by Tracy Sumner
Pushing aside the familiar pang of guilt, he focused on the remarkable creature who had been suddenly, wondrously thrust into his life. He would never marry again, that was certain, but he could not live any longer in a deadening state of loneliness. Whether he loved the idea or not—he loved and hated it in turn—for the first time in years, he had a woman in his life.
She looked soft and vulnerable, and he almost hated to end the nap she seemed to need. And, the aggressive, demanding Savannah was bound to be the one to wake up.
"Irish?" He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, let his fingers stray to her cheek. He glanced around and seeing that everyone had gone back to the picnic site to prepare dinner, ran his thumb along her plump bottom lip. She stirred but didn't wake. So he took one additional liberty and, not entirely certain why, slipped her stockings into his trouser pocket. Surely, she wouldn't miss them.
"Irish, wake up."
She blinked and drowsily mumbled incoherent bits of nonsense. "Zachariah," she finally said, the first time she had called him by his name that he could recall. It sounded nice rolling out wrapped in her sleepy Yankee accent. "Hmmm?"
"We're going to move back behind the dunes. Once the sun sets, the bugs won't be as bad near the campfire. Dinner should be ready soon. Ellie's digging up the potatoes you buried in ash this morning, and Caleb grilling the meat."
"I was having a dream," she murmured, pushing to a shaky sit, "and you were in it."
Zach grinned, awash in bawdy images. He'd done some dreaming of his own last night. "Yeah?" Lowering his voice, he whispered, "Tell me."
Suddenly full of vigor, which should have been a warning sign, she scooted forward until she was nearly sitting on his knee. "I was helping you find a ship that had sunk somewhere"—she waved her hand toward the ocean—"out there. It was very ominous and stormy. And hot, like it is today. Dreadfully hot. We pulled people into a boat, then I heard you calling me the name you're not supposed to, and I woke up."
Zach rose, disappointed as all get-out. Offering his hand, he said, "Well, that's a nice dream but kinda ridiculous." Couldn't she have dreamed about him kissing her? Would that have been too much to ask?
"Ridiculous? I think it's wonderful!" Ignoring his hand, she bounced up like a ball, and circled him as he walked toward the dunes. "Now I know what else I can do. Truly, the gas streetlamp project is one I can manage from a distance. Lydia needs her own project, and that one is perfect. Now, when does your life-saving group meet?"
Zach caught her as she came around the front. "You can't possibly think a woman's going to join the life-saving service."
She thrust her chin high. "I certainly do."
"Of all the...." Zach shook his head and stalked away.
Dogging his heels, she said, "Can you give me one reason why not?"
"Lady, you're loony. I must be loony, too."
"I won't relent until you discuss this with me, Constable."
They crossed the dunes at a trot, coming down into the picnic area Zach and his brothers had been using since they were children. It was a perfectly round, bare spot sitting equidistant between the dunes and the maritime forest. During the summer, the area remained the coolest due to partial shelter from a grove of loblolly pines.
"Forget it, Irish. I'll help you but not with this." He sat on a piece of driftwood as far from the fire as he could get, put on a canvas shoe, and began lacing. Unfortunately, a small female blaze threw herself at his feet.
"I could be a great asset to your group. Perhaps not during actual rescues but in another capacity. Surely, you can see the benefit of having a female crew member."
Damn, he loved watching her mouth form all those sassy words. It didn't seem possible for such dazzling lips to spill such stiff sentences. Or for such a nice-looking woman to be such a nuisance. "No," he said. "End of discussion. I know you're going to be angrier than a hornet when I say this, but life-saving is and always will be a man's job."
Behind Savannah, Elle looked up from where she squatted before the fire, digging potatoes out with pieces of driftwood. She shook her head, her eyes wide, a clear warning. Zach's temper ignited, a sizzling creep along his spine. Was he supposed to be scared of a woman who barely reached his shoulder and weighed sixty pounds less dripping wet?
All she had over him was a quicker brain-to-mouth response.
