Twice Loved (copy2) (34 page)

“Y’d better keep lookin’, sir. I’m sorry.” After a last hearty shake, Rye released the man’s hand and a moment later he was gone.

Josiah buried his hands between his britches and his back shirttails, clasping his waistband and rocking back on his heels while air hissed softly into his pipestem. He concentrated on the doorway through which Throckmorton had just disappeared. “Notion’s got some merit to it. Specially for a man caught in a sticky triangle’s got him achin’ like a horse ’ts thrown a shoe.”

Rye scowled at his father. “Y’re sayin’ y’d have me go?”

“Ain’t sayin’ I would ... ain’t sayin’ I wouldn’t. I’m sayin’ it’s gettin’t’ feel a mite crowded on this island, what with you and Dan Morgan both livin’on it full grown.”

***

The old man’s curious comments settled like a burr in Rye’s thoughts as September gave way to October. Josiah was old; Rye couldn’t leave him. But had the old man meant he’d actually consider going along? Though Rye puzzled over the conversation, he resisted bringing up the subject again, for talking about it lent the idea credence, and Rye wasn’t at all sure he was prepared for that. There was Laura to consider, and Josh. But the thought of them presented the dizzying possibility of taking them along.

The first frosts came, and with them the most beautiful season on the island. The moors lit up with their autumn array of colors as out along Milestone Road vast patches of huckleberry turned bright red, then began softening to rust. Skeins of poison ivy thrilled the eye with their new hues of red and yellow. The scrub oaks turned the color of bright copper pennies and the bayberries turned gray, their skins like the texture of oranges. Ready for picking now, their fragrance was as spicy as any apothecary shop.

In the dooryards, mulberry bushes took fire and chrysanthemums put on their final show of the year, while the deepening frosts brought appropriate blushes to the cheeks of the island’s apples.

Then the whole island took on a delicious fragrance, until it seemed the very ocean itself must be made of apple juice as wooden apple presses were brought into yards for cidering. The scent was everywhere, redolent and sweet. Cauldrons of peeled apples were boiled down into apple butter and jelly. Circles of white apple meat were strung up to dry until it seemed the ceiling beams in the keeping rooms of Nantucket would collapse beneath their weight.

In the house on Crooked Record Lane, baskets of bayberries waited for the cold days of December, when Laura would begin candle making. Overhead, the apple slices drooped like garlands between cheesecloth sacks filled with drying herbs— sage, thyme, marjoram, mint—filling the keeping room with an almost overwhelming essence.

Laura had delayed making apple butter until last. It was midafternoon when she hammered a scarred wooden lid onto the last wide-mouthed crock. Suddenly the cover cracked in half and one of the broken pieces dropped into her clean yellow fruit.

Tossing the hammer aside, she muttered an oath and fished the broken piece out, then licked it off before tossing it into the fire. Laura searched through her remaining wooden covers only to find that none fit the crock.

She glanced out the window at the bay, visible in the distance, and the forbidden thought crossed her mind. There was nothing to stop her—Josh was at Jane’s for their annual pumpkin carving. Resolutely, Laura knelt down to try each wooden lid again. But still, none fit—no matter how she pushed, maneuvered, and jiggled.

Suddenly her hands fell still. She looked up at the window again. Scudding gray clouds with dark underbellies galloped across the skies like wild mustangs while the wind lifted loose mulberry leaves and threw them impatiently against the glass.

Laura squeezed her eyes shut, slumped forward, and clasped her thighs as she sat on her haunches before the burning wooden cover. I must not go near him. I can put a plate over the crock.

But a minute later she was measuring the diameter of the container with a length of tatting string, then her apron was flying off to fall forgotten across a chair, and she was hurrying down the scallop-shell path toward the cooperage.

Its doors were closed now. She hesitated before opening them, to glance off down the street toward the quayside, where the large blue anchor hung over the door of the pub where she’d heard Dan spent most of his evenings. She shivered, drew her cape together, and stepped through the cross-buck doors into a place of bittersweet memory. It was shadowy, and fragrant with the smell of fresh-worked cedar, and warm from the fire blazing a welcome on the hearth.

Josiah was there, straddling his shaving horse, a curl of smoke twining through his grizzled gray eyebrows. He raised his head, relaxed his grip on the drawknife, then slowly leaned over to rest it against the horse. His benevolent gaze never left Laura as he swung to his feet and reached for his pipe, intoning in his familiar voice, “Well hello, daughter.”

