Love and Dreams: The Coltrane Saga, Book 6 (11 page)

She continued to struggle as she was tossed easily in the rise and fall of the taunting waves and breakers. She caught a glimpse of the ship, bobbing up and down in the distance like a toy in the wake of a child’s gleeful bathtub splashing. It was slipping farther and farther away. She dared to scream for help, the sound, as she’d feared, lost in the wind and the crashing of the water. How long could she stay afloat? And for what reason did she want to? Eventually, she was going to drown. No one on the ship was going to see her or come after her. She was lost. Why not simply give up and end the misery, let the sea have its way?

Something struck her shoulder, and she cried out in pain, then saw a large wooden object just as she was dragged below again. When she bobbed to the surface, she saw deck chairs dancing in the water, angrily realized that the thing that had hit her was the very crate that had washed her overboard…and killed Colt.

It was being carried away in the rough currents, and she screamed out in protest, began to swim toward it. For each stroke she took, she was knocked sideways several feet. Up. Down. Under. Above. The sea enjoyed its fiendish game of torture. Each time she came close enough to the bobbing crate, another wave would explode to send it still farther from her reach, while she was dragged into the cold, swirling depths for another glimpse of waiting death.

Then, as though by a giant unseen hand, Jade felt herself being propelled upward as the biggest wave yet swelled from within the very bowels of the ocean. The crate was also caught in the tidal surge, along with the deck chairs that had fallen out. Jade felt as though terror alone would smother and crush the life from her fearfully pounding heart.

Then, so gradually Jade did not realize at first it was happening, the wave’s fury relented. She was allowed to breathe, was finally released from its paralyzing grip.

At last she was able to reach the bobbing crate. Hysteria took over as she began to beat at it with her fists, screaming, “Damn you, damn you, damn you…!”

The sight of her own blood oozing from her splintered flesh brought her out of her frenzy. Sobbing, weary, she mustered what strength remained to pull herself up and onto the crate.

A gray mist rose from the swirling waters to take her into blessed oblivion and, for a time, away from the hellish nightmare of her life.

Back on the deck, Colt’s body slid about as lifelessly as a fish washed ashore, in a mixture of sea water and his own blood.

Behind him and beyond, Lorena struggled to make her way inside the cabin from the inner corridor, but she could hardly stand amidst the tumbling debris about her and the tossing of the ship. She saw Colt and screamed. A crewman coming down the hall heard and responded. Looking through the open door, he saw the reason for her horror. Pushing her toward the bed, he commanded her to grab something and hang on, lest she be washed overboard.

He made his way to Colt, slipping and falling several times, but was finally able to drag him inside the cabin and close the door against the storm.

He bent over him in a hasty examination.

Lorena watched, biting her lip until she tasted blood, clenching her fists until her nails cut flesh, her stomach heaving with terror as she waited.

Finally, the crewman looked up at her, eyes grim. “Sorry, ma’am…but it looks like your husband’s dead.”

Chapter Nine

A golden sun broke free upon the horizon. The sky was cloaked in brilliant cerulean, not a cloud in sight. Warm breezes whirled from within the Gulf Stream. A beautiful day, the kind poets envision heaven enjoys constantly.

Bryan Stevens stood above the pointed bow of his yacht, the
Marnia
. It was a large vessel, ninety-four feet overall with a 26.5-foot beam, and had a draft of only five feet two inches with the centerboard up. It was one of the finest crafts afloat, furnished with great luxury, and certainly what was expected to be owned and sailed by a member of the prestigious Stevens family, after whom the Stevens Institute of Technology was named, however distant the bloodline. As far back as the early 1800s, John C. and brother Edwin A. Stevens were the first prominent yachtsmen in the New York area.

The
Marnia
was equipped with a new internal-combustion engine, still experimental, but Bryan never worried about sailing from New York to his private island near Bermuda. After all, he was no amateur yachtsman, had taken part in a transatlantic race from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to England with three American schooners in ’86, seven years before, when he was only twenty-eight.

Bryan’s father, Lawrence Stevens, had been a powerful real estate tycoon in New York, and owned valuable land in the city as well as prime sections along the banks of the Hudson River. With investments in gold, silver, railroads, cattle, and, of course, shipping interests, the elder Stevens had left his only son an impressively rich man. Trusted, qualified underlings oversaw the family fortune, leaving Bryan with little to do in life except enjoy it, by pursuing his love of ships and the sea…and the red-haired, green-eyed angel for whom his yacht was named—Marnia.