Looking from Elle to Savannah, he tied a knot and jerked the laces to tighten it. "Throw a rally right here by the campfire if you'd like. My answer is no. And that, Irish, is the final answer." He sent her the same cautionary look he sent Rory when he honest-to-God meant no. "I'm leader of the troops in this battle. Understand? You won't get anywhere, I'm telling you."
She threw her arms wide. "I don't understand. I can't understand excluding women from such an essential community task when you obviously need assistance."
He grasped her wrist and tugged until they were nose to nose, her tiny pink toes butting his shoes. "It's a horrible post, Miss Connor, rowing out to those wretched souls. I dream about the bodies and the debris... and the blood. Even in the moonlight, the sea looks red. And it has this peculiar smell, like metal. A very flat, awful smell." Swallowing, he thrust her away, marveling at how she seemed to crawl inside him to places he hadn't exposed to light in years.
Angry, passionate places brimming with memories and uncontrollable urges.
"Maybe you'd rather patrol the beaches during the dead of night and be the first person to hear a ship's stern tear in two. Hear the screams of men who know you won't make it to them as surely as you know the sharks will. That promises horrible nights of sleep for the next month."
Zach flinched when a hand covered his shoulder. Glancing up, he met Noah's troubled gaze. Caleb stood close by, too. And Elle. Of course, they were worried. When had they seen him like this? Furious and belligerent, his voice raised, his fists clenched. Zach could count on his fingers the number of times he had lost control in front of his family. Emotional outbursts suited Caleb well, had all his life. Even the once placid Noah had revealed a remarkably passionate nature since returning to Pilot Isle.
Calm, capable Zachariah Garrett never, ever traveled that route.
A sizzling flash from the spit brought him back. With a deep breath, he shoved to his feet. In the distance, the drone of sand locusts hidden in the dunes united with the crackle of the campfire. The pungent smell of roasting meat swirled around him, carried along by a healthy sea breeze.
Savannah reached out and touched his knee, a tentative brush of her fingers. "I'm sorry," she whispered, for his ears alone. The desire to haul her to her feet, strip that ragged dress from her body, and make love to her in the twilight of a warm summer evening tore through him. Intense longing of a kind he hadn't know since those wild piloting days swelled inside him. God, to make her forget the cause, any goddamned cause, for one blessed minute.
"Constable?" she asked, her voice full of remorse. Her shame made him angrier, with himself as much as with her. He'd have bet hard-earned money that at his age, a temping bundle of sweet smells and soft skin wouldn't have had the power to turn him inside out like this.
"Miss Connor, when Rory ignores a no, I lay his skinny body across my lap and paddle his bare bottom until it's red as those embers over there."
He heard her indrawn breath, glanced down in time to see her flush before she dipped her head. If they'd been alone, he would have damn well explored that spark of awareness in her gaze.
"Separate corners, how about it." Noah stepped between them, arms raised, voice gentle, as if he feared setting off another round of fighting. "Zach, why don't you help me gather a few more pieces of driftwood? Savannah, you can help Elle with supper."
Zach snorted beneath his breath.
Savannah jumped up and in, close enough for him to smell her undeniably unique scent. "I can cook, for your information, Constable. Quite well, in fact."
"Well, hoo-rah for men everywhere. A suffragette and a cook!"
Noah gl
anced over his shoulder. Consulting with his missus, Zach thought sourly. "It's all right; let's take a walk. Get that wood. Unless you'd like to do that, too, Miss Connor."
Savannah watched Zach stalk from the clearing, the stiffness in his stride setting off muscular ripples in his shoulders and back. She liked the shirts he wore that clung to him like a second skin.
My, he presented a handsome portrait of masculine fury.
"You simply must tell me what you've done to whip Zach into such a frenzy." Elle came to stand beside her, dusting her hands on her skirt. "And who in the heck is Irish?"
* * *
Later that night, Savannah tiptoed from the makeshift campsite, following the path leading through the break in the dunes. Tilting her head, she counted until she lost count of the twinkling lights sheltered in the black velvet sky. An owl hooted nearby, a gull somewhere beyond that. A respected marine biologist, Noah had identified every sound for them after supper while Elle looked on with her own stars in her eyes.