Always he had called her daughter that way, and the term now raised a wellspring of affection in Laura’s breast as Josiah offered open arms.

She went against his woodsy-smelling flannel shirt, closing her eyes as the stubble on his chin abraded her temple. “Hello, Josiah.”

He backed her away and smiled indulgently. “I was beginnin’t’ think this old cooperage’d never see y’r smile again.”

She turned to take it in. “Ah, yes, it’s been a long time, Josiah. It looks the same and smells just as good as ever.” Her eyes fell to the other shaving horse and found it empty. A stab of disappointment knifed through her.

“Undoubtedly y’re lookin’ for my son.”

She turned quickly and assured Josiah a little too brightly, “No ... no ... I ... I’ve only come to order a lid for a crock.”

Josiah squinted, replaced the pipe between his teeth, and went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “He’s stepped out for a minute, gone down t’ Old North Wharf t’ see about some hogsheads that’s bein’ packed aboard the 
Martha Hammond.
” Laura took refuge in the unoccupied shaving horse, turning to study it again, but she gave up her pretense to ask softly, “How is he?” Behind her she heard the soft sibilance of Josiah drawing on his pipe.

“Fair to middlin’. Better’n Dan, from what I hear.”

Laura swung around, her face now drawn and pale. “I ... I guess everybody on the island must know how Dan has been drinking since ... since his father’s death.”

“Ayup.” Josiah picked up a side ax and intently tested its edge with a horny thumb. “They’re talkin’, all right.” Then he dropped the tool and swung onto his shaving horse again, turning his back to her and bending to work. “Been talkin’ some about how that woman DeLaine Hussey finds excuses t’ come pokin’ around the cooperage every other day or so, too.”

Laura spun around to gape at Josiah’s flexing shoulders. “DeLaine Hussey?”

“Ayup.”

“What does 
she
 want?”

Josiah smiled secretly at Laura’s sudden, vitriolic response. “What does any woman want who dreams up excuses t’ put herself in a man’s vicinity?” Josiah let that sink in while he drew his knife toward his knees, shaving a wide white wood curl from the stave, then another and another. Next, he tested the concave curve with his fingers, running them time and again along the piece until he deemed it fit, and released it from the wooden jaws of the footclamp. “She came in t’ buy a piggin for her mother, then she brought a basket of beach plums, then a batch of orange cookies.”

“Orange cookies!”

Again Josiah smiled, though Laura could not see, for he’d kept his back to her. “Ayup. Tasty they was, too.”

“O ... orange cookies? She brought Rye orange cookies?”

“Ayup.”

“What did he think about that?”

“Why, as I recall, he said he thought they was tasty, too. Seemed t’ enjoy ’em tremendously. Then after that, I guess it was the cinnamon apples, then—let’s see—oh, o’ course. Then she came t’ ask if he was goin’t’ the clambake.”

“What clambake?”

“Starbuck’s annual clambake. Last o’ the season. Whole island’s bound t’ be there. Didn’t Dan tell y’ about it?”

“He ... he must’ve forgotten to mention it.”

“Forgets a lot these days, Dan does. Even forgets t’ go home at night and eat his supper, the way I’ve heard tell.” From the doorway a voice boomed. “Old man, y’r jaws’re flappin’!”

Rye stood tall and stiff-shouldered at the entrance, dressed in high black boots, tight gray breeches, and a thick sweater that hugged his neck and emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. Laura felt her heart leap at the sight of him.

Rye glowered darkly at his father while Josiah, unflustered, only agreed amiably, “Ayup.”

“I’d suggest y’ put a lock on ’em!” his son returned none too gently, while Laura wondered how long he’d been listening.

The unflappable Josiah only inquired, “What took y’ so long? Customer’s waitin’.”

Rye at last looked directly at Laura, but when his gaze drifted from her face down her arm, she realized she was standing beside his shaving horse, her fingers resting caressingly on the high arm of its clamp. She jumped and jerked her hand away, then crossed to Josiah’s side, pulling the piece of tatting string from the pocket of her cape. “I told you it wasn’t necessary for me to see Rye. You can do the work as well. All I need is a ... a cover for a crock. This long.”

Josiah squinted one blue-gray eye at the string in her palm, puffed once, twice, then turned away uninterestedly. “I don’t do covers. He does.” He gave a backward nod at Rye.

Helplessly, she stared at the string, thinking of DeLaine Hussey and Rye and a clambake. Laura was now utterly embarrassed for having come to the cooperage at all. But just then she sensed Rye at her elbow.

“When do y’ need it?”

