Mary Burton - The Lightkeeper's Woman

“What is that old bastard up to?” he muttered.

The waves pitched higher, and the boat bobbed in the water like a buoy. Caleb knew that soon the rains would grow heavy, swamp the boat and capsize it.

“I should leave you to the waters, you old bastard.” Caleb touched the small scar on his temple, remembering his last encounter with Crowley. The bastard had tried to kill him.

Crowley shifted his position to lower his sail, now straining against the wind. That’s when Caleb saw the trim figure of a woman.

An oath exploded from Caleb as he squinted harder. Though wind and fog blurred her face, he saw the crop of golden hair, like a beacon in the storm.

His gut clenched.

There was only one woman he knew who was foolish enough to travel in this kind of weather with Crowley.

Alanna Patterson.

The daughter of the man who’d ruined him.

The woman who’d betrayed him.

H owling winds filled the sails and tipped the boat dangerously out of balance as waves crashed over the bow. Alanna watched the icy water slosh back and forth in the bottom of the Sea Witch and clutched the boat’s rim as it dipped closer to the briny water. “Mr. Crowley, are we sinking?” she shouted over the wind.

He muttered an oath and hauled himself to his feet using the mast as support. Bracing his feet, he glared at the taut white sail as he unleashed the rope and let out the canvas. The boat righted herself instantly, but the thick sails snapped and fluttered wildly.

“Mr. Crowley,” Alanna repeated. “Are we sinking?”

“Just a bit of water. Don’t get all hysterical on me.”

She lifted a drenched boot. “The water is up to my ankles.”

He shot her a sideways glance. “Then stop your complaining and start bailing.”

“With what?” Alanna searched around the boat but found nothing to use.

“You got two hands,” he shouted.

Fear crept up Alanna’s spine as she cupped her hands and started scooping handfuls of water out of the boat. She glanced up at the blackening sky. “Is the weather getting worse?” She heard the squeak of panic in her voice, but was beyond caring if Crowley thought she was a coward. She was afraid.

“What do you think?” he bit back. “Of course it’s getting worse.” Crowley wrestled the thick, flapping sail as if it were a wild bronco down to the wet boat bottom.

Alanna discovered that despite her frantic bailing efforts the water was getting deeper. “You said this boat was seaworthy!”

“She is. Mostly.” The oars scraped against the oarlocks as Crowley buried them into the choppy water. His muscles bunched and strained as he fought to assert his control over nature.

“Mostly?” Panic burned through her veins. She started bailing again. Oh God, Oh God. What had she gotten herself into? “Tell me we aren’t going to sink.”

“We’re not going to sink.”

“Do you mean that?”

“No.”

Alanna closed her eyes. If only she’d stopped to think this trip through. If only she hadn’t been so impulsive, she’d be safe at the inn or, better, in Richmond.

She remembered how quickly she’d left Richmond. She’d left a note of course, but she’d lied to Henry’s aunt and told her she’d gone to Washington. “No one knows we’re out here.”

A wave crashed into the side of Crowley’s face and he spit out a mouthful of water. “If we sink, it won’t matter who knows what. We’ll die any way.”

She glanced toward the lighthouse beacon. Clouds shrouded the island’s shoreline, but its light flashed bright. “How far is the shore?”

Worry had deepened the lines on the old man’s face. “Too far.”

Her clothes were soaked, and the cold was seeping into her bones. “Do you think he knows we’re out here?”

“If he does, he’ll not raise a finger to save my hide.”

Her teeth started to chatter. “Why not? That’s his job, isn’t it?”

“We had a run-in a few months back.”

Could this get any worse? “What kind of run-in?”

“I tried to kill him.”

Alanna didn’t ask for details. They didn’t matter now.

If she’d worked all day to select the most dangerous of circumstances, she’d not have done as well as she’d done in choosing to cross the channel now with Crowley.

The inky waters filled the boat. The rim sank closer to the water’s edge. A crack of lightning streaked across the even blacker sky.

Alanna’s soaked cape hung on her shoulders like lead and she couldn’t feel her toes. “I don’t want to die, Mr. Crowley.”

Droplets of rain dripped from his wrinkled face. His eyes no longer glowed with anger or frustration, but fear. “Who does?”

Frigid water drenched Caleb’s pants as he shoved the dory into the churning sound. The rowboat bucked in the wind, pushing back toward shallow water as if it, too, understood that only fools went out in weather like this.

“Goddamn you, boat, move!” Frustration ignited his rage. Caleb hated losing. Even more, he hated losing to the sea.

Cursing, he blew out a breath and focused on the set of notches he’d carved into the boat’s bow. The seventy-six portside marks denoted rescues. The twenty-three on the starboard side commemorated each man he’d lost when the Intrepid had gone down not far from these very shores.

He drove the boat deeper into the water and jumped aboard. Taking the oars in his callused hands, he rowed toward the spot where he’d last seen Crowley’s tattered white sails.

“Damn her. Damn her. Damn her,” he chanted as he rowed. “The Devil take them both.” Crowley was a thief and a liar, and Alanna wasn’t much better. Impulsive as ever, Alanna did what was best for Alanna without a thought to whom she endangered.

Anger sidetracked him and, for a moment, he couldn’t find the rhythm of rowing. He drew in several deep breaths. This rescue was like any other, he reminded himself. It was about beating the sea at its own game. It didn’t matter whom he saved, only that he won the game.

Drawing on sheer will, he set his gaze starboard and moved his arms in a steady tempo. One, two. One, two. As the wind howled in his ears, his muscles took over.

Caleb concentrated on the roar of his heart and the burn in his well-conditioned biceps as they pumped the oars. Currituck Sound was determined to make him earn every inch of forward progress today, but he’d never walked away from a fight. Hot sweat trickled from his stocking cap, warming skin chilled by the wind.

A woman’s scream pierced the rain and mist. He turned and caught sight of Crowley’s boat just as a wave crashed over it. The swell caught Crowley broadside and knocked him over the side.

Alanna clutched the side of the Sea Witch but by some miracle she wasn’t swept into the water.

Caleb dug the oars deeper into the water, coaxing more speed from his boat.

No one had been lost since he’d been on watch at the Barrier Island Lighthouse. No one! And he’d be damned if Alanna Patterson would be the first.

“Mr. Crowley!” Alanna’s wet skirts twisted around her legs as she scooted toward his side of the boat and wedged her feet under the seat in front of her. She pushed her rain-soaked cloak off her shoulders and held out an oar. “Grab on!”

Alanna watched the old seaman flail in the water. His hat gone, he smacked his palms against the water, trying to keep his body afloat. But each time he reached out for the boat, the water pushed him back. He dipped under the surface once, then came back up gasping for air.

He reached for the paddle. His bony fingertips brushed the smooth wood as a wave smashed into him and sent him under the surface. Tense seconds ticked as Alanna searched the water.