The Sea Star
Page 29
“Susanna.” Augusta took her hand and held it firmly in hers. “I want you to prepare yourself.”
Susanna drew a sharp breath. Dear God, was he dead? If Jay was dead, her life had no meaning. If Jay was gone, all the love and joy in her heart was gone, too.
“You might be a bit shocked when you see him, Susanna. His head is bandaged and one of his eyes is blackened.”
“He’s alive?” Susanna said, hardly daring to believe it was true.
“Of course he’s alive. Did you think—? Oh, my poor darling!” Augusta embraced her. “I’ll send him in to you at once. Come, Lawrence,” she said briskly to Dr. Griffith. “Let’s leave the lovebirds to themselves.”
She took his arm and swept out of the room with him. A moment later, Jay appeared in the doorway. The white bandage at his temple was a dazzling contrast to the livid discoloration about his right eye. His hair was singed; he badly need a shave. To Susanna he had never looked more handsome.
“Jay,” she whispered and held out her arms to him.
He shut the door behind him. In an instant, he was holding her so tightly that it was difficult for her to breathe.
“Jay, thank heaven you’re safe. I thought I’d never see you again. I thought—”
His mouth stilled her words, his heavenly, vibrantly warm, sensuous mouth. She grew weak in his embrace. Her lips parted and she surrendered her senses to the rapture of his kiss. It was as if he were kissing her for the very first time. She felt numb, totally nerveless, incapable of speech or motion, yet her heart was leaping joyously, and his body close to hers was sending a fire of sensation through every fiber of her being.
When at last he raised his head, she was trembling and breathless. He tried to rise, but she wouldn’t let him go.
“Stay,” she whispered. “Get in bed with me.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said. “It took a supreme effort of will for me to stop kissing you.”
“Kiss me again,” she said, lifting her eager mouth to his. Now that she had him, she wanted never to let him go.
“There.” He kissed the tip of her nose and sat down on the edge of the bed. “That will have to do for now. How are you feeling?”
“How are you feeling?” Tenderly, lovingly, she kissed his bruised eye, then reached up and gingerly touched the bandage at his temple. “Are you badly hurt?”
“No,” he said. “It looks worse than it is. Dr. Griffith had to suture the wound, but—”
“Sutures?” She shuddered. “Oh, Jay.”
“Susanna, it’s not bad at all, honestly. Now tell me how you’re feeling. You frightened the life out of me when I saw you in a dead faint.”
“I frightened you? How do you think I felt when I saw you go into the water? What happened? Who pulled you out?”
“The person I would least expect to do so,” he told her. “Your brother.”
“Dallas saved you?” she said, astonished
“At the risk of his own life, I might add. I didn’t lose consciousness when that lout hit me with his oar, but when I went flying into the water, I was so disoriented that I sank like a stone. Dallas had to dive to quite a depth to fish me out.”
“Oh, Jay,” she said, her eyes filling with happy tears. “Deep down in his heart Dallas must really care for you.”
“I doubt it,” he said wryly. “When we were safely back on shore and I tried to thank him, he said, ‘Save your gratitude, Grainger. If it weren’t for Sunny, I would gladly have let you drown.’”
“He didn’t mean that!”
“Yes, he did,” Jay said with a smile. “And now, he’s got me exactly where he wants me. I owe him a debt that I’ll be repaying for the rest of my life.”
“It’s my debt,” Susanna said, leaning ardently against him. “He saved you for me. He knew how worried I was—” She broke off and said abruptly, “Jay! The fire.”
“It’s out,” he assured her. “The damage has been estimated at over a million dollars, but repairs begin tomorrow morning on the Boardwalk. Nothing can beat this sassy city!” he said, as proudly as if it were his birthplace.
“And the Excelsior?” she said, worried.
“Some minor smoke damage, nothing more. Thomas Edison was right about the reinforced concrete. The Excelsior is the only building in the fire’s path that escaped unscathed. Susanna, I can’t tell you how gratified I feel! If the hotel had been filled with people, no one would have been in danger. Do you realize what that means? Every hotel I build from now on will be absolutely safe from fire.”
She reached out a hand to him. He took it and raised it to his lips. Thank God, she thought gratefully, he has exorcised his demon. She knew he’d never stop blaming himself for the Saint Andrew fire, even though he hadn’t been at fault, but now he could be certain that a similar tragedy would never happen again.
She sat up and faced him. “Jay, about last night... I want to apologize for what I said to you.”
“Apologize? Susanna, you must be suffering from partial amnesia. I’m the one who needs to apologize. After what I did to you—”
“Hush,” she said, laying a finger against his lips. “What you did eventually led to our marrying and having Courtney.”
“Yes, but—”
“You said you didn’t love me at first, but you love me now, am I right?
“That’s true. But, Susanna—”
“Can what you did be so wrong, then? Are you going to apologize for giving me what I’ve always wanted—a loving husband, a beautiful child, another on the way?”
“Susanna, that’s all beside the point. I deceived you from the start. How can you forgive that?”
She paused for courage, then said, “I want to tell you something I thought I’d never admit to anyone. For a time, I was convinced that you’d murdered Alan and Teddy. If you can forgive me for that, I can certainly forgive you for deceiving me.”
To her consternation, he laughed. “Susanna, I know you suspected me—and of course I forgive you.”
“You knew?” she said, shocked.
“Naturally. I was the most logical suspect.” His tone sobered suddenly. “When I learned that Bobby was the murderer, it threw me for a loop.”
“How do you know about Bobby?” Again she was shocked.
“Ford told me a few hours ago. He said he would never have told me if it hadn’t been for you.” Jay sat on the edge of the bed and took her in his arms. “Dallas saved my life because of you, Ford eased my mind because of you. Susanna, Susanna, what would I ever do without you?”
Her arms went around his neck, and she pressed her cheek to his. “That’s something, my dear husband, that you’ll never have to worry about.”
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Sea Star. Copyright © 2001 by Jean Nash. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express permission of ImaJinn Books, Inc.
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