Tides of Passion

by Tracy Sumner

  What exactly did she feel for him? How could she tell when he infuriated her half the time and the other half they were naked?

  * * *

  The kiss was gentle.

  Relentless. Wet. Light, then increasing in pressure. Coaxing, teasing.

  Savannah woke in gradual degrees, tasting salt and sunshine and the smoky trace of liquor. The featherlike brush of his tongue, slow and languid. Again. And again, until her hands lifted to find him, fingers burying themselves in his hair. He murmured or sighed against her lips, his body warm and solid by her side.

  She blinked, rousing herself from the dream. Dying rays of sunlight flooded around the man hovering above her, throwing his face into indistinguishable shadow. But she knew from the sound of his breathing and the scent lingering on her lips.

  "How long do we have?" Hand cupping the nape of his neck, she drew him back to her.

  Zach's mouth was warm and firm, persuasive enough to have her trembling and demanding more. "Not long. The toast." For a moment, he lost the battle, pressing her back into the sand. The hand cradling her head tightened, lifted, bringing her deeper into the kiss. "Sleepyhead."

  "I've missed this," she said against his lips.

  "Tonight," he returned after a moment.

  Her lids fluttered as she settled back. Golden light surrounded him, searing her eyes. It almost felt like she sought to capture a sunbeam.

  "Tonight?"

  He smiled, that much she could see. "Did you doubt it?"

  She had. He seemed to have an ideal for a wife in his mind, in his heart. One she was sure didn't hold any resemblance to her.

  How could she possibly tell him that?

  "Irish, if you think you'll be in my bedroom for more than five minutes and still have a stitch of clothing on, you sadly miscalculated." His lips trailed down her neck to her collarbone, where he lay a possessive kiss.

  "I thought you might, oh." Arms flopping to her side, her statement drifted away.

  Wedging his elbow in the sand, he peered down at her from an angle that silhouetted half his face. "What?"

  "This marriage." She shrugged, sending a dusting of sand down the back of her dress. "It isn't real. Or rather, I wasn't certain you wished to legitimize it."

  She felt him stiffen. "Isn't real?"

  Touching him, she trailed her fingers along his jaw. For all his calm control, he possessed a healthy temper. "You swore never to marry again. And now you have."

  "Yes. Now I have."

  She sighed. Men always needed a woman to spell it out. "Our relationship... I wasn't sure you wanted it to continue."

  His mouth, the half she could see, lowered in a frown. Then he laughed, but it held no amusement. "You thought we would have a celibate marriage?"

  "I didn't know."

  The hand at her hip clenched into a fist. "Why the hell would we do that?"

  Dare she? "Hannah."

  His head snapped up. After a stunned moment, he shoved to his feet.

  She caught him at the water's edge, her hand tugging his sleeve. Waves rolled in, dampening his trousers bottoms. Obviously, he had left his shoes by the dunes. "I have to be able to speak her name without you retreating from me. We can't live like that."

  Turning his head to look at her, his beautiful eyes expressed an emotion she didn't recognize. Something distant and confined. "You can speak her name. I'll answer any question you ask." His gaze returned to the sea. "I don't have any secrets. What you see—" He shrugged off the rest.

  "It was perfect." She was perfect, Savannah wanted to cry. But she found she couldn't bear to hear him agree.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he rolled his shoulders. The sinking sun lit the ocean with a hundred crimson points of fire. Overhead, a gull dove into the misty wind in search of food. "It was far from perfect. I've told you that before."

  "You were happy."

  "Content." He nodded. "Yes."

  She could tell he didn't like to delve deeply into these areas, but to ignore them would go against her very being. "Contentment isn't a state of existence I've had much experience with. Especially, since, oh, you see, I'm not very good with men," she admitted in a reluctant whisper. "At extreme odds actually. Even with the ones in my own family."

  Family she had failed to notify about her pending marriage, but that was another issue altogether.

  He turned to her, his hand going to her chin and lifting. The chill had evaporated from his eyes. "Maybe they expected something you weren't willing to give. You can't spend your entire life apologizing for who you are, Irish."

