by Tracy Sumner
“This isn’t a room, Cale.”
Caleb flung the rag to the ground. “Oh, hell, you know what I mean.”
She covered her mouth, but a laugh burst forth anyway. Zach and Caleb twisted around, identical masks of confusion on their faces. She was beginning to enjoy this almost as much as she’d enjoyed seeing little Noah Garrett slug that high-nosed doctor in the jaw. “Noah didn’t go tearing out of here because of you two.”
“What are you talking about?” Zach asked, impatience narrowing his eyes.
All at once, the door banged against the outside wall, and Elle burst into the alley, washing bowl in one hand, strips of white cloth in the other. Her hair had come loose from its slapdash knot, bronze curls framing a face both ashen and flushed. Christabel smiled; she couldn’t have timed the scene better if she’d planned it.
“Where is he?” Elle paused before she reached them, glancing into each darkened corner.
Zach’s gaze locked with Christabel’s; she nodded faintly. Figuring she needed to give Caleb an extra prod, she dug her elbow into his ribs.
He groaned and massaged his side. “Not there, darling.”
“Where is he?” Elle repeated, panic accenting her speech.
“Gone, honey.” Christabel grabbed the bowl and rags and turned Elle toward the kitchen. “Noah can take care of himself. A little blood and a thump in the head isn’t going to kill anyone. Especially a Garrett.”
“Blood?” Elle jerked to a halt. “Juste Ciel!” She whipped back, green eyes glowing, face devoid of color. “What did you do to him, Cale?”
Caleb raised his arm, then groaned and lowered it. “Not a thing. Your former betrothed was doing the damage. Some doctor, that one.”
“Magnus.” Elle stalked to the door and practically ripped it from its hinges.
“Good Lord, Cale, go get her. Honestly, I can’t handle any more havoc tonight.” Zach dropped his head to his hands.
Caleb jabbed Zach in the chest as he passed. “You and I are having a long talk later, Constable. I’m not so stupid I don’t realize you knew Noah was coming.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Zach muttered as the door slammed.
Christabel perched her hip against the barrel, the bowl cradled in her arms. “What do you think about this, my friend?”
“Damned if I know what to think.”
“Love would keep Noah here, sure as Moses parted that sea. Give him and Caleb plenty of time to mend fences, too.”
Zach lifted his head, exhaustion shadowing his face. “True, there’s always been something”—he made a vague motion with his hand—”between Ellie and Noah. Some kind of understanding, a keen insight into each other’s feelings. But love? Love doesn’t take this much figuring out.”
“Honey, what you and Hannah had was a diamond sitting atop a pile of rocks. I watch idiots every day, drinking and searching for answers, and I can tell you, love isn’t easy for most people. Bury deep what they don’t want to see, go blind to what they’re scared to feel. Using their heads, not their hearts.” Christabel trailed her finger around the rim of the bowl, the sharp scent of alcohol stinging her nose. “Remember the first time we saw Hannah? Her daddy brought her to preaching just after they moved here from Atlanta. She wore one of those bonnets with all the ribbons trailing down, practically to her fanny. And some kind of yellow frock with lots of lace.”
“Pink.” He paused, stared into the distance. “The dress was pink.”
“Pink.” She coughed to regain her voice. Strange, how sorrow lingered.
“I’m terrified, Christa.”
“Why?” she asked, shocked to the core. Zach wasn’t the kind of man to fear much.
“In one split second, I lost my wife, my unborn child. And for a long while I lived just to make sure Rory got to bed on time and brushed his teeth. I wasn’t much of a father for months after Hannah died and”—Zach drew a shuddering breath and paced to the end of the alley—”I almost failed him like I failed my brothers. Like I’m afraid I’m going to fail them again.”
“You didn’t fail anybody, Zachariah Garrett!”
“Somehow, I did, Christa. Yet, I can’t for the life of me tell you what I would do differently if I had the chance to live each moment again.” He settled his palms on the wall and leaned in, shoulders hunched, head hanging low. “My mother didn’t leave me two boys needing protection and a switch against their behinds. She left me two young men needing I don’t know what, changing and growing in ways that confounded the tar out of me. One with a temper I couldn’t control, the other with a mind I didn’t understand. I did my best by them.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Honest to God, I did.”
