by Anna Small
Table of Contents
Title Page
Praise for Anna Small
Storm of the Heart
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
He sighed, reveling in the ticklish sensation as he swam like an otter, naked and unashamed, in a clear blue stream crossing through a forest lush with flowering trees and green foliage. The grasses wove around his legs and torso, silky and smooth, leaving a cooling touch in their wake. He stretched his arms to run his hands through them as he passed, but they slipped through his fingers like wet ribbons.
The sun warmed his body. He knew he’d been very cold before; so cold he thought it would kill him, but the chill was gone. He heard strange sounds for a forest. Clinking of metal and scissors cutting through cloth. A woman’s voice from far away murmured sounds he’d never heard before. He tried to turn his head to look for the source of the voice, but his head felt caught in a vise.
The fog vanished. A vision of exquisite loveliness appeared. He gasped in delight, reaching for the angel who hovered above him, her face wreathed in a mass of golden hair. He forgot the river grass and wanted to touch her instead. Her eyes blazed in a blurry, dizzying shade of green. A memory of rolling hills echoed in her eyes, and he recalled the place of his childhood. Her lips, pink and full, moved in silent words. More than anything in the world, he wanted to feel those lips on his skin. They looked so cool and soft, and his body burned with an increasing ache from the sun overhead.
Her hands were on his body. He couldn’t see them but knew they were there. Such a light touch; he could barely stand the shiver running through his very bones, making him weak-kneed and helpless. He wanted to keep her there with him and tried to speak, but no sound came out of his mouth. He tried to touch her, but she moved away until she vanished from sight.
Praise for Anna Small
IN THE ARMS OF AN EARL was a finalist in the Historical division of the Launching A Star Contest.
~*~
“[IN THE ARMS OF AN EARL is] romantic and sweet, yet hot at the same time.”
~5 Stars from Dylan Newton, author of DESPITE THE GHOSTS (available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.)
~*~
“This book [HOW TO MARRY A ROGUE] is simply a delight to read. It’s comical, serious, and sensual all rolled into one.”
~My Book Addiction and More (4.5 Stars)
Storm of the Heart
by
Anna Small
Lobster Cove Series
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Storm of the Heart
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Anna Small
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Rae Monet, Inc. Design
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First American Rose Edition, 2014
Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-683-5
Lobster Cove Series
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To Norma Murphy,
my aunt, friend, and constant cheerleader.
With all my love.
Author’s Note
The idea for this story evolved when I uncovered my husband’s American Revolution ancestry. His six-times great uncle, Andrew Palmes, was a young Connecticut sailor whose ship was captured by a British warship, the HMS Lion.
Andrew was pressed to serve the rest of the war fighting against his countrymen. One night, with the ship anchored a few miles off Cuba, he and four others made a desperate escape into the sea. While three of the men drowned, Andrew and another sailor made it to shore, where they were eventually rescued and sent to Baltimore.
Two years later, with the war over, Andrew arrived on his mother’s doorstep. He told his story to a local newspaper in 1846 as an old man, the memory of his courageous escape as fresh in his mind as the day it happened.
Chapter One
Atlantic Ocean off Lobster Cove, Maine
May 22, 1814
The cold water hit him like a thousand knives stabbing every inch of his body. The shock froze his voice mute. Men shouted from the ship rails, and the alarm bells clamored. His head throbbed with a fiery pain. He touched above his ear and felt a pulpy mass on his torn scalp. He’d been shot but didn’t remember how or why. No effort was made to rescue him. No lifeboats lowered into the wind-churned sea. The ship continued on its way, and the men at the rails gradually abandoned their posts, except for one. The lone sailor remained a few more seconds until he, too, left.
He treaded water and struggled to keep his head above the waves exploding around him. The ship faded into a shadow on the horizon until its lights were yellow pinpricks, and then they disappeared. He was alone.
The roaring wind whipped the waves, and he bobbed like a cork, struggling against the pulsing ache in his head. His legs pumped the water until cramps tore a scream from his cracked lips. He fixed on a distant light from what he assumed was a ship or, God have mercy, a lighthouse. He didn’t know anything except he was swimming for his life in the inky waters of the cold Atlantic during a howling storm.
The light remained steady in the distance. Not a ship, then. It vanished for a few seconds and flickered through the rain in random bursts until he feared it was his imagination casting a wicked trick. Realization dawned, like the sun emerging from rain clouds. A lighthouse. If he could only reach the shore and the light, he would be saved. His chest strained with each labored, gasping breath. His hands turned raw and puffy from the icy water. Each down stroke plunged his arms into water so cold it burned.
The saltwater seared his throat and stung his eyes. It assaulted his nose and chilled his ears. His gut churned at an accidental swallow. He held back the urge to retch, fearful of losing fluids before the need to quench his thirst overpowered him. He focused on the light and what he imagined and hoped was the shore. He kicked until his shoes and stockings slid from his feet. Kicked until the buttons came off his breeches, which flapped about his calves. The fabric twisted around his legs, stifling his movements, so he tore them free. Moving like a man possessed, he ground his teeth against the pain in his head and the freezing water and pressed on.
