Far Harbor

by JoAnn Ross

  “Work,” she repeated with that firmness he’d watched her develop since she’d returned to Coldwater Cove. “I have a man arriving from Gray’s Harbor first thing Monday morning with a truckload of stain, and before he agreed to come all this way, I had to promise him that the floors would be ready.”

  Wondering how many males with blood still flowing in their veins could deny this woman anything, Dan pushed himself off the bench and followed her back down the garden path. As he watched the feminine sway of her hips in khaki shorts that amazingly still held a knife-edge crease, he decided that this place really did have the best view on the peninsula.

  “Hey, Captain Bligh,” he called out.

  She glanced back over her shoulder, impatience replacing the earlier touch of reluctant desire on her face. “What now?”

  “You’re right. You have gotten tougher. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “It looks damn good on you.”

  Savannah didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. Dan read both pride and pleasure in her remarkable eyes and decided that it was enough. For now.

  The Sawdust Festival was, hands down, the most important annual event to occur in Coldwater Cove, surpassing even the Fourth of July as the highpoint of the year. It was part carnival, part county fair, part logging competition, along with a lot of music and even more food—an all-around good time.

  The rain that had been falling off and on all week stopped a few hours before the festival began. As a full moon rose in a clear deep purple sky over Founder’s Park, not a single person challenged Lilith’s assertion that ancient pagan gods had pulled off a weather miracle.

  Japanese lanterns had been strung around the town square, illuminating the George Strait wannabe crooning somebody-done-somebody-wrong songs in the lacy Victorian bandstand. Smoke from Oley’s portable barbecue drifted on air enlivened by the sound of guitars, the plink of horseshoes hitting iron stakes, and the wasp-like drone coming from the far end of the park, where men and women wielding souped-up chainsaws were turning huge logs into sawdust.

  “Oh, look,” Raine said. “There’s Lilith’s friend.” She pointed in the direction of a fifty-something woman seated in a booth painted with gold stars and silver crescent moons. Wooden beads had been woven into jet black hair that fell straight as rain to her waist. She was wearing a flowing purple caftan embroidered with yet more moons. “Let’s get our fortunes told.”

  Savannah looked at her sister with surprise. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, are suggesting we spend ten dollars to hear someone wearing more turquoise than is probably found in the entire state of New Mexico tell us that we’re going to meet tall, dark, handsome strangers who’ll take us on a sea cruise.”

  “Lilith says she’s not a fake.”

  “Our mother also burns bonfires to ancient goddesses and draws down the moon.”

  “Well, there is that,” Raine agreed, glancing across the green to where Lilith and Amy were riding the carousel. Amy was astride her favorite flower-bedecked white horse; Lilith had, unsurprisingly, chosen a dragon with shiny green scales. “But it’ll still be a kick. When was the last time you had any real fun?”

  Because she’d almost managed to convince herself that it hadn’t really meant anything, that they’d only been responding to sensual ideas stimulated by Lucy’s journal, Savannah decided not to mention her little interlude with Dan on the garden bench.

  “No wonder you win all your cases,” she muttered as she allowed Raine to pull her by the hand toward the fortune-teller’s booth. They could have been children again, with her big sister leading the way. “It’s useless trying to argue with you.”

  “Try telling Amy that,” Raine complained lightly. “She’s begun questioning everything Jack or I tell her. Jack assures me that it’s just a new phase, but sometimes, when I find myself arguing with a six-year-old, it’s hard to remember that I once tried cases in a New York federal court.”

  “It could be a phase,” Savannah said. “Or it could be that you’re going to have another lawyer in the family.”

  Raine laughed at that. “Heaven help us.”

  They handed over their money, and after Raven had correctly pegged Raine’s recent marriage and career change, she also predicted more children.

  “How many more?” Raine asked.

  “Two,” the fortune-teller said with conviction. “A boy who will resemble his father and a little girl who’ll look like the best of both of you.”

