out two long eggs, white with gray spots, leaving one. “I can’t figure it out.” She sighed, handing the eggs up to Sara. “Men aren’t like women. When we’re sad, we surround ourselves with friends and family, bond, cry and heal, while men run off and lick their wounds alone, all the time insisting they’re just fine—some stupid macho thing, I guess.”
Sara carefully placed the eggs in the basket. “I guess,” she echoed, not convinced it was as simple as that—though it was clear Ransom was still grieving over his wife’s death. He adored Jill. No wonder he was so aloof, so determined not to let another woman into his life. He’d been hurt too badly to chance being hurt again. She sighed, surprised at how melancholy the sound was.
Lilly passed her two more eggs, remarking, “You like him, don’t you?”
Startled by the perceptive statement, Sara blushed. “I hardly know him,” she returned too quickly.
Lilly smiled. “I wish you luck,” she said kindly. “Rance is too great a guy to waste his life mourning.”
Sara swallowed to ease a sudden lump in her throat, then quickly changed the subject. “What kind of eggs are these?”
“Sea gull, honey.” She reached into another nest and came up with two eggs that were light green with black spots and handed them to Sara.
“These look spoiled,” Sara said, making a face.
Lilly laughed. “They’re murre eggs. They taste better than they look.”
Sara saw another nest near Lilly, but noticed she was leaving the eggs alone. “Why don’t you want those?” she asked, pointing.
“Oh, those are kittiwake eggs,” Lilly said. “I could. They’re not endangered—yet—but they’re threatened. The kittiwake population’s down because overfishing of pollock by foreign companies has reduced their food source. They do what’s called bottom-dragging—”
Deep-pitched shouting drew their attention, and both women turned toward the calm sea. One of the men in the red boat was struggling, his rod curved downward into the water and whipping to and fro. “Ransom,” Sara whispered aloud. “What’s wrong, Lilly?” she asked, her voice taking on a fearful squeak.
“I’d say he’s hooked a halibut.” Handing Sara four more green-and-black eggs, she said, “Those babies can weigh up to three hundred pounds. But this one looks to be around eighty or ninety.”
“Oh, my!” Sara exclaimed. “Is he in danger?”
Lilly turned to stare at Sara, then burst out laughing. “Yeah, if you mean the halibut.”
“How big is a ninety-pound halibut?” Sara asked, hoping her anxiety over Ransom’s safety hadn’t been too obvious.
“Probably three, three and a half feet.”
“What’ll we do with it?” Sara mused aloud. “I’ve never even cleaned a trout.”
“No problem. We island women smoke the catch, then dry and salt it. We all share. Like I said, we pretty much live off the land here. And sometimes pickings get pretty slim.” She plucked another two sea gull eggs from a fresh nest and handed them to Sara, adding with a grin, “Except for the wonderful smoked salmon Rance gives everybody at Christmastime.’’
A speculative gleam came into Lilly’s eyes as she suggested softly, “You may hardly know him, but you’ve got it bad, don’t you?” It wasn’t a question.
At a loss as to how to answer, Sara sat back on her heels and shrugged. “Like you said, Lilly, he’s still grieving for his wife. I’d be pretty foolish to fall for him, wouldn’t I?”
Hearing a loud “whoop!” and masculine laughter, they peered back out over the sparkling water toward the red outboard in time to see a huge fish being drawn into the boat. Dan was helping with some sort of lethal-looking hook on a stick.
Sara sighed, relieved. “What’s that thing Dan’s got?” she asked.
“A gaff. Fish was bigger than I thought,” Lilly replied, squealing with delight and waving to the men. After a minute, when the fish was safely in the bottom of the boat, Lilly turned and grinned at Sara, but there was compassion in her intelligent black eyes. Clambering up over the cliff to the grass, she stood and wiped grime from her jeans. “You never know about the future, Sara. Maybe Rance’ll figure out he’d be a fool to let you slip through his fingers. Personally I think he would be.”
Taking the basket from Sara’s grip and grabbing her son by his sticky little fingers, she said, “Okay, Danny, let’s you and me and Miss Sara go pick some mossberries.” She gave Sara a sympathetic look. “And maybe do a little female bonding...”
Embarrassed, Sara wanted to talk about something else. “Where are these berries?” she asked hurriedly.
“On moss,” Lilly replied, pointing farther along the cliff. “There’s a great patch over there.”
“You have berries that grow on moss?” Sara was astonished.
“Uh-huh. They’re little black berries that taste a lot like grapes. Make great jams and desserts.”
Sara shook her head. Berries that grew on moss, “Wait till the folks back in Kansas hear about this.”
Lilly laughed her hearty open laugh and offered, “I’ll give you my favorite recipe for jam, if you’d like.” She turned to catch Sara’s eye. “Rance loves mossberry jam.”
Sara smiled helplessly. “Thanks. I love to cook.” What she didn’t say was that she doubted that Ransom’s grief over his wife could be wiped away by a jar of mossberry jam simply because it was made by a woman with an absurd infatuation for him.