He lost track of time as the minutes blurred into hours. The waves drowned him one second and lifted him the next. He clung to memories of his family to stay alert. His mother’s face appeared in his thoughts for a scattered second, vanishing in the next instant. The same went for his father. Had he brothers and sisters? A home? A wife? Children? He could not remember any of them. Didn’t care that he could not. The desperate swim for shore had taken on a life of its own, and he was help
less to fight it.
Something long and slick tangled around his legs. Likely, a fisherman’s net, forgotten by a distracted crew. He was closer to the light now. Closer to shore. He kicked free only to become caught again. He sank beneath the waves for a sickening moment, thrashing and hitting at the thing. The idea it was a shark caused his bowels to cramp. He expected death. How could he not, with a bleeding head and no end to the chilling water? He braced for impact, almost welcoming the sharp tear of teeth. Anything to escape the sea and the nausea and pain.
Nothing happened. A gasp of relief sputtered out of him. Long, flowing tendrils of seaweed, like a malicious mermaid’s hair, caught his legs and knotted around them. They tightened the harder he fought.
He didn’t know how he broke away, but somehow, he swam freely through the water that grew warmer the more he moved. His mind erased in a quick moment. All that remained was kick, stroke. Kick, stroke. Breathe. Remember to breathe. He lifted his head to gulp a lungful of air. The icy rain pelted his face until he couldn’t wait to submerge again. He made the mistake of opening his eyes underwater and panicked at the all-consuming blackness. Head rearing, he coughed and sputtered until a sense of calm returned.
His foot struck something hard. He’d long ago lost sight of the blinking light. If there ever had been a light. Perhaps it had been an illusion, and he’d swum in a circle, no closer to shore than when he’d fallen overboard. Fallen, or shoved? It made no difference now. His legs seized with cramps, and his ribs protested each burning intake of air. His arms flailed in the water, almost paralyzed from the cold. A loud, final groan tore from him with his last ounce of energy. He cursed the sea and the sky and his life and the storm. The wind continued to howl and stir the waves.
A sense of peace overcame him. Resignation to his fate eased the pains of his body. Fleeting words of a prayer he vaguely remembered came to him in static verses. Jumbled words and pleas mingled into a blur of supplication. For an instant, he wondered about heaven and hell, or if he would spend eternity in Davy Jones’ Locker. The idea distracted him for a moment. No, not in the Locker, or Fiddler’s Green, or any such afterlife reserved for sailors. He was no sailor but didn’t know how or why he knew this. Nor did he care.
His legs stopped resisting their fate. Giving in to the storm and the powerful sea was so much easier than fighting. He sucked in a last lungful of cold, salt-drenched air and allowed the sea to consume him.
Chapter Two
Many strange and wondrous things washed up along the rocky beaches of Lobster Cove, and this crisp May morning held the promise of treasures to be found. A quick, yet violent storm had swept through the night before, so Abigail Quinn left her cottage on the cliffs to see what bounty the sea had left behind. She picked her way through tangled piles of seaweed scattered over the small beach in a quilt-like pattern of greens and browns and paused occasionally to stoop and dig through small mounds of sand covered with seaweed.
A discarded mug could start a new life as a vase or planter for summer vegetables. A sizable plank could become a wall shelf, or replace a broken slat in a window shutter. Shells were always plentiful and lined the path to her cottage, high above the beach overlooking the cliff, much as they did the other cottages in Lobster Cove. But perhaps today, she would find something special. Something worth a little money that would fetch a good price at the marketplace.
She drifted with purpose, her bare feet sinking into the rough brown sand that framed the rocks, which glistened like small islands. The day was quiet, with only the plaintive cry of the gulls overhead. Usually, she brought a few crumbs to throw at them, but this morning she had barely had enough for her let alone a few birds.
The hem of her long skirt darkened with saltwater stains and flapped against her legs in a rhythmic fashion until her woolen petticoat was stiff and cold. She cast a quick glance around the deserted beach and draped a corner of her skirt over her arm so she could better maneuver the sand.
The wind picked up, chilling her bare legs and whipping her long hair about her face. She’d forgotten her bonnet, but it didn’t matter. The fishermen from Lobster Cove never came by this way, and her brother’s weekly visit wasn’t until tomorrow. There was no one at home to notice, either. As much as the sea gave back, it also took away.
Caleb would be twenty-five years old this day. His life and years froze at twenty-three years when he was lost at sea along with the rest of the crew on a clipper that was three weeks out of Boston. At least, the letter from the Navy Department in Washington had said so in a few, curt lines. There was no body to send home. Burial at sea, the faceless, nameless bureaucrat had written. Thank you for your sacrifice.
