Whispers In The Dark

by BJ James

  “You never knew David. You can’t know what he would want.”

  “If he loved you, if he was worthy of your love, I know.”

  “Worthy!” For the first time, a flare of anger turned her tone harsh and grating. An alien sound at odds with what the garden should be. “Ahh, the voice of wisdom again. Tell me more.”

  “Not I.” As he backed away, the clipped tone eased in compassion. “I have two questions, then you tell yourself.”

  “Only two?” Her face was grave, her mood sinking again into empty weariness as brief anger seeped out of her.

  Jeb held up his hand, palm toward her, the mark of a new life, a new profession, slick and shining in the light. In a gesture reminiscent of Simon, he folded his fingers into his palms, stopping short of a perfect fist. “Two, I promise.”

  “Fine.”

  “You were in love with David?”

  “Yes.” Blunt, definitive. No qualifications. An unintentional revelation of the depth of her pain.

  Though he hated what he’d heard and what he’d done, Jeb knew there was no other way to make her see. She had come into his home a stranger, someone he knew and who knew him by reputation alone. But they had shared too much the same to remain strangers. He hoped that now he could make her face and understand what he’d had to face and understand himself.

  “My second question, and the last, is of the sort I asked myself. A search of my heart and a truthful answer resolved my difficulty.” Kneeling before her, he took her clasped hands in his. “If the circumstances were reversed, if you had been taken hostage that day, if it were you who died, maybe for a moment of hesitation, maybe not, what would you want for David?”

  He heard a stifled groan of regret, he felt her tense. Before she could speak, he released her and patted her knee. “Give it some time before you answer. Weigh the options and what you’ve been through and put yourself through. Then think of it in terms of David and what you would want for him. Think hard. Think long. Give it a week, two. A month. However long it takes. But, in the end, be honest, Valentina.”

  There was an expression of surprise on her face, and when she looked at him at last, he saw the glitter of unshed tears on her lashes. With the brush of his fingertips he wiped them away.

  “Yes, David died. Nothing you can do or say, or deny yourself, can ever change that.” His tone was compassionate, yet firm. “But many have lived, perhaps because of him. Remember. Take your time. Think.”

  Rising, he stood looking down at her. “And now it’s my time to think, and what I think is that what you need more than anything right now is a good man to hold you. Just to share his strength. No demands made, no questions asked.” He smiled then, the fond smile of a brother, or an uncle, or an instant friend. “I know the perfect man for the job. We both do.

  “It can work out if you’ll let it. Trust yourself, O’Hara. Trust him.” Jeb’s voice grew deeper, quieter, roughening in a gruff whisper. “Remember this, as well, even wishes that are possible can only come true if we let them.”

  He touched her cheek, a parting gesture. “Trust.”

  In half a minute he disappeared into the shadows of low hanging limbs. In another she heard his footstep crossing the veranda.

  The door opened and closed once.

  And again.

  Then it was Rafe who emerged from the same shadows.

  Rafe who slipped into the seat beside her.

  Rafe who held her in his arms, asking nothing, requiring nothing, saying simply, “I’m here, O’Hara. For as long as you need me.”

  As she tensed subtly, a chaotic cry constricting her throat, he sighed but didn’t release her. Kissing the top of her hair, filling himself with her fragrance, he held her as he would’ve held Courtney when the troubles of her world were too much.

  “I’m here,” he promised again. “For as long as you want me.”

  Valentina huddled in his arms. Her mind and heart in turmoil, her body grateful for his embrace.

  From the street there was the clatter of a horsedrawn carriage. The soft song of its driver. Jase, come to take them away from this enchanted place that was, per chance, her Armageddon.

  Within the walls of the garden a night-bird swooped by on dark wings. Water splashed and danced—a lover’s gift. glittering like fallen moonlight. Bright copper pennies bearing wishes gleamed in a pool of hope.

  Trust. Truth.

  Without one, the second could not be.

  Wishes. Hope.

  Need. A man for a woman. A woman for a man.

  A dream. Only a dream.

