by Jody Hedlund
A sliver of unease pinched Caroline as she opened the front door and stepped inside the dark house.
Where was everyone?
She quietly closed the door behind her and tiptoed across the center rug, noting that nothing seemed out of place. The crocheted afghan was folded neatly across the rocker. Tessa’s books were stacked on the low bookshelf. The boys’ boots were lined up on the rug next to the door.
Caroline paused. The boys’ coats were still hanging on pegs above their boots. Shouldn’t they be on their way to school by now?
With growing alarm, Caroline walked into the kitchen. The same stillness greeted her there. The chairs were pushed into the table, which was bare except for a bowl of apples that graced the center along with two candles on either side.
The stove was cold. There were no scents of breakfast, only the lingering smell of smoke from yesterday’s fire.
Picking up her pace, she continued through the kitchen and down the hallway. The bedroom doors were still closed. Dread filled her as Caroline opened Sarah’s door. Faint light was beginning to peek in through the edges of the curtain, illuminating Sarah’s form on one half of the bed.
At the sight of her approach, Sarah smiled, although weakly.
“Where’s Tessa?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t know,” Sarah whispered. “She didn’t sleep with me last night. I’m worried.”
Where was Tessa? The dread increased tenfold. What if Tessa had become the next victim in the string of cruelties inflicted on her family? What if she’d been kidnapped . . . or worse?
A scuffling on the boards overhead told her the twins were still home and just getting out of bed. They were late, but at least they were safe. She hurried out of Sarah’s room and went across the hall. Her hand hovered above the doorknob. Although she didn’t want to disturb Ryan, the urgency racing through her veins demanded that she wake him and enlist his help in finding Tessa.
Maybe Tessa had decided to ride off. Maybe she’d finally had enough of living at the lighthouse. Whatever the case, Caroline wouldn’t put it past Tessa to think she was grown up enough to make it on her own now.
Caroline stifled a frustrated sigh and turned the knob. The door opened soundlessly. She peeked into the room, which was cloaked in darkness.
“Ryan,” she whispered loudly.
The shifting of covers and a soft moan came from the bed.
“Ryan,” she said again. “Wake up.”
A groggy “Hmm” was his only response, and it was all too reminiscent of the way his voice sounded when he’d been taking his pain pills.
Halfway in the room she stopped, and a new dread flooded her. Had Ryan taken a couple of pills? She’d seen the longing in his eyes when he’d spotted them yesterday in Tessa’s hand. Maybe he’d been in such extraordinary pain after fighting the fire that he was unable to resist the temptation to take one or two of the pills.
That would explain why he hadn’t come up to the light for his shift. The dread swiftly changed to anger and hurt. How could he? After all the progress he’d made recently.
She stalked across the room, not caring if she made noise now. She reached for the thick curtains and yanked them wide open. While she knew she shouldn’t expect Ryan to be perfect so soon after he’d come off the pills, the disappointment pierced her sharply anyway.
The bright morning light streamed into the room, and for a brief moment she was reminded of the first time she’d met Ryan, when he’d accidentally crawled into bed with her and she’d hit him with her pillow.
She was tempted to snatch up a pillow and give him the smack he deserved for being so foolish. Instead she dragged in a deep breath and turned.
At the sight that met her, a gasp slipped from her lips, and she jumped back as if she’d been slammed in the chest.
There in the bed, under a mound of covers, were the outlines of two bodies—Ryan’s and Tessa’s. Tessa lay on one side of the bed, Ryan on the other.
Caroline could only stare in horror.
Neither of them moved, but their closed eyes scrunched in protest against the bright light that was disturbing their apparent tryst. The light also revealed a tall, dark bottle on the bedside table that was almost empty.
It was the whiskey she kept in her medicinal cabinet, the whiskey she used only in emergencies as a pain-killer.
Fresh anger erupted inside. So it wasn’t enough to fall into temptation with his pain-killer. He’d gone and helped himself to her whiskey too?