  She swallowed. "You don't expect more?"

  His gaze traveled away, then slowly back. She could see him weighing his answer. "Let's just say I'm willing to negotiate."

  "You think we have a chance to be content?"

  A smile played over his lips. "I'm hopeful."

  "Most of the men of my acquaintance would not agree. They would tell you to run for the hills. My father would weep for you."

  Laughing, he said, "I'm not expecting harmony every hour of the day, if that's what you're thinking. I have a little boy in the house, remember? That creates its own level of bedlam."

  "I don't know how to be married, Zachariah. I don't know how to be content."

  His hand slipped into hers, and they stood shoulder to shoulder gazing at the flaming horizon. "I'm not trying to recreate what I had, Irish. So this is new for me, too. I'm as scared as you are, maybe more so."

  "Scared? You?"

  He squeezed her hand. "Don't go believing all that stuff you hear in town."

  "They're used to us bickering. What will they think when we come back smiling?"

  Turning her to face him, he pulled her close. "I can think of a couple of things."

  "How embarrassing."

  Throwing back his head, he laughed. "Embarrassing is getting caught tangled up like, how did you phrase it, two cats in a sack."

  "Are you sorry?"

  He considered, then shook his head. "Unbelievably, this has actually helped my image. I've saved you from spinsterhood. A life of abject loneliness in an unfeeling city. Everyone tonight has been patting me on the back for my selflessness."

  "What?" Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized he had dodged her question. But she could not let the spinsterhood comment pass. "They're insane if they believe you've... oh, that is so insulting! The idiots."

  Guiding her up the beach, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held on tight. "Sweetheart, paste a smile on for those idiots, if you please. I have sainthood to uphold."

  Sweetheart. The endearment took the spark right out of her.

  * * *

  Their truce didn't last for long.

  Zach remembered standing with Caleb and trying to figure out how to leave his wedding reception as soon as possible. He wanted Savannah naked and in his bed, and he wanted that now.

  He glanced at her, noting that she looked half-cocked, her hair hanging down her back, her feet bare, shoes God knows where. Unable to check the urge, he let his gaze travel from her wiggling toes to her lopsided smile. The dress... ah, he didn't know how to express how beautiful she looked in it. Her wild hair and flushed cheeks only made him think of how she looked after they made love.

  As he stared, the usual response occurred: pounding heart and a subtle, or not so subtle, shift below his trouser buttons.

  "Constance, if you want to take advantage of that lusty look you're giving Savannah, you'd better do something quick. She's a wee bit tipsy if I'm a good judge," Caleb mumbled and swayed into his shoulder.

  "Couldn’t be a better one," Zach agreed.

  As soon as Savannah finished a drink, someone filled up her glass. Zach had poured one out in the grass when she wasn't looking, but he couldn't manage that trick all night.

  "She asked me if I'm sorry that we had to get married," Zach blurted, mostly because the question had been lingering in his mind. More truthfully, his lack of a real answer had been l
ingering.

  Caleb sipped, swallowed. "Are you?"

  He watched Savannah smile at Elle, her lips curving. They looked moist, like she had just run her tongue over them. "I don't know." Raising his glass, he eyed her over the rim. "I'm confused. Everything's happened so fast."

  "Can’t you just let the past go? You have a pretty woman by your side, in your bed. Trouble with a capital T, right enough, but damned if some of what Savannah's got doesn't make up for that."

  Zach felt the familiar stirring of anger. "I would have liked to choose for myself, is that too much to hope for?"

  "Choose what? To be alone? You were choosing that."

  Rage roared through Zach's mind, the wine consumed all evening swimming crazily in his head. Turning, he thrust his face close to his brother's. "Marriage is serious business, Cale. And maybe you don't see it, but lust and love are miles apart. Yeah, okay, you were right. Does that make you happy? In the end, I couldn't live like a goddamn monk. But now"—he flung his hand out, sending wine across the cuff of his shirt—"I have a... I have a—"

  "Wife," she whispered, the brush of silk against his wrist and the teasing scent filling his nostrils telling him what a big mistake he'd made. "You have a wife."