She hadn’t sensed his absence from the world. She should have felt…oh, something the moment he died. When her brother’s son, her darling, blue-eyed scamp of a nephew succumbed to fever, she’d awoken and sat up in bed, aware of his passing. But Patrick was her nephew, as dearly as she’d loved him. She’d loved Caleb longer; since they were twelve and ten years old, and he fought an older boy who had picked on her. Caleb sat beside her on the hard bench of the one-room schoolhouse in Lobster Cove. She helped him with his reading, and he taught her how to throw a ball. Some years later, he taught her how to kiss.
Two years had gone by, but it seemed like she had kissed him yesterday. Always at home on the sea, he hadn’t hesitated to join the war against England, a country from where his grandparents had sailed five decades before, yet he had never seen. She heard his voice in the breezes that rolled off the sea, and sometimes turned around, her heart in her throat, expecting him to walk on the beach toward her. Some nights, she imagined she heard his familiar whistle and jumped from her chair ready to fling wide the door. And every time, her spirits fell when she realized the sound was the wind in the twisted oak, which stood sentinel outside.
Despite her family’s assurance her pain would lessen, she refused to give up hope and believe Caleb was dead. For him to return after a two-year absence would not be far-fetched. The very thing had happened to Leticia Adams, this Christmas past, when her Thomas walked into her home and set his hat by the door, just as if he had returned from an evening out at The Shucker’s Rest and had not been missing from an ill-fated whaling voyage without a word for three years. There’d been a great commotion, as his younger brother had moved in to care for Leticia and her young ones in Tom’s absence, but it all worked itself out in the end.
She hugged her shawl around her shoulders. Her brother, Elias, urged her to consider remarrying. Or, at least, move closer to town, where he and his wife, Patience, could help her. She convinced her brother she would consider his suggestion in the next few months. She would prepare her cottage for sale in the fall and move before winter set in. Her words were empty promises. The idea Caleb would one day return and find his home occupied by strangers made her queasy.
She tripped over a stone and fell to her knees in the wet sand. Her skirts quickly absorbed the damp, and she shook them out furiously. Perhaps she should have come when the sun was higher. The beach would be a little warmer, though not by much. Besides, early morning was the best time to scour the beach before the village children descended upon it like scavengers, taking all the best treasures. Once, a boy found a barrel of waterlogged biscuit that had fallen off a British ship, probably on its way to Canada. For all she knew, it came from the very ship responsible for Caleb’s death.
Something moved within a kelp pile twenty yards ahead. Her step faltered. A beached porpoise tangled in a discarded net would be a dreadful discovery. She’d seen one once, gasping its last breath as Mr. Peabody and Mrs. Cross tried to push it back into the ocean while other onlookers offered advice. She’d helped, too, but to no avail. It had died on the sand, the pilot gulls swooping and diving overhead, waiting for a feast once the humans departed. She closed her fists at the memory of its rubbery cool skin sliding across her palms.
The kelp and seaweed stirred again, and three crabs skittered away. A shiver r
an through her, but it might have been from the brisk wind rolling in with the whitecaps. Her stomach growled. She’d neglected breakfast, if one could call a dry hunk of day-old bread and a cup of water breakfast. Perhaps the kelp obscured something edible. An eel would be a treat; there’d be enough for stew, and she could bring some to old Mrs. Cross, a widow like herself. She wanted to prove to her brother she could live on her own.
Hunger and the chill seizing her hastened her steps. She reached the pile and poked around the middle, grabbing handfuls of slimy seaweed and kelp and tossing them aside. The cold weeds clung to her arms and gooseflesh spread across her skin, but she focused on her task. She could almost picture the fat, glistening eel, and her mouth watered.
She clasped something long, cold, and fleshy, but it wasn’t an eel. Lifting it free of the seaweed, she stared for a timeless moment at the bare human arm. The fingers wiggled slightly. She dropped it back into the kelp, her scream tearing the air and blending with the cry of the gulls.
Chapter Three
It was a man. A half-drowned man, by the look of him. When her fear subsided, Abigail pulled away the slimy weeds until she revealed the rest of him. He lay on his side, his head half buried in the wet sand. None of his clothes remained, giving no clue as to his identity. His dark hair clung wetly to his face, which looked carved from stone. His eyelids resembled porcelain, with thin blue veins stark against his skin, so pale it was almost transparent. Grains of sand and debris clung to his ivory cheek, which looked as if it would be as hard as marble, were she to touch it.
A week’s growth of beard marred the surface. Were it not for the quivering fingers, she would have thought he was a statue, perfect and unmarred in every way, washed ashore by a sunken ship destined for a large city. His face had the pallor of the freshly dead. Except for his mouth. His lips were full and red, as if all that remained of his blood had welled in them. Her heart caught in her throat, and it took her a few seconds to remember to breathe. She brushed sand from his parted lips, and he moaned.