She could just imagine the scene last night. Under the influence of his pain-killer, he’d overindulged. Tessa had probably been there talking with him in the dark hours of the night. With the way she’d been enamored with Ryan, she’d likely flirted with him. And being the beautiful and enticing girl that she was, obviously Ryan had lacked the strength to resist her.
Caroline had no doubt one thing had led to another, so that the two had ended up drunk and in bed together. What other explanation could there be?
With a strangled cry, Caroline strode over to the bed, grabbed the covers, and ripped them away from the slumbering bodies. Without their covers, the frigid air in the room slapped them instantly. Tessa began shivering, and Ryan draped his arm over her in a protective measure.
The sight ripped at Caroline’s heart. Even in his drunken, opium-induced state, Ryan was a kind and sensitive man. He cared about others more than he cared about himself.
Tears pricked her eyes. If he cared about her as he’d led her to believe, why then had he allowed himself to get carried away with Tessa?
The girl gave another shudder and then a soft groan before she lifted a hand to cover her eyes.
“Caroline?” came a whisper from the doorway.
With mussed hair and wide eyes, the twins stood side by side staring at the bed, at Ryan lying next to Tessa.
“What are Ryan and Tessa doing?” Harry asked.
“Did they get married?” Hugh looked confused.
Both embarrassment and horror washed over Caroline. It was one thing for her to witness this indiscretion, but another altogether for the twins’ innocent minds to try to make sense of.
She was about to rush to them, to shield the boys from seeing any more than they already had, when a sound coming from the living room stopped her in her tracks. Footsteps clomped across the wood floor and entered the kitchen.
“Miss Taylor?” a clipped voice called.
Mr. Finick.
“Go!” Caroline whispered to the boys, moving frantically to shoo them out of the room. She couldn’t let Mr. Finick catch a glimpse of Ryan and Tessa in bed together. She just couldn’t.
But she was too late. Mr. Finick, wearing an immaculate cream-colored suit and a bowler hat, appeared in the hallway behind the boys. He took in the scene in one rapid sweep. And his brow furrowed with immediate fury. “What on earth is going on here?”
His sharp question cut through the room and seemed to penetrate Ryan’s hazy sleep. He yawned loudly.
“Mr. Chambers, this is totally unacceptable.” Mr. Finick’s voice rose a notch. “As if it’s not enough to have to witness the destruction from a fire, but now I must see this too? Fornication right here at the lighthouse in broad daylight goes against every rule set in place by the Lighthouse Board.”
Ryan stretched, lifting his arm away from Tessa for a moment before lowering it again. At the fresh touch of her body against his, his eyes flew open and he froze. He glanced at his arm draped over her, and then he jerked it off as if Tessa were scalding hot.
Confusion, followed by panic, rippled across his features before he scrambled away from Tessa. He rolled to the edge of the bed but in the process caught sight of them all standing by the doorway. He struggled to focus, first on Harry and Hugh, then on Caroline, and finally on Mr. Finick, who’d pulled out his record book and was now furiously scribbling something inside.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asked, his voice slurred, his eyes clouded over.
“Tha
t’s what I’d like you to explain to me, Mr. Chambers.” Mr. Finick’s pencil made a sharp scratching noise as it moved across the paper. “Why don’t you tell me how it is you’re in bed fornicating instead of being up and performing your duties as lightkeeper?”
“Fornicating?” Ryan pushed up from the bed, and the mattress squeaked in condemnation. He glanced again at Tessa, who was still shivering and reaching for the pile of covers at her feet.
Once again, Ryan started as if he hadn’t expected to see the girl there. And this time he sat up completely and scrambled off the bed. Instead of making it to his feet, he dropped in a tangled heap on the floor, apparently still weak and disoriented from the effects of so much liquor and opium.