  Just for this moment, in this magical place, it had all seemed so clear. So easy. But now, beyond the sheltering walls, Jase waited with his chariot, to take them back to the real world.

  Clouds that seemed to rise out of the water hovered against the horizon. A warning.

  A storm brewed at sea.

  Born as a summer squall, it had moved in fits and starts. Winding, zigging, then zagging. An unpredictable, recalcitrant, Neptunian child of nature, sweeping over the open sea, gathering up its moisture, growing heavy and fecund. Then stalling, at last. A mutant seed, seething, spawning, gorging on its young, sucking more and more into its maw. In murky striations of black upon black, monstrous cells of waiting violence rose in a curiously blank faced wall to the sky.

  The sea before the hovering storm was oily and torpid. The air eerily still, as if the world were becalmed and holding its breath.

  Sails furled and hatches battened, her engines laboring, The Summer Girl plowed through glassy doldrums. Casting another of many worried looks at the sky, Rafe gripped Valentina’s shoulder. “I need to go below to catch the next weather report. Can you manage?”

  Laying her hand over his, she touched him for the first time since they’d said goodbye to Jeb and Nicole and, finally, to Jase. Her night aboard the sloop had been sleepless, the space Rafe had given her worse than lonely. Welcoming the morning, she rejoiced in returning to the mind-numbing rigors of the open sea. Now she would contend with what each brought. “I’ll be fine. The storm is far enough away that we’ll have at least some warning when it begins to move.”

  “Let’s hope we get lucky and it doesn’t move this way.”

  “My fingers are crossed.”

  “If our luck runs out, there’s a chance we can make the island before it hits.” Taking his hand from her shoulder, he glanced again at the sky. “An hour,” he grumbled. “With the engines at top speed, that’s all we need.”

  Leaving the sloop under her command, he went below, and Valentina was alone, surrounded by the empty sea and the prickling foreboding of the storm.

  Like the good ship she was, The Summer Girl needed little attention in calm seas. With only minor adjustments to keep her course, and nothing else to do, time dragged by. Long seconds stretched into longer minutes. From a patch of incongruously blue sky, heat fell like an anvil. Hammering at Valentina, sucking moisture from her as the impending gale had from the sea. Sweat beaded her forehead and trickled in her eyes. Her white shirt was soaked and plastered to her body. The band of her cutoffs had grown stiff with salt, chafing the tender skin at her waist.

  Fully cognizant of the danger, she was oddly grateful for the heat and discomfort, and the mind-numbing drag of time. For a little while she didn’t have to think or feel or face the challenge Jeb Tanner had given her.

  Warning this respite was only temporary and drawing quickly to an end, lightning flashed against the horizon and thunder rolled over the sea. The first hint of wind stirred the air, and a choppy wave rocked the sloop. Before the sea had settled again to the glassy calm, Rafe was there, by Valentina’s side, taking the wheel from her.

  “The storm is moving again. By all reports it’s coming this way. We have two choices, batten down and ride out the worst, or make a run for the island. One is as good or bad as the other.” Rafe faced her squarely. “If we stay, we could be swamped. If we run for it, it will have to be a team effort, each of us wo
rking with the other. Trusting the other.

  “It’s your choice, sweetheart,” he said with a peculiar lack of inflection. “We do as you say.”

  Her choice—a decision that could mean both their lives. Not a test. Trust.

  She couldn’t turn away from it. As he had, she scanned the sky, probing the secrets of the storm, anticipating, judging. “We go,” she said at last, accepting his trust

  “Good.” Rafe’s smile was an exhilarated flash of white in his weather-beaten face. “That’s my lady.”

  Now time that had dragged sped by. Even as they readied for their ordeal, tearing free of its doldrums, the seething storm swept along the water’s surface. The wind whispered about them, then moaned, then howled. The sky darkened, the last of blue obscured. Rain like pelting stones began to fall in gusting sheets.

