“Hey . . . hey.” He put an arm around her: gentle,
reassuring. It broke her. She turned into him and buried her face in his chest.
His other arm circled her, pulling her close. “O.K.,” he murmured over her
head, as she sobbed out months, years, of sorrow and guilt and terrible,
terrible loss. “O.K., O.K..”
She missed Minnie
so
much. Missed the laughter and
the silliness and a time when the world made sense, and their lives stretched
out in front of them full of excitement and possibility. When boys were for fun
and flirting, and perhaps for future husbands but were never the enemy. Missed
when Bella was just an annoying little sister who kept interrupting secret
conversations that weren’t about any secrets worth keeping. When admirers were
real and didn’t hide behind letters and old, marked Bibles and cut-up clothes .
. . As Nicholas’s broad chest and strong arms protected her from the world
outside the carriage, she let it all go, in wracking sobs and torrential tears,
soaking his waistcoat and shirt.
The carriage halted; the door opened. His arms tightened
around her as she tried to stop sobbing.
“Sir?” Gus asked. “Miss Star?”
“Thirty more minutes,” Nicholas said over her head. “Along
the shore.
Now
.”
His voice rumbled against one ear and rolled past the other:
impatient, demanding. So unusual for her easygoing cowboy. The door closed. As
the carriage started forward, the smell of pine and leather and gun smoke
wafted under her nose, flowed through her body, and settled over her ragged
nerves. Her tears started to subside. Marvelous, cleansing smell . . . strong
arms, hard powerful chest. Protection without restriction, comfort without
domination, what a man should be to a woman.
What Horatio should have been to Minnie. The kind of man
Isabella ought to have sought out, instead of seeking vengeance, instead of
seeking murder. . .
She started sobbing again.
“Star . . . honey,” Nicholas murmured in a harsh voice. He
took a breath, and pulled her tighter. “O.K. O.K., you go ahead and cry it out.
God knows you deserve it.”
His words brought the sobs harder, faster, but for a shorter
time. At last the anguish eased and his arms relaxed. For a time, she just sat
there quietly, listening to the beat of his heart, the roll of the carriage and
the crash of the breakers in the distance. Nicholas’s scent mixed with warm
salty air.
Presently the carriage came to a halt. Opening her eyes, she
saw the house. She sat up. Nicholas held her gaze, those deep blue depths
hiding more knowledge and kindness than most could imagine. “Better?”
She nodded and gave her eyes a quick wipe with his
handkerchief, before holding it out. “Yes, thank you.”
He flashed her a lopsided smile. “No, ma’am, you keep it,
leastways ’til it dries. Don’t got no need for a wet kerchief,” he drawled.
His thick cowboy twang tickled her weary heart and she
bestowed a small smile upon him. “I’ll have it washed.”
“You do that. See you in a bit for the drive?”
The drive, Nicholas’s phrasing for the promenade, another
aspect of their culture that he engaged in, but deemed ridiculous.
“No, I think I’ll skip it today.” And the curious looks
passing over her, most knowing of her association with Bella. “You’ll make my
excuses, won’t you?”
He hesitated, then nodded solemnly. “Sure thing, just as
pretty as you please, too.”
***
The cold morning sand slid through Star’s bare toes as she
crossed the beach to the oceanfront. After carefully stepping over the line of
seaweed, she settled down upon the hard wet sand of the lower beach, mindless
of her gown. Her eyes found the horizon. It was early yet for sunrise, but a
lightening of the sky told where the sun would appear. Soon its rays would
paint the clouds pink, then red, and at last spread gold along the thin line
between sky and water.
Drawing a deep breath, she filled her lungs with ocean air.
Best to visit the beach in the morning before the sun made the sand too hot to
walk on. She loved the night as well, but when one was alone, the balmy evening
air held a hint of wistfulness, as if mourning the absence of companionship.
Morning, though, was all promise, pregnant with the potential of a new day.
Especially after a long night haunted by demon-related
nightmares.
Star dropped her gaze from the horizon to the ocean waves,
curling then crashing, white over blue, before rolling along the sand toward
her. The clear water, veined with foam, playfully threatened her toes. She
scooted closer and wiggled them in a silent taunt—
“Hey.”
