Blood Kin (25 page)

She should have known better. I warned her not to leave her farm to Beth's brat, to let her live out her little life on the mainland, but Elizabeth was always obstinate. The house and land should have been mine. It all should have been mine.

I went to Elizabeth that night to reason with her, to make her see that what was she was about to do was wrong, that it would only cause more heartache. I never intended that she should die, but she brought it on herself when she slapped me and ordered me to get of the house. What did she expect? That I would allow her to abuse me without striking back?

I punched her with my fist, harder than I should have. She fell back, hitting her head against the corner of the kitchen table. The blow must have fractured her skull, but she tried to get up. I had to use the pewter candlestick on her. By then, I realized that I couldn't let her live to tell anyone what I'd done.

Dragging Elizabeth's unconscious body to the top of the staircase and throwing her down the steps was genius on my part. She tumbled all the way to the bottom,
but she always was too stubborn. She didn't have sense enough to die. She moaned and thrashed until I finished her off with several whacks from an old flatiron.

The bitch. How was I to know that she'd already made her bequest to Beth's bastard? And now it's up to me to finish what I started a long time ago, to carve away every trace of Beth's shame and make it all right, once and for all.

Midmorning Friday, Bailey was going over a math concept on negative numbers that several of her students had difficulty understanding when Cathy opened the classroom door and called to her. “Excuse me, but there's someone here to see you. He says it's important.”

“Who is it?” Bailey asked.

Cathy nodded. “Your Mr. Elliott. I asked him if it could wait until school was dismissed, but he insisted.”

“All right.” Bailey turned back to her kids. “We'll finish this Monday. In the meantime, please take out your library books and read quietly in your seats. Ashley, would you take charge for me? I'll just be a few minutes.”

“He's waiting for you in the office.” Cathy rolled her eyes. “Cute, but bossy. He said he was your husband. Didn't you tell me that you were divorced?”

“We have been. For years. I wonder what he wants.” Bailey had given her stepmother Forest McCready's number for use in an emergency. Surely if Dad was ill, someone would have called the attorney's office. Tracking down Elliott's unlisted cell number would have been difficult at best.

She was halfway down the hall when Elliott saw her and came out of the office. “Is something wrong?” she called to him. “Is Dad—”

“Nothing like that, but we need to talk.” He shoved a copy of a newspaper article at her. The headline read, “Jury Finds Tawes Island Man Guilty.” “This is from the trial thirty-five years ago,” Elliott said. “The great-uncle you're so anxious to talk to . . . At best he's an abuser, and at worst . . .”

Bailey felt her throat and cheeks flush. “This isn't the time or the place,” she said, fast losing patience with him. “I have class for another forty-five minutes. Go back to Emma's and wait for me there.” She tried to give him back the paper.

“Read it,” he insisted.

“Later. I have fourteen children waiting for me.”

“Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into?” Elliott demanded as he took hold of her shoulders. “This man was convicted of beating his pregnant niece to death.”

Bailey stepped back away from him. “Will didn't do it,” she said sharply. “He's innocent.”

“And who told you that? Uncle Will?”

Cathy opened her classroom door. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” Bailey said. “Go to Emma's, Elliott. I'll see you there in an hour.”

“Be there, Bails, or I'll come looking for you.”

The time between Elliott's abrupt arrival at the school and Bailey's return home did nothing for either's mood. He met her at Emma's gate. “I hope you told them that you're not coming back,” he said. “I have a boat waiting for us at the dock. I'm taking you with me.”

She stared at him as though he'd taken leave of his senses. “You can't come here and give me orders. You
didn't have the right to do it when we were married, and you certainly don't now.”

She walked past him into the house and stopped just inside the doorway. Her suitcase stood at the bottom of the steps. “Elliott, have you lost your mind? What would make you think that I'd leave Tawes now? I've promised to help out at the school until the end of summer session and—”

Elliott grabbed her arm. “I don't know what spell these people have put on you, but—”

“Let go of me!” She tried to pull free, but he held her fast. “Elliott!”

