Firefly Beach (38 page)

“She looks like Clea,” Caroline said.

“She looks like you,” Joe said.

Caroline could barely see. For the second time that evening, she wiped away tears. She was incredibly moved, holding this jewel that had belonged to a family she had come to care about. She thought of Elisabeth Randall’s bones lying in the eel grass, the tides sweeping in and out. The cameo felt light in her hand. It was so fragile and delicate, yet it had survived underwater for two hundred years.

“It’s amazing,” she said, handing it to him.

“I want you to keep it,” he said, pressing it into her palm.

Caroline was stunned. She looked into Joe’s eyes, and she saw the beginning of a smile. “I can’t,” she said, clearing her throat.

“Why?”

“Shouldn’t it go to someone else? Clarissa’s descendants? Or the town?”

“There aren’t any Randalls we can find. And the town…it doesn’t work that way.” He laughed. “I’m a treasure hunter, remember? I filed my claim and got my permit, and this is treasure.”

“Your daughter—”

“I don’t have a daughter,” Joe said.

“Well, if you ever do.”

Joe was staring into Caroline’s eyes, his blue eyes dark and unflinching. His wide lips wanted to smile; she could see it in the corners. He was amused with the awkwardness of her gift-taking, but she was always like this. At Christmas she felt uncomfortable when it was her turn to reach under the tree.

“I don’t—” she began, looking at the cameo in her hand.

“You have to,” he said a little roughly.

She was thinking of all the reasons she shouldn’t accept anything from Joe Connor, all the anger and hurt that had passed between them, the way they had tried a friendship this summer, until the Firefly Ball came and his true feelings had come out.

“Sometimes it’s more generous to take than give,” he said.

“How?” Caroline asked.

“To let the other person give you what he has to offer. If you’re always the one giving, you never have to feel disappointed, because you don’t expect anything in return. But it’s miserly in its own way. Because you never leave yourself open or give the other person a chance.”

Caroline nodded, thinking of her father. And of herself: Skye was right.

“That’s what my sister says.”

“About you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s what my brother says about me,” Joe said.

“Something we have in common,” Caroline said. “Smart siblings—”

She never saw the kiss coming. He wrapped his strong arms around her, drew her body against his, and kissed her as if his life depended on it. Raising herself up on tiptoe, she reached up to hold him. She ran her fingers through his messy hair, felt the insides of her forearms around his face.

The teakettle began to whistle.

Joe stepped away, turned off the flame. He faced her again, breathing as if he had just run from Mount Serendipity.

Again, he took her in his arms. His body, which had felt strong and supple when they had embraced earlier, now felt rigid with an almost inhuman tension.
It feels like hugging steel,
Caroline thought. She trailed her fingers softly down his spine. His blue cotton shirt seemed thin beneath her fingertips. She could feel his bones and muscle. The sexual passion between them was enormous, but she sensed something different as well.

This was the love that had been building up between them since they were five and six. She could feel Joe Connor absorbing her warmth and love as she herself was consuming his. He wanted something from her that had nothing to do with sex; she knew that. She touched his face, softly stroking his cheek with her left hand.

Holding his hand, she led him down the hall. The spareness apparent throughout Caroline’s house did not extend to her bedroom. This was her private place, her sanctuary. She was most herself in this room, and allowing him inside made her feel vulnerable.

Everything was dark wood and white lace. The white lace curtains and eyelet coverlet had belonged to her grandmother. The dark mahogany four-poster was elaborately carved with roses and angels. The massive chifforobe and armoire came from Scotland. Bookcases were filled to overflowing, and the bedside tables were crowded with framed pictures of the people she loved.

He kissed her again. His mouth covered hers, and he wrapped her tighter in his arms. He let out a moan that sounded almost like grief as he slowly lowered her down to the bed. She could barely stand the tension that felt as if it had been building since she was sixteen years old. Caroline leaned into Joe, the full length and weight of his body pressing against hers. They kissed and kissed, undressing each other all the while.

“I’m sorry,” he said when his hands touched the bare skin on her shoulders.

“Why?”

“My hands are too rough for such smooth skin.”

Joe’s hands were callused from hauling equipment, working underwater on the wreck, and the friction made Caroline’s body tingle wherever they touched her. She felt the hair on his body, silky and fine, and she nearly lost her breath with the sexy maleness of him.

She lay back, letting him explore the soft curves and hollows of her body with his mouth and hands. He wanted her to stay still. He wanted her to lie back so he could love her, and he let her know this. “Shhh,” he whispered, holding both of her hands just behind her head with one of his. “Please,” she whispered, trying to get loose. “Please,” he whispered back. She could neither touch him nor wrangle away. He made her lie there while he used his mouth all over her body.

He was steady and slow, and Caroline squirmed under the pressure of his tongue. Her nipples hardened. She arched her back, willing him to touch her breasts, finally reaching down to drag his hands up. His callused fingertips pinched and rubbed her nipples, sending a tense thrill straight between her legs. She clutched his head, encouraging him, bringing her hips up to meet his tongue. Everything exploded in red and blue stars behind her eyelids, and she gave out a shuddering breath.

He moved up the bed, his hands now gripping her shoulders, his flat, hard body pressing against her. She felt him enter so easily, water splashing against rock. She was so wet from her own excitement and from his mouth, and he was so hard. He moaned again. Caroline had not known a person could make such a sound of need and love and sex. She had never heard anything like it before.

