“I needed you to love me and to understand.”
“Rachel, you cannot leave like this. We need to
talk.” He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “I was on my way to find you before
he
came.”
She looked up at him. “Peter planned to kill you, too. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Her hair hung loosely around her face. Angry scratches marred her left hand. The marks sent a fresh wave of anger boiling inside him. He took her left hand in his and gently rubbed the mark left by the ring. “Dear Lord, I expected you to trust me when you had that monster after you. I am sorry. You have every right to be afraid, to be cautious.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I should have told you the truth.” She wiped a tear from her face. “I wanted to so many times. But I feared you would look at me differently—that you wouldn’t want me.”
He took her in his arms and held her close. His body remained tense from the fight. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I woke up and saw you sleeping in my bed. Rachel, I love you. Nothing will ever change the way I feel about you.”
She turned her face up to his. Her eyes looked expectant. “You still want me after all this? Peter hasn’t tainted this place for you? Tainted me?”
“Never.” He wiped a tear from her face. “He can’t ruin anything unless we let him. He is the past. We are the future.”
She laid her cheek against his chest. “The sheriff must be contacted. I killed him.”
He could feel her heart hammering against his chest. “He will see that you acted in self-defense.”
She pulled back and looked up at him. “There were no witnesses.”
Ben touched her chin. “There’s me and I’ll wager if the sheriff spoke to the villagers, he’d find that they, too, saw everything—that you acted only to save your own life.”
“I love you.”
He hugged her fiercely, as if realizing he could have lost her tonight. “You are my life, Rachel. I love you.”
Present Day
M
arilyn Mitchell stood in front of the lighthouse. The sweeping winds of March cut across the sandy soil over the scattered patches of grass. The once-bright beacon was dark, the black and white stripe that had identified the lighthouse to the ships chipped and the brick base cracked.
The tower that had served this coastline for well over one hundred years was crumbling.
“Beyond me why you’d want to take on a project like this.”
Marilyn turned toward the real estate agent, Frances Tucker, a gray-haired woman with dark eyes and red lips. “She deserves more than to tumble into ruins. She deserves to be saved.”
“Gonna cost you a fortune.”
Marilyn shoved her hands into her pockets. “I’ve already set up a foundation. We started fundraising over a year ago. Work will begin on the cottage next week.”
“Why this lighthouse? There are others that people
want
saved.
“My mother was born in the cottage. She lived here until it closed.” Weather and neglect had dulled the whitewashed cottage. The front steps had caved in and the roof had collapsed on the north side.
Mrs. Tucker shifted so that her back faced the cold wind. She pulled a cough drop out of her pocket and popped it into her mouth. “Mitchell. You said your name is Mitchell.”
“That’s right. My mother was Sara Mitchell. My grandfather and great-grandfather were keepers here until the station closed in 1948.”
Mrs. Tucker stamped her feet to ward off the cold. “Mind if we get back in the car?”
“No, of course not.” They started to walk back toward Marilyn’s Suburban.
Mrs. Tucker rubbed her hands together as Marilyn pulled the keys from her purse. Silly to lock the car out here, but living in Washington had ingrained certain habits.
“I’ve heard tales about both men. Ben Mitchell was quite the hero.”
Marilyn smiled. “He and my great-grandmother Rachel are credited with over a hundred rescues.” She unlocked the car and they climbed in. Out of the wind, she warmed immediately.
Mrs. Tucker rubbed her gloved hands together. “Rachel Mitchell was the one who saved three fisherman when she was six months pregnant with her first child.”
“Ben had been on the mainland that day. She was carrying my uncle. He was born a month early and still weighed eight pounds, according to the family bible.”
Marilyn had grown up with stories of Rachel and Ben Mitchell. Ben had been awarded the Medal of Honor from the U.S. Coast Guard for his many rescues. Rachel Mitchell, featured in several books, had become a legend of sorts. She’d started the first school on the island, given birth and raised four children, and worked beside her beloved Ben for the fifty-seven years of their marriage.
“This lighthouse deserves to be saved.”
Mrs. Tucker stared out the windshield at the lighthouse. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.”
This land has magic. It is the perfect place to start over.
The words from Rachel’s journal came to mind.
Marilyn started the car engine. “We Mitchells aren’t afraid of hard work.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3154-2
HEART OF THE STORM
Copyright © 2005 by Mary T. Burton
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