Christabel stepped forward, a gust of wind trapping her skirt between her ankles. “This will all work for the best, Zach. You’ve just got to give the situation time.”
“Time? Ten years hasn’t helped. Did you see their faces? It about made me sick how much this still hurts them.”
“Maybe Ellie could heal some of—”
“No.” He knocked his boot against the wall, sending a flutter of caked mud to the ground. “I don’t want her to make Noah run away again.” He threw a sidelong glance at her, a tight smile locked in place, sorrow and self-hatred riding high on his face. “You see, I asked him about her today. Because I remember him looking interested a time or two. Watching her when she didn’t know. He admitted it, said he did wonder, but mixed in his confession was this hunted look, like I was the hound, and he was the fox. After giving this some thought, I figure it might be better to keep that chest sealed.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I think Noah’s better off staying away from Ellie. And she’s better off staying away from him. She says she doesn’t care about him any—”
“And you believe her?” Christabel laughed.
“Of course, I believe her. Why would she lie?”
“Why, indeed.” She slammed the bowl on the barrel and began folding the strips of cloth into needless squares. “Oh, maybe because the entire town teased her, always laughing and calling her the professor’s assistant or no-beau-Beaumont. Or, could be due to Noah never showing a smidgen of interest, telling her as blunt as can be that he wasn’t ever going to come around. That would be enough for me. Forget about the heartless drivel her father’s been telling her for years.”
Zach turned his head, his concerned gaze finding hers. “Are you saying she lied to me?”
“Good heavens, no.” Christabel dropped the last pleated square in the bowl and sighed. Men were so feeble-witted. “Ellie’s not lying to you.” Supplies in hand, she paused before the door. “Honey, she’s lying to herself.”
* * *
He was lying to himself.
It definitely bothered him to watch Daniel Connery stand in the corner of Elle’s porch for the third time this week, making last-minute adjustments to his lapel and dusting pollen from his creased trousers. Why would she want to go to dinner with a man who dressed so carelessly?
Tipping his head against the coach house wall, Noah observed the spill of indigo across a twilight sky, the cool breeze bringing Elle’s laughter to his ears.
Surely, the bastard’s ship would sail soon.
Powerless, he looked in time to see her step outside, Daniel holding the screen door, rumpled hat in his fist. A broad band of sunlight revealed the toe of a maroon boot, gloved fingers tying her satin bonnet ribbons, then a half turn as she secured the latch he’d repaired. She tended to use the back entrance after dark. Ever a circumspect man, Noah recorded this habit. In the past eight days, he had recorded far too many of Miss Beaumont’s habits.
She liked to sit on the porch steps as the sun rose, fresh morning light sparking bursts of cherry in her hair. She preferred to leave the door open while she taught, her patient instruction and affectionate regard floating through the rotting boards, upsetting Noah’s equilibrium and disrupting his schedule. In between lessons, she volunteered to assist repairing broken la
tches and rusted hinges, her enticing scent making him snarl and snap, then berate himself for his lack of control and his cruelty. He also berated himself for not being able to ignore the charming dimple marking her left cheek, the intelligent gleam in her eyes as she discussed politics or fashion or bicycles, one of a hundred topics she retained in her ravenous little mind. She craved information in any form—from collecting plankton using tow nets to tagging certain species of fish—and possessed a zest for life that amazed and confounded him.
He’d never had a student listen as attentively, grasp topics as quickly or as eagerly. Come to think of it, he had never talked as freely, and never, ever, about subjects he kept close to his heart.
“Hell,” he said and snatched a conch shell from the railing. Placing it next to his ear, he held himself from straining for a better view.
Elle left the porch at a jog, striding down the path a full step ahead of her escort, striped cloth tapping her ankles. Noah worked his way up the threadbare dress that hugged each curve to perfection. Stopping at the side of the house, she took her coat from Daniel, her beautiful, plump breast outlined in shadow.