Startled, she turned toward the sound of Nicholas’s deep
voice. Dressed casually in blue trousers and a collarless white shirt, he was
crossing the white sand of the upper beach.
“Good morning,” she said when he reached her.
“Kinda early for you to be up and about.” Narrowed in
concern, his eyes skimmed her old gown, then her bare feet, then settled on her
face again.
“Dawn is the best time of the day at the beach,” she
defended, and focused on her feet. She’d rather not see the expression in his
eyes, for Nicholas, who had learned much about correct deportment these last
weeks, could scarcely approve of her rag-tag appearance.
The next wave came within half an inch of her big toe.
“Haven’t had a chance to enjoy the sunrise over the ocean,”
he said.
“It’s quite remarkable.” She wiggled her toes again.
“Water cold this time of the morning?”
She lifted her head. Not censure in his eyes, but traces of
amusement. She’d forgotten that Nicholas couldn’t care less about deportment.
“This far north the water is always cold, although I confess it often
feels
colder in the morning.”
He smirked at her toes. “Somethin’ I’d expect a body to
avoid.”
“Why yes, but—” She hesitated. “No doubt you’ll consider me
all manner of silly. . .” She took a breath and then said in a rush, “It’s a
childhood game, you see, that Lee and I used to play. We’d sit at the edge of
the water and dare the waves to reach us.”
She waited for derision, or worse, condescension, to rise in
his eyes, for what other reaction could he have to a grown woman, a crusader,
fighting a losing battle with the tide?
His lips twitched. “Didja ever win?”
“No, but I’ve yet to surrender.”
He grinned. “Be surprised if you had. Here, I’ll give it a
try, too,” he said and sat down next to her. Laughter and relief tickled her
throat as he yanked off his boots and socks. He tossed them up to the dry sand.
“O.K.,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s get to work!”
For several minutes they played the game, wiggling toes,
laughing or gasping when the water “won,” and gradually scooting up the beach
as the tide came in. When the sun appeared on the horizon in a golden curve,
though, they fell silent. Star watched Nicholas out of the corner of her eye,
noting the hard muscles of his thighs under his trousers. The tight, male
cording of his tanned forearms turned different shades of gold under the new
sun’s rays, softly seductive. Desire bubbled through her blood, and quite
suddenly she wanted to kiss him, feel the softness of his lips moving over
hers, feel his body pressed against hers, leaping to life. She wanted to sink
to the ground with him, and let runaway passion drive the remnants of sorrow
and nightmares and death from her mind. She’d had too much of death—she wanted
life.
Thus far, however, he’d rebuffed every advance she’d made
toward him.
That was before
, a little voice said at the back of
her mind, which then brought memories to support it.
I’d vote for you. . .
Already knew they couldn’t be near as pretty as you.
Presently Nicholas said, “Well you were right, that was some
kinda pretty. Reckon I’ll never get tired of looking at the ocean.”
“Worth an early rising?”
“Sure.” He paused, running thoughtful eyes over her.
“Listen, about Bella. . . .”
“Yes, I never properly thanked you for . . . that. I suppose
it was rather foolish to weep over it, for how she died ought not to matter.
She’s gone forever, regardless.”
“It matters. Violent deaths are always harder.”
She swallowed and gazed at the horizon, where the rising sun
had scattered the clouds. To their left a newly awakened seagull greeted the
morning with a squawk. “You must know that Bella wasn’t a good friend. We
worked together on reform, but she was motivated by vengeance, whereas I hoped
to prevent. . .” Her throat clenched for she had not prevented anything. “I
don’t know—I don’t know how her parents can bear this. They had only the two
children.”
“You’d be surprised,” Nicholas said softly, “at what a body
can bear.”
She looked his way. His face was hard, and she abruptly
recalled his past—the sudden death of his parents when he was but a youth,
leaving behind a ranch to run and a brother to raise. He never talked about it,
but Star suspected that part of Nicholas’s attachment to Father came from
losing his own. “Like,” she said gently, “when a boy loses both his parents.”
He fixed his gaze upon her. “I was no boy,” he objected. “I
was eighteen.”
