Night Music

by BJ James

  But, in his thoroughness, he had discovered records of Mary’s daughter. An illegitimate child by an unidentified man, a daughter who disappeared without a trace when she was fifteen. But all Jericho learned had happened so many years before the elderly woman had come to Belle Terre.

  No one suspected that Mary had any family at all. Neighbors and friends regarded her as a quiet, pleasant woman, painfully alone. When Tessa had appeared, Mary had been evasive, saying only that she was the child of someone caught in a bad marriage.

  Both Kate and Jericho strongly suspected there was much more to the truth than the simple excuse. With the discovery of the mysterious, missing daughter, Kate was convinced Tessa was Mary’s granddaughter, or even her great-granddaughter. Perhaps the child of a troubled relationship, but of more than friends.

  The sudden roar of heavy engines shattered her musing, and the cacophony that marked each hour of the morning began again. It was not so much an unpleasant sound as alien. After spending most of three days listening to the din as it drew nearer, Kate decided she really should have grown accustomed to the snarling machines rather than jumping out of her skin in her distraction.

  After the storm, though little of the shell road had washed away, most of what remained was in dire need of repair. In his efficient, concerned manner, McGregor brought his equipment to the island by barge. Under his supervision, his crew began their repairs at the northern-most tip of the island, and moved south. On this the last projected day of work, only a few yards short of Sea Watch, the crew had taken a break for lunch.

  For half an hour Kate enjoyed blessed silence. Then came the return of the roar that seemed even louder than before. But it should be brief, for the distance from Sea Watch to the river and a rendezvous with the barge was short. McGregor was as efficient in his work as he was committed to protection of the island.

  Soon it would be quiet. And soon Devlin would come.

  “Three,” he’d said, flashing three fingers. “If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you. Three days, Kate.” Then again, as if convincing himself it wouldn’t be forever, “Only three.”

  The first passed swiftly, then the second. Wrapped in solitude, she’d done some thinking. And in the private hours, she’d accepted many things.

  Now she was eager for Devlin, and the day moved slowly.

  The rumbling staccato, broken regularly by the warning shriek of reversing engines coaxed Kate to the railing of the deck. The scene that greeted her was like one from a movie. Brawny men wearing gloves and hard hats moved loads of sand with incredible precision. Monster machines moving in concert across the beach in a ballet choreographed for snarling metal beasts.

  Skillfully, to the constant warning beep, men and machine reconstructed the little road. Kate became so fascinated by the orderly chaos the little blond head flashing through patches of sea oats along a dune didn’t register.

  Catching movement at the edge of her peripheral vision again, she dismissed it as some creature scavenging among the vegetation and settled down to enjoy the spectacle unfolding before her. But her subconscious wouldn’t dismiss what it had seen.

  Her gaze was drawn from the machines to the dune above them. There was nothing to see. Puzzled, she turned back toward the shore. Her arms resting on the banister, she to tried give her complete attention to the men and the road. But the pull of concern grew stronger. Something wasn’t as it should be.

  Frowning at a thought that nagged, she straightened and looked to the dune. As she searched past swaying reeds, her frown deepened. Still nothing. No creature prowled. Sea oats stood as unmoving as sentinels. A mistake. An illusion.

  “But for a minute I thought…” she began then, breaking off, shook her head. “Of course there’s no one there.”

  Returning to the furor on the beach, her hand reaching for the banister again jerked in midair. She was there. Not a scavenging creature on the dune, a little girl on the beach, directly in the path of the packer. A child with blond hair gleaming in the sun as she walked along the newly repaired section of the road of shells.

  “Tessa?” As she said the name, Kate knew it was true. As she said the name, the little girl bent to take something from the road. And in the same instant the warning horn screamed reverse.

  The operator didn’t look back. After all, he’d worked for three days on Summer Island, and the beach was always deserted.

  He didn’t look back, and the little girl didn’t look up.

  “Tessa! No!” The words were a whispered prayer and a plea, for no one could hear her call above the din of motors and the warning horn. Kate waited a millisecond, hoping the child would look up and move. In the next millisecond it was Kate who was moving.

