Rab shrugged his big shoulders. He wore a fisherman’s sweater nearly the same color as his eyes, and Lisbeth wondered which of the townswomen had knitted it for him. Several of them pursued Rab the way they had pursued Declan before Lisbeth married him.
“Friends look out for one another,” he said. The deep burr of Scotland still colored his voice after more than a decade in Maine. “Besides, Kelpie here is always eager for a walk.”
Lisbeth felt his gaze touch her face in swift inspection. “Are you well, Lisbeth?”
Not wanting to lie to him outright, Lisbeth merely nodded. Rabbie, a good friend indeed, checked on her often, seeming to take the mile-long trek from Lobster Cove in stride.
She knew decency should prompt her to invite him in for a cup of tea, but the cottage stood dark and cold. Besides, she wanted to be alone to search the path for a crumpled sou’wester, for signs her dream might prove true.
The wind seized the end of her shawl and pulled it from her shoulders. Rab reached out quickly enough to keep it from soaring away.
“Mad to stand out here in the cold,” he observed. “You’ll catch your death.”
Lisbeth looked up and encountered his gaze. The blue eyes, trapped between black lashes, narrowed at her, and she tried to decide what she saw there: concern, surely, and the kindness Rab wore like a second skin.
He had once told her a lad cut adrift from his home at the age of fourteen—orphaned and landless, sent to a new life—learned many things quick and hard. Especially how it felt to be in need, how terrifying the world could be, and the value of kindness.
Lucky Kelpie, she thought, who had landed in his hands. And fortunate the woman who eventually won his heart.
She sighed deeply, surrendering at last the compulsion to search for what might not exist.
“Will you come in for some breakfast?”
“I will not say ‘no.’ ”
She turned, and they walked together, back the way she had come, to the cottage. She’d left in such haste the door still stood open, driven back and forth by the wind.
What would Rab make of that? He frequently voiced the opinion that with Declan gone Lisbeth should not stay here alone.
“Any damage in town?” she asked, for something to say, as they pushed into the dim front room.
“Aye.” Rabbie closed the door carefully and stood looking about. With the large dog, he seemed to overfill the room the way Declan never had.
But then, Declan was quicksilver, light and ever-moving. Rabbie was the granite of those rocks on the shore.
“That big loblolly pine—you know, the one at the head of Main Street—got hit by lightning. Came down and blocked the road.”
Lisbeth, striving desperately for a natural reaction, fixed her features into an expression of shocked surprise. “Anyone hurt?”
“No one living and breathing, but plenty of property damage. Lisbeth, ’tis cold in here. Why have you let the fire go out?”
“I—” Lisbeth stared at him helplessly.
“Never mind, let me.”
An expert with fire was Rab, after tending the blaze in the forge so many years. Lisbeth knew he thought it a sin to let a fire die.
Now she removed her shawl and watched as Kelpie lay down with a grunt and Rab bent over the cold hearth, his hair sliding over his forehead like black silk.
As he worked to kindle a fire, he stole little looks about the room; Lisbeth wondered what he saw. True, the place felt bleak to her, but she blamed that on Declan’s absence. Her life felt bleak, withal. She supposed she had not been keeping up with things as she should. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d swept the floor or shaken out the rugs. Her work lay in a pile on the wooden bench by the window—for she earned her keep as a seamstress—but little enough other color enlivened the place. It felt not only cold but uninhabited, and none of the lamps had been trimmed.
When he had the fire going to his satisfaction, Rab straightened from the hearth and looked Lisbeth in the eyes.
“Tell me, Lisbeth, when are you going to put your grief behind you and take up your life?”
Chapter Three
The interior of Lisbeth O’Shea’s cottage felt like death: Rab couldn’t describe it any other way. The cold that filled it went beyond the physical and struck at his soul.
He supposed that must be the fey Highlander in him talking. More than ten years out of Scotland and he had not succeeded in leaving it behind. He remembered his grandmother telling him, before his world fell apart and he was forced to leave home, “We are knowing things in our blood, lad. Never question that sense. You come by it honestly.”
