Mysterious Vows. Cassie Miles

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СКАЧАТЬ Jason spied on the woodpeckers in the pines and the gulls overhead. He watched the fishing boats retrieve the day’s catch from lobster traps. And he surveyed the shoreline, again and again, looking for Maria.

      If something had gone wrong, how would the source contact him? Jason had never met this person. His only source was a voice on the phone and an occasional letter. They had not discussed the possibility of Maria not showing up.

      Late in the afternoon, a Friday afternoon, activity picked up at the marina. The graceful sailboats, the sleek motorcraft, the festive party barges received their inhabitants.

      Jason far preferred the solitude. The fewer witnesses, the better. From his pocket he took out a one-page letter, the only message he’d received directly from Maria. Though she was an accomplished journalist, English was her second language and the sentences, written in neat script, seemed halting.

      Dear Mr. Walker,

      My intense gratitude belongs to you. For your proposal and protection, I thank you so much. We shall succeed in our journey. We must.

      Between the lines he saw bravery and strength of character. Maria was willing to sacrifice everything for patriotism, for the love of her small Central American country and hatred of injustice. He hoped the privacy and protection he could offer would be sufficient.

      At dusk he scanned with his binoculars and saw a woman standing immobile on the shore, staring through the forest of sailboat masts. A family, toting picnic baskets, separated to walk around her. She took no notice.

      Maria? She wore Levi’s and a T-shirt. Her long black hair was yanked back in a ponytail. Though she carried no luggage, she wore a red scarf around her throat.

      Jason’s heart took a leap. The red scarf was the first signal of recognition.

      She stumbled as she walked along the planks of the pier. Even at this distance, he discerned the slump of her shoulders and a drag in her step. The woman appeared to be exhausted, which was not surprising. If this was Maria, she’d just completed a journey of more than two thousand miles.

      As he observed her progress through his binoculars, Jason found himself hoping that this was the woman he had been waiting for, the woman he would wed. Despite her exhaustion, she seemed to be reasonably attractive, and his pride was appeased that he would not be stuck marrying an ugly woman. Even if the mail-order marriage was nothing but a cover story, he would be required to introduce her as his bride.

      She entered the marina, passed the boathouse.

      Using his cane, he climbed out of the cockpit and stood beside the slip. After waiting so long, he felt like running toward her—as if he could run. But the instructions were clear. She was to come to him.

      She stood beside the marker for slip number eighty-six, turned her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were an odd shade of hazel, almost green. Their pale color stood out dramatically against her dusky complexion.

      Without saying a word, she held up her left hand and he saw the heavy gold ring inscribed with branches of thorns and a golden rose.

      “Maria?”

      She looked puzzled but nodded. He held out his hand to help her into the boat. Her touch was cold, trembling. He asked, in Spanish, if she was all right, if she needed anything.

      In Spanish, she replied, “Sleep. I must sleep.”

      He guided her into the cabin, and she crawled onto the V-berth in the forward hull and thanked him. Before he could question her to find out why she was so late, she was unconscious, curled up on the bed, sound asleep.

      In repose, her features were delicate. Thick lashes formed dark crescents on her high cheekbones. Her lips parted as she breathed shallowly.

      Her journey had been difficult, he thought. But she was here now, and he would make certain no one harmed her.

      While she slept, he motored back to the island. There was a need for haste, and no time for sailing, so he did not hoist the dolphin sail on the Elena‘s mast. They crossed the twenty-two miles of open sea to Passaquoit Island at a smooth, even clip.

      * * *

      THE HEAVY MIST that blanketed her mind parted, showing light, but her eyelids were closed. Was she dead?

      She was falling again, struggling up from liquid darkness. She must be dreaming, but her sensation was utterly real. She struggled against the paralyzing weakness, fought to shake off the cloying miasma that suffocated her. Falling.

      She felt an arm at her waist. On her shoulder.

      She was not alone.

      The hands tightened their grasp.

      Her eyelids snapped open. The profusion of light and color startled her. There was sunlight pouring through tall windows. Not darkness. She gulped air, filling her lungs. Her heart throbbed painfully beneath her rib cage. And her head— Oh, God, her head and shoulders ached.

       “Maria, cómo está usted?”

      She looked into the eyes of a stranger. In Spanish he repeated, “Maria, are you all right?”

      “Muerte,” she murmured. Death. The angel of death had been so near she could feel its chilling embrace. “Where am I?”

      “On the island.”

      An island? She had no recollection of how she’d come to be here. Her mind was blank. Something terrible must have happened, something that had spun her life out of control.

      “Who are you?” she asked.

      “I am your husband-to-be. You are my bride.”

      Her husband? Surely that could not be possible. The man was lying to her. She had a vague sense of other men, dangerous men who wanted to kill her. Was he one of them?

      She sat bolt upright on the sofa where she had been reclining. Her head rang with fierce pain. Thunderbolts crashed inside her skull. She groaned. “My head.”

      “Don’t you remember?” he asked.

      Her instincts warned her to play along with him, to tell him what he wanted to hear. “Sí, I remember.”

      Her fingers coursed down the length of white fabric of the dress she was wearing. Simple lace at the neck, polished cotton, long sleeves and a full skirt. A wedding gown.

      Without knowing how or why, she’d dropped into a strange reality. And she was about to be a bride.

      “Maria. We need to do this now.”

      He spoke Spanish with the fluency of a native, but she detected an American accent in his inflection and tone. His words were slower than a native speaker’s. “We need to get started,” he said. “We need to get this ceremony under way as soon as possible.”

      “What ceremony?” She saw impatience in his dark gray eyes.

      “The wedding.”

      Her head was pounding. She raised her fingertips to her temples and massaged СКАЧАТЬ