  Bracing both hands on the banister, she swung over it. The drop to the lawn was more than ten feet but, thanks to Simon, she’d been trained for worse. Landing in a practiced bent-knee roll, she was on her feet and running, her footsteps pounding down the boardwalk. Another leap took her from the landing, over the steps into the sand. Another roll brought her to her feet in a run. Racing past startled men who only had time to turn and stare, she sprinted alongside the packer. She didn’t try signaling the operator. There wasn’t time.

  Even as she prayed for speed and pushed beyond endurance, Kate didn’t think she would be in time. But nothing on earth would keep her from trying. A burst of speed she never knew she had took her past the machine. Another sent her dashing headlong in its path. In a step, she scooped the child into her arms, and the great, spinning roller bore down on her.

  The blow, when it came, was low and hard. A vise crushed her ribs. Then she was falling, the sickening crunch of shell breaking beneath the packer and the warning horn shrieking in her brain. Before she could scream out her anger at failing, she and the child clutched in her arms were sprawling in scattering, sunlit sand.

  It took an instant to realize the machine had roared past them, and another to feel the strong arms that held her. Looking up through a black fog of exhaust smoke, she found blazing blue eyes glaring down at her. “Devlin.”

  “Are you hurt?” There was anger in his voice and fear. The hands that gripped her were shaking. “Tell me!” he commanded when she was slow to answer. “Are you hurt?”

  Then she realized the shore was quiet again. A child who should be sobbing in fear made no sound at all. “No,” she said in an unsteady voice, realizing it was because of Devlin she could give that answer. “No, Devlin,” she repeated. “I’m not hurt.”

  “If you aren’t, it’s not from lack of trying.”

  Before she could respond to his heated comment, McGregor was there, with his men in tow. “Lord love us! Where in all of this grand earth did she come from?”

  He spoke of the child, who clung to Kate, her eyes wide, tears drying on her cheeks. But still with no sound escaping her tightly drawn and pale lips.

  Stress accenting a normally negligible burr, the Scot addressed his fear. “Please tell me the pretty tyke isna hurt.”

  Brushing tears from a tiny face, Kate made a quick inspection. The small mouth trembled, and golden brown eyes fastened on her. Beyond this strange silence and the frantic clasp at Kate’s neck, the child showed no sign of trauma. “She’s scared,” Kate said, keeping her voice calm. “But I don’t think she’s hurt.”

  McGregor leaned over them, his massive, calloused hands reaching out. “Lord love her, give her to me.”

  The chubby arms about Kate’s neck tightened into a stranglehold, the pale face paled more and burrowed into her shoulder. The sob that shuddered through the fragile body was a small note, and still the only sound the child made.

  “She’s fine where she is,” Kate assured McGregor, quickly, forestalling the gruff but kindly man.

  Devlin rose from the sand. Reaching down for Kate, he brought them up to him. His scorching gaze stared long at both woman and child, assessing the damage. It was only when he’d seen the truth for himself that he turned to the gathering men. “It’s o
ver. No one’s hurt,” he said quietly in response to mutterings of concern and apology. “We all know no one here is to blame.”

  “As God is my witness, Mr. O’Hara, I didn’t see her.” The driver stepped out of the crowd. Faltering, he tapped his hard hat nervously against his thigh. “Maybe I didn’t look too good, but we were assured no one but you and Miss Gallagher would be here.”

  His eyes, green and bright in a weathered face, ranged over the child from blond hair to dainty bare feet. He swallowed, his throat convulsing in unwarranted remorse. “Where the…” Biting back what would likely have been an expletive never meant for little ears, clutching his hat tighter in an iron-handed grip, he asked the question heard over and over, “Where could she have come from?”

  Devlin recognized the man who operated the packer. A man of great skills. It was natural he would be most upset. “I don’t know.”

  “Then who does?” The foreman, the biggest of the lot, took a step forward to stand by his crewman. He was massive and burned dark by wind and sun, but eyes like gray smoke were troubled. “She didn’t come far. She couldn’t, a little thing like that.”

