Twice Loved (copy2) (40 page)

“Will stay right where they are!” Rye finished for him. “Out!” A shaking finger pointed the way.

McColl grabbed his cape, turned tail and ran.

A wide-eyed Laura, her face ashen, was bending over Dan, sickened by the unnecessary wound forced upon a man too ill to be able to object to such treatment.

As Rye turned back to her, he immediately noted that the circular burn was brilliant red and already beginning to blister. “Oh, Christ, would y’ look at what that damn fool’s done.” Without pause, Rye strode out of the room and returned a moment later with a handful of snow, which he laid on the burn.

Immediately, it began melting, and Laura found the cloth with the brandy stains and dabbed away the rivulets as they formed.

“Oh, Rye, how could McColl do such a thing?” There were tears in her eyes.

The hand holding the snow shook yet with anger. “The man’s an ass! He and all his ilk. What they get by with is criminal—leechin’, cuppin’, rowelin’—every last one of ’em should be made t’ suffer their own 
cures,
 and they’d soon stop subjectin’ others t’ them.”

“I’ll mix up an ointment for it. How are Dan’s fingers doing?”

Laura’s question diverted Rye’s attention, and his nerves stopped jumping. He checked Dan’s fingers, which were warming now and beginning to bleed. He lifted his eyes to Laura’s, and there was pain in the blue depths. “I won’t lie to y’, love. He’ll do plenty o’ sufferin’ before this’s over.” Together they looked at the man on the bed, then at each other again.

“I know. But we’ll be here to see him through it. Both of us.”

The long lines of weariness at the sides of Rye’s mouth were accented in the dim candlelight. And from where she stood, Laura made out each pockmark on his face as a round shadow while he answered.

“Aye, both of us.”

A tremulous silence passed while they seemed to solemnize the vow, then Laura silently turned and left the room.

They wrapped Dan’s hands in linen strips and covered them with a pair of mittens, then applied a balm of witch hazel to his burn, then covered it with a square of soft flannel before they bundled him in a feather tick and went back to the keeping room to wait.

Laura turned toward the fireplace to rewarm their tea, but she glanced over her shoulder at a soft word from Rye.

“Look.”

Rye stood beside Josh’s bed, gazing down into the alcove’s shadows. Laura came up behind his broad shoulder and peered around to find Ship sound asleep at the foot of the bed, curled against Josh’s feet, while the child, too, slumbered peacefully.

Rye turned his eyes from the bed to the woman beside him. She lifted her face, and for a moment he read peace there. He watched her coffee-colored eyes rove over his features, pausing on his hair, his eyes, lips, sideburns, and homing again to his eyes. Outside, the wind rattled the shutters while behind her a log broke and settled to the grate with a soft shush. More than anything in the world, Rye wanted simply to circle her with his arms and rest his cheek on top of her hair, close his eyes for a moment, and feel her face pressed against his collarbone. But he didn’t. His thumbs remained hooked at his waist while he invented inanities to bridge the compelling moment.

“I’m sorry, Laura. I remember y’ don’t like dogs on y’r beds. Should I make ’er get down?”

“No. Josh needs her just as badly as ...” She caught herself just in time before saying, 
as I need you.
 But Rye’s sharp glance made her realize the words were clearly understood between them. Again she groped for something to say. “Thank you for coming, Rye.”

“Y’ don’t have t’ thank me, Laura, y’ know that. Nothing could’ve kept me away when you or Dan needed me.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment, then his mouth formed a rueful quarter-smile. “Funny, isn’t it? Everyone on this island knows the truth of that. I was the first one they thought o’ runnin’ to when they found Dan, just like he was the first one they went runnin’ to when I was supposed t’ve drowned.”

They stood silent for a minute, once again pondering the reversal of the two men’s roles in Laura’s life, then she admitted, “I don’t know what I’d have done without you. I would never have been able to stand up to McColl the way you did or know what was best for Dan.”

Rye sighed and glanced toward the linter room doorway. “Let’s 
hope
 we’ve done what’s best for him.” Then, looking down at Laura’s hair, he asked, “Have y’ got that tea ready?” She led the way back toward the fireplace while Rye slumped to a bench at the trestle, and she placed two hot mugs on the boards, then sat down opposite.