Her misgivings must have shown on her face, for Lilly smiled good-naturedly. “You don’t think jam’ll do it, huh?” She shrugged. “Stranger things have happened, honey. So, I’m giving you the recipe, anyway. Half the berries we pick’ll be yours, minus what Danny—the fruit freak—eats.”
They heard a shout of triumph and peered back out to sea. Ransom was fighting another battle with some unknown entity of the deep.
“Wow!” Lilly cried. “The man attracts ’em like a magnet.”
Sara moved her gaze away, wishing fish were all Ransom attracted. ...
CHAPTER EIGHT
LATE THE NEXT MORNING, Sara set off on a hike. She had no particular goal in mind and eventually found herself beside a tranquil lagoon midway between Ransom’s house and the village, with its quaint buildings and strange half-buried onion-domed church. Ransom had gone before she’d awakened, and she had no idea where he’d disappeared to. No doubt he was
avoiding her just as she’d been avoiding him.
A stiff breeze was blowing the wave foam back into the sea on her left. She glanced to the right in time to see a scruffy, blue-black arctic fox appear over a ridge about a hundred yards away. As it sniffed the air, another short-snouted fox appeared and also tested the air. She found it hard to swallow the mossberry she’d just plucked as a cold finger of dread touched her spine. Since she’d been on the island, she’d seen foxes scampering around as they’d scavenged for food. However, there had always been only one at a time. That had been hard enough for her to deal with. But two?
Arctic foxes weren’t very big or ferocious-looking as wild beasts went, but Sara was all too aware that even small domestic dogs bit when provoked. She carried with her a childhood fear of dogs, having been bitten badly when she was only four by a dog who didn’t appreciate having its tail pulled. The scars still remained—on her palm and in her mind.
Because of her father’s coaxing, Sara had made friends with the dog, but somehow, she’d never mastered her fear of unfamiliar animals. And these foxes were wild—not to mention always hungry. Glancing down at herself, she wondered vaguely if a redhead in a man’s navy parka looked appetizing to a pair of foxes. Gnawing on her lower lip, she couldn’t decide if it would be better to sit still or to run for her life.
As she waited, statue stiff, another fox appeared, and then another. She pondered the sudden congregation. As she watched in growing fear, the four wild animals seemed to locate her at the same time, for all at once a quartet of dark snouts pointed in her direction. Her blood froze in her veins. She was sitting amid a fragrant patch of blue lupines, a few feet from the calm water of the lagoon. The slope behind her was very steep. She would have to scramble madly up the last few feet and probably die of a heart attack as the charging beasts took their first nips out of her backside.
Her lips parted with apprehension as yet another fox appeared over the crest of the hill. Five against one. Sara didn’t know much about arctic foxes. She knew they were wild, and she knew they were always looking for food. She only hoped they knew that humans weren’t beneath them on Mother Nature’s food chain.
As the animals cautiously approached, she managed to struggle to her feet. Making a shooing motion, she squealed, “Go ’way. If it’ll help, I’m a staunch advocate of faux fur...”
Two of the animals cocked their heads to one side. One humorless brute bared sharp teeth.
“Maybe you’re right. Not a good subject,” Sara babbled, taking a prudent step away. Intending to make a judicious yet swift exit, she slid on the damp surface and fell, her hip striking an exposed slab of volcanic rock. Stifling a moan, she watched in despair as her life flashed before her eyes.
Two of the largest, bravest foxes began to trot toward her, and she stared in terror, visualizing herself as brunch for this horde of blunt-bodied killers. She’d always thought that when a person was in imminent danger of being eaten by wild beasts, the time just prior to the event would pass in slow motion. Not so. Those greedy-eyed devils were upon her with the speed of teenagers on a free pizza. The first two lunged, and a scream was torn from her throat as she threw up her arms to protect her face.
She felt a strong tug at her parka and yelled again, trying to rise to her feet before their teeth cut through the nylon fabric and met her flesh.
In the next instant, she was lifted to a standing position by a strong grip on one elbow. When she blinked up to see Ransom standing there, she leapt on him in a last-ditch effort to survive. “Oh!” she cried in panic. “Run, Ransom! I’m being eaten alive!”
His arms went around her waist, but the added support was hardly necessary to keep her aloft. She’d thrown both her arms and legs about him in her attempt to clamber out of the reach of her attackers. The tugging on her parka continued, and she tightened her hold on her rescuer. “Run!” she implored him. “They’ll get you, too!”
“I can’t run in this position,” he said quietly.
“Well, you can try!” she pleaded. “Our lives depend on it!”
“Hold on for a minute.” His tone had become an odd mixture of concern and mirth. “I have to let go of you with one hand.”
She buried her face in the hollow of his throat and did as he commanded, clutching for dear life.
Though her mind was on survival, she noticed vaguely that his hand slid along her side and into the pocket of the parka she was wearing. After a minute, the tugging at her coat ceased, and the foxes’ guttural growls diminished.
