Galen was depressed. “Buck and Charlie. Damn, I hate that. They were both good workers. I trusted them.”
Ila nodded sagely. “You give ‘em a chance, that’s all any man can do. It’s not your fault they didn’t take it. Like I said, you can’t save ‘em all.” She folded back her skirts, rolled down her black cotton stockings, and rubbed liniment into her knee, totally unself-conscious in the presence of her employer. “Now, you want to tell me how come you set out with Katy and come back with another woman on your arm?”
“Speaking of trust,” he said. His smile had a bitter edge to it. “Don’t you trust me to be a faithful husband?”
“About as much as I trust anything in pants. No, I take that back. You’re no brighter than most men, but you’re a darn sight more honest. So who is she? How come you left Katy behind and brought this other woman with you? How does Katy feel about it?”
“Katy’s just fine. She knows how I feel about her.”
Did she? Or had he been too busy impressing on Brand and George Gill the importance of not letting Katy or Tara out of their sight to do justice to his new role as husband?
At Ila’s skeptical look, he said, “In case it escaped your notice, Margaret’s not with me, she’s on her way to Atlanta.” Easing the kitten off his lap, he sketched in a relationship that went back to a time when they’d all been dirty-faced kids running wild in the woods.
Not that Margaret’s face had ever been dirty, or any other part of her so far as he knew. She was the kind of kid who could stay clean making mud pies. “Margaret was always the princess, the one we rescued. Mostly Brand did the rescuing. Liam usually tripped over his shoelaces, and I was always delegated to tote him back to the house, squalling his head off. Standard kid stuff.”
“Yes, well—that didn’t look like any kid I saw you escorting to the depot before you even let me know you was back in town. Looked to me like you was sneaking around, trying to hide something.”
What he was hiding—not too successfully—was the fact that Katy was a full day’s sail away, and it was killing him. That he couldn’t just reach out and touch her, or hear her voice, or watch that funny-wise-innocent smile light her eyes when he least expected to see it.
If he’d known it was going to be this bad he’d have told Bellfort to handle the problem on his own. But when the message came, he hadn’t stopped to think, he’d simply reacted.
Eyes burning from the smell of the liniment and a lack of sleep, he said, “Don’t worry about Margaret, she’s just an old friend. Her husband died a few months ago, and she’s not handling it too well. Ana felt sorry for her.” He had an idea his sister-in-law had also had something else in mind. “She was ready to leave, and we happened to share a ferry ride, that’s all.”
“Yes, well . . . I hope you know what you’re doing. If it was me, and my new husband took off with another woman, I wouldn’t sit back and let him get away with it, I can tell you that.”
“Katy understands.”
“Humph. What a woman understands and what she’ll put up with is two different things.”
*
It was nearly five that evening by the time Galen was ready to head out again. Ila had suggested he’d do better to get a few hours of sleep and set out fresh the next morning. “The sheets has already cooled off now. A few more hours won’t make no difference.”
“They will to me.”
So he’d bribed Pam to stand by to take him back as soon as he’d talked to Charlie and Buck, to the police, and met at the bank with Bellfort to sign over his shares. If he thought he could flap his arms and fly to Pea Island, he’d have tried it. As it was, he’d try and catch a few hours’ sleep on the way down sound, because he had no intention of wasting time sleeping once he had Katy back in his arms again.
Ila was there on the wharf to see him off. “What do you want me to tell that poor girl if you and that old man fetch up on a shoal and drown trying to swim ashore?”
“Pam could sail these waters blindfolded.”
“Yes, well . . . don’t you go taking no more chances. There’s too much traffic on the water these days, if you ask me.”
As it happened, there was a motor launch plowing full chisel through the narrows at that very moment, belching steam and cinders. With a woman standing in the bow. A woman who looked remarkably like . . .
“Katy?” Galen squinted his eyes against the glare.
The launch pulled in astern of the Queen, and without waiting for assistance, Katy scrambled up onto the wharf on her hands and knees. By the time she was on her feet, dusting off her hands, Galen was standing before her, a look of amazement on his face.
“Where is she?” Katy demanded grimly.
“Woman, are you crazy?”
“Not as crazy as you take me for, if you think I’m going to let her have you. You’re my husband, Galen McKnight. Marrying me was your decision—nobody talked you into it. So now, you’re stuck with me.”
If a bolt of lightning had sliced down from the clear sky and splintered him right wide open, he couldn’t have looked any more dumbfounded.
“Well? Where is she? You might as well tell her I’m here to claim what’s mine. She had her chance. it’s not my fault she was too stupid to take it, but it’s too late now.”
