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This face, this pale face with its lavender bow of lips, was the one sculpted by every artist who had ever tried to turn marble to poetry. The face envisioned by hopeful dreamers who believed in miracles.
But she was dead, back in the realm of angels where she belonged, where she never should have left in the first place.
Jesse didn’t want to touch her, but his hands did. His idiot bridegroom’s hands. They took her by the shoulder and tugged gently, at the same time rolling the mast to which she was still tied. He saw her fully now, head to toe.
She was pregnant.
Rage charged like a thunderbolt through him. It was not enough that a beautiful young woman had been taken. But the sweet, round swell of her stomach, that dark mystery, that whispered promise, had been claimed, too. Two lives had been snuffed out by the merciless breath of the wind, by the wall-size waves, by the uncaring sea.
This was the start, Jesse thought as he unbound the ropes and gathered her in his arms, of a journey he had no desire to undertake.
The corpse flopped forward like a rag doll. A cold hand clutched at Jesse’s arm. He reared back, leaving her on the seeping brown sand.
She moaned and coughed out seawater.
Jesse Morgan, who rarely smiled, suddenly grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll be damned,” he said, ripping off his mackintosh. “You’re alive.”
He settled the plaid wool coat around her shoulders and picked her up in his arms.
“I’m…alive,” she echoed in the faintest of whispers. “I suppose,” she added, her head drooping forward, “that’s something.”
She spoke no more, but began to shiver violently, uncontrollably. She felt like a large fish in its death throes, and it was all Jesse could do to keep from dropping her.
Yet even as he bore his burden up the impossibly steep slope, running faster than he’d ever run in his life, he knew with stone-cold dread that this day had brought something new, something extraordinary, something endlessly fascinating and frightening, into his world.
Two
Panic rushed over him in huge, nauseating waves. Why him? Why now? He held her very life in his hands, yet saving a stranger and her unborn child was the last thing he was prepared to do.
At the same time, he knew he must rescue her. Twelve years ago, he had dedicated his life to watching over the shoals and keeping the light burning. He had taken an oath as head lightkeeper. He had no choice. No choice.
He ran swiftly, mounting the sinuous path toward the station, then racing down the other side of the promontory and into the woods where the lightkeeper’s house was located. The dead weight of her dragged at him. He took the steps two at a time, pounded across the porch, shoved the door open with his shoulder.
Plunging into the dimness of the quiet house, he brought the woman to a room off the kitchen and deposited her on the bed. The mattress was musty with disuse, the ticking worn and yellowed. He plundered a tall cabinet, finding a few old quilts and a tattersall blanket that had seen better days.
He covered the woman. She didn’t stir. He tried to get her to drink something—water, whiskey—but the liquid merely trickled over the sides of her mouth and down her neck. She was out cold.
He rushed to the porch to ring the big brass bell, summoning Magnus Jonsson and his wife Palina from their bungalow a quarter mile down the woodland path. He stirred the banked coals in the kitchen stove and filled a kettle with water, setting it on to boil. Then, bracing himself for the task ahead, he returned to the woman.
He had to get the wet dress off her. Had to touch her. Gingerly, he lifted the layers of blankets. His hand shook a little as he brushed aside a sodden strand of hair and found the top button of her dress.
The act of disrobing a woman felt alien to Jesse. Yet at the same time, it seemed unbearably familiar, as if he were that bridegroom once again.
He set his jaw and undid the row of buttons. She lay unconscious, oblivious to his clumsy manipulations as he peeled off one sleeve, then the other, rolling the flimsy wool garment over her arms and legs, dropping it on the floor.
Beneath it she wore a simple shift that had once been white. Her breasts and belly stood out in pale relief against the thin fabric. With his teeth tightly clenched, he forced himself to honor her modesty and cover her, working the shift off by touch alone. Yet he didn’t need his eyes to detect her graceful curves, the smooth texture of her skin.
Her skin was dangerously cool.
In his blind haste, he tore the shift as he finished dragging it down the length of her. He added it to the pile on the floor, tucked the blankets more securely around her and stood up.
He was shaking from head to foot.
Back in the kitchen, he filled canteens and bottles with hot water and placed them around her, insulated by the blankets. That done, he leaned against the rough-timbered wall of the room and closed his eyes briefly. Finished. That phase, at least, was over. The difficult part lay ahead.
The lightkeeper’s house was less a home than a refuge. The one-and-a-half-story dwelling, embraced by a towering forest, had been enough for Jesse, who needed little except to survive from one moment to the next. Yet now, with the light spilling through an east-facing window and slanting across the unmoving form on the bed, the house felt small, cramped. Dingy, even.
The birth-and-death room off the kitchen was designed with the idea that a patient lying abed should be close at hand, where the heart of the house beat the strongest. In all the years Jesse had lived here, no one had occupied this room, this bed.
Until now.