  Neither Rafe nor Valentina had time to notice the stinging hurt nor did they care. As The Summer Girl ran before the wind, her bow sometimes dipping beneath the surface of the water, sometimes rearing far above it, keeping their course and staying aboard became the primary concern.

  When he shielded her, taking the brunt of a wave that knocked him off his feet and sent him headlong into the path of the swinging boom, Valentina was there to take the wheel and help him to his feet. Fear for him lent her incredible strength even as it clenched like a vise in her breast.

  “You’re hurt,” she cried out her alarm, as his blood mixed with rain and dripped from his forehead and face to his soaked shirt.

  “Just a scratch. Head wounds bleed profusely, and it looks like more than it is because of the water.” Raking an arm across his face he struggled to clear his vision. He made light of his fall, but his moves were deliberate, his tongue clumsy and his eyes glassy from the stunning blow.

  “Sure,” she agreed for the sake of avoiding an argument, with the wind snatching the words from her tips. “Only a scratch. But just in case...” Letting her actions finish for her, she wrapped a length of rope around his waist, then her own and, finally, the base of the helm. Securely anchored, taking the knife belted at her hip, she slashed at the hem of her shirt. ripping and tearing as she fought to keep her balance and their course.

  “We have to keep going, stay ahead,” he managed, sweeping blood and saltwater from his blinded eyes again. “Rough as this is, there’s worse behind it.”

  “We will,” she vowed with a desperate determination. “This was my decision and I won’t betray a trust again.”

  Returning the knife to its sheath, and risking taking her hands from the wheel, she grasped his wrists, guiding his hands to grip where hers had been. He was groggy, but instinct and the strength of desperation were still there, in his arms, in his hands. “Hold it,” she shouted against his ear to keep the sound from being lost to the wind.

  “Just like this.” She curled his fingers tighter around the wheel. “Just for a minute.”

  He didn’t respond, but she felt the muscles flex as he took control of the sloop. As quickly as she could, she looped the ragged length of shirttail around his forehead, tying it tightly to guard the wound and hold back the flow of blood.

  The contrast of ragged, jagged white angled over his darkened skin and the soaked black cap of his hair was startling. And no less so when it began to stain with scarlet. He could easily have been the thief or the pirate of his teasing lovemaking. As she stared at him, nerves still taut and keening with the sudden surge of alarm, she suspected he was all in one—the one who had captured her heart.

  Fear for him made her realize how much she cared. How much she wished dreams tossed into a pool with the ransom of a penny could come true.

  But there was no time for dreams or wishes. A second wave climbed from the sea. A towering, frothing monster blocking out the world as it curved up and over them, catching The Summer Girl in its curl. Together Rafe and Valentina withstood its force. Gasping and coughing, starved lungs battling to catch a wisp of air, they clung to the wheel and each other in its subsiding wrath.

  The storm was a whirling demon, circling, attacking, circling again. The wind howled. It screamed The bow dipped and reared over rough surf. Wave after wave pounded at them, drenching, choking. There was nothing to be done but stand together, one lending strength to the other, keeping their course.

  Their lives lay in the hands of fate and the endurance of The Summer Girl.

  Time crept. Each minute was timeless. But each was precious, a passage bringing them closer to their goal. For that they persisted.

  Valentina grew weary, her arms leaden. Her mind was so dulled to anything but the telescoping effort of survival she was only aware that Rafe bad called her name, when he lifted her face in his palm.

  “Look, O’Hara!” Rain ran in rivulets down his face. His bandage was crimson, his eye beginning to bruise, but he was laughing. “We made it.”

  “Eden?” Her heart quickening, eyes straining, at first she saw nothing. Then, gradually, a nebulous form began to take shape. The island lay like a mirage in a circle of gray, the sky and sea the same, with no end and no beginning. Only a blazing line of lights along its shore distinguished the land, drawing them to it.

  “Hattie!” Rafe exclaimed. “She knew we’d be coming, riding before the worst of the storm. She knew we would need the lights.”

  “How could she?” Valentina clung to the helm, with rain and froth from the sea washing about her.

  “She has her ways. You’ll see.”

