by Tracy Sumner
Elle slid the pocket door aside and twisted the gasolier switch, flooding the parlor with murky light. Sinking to the edge of the tattered love seat, she turned her attention to the leather-bound volume in her hands. She read enough to see the red-and-gold slip marked an essay about coral erosion. Unfortunately, she could not read the text well. As her father had pointed out, her French equaled a child’s.
Asking for a translation was a remarkably devious way of diverting her father’s attention. Especially for a boy who had once dragged her into the mercantile and made her apologize for stealing apples.
Propping her feet on a tasseled ottoman, Elle hoisted the book against her ribs. She flicked her finger over the dog-eared pages, paused to read the notes scribbled in the margin.
An hour later, the case clock chimed; the book thumped to the floor. She reached for it, stopped, sighed. Noah’s accomplishments were buried in the index at the rear: doctoral research, expeditions in the Pacific. He had even lived up to his childhood nickname. Heavens, she had eaten lunch with a true professor with her skirt hiked around her knees.
She kicked the book, then curled her toes in pain. She hated this feeling of... inferiority, of envy. If she had finished university, maybe she could converse about science or literature, history or mathematics. A semester of domestic economy wasn’t likely to help her much.
Elle let her gaze stray to the pilot coat hanging over the arm of the love seat. She drew her hand back before her fingers brushed the sleeve. She and Noah did not have one interest in common except a thirst for knowledge, something he did not even recognize in her.
She wasn’t sure who he was anymore. The person in the book; the biologist who had traveled the world and written research papers; the man who received perfumed letters from a married woman and stood so tall he had to duck through doorways.
She didn’t know him.
She didn’t think she would ever know him again.
* * *
Noah felt the stare burning into his back a full minute before he turned. Shading his face, he squinted into the sun, seeing only the darkened silhouette of a woman. A jolt of undesired anticipation tore through him, then trickled away when he caught the scent.
Fruity. Banana? Somehow, he knew Elle Beaumont would never smell like banana. An angry sea or a fistful of dirt, maybe, but never banana.
The silhouette hopped up a step, going from sunlight to shade. Flashing blue eyes tipped at the corner. Hollow cheeks, slim lips. Young and blond, very blond. Noah shrugged away his discomfort.
She took another step, her pleated skirt brushing his trouser leg. “Hello,” she said in a laughing, breathless rush.
“Hello.” He caught the nail that dropped from his lips. “Can I help you with something?” He perched his hip on the coach house railing, which wobbled precariously.
Another addition to his repair list.
“No.” The young woman bounced on her toes, buckling her boots where the patent leather cap cut in. “My name’s Meredith. I’m waiting”—she giggled and glanced over her shoulder—”for Miss Ellie to finish her other lesson. I come twice a week from three to four. She’s teaching me to do my daddy’s accounts. He owns the mercantile. I wasn’t too good in school. Numbers and all, I mean. But Miss Ellie says I can do anything if I set my mind to it. Even add my daddy’s accounts and not tangle them up worse than two tomcats in a feed sack. My daddy would rather have a son do them, if he had one. But he doesn’t, so he’s stuck. With me, and with Miss Ellie, who he thinks is tetched.” She emphasized this by drawing a circle around her ear. “But it’s only because she’s smarter than he is.”
Noah swung his gaze toward the coach house. The metallic ping of a typewriting machine had woken him from restless slumber, dreams idling just below the surface. Zach and Caleb... and Elle, circling a campfire on Devil Island, youthful faces glowing in the amber light.
“I remember you,” Meredith cut in, before he had time to refocus on her face.
He glanced back slowly, raised a brow as he tugged his leather glove off with his teeth.
“You used to stop in my daddy’s store when I was real little. Bought a lot of cotton handkerchiefs, for ship’s sails you told me. Your brother Caleb even let me see the models one time, in his shed out behind your momma’s house.”
