by Jody Hedlund
The whole exchange left her confused and just a little breathless. And when Patrick peeked from beneath his lashes at her as if to gauge her reaction to Holy Bill’s suggestion, she realized she couldn’t object. She didn’t want to start off their relationship by refusing a kiss at their wedding.
She lifted her face to Patrick. Her stomach did several funny flops at the thought of him pressing his lips against hers. He stared at his boots and dug a hole in the sand with the toe of one.
What if he didn’t want to kiss her? Maybe he was still grieving over Delia and couldn’t imagine having to kiss anyone else. Or maybe he didn’t find her attractive enough to kiss.
Should she turn away and object, saving him the embarrassment of having to reject her?
She started to lower her face, but then he jerked his head up, reached swiftly for her cheeks, and cupped his hands on either side, the tips of his fingers brushing against her hair. Determination mingled with his flushed embarrassment as he stared directly at her mouth.
Her breath caught in her throat.
When he bent his head closer to hers, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but wait. His breath hovered above her lips for a long moment, and she almost believed he wouldn’t do it, that he couldn’t.
Then, gingerly, his mouth met hers.
Her eyes closed, and her heart nearly stopped. She savored the gentle intimacy. The sweetness of his touch was like nothing she’d ever known before.
But it was over before it had a chance to begin. Before she could respond, before she could give in to her body’s sudden longing to kiss him back, he pulled his face away and stepped back.
She wanted to lift her fingers to her mouth, to trap the warmth and the memory of his lips there, but didn’t want to cause any more awkwardness between them.
Holy Bill grinned and slapped Patrick on his back again. Patrick only ducked his head.
“What in the name of all that’s holy is going on?” called a voice from farther up the shore.
She swiveled in time to see Ryan charging down the beach toward them like an angry bull.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered.
Ryan flew toward Patrick, his fists balled and raised. “Did I just see you kissing my sister?”
Patrick had stiffened at the sight of Ryan’s fists, but he didn’t move. Unlike Holy Bill, who sprang out of her brother’s path.
“I’ve never let any man take advantage of my sister,” Ryan said, almost shouting now. His eyes were wild, his face flushed with anger. “Rescuer or no, I’m not going to stand back and let you get away with this!”
“Ryan, stop!” she said.
But it was too late. Ryan leaped at Patrick. Even though her brother was lankier than the lightkeeper, he was no weakling. His fist connected with Patrick’s jaw with a crack that reverberated through Emma, rattling her down to her bones.
“Don’t hit him!” she cried.
Ryan then took a swing at Patrick’s gut. His fist bounced off the man like a wave hitting a rock. Patrick didn’t move, didn’t even blink.
Ryan heaved a breath and swiped his sleeve across his forehead. Dust coated his cheeks, and his hair stuck to his head where his hat had been. He’d obviously been working hard, while she’d been sitting in the sun trying to get warm and dry.
Guilt prodded her forward. “Please, Ryan, I can explain.”
But he lunged at Patrick again and struck him in the chin. “No one touches my sister, do you hear me?”
Patrick’s head swayed at the impact, and he gritted his teeth.
Was the man just going to stand there and let Ryan beat him without defending himself?
Patrick’s eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared. As Ryan pulled back his arm to level another punch, Patrick stiffened but didn’t raise a hand to block the blow.
She darted between the men, spread her arms, and glared at Ryan. “Ryan Chambers, you stop hitting my husband this instant!”
Ryan froze, his arm upraised and poised for another punch at Patrick’s face. “Your husband?”
It had felt as strange saying the word husband as it did hearing it come from Ryan. Behind her, the warmth of Patrick’s torso radiated into her, reminding her of how near she stood to him.
“Aye. We were married just now by Holy Bill.” If she turned, she’d be standing mere inches away, as close as they’d been only moments ago when he’d kissed her for the first time.
“You went and got yourself married?” Ryan dropped his fist, and his shoulders sagged.
“It seemed like the perfect solution to our troubles,” she said.
He jammed his fingers into his sandy hair, making pieces of it stick out like twigs. “I had the situation under control. You didn’t need to go and do a thing like this.”
“Emma’s right,” Holy Bill said, cutting in. “It’s the perfect solution for these two people.”
“It’s not perfect,” Ryan said. “My sister’s married to a stranger now. He could be a criminal for all we know.”
At Ryan’s words, Patrick flinched.
Holy Bill shook his head. “No matter Patrick’s past, you have no worries, sonny. I’ve met a lot of men during my years as a traveling minister, and I have to say there aren’t many as fine as Patrick here. Your sister has got herself the best husband any woman could ask for.”
“And what makes you the expert?” Ryan asked.
Emma gasped. “Ryan, please—”
“Haven’t I always taken good care of you, Em?”
“Aye, that you have. A very good job. But now it’s time for you to live your own life without me holding you back.”
“You’re not holding me back.”
“You could do so much more if you didn’t have to worry about me.”
“I don’t mind worrying about you, Em.” His features tightened in earnestness. “I’ll worry about you even more now that you’re married to God-knows-who.”
“I promise to take good care of her,” Patrick said.
