The Lightkeeper

by Susan Wiggs

  But he stopped when he reached the door. Without turning, he knew she was still patiently watching him, letting him take the lead now that she had poured salt on the raw wounds of his grief. Damn her to hell.

  “After Emily’s death,” he heard himself say, “I thought time would heal the sadness. Isn’t that the way it works? A man is widowed. He grieves, then his life goes on.” He turned to find her looking at him, as he had known she would be. “After twelve years, I have my doubts.”

  He glowered at the hearth, now littered with shards of glass. “When Emily was with me, I lived as if I had all the time in the world. I left things undone, things unsaid. Now I do have all the time in the world, and I spend it alone. Thinking of all I should have done.” He plowed a hand through his hair. “I just needed her one last time,” he finished. “Damn it, why couldn’t I have had just one moment of warning?”

  “Do you really think that would have made a difference?” She rose from the settle and crossed the room. She was going to touch him. He knew it, and he knew better than to allow it. Yet when her hand came up, brushed at his hair, then settled in cool comfort on his cheek, he didn’t pull away. “What you said or failed to say could never change anything. You can heal if you’ll let yourself feel again.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because what you believe isn’t helping.”

  “You’re assuming that healing is something I want.”

  “It is something you need, Jesse Morgan, for without it, you’re a dead man.”

  “Exactly,” he said coldly. He closed his hand around her wrist and moved it away from him.

  “Turning your back on the world is wrong. And I can show you how wrong it is. But you’ve got to trust me.”

  “You’re tired,” he said, unwilling to let her probe deeper, to get closer to his wounds with the acid of her observations. It occurred to him that he had lived more and felt more in the past hour than he had in the past twelve years. “Go to bed,” he said in his most dismissive tone. “I’ll clean up here.”

  He took a long time sweeping up the broken glass. She stood watching him, not moving. Was she wondering whether or not to fight him on this front, as well? For some reason, his gaze strayed southward to the slight mound of her belly, where the baby grew.

  A terrible longing rose inside him. Until tonight, he’d had no idea that he had the capacity to feel the things Mary made him feel. He thought all those feelings had died with Emily. Yet here they were again, born like a bonfire in his heart, making him hurt, making him hope.

  Scaring the hell out of him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next morning, Mary lay abed. She stared at the ceiling, noting the pattern in the plastered beams and listening to the skylarks and water thrushes outside. The birds started each day with an argument, calling across the yard to each other. Soon, when the hawks and eagles began to circle on the hunt, the songbirds would fall silent.

  She closed her eyes and wondered where the songbirds went when they weren’t singing. A moment later she left off birds and started thinking of Jesse. Again. And always. Everything had changed between them last night, of that she was certain.

  A pleasant fluttering stirred inside her, and she smiled. The babe was growing larger and more active by the day. Before long, she’d be as big as a house. Her smile faltered. She remembered how Jesse had looked at her just before he’d said good-night. His gaze shifted downward, had taken in the swell formed by the growing baby. In his eyes, she had seen...what? Anticipation? Dread? Curiosity? She could not be sure.

  She knew it was asking a lot, expecting Jesse to accept a stranger’s child. But that was exactly the way it must be. It was what she dreamed of.

  She sat up straight, her eyes open, her heart pounding. She had her answer. The desire and need she had hidden—even from herself-had finally made themselves known.

  At last she was able to admit the truth. All her lofty thoughts about fulfilling her destiny, helping Jesse to heal from his age-old grief—all of that was only so much blather. An excuse to hide what she really yearned for. She wanted to stay here forever with Jesse Morgan. She wanted to raise her child here. She wanted to love Jesse. And sweet saints, with an ache so sharp that she winced, she wanted him to love her.

  “Foolish baggage,” she muttered under her breath as she rose and washed and cleaned her teeth. “He’s a rude beast who lives alone, licking his wounds. What in heaven’s name does he need with the likes of you? And remember, you gave your heart to the last man who saved you, and see how that ended.”

