by Jody Hedlund
“I’ll do my best to persuade Mr. Chambers to let Sarah stay in her room.”
Ryan pushed away from the wall, a low growl welling up in his chest and spilling out. He’d listened to enough, and he couldn’t take any more.
“She can stay,” he said, ducking through the doorway into the sitting room.
The four grew silent and turned hard eyes upon him. Accusing, angry eyes. For a moment the face of that other boy flashed before him with the same accusing and angry eyes. Quickly, Ryan shoved the memory aside. He had to focus on what was happening here and now and not let his pain and problems distract him.
“Sarah can stay,” he repeated, though he had no idea who Sarah was. “In fact, you can all stay.” Maybe the war had turned him into a monster, but he wasn’t the kind of man who would kick a family out of their home—not without them having somewhere to go.
Caroline stared at him with wide eyes, which were an interesting shade of light blue, the color of the summer sky in the full heat of day with the smoke from campfires casting a haze. They didn’t contain anger, only resignation and worry.
He hadn’t paid attention to her features in the bedroom, but here in the brightly lit sitting room that overlooked the lake, he had a clear view of the heart shape of her face and the sleekness of her cheeks that only highlighted her pretty lips. Her straight hair was a warm honey brown. It fell in tousled disarray across her shoulders and dangled halfway down her back.
The quilt had slipped from one of her shoulders, revealing a slender neck and the dip of her thin nightgown. Although he hadn’t meant to look in the bedroom earlier, he’d seen enough before he’d averted his eyes to know she was slender yet womanly in all the right places.
Embarrassed, he shifted his attention to his bare toes. It had obviously been too long since he’d been around a pretty woman.
As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, she tugged the quilt back up and tightened her grip. “I don’t understand. You’re letting us stay?”
“I’ll sleep in the boathouse,” he said.
“You will?”
He nodded. “I’m used to sleeping wherever I can find a dry place. Been doing it for the past few years. So several more nights bedding on the ground won’t bother me.”
She released a long breath. “Thank you.”
He met her gaze then. And the gratefulness in the clear blue of her eyes made him want to do more for her.
“Stay the whole week,” he offered.
The twins regarded him with suspicion, and Tessa eyed him with open curiosity.
Caroline cocked her head, and her hair slid forward over the side of her face. She peered at him through the loose strands as if trying to assess his true motives.
“If Mr. Finick said you have until the end of the week,” he said, “then I can wait to move in until then.”
“We won’t need a week since we’re anxious to go,” Tessa said.
“We’re not anxious to go.” Caroline shot Tessa a look of warning. The younger girl ignored it and instead bent to pick up a haversack she’d discarded near the door. “We’ll be thankful for every day that we have here.”
Ryan stepped aside as Tessa brushed past him into the kitchen, leaving him alone with Caroline and the two boys, who were still staring at him.
If he didn’t escape them, he had the feeling they would bombard him with unwanted questions, especially if they caught sight of his injured hand.
“Can we talk somewhere privately?” he asked Caroline. “Maybe outside?”
She nodded and then said to the twins, “Go wash up and Tessa will give you a snack.”
They gave Ryan one last disparaging glance before obeying their sister and padding across the room into the kitchen.
Ryan headed out the front door, down the stone steps, and onto the thick grass that spread out in front of the dwelling. It felt cool and soft beneath his bare feet, with the breeze coming off the lake equally soothing.
Surprisingly, the weight of his earlier exhaustion had lifted. He was still tired, the alcohol and the pain-killers both made him sleepy, yet for the first time in a long while his mind was clear and the perpetual need to sleep gone.
The door banged closed behind him, and then Caroline joined him in the yard. She peered across the lake to a distant steamer passing to the south, likely on its way to Detroit laden with the harvest of northern farms. The sharpness in her eyes told him she was experienced with seafaring vessels and their navigation—probably much more than he was.
“Listen,” he began, not exactly sure what he wanted to say but knowing he had to say something. “I didn’t know all this would happen when I rode up here today.”
She shrugged and turned her attention to the swarms of black and orange fluttering along the shoreline. “The monarchs are here.” For a few seconds a smile transformed her face and chased away the lines of concern.
He was tempted to simply watch the delight playing across her face, but when she peeked at him sideways, he rapidly shifted his sights to the hordes of butterflies along the shore to the north.
“They usually stop here at Lake St. Clair each year while migrating to Mexico for the winter.” She spoke softly, almost reverently. “Sometimes we see large groups of hummingbirds migrating too.”
Against the backdrop of the blue lake, the monarchs were a majestic display of color, along with the fading russet grass and yellowing poplars.
It was all so beautiful. He drew in a breath and then released the tension that had found a permanent home in his shoulders. After weeks of restlessness he could finally find peace here, couldn’t he?
Next to him, Caroline shifted, her toes poking out from the tattered edges of the quilt.
The fleeting peace evaporated, and guilt tightened his muscles again. Apparently his peace was to come at this woman’s expense. “After you leave here, where will you go?”
Her eyes clouded, covering all traces of delight. She glanced over her shoulder at the door before responding. “I haven’t had the time to locate a place to stay.”
