by JoAnn Ross
Dan was upstairs when she moved into the closet of the downstairs bedroom. One of the planks beneath her sneakers creaked, then tilted when she stepped on it. Curious, she turned off her sander, knelt, and, using the putty knife she kept in the new leather tool belt she wore on her hips, she pried up the board.
“Treasure,” she murmured, looking down into a small space that contained what appeared to be personal items. She reached in and pulled out a Bull Durham tobacco bag filled, she discovered, with marbles.
She tugged down her mask. “Dan, come look,” she called out over the roar of the sander’s motor overhead.
He cut it off. She heard his footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Did Henry and Ruth Hyatt ever have children?” he asked as he observed her find.
“Not that I know of.”
“Then they’re probably Henry’s.” Delving deeper into the space, he retrieved a few more items: a top wound with white string, a small model of a clipper ship, complete with yellowed newspaper sails, a stuffed one-eyed brown teddy bear, and a tarnished silver-framed photo of an obviously pregnant woman and small boy.
“Oh, that must be Henry and his mother.”
“That’d be my guess. He was a cute kid.”
“I think he’d hate to hear you say that. But he had been cute,” Savannah agreed. His nearly white blond hair had been cut like the Dutch Boy paint boy, and he was wearing a miniature sailor suit with short pants accessorized by a pair of incongruous cowboy boots and jingly spurs. A wide Huck Finn grin wreathed his freckled face. “From the state of Lucy’s pregnancy, this photo must have been taken shortly before her death.”
Lucy Hyatt’s smile was warmed with intimacy and lit up her eyes in a way that revealed an unmistakable love for whoever was holding the camera. Standing in front of the mother and son was a small fox terrier.
“She looks so happy,” she murmured. “Not at all like a woman who’s planning to run away with her lover.”
“Perhaps her lover is the one holding the camera.”
Upstairs a door slammed, the sudden sound echoing in the empty rooms. The temperature in the house seemed to drop at least ten degrees.
“Must be another storm coming,” Dan said, glancing up toward the ceiling.
“That must be it,” Savannah agreed with a bit more assurance than she was feeling. This was not the first time she’d experienced a strange sense of…something…while working on the lighthouse buildings. Something that defied her facile explanations.
Putting that fanciful thought away, she studied the photograph in more detail. The Far Harbor lighthouse was in the background. “Since I doubt if she would have risked inviting a lover here to the lighthouse, it had to have been her husband who took the picture.”
“I’d guess you’re right. Especially since Henry’s in the picture with her. But if that’s the case, from the way she’s looking at him, you have to wonder why Lucy even took a lover.”
“I guess we’ll never know.” Savannah sighed. She was about to put the board back in place—saving the personal items for Henry—when she realized that there was still one more thing in the space.
The small journal had a cover that was the same dark gray as the shadows in the room, which was what had prevented her from seeing it right away. The yellowed, fragile pages were edged in gilt, and the front page revealed, in a slanted, feminine script, that the book was Lucy Randall Hyatt’s Far Harbor Adventure. Book One.
She looked up at Dan and saw her own excitement reflected in his eyes. “Treasure,” they said together.
They took the book out to the garden bench overlooking the water. There were no workmen scheduled for today, and with John working at the nursery, they were all alone save for the seagulls.
The first entry was headed “Farmersburg, Iowa.” “‘Dear Diary,’” Savannah read. “‘It’s nearly time to leave for the train station. I still cannot quite believe that I’ve chosen to leave my family and travel halfway across the country to a place I’ve never been to marry a man I’ve never met.
“‘But Harlan Hyatt’s letters make me think that he must be a nice and considerate man, and I must admit that his obvious love of his surroundings is contagious. I’ve always wanted to see the sea. Now, in a mere few days, I’ll be living in a lighthouse.’”
Savannah glanced up from the pages. “She must have been a mail-order bride.”