  She brushed out her hair in quick, vicious strokes that gradually slowed as she lost herself in remembrances of the night before. Jesse had brushed her hair. She thought about the sensual, lingering strokes, the intimacy of his hand touching her head, trailing the length of her hair. She remembered the sensation of his gaze caressing her so frankly that she felt as if he’d actually touched her. Perhaps there was hope for them if only Jesse could let go of the past. He had to learn to believe that loving did not always mean pain and loss.

  Mary had come out of nowhere, a woman the age Emily had been when he’d lost her. Emily had been pregnant when he’d lost her. Mary had been pregnant when he’d found her. No wonder he saw her as a threat.

  She wanted him to see her as a promise.

  After helping herself to breakfast, she tugged on a shawl and went outside to see her garden. Purple lobelia rioted over the verges of the path, and the roses raised sunny faces skyward. The beauty of the landscape caught at her. It was a high miracle indeed that she’d found such a place as this, a place where the greens were so green it made her eyes smart, where the shape of the land meeting the sea created an odd, painful ecstasy in her chest.

  She hurried across the yard, heading for the lighthouse. Jesse was working outside, filing the worn edge of a metal flywheel. A carelessly twisted leather strap held back his long, dark hair, and his hands wielded the file rhythmically, almost hypnotically. How faithful he was to his duty. How unrelenting.

  After what he had told her about his wife, Mary was beginning to understand. He lived alone by choice, deeply afraid of the sea, yet determined to do battle with it. Each time he safely guided a ship to harbor, it represented a small triumph. Each time he pulled a victim to safety, it gave him revenge against the gray widow-maker.

  Driven by his loss, he was manic in his compulsion to keep the lighthouse burning. Yet not even his daring rescues had healed his grieving heart. She suspected he clung to his grief because it was familiar; it was all that he knew. Her intrusion into his world had disrupted that pattern.

  Risking his life at the edge of the sea would not make him whole again. There was only one thing that could accomplish that. He might not know it, but that one thing was love.

  She hurried up the path toward him. “Soft day,” she remarked, speaking to his back as he bent over his clamps and vises.

  “Is it?” he asked. How fine he looked, with his shirt stretched across his broad, strong shoulders and the sunlight glinting in his hair.

  “Oh, aye. A bit of mist in the air might bring the selkies out to play. The selkies are seal people, you know.”

  He stopped working and glanced up at her. She tried to read his face. Sun sparkled in his eyes like a flame reflecting off blue ice, but beyond that he wore no expression she could discern.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, then went back to work.

  Mary smiled at him, though he was no longer looking at her. As heartfelt declarations went, “uh-huh” fell a bit low on the scale, but it was more than he would have said to her a week ago, and less than he would say next week.

  A shiver coursed through her at the thought of a future here. With him. People would think she’d run mad, wanting to stay with a lonely, solitary man at the edge of the world, but it felt right. She was ha
ppy here. She hadn’t been happy with—He swore and she jumped.

  He glared down at his bleeding hand.

  “Jesse!” She took his wrist and studied the angry gash across the palm. “Dear God, your hand!”

  “Never mind that.” He yanked a handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped his hand. “The gear is broken. I’ll have to go to town and have it forged at the smith’s.”

  “And we’ll get someone to look after your hand. Dr. MacEwan, is it?”

  “We?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow. His face was a shade pale, and she suspected the injury hurt worse than he admitted. Already the handkerchief had turned crimson.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Fine. You can take a room at the Palace Hotel—”

  “That is not what I meant!” She felt cold with panic. “I intend to stay with you, Jesse, and you’d be mean and horrid entirely to cast me out. I’ll go to the town with you. But I’m coming back here.”

  “It’s too dangerous for you to ride in your—” He interrupted himself and suddenly seemed to find great fascination in the soaked handkerchief around his hand. He would not even speak of her pregnancy, would not even acknowledge it. But the present moment was hardly the time to confront him about that. “We’ll take the buggy,” she said.

