The Lightkeeper's Woman. Mary Burton

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      Crowley asked other questions about Caleb, but Alanna offered vague answers, unwilling to talk any more than was necessary. Soon the two lapsed into silence.

      As she watched another wave crash over the bow of the boat, her mind drifted to the Caleb she’d known and loved. She’d been drawn to him the instant she’d first seen him firing orders at the men in the shipyard. For the first time in her life, she disobeyed her father and strode out onto the Patterson’s Shipping docks, determined to meet him.

      They’d been drawn to each other like lightning to water. From the outset, the passion that had burned between them seemed eternal.

      The roar of thunder brought Alanna back to the present. The memories receded but as always they never quite went away.

      She’d tried to rebuild her life and suddenly wondered if Caleb had done the same. It tore at her to think of him with another woman. He could well be a father by now. “Mr. Crowley, has the captain married?”

      “No.”

      A small part of Alanna’s heart eased. “Because of the Intrepid?”

      Crowley’s hands tightened around the oars as he dug the paddles deeper into the water. “That’s part of it.”

      “Have you seen him lately?”

      For a moment he didn’t speak, his full attention on the water. “Been a few months.”

      “Does he look well?” She hated her curiosity.

      He stared at her as if she’d asked a foolish question. “As well as can be expected.”

      “Does he spend most of his time at the lighthouse?”

      “He’s a regular hermit.”

      Lightning sliced through the clouds. The old man shifted his full attention to the sky that had grown suddenly very dark. Fat rain droplets mingled with the wind and the boat started to pitch.

      Alanna’s lips tasted of sea salt. She glanced down at her cold feet and realized the water had risen up to her shoelaces. “The boat is sinking!”

      Caleb stared out the lightkeeper’s cottage window, relieved to see the thunderclouds rolling over the horizon. An unexpected restlessness had been building in his bones for days. Normally, he’d have attributed the sensation to the onslaught of bad weather. Reading the weather was an extra sense for him, as much a part of him as sight and touch.

      But since Sloan had delivered Alanna’s package last month, his well-ordered world had tipped out of balance.

      Caleb’s heart had raced as he’d held the package wrapped in brown paper. With his fingertip, he traced A. Patterson emblazoned in the upper left corner.

      “Who is she?” Sloan had asked.

      Caleb’s lips twisted into a grim smile. “How do you know it’s a woman?”

      “Your jaw’s so tense it’s liable to snap.” Sloan grinned. “And a man don’t fondle another man’s package.”

      Caleb grunted. “We’ve supplies to unload.”

      Sloan didn’t move. “So who is she?”

      Caleb wondered if fire still spit from Alanna’s jade-green eyes when she was angry; if her hair still spilled down her back like spun gold. “Nobody.”

      Sloan rubbed his bearded chin with the back of his hand. “Right.”

      Caleb held out the box. “Take it.”

      Sloan looked at the package as if it were hot coals. “What do you want me to do with it?”

      “Throw it in the sea for all I care.”

      “No note?”

      Caleb had been cheated out of his last confrontation with Alanna and his mind swam with a thousand unsaid words. He pulled a pencil from his coat pocket and on the box’s brown paper wrapping scrawled: I want nothing from you or your father. We are finished.

      Sloan accepted the box from Caleb and studied the message. “You loved her, eh?”

      Caleb’s head started to throb. “I was cursed by her.”

      Since Alanna’s parcel had arrived, the island which had been his sanctuary had become brutally small. He’d paced the shores like a caged animal. He worked as hard as three men, but no matter how much he’d sweat, he couldn’t exorcise Alanna from his mind.

      Twice, he’d nearly abandoned his post and rowed to the mainland.

      But he’d stayed on guard.

      Lightning flashed.

      Caleb shifted his focus to the gray horizon. Aye, he’d take a storm over Alanna any day.

      He grabbed his coat, shrugged it on and headed toward the lighthouse. With the storm brewing, he’d have to light the beacon.

      Crossing the small sandy beach, he entered the base of the lighthouse and climbed the spiral staircase up to the top. Ever ready, he kept the giant Fresnel lenses polished, the lamps filled with oil and the wicks trimmed. And now as the blue sky had vanished behind the thickening clouds, all that was left was to light the lanterns.

      Caleb rechecked the lenses that magnified the light for dozens of miles, and then climbed down a small interior staircase that led outside to the crow’s nest, the wrought-iron balcony that ringed the top of the lighthouse.

      Wind howled around him as he reached in his pocket and pulled out his spyglass. Opening the telescope, he scanned the ocean horizon. There were no ships and if luck held none would venture this close to the shoals, sandbars that stretched the length of the outer banks, until the storm passed.

      The danger of the storm was far from over but as he stared at the endless waters he felt a measure of calm. Unlike his days in Richmond, he was in his element here. He understood storms and he understood the seas. Here actions, not words, solved problems and saved lives.

      He moved around to the sound side. He didn’t expect to see a boat. His assistant, Charlie Meeker, had gone into Easton yesterday on a four-day pass. Charlie had sense enough not to brave the waters today as did Sloan, who had only come to the island three days ago to restock supplies.

      Only a fool dared these waters today.

      And the world was full of fools, he thought grimly as he raised the spyglass on the remote chance that someone would attempt a crossing.

      Caleb peered through the telescope lens. For an instant, a slash of white appeared in his scope but it disappeared behind a wave as quickly as it had appeared. A man with lesser experience would have attributed the sighting to a whitecap.

      But he waited, holding his glass steady. He understood just how deceitful the sea could be, СКАЧАТЬ