“Sounds like it.” Dan eased back on the bench and put his arm comfortably around her shoulder in a gesture so quick and smooth she almost didn’t see it coming. She went still for a moment but didn’t pull away.
“‘Needless to say, Hannah’s still against what she refers to as “Lucy’s latest act of impulsiveness,” but how could she possibly understand how badly I want to leave Farmersburg? For I know that I would surely suffocate if I were forced to spend the rest of my days living under my sister and brother-in-law’s roof, teaching reading and writing to a classroom of students who’d rather be running free outdoors and playing Aunt Lucy to Hannah’s children into my dotage.
“‘My older sister keeps pointing out that there’s no earthly need for me to travel so far to find a husband. Indeed, I’ve received numerous proposals, most recently from John Hoffman. With her usual eagle eye toward security, Hannah insists a woman could do far worse than marry such a successful hog farmer, but the thought of spending my days and nights living with the smell of pig manure quite honestly makes me gag.’
“Well,” Savannah said, “I can certainly identify with that.”
“Hey, you have to be grateful to pig farmers. After all, a life without smothered pork chops would undoubtedly be a life not worth living.”
“I like a man who knows his priorities,” Savannah said dryly.
He grinned and tugged on the gilded tips of her hair. “Don’t worry. You’re far above pork products on my personal priority list.”
“That’s certainly one of my higher achievements—being ranked above pork products.”
She returned to the journal. “‘As for my other prospects, I’ve grown up with all the men around here. I’ve worked in the fields with them, talked with them on market day, and even danced with many of them at the grange, but there’s not a single one I’d want to put his boots next to my bed. Or his mouth and hands on my body.’”
“Sounds as if Lucy certainly had her priorities right,” Dan murmured.
The warmth of his body so near hers and the crisp tang of male sweat emanating from his skin was causing her mind to create erotic pictures that were awakening needs that Savannah told herself were nothing more than hormonal aberrations. Hoping Lucy would move on to the travelogue part of the story, Savannah ignored the provocative comment and kept on reading.
“‘Of course I haven’t told Hannah this last part for fear of scandalizing her. While she and Jacob may indeed have a full and love-filled marriage, outwardly they’ve always appeared so distant from each other, it’s hard to imagine how my sister managed to conceive three children.
“‘In each of his letters, Harlan warns me that lighthouse life, with its days and sometimes months cut off from civilization, can get lonely and monotonous. Yet his rousing stories of storms and shipwrecks lead me to suppose that he doesn’t begin to know the meaning of monotony. And surely the loneliness I feel surrounded by my family is far worse than any isolation due to geography.’”
“I know that feeling,” Dan surprised her by saying.
Savannah looked up at him. “Me, too,” she admitted. She wondered if he was talking about his marriage, then reminded herself that she wasn’t interested in his relationship with other women, most of all with his ex-wife.
Liar.
“‘Besides,’” she continued, “‘the way Harlan always ends with a witty anecdote suggests he’ll be an amusing companion, and if the photograph accompanying his first letter even remotely resembles his actual countenance, he’s a robust, handsome man. I blush as I write these words and pray that this journal nev
er falls into anyone else’s hands, but such strong, confident features suggest that he will prove a good lover. I only hope that he will find me adequate in that respect, as well.’”
“Hey, you can’t stop there,” Dan complained when she closed the journal. “We were just getting to the good part.”
“That’s all there is.”
“Of course there’s more. They didn’t get Henry by mail order. And she must have liked sex enough to do it at least twice because she was pregnant when she died.”
“It’s the end of the book. Which is just as well, since I was starting to feel like a voyeur.” A hot, shockingly needy voyeur who had begun to tingle in places she hadn’t even realized could tingle.
“If Lucy hadn’t wanted us to find her journal, she wouldn’t have kept it.”
“She didn’t exactly leave it out on the bookshelf in plain sight.”
“True. But she didn’t burn it, either, which would have been the more logical thing to do. Especially if she was about to abandon her husband and son.”
