A Light For My Love (29 page)

But she was falling in love with him.

*~*~*

It was late afternoon when Jake finally
returned to China's house, grubby, bristle-faced, and tired.

He'd slept fitfully in his unheated bunk on
the
Katherine Kirkland
last night. Then he'd spent the day
in the rain, overseeing some of the final repairs. Tomorrow, he
would go to the Blue Mermaid and leave the message his crew
awaited—to report to the ship in three days. He expected her to be
loaded and ready to sail in a week's time.

As he trudged to the back porch stairs, he
glanced at the bench where, for a few moments with China, he had
let pride and lust rule his head. It was a good thing his days in
Astoria were numbered. He wouldn't be able to continue living under
this roof with her, wanting her despite the lifetime of difference
between them and hating himself for it.

But what he wanted right now was a bath and a
razor. Absently, he rubbed his hand over the rough stubble on his
jaw. He could soak in the tub for a while and be finished in time
for dinner, providing he didn't fall asleep in the hot water. Aunt
Gert probably wouldn't be expecting him; he hadn't been home for
dinner lately. Maybe it wasn't too late—she could throw a little
extra in the pot for him.

But when he let himself in the back door,
instead of finding Aunt Gert and the aroma of her cooking, he
stepped into an empty, dusk-darkened kitchen. It was five-thirty
and the stove was cold; not a pot or pan sat on its black surface.
One of Gert Farrell's qualities that he'd always counted on was her
consistency. When he'd left Astoria, knowing that she was here with
China and Ryan had given him a small measure of comfort. Now,
looking at the deserted kitchen, something felt wrong to Jake.

He walked through the silent hall down to the
back parlor, the only lighted room on the first floor. Captain
Meredith dozed by the fireplace in his wingback chair, alone. He
approached the old sailor.

"Cap," he said, and lightly tugged at his
sleeve.

The old man jumped, then looked up at Jake
and took a snuffling breath. "Jesus, lad, you gave me a turn."

Jake took the chair opposite him. "Sorry," he
smiled, raising his voice a bit to be heard. "Do you know where
Mrs. Farrell is? Or China?"

"Oh, aye. They've both gone looking for that
wispy little Mrs. Price. They said they've not seen her since last
night."

Jake frowned. "Wasn't she at breakfast?"

Cap shook his head, reaching for his cold
meerschaum pipe on the table next to him. "No, and neither was
Missy." He pointed the stem at Jake with a gnarled hand. "Things
have been pretty stirred up since you got here, boy. You've got
these women all dithery, most especially the widow."

He looked away from Cap's shrewd raisin eyes.
He was more observant than Jake had supposed, perhaps more so than
himself. He'd never really wanted to think about why Susan followed
him with that hollow, haunted gaze. He'd only known he didn't like
it.

"I don't mean to say that I think you've been
trifling with her. I know where your interest lies, and it isn't
with a faded slip of a woman like Mrs. Price. She's kind of thin
and watery, not strong like Missy."

Jake raised his eyes again, feeling a flush
creep up his throat.

Cap damped the pipe stem between his teeth
and sucked on it, making a wet, bubbling noise. "She's an odd one,
a bit like a ghost ship all mist and gauzy sails, with no one at
the helm. But I expect she heard something, or saw something that
fouled her lines. And now she's run away from it, because that's
all she can do." He made a careful scrutiny of Jake. "Seems
everyone had a rough night. You look like hell yourself."

Jake resisted the urge to fidget in his
chair. Cap was hitting a little too close to the truth for his
comfort, from every direction. He felt vaguely guilty without good
reason. "Aw, hell, Cap. I'll bet I haven't said more than a hundred
words to Susan Price."

Cap only nodded. A pocket of hot pitch burst
in the fireplace, creating a shower of sparks.

Jake glanced at the window. It was getting
dark out. "Do you know where they went, China and Aunt Gert, I
mean? I don't like the idea of them being out this late."

"They'll be back soon enough," the old man
replied confidently. "I don't care so much about dinner being late,
but I want my medicine."

Jake made a face and stood. "What's in that
stuff anyone could want?"

Cap's eyes twinkled. "Alcohol, mostly."

