Firefly Beach (30 page)

But even as Augusta spoke, she and Clea watched Caroline on the dance floor in the arms of the pirate. He looked like everything Hugh Renwick would warn her against. He was big and cool, with a wicked sexual intensity, and he had his arms wrapped around Caroline as if he had hunted her down and intended to own her. But the strange thing, the factor Augusta couldn’t quite believe and had to check with a closer look, was the expression in his eyes.

The pirate dancing with Augusta’s daughter looked for all the world as if he had fallen in love.

The song ended. Caroline stepped back. Joe stood still, not saying anything. He wanted to ask her to dance again. But this was her inn and her ball, and she probably had a million things to do. Guys were milling around, probably wanting to dance with her. But she didn’t move. She just stood there. She was wearing that white dress Joe remembered from her father’s painting, and all he wanted was to take her down to the river alone and dance with her there.

“Thank you,” he said finally.

“Oh,” she said. “It was fun.”

Joe stared at her. It was strange; he didn’t feel angry. Not at all. For the first time in a lot of years, he could think of Caroline Renwick and not feel the resentment rising. The opposite. He felt an unfamiliar tenderness, and it made him so uncomfortable he took a step backward.

“Well,” she said.

The music was starting again. The paper lanterns swung in a light gust of breeze. Joe cleared his throat. Caroline watched him, expectant. He reached into his pocket. He had brought something from the boat to show her, and his fingers closed around it now. He could ask her to dance again, hand it to her while they moved to the music. He could try to tell her what finding it had made him feel….

Someone bumped him from behind.

Her brother-in-law, the creep Joe had seen drinking with Skye at the bar one week before, jostled into Joe, then Caroline. The guy had the smell of booze and drugs coming out of him. He was so busy feeling up the girl he was dancing with, he hardly noticed his own clumsiness.

“Oops,” the girl said, eye to eye with Caroline.

“Where’s Skye?” Caroline asked Simon, ignoring the waitress.

“She needed a walk,” Simon said, the cigarette still in his mouth. Joe wanted to jam it down his throat and tell him to go find his wife.

“Dora, aren’t you supposed to be working?” Caroline asked, barely controlling her fury.

“Sorry,” Dora said, flying off the dance floor.

“I’m worried about Skye,” Caroline said to Simon. “I want us to find her.”

“I’m not her keeper,” he said, watching the waitress from behind. “Neither are you.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t look for her,” Joe said. “Especially if your sister-in-law asks you to.”

“Who the fuck—” Simon asked, aggression making the cords in his neck stand out. He had the look of a beater in his eyes. He was small and mean, and Joe hardly had to use his imagination to see him hitting Skye. Quietly, Joe put himself between Simon and Caroline.

“Just look, Simon. Okay?” Caroline asked tensely.

“Fine,” Simon said, throwing his cigarette on the floor. He walked away, leaving it burning. Caroline gave Joe an apologetic glance and followed him. Joe put out the cigarette in an ashtray on the bar. He stared after Caroline and then he went the other way. To look for Skye.

The log stretched across the stream. It had been there for some time. Sticks, feathers, and debris had caught on stray branches protruding from one end. The stream flowed beneath the log, lazy and blackish-green, just before it widened and joined the Connecticut River. Pine trees grew thick along one bank, while reeds whispered along the other.

Skye stood at one end of the log. The breeze ruffled her black dress. It tickled her bare legs. She watched the water move. A fish came to the surface, making rings in the dark water. Skye stared at the rings. She remembered a night on a different riverbank two hundred miles to the north. The stars had blazed low over the curving hills. Her father had dropped them off hungry, to make them hunt for their food. Sharpening a stick, she had waited in the rushes.

The frog was fat. She knew she was supposed to kill it. Stabbing down, she impaled its white moon body. Her father had shown her how to build a fire, and he had told her that cooking a frog was no different than cooking a fish. But somehow it was. The big frog had sleepy eyes and a smiling mouth. After she stabbed it, it twitched and gasped. As weak and hungry as she was, Skye had gone without eating. She had killed an animal for nothing.