“You tell ‘im, honey,” called out a raddled old whore who should have retired years ago. A cheer went up from a handful of waterfront regulars gathered to watch the show.
Galen wouldn’t have been surprised to see Katy turn and take a bow. He was torn between wanting to turn her over his knee and tossing her over his shoulder to take her back on board the Queen, where they might stand a chance of finding some privacy.
Not that there was much privacy to be found even there, with the evening crowd beginning to arrive. Dammit, when a man’s home was also his place of business, there was no place to hide.
“We’ll discuss this in my quarters, if you don’t mind, madam.”
The steam launch operator lifted out Katy’s bag and set it on the wharf just as Pam came alongside. “Ready to set out, Cap’n?”
“Look, can you wait—that is, I’m not sure—” Helplessly, he looked at Katy. She was beating a fast tattoo with one foot. Arms crossed over her bosom, she was pale but determined not to give an inch. “How about tomorrow morning? No—make that the day after. Oh, hell, can you pick us up here on your regular run?”
“Shore can. Rate I’m a-goin’, I’ll make me a fortune, runnin’ mail, freight, and crazy folk up an’ down the Banks.”
*
Now that she was actually here, Katy was finding it almost impossible to hang on to her courage. Ever since she’d first set out, not two hours after Galen had left with Margaret, she’d been juggling doubts and anger. If it hadn’t been so hard trying to talk over the monstrous noise, she might have told the boy to take her back, because she’d changed her mind.
Instead, she’d huddled miserably in the open launch while sparks and smoke escaped from the fire box and steam belched noisily from the single stack on the boiler. Juggling hope and regret, she’d thought about a row of graves on a certain hillside an ocean away. Feeling lost and lonely, she wondered what on earth she would do if Galen no longer wanted her.
Go on the way she had always done. What choice did she have?
Shortly after they crossed the inlet the pilot shouted, “Roanoke Sound! Over yonder’s Nags Head!”
Where she’d spent her wedding night.
The pilot was young, scarcely out of his teens from the looks of him. Evidently he considered himself something of a guide. “Point Harbor,” was his next designation. He’d waved an arm toward a smudge of shoreline off to the right, and later on he’d informed her at the top of his voice that they were now entering the Albemarle Sound.
It had all looked the same to Katy. By the time they’d entered the mouth of the Pasquotank River, she’d been sick with fatigue, and even sicker with doubts.
Now, without another word, G
alen led her up to his private quarters and ushered her inside, ignoring curious stares and hastily stifled questions. He locked the door, looking every bit as grim as she was feeling, if nowhere near as lost.
Glancing around, Katy tried to tell herself she didn’t care.
“If you’re looking for Margaret, she’s not here. She’s never been here.”
Katy shrugged, as if it really didn’t matter. Inside, she was dying. The outburst of anger, indignation, and possessiveness that had launched her hasty flight had drained away before they’d even lost sight of Merriweather’s Landing.
Ana had tried to assure her that Margaret meant nothing at all to Galen, and that their leaving together had been mere coincidence, but Katy had been beyond consolation.
It was Brand who’d said, “Let her go, honey. Let her do whatever she thinks best.” And then he’d gone out and waved in one of the small motor launches and bribed the operator to take her all the way to Elizabeth City—paid him rather a lot, she was afraid, but that was the least of her worries now.
“Oh—here’s this. Brand told me to give it to you.” She dug a rumpled envelope from her purse.
They were both standing. A mere five feet of carpet separated them, but it felt more like five miles of barren desert. Katy had never felt so alone in her life.
Galen ripped open the sealed envelope, scanned the few lines, and she watched in amazement as his face crinkled into a smile.
Her heart was breaking, and he was smiling?
“Here, read it,” he said, and handed her the note. Katy shot him a suspicious look, then took out her glasses, slid them on, and did her best to decipher what was written there.
“Accept delivery? Merchandise nonreturnable? What merchandise?”
“My brother’s idea of a joke. Katy, Margaret’s halfway to Atlanta by now. She didn’t even hang around long enough to cast a shadow. Do you honestly think I wanted to leave you?” Judging from the stricken look on her face, she obviously had. “Sweetheart, I explained why I had to leave.”
“With Margaret,” she reminded him.
“I told you, she was only along for the ride. Margaret only went along to help Ana with the baby, but she’s used to much fancier watering holes. Believe me, she’d had quite enough of Merriweather’s Landing even before we got there.”
He saw her gaze shift to his bookshelf and remembered the pair of photographs he’d set out when he’d first moved aboard. They happened to be the only pictures he had to remind him of home. A picture of the horse barn, or his father’s old farm manager, would have meant as much. More, in fact.
