Susan Wiggs - The Lightkeeper

He shouldn’t have laughed at her, but he couldn’t help it. He did want her to have his baby—that was the whole point. The child would indeed bear his name, as soon as it was born and she surrendered it to him. But it had been a grave misjudgment on his part to tell her the plan. He should have kept it a secret until the very end. He’d underestimated her maternal instinct.

She’d been appalled, terrified, grabbing a hand mirror and preparing to hurl it at him. He’d tried to calm her down, crooning to her as he approached. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t want to have to hurt you…”

And in the weeks that followed, she did calm down, so much so that he began to hope she was coming to accept his point of view. She’d want her child to have all the advantages he could give the heir to his fortune—the best schools, the best doctors, the best society of San Francisco and Portland.

The flowers would please her, perhaps even coax a smile from her. He stood outside the door for a moment to catch his breath from climbing the stairs. The thought of the child seized him without warning, and he felt a yearning so powerful he nearly cried his need aloud. A son, an heir. Someone to bring along in the world, someone who’d watch him, worship him, learn at his knee. Someone to love as he himself had never, ever been loved.

With a twist of the crystal doorknob, he let himself in. His foot always managed to find the one floorboard that creaked, and now it squawked loudly in the silent apartment. “It’s me,” he called. “I’ve brought you something.”

Silence. Perhaps she was sleeping. He’d heard women in her condition slept a lot. But the bed was empty. Made up as neatly as always.

A cold feeling of foreboding slithered over him, though he managed to keep control. Methodically, he went through every inch of the elegant apartment. Not a single thing was missing—not a silver fork nor a painted lamp chimney nor any of the clothes and jewels he’d given her. The only thing missing was the only thing that mattered: the woman.

He told himself to be calm, to wait. She’d gone out shopping or for a breath of air. Yes, that was it. But later, after questioning the doorman and learning that she’d left the week before and hadn’t been seen since, he was forced to admit that she was gone.

With some surprise, he looked down at the bouquet of flowers he’d brought her. He hadn’t even remembered he was carrying it. He’d mangled them beyond recognition, breaking and bruising every flower in the bunch.

Jesse stared at the rough-hewn ceiling beams, listening to the wag of the clock pendulum. Then, after a long time, he pulled his boots back on and went to tend the horses.

On his way to the barn, he encountered Erik Magnusson. Towering at least six and a half feet in height, the youth moved with a giant’s ambling gait, unhurried and untroubled by the press of the world. The wind blew his straight, straw-colored hair across his brow.

“Morning, Captain,” Erik called. Erik always called him by the head lightkeeper’s title. “Did the lady from the sea wake up?”

“No.”

“Father said we’re going to tar the bottoms of the surf runners today.” Erik’s mind always flitted from one subject to the next like a hummingbird going from blossom to blossom. Jesse liked the big lad, but he never quite knew what to say to him.

“That’s fine, Erik,” he said. “It’s good to keep the boats in proper order.”

“You never take the boats out,” Erik said, planting his hands on his hips. “Why do you never take the boats out?”

Because I’m a coward, Jesse thought.

“Why is that, Captain?” Erik persisted.

“The boats are for rescue and should never go past the surf,” Jesse said, then started walking away. “I’m off to the barn.”

He turned the four geldings out to the sloping pasture. Palina’s rooster crowed, the sound insulated by distance and by the light, fine mist that hung in the morning air.

He ambled down the long, switchback trail to the beach. Twenty-four hours ago he had been on this same path, and in his arms he had held an extraordinary and unwanted burden. For years he had been successful in getting people to leave him alone, but the red-haired woman was different. He couldn’t make her go away.

Why was he so reluctant to help her? He had come here to do just that—save victims from the sea, help boats navigate the perilous shoals at the mouth of the Columbia. It was the life he’d carved out for himself. It was his penance.

He negotiated the twisting path and walked across the damp, densely packed sand. His gaze automatically scanned the area, seeking more wreckage from the ship that had brought him the woman. But he saw only the endless expanse of the strand, littered here and there by seaweed or a chunk of driftwood. The morning breeze rustled through the dunes, rattling the reeds like dried bones.

A harsh barking sound came from Sand Island in the middle of the huge estuary. Sea lions. Sometimes they came to the cape, but Jesse shooed them off. Fishermen often shot the seals to keep them from preying on the salmon and steelhead.

As he walked, Jesse filled his lungs with heavy salt air and tried to empty his mind. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her, the fairy-featured woman who had invaded his house, his life. Companionship was the last thing he wanted. No one seemed to understand that. The people of Ilwaco regarded her presence as a great adventure. Palina termed her a gift. Fiona called her a challenge.

He tried to tell himself she was no different from other women. He’d trained his mind well, punished himself effectively through sheer force of will. Women left no impression on him, sparked no desire, awakened no yearning.

Yet the stranger in his house was different in a way he couldn’t explain. Though he didn’t even know her name, some deeply suspicious part of himself knew she posed a threat to the life he was now living.

He turned his back on the sea and looked at his world, a lonely king surveying an empty realm. The lighthouse station was the quietest, most remote place on earth. Jesse had run here, thinking it was where he belonged, at the edge of the world.

But, as it turned out, he hadn’t run far enough.

Jesse’s movements were slow and deliberate as he got out a low stool and placed it squarely beneath the trapdoor to the attic crawlspace. It had been ages since he had needed anything from the storehouse above the ceiling.

But he needed something now. He hoped his equipment was in working order. Standing on the stool, he reached into the hole and groped around through cobwebs and sawdust. Eventually his questing hands found a bulky, oblong box and the three lengths of wood that went with it.

He set the box on the scrubbed kitchen table and stared at it for a long time. He had not used the camera in years, not since…not in a very long time. He wasn’t even sure it still worked.

He flipped up the dual latches and lifted the lid. The odd device, with its mouth of brass, its glass plates and black silk shrouds, lay where he had flung them so long ago. The vials of chemicals had corroded at the caps. Red spots mottled the albumen papers.

Photography was a vexing business of washing the plate, coating it with gun cotton dissolved in alcohol, dipping it in silver nitrate. The exposure had to be enhanced by a flash in a pan, then the plate developed with acid and more chemicals. It was easy to make a mistake. He had found that out when—

He cut off the thought, cursing the memories that kept pounding at the edges of his awareness, wanting to be let in. He had come to the bluff in order to forget, and now the presence of that woman was making him remember another time, another life. Gritting his teeth, he assembled everything he needed; the chemicals and the plates, the tripod and the black silk shroud. Moving quietly, he went into the birth-and-death room.