Savannah had left them sitting so close their heads touched, their hands linked as if they couldn't bear to let the other go. Pushing aside the pang of envy she hoped was a natural reaction to witnessing such devoted adoration, she trudged across the warm sand, the occasional chip of quartz—another bit of information from Noah—glittering in the moonlight.
They were due to sail back to Pilot Isle in another hour, when the tide rolled in or out, whichever made it easier, or safer, to get home. Home. A misstep to use that word. She had not had a true home since those ragtag Brooklyn days. Or certainly not since her mother's death, anyway. Her father had not had the heart to provide a home for the daughter he always wished had been born a son.
She wiggled her toes, relishing the freedom of bare feet, and, too, the freedom of being Savannah Connor and nothing more for the summer. She wasn't sure when she would put on another pair of pinching boots or form another picket line and spend the night in a filthy jail cell for her dedication.
Maybe never.
Peering through the shadowy moonlight, she found him sitting beneath a copse of sea oats, his back against the dune, hands stacked behind his head, bare feet propped upon a massive piece of driftwood. The wind tugged his shirt wide and pitched his crow black hair into his eyes. He looked vulnerable, sitting there in the darkness, alone and silent.
Sitting nearby, but not close enough to tempt either one of them, she pulled her skirt to midcalf and wormed her feet into the silken sand. Humid air whipped in from the east in gusts, and with an exhalation of surrender, she released her hair from the loose knot on her head.
"Lost, Irish?" His deep voice cut through the sound of the pounding surf.
So he did see her. Settling back against the dune, she gathered her thoughts. "Your family thinks we hate each other."
"Good. That'll keep them from asking questions."
"Do you, I mean, is this...." She shrugged, sending grains of sand down the back of her dress.
She had to ask.
"Wanting to wring your pretty little neck every other minute isn't enough to keep me from wanting to touch you, if that's where you're headed." He sighed, kicking at the driftwood. "Nothing seems to be enough."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" Scooting close, he captured a strand of her hair between his thumb and finger. "For making me angry or making me yearn?"
Averting her gaze from the breadth of skin exposed by his unbuttoned shirt, she released a pent-up breath. "For my histrionics earlier this evening."
He seized her chin in his palm and directed her eyes to his face. "Say it again."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, stomach doing the familiar dance that must be what he called yearning.
He shook his head. "No. The big word."
She frowned, puzzled. Big word? Oh. "Histrionics."
His attention centered on her mouth, recording every movement of her lips. "I love watching you talk, Irish. When we're in bed the first time, I want you to whisper one of those big words you love every time I slide inside you." He wrapped the strand of hair around his finger in a lazy rotation. "I don't care what they mean."
Her face colored; she felt it flame. Her lips opened, closed, her brain powerless to string together a sentence, big words or small.
"You're afraid."
She shook her head. It didn't feel like fear.
It felt like excitement.
"There's no need. We'll take it at your pace. You tell me when, where, and how much. Or how little."
"We'll be friends when it's over?"
A stray beam of moonlight spilled across his face in time for her to see his pause, his thoughtful deliberation. It made her feel good to know he tried to answer honestly. "I think so, yes."
Her eyes again dropped to his chest, the sprinkling of dark hair glistening. With perspiration or perhaps salt water.
Releasing her chin, he slipped his shirt from his shoulders and shook it from his arms. Lifting her hand from its mired position in the sand, he placed it palm-flat on his chest. "Go ahead. I think you want to. Hell, my good sense dissolved like mist the moment you stepped off the ferry. You might as well lose yours."
His head dropped back, his lids sliding low as she began to explore; the sand coating her fingers an oddly pleasurable abrasion.
His hair felt springy, sitting in tight curls close to his chest. She circled his nipples and watched them harden, feeling her own pucker beneath her borrowed dress. Zach's heartbeat thudded beneath the heel of her hand, his breath rushing forth in a belabored groan. Gaining courage, she traced each rib with her finger and drew her knuckles along the downy hollow trailing into his damp waistband.
He caught her there, his fingers trembling.
