Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady)

by Vanessa Grant

  He had come. She pressed her cheek against his chest, felt the thunder of his heart, the rumble of his voice saying, “When we landed, Luke told me this was a good place for love – he fell in love with Laurie on that island over there. You are going to marry me, aren’t you, Jennifer?”

  He closed his eyes briefly, opened them again and stated, “If you say no, I’m afraid I’m going to keep after you until you change your mind. I know I said you could do whatever you had to if it didn’t mean you left me, but— it’s got to be marriage, Jenny.” His hands slipped down along her sides. He watched her eyes widen and her lips part as he moved slowly closer. His own breath was rough as he said, “If you’re not ready, I think there’s a chance I could change your mind – given time.”

  “How?” she managed to ask on a gasp.

  He was starting to smile again now, his eyes gleaming. “Are you going to marry me? If you say no, would it help if I held out on you, wouldn’t kiss you until— Oh, lord, Jenny, I can’t even joke about that! You are going to marry me, aren’t you? You’ve got to!”

  “Of course I am – though I shouldn’t. You’re doing it again, you know. Steamrollering me. Only this time, you’ve got George in on it.”

  She could feel the laughter bubbling up, and the tears. He had been hers, in her heart, for so long. Now she could love him openly. To live with him and work with him and love him. She was frightened by her own vulnerability, but she wasn’t going to let it stop her from loving Jake. Even one day with him was worth any of the lonely times that might follow.

  “Marry me,” he growled, bending over her with a light in his eyes that made her shiver deliciously. “Marry me first, then we can fight it out. I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Jenny.”

  “You want me to marry you right away?” She smoothed her palms over his muscular chest, whispered, “Isn’t there anything you’d like to do first? After all, we’re days away from a wedding license.”

  He pulled her closer as he looked around at the ocean and the islands. “Let’s have part of the honeymoon first,” he suggested, bending down to take possession of her lips. “I’d like another try, another stab, at making that baby of ours.”

  She found herself laughing, molding her body against his in a promise he couldn’t mistake. “What if it doesn’t work?” she asked on a gasp as his hands slipped down over her buttocks and pulled her close against him.

  “Then we’ll just have to try again,” he growled, silencing her laughter with his love.

  The small yacht drifted slowly into the channel. Overhead, a raven swooped across the sky, looking down on the lovers.

  Before I had finished writing Jenny’s Turn, I knew that my next book must be George’s story. But George was such a rolling stone - how could I possibly get her to stay in one place long enough to fall in love?

  Turn the page to begin reading

  Stray Lady

  the story of Jenny’s cousin Georgina

  Stray Lady

  by

  Vanessa Grant

  Author’s Note

  I have a special fondness for this novel, which I originally wrote in the 1980s. I have always loved the setting of British Columbia’s remote northern lighthouse islands, where I lived for six years.

  In editing STRAY LADY for publication in this electronic edition, I considered bringing the story forward in time to the 21st Century. In the end, I decided that like it’s predecessor, JENNY’S TURN, George’s story should remain set in the time frame in which it was written. So although the manuscript has been edited for this edition, the story reflects the customs, beliefs, and mores of the 1980s.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all the lighthouse keepers

  who have tended the light at Green Island,

  to Alan - the music man,

  and the crew of Julie Marie II

  Chapter 1

  Inside was music, guitar sounds wafting from the large speakers, accompanied occasionally by the sound of percussion instruments.

  The house shuddered in the storm, but the sounds of wind and rain were muted. The room was soundproofed. Carpeted walls and floor. Acoustic tile on the ceiling. Windows blanketed.

  Lyle was bent over the keyboard of the synthesizer, mentally matching words to the music.

  His reddish-blond hair kept falling across his forehead. Too many weeks away from a haircut. He pushed it back with a callused hand

  He struck out a word with red ink, wondering where his best pen had disappeared to.

  “Daddy?”

  “Hmm?” The music flowed, beat a rhythm that told a tale of love and loss. He knew it was good, but the words—

  “It’s time, Daddy. It’s twenty to seven. Time to get the weather.”