  “I think for now I’ll just accept that she does, and be thankful.”

  “So will I.” Recovered, his head clear, taking sole control, he brought the sloop around in a gradual shift of course. “We’ll be safe now, O’Hara. The harbor lies on the leeward side of the island. Once there, we can ride out the worst. When it’s done, we’ll have our time together in Eden.”

  Valentina made no reply as she stepped aside. Even as The Summer Gill made the final turn to the leeward side of the island, she said nothing.

  The rage of the storm was still around her. The rage of fear for Rafe still within her. Not even the daze of overwhelming fatigue nor the relative calm of the shielding harbor of Eden could quiet it.

  Eleven

  Sunlight slanted through the open slats of plantation shutters. Broken by bars of shadow it fell over Valentina’s bed. Beyond an open door and a balcony that overlooked the shore, palmettoes rustled in the morning breeze. Their clacking fronds a natural accompaniment for the melodic cadence of the whispering sea.

  With the heartbeat of the island sounding music in her ears, with the sun warming her face, she stirred and yawned and purred like a sated kitten. In all her adult life she couldn’t remember feeling this contented, this comfortable.

  “Eden,” she mused as she drowsed. “Where the real world and its troubles cease to exist”

  “Oh, they exist, honey girl. Eden just offers respite for a while.” The reply was rich and decisive beneath a hint of fond laughter.

  Clambering from the covers, leaning against a mound of pillows she’d tossed aside, Valentina blinked and focused her heavy-lidded eyes. And found herself looking sleepily into a beaming, friendly face. “Hattie.” Her voice was husky, bluesy, from the length and depth of her slumber. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were there.”

  “No need to be sorry for anything on Eden, honey girl.” A vase of the day’s fresh flowers in her hand, Hattie Boone moved from the open doorway into the spacious room. Her steps were unhurried and lazy. An impression she projected in all things, until one realized how much she accomplished and how quickly.

  “Were you waiting for me to wake?” Casting a glance at the small clock by her bedside, Valentina was appalled at the late hour. “Ten! Good heavens, you must think I’m a laggard to lie in bed so long.”

  “No such thing.” The flowers were placed on a credenza of hand rubbed cherry, replacing yesterday’s arrangement that had been removed while Valentina slept. “Eden sets the pace each of us needs. It always has. And what I
think is that you have years of rest and peace to catch up. Does my heart good to see you lying there, sleeping away the troubles that were weighing you into the ground.”

  “But my troubles, great or small, should be no reason to interrupt your schedule, keeping you from your work.”

  “Keep me from my work.” A chuckle erupted from the depths of a massive bosom. A small sphere suspended there by a ribbon of black satin jostled and bumped over great swells, adding music of its own to the day. “You and that black-haired rapscallion are my work. And if you haven’t discovered that I love every minute of it, you aren’t half so clever as I thought.”

  It was true, Hattie did love her work. Any visitor to Eden could see that she did, in every move, every gesture. Even so, there was no need to bring disorder to her routine. Putting right the tangle of her clothing, Valentina sighed. “Clever or not, I shouldn’t lie abed keeping you from the rest of your day.”

  “You are the rest of my day,” Hattie scolded happily. “And who’s to say that whiling away a little time on the balcony is a waste of my time?” Squared shoulders lifted in decisive emphasis. To the trill of the sphere, gaudy earrings of shells and stones swayed against her throat. Lucifer, the tiny monkey that was her ever-present companion, chattered and complained and clung to her blouse to keep his balance on her shoulder.

  Every minute was precious to Hattie. And every act she counted an enrichment of her life, be it tallying the twinkles of a star, smelling a flower, or watching the curling waves wash over the shore.

  “To be truthful, I was hoping you would sleep longer, may-hap waking with a better appetite after your long fast.” Dark, kohl-lined eyes swept over Valentina’s body as it made hardly a ripple beneath the sheets of a bed best described as immense. “You could use a pound or two. You have good bones and a good body, but you do look a tad skinny lying there, you know.”