Ryan glared at him. “You’d better. If I find out you’re not treating her right, I’ll beat you senseless.”
Patrick nodded. “If your sister isn’t happy at the lighthouse, I won’t hold her to our agreement.”
Ryan started as if he would spout off more threats, but as Patrick’s words sank in, he stopped. “You’ll let her leave if she wants to?”
Patrick nodded again.
Emma didn’t understand what Patrick was saying. They were married. It was official. They couldn’t change that now, except by divorce. And she wasn’t planning on that. Happy or not, she was bound to him. They’d just spoken the words for better or worse, until death parted them.
A shout resounded across the beach. Near the edge of the clearing, Mr. Burnham was motioning to Ryan.
“I have to go,” Ryan said. “I asked Fred for a break to check on you, and he only gave me five minutes.”
“That’s not long enough,” she said, directing a frown at the big man wiping the back of his neck with a red-checkered handkerchief.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Em,” Ryan said.
Exactly, she wanted to tell him. She’d felt the same way about her marriage prospects, which was why she’d wedded Patrick. But instead of arguing, she swept her brother into an embrace. “I’m going to the lighthouse now.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’ll be out to visit you as soon as I get some time off.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” She clung to him. Even with all her brave words, an ache moved into her throat. This was it. She was finally setting her brother free, and deep inside she knew it was past time to do so.
“After my hard work keeping the men away from you these past few years,” he said, his voice gruff near her ear. “I can’t believe I left you for a few hours and you ended up married.”
She pulled back. “You kept the men away?”
“I threatened to beat up anyone who came calling. I didn’t want any of them taking advantag
e of my sister.”
Had Ryan’s scare tactics been part of the reason she’d had so little attention from suitors? She didn’t know what to say, whether to laugh, cry, or scold him. So instead she said nothing and tugged him into another embrace.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he whispered.
She nodded and squeezed her brother tighter. Right or wrong, rash or not, she was married now. She’d just have to make the best of her new situation. And hope that she hadn’t made the worst mistake of her life.
Chapter 5
Patrick plunged the oars in and then heaved them up, the water rolling off in a peaceful rhythm. Rowing was such a familiar act, something he could do in his sleep. With the sun shining over him and a breeze caressing his body, he’d already slackened to a restfulness he hadn’t experienced in over a week.
If he closed his eyes, he’d be asleep within seconds. But he had to stay awake a few more minutes until they reached the lighthouse.
“Fishy?” Josiah’s steady stream of questions was the only thing keeping him awake. Except for once, the questions weren’t directed at him. Instead, the boy sat next to Emma in the bow and had chattered with her nonstop.
“Oh, I like that one.” Emma peered over the edge of the cutter. “It’s more colorful than the last one.”
“Fishy fast.” Josiah waved his hand in imitation of the way the fish swam.
Emma had her arm around the boy in a protective gesture, drawing him away from the edge whenever he started to hang over too far.
Thank you, Father. Tonight, when he was tending the light, he’d make sure to pour out his gratitude, but for now in his exhaustion the short prayer would have to do. He drew in a deep breath and let the cool air drive away the sleepy fog threatening his eyelids.
“There’s another,” Emma said, pointing into the water, her voice tinged with delight.
She wasn’t pretending to enjoy the fish watching with Josiah. Her face radiated enthusiasm, and Josiah seemed to be glowing under her attention. Already in the short time since they’d left Burnham’s Landing, Emma was proving to be a better mom than Delia had ever been.
Of course, he couldn’t fault Delia too much. She’d done the best she could under the circumstances and considering the fact that she’d been an only child and had never been around babies. But the truth was, Josiah hadn’t shown any signs of missing her in the past twenty-four hours since she’d died. He doubted the boy understood that she was gone, since she’d never really been all that present in his life anyway.
He supposed that was why he’d been able to agree to Holy Bill’s suggestion that he marry Emma. He’d watched her brief interactions with Josiah, the kindness she’d shown his boy when she’d folded the paper, the gentle way she talked on his level. She possessed a warmth and tenderness that Delia never had.
Patrick dug the oars deeper and silently berated himself for his negative thoughts. Delia might not have been the best mother, but he couldn’t fault her knowledge of the lighthouse. Besides, maybe Emma wouldn’t be quite so warm once she got to know him better.
Even though he was trying to keep guilt from slithering up, it was hissing at the back of his mind. At the moment of the wedding, he’d accepted Emma’s polite statement about leaving the past behind them. But now he couldn’t keep from questioning exactly how much Holy Bill had told Emma about his past crimes. Probably not enough or she wouldn’t have been so willing to marry him.
He steered the boat toward the bend of the harbor, to the bottom of the isthmus that the French explorers had named Presque Isle, meaning almost an island.
“Oh, look!” Emma stared between the spruce and pine. “The lighthouse.”
Rising above the dark spires was the whitewashed stone tower with the lantern room gracing the top like a polished jewel. The entire structure was conical in shape and was almost forty feet high. The size was somewhat short and squat compared to the seventy-five-foot tower Delia’s father managed at Fort Gratiot.
Even if Presque Isle Light wasn’t as tall as most other lighthouses, it had been built on an elevated area, so that it could illuminate the mouth of the harbor for vessels traveling either from the north or south.