Quite naturally, their thoughts roved backward five years to the last time they had shared this table. Laura looked up to find Rye watching her as he lifted the cup to his lips. He sipped, then the crease deepened between his eyes. He looked down into the cup. “The honey—you remembered.” Again his blue-eyed gaze met hers over the cup.

“Why, of course I remembered. I must have fixed you tea with honey and nutmeg a hundred times.”

The spicy, hot brew brought back at least as many memories now, but they knew it was dangerous to revive them. “When I was on the ship and the ice storms came on a night much like this, I’d think of sittin’ with y’ this way beside the fire, and I’d’ve given my entire lay t’ have a cup o’ y’r tea then.”

“And I’d have given the same to be able to fix it for you,” she added simply. It was the first time he had expressed regret over the choice he’d made. She tried to keep her eyes on anything except him, but it was as if they were unwilling to obey her wishes, and time and again, Laura’s gaze got tangled up with his. They raised their mugs, drank deeply, and suddenly, beneath the table, Rye shifted his long legs and his knee bumped hers. Her knee jerked back to safety while he simultaneously sat up straighter.

For the first time Rye became fully aware of the pungent scent of bayberry permeating the room. He glanced toward the hearth, along the stones to one side, noting the candle forms, the baskets of berries, one of them spilled, the kettle and long-handled ladle for dipping the melted wax. Slowly, he turned back to look at her.

“Y’ve been makin’ bayberry candles.”

She nodded, her eyes flickering up, then quickly down again.

He let his eyelids drift closed, pulled in a deep lungful of evergreen-flavored air, and dropped his head back slightly. “Ahh ...” The sound rumbled from his throat in a long syllable of satisfaction before he looked at Laura once again. “The memories that scent brings back.” The perfume of the bayberries seemed to shift about his head like rich incense, bringing with it recollections of himself and Laura, younger then, seeking privacy in the bayberry thickets. And after they were married, there was the time she had made candles, and that night, in an orgy of excess, they had lit six of the fragrant tapers and placed them all around the bed, then pleasured each other within their circle of flickering golden light while the essence seemed to flavor their very skin.

Sitting now with that same smell filling their senses, the two were as aware of each other as man and woman as they’d ever been in their lives. The dancing firelight sent shifting highlights over their faces, and lit the sleeve of Laura’s pink wrapper to a deep melon color. Her mug was empty, she had taken refuge in it so often, and she told herself to go get the kettle, to break this spell. But before she could, Rye lowered his right hand and laid it palm up on the table between them. Her gaze moved from his long fingers to his sea-blue eyes, which remained steadfastly on hers. Her heart tripped and thudded, and she clutched the handle of her mug while looking down again at the callused palm that waited in invitation.

“Don’t worry,” he said, low and gruff. “I wouldn’t do that t’ Dan when he’s lyin’ unconscious. I just need t’ touch y’.”

She moved her own hand slowly until it rested on his, then his fingers closed gently around hers and she searched for something proper to say, but so many intimate things came to mind instead.

“Rye, I got the message you sent about Josh. I meant to thank you for sending it that day I came to the cooperage to order the cover, but my temper got the better of me and I—”

“Laura, I’m sorry for what I said that day, and for not comin’ downstairs the day y’ came t’ pick up the cover. I knew y’ were down there, and I heard y’ tellin’ the old man y’ wanted t’ talk t’ me.”

“Oh no, Rye, I’m the one who should apologize, for what I said that day about DeLaine Hussey. I realized later how unfair it was of me to put restrictions on you when I’m ... well ...” She let the thought go unfinished, and asked instead, “How did you find out that Josh knew you were his father?”

“He came t’ the cooperage and denied it, then punched me in the stomach and took off, cryin’.”

Unconsciously, Laura covered Rye’s hand with her free one. “Oh, Rye, no.” Her eyes were sad and her lips drooped compassionately.

“I could see he was terribly upset, and I worried about him day and night after that, wonderin’ what was goin’ through the little tyke’s mind, and through yours. Then when y’ came to the cooperage, I ... I didn’t even bother t’ ask how he’d found out and how he was takin’ it.”

“He found out from Jimmy ...” Laura relayed the happenings of that day, and as she finished, Rye was staring at their joined hands while his thumb stroked her knuckles.

“Did y’ tell him about us? About the beginnin’?”