  “I don’t think she came far at all.” Devlin stroked golden curls away from a tiny, perspiring nape. Tessa shivered, but didn’t cringe away. “With a little investigating, Miss Gallagher, Sheriff Rivers and I should be able to solve the problem.”

  “Will you let us know?” The big guy again, a ruffian with a tender heart. “I’ve got a little girl ’bout her size, I wouldn’t want this to happen to her. Lost, with big, bad machines nearly running her down.”

  “As soon as we know anything at all, you’ll know,” Devlin promised. “But I think that now our best course of action is to get her out of the heat and sun, and to a calmer place.”

  With Tessa’s imminent departure from shore, one by one the crew stepped forward, shaking hands with Devlin, and doffing hard hats in deference to Kate and her daring race against the packer. McGregor was last. Hale and hearty, a man of great deeds and great emotion, he grasped Devlin’s hand. “I’ve never in my life seen anything quite like today. I hope I don’t again.”

  The remnants of the speech of his homeland less apparent in more tranquil times, he leaned close to Devlin, his voice dropping a decibel below the sound of the surf. “She’s quite a woman, lad. If I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing, you’re a lucky man.”

  “Yes, sir,” Devlin replied respectfully. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Ach! I knew it!” McGregor’s face crinkled into a broad smile. “I pegged you for a smart man the minute I laid eyes on you. Does my heart good to know I’m right.”

  Releasing Devlin’s hand, with a smile for Kate, the loquacious Scot wheeled about. Crossing the sand in a determined jog, he called out to his crew, “Let’s call this a day. Go home, spend time with your families. We’ll finish tomorrow.”

  After the bright autumn heat of the beach, Sea Watch seemed shadowy and cool. When Devlin silently ushered them in, and stepped aside, Kate moved with Tessa to the sofa. Not sure if her legs ached from the leap from the deck, the race down the beach, or the burdened climb back to the house, Kate sank heavily down to the seat.

  After a quick look at Devlin confirming that his stern look hadn’t altered, she turned her attention to the child. “Tessa.”

  The child, sitting stiffly erect, didn’t move. Beyond the rise and fall of shallow breathing, she was as still as stone.

  “Everything’s all right, darlin’.” Instinctively, without thinking, Kate used Devlin’s teasing, soothing endearment. “You’re safe now and there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  There was still no response and no reaction. Not even the rhythm of Tessa’s breathing altered.

  “No one’s mad at you, I promise,” Kate whispered, her lips nearly touching the delicate curve of a tiny ear. “Nobody’s mad, but I’ll bet someone is worrying about you. Maybe even looking for you.”

  Tessa kept so still, she might easily have been asleep. Or in a fearful trance.

  “Please, Tessa.” With a puzzled shake of her head, Kate’s concerned gaze lifted to meet the hot glare of Devlin’s.

  But as the turmoil that churned inside him gradually calmed, pieces of confusing and peculiar circumstances began to make sense. As gently as he could, he explained the strange reactions. “Tessa doesn’t answer because she can’t hear you, Kate.”

  Kate looked to the child again, wondering if she was injured, after all. The import of Devlin’s words hadn’t penetrated.

  Crossing to kneel before them, Devlin touched a blond curl with a roughened finger. Sweeping it gently from a pale cheek, he tucked it behind her ear. His hand still resting at the hollow at its base, he looked back at Kate. “Tessa can’t answer because she doesn’t hear you. She doesn’t hear you because she’s deaf.”

  “Deaf?” Kate’s arms convulsed, bringing the little body close to hers. A frown marked her face. “Tessa’s deaf?”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t hear the warning horn of the packer.”

  Devlin only shook his head.

  “How do you know?” Kate demanded, rejecting what was obvious now. “How can you be so sure? She might have just been too frightened to speak or respond in any way.”

  Devlin stopped her with a touch. “She wasn’t just frightened, Kate. She didn’t hear.”

  The thought of little Tessa with her bright smile and generous nature locked in a silent world was too much. “How?”

