Devlin's Light (38 page)

India opened the front door, and Nick went out to assist in bringing the tree inside. The captain, obviously cold and tired after standing in the wind all day but still gallant, in his own peculiar way, started slowly up the front steps of the house to greet India.

“For heaven’s sake, come in, Captain Pete.” India showed him into the front hall. “You look like you’re frozen.”

“Well, I admit it’s been a long day, India.”

“Come in by the fire,” she insisted.

“Maybe just till they get the tree in.” He let her take his arm and lead him into the sitting room, where he looked around slowly, as if taking it all in. “Funny how some things change so little over the years.”

“What’s that?” India asked.

“Oh, this room.” He waved his cane in a one-eighty turn. “The smell of this house at the holidays. Brings back memories.”

Really
, India mused.

“Why don’t you sit right here on the settee and let me get you something hot to drink.” India gestured to the small red love seat.

“Well now, India, I’m only here to deliver a tree.”

“From the looks of things it’ll take a few minutes for Nick and your son to get that tree in here. You just sit right down and relax for a few minutes. What would you like to drink?” she asked from the doorway.

“What?” His eyes had wandered around the room again, as if searching for something that was no longer there. “Oh. Coffee would be appreciated, India. Very much, it would be. I’ve had enough hot chocolate today to turn my blood to sugar water.”

“I’ll be right back,” India promised.

Crossing the threshold into the kitchen, India saw her aunt gazing out the back door.

“Aunt August, Captain Pete is here.”

“Is he now?” August turned back to the stove and lifted the lid on a pot of chili. Without looking at India, she slid a pan of cornbread into the oven.

“Yes, he’s in the sitting room.” India took down a mug and filled it with fresh coffee. “I should have asked him what he wanted in this.”

“Black,” August muttered without turning around. “The captain always took his coffee black.”

“Oh.” India’s eyebrows raised slightly.
So. She knows how he takes his coffee, does she?

“Aunt August said you took your coffee black,” India said as she handed the cup to Captain Pete.

“Oh, she remembered now, did she?” He smiled softly and spoke as if only to himself. “Fancy that.”

Nick and young Pete brought the tree in, then struggled with the stand, which was not inclined to hold so tall a tree. After forty minutes of effort, they finally had it in the stand, albeit tied to the mantel on one side and the bookcase on the other. India refilled the captain’s cup twice, the second time just as his son was ready to leave.

“Oh, stay and finish that.” India smiled as she placed a plate of cookies on the table in front of the settee and gave Nick a tap on the shin with the toe of her shoe. “We’ll drive you home, won’t we, Nick?”

“Uh, sure we will.” He nodded. “Be happy to.”

“Hmmph.” August stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, surveying the jerry-rigged technique used to secure the tree. “I hope no one gives that rope a good tug.”

“How are you planning to get an angel to the top of that tree, young miss?” Pete asked Corri, pointing to the topmost tip of the tree, which brushed up against the ceiling.

“Someone will have to help me,” she said. “But first we
have to decide what to put on the top of this tree. We have all angels in the dining room.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is. Want to see?”

“I’d be pleased to see your angels.” Pete pushed himself up off the settee with the use of his cane. “You don’t mind, do you, August?”

“Of course not, why should I mind?”

“Good.” He brushed past her.

“That is one ornery man,” August muttered, plumping the pillows on the love seat to give herself something to do.

“Really?” India snickered.

“And what is so funny, miss?” August’s eyes narrowed, seeming to challenge India to answer.

“Nothing, Aunt August.” India shrugged innocently.

Corri’s girlish laughter floated from the dining room.

“Sounds as if Corri doesn’t find him ornery at all,” Nick noted.

“Corri is six years old. She’ll laugh at anything.” August sniffed and swept back to her kitchen, pausing in the doorway to the dining room, where Corri saw her and called her in. The woman hesitated a moment before joining them.

“Let’s go to my place,” Nick whispered in India’s ear.

“Now? But we just said we’d take Pete …” She paused, then smiled. “… home.”

“I guess he could wait till we got back.” Nick nibbled on her earlobe. “Or perhaps August could drive him.”