Noah felt his lips tilt in gloating, masculine satisfaction as Elle slipped her arms into his coat. The bulky cuffs hit her mid-thigh, the notched collar bunched beneath her chin. She should have returned it a week ago; he should have asked. Only... the thought of her scent overriding his made him hesitate, and he was damn sure he didn’t want to examine that too closely.
As Noah debated calling out, telling the idiot sailor just whose coat she wore, Daniel offered his arm and Elle wavered, glancing to the side, her wide straw brim concealing most of her face. Noah stiffened and pressed against the wall, praying deepening shadows and blooming dogwoods concealed him.
She tipped her head, her face flooding into view. Her bottom lip slipped between her neat, white teeth. Noah groaned and closed his eyes, categorizing the marine specimens he had collected on Devil that morning.
In between razor clam and ribbed mussel, Elle’s plump lip intruded.
Pink, soft, moist.
Chrissakes, I’m going mad, he reasoned and pitched the conch shell over the railing.
After counting to ten, he opened his eyes to find heightened darkness and an empty yard. His frustration only increased the throb in his temples, the ache in his back. Recompense for hunching over his desk in the coach house, reviewing sketches of the laboratory until daybreak. He completely neglected the narrow bed wedged in the corner of the bedroom.
His skin tingled from a week spent knee-deep in muck, specimen bag a heavy weight by the end of the day, the sun roasting him through his clothing. Rotating his shoulders, his gaze dropped to the plate by his side. Sometime last week, Elle began bringing him dinner. He had taken to eating on the coach-house landing, delighting in the lingering warmth, the animated fireflies and the boisterous crickets, the endless shush of waves rolling into shore. Vastly different from a spring night in Chicago. She had even eaten with him once. Over a dessert of apple cobbler, he had shown her how to trace her way from the Big Dipper to the North Star.
At the end of the lesson, she traced her way back.
Noah nudged the plate aside, wanting to do the same to Elle’s hospitality. Only, coming home to find a warm meal waiting on the step felt—he searched his mind. Good, it made him feel good. After years of living in a city where he cared for no one and no one cared for him, he could pretend he had a real home here. Laughable, but the scent of fried chicken and black-eyed peas transformed Widow Wynne’s coach house into a place he resided in moderate serenity.
Perhaps Elle brought the food to repay him for securing loose shutters, tightening wobbly doorknobs, and promising to replace the rotten floor in her schoolroom. Perhaps not. Scooting forward, he settled his arms on the uneven railing, let his legs dangle over the side of the stairs. He stared at nothing, yet saw Elle in her striped dress, a smile dimpling her cheek.
He dropped his chin to his arms and inhaled the scent of honeysuckle and cut grass. Underneath, if he really concentrated, he detected whatever Elle sprinkled all over her skin, her clothing. Moist earth and fresh rain, the slightest hint of something sweet sealing the package in gossamer wrapping. Nothing particularly feminine about it, yet the fragrance muddled his senses like no other. Clouded his mind. Made him think of tattered silk hiked past a shapely knee, a round bottom lifting off a leather bicycle seat, blazing green eyes and a dimpled cheek, plump lips parting on a sigh—
Noah’s palm connected with the railing, the unwelcome rise in his trousers making him question, for the first time in his life, if a trollop would ease his troubled mind. Perhaps help him sleep better at night and think clearer during the day.
Did they even have trollops in Pilot Isle?
He didn’t enjoy a woman altering his strict course by the way she smelled or the way her lips formed certain words. He had an established plan, a definite trajectory.
The plan allowed for the occasional tussle beneath scented sheets; a balanced, natural hunger that never bowed to control. Rather dispassionate, he supposed, but he carefully considered the circumstances before making love. After deciding years ago that he would avoid sexual encounters if they created the turmoil he found so repellent. Governing his impulses had never been a problem before—he gave his body what it needed and it quieted.
Perhaps a written list of reasons why he could not afford to react in this fashion to Marielle-Claire Beaumont would resolve the issue. Then his mind would send the signal to the rebellious part of his body. He could handle this trifling, sophomoric physical response. Easily manage it; of course, he could.
But, he’d already made a list.