She lay unmoving beneath the blankets and quilts. Her face was pale and serene. Her dark red hair fanned out in untidy hanks, stiffened by salt. She held one perfect hand tucked beneath her chin. Her delicate eyelids were webbed with faint blue lines.
I’m alive. I suppose that’s something.
The words she had uttered so quietly on the beach whispered through his mind. He had thought he detected an accent of sorts, a lilting inflection that was hard to place. She hadn’t opened her eyes.
He caught himself wondering what color they were.
“Who are you?” he whispered, his voice harsh. “Who the hell are you?”
She was Sleeping Beauty from the fairy tale. Her bed should be a sunlit arbor entwined with roses, not a crude bedstead with a sagging mattress. She should awaken to Prince Charming, not to Jesse Kane Morgan.
He forced himself to turn away. It hurt to look at her, the way it hurt to look directly into the sun on a summer day. Better for all concerned if she were simply whisked away, still unconscious, never knowing who had pulled her from the sea.
Yet he had an urge to sink to his knees beside the woman, to grab her by the shoulders and plead with her to live, live.
He began to pace, wondering what was keeping the Jonssons. Trying to shove aside a jolt of urgency, Jesse observed his house through new eyes, trying to see it as a stranger would. Sturdy pine furniture, hand-hewn. A plain wag-on-the-wall clock, its long pendulum measuring the moments with unrelenting reliability. The shutters were open to the morning. Palina had offered to make curtains, but Jesse had no use for frills.
The longest wall in the keeping room was lined with books. Novels by Dumas, Flaubert, Dickens. Essays and stories by Emerson, Thoreau. When Jesse left the world behind, the only possessions he’d brought along were his books. He read constantly, voraciously, escaping into worlds of make-believe. In the early years, after the tragedy had first happened, he had clung to the books like a lifeline. The babbling voices of fictional characters had blocked out the howl of emptiness that screamed through his mind. The books kept him from going insane.
Lined up neatly on shelves in the kitchen, jars and cans and crocks were stacked by height so he always knew where his supplies were. The Acme Royal stove had been well maintained, blacked over and over again throughout the years he had been here.
The years he tried his best not to count.
Impatience drove him out to the porch to ring the bell again. He gave the rope pull a quick jerk, but he needn’t have. He could hear Magnus and Palina coming.
Their voices took on a hushed quality in the strange green wilderness that surrounded the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse Station. The forest floor was paved with layers of brown needles, cushioning their footfalls. They spoke in their native Icelandic, animatedly, like old friends who had just met again after a long separation.
It never ceased to amaze Jesse, the way they found constant interest and delight in one another, even after some thirty years of marriage. They had a grown son, Erik, who was simple but beloved of his parents. Strong as a young bullock, Erik spent his days working in contented silence around the station.
The Jonssons appeared around a bend in the forest path. The morning sun, filtered through lofty boughs of the soaring cedar and Sitka spruce trees, was kind to their aging faces, giving them a soft glow as they smiled, lifted their hands in greeting and hurried toward him.
Magnus Jonsson had a fisherman’s deep chest and broad shoulders, the result of decades spent hauling nets and cranking winches. He had retired after an injury had taken his left hand. When most men would have lain down in defeat and died, Magnus had willed himself to heal.
Beside her adored and adoring husband, Palina looked dainty, though she was as sturdy as any pioneer in the prime of life. She had bright eyes and prominent teeth, and in her face there was an unexpected depth that hinted at a keen, quiet intelligence and a vivid imagination.
“Good day, Jesse,” she said, a light singsong in her voice. “And look at the fine morning Odin has given us.” She encompassed the small clearing with a sweep of her arm, showing off her bright orange shawl. On the slope below, the horse pasture shone in the radiance of the sun.
“All the clouds chased off and the fog burned away by the breath of Aegir,” Magnus added.
Jesse nodded a greeting. He had grown used to their constant references to the legends of the sea. And who was he to discount them? Many of the ancient tales they recounted held an almost eerie ring of truth.
“That’s not all the morning brought,” he said, motioning them up the steps to the porch. He pushed open the door and held it as they moved inside. They followed him through the keeping room and past the kitchen, into the birth-and-death room.
When the Jonssons spied the woman on the bed, they froze, clutching each other’s hands.
“Hamingjan góoa,” Magnus said under his breath. “And what is this?”
“She washed up on the beach from a shipwreck.” Feeling inexplicably awkward, Jesse was reminded of a moment in his boyhood, when he’d gotten a gift he hadn’t wanted. What did one say?
Thank you.
But he wasn’t thankful, not in that way.
“She’s still alive,” he said clumsily.
Palina was already bending toward the woman, clucking like a hen over a chick. Jesse moved closer. “Isn’t she?” he asked.
“Yes, yes. Alive but nearly frozen, litla greyid, little one. Build up the fire in the stove, Magnus,” she said over her shoulder. “Ah, you’ve got the wet dress off her.” There was no censure in her tone; she was as familiar as he with warming chilled victims.