  The amazing thing about the prediction, Savannah thought, was that Raine actually seemed to believe it. Or perhaps, she corrected as she watched her sister’s face light up, perhaps she wanted to believe it.

  It was Savannah’s turn next. “You’ve recently been badly hurt.” Raven Moonsilver’s fingernails were short, lacquered in a blinding amethyst metallic shade and adorned with airbrushed silver stars that matched her caftan. She trailed a purple tip across Savannah’s palm. “By a man.”

  “Name me one woman over the age of ten who hasn’t,” Savannah suggested mildly.

  “Ah, but it was not your heart that was so cruelly wounded, but your confidence. Along with your pride.”

  Savannah assured herself that again, she certainly wasn’t alone in that regard. The same thing was undoubtedly happening to women all over the world at this very minute.

  “You are an old soul. You have lived other lives that have touched many.” Savannah rolled her eyes and waited to hear she’d been Marie Antoinette.

  “I know you are skeptical.” The silver replica of a Northwest tribal totem the fortune-teller was wearing in one earlobe glinted in the light of the Japanese lanterns as the woman nodded with apparent approval. “This is good. When you finally break through the wall of disbelief, you will no longer have a single doubt.”

  She studied Savannah’s palm in greater detail. “I see someone.”

  “Here it comes,” Savannah couldn’t resist telling Raine. “My tall, dark stranger.”

  “I know you’re joking. But this is a woman.” Raven Moonsilver’s eyes narrowed. Her fingers, gleaming with silver rings, tightened around Savannah’s. “A woman caught between the realms.”

  “Surely you’re not talking about a ghost?” Raine asked with interest, earning a sharp, warning look from Savannah. There was no point in encouraging the woman.

  “A spirit,” the fortune-teller corrected. She was crushing Savannah’s hand now. “A lost soul who needs your help to free herself from the bonds that are holding her to this mortal coil.”

  Savannah tugged her hand free. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “It’s not for me to tell you. Open your heart and the answer will come to you.”

  “Open your heart,” Savannah was still muttering five minutes later as they followed the high-pitched, wasp-like drone toward the timed chainsaw art competition where Raine had arranged to meet Jack. “The answer will come to you.

  “Gee, talk about wasting money. Even if Mother hadn’t told her, which Lilith undoubtedly did, everyone in the county knows I bought the Far Harbor lighthouse. It’s also no secret that the lighthouse is supposed to be haunted. The woman is obviously a fraud.”

  “It’s not impossible that she could be in touch with Lucy.”

  “Then she should be the one to help her. I have enough to do trying to fix up Lucy’s house.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t sensed anything? Nothing out of the ordinary has happened there?”

  Savannah decided that Dan’s kiss momentarily tilting her world wasn’t what Raine was referring to. “Nothing worth mentioning. Perhaps there have been a few occasions…”

  Her voice drifted off as she thought of the slamming door, the times she’d been working alone late at night and heard soft, breathy sounds that resembled sighs but were undoubtedly only the wind in the tops of the trees.

  “What kind of occasions?”

  “Nothing. Just shutters banging in the wind, rafters creaking, glass ra
ttling. You know how spooky old houses can be late at night.”

  She thought of the journal but decided that didn’t count, either. People were constantly finding all sorts of things hidden in old houses. Whatever her reasons for hiding her journal, Savannah refused to believe that Lucy was attempting to send her some sort of secret message from beyond the grave.

  They’d reached the sawdust ring where the competition was to take place. Savannah stood with Raine and Jack, watching as a man turned a log into a wooden statue of a bear holding up a fish, in a record time of six minutes. Deciding that chainsaw art really wasn’t her thing, Savannah wandered on, pausing to observe the women’s ax-throwing contest.

  “Now there’s a frightening sight,” said a familiar deep voice behind her as one ax landed right in the middle of the red bull’s-eye with a loud thud. “A female with a double-headed axe.”

  She turned and didn’t even try to hide her smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi, yourself.” Dan skimmed a look over her. “You’re still the most gorgeous Sawdust Queen ever.”

