Meredith winced. An injection? If Griffin balked at the tongue depressor, he surely wouldn't care for a needle. She silently watched as the doctor left the room.
"She's not going to bleed me?" he whispered once she left.
"Griff?" Meredith asked, ignoring his question. "I could have told you that flirting with her wouldn't help, Griff. Maybe things are different in your time, but these days, doctors don't mess around with their patients."
"You sound like a jealous harpy, Merrie-girl," he teased.
"I'm not jealous! I just don't want you to make a fool of yourself. People will begin to ask questions that neither you nor I are prepared to answer."
"I never play the fool," he said, turning his smile on her.
She paused. "Then I better warn you now. She's going to give you a shot. But don't worry. Though it might look a little scary, it's really nothing. Children have them all the time."
"Scary?" Griffin asked.
"Well, there's a needle. And she'll inject some medicine into your arm, or maybe your backside, but-"
"What?" Griffin shouted.
"Trust me, it will only hurt for a second and it will help you get rid of that cough. A man who has taken to piracy for a hobby should not be afraid of a little old needle."
Griffin grabbed his shirt and pulled it on. "We are leaving now. I have been poked enough for one day and I have no intention of continuing the torture."
"Sorry for the wait!" Dr. McMillan breezed into the room. She stepped beside Griffin, and before he could protest, dabbed alcohol on his arm and jabbed him with the needle. He cursed vividly and pulled away, but it was all over quickly. Griffin was merely left to stare at his left arm in confusion. Strangely, the doctor was doing the same. She rubbed his upper arm with her thumb, examining it closely.
"You have no smallpox scar."
"I have managed to avoid that particular plague in my lifetime," Griffin murmured.
"No, I mean the scar from the vaccination."
"I-I don't believe Griffin had the normal vaccinations," Meredith said. "He had a rather… unusual childhood. Maybe you could give him the full set of shots now?"
Griffin snapped his head up and glared at her. "I don't believe that's necessary," he said.
"It would be no trouble," Dr. McMillan said. "And even if you've had the vaccinations before, there would be no harm."
"Give him the whole list," Meredith said. "Whatever he needs. Smallpox, measles, polio, diphtheria."
The doctor nodded. "I can give him all the usual childhood vaccines, but I'm afraid we don't give a vaccination for smallpox anymore. The disease has been eradicated in this country, and in most of the world. If you plan to travel to some exotic locale, you'll need one for yellow fever, though."
"Yellow fever?" Griffin asked. "You have a needle to prevent yellow fever?"
"Yes," Dr. McMillan replied. "But I don't keep all those vaccines here. I'll need to send to the mainland for them. We can schedule another appointment. By that time, his fever will be gone and there won't be any problem administering the vaccines," she said to Meredith.
"And after you poke me with this needle, I will not get the fever?"
"Not for at least ten years," the doctor said. "You can put your shirt back on and I'll tell Linda to schedule another appointment for you next week."
Meredith stood and grabbed Griffin's arm as Dr. McMillan walked out of the examining room. "Thank you, Doctor."
Griffin stared after her, as if his mind were a million miles, or three hundred years, away. He silently followed Meredith out of the room and waited while she made another appointment. Finally, they stepped out onto the shaded porch of the tiny raised cottage that housed the island's health center. He still hadn't said anything and she suspected he was angry again.
"I'm sorry if the shot hurt you, but it's for your own good."
Griffin strode down the porch steps and headed across the sandy parking area.
Meredith ran after him, falling into step at his side. "All right, you can be mad if you like, but I was only looking out for your best interests. And just because I made an appointment for next week, doesn't mean that I believe you're going to be here. In fact, I'm doing this because I know you'll be going back."
He looked at her distractedly. "What?"
"Well, if you get these vaccines, it will protect you. When you go back-and please note that I said when, not if-at least I'll know that you won't die of some disease that could have been prevented. I-I guess it would make me feel better to know that you're healthy… and alive."