“She needs dry clothes, quickly.” Palina took one of the woman’s hands and gently cradled it between her own. “Ah, blessed, blessed day. Never have I known the gods of the sea to give a man such a gift.”
A gift?
Foolishness. Superstition.
Now, where the hell was he to get clean, dry clothing for a woman? He possessed only two sets of clothes—winter and summer. Kentucky jeans, several shirts and standard-issue lightkeeper’s livery. Those he wasn’t wearing on his back were currently in the laundry kettle, ready to be boiled on the stove. Just this morning he had put his only nightshirt in to wash.
“You must have something at your house for her to wear, Palina,” he said.
“Ah, no. She’s half-frozen already. Just find something—anything!”
“There is noth—” Jesse cut himself off. Against his will, he glanced at the foot of the bed, where an old sea chest sat.
“There’s nothing,” he lied hoarsely, his throat raw. “Look, I can get to your house and back in ten min—”
“I need the dry clothing now.” Palina fixed him with a gaze that dared him to defy her. “She needs them now.”
Jesse clenched his fists. No. He recoiled at the idea of plundering his past. But then, with the reluctant movements of a condemned man, he did something he’d sworn he would never do.
He lifted the lid of the sea chest and removed the sectioned tray from the top.
A scent too rich and evocative to be borne wafted from the contents, and he almost reeled back. Emily. He plunged his hand into the stacks of folded clothes, found the thick, smooth texture of cotton flannel, yanked it out and flung it at Palina. I’m sorry, Emily. “Here,” he said gruffly. “I’ll help Magnus with the fire.”
Feeling the burn of Palina’s intense curiosity, he stalked out of the house and down to the side yard, grabbing his ax from the toolshed.
He upended a huge log and lifted the ax high in both hands, bringing it down to split the timber with a single blow. The heart of the wood appeared torn and shredded, a fresh kill. Jesse split it again and again with the grim, rhythmic violence that coursed through his body.
But mere expended energy couldn’t keep the demons out. He had known that even before he’d opened the sea chest—a Pandora’s box he had been trying to keep shut for most of his adult life.
Though he had barely looked at the flannel nightgown he’d handed Palina, he could see the fabric in its minutest detail—the little green leaves and blue flowers, the bits of white trim circling the neckline and wrists. Worst of all, the scent still clung to the garment.
His wife’s scent. It was as haunting as a melody, bringing back wave after wave of unwanted memories. He could see her, could hear the sound of her laughter and smell the soaps and powders she stroked across her skin.
Even after all these years, he still bled inside when he thought of her. Of them. Of the hopes and dreams he had so thoughtlessly shattered.
He brought the ax down relentlessly, over and over, trying to purge himself of all feeling. His shoulders ached and sweat ran down his face, into his eyes and over his neck and chest. By the time Magnus came out, a huge supply of freshly cut wood lay massacred around Jesse.
Magnus stared at the wood. “You had best come in now,” he said.
The house was warm, almost oppressively so. The woman’s blue dress had been added to the laundry vat on the stove. Jesse hated the thought of the stranger’s garment mingling with his own in the kettle.
Palina was bent over the bed, plumping pillows behind the woman and clucking, always clucking.
“You’re a meddlesome old biddy, Palina,” Jesse said. He was surprised. He sounded almost…normal.
“And proud of it,” she retorted.
If Jesse had been the sort of man who smiled, he would have just then. He harbored genuine liking for Magnus and Palina, who knew when to keep their distance and when to lend a hand. At the moment, he needed their help.
“Well?” Palina prodded him. “Aren’t you going to ask if your little visitor is all right?”
“Is she?”
Palina nodded, smoothing her hands down the front of her white apron. “With plenty of attention and care, she and the little one will be just fine.”
He almost flinched at the mention of the baby, but he forced himself to remain stoic, emotionless. “We can use the flatbed cart to get her to your place,” he said.
“No,” said Palina.
“Then I’ll carry her—”
“Not so fast, my friend.” Magnus held up his good hand. “The woman is not coming with us.”
“Of course she is. Where else—”
“Here,” Palina said with brisk finality. “Right here, where she can heal and grow strong in the care of the man who found her. The man for whom the gift was intended.”
“We must be practical,” Magnus added. “You have plenty of space here. We have but two cramped rooms and a loft for Erik.”
Jesse forced out a dry bark of laughter. “That’s impossible. I don’t even keep a dog, for chrissakes. I can’t keep a—a—”
“Woman,” Palina said. “A woman who is with child. Can you not even say it? Can you not even speak the truth when it is right here before you?”
Panic flickered to life inside Jesse. The Jonssons were serious. They actually expected him to keep this stranger. Not just keep her, but tend to her every need, nurture and heal her.
“She’s not staying.” He tried to keep the edge out of his voice. “If you won’t tend her, I’ll take her to town.”