Noah loosened his fist, dabbed the fleck of blood where the nail had pieced his palm. Not much of a shed, more of an enlarged privy. He’d spent many hours in that dusty old shack, watching Caleb work his magic on piece after piece of wood, threading sail for Noah’s favorite model, the American block sloop. The old shed stood less than a mile from here. He frowned and shoved the notion of returning from his mind. Caleb had likely smashed that shed to bits—along with his block sloop.
“Your name’s Noah?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said, and tugged the other glove free, a trace of unease mounting at her predatory look.
“The Spring Tide Festival is in two weeks.” She flashed a crook-toothed smile, the first imperfection he had witnessed. “I didn’t know if anyone told you about it. Or if you’ve decided who you might be squiring.”
Squiring?
Meredith followed the statement with a bounce and a giggle. He almost reached out, fearing she would topple down the staircase. “The committee decorates a stretch of beach on Devil. A big tent, lots of pretty ribbons and white clematis, daisies and carnations if they bloom early. Old-time oil lanterns. Sailboat races during the day. Music and dancing at night. It’s wonderful.” She twisted her hands together and released a dreamy sigh.
Oh, yes, he remembered running after Caleb and Elle, struggling to divert some catastrophe. Pocketing the nail, he offered a tight smile. “I have a lot of work—”
“Work?”
“The fisheries laboratory. Out on the point.”
“Oh.” She slumped.
Across the way, the door to Elle’s school opened, and a young woman stepped outside. No sign of Elle. Shrugging a bead of sweat down his neck, Noah barely harnessed a sigh of relief.
Meredith cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered, “I have to go. Miss Ellie is a stickler for punctuation.”
Noah laughed; he couldn’t help it. “I’m sure she is.”
“Bye, Noah. Maybe I’ll see you later.” Lifting her skirt, she danced down the stairs, a wad of peach cloth clamped in each fist. “Maybe even at the festival.”
He followed her progress through the overgrown grass, all the while marveling at the peculiarity, the sheer fickleness, of women. With the toe of his boot, he located the nail Elle had snagged her skirt on yesterday. Lifting the hammer, he pounded it in deep.
Elle settled her shoulder against the doorjamb below and took advantage of her luck. Dove gray clouds crowded the sky, dimming the flood of sunlight streaming over Noah. He shifted, knee flexing as he put his weight on it, and clamped a nail between his teeth. As he skimmed his fingers along the step above him, the muscles in his shoulders bunched beneath pressed blue cotton. She smiled; he looked dressed for church, not repairs. Swiping his wrist across his brow, he tilted his head enough for her to study his shaded profile, to determine the changes ten years had brought.
An air of masculinity, to be sure. Grooves chalked a mouth she would call virile and beautiful. Faint lines spreading from eyes the color of wood smoke. Gaze moving lower, she noted firm ridges of muscle in his arms and his thighs.
Looking away, she drew a breath of humid air and leaned in to see Meredith diligently working on her assignment. A pretty girl, a tad young, but not too young. Elle had seen Noah laughing with her. If he asked her to the Spring Tide Festival, Elle would have to watch him hold the girl against his chest and—
You must get that boy out of your mind, Marielle-Claire.
Her father’s warning pounded through her, in time with Noah’s hammer blows. She recognized the danger here. For her, Noah would always be a swift route to heartache. Corroborating the hazard, he shifted and the play of movemen
t stretched his trousers over his firm buttocks.
“What are you doing?” she shouted, moving across the yard and climbing the coach house staircase with the grace and speed of a madwoman.
He shouldered a bead of sweat from his cheek and spit a nail into his gloved palm. “Hammering.”
“Yes, I can see that. No need. And if there are repairs that need to be done, I can do them.”
A gust of wind chose that moment to race in from the ocean and slap a loose shutter against the house. Noah lifted a tawny brow, the edges of his lips curling. “You’re doing a fine job.”
“The school takes most of my time. Besides, I’m not really very handy. Well, Widow Wynne can’t afford workers and neither can—”
“A deal, Elle.”
“Deal?” Clearing her throat, she forced the nip of suspicion aside. Deals created by men never seemed to get women anywhere in her experience.
