“Am I in trouble?”
“Not yet,” his mother replied.
“Because he said it would be all right.”
Liz’s heart thumped. “Who said?”
“Morgan. He gave me the medal. To give to Em.” Nick met his mother’s eyes. “Can I go now?”
“Five more minutes,” Regina said. “We need to get ready for Maggie’s party tonight.”
“Cool,” Nick said and ran off.
Liz’s mind churned. Morgan gave the medal to Em.
A sign of protection, Regina called it. A ward.
Liz looked from the engraved disk to her daughter’s shining eyes, and her heart stumbled in her chest.
Even after she’d told him to back off, Morgan had been thinking of Emily. Had tried to protect her.
“I am attached to her, too,” he’d said, but so stiffly Liz hadn’t understood.
Something constricted her lungs, as insubstantial and painful as hope.
“Mom.” Emily tugged on her arm. “Are we going to the party?”
Margred’s baby shower. Half the island would be there. Morgan would be there.
Liz took a deep breath, feeling her chest expand with possibilities. “Yes. We are.”
Liz held Emily’s small, warm hand as they strolled down the grassy slope from the parking lot toward the picnic shelter. Anticipation hummed through her. The saturated ground and the pink glow of the setting sun lent the air an enchanted shimmer, heightened by the fairy lights twined around the shelter’s rafters and square wooden supports. Lanterns and rocks anchored red checkered tablecloths fluttering in the breeze. The air was alive with laughter and conversation, the clang of horseshoes, the cry of gulls, and the call of the surf.
It was a night to believe in magic.
In love.
Liz scanned the scene. Looking for Morgan, she admitted to herself. She was a little overdressed, she saw at once, in a blue wrap dress that hugged her waist and floated around her legs. Most of the guests wore jeans and wind-breakers or khakis and sweaters. But she’d wanted to look pretty. She wanted to feel young. She’d left her hair loose on her shoulders and slicked an extra layer of mascara on her lashes, a deeper shade of rose on her mouth. She wanted Morgan to look at her and see the girl she’d been sixteen years ago, bright and fearless.
Blankets and camp chairs dotted the grass. A volleyball net stretched across the hard, damp sand. Zack had already joined the knot of teenagers around the cooler holding up one pole. Liz spotted a can in his hand and angled for a closer look. Catching her eye, he smiled crookedly and held it up.
Soda. She smiled back.
On the crescent of shale below the shelter, two huge steel washtubs balanced on rocks a foot above a roaring fire, the red flames competing with the radiance on the horizon. The scent of seaweed rode upward on the steam. The gray waves had the sheen of molten metal.
“Morgan!” Emily shouted as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks.
Tugging away from Elizabeth’s grasp, she darted to the lone, tall figure at the edge of the water. Liz followed more slowly, her heart beating in her throat.
He looked the same, her shadow rescuer, appearing out of the night. His face was angled, strong, and pale, his hair the color of moonlight. Her gaze slid up his powerful torso to his face, her pulse rioting.
His eyes were guarded and cold.
She put that look there, she realized with regret. When she sent him away. His pride—and her own—demanded she take the first step toward him.
She took a deep breath that did nothing to calm her racing heart. She wished she were as young and sure of her welcome as Em, so she could run, too, and throw her arms around him.
But she wasn’t the girl she’d been in Copenhagen. Life and medicine had taught her caution, particularly when the stakes were high and the outcome unpredictable.
She stopped, her courage failing a few yards away.
“I did not know if you would come,” Morgan said. “I am glad you did.”
His words gave Liz hope.
“We came to see you.” She cleared her throat. “To thank you. For, um, the necklace.”
“I do not require thanks.”
“We’re supposed to say it anyway,” Emily said.
He glanced down at the little girl attached to his leg like a barnacle to a ship’s hull, his austere expression lightening. “Then you may.”
“Not like that.” She tugged at his arm until he bent over. “Like this,” she said and smacked her puckered lips against his cheek.
