Susan Wiggs - The Lightkeeper

She lay sleeping, her limbs loose, her breathing peaceful and even. Her hair streamed in a ruby and gold tangle across the pillow. Her body curved in on itself, protecting, always protecting the belly.

Jesse tried not to stare. Tried not to think. He made himself concentrate on the task at hand. He wanted her out of here. The best way to do that was to find her next of kin. He needed to take a photograph and circulate it, have it published.

Yes, that was the answer. Maybe the grateful family would come for her before she woke. Before he learned one blessed thing about her.

He positioned the tripod at the foot of the bed. Then he placed the camera box on top of it, aiming the eye at the woman.

And suddenly, the memories he had kept dammed up inside him broke through, and the past stormed across his mind. He felt it like a physical blow, heard the laughter of a woman long dead and saw himself, a much younger Jesse, laughing with her….

“Hold still, darling, I’ll just be a minute.”

“Oh, Jesse, you take forever.” A dainty hand in a lacy glove smoothed across his brow, pushing aside a persistent lock of hair from his eyes. Pink-tinged lips smiled up at him. “Just make the picture and let’s eat.” The lacy hand gestured at the lavish picnic spread out upon a fringed blanket in the middle of a flower-studded meadow. “Aren’t you starved?”

He had abandoned the camera then, reaching her in three long strides, sweeping her into his arms. The picnic and the photograph had been forgotten until much, much later, when cool shadows slipped across the field.

“There won’t be enough light left for a picture, Jesse.”

He ran his hand through the tousled silk of her hair. “We have all the time in the world, sweetheart.”

Stifling a ragged growl, he rid himself of the memory almost violently, like a wounded man yanking out the knife that had stabbed him.

Damn. It had started already. The stranger, with her serene face and air of mystery, was making him think, making him remember, making him feel.

The sooner he got rid of her, the better.

With grim determination he finished setting up the equipment. Then he looked at his subject. She lay like a rag doll, her hair covering part of her face and her arms and legs slack. No one would recognize her in this state.

He had to touch her. There was no other way. He stepped forward and took her by the shoulders, careful not to jar her injured collarbone. She made a sound, half sigh, half moan, and he froze. God, if she woke up now, he’d scare her out of her wits.

Almost as much as she scared him.

Her head flopped to one side, and she settled deeper into sleep. He still held her by the shoulders.

It was then that he noticed it. Her warmth. It seeped into him like rays of direct sunlight. The living radiance passed through his fingers and burrowed deep inside him. He was achingly aware of the soft, yielding flesh and the fragile bone structure beneath. The sensation of holding another human being was so overwhelming that he didn’t quite know what to do.

She smelled of sea and wind and womanhood, and he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get his bearings while his senses listed crazily.

The ordeal took endless minutes. He propped her against the pillow, centering her head just so. Then, not knowing what to do with her loose arms, he crossed them atop the quilt. But as soon as he got her hands in place, her head sagged to the side. He bolstered the pillow, making a trench. Then her hands sprang free as she stretched luxuriously.

Jesse swore quietly between his teeth. How did undertakers do this, anyway? At length he succeeded in arranging her so that her head was centered, the hair pushed away from her face, her hands demurely crossed.

“Stay,” he whispered. “Just stay there a minute. I only need another minute.”

He crept back to the tripod, treading lightly as if she were a house of cards that could collapse any moment. He put the silk over his head and bent to the camera. His other hand held the flash powder in a pan.

“One,” he whispered through his teeth, “two, three…”

All at once, he exposed the plate. A boom and a flash of magnesium powder exploded in the room.

The woman sat forward like a ghost disturbed from eternal sleep. He expected her to scream, but instead, she grabbed the pitcher beside the bed and hurled it at him. At the same time, she spoke. “Jesus Christ on a flaming crutch!”

She crouched against the headboard of the bed, the long nightgown bunched in a tangle, her hand reaching for the oil lamp on the table.

As soon as he realized her intent, Jesse blazed back to life. The damn-fool woman. She could hurt herself. Worse than that, she’d burn the house down.

“Don’t touch it,” he said between clenched teeth, striding across the room. His boots crunched on shards from the broken pitcher. Snatching the lamp, he placed it out of reach on a wall shelf and glared at her through the snaking yellow-gray smoke from the flash.

Color touched her cheeks, and her warm, hazel eyes shone—not with gratitude, but with anger. He was startled to realize that her fury matched his own. “You’ve done enough damage already,” he grumbled.

“And what would a body expect, I ask you?” she demanded. “I wake up to find myself in the middle of a pitched battle and you think I’ll simply surrender? You shoot at me, boyo, and I’ll fire back, make no mistake.”

Boyo? Jesse was reasonably certain no one had ever called him boyo. “I wasn’t shooting at you,” he said.

“There was an explosion. And I smell gunpowder.” She squinted through the smoke and wrinkled her nose, a perfect little nose sprinkled with freckles.

Jesse had no idea why he would make note of freckles. “You’re Irish,” he said stupidly, because it was the first thing that sprang to mind.

“And you’ve got some explaining to do.” She leaned sideways to look past him. “What the devil sort of gun is that?”

“It’s not a gun. It’s a camera.”

Her eyes widened. She pushed a hand through her tangled red hair. “A camera, is it?”

“Yes.”

The color leaped up in her cheeks again, making stark crimson spots on her pallor. “And what in the name of Peter and Paul are you doing shooting off a camera in here?”

Jesse’s already strained patience snapped. “Taking your picture, woman. What do you think?”

She made the sign of the cross and pressed back against the headboard, holding the covers to her chin. “Pervert!”

He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists at his sides to keep from doing something they’d both regret later. This was exactly why he lived here at the lighthouse, alone. He had no patience for other people, especially for mouthy Irishwomen who showed no gratitude for being rescued.

“Madam,” he said, “it occurs to me that your mishap has addled your brain. You’ve been unconscious. I thought it best to find your next of kin, so I took your picture. I had intended to circulate it to the newspaper and telegraph offices so your friends and family would learn of your survival.”

He strode to the door, the camera in one hand and tripod in the other. He paused and said, “I expect someone will be grateful that you’re alive.”

She moved quickly but clumsily, lurching from the bed. When Jesse saw her bare feet heading for the broken pieces of pottery, he had no choice. He dropped the tripod and scooped her up in his arms.

She gave a little squeak of surprise and paddled her feet in the air. “Don’t you do it, boyo.”

He glared at her. The top of her head was even with his chin. He could feel the heat emanating from her body. The sensation was so unfamiliar that he almost dropped her. Instead, he set her on the bed and stepped back quickly, as if he’d approached a hot stove.