  “The sawyers haven’t finished moving the tree from across the road.”

  “We’ll go by boat. We’ll take the pilot sloop you keep in the boathouse.”

  He fell still as if a sudden frost had turned his entire being to ice. The only thing alive was his eyes, and they burned hot and bright with pure fury. “No,” he said.

  Baffled, she cocked her head. “Sure and the sloop’s as seaworthy as a tarred barrel. ’Tis an innocent enough suggestion. Why are you acting this way?”

  “We’ll not take the boat.” He flung aside the metal file. Like a knife, it stuck into the soft ground, the shaft vibrating with the force of his action. He struck out down the path, heading straight for the barn.

  But just for a moment, she had seen it. The emotion had flickered so quickly across his face that she fancied she had imagined it, but Mary knew she had guessed the truth.

  Jesse was afraid to go to sea.

  An odd thought, that, since he was so fearless when it came to riding into the surf to rescue people. But the very mention of setting sail in a boat had terrified him.

  Ah, Jesse, what thoughts have haunted you all these twelve years?

  She wanted to ask him, but given his present mood, she thought better of it. In the barn, he was already busy hitching the two-wheeled buggy to Aramis, the smallest of the four horses. He worked with brisk, economical movements. Without turning to look at her, he said, “If the road’s not clear, I’ll bring you back.”

  “And if the sawyers have finished?”

  “You can come.”

  She stayed in the shadows of the barn with a secret smile playing about her mouth. Bit by bit, she was coming to know Jesse’s world, to learn its rhythms and nuances, to see the different facets of it. And bit by bit, she was coming to love it here. The trip to town would simply make her even more a part of his life.

  * * *

  He should never have let her come along.

  In the buggy, Jesse glanced sideways at his relentlessly perky companion and stifled a sigh. He had no force of will where she was concerned. Now, why was that? In twelve years, no one had penetrated his indifference. No one had convinced him to do anything he didn’t feel like doing. And now, in a matter of days, Mary Dare had taken over his life. He didn’t like it.

  But perhaps bringing her to Ilwaco was the best choice he could make. She’d see the advantage to living in town. For someone who talked as much as she did, she ought to get along just fine in the village.

  She sat with her head thrown back, letting the wind pluck strands of red hair from her thick braid. The woman was a beauty; no mistaking that. She was part of his trial by fire, he decided. Part of his punishment.

  He thought for a moment about Palina and Magnus and the tale they had told. If he let Mary go, disaster would follow. He was a rational man. He refused to believe in portents. And if Mary freely chose to stay in town, he was surely released of his obligation.

  “It’s so lovely here,” she said, her gaze sweeping the open, marshy area and the cluster of brightly painted houses in the distance. “Truly, this is a magical place.”

  He gave the landscape a cursory glance. The road had been cleared; the sawyers had gotten through the huge trunk of the fir that had fallen across the road. The smell of fresh-cut wood hung sharp and pleasant in the air.

  “Prettier than Ireland?” he asked idly.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ireland will take your breath away, with all the smooth green hills and sheer cliffs and the leaping sea. Ballinskelligs is a bit like this, only without the trees.” She put her hand on his sleeve. “I like it better here.”

  He pretended to adjust the reins so he could pull away. He flexed his wounded hand, hoping the bleeding had stopped. Damn the woman, she was always touching him as if it were her right.

  He liked her touch.

  The thought barreled into him, swift and unexpected. Instantly he closed his mind, choking off the idea. She was unwanted baggage in his life. The sooner he got rid of her, the better.

  “Jesse, look!” Mary practically stood up in the buggy, pointing off to the right where the great marshes spread out. In the strong light of a high noonday sun, the great bogs glowed bloodred. “Who are those people?”

  “The Siwash,” he said, watching the distant figures bent over in the wild bogs. “They’re working in the cranberry bogs.”