“Do you have family you can live with?”
“I might have an uncle or aunt back east,” she said quietly. “But even if I could travel that far with Sarah—which I can’t—I wouldn’t want to burden them with her care.”
“Sarah?” Though he’d heard her name several times now, he’d yet to make sense of who she was.
“My youngest sister,” Caroline explained, worry lines creasing her forehead. “The doctors don’t really know what’s wrong with her, except that she has some kind of muscular disease where she just keeps getting weaker.”
“I’ve heard of the disease,” he said. And from what he’d heard, the prognosis wasn’t good. The muscular degeneration only continued until the lungs were too weak for breathing or the heart too flimsy for beating.
“Sarah can’t get out of bed anymore,” Caroline said with a sadness in her voice that tugged at him. “Unless we carry her . . .”
“How long has she had the disease?”
“It started coming on a couple of years ago, about the same time my father’s rheumatism worsened.” She stared at a distant spot far away in the lake. Was that where her father was buried?
He swallowed the question. She likely resented the prying about her heartaches as much as he did. From what he’d been able to piece together, she’d lost her father not too long ago, she was losing her sister, and now she was losing her job and home.
Was it possible someone else was in as much or more pain than he?
During the past months, since he’d mustered out of the army, he’d only thought of himself, his nightmares, and the debt he owed. But now, standing next to this pretty young woman at the edge of the lake, with the lighthouse towering behind them, he couldn’t keep from thinking about her plight and wishing he could help her come up with a solution.
He wanted to tell her to stay here. That she didn’t need to move her family out of their home for him. That he would go
back to Detroit and find another job. That she could keep hers.
But he couldn’t squeeze the words past the burden weighing upon his chest.
He needed the job too desperately. He’d failed at everything else he’d done so far. With the condition of his hand and the recurring pain in his arm, he hadn’t lasted but a couple of days out fishing with the company he’d worked with before the war. And he hadn’t even made it past a week in the Detroit fisheries doing women’s work. He’d tried a dozen other things over the summer, but all of them had required the use of two good hands and the brawn behind two strong arms.
The truth was he was crippled now. And he always would be.
When he’d heard the Lighthouse Board was hiring war veterans, he realized work at the light was his last option to earn the money he needed. He hadn’t really expected the Board would give him a full keeper’s job, not with his disability. Apparently, though, his connection with his sister and her husband at the Presque Isle Lighthouse was enough to get the job.
He’d assumed the keeper at Windmill Point Lighthouse needed replacing. But now he wasn’t quite sure why Mr. Finick had hired him so quickly. Not when Caroline had been handling the light fine these many months. Or had she?
“I don’t understand why Mr. Finick hired me to take your place,” he said.
Her features hardened. “He’s never liked our family being here,” she said bitterly. “And ever since my father died, he’s been looking for a way to replace me.”
“Why?”
The blue of her eyes turned the color of an icicle. “Because I’m a woman.”
Ryan shook his head. “What difference does that make?”
“It doesn’t. I’ve been running this light for months without any trouble. Every vessel and captain that passes through these waters can attest to my efficiency.”
Ryan glanced at his injured hand, his shirt still wound around it. Would he be able to do the same? Could he run the light as efficiently? Of course, he’d told Mr. Finick about his injury and the loss of his fingers, even if he had kept his hand squarely in his pocket during the entire meeting. But the man hadn’t seemed to think it would impede with his keeper duties.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” Ryan offered. He wished he didn’t have to be the one to displace her and her family. But the job was his now, and he couldn’t just let it go.
A wave of weariness rippled over him, and once again all he could think about was sleeping. He needed to find a spot where he could lie down and let himself escape into the oblivion where he wouldn’t have to think about all the nameless people he’d hurt. And where he could forget about how he was now hurting another family, including this beautiful woman.
He spied a small shed near the keeper’s dwelling. The boards were gray and warped, long overdue for a coat of paint that could protect them from the weather that blew in from the sea. Several shingles on the roof were crooked or missing. And with the door hanging open, he could see the interior was packed with an assortment of equipment: oars, life jackets, buoys, ropes, barrels, and crates.
How would he find space to sleep in there? Maybe it would be easier to pitch a makeshift tent.
She had followed his gaze to the boathouse. “Thank you for letting us stay in the house for the week,” she said softly. The breeze rippled the edges of the quilt, revealing the white linen of her nightgown and flattening it against her legs.
“Don’t thank me.” Agony swirled through him. “I’m obviously not good for much other than causing trouble for everyone I come across.”
At his harsh words, her eyes widened. But before she could say anything, a horse and rider came trotting around the house.
Ryan couldn’t keep from reaching for his side, for the revolver that was no longer there. After months of living on edge, of not knowing who was friend or foe, he couldn’t shake the foreboding he felt every time he was startled.
Caroline offered a warm smile to the newcomer. From the boyish clean-shaven face, childlike eyes, and blushing cheeks, at first Ryan thought perhaps a friend of the twins had arrived to play.
But when the young man dismounted and removed his bowler, Ryan recognized the receding hairline and big ears. It was Arnie, the tavern owner’s son, the one who’d been sweeping the floor and hiding in the shadows at the Roadside Inn. Upon closer examination, Ryan could see aging lines around Arnie’s eyes and guessed him to be at least twenty-five, if not thirty years old.