Morgan looked as stunned as if a butterfly had landed on his knee or he’d been hit with a two-by-four.
Liz’s heart swelled. Her eyes swam, blurring the picture they made, the pale, forbidding lord of the finfolk and her dark pixie daughter, so odd together, odd and right, his hand curled protectively over her shoulder, her weight resting against his thigh.
Morgan’s gaze locked with hers. A tiny muscle beat at the corner of his mouth. “Are you going to thank me, too?”
Her pulse stuttered. They were attracting attention, she knew, curious and mostly friendly, from her neighbors, her patients, her children.
Her children.
For a moment she froze, nerves quivering in the pit of her stomach. She took two steps toward him, aware of taking a risk, of crossing a line she’d never crossed before.
Could she do it? Could she put the woman before the doctor, before the mother, in such a public way?
First steps, she told herself firmly. Sometimes the outcome was worth the gamble, in medicine and in life.
Standing on tiptoe, she leaned up to brush a kiss against his cheek. At the last moment, he turned his head, and their mouths met.
So soft, so tender, their lips seeking, claiming.
One, two, three long seconds, while her heart did a slow roll in her chest and her blood simmered. All the needs she’d tucked away, all the impulses she’d denied, swam to the surface.
He knew it, too. She felt it in his kiss.
He raised his head, a glint in his eyes.
She was dimly aware of some commotion behind her, scraping metal and billowing steam, shouts of caution and cries of appreciation, but her attention was on Morgan. She pressed her lips together as if she could hold the taste of him inside.
His eyes darkened. His nostrils flared. He wanted her. The knowledge made her giddy, lighthearted with hope, drunk with power.
“Mommy, look! The lobsters are done. See?”
Liz blinked and turned her head. Regina, swathed in a bright red apron, was ordering the transfer of dozens of lobsters and mountains of clams from washtubs draped in seaweed to long metal serving dishes. Volunteers heaped ears of corn in one tray and piles of red potatoes in another. Dylan, his hands in industrial-looking blue gloves, lifted a coffee can of melted butter from the rocks, swearing as the hot metal burnt his fingers.
She wanted this, to be part of this scene, not on the outskirts, an observer. She wanted to share in the joy and abundance. She wanted this life.
With Morgan.
The guests flowed toward the picnic shelter where the tables were set. Regina’s lobster boil was augmented by the island potluck, Paula Schutte’s tomato salad beside Edith Paine’s blueberry cobbler, baked beans and corn bread and hot pepper jelly.
“We should join them,” Morgan said. He took her hand, making her start with surprise and pleasure. Had he touched her like this before, so casually possessive? “Before the food is all gone.”
She twined her fingers with his, determined to hold on to this moment as long as she could. “My thoughts exactly.”
The fire had died to a red glow. The moon wove a silver web across the sea. Liz sat outside the wooden shelter with Morgan, her hand linked with his, her stomach and her heart both full enough to burst.
The teens had drifted away from the volleyball net to flirt in the shadows or sprawl by the fire. She didn’t see Zack. But there was Emily, whispering secrets with Hannah Bly under the g
ift table. Nick rocked his baby sister in an infant carrier. Children ran around the shelter, faces shiny with butter and excitement, as their elders sat with cooling cups of coffee, chewing on brownies and the latest island gossip. Liz saw Dylan back his wife against one of the shelter’s columns for a kiss. Margred tipped her head against her husband’s shoulder, her eyes as full of dreams as the moon.
Something about the way she stood, her pelvis angled, one hand on her lower back, snagged Liz’s attention.
“She didn’t eat much,” she murmured.
“Who?” Morgan asked.
“Margred.”
“She must be the only one who did not.”
Liz chuckled. “I may not eat again for a week. But it’s nice the way everyone brought something. That’s what I moved here hoping to find, that sense of community for Zack and Emily.”
“And for yourself.”