  She gripped the black enameled rail of the buggy and stared. “Indians? Wild Indians?”

  Jesse almost smiled. “If you’re expecting an attack by bloodthirsty savages with hatchets, these folks won’t fit the mold. Whoa.” He drew back and stopped the buggy at the side of the bog. One of the workers spied him and waved an arm. Picking his way through the knee-deep water, he revealed bare feet that seemed impervious to the chilly bog water.

  “Jesse Morgan!” he called, then in Chinook, said, “You are too much of a stranger. Many greetings.”

  “Greetings to you, too, Abel Sky,” Jesse said in the same language. He had learned enough Chinook to converse lightly with the natives and to trade with them. Abel Sky was a man of middle years, with a fit body, a lively mind and several plump wives.

  He grinned up at Jesse, revealing gaps where teeth were missing and a mischievous gleam in his eyes. He wore a felt hat sideways; it was the only way to fit over his broad forehead, which had been flattened in infancy by a papoose board.

  His leather apron and beaded bark vest made a stark contrast with his natty hat and tattered tail coat. “I thought you would never get around to taking a woman, Boston,” Abel Sky said, switching to English. He called all white men “Boston.”

  “I haven’t taken—”

  “How do you do?” Mary broke in, her face nearly as red as the stems and tiny leaves of the berry plants. “My name is Mary Dare.”

  “Mary Dare.” He took off his hat and bowed as grandly as any gentleman. “Abel Sky likes this hair of flame.” Without warning, he reached up and grabbed her braid.

  She gave a little squeak of fear.

  Jesse suppressed a chuckle. Abel Sky was a big tease and always had been.

  “If I were to trade for this Boston’s scalp,” Abel Sky said, “I could buy much tick-tocks and jewelry.”

  Moving with surprising speed, Mary grabbed his wrist and twisted it until he let go of her hair. “Just you try it, boyo.”

  Abel Sky cradled his wrist in mock agony. “She is a devil woman! Where did you find such a dev—” At that moment, he noticed Mary’s ripe shape. His wris
t and offense forgotten, he grinned wider than ever. “Hey, Boston, you are a sneaking dog in the night! You—”

  “We’d best be going,” Jesse said. Good God. They hadn’t even gotten to the edge of town, and already the awkwardness was starting, the speculation. He was an idiot to think there could be anything easy about having Mary Dare in his life.

  Both she and Abel Sky seemed oblivious to his discomfiture. They were laughing together, and Abel Sky handed her a small pouch of dried and sweetened cranberries. She eyed him inquisitively, though not with the fearful distrust most white settlers showed the Siwash. Before Jesse was able to pry her away, Abel Sky had invited her to the tribe’s settlement, promising her a taste of alder-smoked salmon and oysters. She asked him about his wives and children, listening intently as he described his eldest son’s prowess at handling a high-nosed, seagoing canoe. In one conversation, Mary Dare learned more about the diminutive Siwash than Jesse had in twelve years of knowing him.

  They finally took their leave and soon came to First Street, paved with planking and dominated by the Ilwaco Mill and Lumber Company. Huge floating logs, denuded of bark and branches, filled the waterfront and the area around the piers.

  Mary spotted the side-wheeler T. J. Potter at anchor awaiting the tide. “I’ve never been on a steamer,” she remarked. As much as she talked, Mary Dare said very little about herself. Jesse supposed he should be grateful. The less he learned, the less it would matter when she left.

  Her eyes were bright and hungry as she looked around the town. Along with the side-wheeler, fishing vessels and lumber barges crowded the harbor. Businesses lined the street; shoppers and tradesmen hurried along the boardwalks. A businessman in a dove-gray suit stood on the walkway. As the buggy rolled past, the bespectacled man smoothed his hand over his thinning hair. Then he took a pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped it open and shut, open and shut, a nervous habit. A strolling couple, pristine and resplendent in tennis whites, came out of the Palace Hotel.