  She glanced across the lawn to the fir-draped royal arbor where fifteen-year-old Becky Brennan stood laughing with friends and flirting with a group of star-struck teenage males. The boys were wearing jeans so new they looked as if they’d stand up by themselves, Garth Brooks-style shirts, boots, and Stetsons. The numbers pinned to the back of those colorful western-cut shirts revealed they were contestants in the battle of the country band competition.

  “Becky’s lovely.” The memory of being impossibly young and carefree, feeling for at least one night that she’d been the most special girl on earth, was bittersweet.

  “Adorable,” he agreed. “But she can’t hold a candle to you. You take a man’s breath away.”

  She shrugged. “Luck of the genes.”

  “Perhaps that has something to do with it.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a bouquet wrapped in green tissue. “But as my mom always used to remind Karyn, beauty is as beauty does. And you, sweetheart, do real well.”

  “Oh, they’re lovely.” Savannah murmured as she lifted the bouquet to her nose and breathed in its delicate scent.

  A man who excelled at outward romantic gestures, Kevin had gifted her with a dozen long-stemmed roses at every holiday during their marriage. She’d finally realized that it hadn’t taken any effort to have his secretary place a call to the florist.

  Other men, most particularly wealthy resort guests who, arrogantly overlooking the fact that she was married, seemed to believe that she could be seduced by a gift of long-stemmed red roses. They had, of course, been wrong.

  No man had ever given her wildflowers.

  “They’re growing all around my house,” Dan said. “Whenever I look at them, I think of you. Of course, that’s not unusual, since thinking about you seems to be what I’ve been doing most of the time lately.”

  When his remark reminded her of his comment about wanting to make love to her in a field of wildflowers, her mutinous hormones spiked.

  “How do you feel about roller coasters?” Dan asked suddenly.

  “I used to love them—until my life became one.”

  “The Ferris wheel, then. What would you say to coming for a ride in the sky with me, Savannah?”

  Torn between prudence and pleasure, Savannah looked up at the revolving double wheel that was lit up like a gigantic Christmas tree.

  “If that suggestion doesn’t tickle your fancy, we’ve got just enough time to make the greased pole climb.”

  “It’s a tough choice.” She laughed and made her decision. “But the Ferris wheel it is.”

  “Terrific.” Dan linked his fingers with hers as they strolled hand-in-hand beneath the fairy lights twinkling like stars amid the leaves of the huge red-leaf oaks.

  The festival was turning out to be a grand success. As she made her way toward the pie-judging tent, Ida decided that this year’s event would go down as the best on record.

  “Whoever takes over next year will have a helluvan act to follow,” Henry said. He munched on a hot dog loaded with the works as he and Ida watched the teams of loggers trying to climb the towering greased pole.

  “I was thinking pretty much the same thing. But I didn’t say it because I didn’t want to sound like I was bragging on myself.”

  His salty curse was learned during a decade spent in the merchant marines before he’d returned home to take over the lighthouse duties from his father. “It isn’t bragging if it’s the truth.”

  Ida glanced over at him in surprise. “You keep handing out compliments like that and I’m going to think that you’ve been taken over by one of those pod people or something.”

  He shrugged. Then his eyes narrowed as he watched her dig into her pocketbook and pull out a plastic bottle of aspirin. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She swallowed two white tablets with a sip of her iced tea. “It’s just a little noisy, what with all the chainsaws whining away and those drums. Whose idea was it to have a battle of the bands, anyway?”

  “Lilith said it was yours.”

  “Oh. Well, like I said, it’s a great idea. Brought more young people in.”

  Strangely, the pounding behind her eyes seemed to have synchronized itself with the throbbing sound of the drums coming from the Victorian bandstand. She glanced around at the crowds of teenagers with satisfaction. There must be a third more in the park than Florence Heron had managed to pull in last year.

