Susan Wiggs - The Lightkeeper

“The first thing you should know is that—” she took a deep breath “—it’s not Mrs. Dare.” There. She’d said it. All along, she’d planned to lie to him and pretend she’d been a married lady and then widowed. Yet out popped the truth.

He didn’t move, didn’t react. “Miss Dare, then, is it?”

“Mary. Just Mary.”

“Did you have friends or family on the Blind Chance?”

“No.” The corners of her mouth curved up in an ironic smile. “I didn’t even have a ticket.”

He turned then, eyeing her suspiciously. Lord, but he was fine to look at, and he had no notion at all of his appeal. In fact, he was put together and clothed like a man who didn’t care for his appearance in the least. He just was. She itched to comb his hair for him, to trim it.

“I figured you were a stowaway.”

The thought of the ordeal she had endured sapped her strength. Her bad shoulder began to throb, and she touched it gingerly.

“Dr. MacEwan thinks you’ve hurt your collarbone.”

“A doctor’s been to see me?”

“Yes. You don’t remember?”

“I’m…afraid not.” She tried to stifle a yawn, but wasn’t quick enough. The dizziness spun upward through her. She felt her eyes roll back, her eyelids flutter.

“You should lie down and rest,” he said.

She nodded. His voice had a different quality now. She still heard that undertone of impatience, but the edges sounded smoother, somehow. “Thank you. I think I will.” She reached for his hand, then stopped herself.

I don’t like being touched.

Aye, it was the saddest thing she’d heard.

“Thank you again, Captain Morgan.”

“Jesse.”

“What?”

“Call me Jesse.” He strode across the room toward the door. “Now, go and rest.”

It was all Jesse could do to keep from running when he left the house. And that, perhaps, was what he resented most about this whole impossible situation. That the presence of this strange woman, this Mary Dare—imagine, her bearing the name of a shipwreck—could drive him from his own house, from his refuge against the outside world.

He walked across the clearing, heading for the barn. Whistling sharply, three short blasts, he didn’t even look to see if D’Artagnan obeyed. The horse came when summoned. It was the first lesson Jesse had taught him.

Within minutes, he had saddled up and was headed along the sinuous path to the beach. The horse was always game for a run, and as soon as they reached the flat expanse of brown sand, Jesse gave the gelding his head.

For a while, he felt something akin to exhilaration. The wind streamed through his hair and caught at his shirt, plastering the fabric to his chest and causing the sleeves to billow around his shoulders. The horse’s hooves kicked up wet sand and saltwater. Man and horse were like the skimmer birds, buzzing along the surf, heading nowhere as fast as they could.

From the corner of his eye, Jesse could see Sand Island, then the vast blue nothingness beyond the giant estuary. This was his world, his life. It was where he belonged. Alone. Eternally. He needed to be rid of Mary Dare, and quickly.

Because, somehow, her presence reminded him that his world was unbearably vast and empty.

God. The sight of her in that dress had nearly sent him to his knees. The memory had cut into him like a dagger: as if it were only yesterday, he’d seen Emily twirling beneath the chandelier in the foyer of their Portland mansion, laughing as the skirt belled out across the parquet floor….

“I put it on just for you, Jesse. Just for you.”

“Oh, Em. I’d rather have you take it off for me.”

She giggled and blushed. “That, my love, will come. We have plenty of time for that later.”

Jesse dug in his heels and rode harder.

He brought the horse up short at the boathouse tucked into a protected cove at the foot of Scarborough Hill. The rickety structure housed a pilot boat. Now that tugboats were common, the boat wasn’t used much to guide big ships out to sea, but Jesse kept the craft in perfect condition, varnishing the wood and caulking the seams, keeping oil in the lamps and the sails in good repair.

It was a sickness with him, taking care of this boat. For after Emily’s accident, Jesse had never gone to sea again. He never would. He was too afraid.

Disgusted with himself, he headed back to the lighthouse station. What a majestic sight it was, the lime-washed tower standing proud on the overlook of the cliff. And yet how small it looked, dwarfed by the huge trees beyond and the waves curling over the black rocks almost to its base.

When he reached the top of the trail, he heard a musical “Halloo!”

He smacked D’Artagnan into a trot and went to greet his visitor.

Lifting her navy blue skirts high above practical brogans, Dr. Fiona MacEwan alit from her buggy. “Good day, Jesse. I stopped in to check on our patient.”

He dismounted and led his horse to the crossties in the barn. “She woke up,” he said tonelessly.

“Is that so?” Fiona beamed, reaching to secure one of the wooden knitting needles that held her hair in place. “And is she all right? Did you learn her name?”

He put up the saddle and tack and cleaned the sand from his horse’s hooves and coat. “She says her name is Mary Dare and that she has no family.” He decided to conceal the fact that Mary had been a stowaway. He needed to learn more about the situation before he went trumpeting that about. For all he knew, he had given shelter to a thief or a murderess.

Or a hapless woman on the run from something she would not name.

“It’ll be hard for her, then, to be alone in the world,” Fiona said.

He turned D’Artagnan out to pasture. “Will it?”

“You don’t think so?”

“Come on, Fiona.”

Her gaze skated over him from head to toe. “Some people prefer human companionship. Crave it, even. I suppose you can’t understand that.” Showing nothing in the way of sympathy, Fiona patted him briskly on the cheek. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re the best-looking man in the Territory, Jesse Morgan?”

“No.” He scowled furiously.

Fiona smiled. “That sort of thing matters to some women.”

“But not to you.”

She sent him a mischievous wink. “Hardly.”

That was one of the reasons Jesse tolerated her. There was nothing Fiona wanted from him.

They walked together toward the house. “She claims she has no family. I assume that means no husband?” the doctor asked.

“That’s what she said.”

“Mmm.” Fiona’s voice held no judgmental tone. Jesse liked her for that. “That’ll be harder still, then.”

“Now that she can get around, you’ll be taking her into town. Get her settled and—”

“We mustn’t be hasty.” She preceded him into the house and set her bag on the kitchen table. Together, they went into the little bedroom.

Jesse’s breath caught, air hooking painfully into his chest. Mary Dare slept in the sunlight atop Palina’s quilts. She still wore the green-and-yellow dress.

Later, Jesse. I’ll take it off for you later. We have plenty of time…. His dead wife’s voice whispered in his ear, and he shook his head, forcing himself to look at Mary Dare.

The light caught at her hair and limned the porcelain delicacy of her skin. Beneath her eyes, circles of fatigue bruised the fragile skin. Despite the meal to which she’d helped herself, she looked gaunt and frail.

“She’s weak as a kitten,” Fiona whispered. “I’ll not be dragging her down the bluff to town in this condition.”

Jesse cleared his throat. “But—”

“She’s staying.” Fiona clamped her hands at her hips and jutted her chin up at him. “Do you have a problem with that?”