As she had told Elle, she understood the mechanics of intercourse. She'd made it a point to read every book she could get her hands on. Most of these were condemned by libraries and school districts over the years, many because of their blatant descriptions of the act of coupling. She had also studied anatomy at university. It was better than complete ignorance but, sadly, only illustrations in a book.
She vaguely visualized what lay beneath the protuberance in Zachariah Garrett's trousers.
A teasing smile blossomed on her face. She waited until his lids flickered, lifted. "Protuberance," she whispered, then licked her lips to see if this added to his enthrallment.
The hand holding hers squeezed as he breathed, "If I kiss you now, I'll have you on your back in less time than it takes to say pro, pro—"
"Protuberance."
His gaze flicked from her lips to her eyes, then made an expansive sweep of her body. "And I don't want us prone just yet." His thumb covered the pulsing vein at her wrist. "Would you think I was crazy if I said I wanted to take this very slowly?"
Laughter sounded in the distance, reminding her of where they were and how little time they had.
"It sounds quite rational to me," Savannah whispered.
"It isn't. Not to a man's way of thinking." Rolling to his back, he pulled her with him until she was balanced on her elbow at his side. "I haven't talked to a soul, and I surely haven't touched a woman, while being just plain Zach Garrett, in I can't remember how long. I want to be with you without being a daddy or an officeholder or the damned keeper of the cargo that washes up on shore." He sighed. "I just want to be. Enough to enjoy every blessed second. Enough to show you everything and to remember everything."
"Sounds divine. So what's the hurry?"
"Ahhh, Irish, how can I explain that to you? It's something you have to experience for yourself."
"With your help, I presume."
He squeezed her hand, smiling his lazy smile. "Yes, ma'am. You can count on that."
Tugging free, she traced the scar on his lip. "You know I've never...." She dropped her hand to his chest. "Never."
Shifting to face her, sand squeaked beneath him. "I know."
"I'm not scared." And she wasn't.
Much.
Zach
laughed softly, his lips pulling back from his teeth. "I wouldn't presume to put scared and Savannah in the same sentence. Besides, there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't let anything happen to you, except wondrous things that'll make you float on a cloud for days. I make that promise. To protect you, to keep your best interests in mind. You can carry it with you now and take it when you go home. At first I thought we were an awful idea, mostly because I suspected you were a virgin, and a bit because I wasn't sure if I wanted to, if I could, live again. But I know I want to be with you, I know I can take care of you in this." He scrubbed his hand over his face. "Jesus, I might as well face up to how good I am at that."
I can take care of you. When had anyone last taken care of her?
Her mother, before her death.
Savannah realized the danger in his words. She needed to be able to hear them and remain unfeeling. She needed to be able to touch him, to be with him, and remain detached. Anything that warmed her heart to its core posed grave peril to her happiness. When she returned to New York, as she someday must, she didn't want to leave part of herself with Zachariah Garrett.
"I'm fine, Constable. Better than fine. I've been taking care of myself for years. I'm accustomed to it."
"Wouldn't it be nice, though, to relinquish power for a day or two? A week, maybe. Let someone else steer while you enjoy the scenery?" His gaze, sleepy and endearing, pledged that and much more.
What could she say in answer to that? Depending upon him enough to surrender control for even a moment went far beyond Savannah's expectations of a relationship.
The breeze sneaked inside the open throat of her dress, drying the moisture on her skin. From the campsite, she heard her name being called. Then his. Time was running short, when she wanted the rest of the night to talk with him, to kiss him and feel his body pressed against hers.
To have him roll her to her back like he'd promised while she whispered big words in his ear, as she'd promised.
To wake up with the sun and start all over again.
Attraction. She believed that's what Zach had called it earlier. Attraction. Warm and indescribable... teasing, if she had to choose a simple word. Mesmerizing, if she chose big one. His regard made her feel light as a feather, adrift on his prescribed cloud of bliss. My, what would the rest of it—the prone positions and the bedroom, the tangle of limbs she had read about—make her feel if his gaze held the power to scald to such an astonishing degree?