Jake laughed.

Just then he heard the front door open,
followed by the sound of feminine voices. He stepped out into the
hall.

"Oh, Jake," Gert began, hand-wringing anxiety
in her voice. "I'm so glad you're here. Susan is missing and we
can't find her anywhere. We need to tell the police."

He heard Aunt Gert, but he saw only China.
His eyes locked with hers, and a dozen things he might have told
her flashed through his mind. Personal things that had nothing to
do with this time or place. Feelings that he wished he could act
upon.

But China spoke first, her hands folded at
her chest like a supplicant. She was pale, and her jaw-line looked
sharper than usual. "We searched all the places she usually goes,
but—Jake, please, will you help me find her? I feel . . . I feel
responsible for her. You understand, don't you?"

He understood. If something happened to Susan
Price because of what she'd learned last night, China would never
forgive herself. It didn't matter that theirs had been the actions
of two adults, accountable only to themselves and their own hearts.
He nodded, but stopped himself from touching her face.

Instead he showed her his dirty hands. "Just
let me wash up a little and change my shirt. I'll be down in five
minutes."

Out of habit, Jake went to the back stairs,
and took the steps two at a time. As he neared the second floor, he
paused, hearing a strange, colorless sound echo faintly through the
stairwell above him. Listening, he thought it might be a cat's-paw,
airy and weightless, sighing around the walls of the attic. But
after a moment, he realized it wasn't the wind; this had a melodic
quality, like singing.

Passing the second floor, he continued slowly
up the spiral staircase toward the attic. It grew darker as he
climbed, and he reached into his pocket for a match. Striking it
with his thumbnail, he held it cupped in his hand. When he reached
the musty attic, the song took more definite shape and Jake
recognized it as an old, sweet Scots ballad about the whalers of
Tarwaithe.

The person singing it, in a childlike,
ethereal chant, was Susan Price. Her high, clear notes ricocheted
off the walls of the unfinished barnlike room, intensifying the
echo.

She sat next to the window on the bottom step
of the circular tower staircase, staring intently at the river. The
corner was illuminated by the oil lamp at her feet. Jake shook out
the remains of his match and approached her cautiously. She didn't
seem to notice his presence and he didn't want to startle her. His
experience with this kind of problem was sorely limited, he had no
idea how she would react upon seeing him. The one thing instinct
told him to do was speak quietly.

"Hello, Susan," he murmured.

She turned to look at him, her light hair
tumbled wildly around her shoulders. A smile of welcome and
pathetic joy lit her face. "Oh, Edwin," she said. "You're home at
last."

*~*~*

China paced in the entry, waiting for Jake.
She had sent Aunt Gert, always inept in emergencies, to the kitchen
to put together a hasty dinner. Listening to Gert's wailing panic
had made it difficult to control her own fears.

The instant she'd asked for Jake's help,
China had felt better. He might not know where to find Susan, but
his strength and confidence, his very presence, were
reassuring.

Still, the minutes ticked by and he did not
return. China glanced out the window. Twilight was about to give
way to full darkness, and the idea of a woman, especially one as
unworldly as Susan, wandering Astoria's nighttime streets only
increased her distress. Sighing, she marched toward the stairs to
see what had become of Jake.

But when she reached the second floor, she
couldn't find him. He wasn't in his room and he wasn't in the
bathroom. After calling him and walking the length of the hall
runner to check behind every closed door, she determined he wasn't
up here.

"Well, for God's sake," she said aloud,
increasingly uneasy. Was everybody in the house disappearing, one
by one? She was about to go back downstairs, thinking she'd missed
him somehow, when she heard the ceiling creak overhead, as though
someone had taken a step. The noise brought her up sharply.

She went to the back stairwell, the only way
to the attic, and listened. Though it came to her as a low, droning
murmur, she couldn't mistake the sound of Jake's voice. Then she
heard a female reply. She grabbed a candle from the linen closet
and, lighting it, tiptoed up the steps.

Jake felt the hair on the back of his neck
rise as Susan regarded him with huge pansy eyes that showed almost
no color save the black of her pupils. Making no sudden moves, he
retrieved an old stool from the corner and sat down in front of
her. He did his best to ignore the icy chills that flew down his
spine at her unearthly expression.