“The lady asked you to take your hands off her.” Daniel appeared in the doorway, his tone low and deadly serious.

“Get lost. This is none of your business,” Elliott said. “And for your information, this lady is my wife.”

“His ex-wife.” Bailey attempted to pry his hand off her arm. “And I don't need your help, Daniel. I can deal with this jerk on my own.”

“I'm serious,” Elliott insisted. “You're coming home with me.”

“What you want doesn't matter,” she said. “You gave up that right a long time ago.”

Daniel advanced on them, anger contorting his face. “I'm asking you one more time,” he said. “Let go of her or—”

“So that's the way it is?” Elliott shouted. “Fine, if you love these yokels so much, maybe this is where you belong!” He spun around, stalked out of the house, and slammed the door behind him.

She followed him out onto the porch. “You're wrong about Will,” she called after him.

Elliott stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “Am I? Read that newspaper article and call me if you get your senses back.”

“Pleasant man,” Daniel said, coming through the door to stand beside her.

“He's not usually like that,” Bailey said. She rubbed the spot on her arm where Elliott's fingers had left a red mark. “He's never been like that. I think he's really afraid that I'm in danger here.”

“Is that what your marriage was like?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He never . . .” She hesitated. “Well, almost never. Once . . .” She shrugged. “We married young, and . . .” She looked up into his eyes. “Can we not talk about Elliott now? I appreciate your help, but . . . I think I'd like to be alone for a while.”

“If that's what you want. I hoped you . . .” He took a breath and started again. “Friends of mine, Paul and Janice, are getting married tonight. Over on Smith Island. I thought you might like to go with me.”

“Tonight?”

He nodded. “It's informal. On the beach. I think you'd have fun.”

“You mean . . . like a date?”

“I think that's what they call it. It's an old island custom.”

She couldn't keep from smiling. “Isn't this a little sudden?” He met her gaze, and she felt a flush run over her throat and up her cheeks.

“Sudden?”

She put her hand on the door. “What time?”

“I thought we'd leave here at four. We'll take Emma's boat.”

“All right. I've never been to a wedding on a beach. It does sound like fun.”

“I know you haven't been to a wedding like this one. Janice is due to deliver any day. They've been living together for four years.”

“Obviously a man who takes his time popping the question,” she said as she reentered the house and reached for the overnight bag that Elliott had brought downstairs.

“No, it was Janice who put the brakes on. She said she wanted to be certain this was the real thing.” Daniel's hand covered hers. “I'll carry this back up for you.” He grinned. “Wait until you taste the Deal Island Cake.”

“Deal Island Cake? What makes it special?”

“You'll see. Another old island custom. Janice's mother is baking this one.”

“I see.” She stood there as the warmth of his strong fingers seeped into hers and her insides did a shivery dance. “Thanks. For before . . . with Elliott. I don't know what got into him.”

“It's wrong, a man laying his hands on a woman in anger. You don't have to take that, Bailey, not from anyone.”

“No, I know that. I mean . . .” She pulled away, breaking the spell. “It just surprised me. He's not the type.”

“Any man can be the type under the right circumstances.”

“I hope not.”

“You still have feelings for him?”

Daniel was standing so close it made her giddy. She didn't know how to react. First she'd tried to defend Will to Elliott, and now her ex to Daniel. And no matter what she said, it sounded foolish. “Not in the way you think,” she managed. “That was over between us a long time ago.”

“He bullied you then?”

She uttered a small sound of amusement. “Elliott? Not really. I smacked his face once. I shouldn't have, but I was so angry. He ruined my credit rating. He was . . . is a gambler, and he ran up so many debts that it's taken me years to work my way free of them.” She shook her head again. “Elliott and I are friends who used to be husband and wife. But the marriage was a mistake from the beginning, and I know it.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “There's no chance in hell that it could ever be more than friendship again.”

