Dark Tides. Celia Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ grunted.

      “Have you been reminded of something?”

      “I think so. I think maybe I had a hutch. That’s what it’s called, right? I think I had one in the life I can’t remember.” She looked at him with sympathy before she touched his arm in reassurance and turned away.

      I don’t want your pity.

      Shocked by the vehemence of his reaction, he clenched his hands into fists on the denim covering his thighs. A moment later, he scented the fragrance of her hair as she returned. She closed her fingers over his, pulling his left hand up between both of hers. “It’ll be all right, Caleb. I don’t know when. Just believe it will.”

      He met her gaze in defiance of the confusion that dashed with glancing blows around his brain, unable to believe anything would ever be all right.

      * * * *

      Lying in the dark, Caleb stretched in the confines of the narrow bed. He tucked his arms behind the upper part of his head, avoiding the goose egg. His gaze followed the shadowed path of a late moth across the ceiling. He had slept for a little while and then had come fully awake, with no idea of the time. In his disorientation, he could have been sleeping for hours or a handful of minutes. Somehow, though, he had the feeling he’d woken in the middle of the night.

      Across the hall and down one door was her bedroom, by day a light-filled chamber with most of the lace-covered windows facing the ocean. When he had come up to shower, he had remained in the doorway for an inordinate amount of time, studying the accoutrements, the personal items scattered about—books and discarded clothing—the arrangement of furniture, the painted cast iron bed, the pair of dressers, a small desk in the corner, a worn, overstuffed chair in need of reupholstering. After, he had turned away, feeling guilty for his curiosity.

      He wondered now if she slept untroubled or if she lay in her bed awake and uneasy with his presence in her house. He certainly would not blame her, knowing he occupied the room nearby, a stranger not only to her, but also to himself.

      Letting his breath out, he closed his eyes and visualized Meg Donovan against his lids. Small in stature, she possessed an artless grace, moving restlessly from location to location as if she had no more weight or substance than one of the leaves in the breeze outside the window. It didn’t matter if she was drawing the blinds or rinsing paint from a brush or rising up onto her toes before the bathroom mirror to comb her hair.

      Ah, yes, well, he hadn’t meant to walk in on her then. He had turned the corner to go into the bathroom and found her there, right in front of him. Although wearing thin and ratty sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, she may as well have been naked. Dressed for bed, she would have walked out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where she would have climbed beneath the mounded covers. During her marriage to her husband, they had most likely engaged in intimacy in that bed. He didn’t want to think about it, yet he kept doing exactly that, visualizing Meg and a faceless man who occasionally appeared in his mind’s eye bearing his own.

      Disgusted with himself, he took to watching the moth again, gray-winged in the silver night. Despite the autumnal chill, he had lifted the sash an inch so he could hear the constant rhythm of the surf against the sand. Nearer, hot water ticked through the pipes of the old radiator. Fluttering erratically, the moth moved toward the open door and out the narrow space between the door and jamb. A shadow passed in the hall.

      Sitting bolt upright, Caleb suppressed a groan as his pain-racked body protested the sudden movement. In the shower, he had located additional bruises on his torso and limbs, and all were bringing him noticeable discomfort. Swinging his feet over the side of the single bed, he snatched the borrowed blue jeans from the footboard. After tugging them on, he stepped shirtless into the corridor.

      The half moon shining through the window at the far end illuminated an empty hallway. In silence, Caleb strode along the worn runner toward the sound of someone descending the stairs with quiet steps. Glancing at Meg’s door, he saw it remained shut. Not her, then. His body tensed.

      Taking the back stairs swiftly in his bare feet, he crept into the kitchen. Someone, or something, moved across the floor. The hair lifted along his arms.

      The light went on. He squinted against the sudden, fluorescent glare.

      “Caleb, I’m sorry, did I wake you? I tried not to make any noise.”

      “I wasn’t asleep,” he answered, more gruffly than he intended. “I thought someone had broken in.”

      She arched an eyebrow at him. Her hair, sleep-tousled, or perhaps from the restless lack of slumber, lay tangled about her shoulders. “And you were coming to do battle with the intruder. That’s quite gallant of you. I’m glad it was only me.”

      Conscious of how foolish he must look, shirtless and unarmed, he sat down in the nearest chair. “You couldn’t sleep either, I see,” he said.

      She gave him a strange look but nodded. “Would you like a glass of warm milk? It does work, you know. I’m making myself one.”

      “Warm milk?”

      “To help you sleep.”

      “To help me sleep,” he repeated, catching the flying edge of memory, of a slender hand pouring the steaming white contents of a pot into a mug. “Sure,” he said. “Thank you.”

      He watched as she set about her preparations, pouring milk into an enameled pot, placing two mugs on the counter, removing a wooden spoon from the drawer. She turned the jet on beneath the pot, glancing back at him over the rumpled shoulder of her T-shirt.

      “Chilly? There’s a jacket behind the door.”

      He hadn’t been inclined to say so, but once again she had read him without a need for words. He frowned and rose, moving to the hook she indicated to take down a faded sweatshirt jacket. Matt’s? Why had she kept so many of his things?

      He shoved his arms into the sleeves and jerked the zipper up before he sat back down. At the stove, she stirred the heating milk with one hand and put the other hand in the pocket of her holey sweats. The overhead light glinted in the sun-streaked highlights of her hair. Her shoulders hunched forward as if she, too, were chilled. Another jacket hung on a second hook, a smaller version of the one he now wore. He retrieved the garment and held it out to her. Without a word, she put it on.

      This time he didn’t sit down but turned his hips against the countertop and crossed his arms over his chest. “May I ask you something?”

      She glanced up and away, but she didn’t say no.

      “Do you miss your husband?”

      Ignoring him, she continued with the task at hand.

      “Is that why you have his clothes still?” Caleb persisted, trying to understand. “To remind you of him?”

      “I don’t need that sort of reminder,” she said, studying the steam rising from the pot. Judging the milk hot enough, she poured it into the mugs and flicked the burner off.

      “Then why?”

      Carrying both mugs to the table, she paused, pivoting on her heel. “I don’t know. It’s not exactly like I miss him. But I haven’t wanted to get rid of anything of his. Call me a fool, if you need, but I’d like to know what makes you so certain that’s СКАЧАТЬ