Beyond Sunrise
Page 30
It was India McKnight who spoke, her gaze leveled hard and fierce on Alex’s face. “What do you intend to do?”
Alex’s chest jerked on a quick, desperate breath. “Our orders are to take Jack Ryder back to London.”
He tightened his grip on his pistol, hunkering down in preparation for flying skulls and all manner of other unorthodox and uncivilized deportments. Instead, Jack Ryder let out a long, weary sigh, and said, “All right. But I’ll go willingly. There’s no need for chains.”
“What?” India McKnight swung to face him, her eyes wide with fear. “You can’t. They’ll hang you.”
Ryder shook his head. “I’m through hiding.” Gripping her by the arms, he met her gaze with a fierce intensity that had Alex looking away in some discomfort. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life watching the horizon. Worrying about what the next tide might be bringing.”
“But . . . they won’t believe you.” Her voice cracked. “You have no proof.”
“He has me,” said Alex simply.
Jack Ryder’s head swung around, his eyes narrowing as Alex met his gaze. “Simon Granger was a popular man. A hero. It’ll ruin your career, being known as the officer responsible for dragging his name through the dirt.”
Alex eased the hammer back on his pistol and let it fall to his side. There might be shades of gray, he knew. But not here, and not now. “Maybe,” he said, his heart heavy in his chest. “But it’s the right thing to do.”
Dawn spilled a rich orange glow across the sky, bathing the calm waters of the lagoon with color and touching the jagged volcanic peak above with gold. The surf lapped at Jack’s feet, a gentle sloshing that was only an echo of the violent cannonade hitting the fringing outer reef. He turned his head, his eyes narrowing against the growing light as he stared at what was left of the Lady Juliana.
It was hard now to remember the man he’d been on that day, ten years ago. He could remember the hollow despair of his grief, and the burning depths of his rage, but he couldn’t remember the man he had been before his soul had been scoured by that quick succession of linked tragedies. A part of him had died on that reef, he realized, just as a part of Simon Granger had died. It hurt, thinking about Simon, thinking about what the decisions he’d made that day had done to him. Jack kept remembering the way they had been before, and that awful moment on the edge of the bluff when they had both confronted what they had become.
It occurred to him suddenly that he could again see quite clearly, the dark, wave-washed outline of the wreck undistorted by the jagged flashes of light that had almost blinded him last night. At some point his headache had left him, and he hadn’t even noticed it. He sucked the fresh sea air deep into his lungs and drew it all in, the boundless horizons and the tangy green scent of the island and the haunting cry of the gull wheeling overhead, its outstretched wings lit by the golden brushstrokes of the rising sun. He felt suddenly, oddly, lighthearted and free. Which was ironic, given that he was about to be taken into custody.
India’s hand slipped through the crook of his arm, and he turned to her. Her fine gray eyes were huge, her face held stiff, as if she was trying very hard not to cry. “I’m so afraid, Jack,” she said, and because he knew her now, knew her well, he knew how much it cost her to make that admission.
He cradled her face in his palms. “It’ll be all right. I’ll come back. I promise.”
She wrapped her hands around his wrists and gripped him tight. “You can’t promise that.”
He rubbed his lips against her forehead. “As long as there’s life within me, I’ll be back. I can promise that.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She squeezed them shut and pressed her face to his so that he wouldn’t see. “I should be there with you,” she said, her voice a torn whisper. She’d said she wanted to come with him, to sail back to England with him. But as the Barracuda’s acting captain, Alex Preston had balked at the idea of allowing a woman on board.
Jack brought up one hand to touch her hair. “You need to finish your book.”
“I don’t care about my bloody book.”
He smiled. “Yes you do.”
“I could follow you.” She glanced over to where Ulani sat on a tumble of rocks near the base of the bluff, her gaze on the Barracuda, riding now at anchor just off the beach, her decks alive with seamen preparing to set sail. “We could both follow you.”
He shook his head. “It would take weeks. We could pass each other on the way and never even know it.” He let his knuckles trail down the long line of her neck. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her, her face, her hair. Couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking the one question he probably didn’t want to hear the answer to. “And when I come back? Then what? Will you marry me?”
She pressed her fingertips to his lips, stopping him. “Don’t ask me that. Not now.”
“Why? In case you commit yourself to something you afterward regret?”
“Jack—”
She reached out to him, but he was already swinging away, the sand crunching beneath his boots as he crossed the beach to where his daughter sat a distance apart, her head bent over something she cradled in her lap.
He paused awkwardly beside her, his gaze on the top of her bowed head. He could see the part that showed so white against the dark of her hair, and the delicate, vulnerable arch of her neck. He wanted desperately to touch her. Instead, he curled his hands into fists at his sides, and said, “Do you understand what’s happening?”
Her head fell back and she looked up at him, the blue eyes that were so much like his own narrowing. “What do you think? That because I’m half Polynesian, and eleven years old, I’m stupid?”
Jack sighed. He seemed to be saying all the wrong things to the women in his life. “You know I have no choice but to go?”
“Yes.”
“You know I’ll be back, if I can?”
She blinked. “No.”
