by Jody Hedlund
She shifted to get more comfortable and in the process let her hand delve deeper into his hair. She couldn’t deny how much she loved its silkiness and the way it cascaded through her fingers.
She brought her other hand to his face and pressed it against his cheek, letting the stubble graze her. She also couldn’t deny how much she relished the strength of his jaw and the bristle beneath her fingers.
He moved again, and this time twisted so that her hand slipped to his mouth. In the same movement he wrapped his hand around hers, preventing her from moving it from his lips.
She tensed with the embarrassment of having been so free in touching him. “You’re awake,” she said, extricating her fingers from his hair and attempting to move her other hand away from his face.
But he didn’t relinquish his grip, and instead his lips pressed against the soft center of her palm. The gentleness and warmth of the kiss made her close her eyes, and she had to bite her lip to keep in a sharp breath of pleasure.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
His only response was to press his lips again, this time grazing against the rapid pounding of the vein in her wrist that surely gave away her desire for him.
She couldn’t keep herself from thinking about the kiss she gave him the first night of their being trapped together. How had she dared it? Yes, he’d just bared his soul to her. He’d been distressed, broken and honest.
But she’d been brazen to kiss him like she did, acting like a common hussy. What would he think of her now?
“Stop worrying, Caroline,” he whispered, positioning her fingers against his cheek again. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true.”
“How do you know?”
Before he could respond, the door rattled.
She gasped, and he shot off the ground.
“Hello!” she called while crawling forward, renewed desperation giving her a burst of strength.
The plank door rattled again, this time with more force.
Within seconds the door opened, and brilliant light poured over them, blinding them. Cold air rushed in to replace the warmth their bodies had created inside the cellar.
She blinked hard and scrambled through the doorway into wet grass and damp leaves. She bent over it and gulped a breath of the fresh scent of earth.
An oversized pair of scuffed shoes stood only inches away. Kneeling in the grass, the wetness soaking through her skirt, she looked up to find Arnie Simmons standing above her, his eyes wide with concern.
“Caroline.” His voice was wobbly. “Are y-you . . . okay?”
She wanted to hug him. She’d never been happier to see anyone in her life. But before she could get her words of gratitude out, Ryan was crawling out next to her, and Arnie’s brows rose into his receding hairline.
“Wow, the sun’s bright,” Ryan said. His face was pale, and he shielded his eyes with his uninjured hand.
“He was with you?” Arnie’s large ears flamed a bright shade of red.
“We’ve been trapped inside since Monday,” she explained, glancing first to the position of the sun and then to the tower that glistened like a diamond in the morning light. It was still fairly early. What was Arnie doing out at the lighthouse at this time of day?
“Where is everyone else?” she asked, sitting up straighter and stretching her cramped limbs. “Are my brothers and sisters safe?”
Arnie glared at Ryan. Something dark, almost dangerous flashed in Arnie’s eyes before disappearing. “Everyone’s here.” Arnie turned back to her. “Search p-parties met here at . . . at f-first light.”
“Search parties?” Finally she stood and then scanned the area. Here and there, groups of people walked together, calling out, searching the forest, the marsh, even walking along the lakeshore.
“We’ve b-been looking for y-you,” Arnie explained.
Out in the marsh she caught sight of Esther’s bulky frame, along with several other women from town. She spotted Tessa and the boys near the forest edge. A group of men milled along the shore, including Esther’s husband, the mayor. Even Monsieur Poupard was combing the woods.
Ryan straightened next to her. He swayed, his knees almost buckling beneath him.
She reached for him, linking her arm through his and steadying him. In the bright yellows, greens, and reds of the fall morning, his face was ashen, the dark circles under his eyes testifying to the torture he’d undergone the past two days without his medication.
Arnie took a step back, his attention darting between them with hurt and confusion chasing away his concern.
“It’s not what you think, Arnie,” she rushed to explain. “Nothing happened between Ryan and me. He’s been so sick.”
A shout in the distance told her the group had noticed her and Ryan standing with Arnie.
Dismay took away her joy at finally getting set free. If Arnie thought the worst had happened between her and Ryan, she could only imagine what everyone else would think.
For a short time, everyone was so glad to see her and intent upon hugging her that they hardly seemed to notice Ryan at all.
Tessa hugged her the tightest of all and then stood back and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I can’t believe you were here in the cellar all along.”
“At first we thought maybe you went to Detroit to look for a new job,” Harry said, holding her hand.
“But then Tessa realized you hadn’t taken anything with you,” Hugh added, gripping her other hand.
Caroline bent and placed another kiss on each of their heads, grateful they were all right.
Esther stood next to her husband and rested her hands on her swollen abdomen. “I knew you wouldn’t leave the kids without telling them where you were going. That’s just not like you.”
Caroline smiled at all the faces surrounding her, overwhelmed by the support of the townspeople. “Esther’s right. I wouldn’t have left without telling you where I was going.”
“So of course when I heard you were gone,” Esther said, “I organized a search party. It was too late in the day yesterday to do anything—and too stormy. But we decided to meet out here at first light and begin searching the area.”