“Not the last time,” she said out loud now.

Haze hung over the stream, and Skye balanced on the log. She held the silver flask in her hand. Music from the ball came through the trees; she could almost imagine she was at the ballet. Skye was
in
the ballet; standing on one foot, she twirled to the music and took a sip of vodka. Russian vodka, appropriate for
Swan Lake.

Fireflies blinked in the trees. Skye took another drink. Knowing how worried Caroline was, how much she wanted to keep Skye from drinking, Skye had brought her own. She didn’t want Caroline to feel compromised, serving Skye liquor she believed would harm her.

On the other hand, Skye did not want to be observed swigging from a flask. So here she was in the woods, dancing on a fallen log, remembering the first and only time their father had taken them to the ballet.
Swan Lake
. The dying swan. Wishing he’d taken them to more ballets, fewer hunts, Skye paradoxically hated
Swan Lake.
Tragically beautiful, it rang too many bells.

“The dance is over there.”

The deep voice came from the shadows. Skye was so startled, she nearly fell off the log. Backing away from the sound, she felt the panic in her chest.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

A man stepped forward, watching her with racy blue eyes. Tall, with a ripped shirt that revealed tan shoulders, he appeared menacing. He was dressed like a pirate; he didn’t even seem to be wearing a costume.

“Don’t fall,” he said.

“Stay away,” Skye said.

“I will.”

Skye weaved on the log. The water was only six feet down. If he came toward her, she could jump. The black water would close over her head. She could hold her breath, swim for shore. The dying, stupid swan. She could play that role. The vodka she had already drunk made her dizzy.

“Sit down,” the man said.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned. Was he trying to help? Or would he grab her from behind, rip off her dress, hold his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams? The thought, blasting out of nowhere, made Skye turn and run. Her foot caught on a broken branch, and she started to fall.

The man caught her. He took two steps, and he was there. His arms around her, trying to steady her. Skye fought. She screamed, scratched him, tore at his eyes. They thrashed on the log, the man somehow keeping balance for both of them.

“Get away from me,” she cried, grabbing his face.

“Skye—”

“I swear, I’ll kill you, don’t think I won’t—” Skye said. Had he just said her name?

“Skye, sit down,” he said. “It’s okay, you’re safe. Just sit down, for God’s sake.”

“Who the hell are you?”

The man gripped her upper arms. Skye’s feet were barely touching the log. He held her steady. She had scratched his face; he was bleeding. Shaking uncontrollably, she looked into his face. It was familiar. Skye didn’t know how she knew him, but she had seen him somewhere.

“Sit down, okay?” he asked cautiously. He touched his cheek, looked at the blood.

Skye’s head throbbed. Her throat ached. Her stomach lurched, and she retched into the water. She didn’t trust him for a second, but she didn’t have a choice. Drunk, she felt wobbly and sick. She wanted a fast slug of vodka, but she had dropped her flask. The man helped her sit on the log.

Skye sobbed.

The man reached into his pocket, then handed her a handkerchief. “Here,” he said.

Skye shook her head. She opened her eyes, looked around for the flask. Maybe it hadn’t fallen into the stream.

“It’s gone,” the man said. “I saw it go in.”

Skye gave him a desperate look. How did he know what she was looking for? Leaning forward, she saw the blood running down his cheek. She covered her eyes and moaned.

“Let’s get off the log,” he said. Offering her his hand, he waited for her.

“Why do you look so familiar?” Skye asked, trying to decide.

“I saw you at the inn the other night. You were at the bar with your husband.”

Skye stared at him. That wasn’t it. She knew his face, and she had known it for a long time. He was older now, but those blue eyes…the strong jaw, the straight nose. She blinked at him, trying to remember. She reached through the haze of vodka, past the fear of his unexpected presence.