At least she was being honest. He let his gaze drift around the lagoon. In the clear morning light it looked like an emerald, set in ivory. “I suppose I haven’t given you much reason to believe me,” he said, and the truth of his words was like an ache in his heart. “But I will be back. If they don’t hang me.”
He brought his gaze to her face, to find her staring at him, her eyes dark and solemn. “You might want to take this,” she said, and thrust something out at him.
He stared down at the sandy, damp package in his hands, and such was his state of distraction that it took him a moment to understand what he held.
The Lady Juliana’s charts and log.
Palm fronds and low tree branches slapped India in the face, whipped against her legs, but she kept running, her breath soughing in and out as the trail steepened, her hands scrabbling for purchase on twisted roots and rocky outcrops as her boots slid in the thick, rich humus. She was driven, desperate to make it up to the point for one last glimpse of the ship that was carrying Jack away from her.
Up and up she climbed, until the trail emptied out onto the grassy bluff and she felt the gusting force of the trade winds blowing cool and sweet against her sweat-streaked face. Out at sea, the wind kicked little whitecaps off the tops of the waves and filled the sunstruck, billowing sails of the Barracuda as the corvette heeled to port. India felt her steps slow, falter. At the tip of the point she stopped, one hand creeping up to hold back her windblown hair.
Her breath was coming hard and fast, her heart pounding fierce enough to shudder her chest. She felt overwhelmed by a sickening succession of unbearable possibilities: that she might never see Jack again, that he might somehow fail in his quest to clear his name and win his freedom. Or that, if free, he would turn away from her, because when he had needed her the most, all her old, suffocating fears had reared their heads and she had been unable to give him the reassurance he had sought.
She gasped, her arms wrapping around her waist, her chest aching as if a great rending tear had cleaved her heart in two and left her shattered and
bleeding. And she knew then with sudden, awful clarity that she had made a terrible mistake, that she had allowed her fear of the unknown and the unknowable to stop her from reaching for what she really wanted. Because what she wanted was him, and she thought she had probably known it from that first moment when she had looked up to see him standing at the end of his dock, sun-bronzed and wild and free.
Oh, she had fought it, denied it, tried to escape it. But the reality of it, the inescapable rightness of it had been impressed upon her, over and over again. In these last weeks, they had faced a lifetime of dangers together, had known fear and joy and bitter defeat. She had learned she could trust him with her life, her heart, her soul. Only, she still hadn’t learned to trust herself.
Out at sea, the trades were freshening, the corvette now only a flash of white in the distance, soon lost. Yet still India stood at the tip of the bluff, the tropical sun fierce on her bare head, a terrible weight of sadness and regret lying heavy on her heart.
Chapter Thirty-eight
HE CAME TO her early on a sunny afternoon, when the mango trees were in bloom, and the sea swelled gentle and achingly blue into the distance.
She had sailed over to an island in the Marquesas with Patu and Ulani, to investigate reports of stone statues and record examples of the local folklore. They’d been there almost a week when she discovered the existence of another collection of carvings, high on an open hillside above the deep, violet-blue bay where they had anchored the Sea Hawk, rescued from its watery grave and lovingly repaired and refitted by Patu.
She was sketching a giant statue of a turtle, her notebook balanced on one hip, her forehead knotted with the effort of getting the proportions right, when a movement on the hillside below caught her eye. She paused, her head lifting, her pencil stilling. So many times, over these past months, she had caught herself doing this, watching, waiting, hoping. She didn’t want to let herself believe it might be him, but her heart was thumping, her breath coming suddenly so hard and fast that she was shaking.
A breeze gusted up, warm and sweet with the scents of the sea and the damp earth and a luxuriant tangle of green growing things. A lock of hair blew into her eyes and she brought up one hand to brush it back, the sun fierce and golden on her upturned face as she squinted into the distance.
It was a man, she saw. A tall man with a long, easy stride and dark hair that fluttered against the collar of the shirt he wore open at the neck. Her notebook slipped from her fingers. For a moment, she didn’t think she could move. But then she was running, her hands fisting in her skirt, her knees kicking up high, her legs reaching, reaching.
“Jack,” she cried, her heart soaring, bursting with joy and love, so much love. “Jack.”
He paused, his head falling back as he looked up at her. Something flashed in his eyes, something bright and hot. He laughed, his arms opening wide to scoop her up as she flung herself at him, his embrace warm and strong, lifting her high, so high her feet left the ground and her momentum spun them both around and around. She braced her arms on his shoulders, her neck arching, her head falling back as her laughter joined his. Then his laugher died, the skin pulling taut across his cheekbones as he let her slide slowly down the length of him. Her feet touched the ground, and she found herself feeling suddenly shy, and more than a little afraid.
She reached up and slid her fingertips across his tightly held mouth. “You came back.”
“I said I would.” His eyes narrowed, his features tense as he searched her face. He took in a deep breath, his chest lifting as if he was bracing himself, steadying himself for something he didn’t want to hear. “Do you still want me?”