He braced his elbows on his knees, dipped his head, and laughed. A stray lock of hair on the crown fluttered like a flag. Elle twisted her fingers in the folds of her skirt to keep her hands from wandering where they shouldn’t. “What kind of deal?”
Noah’s head lifted, his eyes warm and clear. “Don’t look so dubious. This isn’t one of Caleb’s deals. You don’t have to worry about it biting you in....” He laughed again and rubbed his hand over his mouth. “You don’t have to worry, that’s all I’m saying. I worked as a laborer to put myself through university, so I’m qualified. I’ll purchase the supplies and complete the repairs in exchange for help I’m going to need for the next month. Someone to transcribe my notes. A student of yours, possibly.”
“There is one student.” She worried her lip between her teeth. “Annie’s trying to improve her penmanship, which is adequate, but her reading skills are good. Only, this sounds like a lousy deal for you. You pay for the materials and do the work?”
“Let me worry about that. You can’t ignore the repairs any longer. This blessed place is collapsing around you.” He nudged his spectacles higher on the slope of his nose. “And my notes aren’t complicated, simple details concerning the lab’s construction. I’m to wire Chicago once a week with a report. Took it by this morning, and the telegraph operator wasn’t able to read my handwriting.”
“It’s not that bad.”
He paused in mid-motion, the hammer dangling from his fingers. “How do you know?”
A gust of air swept her hair into her face. She brushed it aside, concentrating on the shadows pooling at her feet and the distant rumble of thunder. “I have your book, the one you gave my father. He left it in the restaurant, and I, I brought it home with me. I thumbed through a chapter or two last night. You made notes in the margins. Notes I could decipher. Easily.” She shrugged.
“You read some of it?” He sounded incredulous.
She planted her hands on her hips. “I can read.”
His thoughtful gaze skimmed her face. “I know that Elle. I just had no idea you would be interested.”
“A long time ago, I had books similar to yours, but I”—no need to tell him she had been forced to sell her precious textbooks to raise money for the school—”don’t have them anymore.”
“Which essay did you read?” He propped the hammer against his hip and stretched out his legs. The eager expression on his face struck a deep cord, and she forgot his question. “Elle? Which essay did you read?”
“Um, something to do with average catches and the number of fish breeding. Nothing much.”
Surprise widened his eyes; a faint smile curved his mouth. “By calculating average catches, we can demonstrate reduction in stock and generate an estimate of the number of fish breeding in a given area. It’s what we call a skeleton study, time-consuming and exhausting, and basic. I’m going to conduct one here. God knows, I have the time. I went by the lab site this morning and Tyre Mcintosh, the master draftsman, told me to stay away for the rest of the week.” He flicked a blade of grass from his shoe. “Said he didn’t need some fish specialist hanging over his shoulder, telling him how to hammer.”
“Sounds like Tyre. Interference doesn’t sit well with him. Nor with the fishermen.”
He grinned, the first truly genuine smile she had seen since his return three days earlier. “I’ll use my considerable charm to persuade them.”
Wondering if the time was right to discuss what he could no longer avoid, she said mildly, “Caleb has daily contact with the fishermen. He designs and builds their boats. You—”
He shot to his feet, sending the hammer tumbling. “No.”
“Noah, he’s your brother. You’re going to have to face him.” Sooner than he imagined. Caleb returned on the afternoon skiff.
“I’m not asking him to help me.” His hands closed into fists, his voice dropped, clearly a man preparing for battle. “Never again.”
The oak branches above their heads cracked together, nearly obliterating Elle’s words. “You have it all wrong.”
He flinched, his face losing color. “I found out just how much I could rely upon Caleb.”
“He loved you, you must realize that. He still does.”
She witnessed a wealth of emotion: remorse, uncertainty, and rage. “I don’t know what to think. About myself or my family.” Grasping her shoulders, he dragged her forward, the grief he fought to contain rising to the surface. “After ten years, I still don’t know what to think.”
A bolt of lightning struck, rattling a windowpane above them. They glanced up, then warily, at each other. Her skin burned where he gripped her. The air she drew into her lungs grew heavy, filled with the promise of rain and the threat of emotions she feared.