"What are you doing up here, Susan? China has
been looking everywhere for you."

She smiled at him. "I come up here every day
to watch for your ship. I knew you'd come home. That's why China
keeps the lamp in the hall window. So you'd see it and come
back."

At her mention of the lamp, Jake swallowed.
"Susan— " he began, but she rushed on, as though afraid of what
he'd say if given the chance.

"See?" she said, holding out a locket. "I've
kept your photograph here, close to my heart. I've never forgotten
you, Edwin."

From the corner of his eye, Jake detected
movement and felt, rather than saw, China lingering in the doorway,
quiet as a cat. He silently complimented her for figuring out they
were here; he felt as if he might need a witness.

Susan opened her locket's hinged face to show
him a picture of Edwin Price. He'd had a good face, a strong one,
but he'd borne no particular physical resemblance to Jake, except
that his hair was nearly identical in color.

Jake groped for something to say that would
make her see reason. Only one possibility came to him. He hunched
forward on the stool, his elbows on his knees, his hands laced
between them. "When I was six years old, I lost my mother." He
sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor, wondering if there was
any point in opening this wound. But when he glanced up at her, she
seemed to be listening, so he went on. "Nearly everyone in Astoria
thinks she died. But she didn't. She just picked up and left
town."

In the shadow of the doorway, China felt her
eyes widen at this revelation, and with great effort she quelled a
surprised gasp. But she jostled the candle in her fist and felt hot
wax splash on her fingers.

"Well, being so young, I didn't understand
how she could do that. And, God, I missed her something awful. So I
used to pretend that she was just gone for a while—you know,
visiting friends in Seaside or in Olney—and then she'd be home. But
eventually I had to face the truth: she wasn't coming back. I never
saw her again." Jake leaned forward and put one hand on Susan's arm
and the other flat to his chest. "I'm not your husband, Susan. I'm
John Jacob Chastaine. Edwin Price drowned at sea, and he isn't
coming home either."

China bit her lower lip, hard, to keep her
eyes from welling up.

Susan stared at Jake. "But—"

He just shook his head again. "No."

She turned away then and rested her head
against the window. There was nothing to see now but the lights
along the waterfront. Time dangled in the silence. "I know," she
replied finally, choking the words out. "It was so hard to lose
him. I just didn't want it to be true, s-so I told myself that it
wasn't. When you came—you don't really look much like him, but you
reminded me of him. I thought maybe . . . " She
spoke against the glass, misting it with her words.

Jake drew a deep breath and glanced at China,
subtly motioning her forward.

China left the doorway and approached slowly,
not sure how to proceed. "Susan, dear, will you come downstairs
now? Aunt Gert will fix you soup and a toddy."

Susan kept her face turned to the window. Her
voice sounded like an old woman's, tired, defeated. "Can I have it
in my room?"

"Of course you can. That sounds like a
wonderful treat." China came closer and touched her shoulder. Susan
rose from the step and buried her face against China's neck,
apparently unable to face Jake. China flashed him a look of
unspoken gratitude and mimed that he should go downstairs
himself.

Jake watched the two women leave, then sat
on

the stool again for a moment, as weary as
he'd ever been in his life.

*~*~*

When China walked into the kitchen an hour
later with Susan's tray, Jake was sitting at the table, cleaned up
and combed. He'd carelessly slung his big frame on one of the
chairs, and the gaslight reflected off his thick, pale hair,
casting shadows under his jade eyes and across the bones of his
strong hands. The remnants of Aunt Gert's thrown-together meal of
soup and a sandwich lay before him on the tablecloth.

Seeing him there, looking tired but still
painfully attractive, made her pause. And tired though she was, the
sight of him, long-boned and lean-muscled, retained the power to
bring a heat to her face.

"How is she?" he asked. There was no question
who he meant.

"I gave her a sleeping powder. Maybe she'll
feel better tomorrow." She shook her head worriedly. "I hope so,
anyway." Taking the tray to the sink, she felt like she'd packed
more trays to more people than she could count.