It was the opening she’d hoped for. Her insides jittered with nerves and anticipation.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Of course, it’s not easy, coming here as the doctor.”
“But they need you.”
“They need the medical care I can provide. There’s always a distance, a deference, between doctor and patient. I can know the most intimate details of their lives—diet, depression, sexual dysfunction—and never be invited to their homes.” She smiled ruefully. “Essentially, I’m an outsider here.”
“Alone.”
“Yes.” She moistened dry lips. This was her moment. This was her chance. “You said once we weren’t that different. Maybe we’re more alike than either of us thought.”
Morgan frowned, his gaze on the fire. “I have never sought to be part of a community. Or committed to anything but my duty.”
Her hopes trembled. Her throat squeezed. “Is that a warning?” she asked with false lightness.
“An explanation, Elizabeth.” He looked at her, his eyes dark in the light of the fire. “The finfolk are fluid by nature. It is our strength and our weakness. We are not bound by any form or by the land or by ties of family or affection. But . . .”
The water whispered and sighed. She waited, her pulse scrambling, hoping he would tell her, wishing he would ask her . . .
“Your children need me,” he said finally. “You need me.”
She did. Oh, she did.
She could live without him, had managed fine without him. But she wanted more in her life. She wanted passion. Joy. Magic.
“I have seen Dylan with his family,” he continued heavily. “I will stay.”
He took her breath away. He was offering her everything she dreamed of, everything she wanted.
Except the words she needed most to hear.
The scrape of pots, the clatter of serving dishes, seemed a world away. She heard a soft exclamation and a thump from one of the picnic tables, but all her attention was focused on the man beside her.
Her gaze searched his face. He didn’t look like a man offering to share his life with the woman he loved. He looked like a soldier charged with a difficult mission.
Or a prisoner facing a jail sentence.
She sucked in air, letting it out slowly. “Is that what you want?”
He regarded her without speaking, his hard, beautiful face unreadable. Maybe he didn’t know how to answer. As Regina said, this emotional stuff was all new to him.
Or maybe his silence was his answer. The thought slid into her chest like a knife.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” she said gently. “I do. I know what you are and what you have to do. I can handle that. I wouldn’t be the only woman to hold it together while her man was away at sea for long periods of time. As long as I knew that you missed us. As long as I knew you wanted to be with us.”
His jaw set. “I have said I will stay.”
Love and hurt and exasperation churned inside her. “I’m asking if you want us.”
“I want you . . . to be safe,” he said carefully. “I can make you happy.”
Her heart was breaking. He was breaking her heart.
“That’s such a wonderful thing to say.” She swallowed hard. “Such a generous, wonderful, wrong thing to say.”
“Then tell me,” he snapped. “You want to control everything. Tell me what you want me to say.”
Love and disappointment surged, breaking her control. “I want to know if you love me!” she shouted.
Her raised voice carried across the beach. The commotion from the picnic shelter stopped. Conversations died.
“Um, Liz?” Regina stood before them, twisting her hands in her red apron. “I’m sorry to interrupt this. But Margred needs you. Now.”
Now. Zack’s pulse pounded in his head. Throbbed against his fly. He squeezed his hand a half-inch farther between soft flesh and rough denim, almost there, almost there, almost . . .
Stephanie’s breath caught. Her stomach muscles jumped against his wrist. “Zack, no.”
He couldn’t think. He could barely breathe. All the blood in his body had deserted his brain for his dick. “You’re so . . .” Warm. Soft. “Pretty, Stephanie. Let me . . .”
She wriggled. “No.”
No.
The word crashed and echoed in his empty skull. His body went rigid, all the parts of him that weren’t stiff already.
“Please, Zack.” She lay under him on the flat granite ledge, her eyes enormous, shiny in the moonlight.
Please.
Swallowing hard, he worked his hand out of her jeans, curling his fingers against the sense of loss. Rolling off her, he flung himself back, rapping his head hard against the rock.