  “I can’t answer that, sweetheart. But I should have recognized the signs sooner.” At her questioning look, his lips quirked in a grimace. “More from my Gypsy past, but this time with my family. When I was sixteen, our parents decided it was time we learned the difficulties and appreciated the skills of children with disabilities. As a family we spent a couple of summers working in camps for children with special needs. Some were blind, some deaf, some mentally or physically disabled.”

  When she looked at him again with a surprised expression, he only lifted a shoulder in a dismissive gesture. “No great sacrifice, and not really unusual. It was just something my parents did. The way they taught us.”

  Another facet of Devlin’s life and Devlin’s family. Something to file away for pondering, but in another time. Now she must think of Tessa and Tessa’s needs.

  And all it seemed the child needed or wanted at the moment was to be held. Perhaps to sleep after the rigors of her journey.

  Though he hated to leave them, there were matters to settle. A visit he must make. A suspicion to resolve. Touching Kate’s arm, Devlin laid his finger against her lips when she started to respond. With a shake of his head and another touch, this time to the cleft of her breasts, he conveyed that she shouldn’t speak because, held so closely, the child would feel the vibration of her words.

  “I think she’s dozing, or will be soon.”

  Kate agreed with a small dip of her head.

  “There’s something I need to do. Someone I need to visit.” Devlin stopped short of explanations. There would be time for any number of explanations later. “You’ll be all right while I’m gone.”

  It wasn’t a question, and Kate didn’t answer. But when he tilted her face and their gazes met and held for a long time, she knew the fierceness she’d seen in his eyes was never anger. When he leaned to kiss her, her lips were parted and waiting.

  Moving away reluctantly, as he stood, Devlin promised softly, “I won’t be long.”

  His gaze moving from Kate to Tessa and back, his look promising more than words could say, he smiled, and turned away.

  He was longer than he expected. But not so long he would have anticipated the changes he found on his return to Sea Watch.

  The child who had hidden her face in Kate’s shoulder sat at a small table with Kate, a cup and saucer before each of them. A bouquet of tattered flowers adorned the center of a pink tablecloth. Flanking the vase was a platter of petite sandwiches and a plate of vanilla wafers.

  As
he stepped in without knocking, Kate flashed a smile over her shoulder, saying, “Ah, there you are. We’ve been waiting for you.” Touching Tessa’s face, drawing her attention to Devlin, Kate said, “We’ve been waiting for Devlin.”

  Tessa’s gaze lifted from Kate’s lips to Devlin. Eyes so uncannily like Kate’s they took his breath away, studied him intently, assessing him. He feared she was remembering his stern attitude on the beach. But whatever the child might be thinking, Devlin knew he deserved it. For what seemed forever, he stood, not moving, not speaking, as he waited for Tessa’s decision.

  When the little girl nodded solemnly, he smiled and moved to the table. Touching Tessa’s shoulder, he said slowly, carefully, “My goodness. How did you know I would be hungry for sandwiches and cookies, and thirsty for apple juice?”

  Tessa said nothing. Her answer was to pat the empty chair. Once Devlin was seated, in her best tea party manner, she offered sandwiches and cookies for his pleasure. And poured apple juice into a cup once intended for demitasse.

  Wondering how Kate had accomplished this miracle, Devlin took his seat, and having missed breakfast and then lunch, discovered that both the peanut butter sandwiches and the vanilla wafers were delicious. And the apple juice? Today, as he shared this tea party with the two most beautiful ladies he would ever know, it was nectar of the gods.

  “That was wonderful, ladies. The best tea party I’ve ever been invited to,” Devlin said at last, patting his flat stomach and smiling for Tessa’s benefit. Throughout the game Kate’s questioning look had strayed to his time and again. But both knew that, no matter how anxious she was for answers, now wasn’t the time.

  “Tell you what.” Throughout the party, he’d discovered Tessa was a wonder at reading lips. It was Tessa he addressed now. Waiting until she nodded that he should continue, he crouched down beside her. “When I was scavenging in the pantry not so long ago, I found a trunk of toys. If you like to color and draw, there’s a stack of tablets and coloring books this high.”