She felt her lips tremble into a smile, although her heart was thumping wildly with the terror of what she was about to say, what she was about to do. “I have lived every hour of every day since you’ve been gone wanting you. I want to wake up in the middle of the night and watch you sleeping next to me. I want to have your babies, and spend the rest of my life laughing and fighting with you, and growing old with you. I want you like I have never wanted anything in my life. But—” Her voice cracked, so that she had to stop and swallow, hard. “But I’m still afraid. So afraid.”
And then she felt a curious lightening, deep within her, as if by saying it out loud, she had somehow robbed that fear of its hold on her and made it, oddly, less terrorizing.
His features had softened, relaxed. “People are always afraid, India.” He caught her hand in his and brought it to his lips, although his gaze never left hers. “I’m afraid. Afraid of not being the man you think I am, of not being the one man you can love, forever.”
He was looking at her with all of his love naked in his eyes for her to see. She thought she had never known anyone so brave, so comfortable with his feelings for those he loved, so comfortable with himself. It came to her that he was everything she wanted to be, and more. And that forever wouldn’t be enough time to get to know him, enough time to spend loving him.
“I love you,” she said, trembling with the awful courage of what she was saying. “I love you so much it scares me.” She laughed, and he laughed with her, catching her to him, his fingers spearing in her hair to hold her head steady, his eyes growing narrow and intense in that way they did just before he kissed her.
And she knew then that he was right, that fear was a part of life. And she thought that the worst fears were the ones that kept you from doing what you knew was right, or from seizing what you really, truly wanted.
“Marry me,” she said suddenly.
He froze, his lips just inches from hers, his eyes flaring wide. “What?”
She laughed, buoyed up by a wave of joy and hope and contentment that seemed to wash over her, warm and good. “I said, marry me. Marry me at a Polynesian luau, or in a colonial courthouse, or on the deck of the next ship that passes by, but just . . . marry me.”
Jack took her chin in his hand, his gaze locked with hers. “You don’t need to marry me, India, if you’re not comfortable with that. I’ll understand.”
“I know.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close. “This is what I want.”
He took her mouth in a kiss that was long and hot and went on forever. Then he lifted his head so he could look at her, and the smile in his eyes warmed her heart and healed her soul, and sent her spirits soaring wild and free.
Look for these scintillating novels by Candice Proctor!
MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS
Welcome to the dazzling splendor of old New Orleans, where the air is fragrant with mock orange and sweet olive—and danger wafts on the gentle southern breeze. . . .
Widow Emmanuelle de Beauvais devotes herself to the sick and injured of a grand city now occupied by the enemy. Then a night of unspeakable terror puts Emmanuelle at the center of a murder investigation and under the watchful eye of Yankee provost marshal Zachary Cooper. Although she despises the uniform and the war it represents, she finds the man who wears it impossible to resist.
Sign up for Pillow Talk, the romance e-newsletter that gives you the latest scoop on your favorite authors and books. Go to www.ballantinebooks.com/PillowTalk.
Published by Ivy Books.
Available wherever books are sold.
Candice Proctor takes readers to the lush vistas of Australia in this magnificent tale of two people who share a love as forbidden and dangerous as the land that surrounds them. . . .
WHISPERS OF HEAVEN
After years of schooling in England, Jesmond Corbett finds little has changed on her family’s estate along the coast of Tasmania. Betrothed since childhood to a wealthy neighbor, Jessie comes home determined to conform to the expectations of her family. But nothing in Jessie’s life has prepared her for the mysterious stranger who works in the stables, a man with searing eyes who haunts her dreams and awakens passions she never knew existed.
Published by Ivy Books.
Available wherever books are sold.
Set in medieval Europe, here is
a superb tale of passion and redemption as one man’s quest for glory becomes an unexpected crusade to save his soul. . . .
THE LAST KNIGHT
by Candice Proctor
To warn her beloved brother of a political betrayal that could lead to war, Attica d’Alérion disguises herself as a young courtier and bravely rides into the arms of Damion de Jarnac, a rogue and an ambitious horseman. Working for the aging King Henry, Damion scouts the hills of Brittany on a mission to expose the treachery of Philip of France. There he joins forces with a courageous lad—who turns out to be the most intriguing woman he has ever met. But to win the beautiful Attica’s love, Damion must slay the demons of an unforgivable past.
And to save his doomed country, he must make a deadly decision that could break his lady’s noble heart. . . .
Published by Ivy Books.
Available wherever books are sold.
Subscribe to the new Pillow Talk e-newsletter—and receive all these fabulous online features directly in your e-mail inbox:
♥ Exclusive essays and other features by major romance writers like Linda Howard, Kristin Hannah, Julie Garwood, and Suzanne Brockmann
♥ Exciting behind-the-scenes news from our romance editors
♥ Special offers, including contests to win signed romance books and other prizes
♥ Author tour information, and monthly announcements about the newest books on sale
♥ A Pillow Talk readers forum, featuring feedback from romance fans...like you!
Two easy ways to subscribe: Go to www.ballantinebooks.com/PillowTalk or send a blank e-mail to join-PillowTalk@list.randomhouse.com.
Pillow Talk— the romance e-newsletter brought to you by Ballantine Books
By Candice Proctor:
NIGHT IN EDEN
THE BEQUEST
SEPTEMBER MOON
THE LAST KNIGHT