"That is very thoughtful of you, Merrie-girl," he said. Pausing, he drew a deep breath and forced a smile. "I have a taste for some of Mr. Muldoon's crab cakes. I think we should have lunch."
"Why won't you talk to me?" Meredith asked in frustration. "Whenever you seem bothered by something, you bottle it up inside. There is nothing wrong with expressing your feelings. It doesn't make you any less a man."
"Nothing is bothering me," he said with a shrug, continuing down the road.
Neither of them spoke again until the waitress had seated them on the deck of the Pirate's Cove, overlooking the tiny harbor. She greeted Meredith warmly and gave Griffin an appreciative glance, then placed a menu in front of them.
Griffin studied the menu intently, then dropped it to the table and sighed. "It is not something I find simple," he replied. "You seem to want to speak of everything, leaving nothing to private contemplation."
"That's not it," Meredith said, picking up the conversation as if there had been no lull at all. "It's just that we've been living together for nearly two weeks and I know very little about you. If we were truly friends, then you would talk to me."
"I could drink a pint of ale right now," Griffin said, looking out across the water.
"You're doing it again," Meredith said.
"It seems I'm not hungry, after all," Griffin said, pushing to his feet.
Meredith rolled her eyes at the waitress's questioning look. Griffin stood next to the table for a moment, waiting for her to get up, but she stubbornly picked up her menu and studied it.
"I'm hungry," she said, "and I'm going to have some lunch. You can join me and we'll talk, or you can find a nice quiet place and spend the rest of your afternoon in brooding solitude."
"All right," he said, sinking into the chair across from her. The waitress hurried over and took their orders before Griffin had another chance to escape, then brought them two mugs of beer and a basket of hush puppies.
Griffin picked up a hush puppy from the paper-lined basket, stared at the deep-fried blob of cornmeal for a long moment, then put it back where he got it. "My wife died of yellow fever," he said bluntly, his gaze fixed on the plastic basket.
His words hit Meredith like a bolt from the blue, causing her heart to skip a beat. "Your-your wife?" Meredith asked, attempting to eliminate the shock from her voice.
"Jane," he said without emotion. "She died four years ago… with our son. There was an outbreak of yellow fever all along the James."
"Did you catch it?"
He laughed, the sound bitter with self-disgust. "I was not there. I was at sea, on my way back from London, captaining the Spirit. I was so pleased with myself. I had a hold full of China tea I'd traded for Virginia tobacco. And I had purchased a cradle with a bit of our profits. When I arrived in Williamsburg, my father was waiting at the dock. He told me Jane had given me a son. Then he told me they had both succumbed to the fever, just three days apart."
"I'm sorry," Meredith said softly. "You must have loved her very much."
He shook his head. "When we married, I barely knew her. But we came to care about each other. She was a good woman. Whenever I would leave for another long voyage, she would smile and kiss me goodbye. She never complained. She gave me a son. I will not soon forget that."
"Life is a very fragile thing where you come from," Meredith said.
His jaw tightened. "Do you know how they fight the fever
in my time? They fire cannons and muskets, and people carry bits of tar with them. They soak sponges in camphor and dip handkerchiefs in vinegar. And they put garlic in their shoes. I am not a physician, Merrie, but even I sense this is not right. Yet I have no idea what might prevent this disease."
"You should drain stagnant ponds and dump out every barrel of rainwater. The fever is spread by mosquitoes."
He looked at her in shock. "Mosquitoes?" He considered the notion for a moment, then tipped his head back and sighed. "I find it a great irony that I've come to a time where women and children do not die of the fever, where a prick of a needle can protect a life against a tiny insect and Jane needn't have died." He paused and shook his head. "A great irony."
"There are many diseases which we've found cures for- typhus, smallpox, measles, the plague. But there are others that still baffle medical science. I guess things haven't changed that much."