  “All right. I’m coming.”

  “Can I turn off the sinsizer?”

  He nodded, watched his young daughter stand up, and two sleeping cats fall, scrambling, to the floor.

  She moved across the room to the power switch, one leg slower and weaker than the other. Scruff, the bedraggled mongrel that was the latest addition to their household, trailed at her heels.

  She’s nothing like Hazel, he thought fleetingly, and was relieved.

  He crumpled the paper in his fist, then his fingers slipped under Scruff’s collar, holding the dog so Robyn wouldn’t be tripped by clumsy canine feet.

  Outside, the dog promptly dove under the engine room stairs, where it was warm and dry. Lyle and Robyn, heads bowed and water streaming off their sou’westers, moved to the high platform that was used to land supplies from the coastguard ships.

  “Overcast,” decided Robyn, squinting up at the sky. The sun would be setting soon, but already the sky had darkened with the storm.

  “What about the sea?” Lyle asked absently, his own eyes intent on something he thought he’d seen in the fog.

  “Rough.”

  The foghorn blared behind them.

  Could it be a sail?

  His heart slammed against his ribs, his body tensing at a sudden surge of adrenaline. My God! A sail! In this weather!

  “Daddy! You’re hurting my hand!”

  “Sorry, honey.”

  It was gone now. No boat. No sail. Only the drifting fog and driving rain.

  You could see anything in the fog if you looked hard enough. It drifted and twisted. Shapes came flowing out of a man’s mind to take form in the mist.

  Ghostly nightmares, like an impossibly frightening vision of Hazel returning to take Robyn away from him.

  It had been nothing, just the top of a breaking wave.

  Heaven knew he’d seen enough maniacs heading north for Alaska, but surely not in the midst of a March gale?

  “All right, Robyn. Let’s get out of this stuff.”

  Her hand was cool. He slipped his arm around her waist and they ran together, laughing, into the basement.

  Scruff didn’t come.

  “Get out of those wet things, honey. Are you cold? No? Well I am. We’ll have hot chocolate with our strawberries tonight. Why don’t you go up and put a kettle on the stove.”

  Could it have been a boat out there?

  Worried, he went back outside, but there was nothing. Just the lighthouse and the fog.

  “Good evening, the lighthouses. This is Prince Rupert Coastguard Radio for the local weather reports,” he heard Murray’s voice sputtering on the radio as he came back inside. The voice sounded as if it belonged to a tall, thin, pipe-smoking Englishman, although Murray was short, round and prematurely bald.

  Robyn returned in pajamas and housecoat, just as Lyle got to the microphone. She sat cross-legged on the floor as Murray started his collection of local weather reports.

  “Green Island?”

  Lyle picked up the big microphone. “Good evening, Murray. We’re overcast. Visibility one-half mile in rain and fog. Winds south-east four-five and gusting. Sea rough with a moderate westerly swell.”

  “Roger, Lyle. Stand by for traff
ic after the local weathers.”

  “Standing by.”

  They waited while the other lighthouses gave their weathers, then Lyle wrote down the message.

  “It’s a deadhead,” Murray said, indicating that the message was an unofficial one, probably telephoned in to the coast station. “It’s addressed to your brother. The message reads: ‘I’m in the hospital, but don’t worry. It was a false alarm. Baby and I are waiting for you. Love, Dorothy.’ ”

  “Thanks, Murray. I’ll relay it to Russ.”

  So his sister-in-law was in the hospital now, waiting for the baby to come. Knowing that, Russ would be more impatient than ever, worrying helplessly while he was stuck on a lighthouse island forty miles away from her.

  There was no hurry to deliver the message. Russ would be sleeping, resting in preparation for the night shift. Lyle went upstairs to his nightly snack with Robyn.

  Upstairs, Robyn spilled her strawberries all over the kitchen floor. Tom, the orange cat, prowled around sniffing and licking at the stickiness. Dixie, half-Siamese and too lazy to stir, slept on the warming tray over the stove.