Stars. Fireworks.
She gasped. Giggled. “Are you all right?”
“No. But I’ll recover.” He dragged air into his lungs. The granite was cool against his back, the air cool against his front. “Probably. In a couple of hours.”
Stephanie shifted. Lifted. He saw a brief flash of white hip and blue thong before she zipped up her jeans.
He closed his eyes, frustrated. Aching. “Why?” The word burst out of him.
He heard a rustle as she settled beside him on the rock. “You mean, why not?”
“I mean . . .” Why did she have to think so much? “I guess.”
“I like you, Zack. I really do. But I don’t want to get pregnant, okay? I’m only sixteen. I don’t want to get knocked up and have to take some dead-end job for my father and work on the island the rest of my life.”
That was reasonable. Not that he felt very reasonable at the moment. But he opened his eyes. “I could use a condom.”
“Do you have a condom?”
Hot blood swept his face. “No. But I could bring one. Next time.”
His mother kept a box in the bedside table. No.
He could buy them from the grocery store. But then he’d have to worry about hiding his purchase from Mr. Wiley. And Dot. And every other fucking busybody on the whole fucking island.
But he would do it. For Stephanie.
“Zack, that’s sweet. But it’s not just about the condom. I don’t want to get involved, not all the way involved, with anybody yet. I’m not ready to be part of a couple. I’m still all about me. I want to go to college. I want to travel. I want options.”
Rejection was hot in his body, bitter in his mouth. “You want options more than you want me.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Well . . . Yeah. And so should you.”
Options. Jesus.
His lungs hurt. His eyes burned. What options did he have? He was a kid, a freak, stuck in a body he couldn’t control from a father he barely knew.
He wanted . . . Stephanie. Something.
His longing pushed and twisted inside him in great, slippery coils, fighting to bust out. He had to get out, get away, before he exploded.
“Fine.” He pulled himself together, pushed himself to his feet, held out his hand to help her up. “Let me walk you back.”
Hesitantly, she took his hand. “Zack . . .”
But he didn’t want to talk anymore. He didn’t want to think. He stalked beside her without speaking until they could see the picnic shelter, the lights and the fire and people bustling under the roof. Something was going on. He didn’t care. He waited until Stephanie had stumbled halfway down the slope before he took off, running, into the night.
Toward the sea.
19
THE DOCTOR IN ELIZABETH TOOK OVER, PUSHING all emotion, the regret and the pain, aside. She would deal with Morgan and her feelings for him later.
Now she had a patient in active labor and an imminent delivery on her hands.
“We need to transport,” she ordered, her voice brisk and professional. The doctor was confident even when the woman inside wanted to crawl away and lick her wounds.
“She won’t make it,” Caleb said.
“Not to the hospital,” Liz agreed.
Sixty minutes by lobster boat, twenty by LifeFlight. Margred’s contractions were less than three minutes apart and over a minute long. If Liz hadn’t been so focused on her own conversation with Morgan . . .
She shook her head. No time for second-guessing or guilt. “The clinic,” she said.
Margred took a few short, careful steps from the shelter toward the beach. “I am sitting now,” she announced.
Sitting was good. The risk of infection made an internal examination in the field impossible, but Liz still needed to check Margred’s progress. A change of position might even slow labor. But Margred was heading in the wrong direction.
“Not in the sand,” Liz said.
Caleb took his wife’s arm. “You can sit in the Jeep.”
“Here,” Margred said. Gripping his muscled forearm, she lowered herself heavily to the beach.
His other arm came around her immediately for support. He knelt beside her. “Sweetheart . . .” His deep voice shook with nerves and laughter. “This wasn’t in the birth plan.”
She shook back her hair, smiling up at him. “Not your plan.”
“Maggie . . .”
“Ah.” She bit her lip, her face contracting in pain.
Liz dropped beside them, put an encouraging hand on Margred’s knee. “All right, now you’re down, let’s see what that baby is up to.”
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