  Zach's gaze shot to his brother's. The panicked expression he saw reflected there surely mirrored his own. "Cale," he said and tipped his chin to indicate the need for privacy.

  "You could have told me the truth when I asked you."

  Closing his eyes for the briefest second, he let the sounds of laughter and music filter into his mind. Of course, Savannah would go straight to the heart of the matter. "I did tell you the truth," he said, swiveling to face her, praying she wasn't crying or something worse. Whatever it was women could do that was worse than tears.

  Her expression held nothing more than a healthy dose of resentment. Not a tear in sight. "You most certainly did not," she said between clenched teeth. The slight unsteadiness in her stance was the only indication of her inebriated state. She held herself together pretty well for a woman.

  "I didn't lie."

  She drew a gusty breath, releasing it to the starry sky. "Yes, fine, Constable. You did not, indeed, lie. You simply avoided the question."

  He began to feel his own resentment flare. "What do you want from me, Irish? Can you tell me? Because I'm doing everything I can here."

  Her eyes locked with his. Lord, they were green tonight. "I want honesty."

  "You. Have. That."

  "Prove it." She swallowed. "Are you sorry?"

  He didn't know why he and Savannah had to talk so much. Why she wanted to know what he was thinking all the time. Sometimes he wasn't thinking anything. Nothing at all. He and Hannah had never talked about feelings. They had just been. It seemed dangerous, like swimming through a pack of sharks, to talk about stuff like this.

  "Are you?" She took a step forward, her voice cracking. The wind tossed a lock of hair into her face. He had to shove his free hand into his pocket to keep from reaching. "Are you?"

  "I don't know," he burst out, practically shouting. "I never counted on you. On this. I had it all planned. The rest of my life planned. Now ...." His knuckles whitened as his fingers tensed around the glass.

  "You don't have room for anyone else in your heart. Do you realize that?" She shook her head in resignation. "I do. And why it hurts, I'm not certain."

  "Heart?" He took a stumbling step back.

  Savannah laughed when she got a look at his face. She couldn't help it. Incomprehension dominated his features, like a man thrust into a maze with no exits. It was foolish of her, all of this. He was right to ask.

  What did she want from him?

  "You've done the proper thing by me, Constable. You don't have to worry." There. That sounded rather composed.

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "It means we, you and I, we can't... shouldn't...."

  He took her arm in a firm grip and hauled her behind an old oak as thick and round as the water casks sitting on the dock. "You need more help than I ever imagined if you think I can live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, and keep my hands to myself. All I've been doing the past hour is counting the seconds until I can get you home and rip your dress off."

  Oh. Her knees trembled and she shoved her bottom against the tree trunk to steady herself.

  His lips came down hard on hers. "Let's go back. Now." His glass bounced off the ground as his arms circled her waist, drawing her against his body.

  "What if I become pregnant?"

  His arms fell away as he dropped his brow to the tree; his belabored sigh nearly made her feel sorry for him.

  "Your method isn't fullproof, you know. Accidents do happen. And that last time at the jail, we didn't even utilize your crafty technique."

  "I don't have all the answers. The truth of it is, I never, ever, in my deepest imaginings pictured myself with more children."

  "Is the notion an appalling one?"

  "Terrifying, more like."

  Her hand covered her stomach in an unconscious gesture. "Terrifying. That doesn't sound very optimistic."

  He was silent for a long moment. "You expect too much. I'm up to my ears here. Care to give me a little rope?"

  She shook her head. "I don't agree about my expectations. I think I'm being completely rational."

  "You want me to fall head over tail in love with you, Irish? Is that it?" He braced his hand above her shoulder and glared down at her. "That what it would take to make you happy?"

  "I want you not to be sorry," she hedged.

  "And until I can honestly tell you I'm without a goddamn doubt not sorry?"