“No,” she said. She still felt afraid, but something about his blue eyes steadied her, reassured her that he wouldn’t hurt her. She gave him her hand. He helped her off the log. The ground felt steady under her feet, but the sky moved overhead. She swayed,

“Skye, I know you can’t hear me right now,” he said roughly.

“I hear you,” she said.

“No, you’re drunk,” he said. “But later, when you sober up, I want you to remember something.”

“I’m not drunk—” Skye said.

“Yeah, you are. But tomorrow, when your head’s pounding and you’re throwing up and you want to die, remember something, okay?”

“What?” she asked, her fingers trembling.

“You never have to feel this way again.”

“Don’t—”

“There’s a way out,” he said.

The man’s eyes were deep and direct. He held Skye by her shoulders, and even though his voice was rough, it came out kind. He looked calm. Skye knew she knew him from somewhere, but the strangest part was, he sounded as if he knew her even better. She almost had it; she stared, trying so hard to remember.

They walked back to the party. The man held back branches so Skye could pass. They emerged from the woods, and almost immediately Caroline came walking over. She looked at Skye, then past her at the man. His eyes changed then. They had been hard, almost angry in their intensity, but they softened when Caroline came into view.

“Skye,” she said, and Skye stepped into her arms.

Holding Caroline made her feel safe. Skye trembled from the vodka she had drunk and the shock of meeting a strange man in the woods, from dancing to
Swan Lake
and from remembering another time Caroline had held her close in other woods.

“You found her,” Caroline was saying.

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Caroline said. Skye’s head was against her sister’s chest, and she could feel Caroline shaking.

“Who are you?” Skye asked. “I know you…”

“Skye, this is Joe Connor,” Caroline said.

The name sparked something deep inside. Skye tilted her head, looked at Caroline. She may have been holding Skye’s hand, but Caroline’s eyes were for the man. Overhead, the Japanese lanterns bobbed on the wire, bathing them in blue and red light.

“Oh, I do know you,” Skye said, her eyes filling with tears.

Joe didn’t smile or move. He stood very still, bleeding from where Skye had scratched him. She thought of that smiling boy in the picture, his wide-open face, his missing-tooth smile, the freckles across his cheeks.

There was nothing wide-open about the man who stood before her now. He’s tough, Skye thought. That’s what’s so different, why I didn’t recognize him at all. Life has made him wary. Skye knew, because it had made her that way too.

“Are you okay?” he asked guardedly.

Skye nodded.

“Try to remember what I said. Tomorrow.”

Skye lowered her head, ashamed that he had seen her drinking from the flask.

“You were always one of us,” Skye whispered.

“What?” Joe asked.

“One of us. You know…like a brother. I knew Caroline wrote to you, and I always imagined you knew what it was like.”

“Only some of it,” he said. “I was on the other side.”

Skye shook her head. “No, you weren’t. Our parents were, but not us. You were one of us.”

It all made such perfect sense now. The summer night was hot, and fireflies were flickering through the trees, and she was standing in a tight circle with Caroline and Joe Connor. They were united by gunshots, other people’s deaths.

Her mother was coming across the lawn. Simon was with her, a sullen expression on his face. Skye could feel his anger from there, and it made her stomach tighten. She would pay for his humiliation later. Clea and Peter were right behind them. Tagging along was a young man, bedecked in his pirate kerchief and black eye patch.

“Good God, where was she?” Augusta said. “I looked up, saw her stumbling out of the woods with this pirate—”

Skye saw her mother glaring at Joe.

“First I see him dancing with Caroline, and the next thing I know, he’s coming out of the woods with Skye!” Augusta said.

“Mom, he helped me,” Skye said quickly to stop the innuendo. “I nearly fell in the water.”

“What the fuck, Skye,” Simon asked, yanking her arm. “A liaison in the woods?”