by Tracy Sumner
Slowly, she opened the box, the hinges creaking until a sapphire blazed amidst the velvet folds, a fervent blue fire. The stone sat atop a simple band of white gold.
"It was my grandmother's," he whispered.
She had never seen anything more lovely in her life. Tears welled in her eyes. She held them back, fearing Zach would misunderstand their cause.
"Um, if you don't like it, I wasn't sure if you would, and that's why I didn't give it to you before. I know you're used to nicer jewelry" He shrugged, running out of steam.
Turning the box so he could see the ring, she held out her left hand. "I adore it, Zach. As I adore you." Spreading her fingers, she said, "Put it on!"
He laughed, taking her beautiful ring in his big fingers. Heavens, what if he drops it between a crack in the planks, she thought, and breathed a sigh of relief when he slid it on her finger.
"Whew, good. I think it fits," he said, sounding like a child who had done well on a test.
She wiggled her fingers, the sapphire shimmering. How dear of him to give her his grandmother's ring without knowing for sure if she'd accept it. "Perfectly." Everything fit perfectly. "You said you wanted more. What more can I give you?"
"Your future." His hand slid to her wrist and circled it gently, bringing her fingers to his lips for a tender kiss. The band glittered in the light. His coat slipped from her shoulders and fluttered to the ground unnoticed. "I want babies. I want to read in bed with you underneath those fancy electric lights you're planning on getting. I want to spend this winter snuggling beneath the spreads and eating breakfast in bed the mornings Rory is at a friend's. And next winter and the one after that. I want to see your hair turn gray and your skin freckle with age, because it will in the Southern sun, you know. I want you to read me those liberating articles. I want to share the weight of the goddamned shipwrecks with someone who understands how much of my heart I cut out each time I pull a lifeless body from the sea."
He lowered his head as he said the last, his arms trembling.
"Oh, Zach." She walked into his arms, forcing herself inside the circle. His circle. "I love you," she murmured against his damp shirtfront, inhaling starch and soap and him. "I want those things, too. I want things I don't even know how to define yet. But with you, I feel sure I'll figure it out. We'll make a list."
He laid his cheek against the crown of her head and drew her as close as he could. "One more want I have, now that you mention it. No need for a list."
"Hmmm?" She tunneled her hand up the back of his shirt, wondering how quickly they could return to his hotel. His skin felt so warm, and he smelled entirely too tempting. How fantastic, she marveled, to have a husband who was such an amazingly appealing man.
"Well, Irish, to put it plainly like I prefer to, I want a wife who doesn't pounce on every problem in town and end up making troub—"
"Not on your life, Constable." She stepped back, glaring into his face to see if he was serious. His eyes held a barely-there spark of amusement, but the lopsided frown on his lips wasn't teasing in the least. "Being in the same family will not get you special dispensation. You cannot expect me to be anything but unbiased during our future discussions. I know it pains you to quarrel with your wife, but it can't be helped on occasion. Seriously, quarrelling never truly harms anyone. In fact, it clears the air much like peppermint does for a congested nose."
Pulling her back into his arms, he sighed against her ear. He sounded content in the final valuation. If not, she would work on making him happy in the privacy of his hotel room. "Yeah, that's what I reckoned, Mrs. Garrett. I guess I'm gonna have to learn to enjoy quarreling."
"Or the making up," she reminded him.
"Definitely the making up, ma'am."
Epilogue
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
~Henry David Thoreau
The door to the jail rocketed inward, slapping the wall with a bang.
Zach jerked his head up, his spectacles slipping down his nose. The cargo ledger in his hands hit the floor. Hyman Carter stood in the doorway, silent, accusing with nothing more than a finger jabbed in the direction of his factory.
A perturbed—Savannah's big word, not his, and why he thought it he guessed was her rubbing off on him after all this time—breath escaped before he could yank it back. Shoving back his chair, he shrugged into his jacket. The air was getting nippy again. You never could guess what you'd get in October.
"I thought once little Regina was born, darling girl, that all this turmoil would be put to bed, Zach. I gotta tell you, I sure thought that."