Rab knew now that the woman standing before him had been honed to her marrow. He would give all he had to help her, but he did not know how. He might offer friendship and comfort; he had already given her his heart.
How frail and broken she looked, stranded in this devastated place with the reflection of sorrow in her eyes! Why did he love her so completely and so helplessly? He could not say; he simply had ever since the moment he first saw her, back at the Lobster Cove schoolhouse all those years ago. Since then she had grown into a woman he could only admire—hardworking, generous and kind, giving him no reason to change his feelings.
Of course he hadn’t understood what he felt for her back then. He merely knew how much he enjoyed watching the lass who sat across the aisle and one row up from him, catching the curve of her cheek when she turned her head, counting the curls on her shoulders.
Her hair had been golden then, a child’s hair still. Now it had darkened to the ashen hue belonging to a woman, but still streaked with gold from the sun. She never failed to look beautiful to him, with her delicate features and those eyes that made him think of magical things: highland mist and the color of the sea loch back home on a cloudy day.
At school she had been a comfort to him, a balm to a lad aching from the loss of everything he loved, thrown onto this rocky shore with an impossible way to make—a new master, kind but firm, and the sheer hard work of the forge. He had pinned all his dreams on Lisbeth Parsons.
She, of course, had never seen anyone but Declan O’Shea.
And the true tragedy of it, she had never once seen Declan for what he truly was.
She would not now. Declan was dead, a martyr to the sea, a memory. Lisbeth cherished him yet.
He remembered all too well the day Declan had drowned. A storm like the one just past it had been. And that had brought him out here early today, concern for Lisbeth foremost in his mind. What might the Widow O’Shea do here alone when despair overtook her?
He gazed at her now, unable to hide his concern. She’d dropped weight since Declan’s death. Her fingers, which she twisted in her skirt, looked like little more than sticks.
Gently he asked, “When are you going to move into town? ’Tis not right, you out here on your own.”
She shook her head and made no reply.
“There’s that room at Mrs. Taylor’s,” he pressed. “She’s still looking to let it.”
“I don’t want to live with Mrs. Taylor. She’s a terrible gossip.”
Rab knew it for truth. “But in town you’d be nearer your clients. And near your friends.”
He, himself, lived in back of Howard’s Blacksmith Shop on Maple Street—his now, since the death of his patron, Tip Howard, three years ago. On his deathbed Tip had told Rab he’d become more son to him than apprentice, and earned the inheritance.
“Frannie’s there,” he went on. Frannie Becker, Lisbeth’s closest friend, was as worried about her as he.
“Frannie has two small children and her own life to live,” Lisbeth replied.
“That changes nothing. Here, sit down before you fall.”
Impulsively he towed her to a stool and sat her down. Then he hoisted the kettle—bone dry—and shook his head. “Have you tea in the house?”
“Some.”
He snatched up a bucket for the well. Kelpie gave him a look from soulfu
l eyes in passing.
Guard, he told the dog in his mind. The two of them did not always need words to communicate.
The wind tore at him when he went out, just like his emotions. He wanted so badly to gather Lisbeth up in his arms and carry her back to Lobster Cove—not to Mrs. Taylor’s but to his quarters, warm and safe behind the shop. He longed to confess all his feelings for her, a thing he’d never done. Declan O’Shea had always stood in the way.
Rab smiled bitterly as he filled the wooden bucket. As he did still.
Inside, Lisbeth remained where he’d put her, which further discomfited him. For all her apparent fragility, he knew her to have a stubborn, independent streak. If that had been beaten down, she must be in even worse straits than he thought. He poured water into the kettle and swung it over the fire.
“Winter will be coming in a few months.” He resumed the conversation as if it had never been interrupted. “Say you’ll be away out of this place before then.”
“I will think on it, Rab.”
“Do you promise me?”
She nodded.