And yet suffering shone in his eyes, along with a kind of
hunger. For a brief spell, she glimpsed the young man he’d been before worry
and backbreaking work had drawn lines around his eyes. “And Jim,” she said,
“was only fifteen.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it was harder on him. I had my parents
through the teen years, when a boy needs his Pa for advice and his Ma for
comfort. Jim got neither.”
She stared, puzzled. Was he denying his own hardships? Or
did he truly believe Jim had suffered more?
He heaved a weary sigh. “I tried to be both, but. . .” He
shook his head, grimacing. “Sometimes, I thought that boy’d end up in an early
grave for sure.”
“Because of the feud between him and Melinda’s brothers?”
“Most particularly.” His brow furrowed in concern and
haunted recollection pinched the corners of his eyes. “Made me sick some days,
’specially after Jim and Randy Summers got into that gunfight, and Melinda’s
brothers set the law on Jim.”
“Sick?”
“Stomach pain. Puking. Like that. Doc Greene thought I might
have cancer. It scared the bejesus out of me. I didn’t know what’d become of
Jim if I was gone.” He shrugged, which did nothing to allay the anguish in his
voice. “Anyhow . . . don’t know about Bella’s parents. Losing your children,
that’s a lot worse, but they could pull through all right.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You don’t think about
yourself much, do you?”
He turned, frowning. “What’s to think about?”
“Why, about what you wanted and needed after your parents
died. I imagine you missed them dreadfully.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Still do, sometimes. Your father’s
a lot like Pa. Stern, and dutiful, to family, to honor. We weren’t the easiest
sons, Jim and me. . .” For several minutes he told her about “Ma” and “Pa” and
the “hell Jim and me raised” followed by the consequences, which even to Star’s
ears seemed just and fair. After a time his voice trailed off.
“I think you’re a lot like your father,” she offered.
He looked surprised, and then a big smile spread across his
face. “You know that’s about the nicest thing you could’ve said to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
They fell silent for a time. “So,” he ventured by and by,
“you figure Burke killed Bella?”
The tightening in her chest wasn’t as harsh this time.
“Quite possibly. Bella bad-mouthed Horatio, and he’s a prideful man. It’d give
him reason to kill her.”
Nick nodded. “Fair enough. Well I reckon the authorities
will haul him in. Whaddaya say we leave the ocean-taunting for another day and
mosey on up to the house for some breakfast? I’m just about ready to faint from
starvation.”
She regarded him for a minute. She’d come to the beach for a
short respite, but somehow Nicholas had provided more. Relief. Renewed
strength. And she loved him for it, with every breath of her body. “All right.”
She took his hand and he helped her rise. “But I shall beat the tide one day,
you know!”
He chuckled as he scooped up his boots and started,
barefoot, back to the house. “Well ma’am, I sure wouldn’t bet against you.”
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“The fireworks display shall be tomorrow at nine p.m.,”
Mother said over dinner as she cut into a lamb chop. “It is, Nicholas, the
official start to Newport’s Season.”
Star bit her lip. Three days had passed since Nicholas had
held her in his arms and let her cry out her pain, two days since he’d sat on
the beach and taunted the waves with her. In that short time his behavior
toward her had subtly altered, from amused wariness to restrained, but still
amused, tenderness. Now, every time he looked her way, her heart melted.
“The start?” Nicholas asked. “I thought it’d already
started.”
Melted, followed quickly by pounding and mounting desire,
for love and tenderness did not, as one might expect, cool the passions. It
increased them a hundredfold.
“Not quite,” Mother said. “It’s a splendid display. No
mountains in the background of course, or prairie grasses,” she added somewhat
wistfully, “but I fancy we won’t disappoint.”
“Doubt you could, Morgan. We don’t set off many. Too dry
that time o’ year, and we wouldn’t want to risk a wildfire. Sometimes, if
rain’s been scarce, we don’t do ’em at all.”
Did Nicholas feel the same way? He must and she’d decided
that the fireworks display would be the perfect venue for their final surrender
to love. A surrender she hoped would hurl them into the hot, fierce liaison
that she’d been dreaming of for months. Just in time, too, to take her mind off
Bella and Minnie and the case being currently tried in the Court of Gossip.