Authors: Tracy Sumner
A sip is the most that mortals are
permitted from any goblet of delight
.
~A. Bronson Alcott
"Zachariah Garrett, you gotta stop that woman. She's causing a ruckus over at my house. A ruckus, I say!"
Zach sighed, the number of ale barrels found on the beach during the last shipwreck drying up in his mind like a puddle in the blazing summer sun.
Lord have mercy, what had the woman done now? "Festus, what's the problem?" He held on to his calm smile while jotting the initials
S.C
. in the margin of the cargo ledger and underlining them twice.
With enough force to tear the page.
Festus Bellamy, owner of Pilot Isle's net shop, stood in front of Zach, the belly drooping over his faded trousers bumping the desk with each word. "That city woman. Something has to be done about her!" Festus slapped a crumpled wad of white calico on the desk. The man looked like he'd run the half-mile to the jail, a feat Zach would have paid two bits to see.
"Maybe this is fine and dandy in New York City, Constable, but it ain't fine here. Alvin came and told me, and I went on home, tripped over my own feet trying to get there before my Shirley got involved in that woman's business."
Spreading out the cloth, Zach squinted, making out one word in smeared black stain. A word that chilled him to the bone.
Vote
. "What is this?"
Festus blew a tense breath through his nose. "One of them fabric signs. I grabbed it outta my senseless daughter's hands. Imagine my fine, upstanding Shirley getting mixed up with that crazy city woman. After all Elma and I have done for her. Piano lessons, a new dress every time she asks for one, and don't let me start on all the hair gigs and feminine fripperies I buy." Slipping his thumbs inside his braces, he yanked, then let them slap back against his chest. "This has got to stop. You know I can't be a part of a disruptive predicament, being a businessman myself."
Zach shoved back his chair, feeling the sudden urge to throttle Savannah Connor. Or kiss her silly. "I'll handle it. I'll handle
her
. You go on back to your store."
"You'd better get over there. Got your son painting away like some miniature soldier in a female camp."
Zach paused, his arm jammed halfway down his coat sleeve. "My boy's over there?"
Festus tapped the tips of his fingers together and rocked back on his heels, his smile growing. "Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Got him in the middle of the pack, like wolves, they are. I swear that city woman nearly took my head off when I told her my Shirley wasn't about to take classes at her silly school. I can't guess what they're learning over there."
"Waywardness," Zach muttered, slamming the door behind him.
* * *
"Uh-oh. He's spittin' mad."
Savannah paused, a black dribble running down her paper. Rory stood beside her, still as a stone, his paintbrush stuck in the middle of the letter L. Blond hair dried by salt and sun hung like crisp wheat past his brow, tangling with lashes as delicate as a spider's web. Red specks of paint sprinkled his cheeks, giving the appearance of a rampant rash.
"Who?" she asked.
Rory stretched his skinny arm, his index finger rising to a point. "Pa."
Savannah felt the prickle of awareness before she turned. Zach crossed the yard at a furious stride, threading in and out of the small clusters of women and cloth posters without missing a beat.
Without tearing his gaze from
her
.
Idly, she noted the blades of moist green grass sticking to his boots, the slight sheen of perspiration on his brow, wondering why she felt nothing but excitement. Not a solitary trace of fear. "Rory, you'd better go stand with Miss Caroline. I think your father would like a private word with me."
Zach's gray eyes were drawn into narrow slits, his brows angry slashes above. A shadow of day-old stubble lined the jaw he clenched as he came toward her. Cheeks flushed and fists bunched, he looked spittin' mad indeed.
And more devastatingly handsome than any man she had ever seen.
"He's gonna cuss," Rory warned in a calm tone, resting his paintbrush neatly on the edge of the paper and climbing to his feet. "But it won't last long."
Savannah laughed, amused and charmed. "Yes, more than likely." Brushing his hair from his eyes, she made a mental note to tell Zachariah that his son needed a haircut. "Run along, now, so you don't have to witness my scolding."