“I should tell her that we’re leaving,” India said.

“Let’s put our coats on first so she doesn’t have time to stop us.”

“Good idea.” India nodded.

As quietly as humanly possible, India and Nick tiptoed into the hall and retrieved their jackets, sliding their arms into sleeves and fingers into gloves without making a sound.

“We’ll ambush ‘em,” Nick deadpanned, “then bolt for the door, got it?”

India giggled, and he steered her into the dining room.

“We’ll be back,” Nick announced. “We’re just going to run my tree out to the cabin.”

“Won’t be long.” India waved and backed out of the room.

“But …” August’s protests were lost as, even as she rose to speak, Nick and India were out the front door and closing it behind them.

“Nick?” India asked as he was backing out of the driveway.

“Hmmm?” Nick had turned on the radio and was searching for a song to sing along with.

“Are we really driving all the way out to your place just to drop off your tree?”

“Of course not.” He looked at her as if she was daft. “Are you planning on seducing me?”

“Yup.”

“Nick?”

“Yes?”

“Drive faster.”

Chapter 23

A mean fog had rolled in off the bay and spread like a down quilt through the marsh. Nick had slowed to a crawl on his way up the lane. The sensor lights on the back of the cabin were barely visible as anything other than a dim, opaque glow at the end of the drive.

“This is so spooky,” India whispered as she opened her car door and hopped out. The crushed white stones crunched slightly under her weight, the soft grinding of stone on stone the only sound in the dense night.

“No, no, sweetheart.” Nick draped an arm over her shoulder and ambled gently to the steps leading to the wraparound deck. “Think of it as a low-lying cloud come to wrap us inside. It’s much more romantic.”

Unconvinced, India glanced uneasily behind them as they reached the front of the cabin, their shoes an echoing
tap tap tap
on the wooden walk, giving her the feeling of being followed. Nick unlocked the back door and held it open for her to pass through, and she did so gratefully.

“It’s cool in here,” he noted, glancing at the thermostat. “Would you like me to build a fire for you?”

“Not in the fireplace.”

She could hear his chuckle in the dark as he relocked the back door. Dropping her jacket on the nearest chair and kicking quietly out of her shoes, she slipped into the hallway
and down two doors to where she remembered his room to be. A scarce minute later he followed her.

“Hand over old Otto,” he told her, and from the opposite side of the bed she tossed the bear.

“Careful with the old boy,” Nick said, pretending to scold her. “You know, my mom and dad gave me this bear when I was three. Best Christmas present I ever got.”

She pitched her sweatshirt across the bed and hit him in the chest with it.

“Until this year,” he mumbled, and she laughed, her jeans following the sweatshirt. He met her halfway across the king-sized bed and pulled her down and under him.

“Kiss me, Nicky,” she demanded, drawing his face to hers.

“That’s the very least I plan to do to you tonight,” he promised.

“I will hold you to that.” She sighed as his lips skimmed the tip of her chin to the hollow of her neck. She arched slightly beneath him, inviting him to feast, and he accepted the gift of herself hungrily.

By the time they were sated, the fog had started to recede across the bay, and a moon of majestic proportions had just begun to push its face through the clouds.

“Is it still Sunday?” India asked, opening heavy eyelids and searching for a clock in the unfamiliar room.

“Only barely.” Nick sat on the edge of the bed and placed a tray between them. “Sit up.”

“What is that?” she asked sleepily.

“Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Nothing elaborate.” He gestured for her to sit and handed her a plate upon which sat a perfectly golden grilled cheese sandwich and some chips.

“You’d make a great short-order cook.” She wrapped the soft flannel sheet around her chest and sat up a little higher on the pillows. “Nick, this is heaven. It’s wonderful.” She took the tall glass he handed her and sipped at the sparkling water. “You are spoiling me. No one ever served me dinner in bed at midnight.”

“Good. You deserve to be spoiled.” He grinned. “And we should have dinner at midnight in bed often.”

“Oh my gosh! Midnight. I should call Aunt August. She might be worried, with the fog.”