His voice was unemotional as a wide, familiar, callused palm came into Laura’s range of vision, outstretched for the string. She handed it over, making certain not to touch him. “Whenever you get around to it.” “Will the end o’ the week be soon enough?”

“Oh ... certainly, but there’s no need to rush.”

He strode across the room and tossed the string onto the waist-high workbench, then stood with his back to the room, palms braced hard against the edge of the bench, far away from his sides. “Will y’ come t’ pick it up?” He stared out the window above the bench.

“I ... yes, yes, of course.”

“It’ll be done.”

His back was rigid. He neither turned nor spoke again, and Laura felt tears prickling at the backs of her eyelids. She presented a false, wavering smile to Josiah. “Well ... it’s been nice seeing you again, Josiah. And you, too, Rye.”

The wide-held arms and stubborn shoulders didn’t move. Her tears were now stinging, closer to overflowing, so Laura whirled and ran for the door.

“Laura!”

At Rye’s bark, her feet didn’t even slow. She jerked the door open while from behind her came a muffled curse, then, “Laura, wait!” But she swept outside and onto the street, leaving Rye to give chase in a long-legged stride. He shouldered through the door into the wind-wild day.

“Hove to, woman!” he ordered, grasping her elbow and forcing her to stop.

She swung around and yanked her elbow free. “Don’t speak to me as if I’m the ... the miserable whaleship that took you out to sea!”

“Why’d y’ come here? Isn’t it hard enough?” His eyes blazed down into hers.

“I needed a lid for a crock. This is the cooperage where one gets such things!”

“Y’ could have got one at the chandlery as well.”

“Next time I will!”

“I told y’t’ keep out of my sight.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Dalton, I had a temporary lapse of memory. You can be assured it won’t happen again, unless, of course, it’s absolutely unavoidable. In which case I would make sure I came with a basket full of 
orange cookies
 to pay for my wares.”

His eyes took on a hooded look and he backed a step away from her, hooking his thumbs into his belt. “The old man doesn’t know when t’ shut his trap.”

“I disagree. I found his conversation very ... enlightening.”

Rye pointed a finger up the street, scowling angrily. “It’s all right for you t’ live up there on the hill with him, but when it comes t’ me and DeLaine Hussey, it’s a different matter, is that it?”

“You may do exactly what you want with Miss DeLaine Hussey!” She spat the words.

“Thank you, madam, I will!”

She had expected him to deny spending time with DeLaine. When instead he confirmed it, the pain seemed too great to bear. Haughtily, she looked down her nose, then lifted cold eyes to his and arched a single eyebrow. “Have you taught her how to employ the shaving bench yet? I’m sure she’d find it delightful.”

For a moment Rye looked as though he wanted to strike her. His fingers bit into her arm, then he let her go, and a moment later he spun and strode angrily back to the cooperage, slamming the door behind him.

Immediately, Laura felt remorseful and wanted to run after him. But her angry words could not be recalled.

They were still echoing through her mind that night as she lay in bed, crying. Why did I say such a thing, oh why? He’s right—I have no call to fault him for seeing DeLaine Hussey when I’m still living with Dan.

But there existed the very real possibility that DeLaine might eventually succeed in charming Rye, and it filled Laura with fear. Rye was lonely and miserable and more vulnerable than ever to a woman’s advances. Laura remembered very clearly the night of the supper at the Starbucks’ and DeLaine’s flirtatious glances, as well as all that business about the Female Freemasons. There could be no doubt the woman had her sails set for Rye. In his forsaken state, how long could he resist the invitation of affection ... and perhaps much more?

Chapter 16

THE FOLLOWING DAY 
Laura’s face looked 
as 
grim 
as 
the Nantucket skies as she set out for Jane’s house to fetch Josh home. The open heathland was no longer a magic carpet of color. The sweet fern, Virginia creeper, and highbush blueberry had all succumbed to the ravages of frost, their golds and rusts now put aside. The huckleberry branches were no more than skeletal black fingers reaching bleakly toward the sky. The grapes that had formed a wall of green now shrouded the split-rail fences in barren tangles from which came the sharp, lonely bark of a pheasant who searched there for any last clinging berries. The double cart track of white sand wound through the hills before Laura with a singular loneliness common to late October. The sky was leaden and low, so heavy in places that it reached downward to lick at the barren moors that shivered as the wind picked up and moaned a lament for the passing of autumn. Soon the northers would bluster and blow, and the island would be battered by strong seas, then sealed off by ice and snow.