They clung together, the blood pounding in Caroline’s head making her feel in rhythm with Joe, their bodies hot and moist and full of fire, her legs wrapped around his waist, their love so intense, Caroline went deep inside, where she felt the connection they had always had and never really lost.

“Caroline,” Joe said into her neck, his arms wrapped around her, “I love you.”

“I love you,” Caroline said back as Joe’s eyes locked onto her gaze.

She touched his face. People weren’t made to get this close to each other, she thought, scared by the depths of it. She was lying on the edge of the tallest and narrowest precipice she had ever known; if she moved left or right she would go over and never stop falling.

She had never felt this way before. She had let herself get physically close to men, but her emotions had never kept up, rarely even followed. But she and Joe had said “I love you” to each other and meant it.

“Joe,” she said, again looking straight into his eyes, rocked at what was happening.

“I know,” he said, smiling. His face glistened with sweat, his eyes sparkled in the cool light of night.

But what do you know?
she wanted to ask. She wanted him to tell her. She wanted him to say the words, to name the moment, to tell her what
she
meant. But he couldn’t do that. Only Caroline could. The feeling was there, just as it had been practically her whole life, ever since she had sent Joe that first letter. He was the boy who was everything to her, the one she had saved this feeling for her entire life.

“Look,” she said, pointing.

Joe raised himself up on his elbow, looked toward the bedside table to where she was pointing. There, in the front row of framed photos, was the picture of him as a child.

“I knew I loved you all along,” she said.

“I don’t know why,” he said, his voice rough with regret. “I made everything so hard.”

“So did I,” Caroline said, her throat aching, thinking of things Skye had said. “But here we are.”

Lying next to Joe, she felt the truth: She had fallen in love. For the first time in her life, Caroline had given a man the power to hurt her. Her heart skipped. Joe could kiss her good-bye. He could sail away, go to sea in search of a different treasure, and there would be nothing she could do about it.

“What?” he asked, seeing her expression change.

Caroline couldn’t speak. His eyes were so clear and blue, like the open ocean in October after a storm has blown through but a solid month before the first snow would fall. She felt so scared, she was frozen in place. Was
this
what her father had in mind? Teaching his daughters how to protect themselves against life, was it this feeling of absolute love and need?

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Joe said, still smiling into her eyes, “it’s going to be okay. It is, Caroline.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s over,” he said gently. “The bad stuff is over.”

W
HILE THE COFFEE BREWED THE NEXT MORNING
, Caroline walked barefoot to the inn to see what was for breakfast. A few of the guests were up early, but she breezed past them into the kitchen and filled a basket with peach muffins. Returning home, she covered the porch table with a damask cloth. The dawn light was turning from silver to rose to blue-gold, and she wanted Joe to see it. But when she went into the bedroom to get him, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into bed.

After a while they got dressed and walked down to the water. Fish were jumping and ospreys were hunting. A kingfisher, sturdy and blue, dive-bombed a school of minnows and came up with a beakful of silver. Joe held Caroline’s hand. They stopped to kiss under the big willow tree. Walking a little farther, they stopped to kiss in a grove of pines.

“I have to get back,” he said finally. “I didn’t expect to be away this long.”

“Will Sam be worried?” she asked.

“Sam, no. But some of the other guys will want to kill me. We’re a few days behind, and they can taste the gold. I never do this.”

“Do what?”

“Leave the boat overnight. Hold up the operation.” He shook his head. “No one will be surprised though. They all saw it coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“At the ball, the way you looked…I had to break a few heads—the comments they were making. They’re nothing but a bunch of sea dogs, got the manners of hoodlums. Then they got on me for defending you, saying you’d hooked me good. But you did look beautiful.
Girl in a White Dress
.”

“What?”

“The portrait,” he said. “It’s the only painting by Hugh Renwick I can stand. I told you, I saw it once. I was walking through the gallery where it hangs, and it was there at the end of the room. I couldn’t move. It was like being in the room with you. Only I wanted to know what you were thinking. There was something about your eyes….”

“He painted that after we stopped writing, you and I.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yes,” Caroline said, thinking of Andrew Lockwood.

“Come out to the boat,” he said. “Tell me there.”

“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I want to, but I have a ridiculously busy day.”

“I want you there when we bring up the gold. I want you to see.”

“What’s it like?” Caroline asked, holding his arm, gazing at the river. “Finding the treasure?”

“I wish I could describe it,” Joe said, bending down to pick up a stone. It was flat and smooth; he rubbed the surface with his thumb. “But you wouldn’t believe me. You’d have to see for yourself.”

“Is it more beautiful than this?” Caroline asked, taking the cameo out of her pocket, holding it to the light.

“When Marco Polo returned from China, he told about the wonders he’d seen,” Joe said. “Because they were beyond the comprehension of the people of his own city, they accused him of lying. When he was dying, they asked him to confess his lies, because he was about to face God. And Marco Polo said, ‘I never told the half of it.’ ”

Joe took Caroline’s face in his hands, looked her deep in the eyes.

“That’s how it is for you?” she asked, her heart pounding. He was telling her why he went to sea, the wonders he sought and found, the reasons he would always have to leave.

“Come out with me so you can see for yourself.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Tonight? Tomorrow? I’ll send the launch for you.”

Caroline hesitated. She thought of the things Skye had said, about how she never let people close. About how she always lived her sisters’ lives instead of her own. And of what Joe had told her: Generosity sometimes involved taking.

“I have things I have to do this morning,” she said slowly, “but I can come out this afternoon.”

“We’ll pick you up at Moonstone Point,” he said.