Caroline almost couldn’t bear to watch. She knew she needed to remove Hugh and Harry from the room at once, yet she couldn’t get her feet working. She wanted to blink and make the ugly scene disappear. But the frigidness of the unheated room had seeped into her skin, sending chills all the way to her core. There would be no ignoring what had happened here, no brushing away the incident with excuses. No way to hide what had obviously taken place. Instead, she would have to take charge and salvage what she could of her pride, along with Tessa’s reputation.
Worst of all, she would have to ignore the incredible, oozing pain that ravaged her body, the pain of betrayal.
She steeled her shoulders and ushered Hugh and Harry from the room with orders to light the stove and get water heating. Then she hurried back to Tessa. The girl had finally opened her eyes and was sitting up in bed, tousled and dazed. Caroline had to bite back an anguished cry at the image of Ryan touching Tessa. The only woman Ryan should have been touching was her.
Caroline wrenched at the blankets and wrapped them tightly around Tessa, then quickly led her out of the room amidst Mr. Finick chastising Ryan with a barrage of threats. Even though Ryan’s eyes followed them, she couldn’t make herself look at him. She didn’t know how she’d ever be able to face him again.
Chapter 21
Ryan sat at the kitchen table with his elbows on his knees and his head bent.
“Of course, I’ll have to write up the citation and present your case before the Board.” Finick sat across the table from him, his notebook spread in front of him.
Ryan had donned his clothes, but he shivered against the chill of the room, the stove still not at full strength. His mind felt the same way—sluggish. A vague uneasiness nagged him about the fact that Finick was at the lighthouse so early, that he was probably working with Simmons to get Caroline to leave. But he couldn’t make sense of his jumbled thoughts, not when he was trying to sort out how he’d ended up in bed with Tessa.
Last night, after Caroline had gone up to the tower, he remembered sitting in the kitchen near the stove, greasing several traps he’d planned to set in the swamp and woods in the areas Poupard had told him were good for trapping muskrats. Tessa was cleaning up after dinner and had given him his usual mug of birchbark tea to help ease the pain in his arm after the long day. The boys were playing a game of checkers at the table.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the evening, except that Tessa had been petulant about his marriage proposal to Caroline. She’d stomped around banging lids and answering his questions with one- or two-word quips.
He hadn’t tried to console her, figuring she’d eventually get used to the idea that he was going to marry Caroline. He was preoccupied with the fact that the woman he loved was up in the tower, thinking about his proposal. He remembered feeling more and more insecure as the evening passed, especially after Hugh and Harry had come up to him before bed and given him hugs.
The boys had never hugged him before. And he was a little taken aback to think they’d soon be his charges. After he married Caroline, he would become like a big brother to them, perhaps even a father figure. But who was he to take on such a role? In fact, who was he to think that he was worthy of a fine woman like Caroline Taylor?
All he’d done in the past year flooded back to his mind. He’d stood by and let his comrades kill a boy without doing a thing to stop them. He’d stolen food from innocent people. He’d become a drunk just like his father. And then he’d shown up in Caroline’s life and caused her all kinds of trouble.
With a stifled moan, Ryan’s shoulders sank lower as the accusations of the previous night returned to taunt him with even greater force . . . along with the memory of the drinks he’d had.
When Tessa had pulled out a whiskey bottle and plunked it down on the table, he’d shaken his head no. He’d been tired already, almost groggy, the same way he used to feel when taking the pain pills. He was about to get up and go to bed when she poured two glasses and shoved one in front of him. The amber liquid had looked so soothing, so comforting. He told himself he’d have only one drink.
How was it that the one drink turned into two, then three, and only the Lord knew how many more after that.
He pressed his fingers into his temples and tried to rub away the pulsing pain. How was it that he had so little self-control? Even if Tessa had been drinking right along with him, pouring him a fresh glass every time his had emptied, that was no excuse.
And how was it that he ended up in bed with Tessa? And what in the name of all that was holy had he done with her?
Guilt raged through him. When he’d finally pushed away from his drinking binge last night, he was left dizzy and unsteady, buckling every time he stood. Tessa had come to his aid. He’d needed her help getting to the bedroom and onto the bed. He thought she’d simply assisted him out of his shoes and shirt. He hadn’t realized she’d slipped into bed next to him.