They sat in silence for a long while. Meredith was startled by the traces of agony that etched his frozen expression. Slowly, she reached out and wove her fingers through his. "Thank you for telling me," she said. "It helps me to understand."
He didn't reply, merely stared out at the harbor, his features frozen. Meredith's heart ached for him, for his dead wife and the baby son he'd never held. For she could see in the depths of his pale eyes that he blamed himself for their deaths. And she could see that the blame was eating away at him.
And in that instant, she knew it was not just his honor standing between them, but his guilt.
The late-afternoon sun beat down on Griffin's bare back as he scraped another layer of paint off the hull of the old shrimp boat. It felt good to labor again, to work so hard the sweat dripped from his forehead and his muscles ached.
He'd been working for nearly a week and he and Merrie had slipped into an easy routine, a routine in which they kept a careful but friendly distance from each other. Still, the attraction between them had not diminished, and though he only visited her bedroom while she slept, he had been hard-pressed to keep from touching her in all the ways he wanted to.
The thought of her body beneath his hands caused a flood of warmth to pool in his lap and he quickly turned back to work, scraping at the paint with renewed vigor.
Early Jackson was below deck, tinkering with the engine, leaving Griffin to his own thoughts. From the time Griffin was a child, he'd been fascinated by boats and ships. He and his father had spent hours together, carving model-ship hulls from wood before they commissioned the Betty. And at one time, Griffin had thought he might prefer the building of ships to the sailing of them.
In his year at William and Mary, he'd studied mathematics to better understand the design of a hull and the efficiency of a sail. Now, as he worked on refurbishing the shrimper, he found a certain satisfaction in bringing a battered old boat back to life.
Perhaps this would not be a bad way to make a living. Surely there were many boats like this one, boats that needed a tender hand and a loving eye. Griffin stood and stretched, examining the morning's work.
If the boat were his, instead of Early's, he would treat her with much more care. He would strip her to the bare wood and sand her until she was smooth as silk. Then he would lay on a perfect coat of white paint. And after every piece of brightwork was varnished and every winch spitshined, he would hand-carve a nameplate for each side of the bow. Griffin smiled to himself. And he'd call her the Merry Girl.
"Hey, sailor. How about some supper?"
Griffin shaded his eyes against the sun and found Merrie watching him from the side of the road, a teasing smile on her face. She was wearing a loose cotton dress in cornflower blue, which left her arms bare, and a pair of sandals that allowed her toes to peek out. He still hadn't gotten used to seeing Merrie's feet and ankles displayed in public, much less her knees, but that didn't prevent him from appreciating the view.
Bracing his shoulder on the boat's cradle, he grinned and waved.
She jogged up to the boat, swinging a basket at her side. "Are you hungry?" she asked.
"Ravenous," he said. He pulled up the cloth that covered the contents of the basket and peered inside. "Did you bring me a soda pop?"
She pulled out a can and flipped the top. "What are you going to do when you go back and you can't have soda pop with every meal?"
He wiped his hands on the ragged, paint-spattered blue jeans that Early had given him, then took a long swallow of the cold pop, nearly draining the can. "Maybe I will just have to stay," he said. "The prospect of life without soda pop is nearly too much to bear."
She laughed, taking his words more lightly than they were really meant. By the minute, the prospect of life without Merrie was becoming even more unthinkable. He looked forward to seeing her every day, to listening to her musical voice, to watching her face light up with a smile.
"Can you take some time to eat? We can have supper right here if you like."
He slipped into his shirt, then grabbed her hand. "I have a better idea. I am finished for the day. Come." Griffin snatched the basket from her hands and dragged her across the parking lot, then stopped beside a small motorcycle. "We will go for a ride."
Merrie stared at the motorcycle. "I don't know how to drive this thing."
"Ah, but I do. Early taught me a few days ago. He sends me down to the hardware store on this machine to fetch supplies. 'Tis quite… exhilarating."
"You can't drive this without a license," Merrie said.