Rory left her with a brave wink, as if to say,
he's all bluster, don't worry
. It was the first confidence in her twenty-five years she had shared with a child. The flood of delight spreading through her almost made her miss what Zach's arrival did to her once-steady heartbeat. She smiled, though, in spite of his glower, in spite of the rattle in her chest. It lifted her lips and her mood.
She was delighted to see him. Was this what missing a man felt like?
He didn't say a word, or politely return her greeting, just took her upper arm in his calloused grip and hauled her around the side of the house and into a lean-to storage shed.
"Unhand me at once, Constable," she panted. Struggling to break his hold, her gaze located his in the semi-darkness of the enclosure. "This is reprehensible behav—"
Interrupting with an abrupt movement, he backed her into the shed's wall. She saw his eyes for a moment in a slash of sunlight: wild and so dark they looked black. Then his head lowered, blocking vision and thought. When his hands tangled in her hair, tilting her face to better fit her mouth to his, she didn't pull away. Rather, she stretched up on her toes to crowd him, to claim him, her arms circling his neck and holding on for dear life.
Finesse forgotten, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, his hands kneading her scalp, sending a delicious rush of awareness through her body. Her nipples hardened, her stomach jumped. And for the first time, the area between her thighs flared to life, demanding attention.
Hmmm
, she thought, remembering the pictures in her books and squirming against him,
I'm beginning to see how this might work
.
Hungrily, she followed him move for move, battling to deepen the kiss with her budding skill. She recalled what he liked and set about using it for her benefit.
She had paid attention.
Gentle bites to his lips, her tongue tracing the edges just after. Hands sliding into his hair and tugging. Nails gently digging into his skin. A murmured plea against his lips, his animal growl of a reply.
If God had asked just then, she couldn't have said where she stood or what day it was. Perhaps what year. Anything outside that world, outside
him
, ceased to matter. Dazed, she recorded it all: the intense wall of heat surrounding them; splinters from the lean-to pricking her through her cotton shirtwaist; the smell of turpentine and dirt; Zach's rough-tipped fingers on her face, her neck, her shoulders. His coffee-scented breath, his low, sultry murmur.
Him
.
She could not quell the nagging voice telling her that this kind of recklessness, this complete acquiescence, spelled nothing but trouble.
Her hand slid over his, up his arm, fingers digging into his shoulder. "Sweet heaven," she gasped as his lips trailed down her neck, latching onto her earlobe. "Zachariah, stop. Stop, please."
Yet she swayed into him, rolled her head to the side to give him access. Who would have guessed ears were this sensitive? When his tongue dipped inside in a warm, wet surprisingly decadent swirl, her knees buckled. Clutching a fistful of his shirt, buttons cutting into her palm, she dropped her cheek to his chest, inhaling a breath of soap and sunshine.
"When?" he asked, a ragged appeal, almost pleading. "The coach house?" He shivered in the heat, releasing a harsh breath all but into her face. "I can't take much more of this, Irish. I'm stopping myself from exploring places I shouldn't. Taking this past the point of no return. But it's an itch I can't keep from scratching much longer." Almost angrily, he returned to her mouth, nibbling, teasing, his tongue memorizing each peak and valley.
Pressing her palm flat over his thumping heart, she leaned back in his arms. "How do I look?" She tilted her head back and forth in the narrow shaft of light. "Am I healed? Am I ghastly?"
He blinked and opened his mouth, shut it, shook his head. It would be a lie if she said his befuddled expression didn't send a burst of satisfaction straight to her toes.
He recovered, frowning, then yanked his hand through his hair. "You're driving me crazy woman."
Me
?
When he didn't answer, she realized she hadn't voiced the question, simply stood lazily in his arms, letting his attention steal her breath as cunningly as a cat stole a baby's. "You might say I look fine or some such encouraging statement." She stumbled back in her haste to free herself, getting angry for no good reason. "A minimal courtesy."
He grasped her wrist before she could storm from the shed, and in one quick move lifted her chin with the same hand holding her captive. A dangerous adversary lay beneath Zachariah Garrett's winning smile and tranquil demeanor.