“Relax. I already did.”

“You called my aunt?” India laughed. “What did you tell her? Where did she think I was while you were calling her?”

“She didn’t ask where you were, and she didn’t seem overly surprised that you would be staying. She said she knew the fog was bad, since she had driven the captain home around eight.”

“Aunt August drove the captain home?” Wrapping the sheet more tightly around her, she leaned forward and said, as if to herself, “I’ll bet he’s the one.”

“He’s the one who what?” he asked.

“I’ll bet Captain Pete is the man she left behind when she left Devlin’s Light in search of her romantic scholar.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“There is. If you give me some of your chips, I might even tell you about it.”

“August and Old Pete, eh?” He plunked a few more potato chips on her plate.

“I wonder if it’s too late to get them back together again.”

“I think they’re probably old enough to decide that for themselves,” he told her, taking the plates and stacking them one on the other on the tray. “You ready for dessert?”

“Umm. I am.” She slid sure fingers under his robe to tangle in the brown curls on his chest.

“On the other hand, this can probably wait.” He passed the tray to a nearby dresser.

“What was that?” She peered over his shoulder at the two bowls, each of which was covered by a white porcelain saucer.

“Ice cream with chocolate sauce.” He nibbled on her bottom lip. “Of course, by the time we get back to it, it will be chocolate soup.”

“Chocolate soup sounds just fine.”

Nick slid under the sheet to join her and he leaned on one elbow to gaze down into her face. “I never wanted anyone the way I want you. And I knew it the first time I saw you.”

“After Ry’s funeral?”

“I think it might have been before that.”

“I never met you before that.”

“I saw you, though. I saw you when you were home one time last spring. You were walking down the street, just sashaying along.”

“I don’t sashay.” she protested.

“Well, you did this day. And your hair was blowing around your face, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I was at Potter’s market looking out the window, and you walked by and I asked who you were. I couldn’t believe you were Ry’s sister.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d seen pictures of you in your aunt’s house,” he said, caressing her shoulder with a gentle hand, “and they just didn’t do you justice. The camera doesn’t seem able to catch that light in your smile, or the exact color of your eyes, like rain-washed lilacs. Or the way you bite your bottom lip when you think I’m going to kiss you.”

“Like now?” she asked.

“Exactly so.”

“Do it, Nick.” She snuggled against him. “I’ve never been naked in your bed before, and I want to take full advantage of the situation.”

The early morning sun had burned off the remnants of fog, and with the sun came the aroma of something totally wonderful. Tantalized by the smell, India slipped into the soft robe that Nick had left over the bottom of the bed and went into the great room. Nick stood at the stove, his back to her.

“Can’t resist my omelets, can you?” he said without turning around.

“Hmmm.” She wound around him to sniff. “No. I can’t.”

He turned the omelet expertly with one hand and handed her a cup of coffee with the other. She leaned her elbows on the window sill and looked out across the bay.

“I love waking up right on the water,” she told him.

“Then we should make it a regular part of your routine.” He grinned and slid the smooth omelets onto two plates, which he placed on the small table near the window.

“Come eat your breakfast.” His hands slid around her waist and he nuzzled the side of her face.

“Nick, do you realize that all we do is eat and make love?” She sat down and lifted her fork.

“What? Are you sure? Damn. And here I thought we were engaged in something meaningful. Something with
merit.
And now you tell me that all we’ve been doing is making love and eating. Why didn’t you stop me before this got out of hand?”

“Nick”—she laughed—“have you done any work in the last week?”

“Actually, I have. I spent part of yesterday morning making sketches from some slides.”

“Sketches of what?”

“Tiny multicelled animals called rotifers. They look like minuscule hairy pears under the microscope. I’ll show you after breakfast if you like.”

“Where were they?”

“Before they were on my slide? In the marsh. I collected them during the summer, but I’m just getting around to doing the sketches.”

“Ah, yes, life on the bay, seen and unseen.”

“It’s all part of the whole.”

“Ry used to do that when we were little. He used to get a jar of water from the bay or the swamp and put tiny drops on slides.”