She wanted to ease his anguish but the words would not come when he stood so near she could see the curl of his lashes, the flecks of black in his eyes. See the fear sharpening every angle of his face.
She could only watch as his lightly whiskered jaw clenched, his hands leaving her so quickly that she staggered. “Keep out of my life, Elle. For once, just keep the hell out of it.” He thundered down the stairs and shouldered past the shrubs separating Widow Wynne’s yard from the next.
Elle gripped the railing, a splinter jabbing her hand. Keep the hell out of my life. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. Not when he headed for the docks—and the skiff anchored there. How she knew, well, she just knew. The loose shutter whipped against the house, a reminder of the danger of sailing during a storm. She forced a brisk stride, but not reckless, which would draw attention she neither needed nor desired.
As she turned on Main Street, skidding on the oyster shells beneath her boots, a cold raindrop struck her cheek. She shivered and dabbed at her bodice, thinking she would be happy when summer began, be even happier when Noah returned to Chicago. Her heart gave a little jerk, exposing the lie. He had broken her once, sailing away without a backward glance. He had not contacted her in all those years, and, in a few short weeks, he would leave and never think of her again. She would help mend the rift between the Garrett brothers, because she had played a major role. That was only fair.
But nothing more.
Solving this mess wasn’t impossible if she put her mind to it. The stubborn fool still loved Zach and Caleb, loved them with a depth of feeling she had often wondered if he even possessed. With Noah, you weren’t sure how much he would let himself feel. She’d never seen a person hold a tighter rein than he did.
Running now, she didn’t see the puddle but felt the grimy water seep inside her boot lacings. She saw the pitched roof of the jail and a glimmer of light glowing in the window. Noah would be angry with her for meddling, although he shouldn’t expect anything different. Except, with a sudden mingling of pride and fear, she realized this was different. This time she would do what Noah had always managed to do for her.
She would save him from himself.
Chapter 4
“It is wonderful how soon things get into confusion…”
C. Wyville Thomson
The Depths of the Sea
The turbulent weather had driven everyone from the docks by the time Zach arrived. Nearly everyone, he noted, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. Icy raindrops streamed down his face, cooling his skin but doing nothing to relieve the furious pounding in his head. White-capped swells lashed the pier as he moved forward with a cautious step, the worn planks rocking beneath his feet. Through the dense fog rolling in from the sea, he saw the vague outline of a man standing in a flat-bottomed skiff moored next to the ferry bell. A tall man calmly working the sail’s lines. For a brief moment, Zach wondered if Elle had been mistaken about Noah’s distress.
Anxious to reach his brother, Zach stepped heavily, the thump rising above the storm’s steady cadence. With a start, Noah glanced to the side and, before he recovered, his unguarded expression reflected such stark loneliness that Zach’s throat closed. Why, he questioned, why did this happen to my family?
The wind ripped the slack line from Noah’s hand, the sail billowing wide. He muttered an oath and rubbed his palm. “Damn her,” Zach thought he heard him say.
“Don’t.” Zach shook his head. “Ellie did what she figured best.”
Noah’s shoulders stiffened, and he yanked the line taut.
Zach halted beside an overturned water cask and propped his elbows upon it. Ten years had passed since he had seen his little brother, and he wanted to ask everything, know everything.
Hold on, Zach. Don’t want to scare him off.
“Weren’t thinking of sailing in this, were you?” he asked, throwing a glance at clouds the color of wet ash.
“Of course not.” Noah struggled to batten the sail.
Zach coughed and steadied his voice, though his words still came out rougher than he’d planned. “Good thought. I have enough people to rescue manning the lifesaving station without having to go after you. Had a shipwreck last month on the shoals, lost twelve sailors.”
Noah turned his head and presented a glacial stare, as if, that night he chose to stay on Devil Island and observe nesting sea turtles instead of coming home, he had not been yanked across Zach’s lap and spanked within an inch of his life. A wild gust billowed his sleeves, flicked his hair into his face, and the stare turned to a squint. Zach fought hard to contain the urge to tell him his spectacles sat in his front pocket.