  Robyn watched Tom licking strawberries.

  “The floor’s clean—” she began.

  “No!” he said firmly, rejecting a vision of Robyn and the cat licking up the berries together. “You can eat mine. I’m not very hungry anyway.” He pushed the cat aside and started cleaning up the mess.

  Later, he would make himself a sandwich.

  Robyn got ready for bed, then took her time looking for a CD to play in player by her bedside. She hovered over a Bryan Adams CD, then chose one that Lyle had recorded for her.

  In her room, he pulled the covers up high around her shoulders, kissing her as she wound her thin arms around his neck.

  “You’ve got your radio?” he asked.

  She nodded. The two-way radio was on her bedside table. Lyle turned it on and adjusted the volume.

  “Are you going outside, Daddy?”

  “For a bit. I’m going over to deliver Russ his message. I’ll have a radio with me. Just call if you need me.”

  “Be sure ‘n wear your jacket. ‘s cold outside.”

  “I will.” She pulled the headphones on and he kissed her again before he left her listening to the unpublished sounds of Lyle Stevens’s music.

  She should have a mother, he thought as he glanced back at her.

  And he should have a wife.

  But not another Hazel.

  Dixie, the Siamese, had finally come down from the stove and was checking out the floor. She managed to find a spot of strawberry juice that Lyle had missed. He wiped up the floor again, then washed their dishes.

  He checked Robyn once more before he went out. She was already asleep.

  He opened the door to let the cats out. Tom started out, then changed his mind. Dixie took one look at the rain outside and headed back for the kitchen stove.

  Lyle went out alone.

  Russ’s windows were dark. Lyle took the stairs two at a time, then worked his way through the storm doors into the kitchen. There were no lights, no sounds at all except the howling wind outside. He turned on the kitchen light and grimaced at the pile of dirty dishes that Russ seemed to be saving for Dorothy’s return. Lyle had shared a room with Russ when they were boys. As far as he could see, his brother hadn’t changed his housekeeping habits at all in the intervening years. If anything, it might be worse.

  He shrugged and taped the note to the refrigerator. If Russ didn’t find it there when he woke up, he would see it written in the radio log when he went over to give the early morning weather report at four-thirty.

  The rubber rain jacket squeaked as Lyle moved. He switched off the light, closing the doors carefully against the wind.

  Scruff came dashing up the stairs to meet him. Lyle grabbed the rail to keep his balance as the dog hurled himself against his legs. “Got tired of hiding under the engine room, did you? Take it easy, Scruff. We’ll get inside out of this storm.”

  The dog ran off towards the boardwalk, then came tearing back with a whimper.

  Lyle scratched at his ear as he came close. “Restless, are you? Let’s go for a walk, then.”

  The dog wasn’t the only restless one. How many times would Lyle look out over the wild North Pacific waters tonight before he could get rid of the feeling that something was wrong?

  The sun had set, leaving just enough daylight to see the strange calm of the water to the north of the island. Small though Green Island was, it made an effective barrier to the wind, creating a broad stretch of almost flat water in its lee.

  At the far end of the island, Scruff went tearing over the rocks, whimpering. He stopped suddenly, standing dead still, staring out over the water to the north, shivering.

  What had he seen?

  Lyle started to follow, stumbled on the dark rocks and stopped. He waited for the lighthouse light to illuminate the rocks ahead.

  Scruff whimpered again and looked back at his master.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, Scruff.” Lyle hoped his voice would calm the dog, but the eerie violence of the night was affecting both dog and master.

  Scruff yelped, a sharp bark, then ran swiftly along the edge of the rocks.

  Lyle found himself searching the water again, finding nothing.

  “Nothing there. Come on! Let’s go home.”

  Scruff followed after a moment, still whimpering. When they arrived at the house the dog stopped, hung his head and began whimpering again.

  What now? Forcibly haul him into the house, then put up with this whining and yelping for the next few hours?