"Yeah, yeah," Zach muttered, wishing he had a penny for every time he'd heard that come out of some man's mouth in the past four years. Or some old biddy's after they left church, and he stood around in the yard waiting for Savannah to finish her business and social dealings.
Those were always grand opportunities to give a suffering husband kindly advice about how to handle his misbehaving wife.
"And with her expecting again, why, I can't believe she continues to prance around doing all this equal-female preaching. What I mean to say is, I can't believe you allow it."
A nickel for that one, and he'd truly be a rich man. "How about this, Hyman?" Zach dashed between a wagon hauling lumber and a fish cart hawking flounder for two cents a pound. Hyman kept up, huffing a bit, bound and determined to watch the drama unfold. "You tell Savannah you think she ought to stay at home and be a proper wife." He slapped the startled man's back before turning onto Main Street. "Tell you what, I'll buy front row tickets for the show."
"Why, I, that is, I could never," he stuttered, his jowls flushing bright red. "It wouldn't be my place, you see."
"Um-hum, what I thought." Zach left Hyman to his panicky fit, sprinting along the street, dodging through the crowd of people starting to gather. He heard the ruckus before he reached it. Nothing new there. Nothing new with any of it.
"Daddy!" The small projectile charging through the crowd and into his knees, now that was a tad different. The greatest difference in his life so far. She looked like something Savannah had spit out, a petite dynamo of a duplicate with the Garrett grays. His child all the way, in that way. Damned if that combination hadn't stolen his heart at first sight.
Catching his daughter in his arms, he pressed his lips to her neck and blew against her skin. Regina shrieked with laughter and wiggled frantically. This was her favorite greeting when he walked in the door every afternoon. That and a butterscotch lollipop.
It was his favorite greeting, too. Because he got to smell his daughter, up close. Today? Vanilla and the faint scent of lilacs. And glue. Ah yes, her mother's signs. He inhaled a deep breath, relishing the moment. She'd about gotten old enough to not want things like this: babyish hugs and kisses.
"Daddy, I made a poster all by myself. It's hanging up there on that dirty old wall." She pointed, and in the distance, he could see a rather sad-looking sign that said Equal Pay. "Rory said it stunk because I only painted inside the letters Mommy made. I think it looks good. I cain't get everything in the lines!"
"It looks beautiful, just like my Reggie-girl."
"Lemme go, Daddy," she said, struggling to get free, "I have to go help Mommy fight for freed-dom." When her feet hit the ground, she blew him a kiss and scampered through the crowd. He watched her dark head bobbing, faintly anxious until he saw her reach her mother.
Reggie's tiny hands moved in time with her spirited story. Savannah nodded and smiled, smoothing a tangled lock of hair from her daughter's flushed cheek. Finally, she looked over and above the crowd, snagging his gaze. The same bolt of lighting connected them, a storm of emotion and anticipation Zach no longer feared. He frowned at her, just for show mostly. When he watched his two precious girls, his heart wasn't up to being harsh.
And she knew it, the Irish devil.
Savannah arched a brow and nodded toward the jail. He shook his head, dipping his chin toward the modest crowd of women shouting and waving s
igns. The pounding surf nearly covered the screeching, but not quite, unfortunately.
Glancing around, she studied the crowd, debating to herself he could see. Calling Lydia to her side, she gave instructions that set the rally's finale in motion. Obviously she had judged him to be worth the sacrifice of a few minutes' bickering.
With a final, intense look, he retraced his route to the jail. The wind had picked up, throwing a chill into the air. People scurried past, trying to make it home for supper. A gull swooped past his shoulder, diving for a scrap on the boardwalk. Preparing, Zach slipped off his spectacles and put them away the minute his office door closed behind him. After four years, he and his wife had perfected this form of communication to near-science.
She arrived less than five minutes later, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowing. Her beauty and the fact that she loved him still had the power to knock the breath from his body. "What a successful day," she said, closing the door behind her.
And locking it.
"Wonderful." He opened his arms to her, and Savannah slid inside his embrace, settling her bottom on his lap, her head on his shoulder. "How long do we have?"