“Sara,” he murmured as his arm returned to hold her, “I think you’ll live now.”
“Did you shoot them with a silencer?” she asked, confused as to how he’d gotten rid of them with no overt violence.
“Shoot them? Why, they’re adorable.”
“Adorable?” At the memory of her near death she clutched him even tighter. “I suppose you’d think being strangled by a boa constrictor would be a laugh a minute.”
His chuckle resonated through her rigid body. “Sara,” he repeated. “Please unwrap your legs from around my hips.”
“Are you sure the attack’s over?” she asked weakly.
He cleared his throat. “As far as the foxes are concerned, yes.” His voice was unusually husky. Still clinging with her arms, she slowly lowered her legs to the ground and peered around.
There were now seven foxes milling about at their feet, eating some undistinguishable substance. Befuddled with fright, she could only stare. After a few seconds, she felt her arms being removed from Ransom’s shoulders, his strong fingers locking about her wrists. Suddenly recalling their feud, she jerked away.
He was grinning at her, and she flushed. “What’s so funny? I was almost killed by hunger-crazed wild animals, and you think it’s funny?”
He ran a fist across his mouth and the smile disappeared, though Sara knew he had to struggle to keep a straight face. “Well?” she demanded. “Do you hate me so much you think it’s humorous when I’m practically devoured alive?”
He tilted his head in her direction. “That parka you’re wearing. It’s not the one I loaned you.”
She looked at him in irritation. “What are you, the fashion police? No, it’s not. The parka you gave me to wear is fluff-drying with a pair of sneakers. I got it muddy, so I borrowed this one out of the hall closet. Why?”
“Because that’s one of my parkas, and the foxes recognized it.”
“Oh? So they were trying to kill you? I can’t say I’m surprised.”
His gaze was now openly amused. “You do hold a grudge, don’t you?” He shook his head at her. “I keep a sack of dried sea-lion meat in the pocket of that coat to feed to the foxes when they chance by. They were merely going for their treat, not your throat.”
Treat? Dubious, she reached into the pocket and felt a sack. Inside it she fingered shards of leathery matter. So, what he said was true.
He cleared his throat. “Apparently, red-haired vixens are more excitable than blue-black ones. I’ve never been jumped before.”
She frowned, perplexed. Jumped? None of the foxes had jumped... Then the whole dreadful episode rushed back with crystal clarity. Her gaze rocketed to meet his twinkling eyes, and her cheeks sizzled with mortification. The stark truth was that moments ago she’d actually jumped the man!
Taking a mental lunge toward self-preservation, she veered as far from what they were both thinking as she could manage, challenging, “How was I to know you keep meat in your coat pocket! Who keeps meat in their pockets?”
“I—”
“I know you do,” she blustered, frustrated by his nonchalance. “I mean, why don’t you wear the darned coat, then?”
“It was insensitive of me to leave it in the closet,” he said, looking unrepentant. “I’m a thoughtless brute.”
“You’re incorrigible,” she charged, and spun away. As she was about to stalk off, she noticed that one of the departing foxes was dragging a large cloth bundle through the grasses. “Wh
at’s that?” she breathed, afraid of the answer.
“Bread,” Ransom said.
Reluctantly she faced him. “Bread?”
He shrugged dismissively. “This morning was the monthly bake sale in the village. That was the bread I bought.”
As she watched the bundle being dragged away toward some unseen den, she felt twinge of guilt. “You dropped it to rescue me?”
He nodded. “No problem. They’ll have another sale next month. Of course, I won’t be here. …”
She detected his wistful tone and had to smile. So the man had a weakness. “Well, well, the salmon tycoon likes fresh bread,” she teased, enjoying having the upper hand for once.
His half smile was boyishly charming. “Yes. Warm, fresh homemade bread.”
“And now a month’s supply is ruined.”
“Fresh-baked goods do lose a little of their appeal when they’re dragged through mud.”
She eyed him thoughtfully. “I’ll bake you some bread— and Lilly gave me her recipe for mossberry jam.”
His expression grew curious—and, also, cautious. “Oh?” he asked. “And I suppose you have a price for this service?”
“I do.” She came to stand right in front of him and gave him a disdainful I’ve-finally-got-you-where-I-want-you smile. “I’ll bake you some bread and make a batch of jam, but you’ve got to quit teasing me.”
“Me?” His smiling face was the picture of innocence.
“That’s just the sort of remark I mean!”
He flashed his teeth, full of the devil. “I don’t know, Sara. That’s a lot to ask. There are so few diversions on the island.”
She poked his chest for emphasis. “And you have to quit talking like we’re going to have an affair,” she blurted, then bit her tongue, wishing she hadn’t gone quite that far. All this time, she hadn’t been able to forget those disturbing moments on the beach when he’d taken her into his arms and goaded her into saying things she didn’t mean—at least, things she hoped she didn’t mean. With trepidation, she forced her gaze to remain locked on his.