Of course, he told himself sadly, thinking on wasn’t the same as moving on.
“How are you fixed for firewood?” he asked, eyeing the meager supply beside the hearth.
“I mean to gather some driftwood once the wind dies.”
He turned his attention to the shelves that flanked the fireplace. “And have you enough foodstuffs? Your cupboards look unco’ bare.”
“I mean to go into town tomorrow and purchase a few things.”
“Write me out a list; I’ll bring what you want.”
She stared at him. In the radiance cast by the newly-kindled fire, he saw her eyes fill with tears. “I have no money to pay, Rab. I will soon; I’m finishing a job for Mignon La Marche, and she pays well. But right now…”
“Do not worry about the coin. I will be able to get you credit at the mercantile. Have you flour? Butter? Lamp oil?”
Stonily she said, “Mr. Beatty will not give me any more credit. I have not been able to pay much on the last bill. I gave him what I could, but you see, Declan owed him quite a bit when he—”
She could not speak the word: died. Rab wanted to say it for her, make her face it, accept that she might resume the life she appeared to have abandoned when the damned pieces of the White Gull washed ashore.
But he dared not.
Very gently he told her, “I will sort it.”
Kelpie, perhaps sensing Lisbeth’s emotions, got up and thrust his great head onto her lap. Her hands came up and caressed the dog, buried themselves in his thick, black fur, and Rab saw her ease for the first time.
“Would you like me to leave Kelpie here with you for company?” he offered.
Again her fey, shadowed eyes flew to his. “He would be miserable away from you. You know how he likes to keep you in sight.”
True, Kelpie had become a feature of the blacksmith’s, always lying at the door and rarely letting Rab move far without him.
“But he loves you,” Rab told Lisbeth. I love you. He ached to add those words.
The water in the kettle began to sing. Rab searched out two mugs and a small measure of tea, located a stub of a loaf and morsel of butter. He brewed the first, toasted the second, and presented it all to her wordlessly.
“You are far too good to me, Rab Sinclair.”
He said nothing as he watched her sip from the mug and nibble at the crust without appetite. Kelpie rested his chin on her knee.
“You’ve not been eating,” Rab observed at last, “nor looking after yourself. What would Declan say?” He delivered the last words with deliberation as he might those of a holy incantation. He himself had detested Declan O’Shea to his very roots. But if anything could make Lisbeth care, it was the thought of him.
To his surprise she laughed unsteadily. “I am not sure he would notice. Always wrapped up in his own business was Declan.”
Wrapped up in himself, more like, Rab thought sourly. He had rarely met a man whose life centered more on his own needs and wants. And he did very little real business of any kind. True, he put out in the old boat he’d inherited from his father, and duly came in again, hauled a few lobster pots while he was out on the sea. But the man had been lazy to the bone, used to getting by on his charm, which he possessed in spades.
Why couldn’t Lisbeth see any of that? She never had, though, and regarded her husband still as some kind of minor Irish god.
Lisbeth had worked as a seamstress even while Declan lived, helping to keep the household. She had done what she could to maintain the cottage, just like Declan’s mother before her. The O’Shea men of this shore, father and sons alike, had been feckless.
Both Declan’s parents had predeceased him, his mother from overwork and his father in a drunken fall. His brother Pat had left Lobster Cove right after the pieces of the White Gull washed ashore. He hadn’t been out with Declan that fateful day, too smart to take the boat to sea with a blow coming, and had been safe in the tavern with friends.
“He would not want you pining away here, still,” Rab told Lisbeth, not sure but it was a lie. Who knew what had motivated Declan besides his own welfare? He had loved holding people in thrall to him, especially women. Indeed, before these two wed he’d been chased by many a lass, including the Mignon Lisbeth had just mentioned, who now owned the big house up on the bluff.
Mignon—also used to getting what she wanted—had chased Declan mercilessly. Rab had prayed Declan would choose her, but in the end he had chosen this pale slip of a lass with the wide eyes, spill of fair hair, and—back then—merry laugh.