“I did. I tried to explain everything so that he’d understand, about our childhood and why you went on the voyage and what it was like when I thought you were dead, right up to the time you came back.”

“And what was his reaction?”

“He wanted to know if I was married to both of you, and if you both ...” But she decided it was wisest not to finish.

Rye shot her a sharp look, and Laura sensed that he knew, even though she hadn’t said it. She understood intuitively that what Rye sought was some assurance that Josh was growing to accept the knowledge of his paternity. Laura’s forehead showed lines of concern.

“Oh, Rye, his security has been so badly shaken. I can see changes in him as time goes on, and I believe he’s coming to terms with the truth, but I really can’t say what his feelings are. I think he’s still very mixed up about all this.”

Rye sighed, then absently watched his mug as he moved it on the tabletop in circular motions.

Laura freed her hand and went to fetch the kettle once more. When she was again seated across from Rye, she purposely cradled her mug with both hands, gazing down into the wisps of steam as she stated quietly, “So you’ve been seeing DeLaine Hussey.”

She looked up. Rye’s face was somber, and he studied her as if trying to decide how to answer. At last he sat up straighter. “Aye, I have ... a few times.”

Her gaze dropped to the tabletop, where his hand rested. She concentrated on the back of it, where two engorged veins branched beneath the firm, brown skin. “It hurt when I heard that, ” she admitted thickly.

“I didn’t do it t’ hurt y’. I did it ’cause I was lonely.”

“I know.”

“She kept comin’ to the cooperage—”

“You don’t have to explain, Rye. You’re free to—”

“I don’t feel free. I’ve never felt free of y’.”

Her heart raced with renewed feelings, and though she’d said there was no need to explain, she could not stop herself from asking, “Did you enjoy being with her?”

“Not at first, but she ... aw, what the hell, forget it, Laura.” Rye looked away. “She means nothin’ to me, nothin’ at all. When I kissed her, I—”

“You kissed her!” Laura’s startled eyes flew to his and her heart seemed to lurch.

“Y’ didn’t let me finish. When I kissed her, I found myself comparin’ her to you, and when I realized what I was doin’, I suddenly felt ... I don’t know what it was ... disloyal, empty, I guess.”

“Yet you saw her again after that?”

“Aw, Laura, why are y’ askin’ such things?”

“Because DeLaine Hussey has had her eye on you for years.”

“I tell y’, I’ve no designs on her, even though she all but asked me ...” But Rye abruptly halted and took a deep draft of tea.

“Asked you what?”

“Never mind.”

“Asked you what, Rye?” Laura insisted.

His lips tightened, and he scowled, cursing himself for letting his tongue flap. Laura’s lips dropped open as if her tea was too hot, but when he chanced a quick glance from beneath lowered brows, he found her face pinched with disapproval.

“What did she all but ask you, Rye?”

“Oh all right! T’ marry her!” he admitted in exasperation.

In that instant, Laura tasted the bitterness Rye had been expected to swallow each time he saw her with Dan or thought of the two of them together. There was instantaneous jealousy tinged with a fine edge of anger at the idea that another woman could presume to make claim on the man she had considered 
hers
 most of her life. Laura’s stomach did cartwheels and the color surged to her face.

"I told y’, she means nothin’ to me," Rye said.

“Is that why you’ve been considering leaving Nantucket and making a new start on the frontier with her—because she means nothing to you?” Laura was only groping in the dark, but she studied Rye carefully for his reaction. Her head seemed to go light and fuzzy when Rye failed to deny it.

Instead, he drained his cup, ran the back of his hand across his lips, and lurched to his feet. “You’re tired, Laura. Why don’t y’ try to get some sleep and I’ll sit up with Dan. If anything happens, I’ll wake y’.”

Laura felt suddenly bloodless and cold as Rye rounded the table, took her elbow, and urged her to her feet. Tell me I’m wrong. Oh, Rye, don’t be considering such a thing.

But she knew he was, and they need not discuss it further for Laura to know 
why
 he was. Jane had come right out and said it: this island wasn’t big enough for all three of them. And Rye was the one who was finally taking steps to give them all more space.

Laura lifted her eyes to him now as they stood in the bay-berry-scented keeping room with the fire dwindling to lazily waving fingers of orange. The wind buffeted the house and snow hissed against the siding.