Griffin frowned. "What is a license? Early did not tell me this."
"It's a permit that allows you to drive on the roads. Didn't you tell Early you don't have a driver's license?"
Griffin shrugged. "How could I tell him this if I didn't know I needed one?" He climbed onto the bike and pushed it back off its stand. "Get on. We'll go for a ride now."
"I don't think so," Merrie said.
"Come," he said, grabbing her hand. "We'll have fun. And I will not drive fast."
With a reluctant smile, Merrie climbed onto the back of the bike. Griffin wedged the basket between them, then kicked the starter as Early had taught him. Moments later, they were weaving down the narrow road that circled the harbor. When they reached the highway, Griffin turned and headed out of town.
As he promised, he didn't drive fast, but Merrie still clutched his waist with both hands. "I can't believe I'm doing this!" she shouted.
He laughed, then twisted the throttle, increasing the bike's speed. She screamed and grabbed him more tightly as they sped down the highway. Once they left the boundaries of the village, all signs of civilization disappeared, save for the long strip of paved road in front of them.
Most of the island was a national seashore, he had been told, though he wasn't sure exactly what that meant. What he did know was there were no houses or people beyond the town. The island looked much as it had when he'd first sailed past it nearly three centuries ago-sweeping sand dunes, pristine beaches and tall sea grass waving in the breeze.
Griffin turned off the main road and followed a sandy path, then stopped the motorcycle. Merrie slipped off the back and ran her fingers through her windblown hair still clutching the basket with one white-knuckled hand. He climbed off the bike and stood beside her. "'Tis like riding a very fast horse," he said.
"I've never ridden a horse, so I wouldn't know," Merrie replied.
"Trust me, this is much better. Come, we will have a picnic on the beach. I want to relax. I have worked hard today."
Hand in hand, they climbed up one side of a dune and slid down the other. In front of them, the deserted white sand beach stretched long and wide. Waves broke against the shore, and above the brilliant blue water, seabirds dipped and swayed on the breeze.
Griffin grabbed the small tablecloth from the basket and spread it out on the sand, then pulled Merrie down beside him. As she unpacked the basket, he watched her, enjoying the sight of her bright eyes and rosy cheeks and quick smile.
Over the past week, they had spent little time
together. Griffin had worked from sunrise to sunset, glad for a reason to put some distance between himself and Merrie. It had become much more difficult of late to see her and ignore the deep stirring of desire she provoked in him.
Most nights, he fell asleep on the couch after dinner. Hours later, in the middle of the night, as he paced the floors of the cottage, he would sneak into her bedroom and watch her sleep, always certain to leave before dawn without waking her. If she knew he was there, she didn't speak of it in the light of day. In fact, she seemed to prefer this space between them, as if it made living together, and the prospect of his leaving, much easier.
He was beginning to wonder if he'd ever go back. Every night he stood on the beach at midnight, waiting for some sign, for the powers that had brought him here to snatch him up and send him back. But night after night, nothing happened. He was running out of time and there was nothing he could do about it.
Griffin rested his arms on his bent knees and stared out at the ocean. He pointed to the east. "See that?" he asked.
Merrie squinted into the distance. "What?"
He leaned nearer to her, his shoulder brushing hers. To his relief, she didn't move away, but tipped her head closer. "There," he murmured, turning to inhale the fresh scent of her hair. His gaze drifted along the delicate features of her face and came to rest on her perfect mouth. He'd nearly forgotten how she could addle his brain with just a guileless smile. "Just beyond the horizon."
She squinted. "I don't see anything."
"England," he said. "'Tis right over there…somewhere."
Merrie turned to look at him, then blinked in surprise at his sudden nearness. "If that's how you navigate," she said softly, "remind me never to get on a boat with you again." With trembling hands, she dug through the basket, then pushed a sandwich at him.
Griffin unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite, glad for a brief distraction. "I believe I would like to see London in your time," he said as he chewed. "It must be a grand city by now."
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