  Leave him outside in the storm?

  “Scruff—” he began helplessly.

  Scruff threw back his head and emitted a long, mournful howl.

  “Oh, all right! I’m probably crazy, but I feel a bit the same way myself. Just give me a minute to check on Robyn, then we’ll take another look.”

  Robyn was sleeping with the headphones askew on her tousled hair. Lyle carefully lifted them away and traced the wires until he found the Walkman tangled in her blankets.

  He closed Robyn’s door carefully. Then he went into the porch and got out his wide-angle binoculars and a powerful portable spotlight.

  Scruff was lying under the stairs, staring up, waiting for Lyle. He shuffled to his oversized feet as his master came down the stairs.

  As if the dog could understand, Lyle said, “Don’t expect much. We’ve probably both got island fever. There’s nothing but waves and floating logs out there. You just stay put under the stairs. I’m going up the light tower.”

  At the top of the tower, the powerful white light rotated night and day, marking Green Island’s position on the inland shipping lane, sending its message to mariners… ‘danger, rocks, keep clear’. The light was surrounded by glass panels. Outside the glass, a walkway provided the best lookout position on the island. On warm, sunny days this was an inviting place for seeing the world, the beautiful blue expanse that swept from the southern extreme of Chatham Sound to the Alaska Panhandle. Tonight it was a cold, miserable outlook.

  Lyle climbed the circular lighthouse stairs, stopped to tie his sou’wester so the wind wouldn’t tear it off, and emerged outside.

  He searched the water with the powerful binoculars, following the sweeping beam of the white light behind him. The darkness was deepening by the moment. He tried to focus on the dark shadow of Grey Islet to the north.

  A strange shape protruded up from the rocks, glistening white in the beam from the light tower.

  He waited endless seconds until the light swept over Grey Islet again, his heart pounding with an ominous conviction.

  It wasn’t a log. Could it be a sail? Earlier, he could have sworn he had seen a sail.

  He turned his binoculars onto the water between the two islands, searched wave tops and troughs in the sweeping white light.

  Nothing.

  When Lyle came down, Scruff was wait
ing at the door to the light tower. He followed behind Lyle, silent but unnaturally tense. Animals sensed things that people were blind to. Not that Scruff was a Lassie, but—

  “I’m probably going insane. They say lightkeepers are odd, and I’m about to prove it.” He pushed his hair back absently and opened his basement door.

  The dog followed him to the radio room.

  “Prince Rupert Coastguard Radio, this is Green Island.”

  Almost immediately, Murray’s voice answered.

  “Green, Prince Rupert. Go ahead, Lyle.”

  “Murray, have you got any boats in trouble? Overdue vessels?”

  Static crackled over the speaker as Lyle waited. Scruff leaned against his chair and Lyle scratched him behind the ear.

  “Green, Prince Rupert… Nothing much, Lyle. A fishing boat broken down in the Hecate Strait. He’s okay, though. There’s a fish packer in the area that’s just taking him in tow now. Have you got something there?”

  Lyle grimaced at the microphone. “Maybe just my imagination. There’s something over on Grey Islet, but I’m not positive it’s not a big log. I’ll go take another look.”

  “Okay, Lyle. I’ll query Rescue Coordination Center, but I imagine if they had anything in this area, we’d know about it.”

  “Thanks, Murray. I’ll get back to you.”

  Feeling foolish, Lyle exchanged his rain jacket for a buoyant floater jacket. He had no real intention of going into the water, but if he suddenly found he had to, he didn’t want to have to waste time returning to the house for the proper gear.

  Scruff followed Lyle up the stairs to Russ’s house. Lyle didn’t bother to try to keep Scruff outside. Russ had such a mess inside, one dog wouldn’t make much difference to it.

  “Russ, get up and give me a hand!”

  Russ was sprawled over the bed, thoroughly tangled in a sheet, with the blankets half-dragging onto the floor. He rolled over and pushed his face into the pillow as Lyle walked into the bedroom.