“Thank you.” Caroline reached for Esther’s hand and squeezed it. “And thank you to Arnie for deciding to check the cellar.”
She turned then to Arnie, who was standing awkwardly near the door of the cellar. He’d been so faithful to her, probably the first to arrive that morning ready to search. Throwing caution aside, she reached for the young man and threw her arms around him in a hug.
He immediately held himself as straight as a boat paddle.
Sensing his embarrassment and catching a faint hint of onion on his breath, she released her hold and smiled at him instead.
His face lit up, and he smiled back shyly.
No one else appreciated him. The least she could do was express her gratitude for his kindness.
“Aye, thank you, Arnie, for finding us,” Ryan said, leaning back against the mound that formed the cellar. His legs and hands trembled from time to time, and from the way he shielded his eyes from the sun, she could tell the bright light was making his head ache all over again.
“It’s a miracle Arnie checked the cellar,” Ryan added. “Most people wouldn’t think to look in a place that locked from the outside.”
“Good point,” Esther said, turning to Ryan and taking in his wrinkled and dirty garments. “Someone had to have been waiting and watching for the opportunity to lock Caroline in the cellar. That kind of thing wouldn’t happen by chance.”
Caroline stifled a shudder, not wanting to think about the fact that somehow she’d gained an enemy.
“It would appear that someone has purposefully set out to harm you,” Esther declared, which started a murmur among the rest of the group gathered around them.
“Or maybe someone is trying scare her,” Ryan said.
Esther’s full form contrasted her husband’s lanky body, made even taller by his top ha
t. The pair reminded Caroline of the newspaper pictures she’d seen of the late President Lincoln and his first lady.
Monsieur Poupard on the fringes of the group wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying. Instead he was frowning at the area that had once housed her beautiful garden, now completely barren except for a few stray stems she’d yet to pull.
At the rattle of a wagon and the sharp crack of a whip, everyone’s attention shifted to the path that wound through the marsh and the approaching wagon.
Two men sat on the wagon’s front bench. The one driving was a hulk of a man, his arms bulging, his torso double the size of the man sitting next to him. It could be none other than Mr. Simmons. No one else was as big.
Arnie took an involuntary step backward, bumping into the cellar door, worry flashing through his eyes.
As they drew closer, Caroline’s heart sank, and she wanted to slink back next to Arnie and cower with him out of sight.
The man sitting next to Mr. Simmons was Mr. Finick, the lighthouse inspector, the last person on earth she wanted to see, especially at that moment. Mr. Simmons finally brought his team to an abrupt halt behind their gathering. Beneath his bowler hat, his dark eyes were sharp like those of a bird of prey searching out its next meal.
Mr. Finick sat with his lips pursed tightly enough to turn them blue. He cautiously descended, careful not to brush his light-gray pinstriped suit against the dusty wagon. At the same time, Mr. Simmons jumped down in one lunge that nearly tipped the wagon off its wheels.
“Looks like you found the missing keeper,” Mr. Simmons bellowed.
“Locked in the cellar.” Esther leveled a glare at him as if she placed the blame squarely at his feet for all that had happened.
Caroline studied Mr. Simmons’s face, his outwardly composed facade, knowing that calm could dissipate as fast as a sunny spring day only to be overshadowed with storm clouds. Had Mr. Simmons been the one to start causing her trouble? He’d seen her at the rally outside his inn last week. Maybe he’d thought to teach her a lesson.
“Your son saved our lives,” Ryan said, pushing away from the hill and making an effort to stand on his feet without swaying. “If not for him, we’d still be locked in there.”
“Arnie would tear apart heaven and earth for that girl,” Mr. Simmons replied. “Too bad she’s stringing him along instead of marrying him like a decent woman.”
Mr. Finick clucked under his breath, flipped open his record-keeping book, and scribbled something there. His long black mustache twitched with all the disapproval that likely coursed through his wiry body upon learning that she and Ryan had spent the past couple of days locked up together.
“Mr. Chambers was sick most of the time,” she hurried to add.
“I was nearly dead from pain,” Ryan confirmed.
She didn’t dare look at him for fear of revealing the intimate moments that had passed between them in spite of his sickness.
“Nevertheless, Miss Taylor,” Mr. Finick said, “your behavior is unacceptable, and you’ve quite possibly sullied Mr. Chambers’s reputation as well.”
“She didn’t sully my reputation in any way,” Ryan protested. “I’m only sorry if I’ve caused anyone to question her character in the least. I can attest that she’s completely innocent.”
“If you’d left when I instructed you,” Mr. Finick snapped at her, “none of this would have happened.”
Before she could respond, Ryan once again stepped in to defend her. “I told her she could stay as my assistant.”
Mr. Finick flashed Ryan a look of irritation. “You don’t have the power to make those kinds of decisions.”
“But I need her help—”
“I’ll determine if you need help,” he said. “And if you really do need help, it won’t be from this woman.”
“And what does being a woman have to do with it?” Esther stepped forward, letting go of her husband, who watched her with pride beaming from his thin face.
“Women aren’t allowed to be keepers.”
“There are plenty of women who’ve been allowed to be keepers in other states,” Esther insisted in her usual clipped manner. “And even if there weren’t, it’s time to put aside such antiquated rules and embrace a new way of thinking about women and their abilities.”