Arnie took several quick steps toward them before stopping and clutching his hat in front of him. He rolled the brim in shaking fingers and looked at Caroline.
Ryan caught sight of pure adoration shining in Arnie’s eyes before the man lowered them and continued to fidget with his hat.
“Hi, Arnie,” Caroline said kindly. “How are you doing this afternoon?”
“I-I’m fine,” he stuttered, his cheeks and ears flamed a bright red. He stood a head shorter than Ryan. He was even smaller than Caroline by a couple of inches. Obviously the man’s giant of a father hadn’t passed along to his son any of his impressive height and strength.
“What brings you out to the light?” Caroline asked, almost as if she were speaking to a child rather than a full-grown man.
Arnie folded and unfolded the brim of his hat and stammered for several seconds. Finally he got his words out. “I came to ask you to . . . to marry me.”
Chapter 6
Marry you?” Caroline almost burst into laughter. The thought of marrying Arnold Simmons was about as silly an idea as marrying the uptight Mr. Finick, or the grumpy Jacques Poupard, the old hunchbacked Frenchman who lived on the marsh beyond the ruins of the windmill. Even though Monsieur Poupard was their nearest neighbor, Caroline knew he wouldn’t shed a tear to see them leave.
Yet Arnie’s expression was entirely too serious and his face too red for him to be joking. Besides, Arnie wasn’t one to say things without his meaning it, especially since almost every word he spoke took incredible effort.
“Why, Arnie,” she said, forcing down her humor at his earnest proposal, “you’re very sweet to make such an offer.”
Next to her, Ryan snorted.
She was tempted to elbow him as she would Tessa, but she held herself back from the overly familiar gesture, considering she had just met the man.
“Since you have to . . . m-move from here,” Arnie said hurriedly, which only caused him to stutter all the more, “I c-can give you a . . . a home now.”
What kind of home? she wanted to ask. A room above his father’s tavern? She could only imagine such a life. The noise, the raucous laughter, and the constant coming and going of patrons. Not to mention the cockfighting, which turned her stomach every time she thought about the poor roosters bloodied and battered and fighting to the death.
On top of it all, her father and Mr. Simmons had never gotten along. It was no secret that the tavern owner brought over his cocks, alcohol, and even drugs by way of the Canadian border that ran through the middle of Lake St. Clair. Mr. Simmons had asked her father to turn off the light on several occasions so that he could do his smuggling in the dark without fear of detection. But of course her father had always refused, had in fact threatened to alert the sheriff.
Her father’s refusals and threats had always angered Mr. Simmons. And everyone knew what a bully Mr. Simmons was when he was angered. He’d roughed up her father, thankfully nothing beyond a few bloody noses and black eyes. But even if Arnie’s father hadn’t been a brute, the fact remained that she didn’t love Arnie—not romantically, not in the least.
Arnie’s inky eyes lifted to meet hers finally, but only for a second before dropping again in shyness. But it was glimpse enough to see the sincerity of his proposal, his affection, and dare she say attraction?
Her heart gave a disquieted lurch. She hadn’t known his feelings for her went so deep. She’d assumed that he considered her a friend, just as she did him. Most of her kindness to the young man had stemmed from the fact that no one e
lse regarded him with any respect, least of all his father. She hadn’t been able to bear the cruel and calloused way so many people treated him. And she’d gone out of her way to make sure he felt safe and welcomed whenever he visited the lighthouse.
But what if in her kindness she’d led him to believe she cared about him beyond friendship?
She swallowed hard before she could speak. “You’re very thoughtful for thinking of me, Arnie.”
He dipped his head bashfully.
She was being truthful. Arnie had always been considerate of her needs, especially since her father had died. On more than one occasion he’d brought her sacks of food when her supplies had run low. He’d given her chickens, and she’d even found skinned possum and muskrat on the front step once in a while.
But just because Arnie was thoughtful and caring didn’t mean she should consider marrying him. Even though he was a couple of years older than her, he was like a little brother to her.
“Oh, Arnie,” she said, releasing a long sigh. “I appreciate your offer, but I can’t leave my family to fend for themselves. I have to stay with them and take care of them. They need me now more than ever.”
He lifted his head. His expression was earnest, almost pleading. “They c-can come too. I’ll build you a . . . a house b-behind the inn. They can . . . live with us there.”
His statement stopped her ready reply. She straightened and stared at him. “You’d build me a house?”
He nodded and gave her one of his lopsided grins. “I’ll give you the b-best. I’ve been s-saving for it.”
“What about Sarah?” she asked. Arnie had a big heart, but taking in Sarah was too much to ask of any man.
“You can p-plant another garden for her at . . . at our n-new house.”
Caroline was drawn by the earnestness lining Arnie’s boyish face. Even as her heart protested the thought of uniting herself in marriage with someone she didn’t love, she knew she couldn’t spurn him, not when it meant she’d only have to move Sarah a mile or so. After all, many people married for convenience and not love. Why shouldn’t she?