“Leaving Henry has always been the part of the story that’s bothered me,” Savannah said. “I can’t imagine any mother abandoning her child.”
“Not every woman has your nurturing instincts.”
“No.” When Lilith came immediately to mind, Savannah breathed a soft sigh.
“Your mother loved you, Savannah.” He drew her a little closer, so their thighs and hips were touching. A flare of heat threatened to melt her jeans to her skin. “In her own flawed way.”
“We weren’t talking about Lilith.” She’d gotten over any resentment against her mother for not having lived up to some idealized Mother Knows Best image that had probably never existed in the real world and now was seen only on Nick at Nite. So why were there those out-of-the-blue times that it still hurt? Like now.
“But you were thinking about her.”
“Now you can read my mind?” Savannah welcomed the quick flare of irritation. It took her mind off her growing desire—a desire every bit as unwise as it was unruly.
“No. But I’m getting pretty good at reading your face. A piece of advice, sweetheart.” He framed the face in question between his palms. “If you decide to change careers again, I wouldn’t recommend following in your maternal grandfather’s gambling shoes, because you’d make a lousy poker player. That lovely face would give you away every time.”
His voice was rough and deep and rumbled through her like distant thunder. Without taking his eyes from Savannah’s, giving her ample time to read his intention, he slowly lowered his head.
11
H aving expected power, Savannah was surprised when he skimmed his lips up her cheek with a touch that, while feathery, still caused the breath she’d been holding to shudder out. She felt his smile against her too-warm skin. Then, appearing to have all the time and patience in the world, he caught her lower lip between his teeth. His eyes, which had returned to hers, darkened as he nibbled lightly, seductively.
Oh, the man is good, Savannah thought as renewed arousal began to flow through her veins like a thick, golden river. He knew how to coax a woman, to make her want. To make her ache.
“Dan.” It was a whisper, blown away by a gust of wind swirling around the lighthouse. “Kiss me.”
“I am.” His teeth closed tighter, not hard enough to cause pain, but enough to make her breath tangle in her throat.
“No.” Lucy Hyatt’s journal fell to the ground unnoticed as Savannah pressed her hands against his chest. Her fingers tangled in the material of his shirt as she strained closer, so close that a whisper of breeze from the strait couldn’t have come between them. “I mean, really kiss me.”
He smiled again. With his mouth and with his eyes. “I am.” He soothed the pink mark his teeth had made with the tip of his tongue. “I will.”
And he did.
But still he took his time, drawing out the pleasure, his kiss slow but exquisitely scintillating. How could such a strong, firm mouth be so blissfully tender? Savannah wondered as his lips brushed against hers with the delicacy of butterfly wings. Once, twice, then a third time, lingering in a way that caused her eyelids to drift shut and her bones to melt.
Gulls cried as they whirled and dive-bombed for fish, a buoy clanged, a ferry whistled as it pulled out of the harbor. Savannah didn’t notice. Her entire world narrowed down to the feel of Dan’s mouth, his dark, mysterious male taste, the strength of his hands as they slipped beneath her T-shirt, the caressing, velvety touch of his fingertips skimming up her spine, rough and soft at the same time.
Her head spun. She felt so light she could have floated right up to the sky; so warm she might have swallowed the sun.
A lone gull flew past, his shriek rending the salt-tinged air, then fading away on the wind as he flew out toward the horizon.
Dan lifted his head and drew her away just enough to allow him to look down into her face again.
“That was even better than I remembered.” He brushed the pad of his thumb against her tingling lips.
“I’m surprised you remember anything,” Savannah said. “After all, we only had one date.” And you never called the next day. Like you promised. A feminine teenage pique she was surprised to discover lurking inside her uncurled like a serpent.
He didn’t appear at all embarrassed. A bit chagrined, perhaps, she thought. But that didn’t stop his eyes from lighting up with that easy humor she was starting to expect from him.
“After which I never called you again.”
“Really? I don’t recall that.” She tossed her head, pretending indifference.