Mr. Finick narrowed his eyes upon Esther. “And exactly who are you? And what business do you have interfering with my job?”
Esther reached for her husband’s arm, slipped hers through it, and tipped up her chin. “My husband is the mayor of Grosse Pointe, and my father is a Michigan senator.”
“Well, that has nothing to do with the Lighthouse Board, now, does it?” Mr. Finick’s lips again pressed together. “And since I don’t meddle in town or in state policy, I would ask you to refrain from meddling in lighthouse issues that you know nothing about.”
This was the moment Caroline had been dreading, the day when Mr. Finick came back and ordered her to leave once and for all. The truth was, as sweet as Esther and Ryan had been about defending her right to stay at the lighthouse, Mr. Finick was the final authority in the matter. There was nothing they could do to change his mind.
Mr. Simmons stood back, crossed his arms over his chest, and grinned, clearly happy to see Esther put in her place.
But Esther’s eyes sparked. “Everyone here can vouch for the excellent job that Caroline has done as keeper.” She glanced around at the others who’d joined the search party, her expression urging the townspeople to agree with her.
To Caroline’s relief, they didn’t need Esther’s urging. They were already nodding and murmuring their assent.
“She’s managed this lighthouse as well as any man—if not better,” Esther said. “And all of us think she deserves to stay on as head keeper.”
Mr. Finick picked an invisible dust mite from his coat sleeve. “Miss Taylor has been dismissed from her position. She cannot stay as head keeper or assistant. I absolutely forbid it—”
“I’ve asked my father to take the matter before the Senate.”
“She needs to leave Windmill Point today.”
“She’s staying until we get word back from my father.”
“She leaves. Today.”
“She’s staying.”
Esther and Mr. Finick locked eyes in a glare that rivaled a duel to the death.
Caroline’s chest squeezed, as though the two were pressing against her and flattening her between them.
Ryan moved to stand beside her. “Listen. I’m not capable of running this lighthouse by myself.” With his pale face, sunken eyes, and unsteady legs, he certainly looked as if he were about to fall over and die.
“Then I’ll have to begin to look for a replacement for you,” Mr. Finick said, jotting something in his book.
“Or you can let Miss Taylor stay as my assistant and continue to help me. If not for her, the light would have remained unlit many more nights than the past two.”
Even though he didn’t touch her, his presence next to her was solid and strong and comforting. She wanted to reach for his hand, to thank him for his support. But she didn’t dare to even look at him for fear of revealing the growing bond she felt between them.
“Even if I were to allow Miss Taylor to stay—which I’m not—the living situation here is completely unsuitable for an unmarried man and unmarried woman.”
“I’m living in the boathouse,” Ryan said quickly. “She can continue to live in the house.”
“That’s unacceptable.”
“After making my home in a tent for the past four years, the boathouse is paradise.”
Ryan’s comment garnered some laughter from the crowd, but only a frown from Mr. Finick.
“She just needs to marry Arnie,” Mr. Simmons said. “Then all these problems will be solved.”
Arnie had been pushed to the back of the gathering, but even there his face bloomed crimson.
“She’s not marrying Arnie,” Esther spoke up again, her intense expressi
on admonishing Caroline to stay strong. “And she’s not leaving the lighthouse. Not until we hear back on the Senate ruling.”
Mr. Finick turned to Esther’s husband. “You ought to take your wife home where she belongs.”
The mayor only smiled down at his wife. “She belongs out here, championing for the rights of the people and causes she believes in.”
The seriousness in Esther’s countenance softened. She returned her husband’s smile with love and gratefulness radiating from her face.
Caroline watched her friend, unable to stop longing from snagging her. Would she ever find a man who could believe in her the same way? She was tempted to look at Ryan to see if he’d noticed the couple’s sweetness with each other. But she knew it shouldn’t matter what Ryan thought. No matter what had transpired between them in the cellar, no matter that he was started on the road to healing, he still had a long ways to go. She had to respect that and give him the space and time to become whole again.
Esther rubbed a hand over her belly as if to say that she could be a mother and still continue with her calling. “Mr. Finick, none of us in Grosse Pointe will let you remove Caroline from the lighthouse simply because she’s a woman. If she must leave, then you must have much greater cause than her gender.”
Mr. Finick’s grip on his notebook turned his knuckles white. In the morning sunshine, the darkness that flashed in his eyes made Caroline shudder. The man didn’t say anything but instead climbed back aboard the wagon. He perched on the edge of the seat, straightening his trouser legs and smoothing out the wrinkles.
Finally he looked down at Esther. “You know as well as I do that the Senate has no authority in lighthouse business, and that you’re only spouting nonsense.”
The gravity in his words sent another chill through Caroline, especially when Esther didn’t respond.
“I’ll be back,” he continued. “And next time I come, I’ll be bringing the sheriff along with official papers expelling Miss Taylor. If she refuses to leave, I’ll have her physically removed and thrown in jail.”
Mr. Simmons rounded the wagon with a meaningful glance at Arnie. “Don’t worry, she’ll be gone by then.”