That didn’t mean he had been faithful to her.
Rab closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the desire to tell Lisbeth all he knew, destroy this vision she cherished of her dead husband, free her from the past to—he hoped—love again. He couldn’t. He feared it would destroy not only Lisbeth’s opinion of her husband but her spirit.
“Come back to town wi’ me,” he beseeched, speaking from his heart. “Do not make me leave you here alone.”
“That’s just it.” She set her mug aside, leaned forward, and touched Rab’s hand. He felt the imprint of her fingers all the way up his arm, to his heart. “I am not alone,” she confided, “for I saw Declan last night.”
Chapter Four
“I am worried about Lisbeth,” Rab announced. He stood in the doorway of Frannie Becker’s kitchen, feeling far too large for the cramped space. Mad confusion reigned: Frannie had two bairns under the age of two, the newest a babe of barely six months, now held in her arms. The toddler, a robust lad, ran rather than walked everywhere and seemed particularly vocal with his demands.
Frannie shot Rab a look. “Close the door for pity’s sake, before Eddie escapes again. I’ve no desire to chase him down the street another time.”
Rab eased the door shut behind his considerable bulk, trying to occupy as little space as possible. “You have your hands full there, and no mistake,” he observed. Maybe Lisbeth was right; Frannie had no room and likely little energy to spare. “Where’s Ed?”
“At work. He went in early; we need the coin.”
Ed Becker worked at Sawyer’s lumber yard all the hours God sent, to keep his little family.
Frannie shifted the bairn—a daughter—in her arms. “I’m worried about Lisbeth as well, Rab. She’s stopped coming to church. And she used to walk in sometimes to see me. The Lord knows I was in no condition to walk out there when I was carrying this little one.” She jostled the child. “Worse than that, she seems to have lost her spark and that strength she always had about her, beneath all the softness. I’d go see her, but…”
“Aye, I see.”
Wee Eddie began climbing the back of a chair, which wobbled beneath him. Rab snatched the lad up in his arms. Eddie, sticky all over his face with what looked like jam, smiled at him.
“I also see this fellow’s had his breakfast.”
“Would you like a cup of tea
?”
“Just had one.” He thought of the gloomy cottage he’d left, and the woman in it. “I walked out to see Lisbeth this morning.”
“How did she come through the storm?”
Rab shook his head. “I saw no damage. But you’re right, Frannie. She’s not the lass she was, nor right in herself, in her mind.”
“In her mind?” Frannie echoed. She stared at Rab, her eyes the same exact size and shape as Eddie’s—deep brown. “I know she’s still in mourning—it’s only been a year—but though it’s taken the heart out of her I did not think it had turned her mind.” Frannie lowered her voice. “You know how she loved him.”
“Aye.” Rab felt sick inside. Frannie, no fool, had a good idea what Declan’s true character had been. But Rab had managed to hide from her his true feelings about Lisbeth.
He drew a deep breath and set Eddie down carefully. “She says she saw him—Declan—last night.”
“What!” Frannie’s mouth fell open, and for an instant Rab thought she’d drop the child in her arms. He could see her thoughts move in her wide eyes. “Well, she must have dreamed it. That storm will have brought things back.”
“That’s what I thought. But she was insistent. Says there was water all over the floor where he stood in the doorway of their room.”
“Sweet mercy! Did you see the water?”
“She had already mopped it up.”
“It will be her imagination, poor lamb.”
“Aye, but I tell you it went hard with me, leaving her out there alone, Fran. She’s not looking after herself—almost no food on her shelves, and the place was cold. I collected some driftwood before I came away, and I mean to take her a load of things from Beatty’s.”
“You’re a good friend, Rab Sinclair.”
“Not good enough, letting her get in that state.”
“What can I do to help?”
“I was hoping you’d persuade her to move into Lobster Cove. I did my best to convince her; she would no’ listen.”
The White Gull Page 2