“Unfortunately, I do. I also remember feeling lower than a snake in a rut for a long time after that,” he said against her mouth. “I was wrong. An idiot.” He was punctuating his words with kisses. “Feel free to stop me any time.”
“When you say something that isn’t true, I will.” With all the problems she’d had to face lately, it was nice to be able to find humor in something.
“My only excuse for my behavior back then is that I was too scared to think straight.”
“I refuse to believe you were actually afraid of me.”
“Not of you.” Taking her hand, he lifted it to his lips in a gesture so natural she couldn’t think of a single reason to complain. “Well, maybe just a little. You were, after all, the closest thing to a living, breathing goddess Coldwater Cove had ever seen. That’s pretty intimidating for a kid who tended to stumble all over his feet whenever you got within sniffing distance.”
He made her giggle by snuffling at her neck. Savannah couldn’t remember the last time she’d giggled. He was also making it more and more difficult for her to remember exactly why this was a mistake.
“Speaking of which,” he said against the sensitive skin behind her ear, “have I mentioned that you still smell damn good? Light and fresh and pretty. Like a garden after a summer shower.”
“That sounds remarkably like a line.”
Dan groaned inwardly as he heard himself say the words and figured a guy was getting pretty rusty when he had to steal seduction lines from his thirteen-year-old nephew.
“You’re right. It is. And not a very original one. But that doesn’t make it any less true.” He touched his mouth to her chin. Her cheek. Her temple. “It’s a scent all your own, Savannah. The kind that gets beneath a man’s skin. It stays in his mind and has him imagining making love to you in a sun-dappled meadow of wildflowers.”
She drew back. Hitched in a breath. “Dan…I’m not ready for this.”
Because he wasn’t certain that he was ready for it, either, Dan reminded himself that just because a woman smelled great and looked even better shouldn’t be reason enough to drag her off to bed.
There were other, more important things…like admiring her mind. Her resiliency. Her warm heart, generous nature, and deep-seated sense of family. Oh, hell.
Better watch it, O’Halloran, an inner voice of reason counseled. You’re getting dangerously
close to the edge of a very steep cliff.
“I have a feeling I’m going to regret asking, but you’ve piqued my curiosity,” she said.
“About what?” Having been sidetracked by the thought of how easy it would be to fall headfirst off that cliff, it took Dan a moment to realize that she was talking to him.
“What it was about a teenage girl you found so frightening you had to resort to the age-old ploy of pulling a disappearing act?”
“Oh, that.” He shrugged, pretending a casualness that was at odds with the way he was feeling. “I’m admittedly a little vague on all the details of that night, but I do recall a moment, somewhere between when I brought you up here to watch the submarine races and when I kissed you good night on Ida’s front porch, when I actually found myself thinking of ever-afters.”
“That’s another line.”
“Actually, that one is the truth. It was also one helluva terrifying idea for a hormone-driven kid who was about to head off to college to be contemplating.”
“Oh. Well.” He could tell, of all the excuses he might have offered, Savannah definitely hadn’t expected that one.
A trio of fat-billed pelicans flew by as she considered his answer. A ship steamed past, carrying cargo from the Port of Seattle to far-off places.
“That was a long time ago,” she decided, telling him nothing that he hadn’t already been telling himself. “We’re both different people now.”
“If there’s one thing the law has taught me, it’s that people don’t change, Savannah. Circumstances do. Times do. But deep down inside, where it really counts, we remain pretty much the same.”
“I refuse to believe that.” Her hair fanned out like a gilt banner as she firmly shook her head. Her chin rose along with a flash of pride. “I’ve changed.”
Savannah bent down and picked up the journal. “We’d better get back to work.”
“That’s one idea. Or we could just stay out here and neck.”
Her lips twitched, giving him the impression that she was fighting a smile. The way her eyes darkened to a deep jade suggested that Savannah was also struggling against the same unbidden desire that kept digging its unruly claws into him.