"Caroline's taking Regina for ice cream and Rory's at Tommy's house." She nibbled on his neck, sending a hot wash through his veins. "An hour. Maybe a little less."
"Are you feeling up to this?" She was four months along and got sick pretty easily still.
She sighed in response.
Sinking his fingers into her hair, he tilted her head where he could reach her mouth. Her plump breasts pressed into his chest. He tugged her skirt to her knee, hoping she'd tell him if she wasn't up to it soon. Because he was up, that's for sure.
“Yes?"
"Yes, Constable. Definitely yes."
"That's my girl," he whispered before claiming her lips. Love poured through him, overwhelming, mind-boggling. "My Irish girl."
The End
Read on for an excerpt from Tides of Love.
Tides of Love
Noah brought his hand to his neck and attempted to knead the pressure away, feeling something like what he'd felt when Caleb sat on his chest as a child. Dread, breathlessness, dependency. He did not want to know her this well, recognize her fears, understand her dreams, witness her vulnerability. Liabilities he could use to bring the balance to his side if he grew desperate enough.
And he might be getting there. Elle Beaumont packed enough force to knock him from his pragmatically grounded feet.
Crossing his ankles in what he hoped passed for casual lassitude, he pretended interest in straightening his cuffs, covertly studying her. She twisted her hair into a careless knot and raised her arm to slide an ugly hair clip—decorated with what he thought were calla lilies—into place. The elbows-out posture thrust her breasts forward against the worn cotton blouse which, he decided again, belonged in the garbage bin. He would bet a gold eagle against her wearing an item of consequence beneath it. He would just bet.
As unsought images intruded, he suppressed a groan and dug his nails into the mantel's jagged surface. This was not the time to let lust, a response he had learned to subdue years ago, gain the upper hand. All because a girl who had once been a thorn in his side had turned into a beautiful, intelligent, exciting woman.
I'm losing my mind. He shook his head, denied it, but the evidence chafed against his buttoned fly. Imagine me, Noah Garrett, man of rational science and precise procedure, contemplating an action as mercurial as kissing Marielle-Claire Beaumont.
More specifically, of sucking her plump lower lip between his.
Without even pausing to consider the ramifications, perhaps make a detailed list of pros and cons and reviewing it to decide if he should act or not.
Which, of course, he shouldn't.
He didn't need another damned list to reinforce it. Why, he could easily think of five reasons against touching her just then, would have recorded them if he had pen and paper. He tapped his finger on the mantel. One, he would return to Chicago in another month, six weeks at best. Two, children and marriage were not on his agenda before the turn of the century. He simply didn't have the time to attend to a woman the way he supposed a man must if he intended to court her. And if he pictured getting married, it wasn't to a woman who could make the blood boil in his veins.
No, thank you.
Elle brushed past him, her enticing, woodsy scent trailing behind. He let his arm drop, hiding his bulging trouser fly. A brief affair, maybe. Elle claimed to be a modern woman. She said she didn't want marriage, and he certainly didn't want it with her. He envisioned a marriage of respect and... restraint. He did not want to invite this loss of control into his life for the remainder of it.
No, no, he shook his head, affairs always resulted in lies and seduction on someone's part. Things he had not had much experience with, which led quite logically to number three—
"Merciful heavens!"
Startled, Noah reached the window in two long strides and ripped the drapery aside. A drop of water smacked his face. Craning his head, he wiped his cheek and let the musty velvet settle into place. "The roof leaks."
She smacked the heel of her hand against her brow. "I can see why everyone thinks you're sharp as a fresh blade."
He shot her a hot look but didn't reply.
She snatched a wooden bucket from behind the threadbare love seat and shoved it at him. "Make yourself useful and put this by the chaise longue. Where the bleached spot on the floor is. That's the worst leak."
He centered the bucket precisely over the spot and returned to Elle's side. "Why don't you have the roof fixed?"
"It only happened once before. Last month, I think. I hoped it wouldn't happen again," she said and crouched, mopping the floor with a dirty rag.
He felt his restraint slip another notch. Of course, her dress was bunched beneath her knees, slim ankles peeking out, round bottom perched in the air.