  Of course, to give Florence her due, it had probably been thirty years since the woman had spoken with any teenager other than the boy who delivered her morning Coldwater Cove Chronicle. And then she was likely to scold him for tossing the paper in the rhododendron bush.

  What had begun as an act of altruism—bringing foster kids into her home—had turned out to benefit her, as well. Ida had quickly discovered that being around the younger generation helped her stay young. They’d admittedly been a challenge, but she’d always thrived on challenges.

  She was thinking that they were also good company when the park, and everyone in it, suddenly went all fuzzy, as if she were looking through a camera lens that had suddenly gone out of focus. Ida blinked.

  “Henry.” She reached out to steady herself, her fingers digging into his arm.

  His brows drew together as he looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” She was struggling to focus when she heard someone call her name. Ida was vastly relieved when her vision cleared, allowing her to view the teenager standing at the other side of the sawdust horseshoe pit.

  “Why, it’s Gwen.” The momentary blurriness was immediately forgotten.

  Henry followed her surprised gaze. “You talking about that little girl who looks like she stuck a wet finger in a light socket?”

  “That’s her.” The bright red Little Orphan Annie curls were longer than they’d been when Gwen had left Coldwater Cove two months ago, and even more unruly. “She wasn’t due home from science camp for another three days. I guess she came early so she could attend the festival.”

  The problem was, Ida thought, the serious expression on the teenager’s face as she approached didn’t give the impression that she’d come here tonight to have a good time. Ida cast a glance upward toward the heavens and said a quick, silent prayer. Please don’t let her be in trouble with the law again.

  Never having known a stable home until she’d landed in Coldwater Cove, in the past Gwen’s chosen response to unpleasant experiences—of which she’d had more than her share—had been to shoplift. Ida dearly hoped she’d put such self-destructive behavior behind her.

  “Hello, darling.” Tamping down her concerns, Ida hugged the foster child she’d grown so fond of.

  “Hi, Mama Ida.” Gwen hugged her back. Her youthful body had lost all its pregnancy weight. The jeans clinging to her hips were so baggy, Ida figured there was room for a second teenage girl inside them.

  “You’re home early.”

  “I k
now.” She’d matured, Ida realized, looking up into the sober face that was more woman than child. Of course that wasn’t very surprising. Carrying a baby for nine long months, only to give it up the day after it was born, was bound to make any girl grow up a bit faster than most.

  “There’s something I need to talk with you about,” Gwen said. “Something I’ve been thinking a lot about while I was in Texas. Something that wouldn’t wait three more days.”

  Ida felt a sharp, tension-caused twinge behind her eye. She ignored it.

  “This might not be the best time or place to be talking about this,” Henry warned. Ida sensed he was trying to forestall the conversation out of concern for her.

  “Nonsense, Henry,” she argued. “If Gwen skipped science camp graduation, it must be important.” The weekly reports from the counselors had been unanimously glowing.

  “What is it, dear?” Ida asked with feigned calm, even as she feared she knew exactly what Gwen was about to say.

  The teenager drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “It’s about my baby.”

  Her words echoed in Ida’s ears as if she were speaking from the bottom of the cove. Slender teenage hands raked through bright curls, but Ida didn’t notice their tremor. Every atom of her attention was riveted on Gwen’s lips, which now seemed to be moving in slow motion. Her voice had the odd, drawn-out sound of an old 45 record played at 33 1/3 speed. “I think I want her back.”

  12

  T hey were riding up backwards, higher and higher, until the people on the ground resembled toy action figures.

  “Oh, look,” Savannah pointed out. “There’s John.” She was surprised to see the teenager holding hands with a tall blond girl who was wearing a plastic lei over her sweater and carrying a stuffed animal nearly as big as she was. “I didn’t realize he had a girlfriend.”

  “They sort of tumbled into puppy love this past spring when they met at the Special Olympics,” Dan said. “Cindy fell into Coldwater Cove when she was two. By the time they pulled her out, she’d already been brain-damaged.”