Like the other lighthouses spread out along the Michigan coastline, it had been built to help ships navigate the treacherous inland lake and diminish the all-too frequent accidents.
“It’s lovely.” Emma tossed him a smile over her shoulder.
He nodded. Yet having been built almost twenty years ago, the structure was in poor condition when he and Delia had arrived last summer. And now after the harsh winter, there was always something that needed fixing.
“The keeper’s dwelling is next to the tower,” he said, glimpsing the building through the trees. Though it wasn’t connected to the tower like many keeper dwellings, he thought the house sufficient enough; it had kept them safe and dry during the past winter.
Emma strained to see the house. He wasn’t sure he wanted to witness her reaction. Delia hadn’t liked it, had thought it too small. Of course, she hadn’t wanted to move to Presque Isle. She wanted him to wait for a better keeper position, something more prestigious like her father’s instead of a tiny lighthouse in the remote wilderness. The fact that Delia’s cousin, Bertha Burnham, lived nearby had been the only consolation.
He steered his boat toward the dock. The shore here was dotted with boulders, brush, and wildflowers, similar to the rest of the shore that surrounded the harbor.
When the cutter bumped against the planks, Emma grabbed on and maneuvered the boat closer. She didn’t wait for him to secure the cutter before climbing out. She lifted Josiah and, instead of putting him down on the dock, hoisted him to one of her hips, all while staring in fascination at the keeper’s cottage that sat back away from the water’s edge on a grassy patch of land.
Josiah wrapped his arms around Emma’s neck and allowed her to carry him down the dock and onto the shore. She started up the path through the brush and rocks, carrying Josiah as if that were the most natural action in the world.
Panic momentarily panged through Patrick’s chest. The house was in disorder, the laundry in piles, the dishes unwashed. He’d had no time to tend to ordinary household chores since Delia had fallen down the winding tower stairway and had hovered between life and death for nearly a week. It had been all he could do to take care of Delia, watch Josiah, and keep the light burning at night.
With fumbling fingers he tied up the boat and then sprinted up the path to the keeper’s dwelling. “Wait,” he called, but Emma had already opened the front door and was stepping inside.
He bounded after her and nearly ran into her as he entered the front hall. She peeked into the sitting room that doubled as his office. The curtains were wide open, and sunshine spilled across his untidy desk, his logbooks, and the many other journals and records the board required him to update on a daily basis about the weather, storms, purchases, and shipwrecks.
He was behind with logging information from the past week and now had even more to add with the steamer going down last night.
Emma examined the room, which contained his desk, positioned under the window for the natural light, a fireplace, and two chairs facing it—a rocker and a stuffed chair that was faded and worn. She glanced at his basket of neglected whittling, the several items he’d been carving, and tools. Other than that, the room was as sparsely furnished as the day he’d moved in. There wasn’t a rug on the floor or a picture on the wall.
“Sorry it’s so neglected,” he said.
She surprised him by smiling. “It’s beautiful.”
Josiah was chattering again, his little voice echoing off the bare walls.
Emma murmured to him as she crossed the hallway to the open door of the front bedroom. The curtains were closed, but even so, the sunlight streamed through the crack of calico and illuminated the clothes he’d left strewn on the floor and the unmade bed.
He stepped into the room, swiped up sev
eral items, and tossed them onto a bigger pile of dirty clothes in the corner. He shoved aside the clutter on the top of the chest of drawers and placed her bag there.
“Feel free to rearrange things to make space for your belongings,” he said. She apparently didn’t have much. Even so, he wanted her to feel at home now.
She averted her eyes, but not before he caught sight of the embarrassment that flooded them.
He looked at the bed before him, and his entire body leaned toward it, his knees weakening, his eyes faltering. Exhaustion hit him with the force of a November gale.
“Josiah can show you the rest of the house, can’t you, lad?”
Josiah nodded and tugged on Emma’s hand. “Show my bed.”
She seemed almost relieved to move away from the bedroom.
Patrick stumbled toward the bed, not bothering to shed his shoes or coat. He was already half asleep on his feet. Then he remembered to call after her, “Would you wake me by seven o’clock if I’m not already up?”
She stopped and gave him a shy glance over her shoulder. “Of course.”
Without another thought, he closed the distance to the bed, fell across the thin mattress, and was asleep before his head could find a pillow.
Emma swept the kitchen floor, wishing for the broom she’d fixed that morning at the Burnham cabin. The spindly broken bristles on the one she held were useless. Still, she’d had no trouble making a mound of dirt.
“Sweep, sweep?” Josiah asked from his high chair at the table, where she’d finally positioned him with a couple of items from the depleted sideboard—a wedge of cheese and dried beef jerky. She’d also found a tin half full of flour, a small can of baking soda, and a crock of lard. But since she hadn’t known what to do with them, she’d resorted to a simple meal. Fortunately, Josiah didn’t seem to mind the plain fare.
It was almost time to wake Patrick. She’d peeked in on him on a couple of occasions and he’d been in the same position each time, sprawled across the bed where he’d collapsed, his feet dangling over the edge. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, she would have thought him dead.