“Good.” Daniel brushed her chin with the pad of his thumb. “Because you don't need friends like that.”

“Is that all?”

“No, it isn't. . . .”

The moment stretched out between them, and then, slowly, he lowered his head, and his lips brushed hers in a tender kiss so quick that it was over almost before she realized what was happening. “Oh,” she murmured.

“Four,” he reminded her as he started up the steps. “Casual. Remember, it's on a beach.”

“All right,” she murmured. “Casual.”

The wedding was fun. The bride and groom exchanged vows standing in the damp sand with a tight circle of friends and family around them. There was no minister or clerk. “They took care of the formalities in Elkton Wednesday night,” Daniel whispered.

Janice wore pink shorts, a pink-and-white maternity top that barely stretched to cover her belly, and a wreath of honeysuckle. The groom came garbed in blue swim trunks and a flowered Hawaiian shirt. The bride's sister played the guitar, and the groom's nine-year-old son produced two shiny gold rings.

“Paul's divorced,” Daniel explained. “He's a single dad.”

The bride's face glowed as Paul slipped the ring on her finger. “Thank you,” he said, “for giving me a happiness I never knew before.”

Tears gathered in Bailey's eyes. Daniel caught her hand and squeezed it tightly. A feeling of warm giddiness filled her as they watched Janice pledge her love to Paul and promise to be a good mother to both their children.

When the ceremony was over, guests and the bridal party shared a picnic supper on blankets spread out under the trees. There was fried chicken, potato salad, crab cakes, and coleslaw, iced tea and beer. Later, the bride threw her wreath instead of a garter, and when the Deal Island Cake was brought out, Bailey discovered that it was a huge, multilayered dessert that was more fruitcake than iced confection.

“Bananas,” Daniel whispered as he'd pulled her into the trees for a quick kiss. “Can't stand them, but you've got to eat a piece of the cake for luck.”

His lips were warm and sweet, and Bailey caught her breath before murmuring, “Are you certain I should?”

“You have to,” he teased. “If you don't eat the cake, the wedding guests will probably burn us both at the stake.”

She giggled. “Heaven forbid.”

They stayed, danced barefoot together on the beach, laughed and talked, and mingled with the wedding party. They didn't return to Emma's skiff for the return journey to Tawes until the sun began to go down.

It had been a magical evening for Bailey. She couldn't forget the feel of Daniel's mouth on hers or
the way he hadn't taken his eyes off her. She didn't doubt for a moment that they would finally end up making love.

“Where do you want me to take you?” Daniel asked as the stars glowed around the boat when they were more than halfway home to the island. “Emma's or my cabin?”

“Your place.” She couldn't imagine having to explain things to Emma in the morning. Right now, at this moment, she didn't want to think; she only wanted the evening to go on and on.

“You're certain?” he teased. “I don't want you to think I'm too easy.”

She laughed. “I think that line's been used.”

“But it still works?”

“It works with me.” She smiled at him. “Your place.”

A few more minutes and Daniel nudged the skiff against his dock in the darkness. “I can't see a thing,” Bailey said. “How can you?”

He laughed. “I can't. I just know the way home.” He caught her around the waist and swung her up onto a walkway of planks. “Trust me.”

“Should I?”

He kissed her again, and this time tenderness flared to passion. He pulled her hard against him, molding her body to his. She reveled in his taste, his touch, as she ran her fingers through his soft hair and uttered soft moans of delight deep in her throat.

Daniel's clean scent filled her head as he kissed her again and again. When he slipped a hand under her blouse to cup her breast, urgent need surged through her.

“Are you absolutely, positively sure?” he asked her.

“Yes.” She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, wanting to feel his bare skin against hers.

“Positive?”

“Shut up and kiss me again.”

Their lips met, and their tongues touched, deepening the kiss, fueling the fire that leaped between them.