Swishing skirts and slapping footsteps entered the kitchen. He raised his head and, at the sight of Caroline, sat up in his chair. She was alone. Thankfully, Tessa was nowhere to be seen, probably still feeling ill from the whiskey. “Caroline,” he began, “I’m so sorry.”
Without even a glance his way, she walked past him to the cast-iron stove. She opened the oven door, tossed in a piece of kindling, and slammed it shut.
Finick glowered at her. “Miss Taylor, this morning’s occurrence is just one of the many reasons why you were asked to leave the lighthouse.” His voice was biting and had the sound of one gloating. Ryan wanted to boot the man out of the house.
“This has nothing to do with her staying,” Ryan cut in.
“It has everything to do with her!” Finick’s chair scraped loudly across the floor as he pushed away from the table. “She’s distracted you from doing your job. I’m guessing that’s how the fire started yesterday, because you were too busy to pay attention—”
“Maybe you started the fire to drive her out,” Ryan countered. “Maybe you’ve been behind all of the recent trouble around here.”
“How dare you accuse me of starting the fire!” Finick said.
The horror in Finick’s eyes seemed too genuine for Ryan to implicate him. While the man ranted for a full minute, Ryan suspected that the inspector might have been working with Simmons to get an incompetent keeper like himself at Windmill Point, but he doubted the man would purposefully set fire to the lighthouse. However, if Simmons and Finick weren’t responsible, then who was? Ryan clutched his head, unable to think past the throbbing.
“If you want to maintain your job here at the lighthouse,” Finick went on, “I expect that you’ll resolve the scandal you’ve created by marrying the young woman you’ve compromised.”
Marry Tessa?
The suggestion rocked Ryan and nearly knocked him off his chair.
At the stove, Caroline’s back appeared to turn to stone, and her hands stilled at the coffee grounds she’d been scooping. Was she as shocked by Finick’s admonition as he was?
“We cannot have word of your dalliance spreading,” Mr. Finick warned. “It would set the wrong example for other single lightkeepers.”
Ryan scrambled to come up with an excuse, to find some reason why he couldn’t marry Tessa. They hadn’t done anything be
sides share a bed. Even if he’d blacked out, he would surely remember if they’d done more than sleeping.
Yet his gut told him that he could do nothing less than wed Tessa to preserve her reputation. It was the right thing to do in the situation. He hoped he hadn’t actually touched her, but the fact that he’d spent the night with her in the same bed was devastating enough.
“So if you want to stay on as keeper,” Finick said again, “you’ll marry that young woman. Today.”
What about Caroline? What about marrying her? His heart cried out in protest at the thought of having to give up his plans to be with her. Maybe he’d first offered to marry her as a way of keeping her from leaving the lighthouse and marrying another, but once he’d proposed he’d quickly realized just how much he wanted to be with her. All the memories of the times they’d shared together over the past month came rushing back, reminding him of how much she’d supported and cared for him.
He couldn’t relinquish her. He wouldn’t.
Caroline didn’t turn, though he stared at her and willed her to tell him what to do to save their relationship.
What if she’d decided to reject his marriage proposal anyway this morning? She’d been hesitant yesterday. After his behavior last night, she had every right to say no.
At the opening and closing of the front door, Ryan dropped his head again, his misery escalating with each passing second. He couldn’t let one more person witness his indiscretion with Tessa.
He knew that, no matter what, he had to protect Tessa. He couldn’t let anyone else find out what had happened. He needed to save her the shame and embarrassment. The only way to do that was to marry her at once.
“Aye. I’ll marry Tessa,” he said, not caring that his voice was flat. “Today.”
“Marry Tessa?” stammered a surprised voice. Arnie Simmons shuffled into the kitchen. His eyes darted between Caroline and Ryan, a hopefulness in his expression that Ryan had the sudden urge to punch away.