Someday he would have to tell her about all that, but not now. Right now, all in the world he wanted to do was hold her in his arms until neither one of them could think beyond the moment.
He opened his arms.
She took a step back.
It wasn’t going to be quite that simple. “All right, suppose we start at the beginning,” he said with a sigh. “Sit down, this might take a while.”
He started with the longstanding competition between the Pasquotank Queen and the Albemarle Belle, and Aster’s determination to see Jack Bellfort’s every bet and raise him. From there he went on to Bellfort’s unexpected offer to buy his share of the Queen. He even threw in his own suspicion that Bellfort had something a bit more personal in mind than a simple, straightforward business deal, but that was their business, not his.
And then he went on to tell her what he knew about the crime that had led to their marriage. Not that he put it in those terms. He might not be the world’s greatest diplomat, but he did know that much.
“So that’s where we stand at the moment. I was on my way back to The Landing when you showed up.”
Katy bit her lip. Galen stared at the place where her white tooth sunk into the soft pink flesh. His groin tightened. It took every bit of self-control he possessed not to let his actions speak for him, but she was still skittish. He didn’t know quite how to convince her, and was afraid of saying the wrong thing.
“Is that it?”
“Is that what? I’ve told you all I know, Katy. The police are on the way to putting the murderer behind bars. They don’t have a high tolerance around here for that sort of thing. Buck and Charlie will have to put in some time behind bars, but as Charlie’s a first-time offender—oh, he’s been in a few scrapes before, but nothing serious—he’ll be out in time for Sal’s big event. Now, does that about cover everything?”
She looked as if she wanted more. Not for the first time, Galen wished he hadn’t relied so heavily on the fact that women seemed to like him without any effort on his part. He hadn’t developed a lick of skill when it came to dealing with them outside the bedroom.
Of course, they weren’t outside the bedroom. As it happened, there was a perfectly good bed going to waste.
Uh-uh. He wasn’t going to take the easy way out, not this time. He had too much riding on this one.
“Dammit, Katy, I—”
“I love you.”
“I don’t know what—what did you say?”
“I’m not asking you to love me back, but you might as well know I’ll not be stepping aside for Margaret or any other woman.”
Becalmed. Dead in the water. The wind went out of his sails so fast he couldn’t find breath to speak, even if he’d known what to say.
She was looking straight at him, as unflinching as granite. Not for the first time Galen told himself there ought to be a law against eyes that clear and direct. He couldn’t think, much less dissemble, even if he’d wanted to.
She was waiting for him to say it. To say either that he did or he didn’t.
He did. The certainty of it damn near floored him. All this time it had been growing inside him—this feeling of tenderness, of protectiveness, of pride and possessiveness—this thing that made him feel as if she were as much a part of him as his own heart—it was love.
Hesitantly at first, stumbling over his words, and then with growing assurance, he told her so.
*
A long while later, they got around to talking again. That is, to talking about something other than the miracle that had brought them together against all odds, that had captured them both and bound them inextricably together for all time.
They talked about the house on the other side of the river. Katy wanted yellow. Galen would have agreed to paint it purple with lime green stripes if she’d asked him to.
Katy insisted she still intended to open her own business, and telling himself he might as well take the giant step into the twentieth century, when women were probably going to rule the world, anyway, he said he’d back her in whatever she chose to do.
They talked about Tara, and the fact that she was growing up, and Galen figured he might as well get in some practice at being a father. Although, God help him if any of his children showed signs of inheriting what Katy called the Sight.
The Sight. Was it really just humbug?
He thought about green tables and gold, and about a few more of Tara’s hit-or-miss prophecies. He didn’t know if there was anything to it or not, but something had brought Katy to him. That was miracle enough to last him a lifetime.
Don’t miss HALFWAY HOME, another classic historical romance by Bronwyn Williams. Available in ebook at Amazon Kindle.
HALFWAY HOME
After coming into an unexpected inheritance, Sara is desperate to flee her greedy step-brother. To that end she mails a proposal to a traveling peddler who has shyly courted her, arranging to meet him at Halfway House. Located on the border between North Carolina and Virginia, the hotel is known for quick marriages, duels, and as a refuge for criminals from both states.
Grieving the tragic death of his young sister, Jericho sells his ship and comes to the dueling grounds, determined to bring her murderer to justice. There, surrounded by a wildly divergent cast of characters, Sara and Jericho are brought together as each of their stories plays out.
Sisters Dixie Browning and Mary W
illiams, aka Bronwyn Williams, are steeped in the history of the area. Their family goes back on Cape Hatteras and surrounding area for more than three centuries.
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