"Hoped it wouldn't happen again?" He went to one knee beside her, slipped a handkerchief from his back pocket, and did what he could with it. Anything to keep his hands occupied, keep them from seeking. "How like a woman to think a roof leak would just disappear," he muttered and twisted to wring the cloth in a potted fern sitting atop the marble pedestal by his side.
"I'm not sure what you mean." She swabbed furiously, then paused to rub her wrist beneath her nose, splattering drops of water on her chest. "Widow Wynne hasn't any family in town to help her. I do what I can, in exchange for board and use of the coach house, but I can't repair the roof." She glanced at him from beneath long, thick lashes, a lazy smile spreading. "You remember my luck with roofs, don't you?"
A bark of laughter slipped out, loosening the tightness in his chest. He and Elle were friends. They could laugh and cross wits. Even eat dinner together occasionally. Friends did those things all the time, innocently. Relieved, he said, "I'm not suggesting you repair the roof. Hire someone to do it." Get that lovesick idiot, Daniel Connery, to do it, he wanted to say.
She leaned across him, twisted her rag over the fern's pot, then leaned back, taking the warmth of her skin and a thoroughly seductive aroma with her. "Repairs take money, Noah. Widow Wynne doesn't have much, and I don't have much either. In fact, sending Annie to Atlanta is going to take everything I have."
He straightened, dropped his hand to his knee, and watched her fingers skim the floor. Another drop of water smacked the blemished pine, and she frowned. "I thought you had, I mean... I remember talk of a modest inheritance. From your mother, wasn't it? You used to tell me you were going to build a home for stray cats."
"My father controls that, and he won't let me have it." The accent coloring her speech and her energetic scrubbing presented the only signs of her agitation.
Before he comprehended his action, he'd captured her rag hand. "Why would he do that?"
She jerked her arm but not hard enough to pull it from his grasp. "Mercy above, Noah. I'm an unmarried, twenty-five-year-old woman running a school which makes no money and
is shunned by every man in this town. My father looks at me and sees a dismal failure, a frivolous woman holding no prospects for the future, a dreamer lacking even an ounce of common sense." She swallowed, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He sees everything he hated about my mother."
Noah felt a reflexive tensing in her arm; the quiver reverberated along his. He dropped his handkerchief to the floor, uncurled her knotted fist, and kneaded her palm until her hand sprawled open on his knee. Her skin was work-roughened in patches, marked by light blue veins and freckles, fingers long and slender. He traced the bones in her wrist, her pulse thumping beneath his fingertips. "Does it matter what he thinks?"
She hung her head. "It shouldn't, but it does."
"I understand." And he did. His brothers' respect had always meant more to him than anyone's. Colleagues, professors, students. Accordingly, their criticism cut the deepest and scarred the worst. He should know.
The fingers around her wrist tensed, and she glanced up, slowly tugging her hand free.
A strained cognizance circled as rain pinked against the glass panes. Turning, she arched her back and swabbed the floor in a burst of intensity. The knot of hair at the base of her neck had begun to unravel. A lone curl brushed her collar; another lay just beneath her ear. He watched his hand lift, felt the bright spiral twist about his finger, felt the stroke of her skin, moist and warm, across the pad of his thumb.
A shudder rippled through her; her shoulders lifted in slow degrees. The delicate shush of air from her lips parted his on a strangled sigh. He could feel the heat radiating from her, see the light sheen of perspiration on the nape of her neck. Taking a deliberate breath, he let his senses savor the fragrance that lingered in his dreams night after night. Earthy and vital, the scent drew him. He wanted nothing more than to satisfy the reckless longing in his heart, ease the desperate hunger in his mind.
Giving in, Noah groaned low in his throat and curled his arm about her waist, slowly pulling her against his chest. She gasped and dropped her head, exposing a patch of radiant skin above her collar, an invitation he could no longer refuse. At the touch of his lips, the salty essence of her flowed into him, surging to the tips of his toes and back, leaving a mass of exposed nerve endings in its wake. He had never, never in his life, been crowded by as many images—sensual, spicy, enthralling. Not a single lucid thought remained to suppress them.