Make that two.
A dull whack broke the silence. A shutter dangling from one of Widow Wynne’s second-floor windows. He had missed that one. Actually, missed wasn’t entirely accurate. He had climbed the ladder and glanced into a bedroom that looked like a tornado had blown through it. Dresses hanging from the bedposts, magazines and books stacked on a pine dresser, scattered cologne bottles, framed portraits, and undergarments. A lacy, frilly, stiff-looking contraption, yellow with slim black edging. Leaning in to get a better look, he cracked his brow on the glass and nearly tumbled to the ground.
“What a mess,” he said and peeled a strip of paint from the railing post, imagining peeling one of those faded dresses from Elle’s body. Finding a corset or chemise—the delectable undergarment he had spied—clinging to each lush curve. What would it feel like to sink into her as deeply as he could sink into a woman, suck her skin between his teeth, have her breasts swell beneath his fingers and her nipples pebble beneath his tongue?
Spontaneous, uninhibited.
He knew that’s how it would be with Elle, recognized it as surely as he recognized his face in the mirror above his basin. The woman leaped headfirst into everything. Always had. Making love would be no different. Passionate, impulsive. That didn’t sound similar to anything, or anyone, he had experienced. Passion always seemed rather tepid to him, a glass of tea left too long in the sun.
He didn’t know why he wanted to control his life to the point of wringing it dry. He had analyzed this predilection many times. Since he left Pilot Isle, alone, frightened, and bewildered, he had not gotten close to anyone. A few friends, colleagues, people he could hold at a distance. Every time someone reached out to him, in friendship or affection, his thoughts, his feelings, crawled deep inside.
Caroline Bartram was the one person who knew about his childhood and what had happened to make him run. And, he only told her in a fevered delirium. She had found him, bloodied and shivering, lying between stacks of stripped pine outside a lumber mill. He’d left Pilot Isle little more than six months before, his anger too raw for his mind to subdue, and far too savage for his hands to defend. She had dressed his wounds and listened. Simply listened.
He remembered the relief telling someone brought.
Flicking another chip of paint loose, Noah
sighed. Each day, he struggled to make room in his heart for his brothers. Although this scared the hell out of him. He recoiled every time Zach touched him, yet, deep in his gut, he suppressed the powerful urge to return the touch. Crazy, when he and Caleb had barely gotten past gruffly spoken greetings as they passed each other on the street.
This would have to change. Had already changed.
This morning, Noah did the unexpected: he asked Caleb for help. In an impulsive attempt to reduce the amount of time he and Elle spent together, he sent his brother a note requesting his aid in getting the fishermen to take him on their daily runs. With Caleb’s assistance, the captains agreed, if Noah, in turn, agreed to salt fish and drain nets. In plain truth, if he agreed to work like a mongrel. He welcomed the challenge, welcomed any excuse to leave the coach house before dawn and return after dusk, too exhausted to eat Elle’s meals, much less eat them with her.
Unbelievable, given his vow to never depend on his family again.
He’d broken that easily enough. The other one he’d made since returning involved avoiding Elle. He cocked his head, listening for her lively step on the path.
Her buoyant laughter gave life to a hushed night.
He heard only the spiked chirp of a cricket and the crash of waves in the distance and denied the sharp stab of disappointment.
Noah angled his spectacles against his brow and pressed his knuckles beneath his eyes. The Elle Vow, as he liked to think of it, he must keep. Because he had no room for a woman in his life—in his heart.
He wasn’t certain he’d left room there for anyone.
Chapter 5
“This may seem a trifling detail, but so great inconvenience constantly arises from carelessness in this matter.”
C. Wyville Thomson
The Depths of the Sea
Elle slipped on the stair’s worn edge, banging her shin. Two more to the coach-house landing, then she completed a quick check of her dressing gown. Ties tied, buttons buttoned. Covered to the neck, albeit inappropriately. Oh. Shoes. She wiggled her toes and tried to shake off the grass and dirt. Sighing, she drew a salty breath of courage and pounded on Noah’s door. No time to worry about him giving her the evil eye over such a minor detail as bare feet.