  She shrugged, wine-muddled thoughts bumping together in her mind. Backing against the tree as far as she could, feeling the bark pricking her back, she kept silent.

  "We are married," he snapped. "It's real. Sleeping together at this point isn't going to alter a thing."

  "Oh, yes, please use that matrimony angle when it's convenient for your argument."

  He threw up his hands and spun around. Kicking his glass a good distance, he snapped his gaze back to her, his eyes glowing. "Why are we arguing? Can't we just go home and forget about this? Why all this talk is necessary is beyond me."

  Glancing down, she studied her nails, neatly trimmed and filed thanks to Caroline. "I don't need your love, Zachariah. I understand that's outside the realm of possibility." That much was true. He had advised her that in clear terms from the beginning. Too, want and need were not always related even if they felt like they were one and the same. "Yet I'm uncertain about continuing where we left off when you're exhibiting signs of resentment toward this marriage. I heard what you told Caleb. What you felt you could not tell me."

  He rubbed the back of his neck fast and furiously. "Wish you'd forget what you heard, but I'd have to be out of my mind to imagine you would." Turning with a careless smile she wouldn't have been able to dredge up if she tried, he said, "Fine, Irish, I give up. You want a platonic relationship? That's the word for it right? Then I'll give it to you."

  Slipping her hands behind her back, she laced her fingers so tightly that her knuckles cracked. If she went to him now, she would never know, as she lay there after their lovemaking, listening to him breathe and watching the moonlight play across his skin, whether he wished she were not his wife.

  Before, the after had been so good. He had wanted her by his side, pulling her against his body and telling her not to leave. Somehow, being his wife made a difference. In heart or gut, wherever this tortured feeling inside her was coming from.

  How could she accept less than what they'd had before?

  When she failed to react to his threat, Zach cursed beneath his breath and stalked toward the tent and the still lively crowd. "I'll have Caleb escort you back," he threw over his shoulder.

  When he was out of sight, she dropped her face to her hands and let the tears fall.

  Chapter 14

  One faces the future with one's
past.

  ~Pearl Buck

  Dawn broke as Noah Garrett searched the wharf the next morning. A brilliant burst of red and gold colored the waves slapping the dock he stood upon. He paused to look, never happier than when he gazed out upon a calm sea.

  Apart from the times Ellie looked out with him.

  He smiled, remembering how he would have resisted the feeling of love charging through him a few months back. Times changed, though, didn't they? It looked like he was set to repay a favor and help his brother see that his life was changing, too. Plans were highly beneficial, but life didn't always feel the need to follow them.

  Besides, everything that had happened to Zach in the last month had been for the better.

  If Noah had created Savannah Connor in his lab, he couldn't have come up with a better formula: attractive, intelligent, spirited. So what if she was a handful? His Ellie was just as troublesome, and thus far it had only made his life enormously interesting. Outrageous behavior didn't hurt in the bedroom, either.

  He'd tested that hypothesis many times over.

  It seemed as though his cautious older brother had shocked them all and tested it thoroughly himself.

  Grinning, Noah glanced around once more before heading back into town. No sign of Zach here. He tugged his hand through his hair, knowing where he was bound to find him. Ah, he dreaded going there. That's why Caleb hadn't come along. Because they both knew where they were bound to find their brother. Noah laughed behind the hand he dragged over his mouth. Caleb had always had an absurd fear of cemeteries.

  And spiders.

  To be fair, though, if he was doling out hard knocks, Noah had to give himself one for leaving the burying ground as the last place he searched.

  A horde of whalers passed him carrying try-pots in their hands, nets slung over their wide shoulders. The thump of barrels being unloaded and the ring of a bell announcing a ship's arrival faded into the distance as he took the back alley that looped around the church. Shouldering through a throng of fisherman heading to the docks, he crossed the vacant field sitting between the chapel and the graveyard.

  Knocking the wrought-iron gate aside with his boot, he searched the shadowy corners of the fenced-in square of land. Zach sat with his back against the largest oak tree in the place, head tipped back, eyes closed.