"Courtesy is what you want? I don't know how to be courteous, so I'll just be honest." His eyes glowed in the dim, dusted-filled light, a feral blaze. "You don't look
fine
, you've never looked
fine
to me. You're so goddamned beautiful it makes my heart hurt. Makes air get all blocked up in my throat. Is that encouraging enough? Even with that mess on your face and it shining brighter than a baby's irritated bottom, I couldn't see anything else even if I tried. Jesus, do you think I came roaring over here to kiss you in some blessed shed on the side of Festus Bellamy's house?" Making a quick sweep of the shed, Zach kicked a bucket at his feet, sending it into the wall. "With a gaggle of women out there waiting to see if we come out of here kicking and screaming?"
His blunt words, each one more startlingly than the last, stripped away fear, suspicion, and hesitation until she fairly glowed.
"Why did you kiss me then?" she asked in another one of those womanly whispers that didn't sound like
her
. A woman whose father found her lack of feminine grace and penchant for trouble such an enormous disadvantage that he suggested she begin using her mother's maiden surname. The push to change it legally had come a year later. The occasional
Times
' article about her enraged him much less from then on, even though everyone in New York knew Savannah M. Connor and Savannah Morgan were one and the same.
"Why?" she repeated when he failed to answer, standing there with a confused glower.
He growled low in his throat, waiting a long moment before he answered. "I don't know. To stop the flow of words?" His hand went up, an admission of uncertainty. "I came tearing around the corner, wanting only to paddle your bothersome bottom... but you were standing there in the sunlight looking so sweet, which I know damned well you're not. And you smiled when you saw me. You kinda lit up." He looped his finger in a crazy circle. "And your hair. I like it, hanging on your shoulders like that. It's"—he shrugged, looking terribly uncomfortable—"nice."
She lifted her hand, not able to keep from touching it. "My chignons, I'm afraid, have always been a rather weak invention."
Reaching, he twirled a strand around his finger. "When you meet me tonight, leave it."
She nodded. "Okay." She felt sure, deep inside. Trust made the impossible possible, the complex simple. At least that's what she assumed allowed this decision to be so
effortless
.
Zach stepped back clumsily, a man who made few graceless movements. Clearing his throat, he scuffed the toe of his boot through the dirt. "What did you say?"
She released a faint laugh, his sheepishness utterly charming. "I'm meeting you at the coach house. Tonight. With my hair down."
Rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, he gauged her sincerity with a hesitant appraisal. "Have you been drinking?"
Her laughter grew warm and full. "No, no." She shook her head, wrapping her hand around her stomach and holding tight. "Of course not."
"Is it some female trick to make me forget about putting a stop to this nonsense?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating her industrious signmaking.
She felt a flicker of anger. "We're not doing anything you
can
put a stop to, Constable."
"Ah, Irish, you know that's not the truth of it."
"What harm is there in painting posters? It's for a rally next week. Nothing in your precious town, I might add."
He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "So that's what the telegram was about."
The missive she had tucked into her penny pocket burned like a hot coal through the material of her skirt. "Saints' blood, as if the need for posters for the Raleigh delegation is grand gossip."
"Irish, you know how few telegrams we receive in the span of a week? They're
all
big news around here." He shrugged, unconcerned. "Whatever it's for, make them stop. Or I will."
"Why?" She resisted the urge to stomp her foot.
He muttered something she was relieved she didn't hear. "Because, you're on a man's private property, and he's not agreeable to having women painting up a storm in his yard and charging furniture stain to his account."
"His daughter—"
"Shirley doesn't pay the bills. Her name isn't on the deed." He paused, letting it sink in. "Understand?"
It almost pained him to watch her stiffen up and swallow her hurt behind an overconfident smile. There wasn't anything she could do—not immediately, anyhow, maybe not in her lifetime—to change what was a man's world, a man's
right
.
Or change the powerlessness of being of a woman.
She knew it. He could tell by the slight droop in her posture as she walked from the shed without looking back to see if he followed. It pricked his conscience to be the person to tell her a nasty truth she had likely heard a thousand times before.