Bryan had met Marnia when she began work as a servant for his family. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants; her father was caretaker for the Stevens’ estate. Marnia was beautiful, captivating Bryan from the very first time he laid eyes on her—the summer he was nineteen and she a mere lassie of only fifteen. His parents, particularly his mother, had frowned upon his infatuation with a common servant girl, but Bryan turned a deaf ear to their disapproval. They eloped a year after they met, never knew an unhappy moment or exchanged an unkind word. Their marriage, observed by all who knew them, was surely what God had in mind when He created the hallowed bond between man and woman.

They were ecstatic, deliriously in love, could not imagine a more perfect life—till the day Bryan Patrick Stevens was born, with thick golden hair like his father and the promise of his mother’s Irish eyes. From then on, Bryan asked himself each morning if such a happy life was only a dream, then gave thanks each night that it was all quite real.

But now he stared out on that late summer day, not seeing the ocean, nor the sky; not feeling the sun, nor the wind. The luster of joy was gone from his eyes. They were flat, as though unseeing, unfeeling; as dead as his heart.

Marnia had exclaimed to anyone who would listen that she thought Bryan Stevens was the handsomest man who ever lived. He was tall, slender, broad-shouldered. He had thick, curling blond hair, and robins’ eggs were no bluer than his eyes. He had a firm jawline, a smooth complexion, a dimple in his cheek, and a beautiful Roman nose that gave him a deliciously sensuous appeal to women.

This day, however, at this hour, Bryan Stevens was a broken man, void of spirit and the will to live.

He lowered his eyes to the blue-green water, choppy and rough as the ocean always seemed to be, and thought how it might be best to just topple forward and sink to the bottom. Perhaps there he could find peace from the horror his world had become. But not yet. The time was not right.

At ship’s aft, two of the crew of four stood coiling ropes as they watched their skipper. One of the men was Walt Gibbons, a grizzled old sailor who’d sailed with Bryan’s father and had known Bryan since birth. Worriedly, he told his companion, “He’s gonna do somethin’. I just feel it in my bones. He hasn’t spoke a word, not a word, mind you, since we left New York day ’fore yesterday. Just stands there starin’ all day, then goes below to drink and cry.”

Monroe Burton was enjoying a mouthful of tobacco, and he paused to spit over the railing, then echoed incredulously, “Cry? You mean he really cries? Like a woman?”

Walt nodded solemnly. “Yep, and I don’t reckon it’s anything to be ashamed of. Bryan Stevens ain’t a man no more—just a shadow of what was.”

Monroe shook his head, feeling pity, but also a little disgust. “Well, I know it was tragic and all that, but I hope I never love no woman so much that if she dies she takes part o’ me with her.”

Walt sighed. “Doubtless you never knew a woman as fine as Marnia. Even Bryan’s parents came to love her before they died, and they was violently opposed to him marryin’ a mere servant girl when the cream of society’s debutantes was shamelessly chasin’ after him. If they was alive today, they’d be grievin’ right along with him. And remember, he lost his boy, too. Terrible thing for a man to have to face, losin’ both wife and only child at the same time.”

Monroe bluntly declared, “Well, like I said, it was a bad thing, but I don’t think makin’ this run to his island is gonna do him a bit o’ good. He ain’t gonna do nothin’ but sit around and drink, and it’s gonna be a waste of his time—and ours.”

Walt bristled at such cold logic. “Listen, mister, you’re gettin’ paid for your time, and that gives the skipper the right to his, and it don’t make a damn whether you think it’s wasted or not. It ain’t even been two months since he buried his whole world, and it’s gonna take a long time for him to think about wantin’ to get on with his life. At least this is a start in the right direction. At least he’s tryin’, or he wouldn’t have planned this trip to his island. He’s wantin’ to get away to get his grievin’ over with, and then he’ll do what Marnia would want him to do—get on with his life.”

Monroe gave him a dark look, lapsed into a brooding silence.

But what Bryan Stevens’ faithful employee Walt Gibbons did not know was that Bryan had not planned this trip to think about getting on with his life. He’d planned it to end the misery of his existence. The island was a perfect place. It was where he and his beloved Marnia had spent their honeymoon, where they had vacationed at every opportunity, and where, according to Marnia’s calculations, Patrick had been conceived on a warm, summer night about ten years ago, when they’d given up hope of ever being able to have a baby.

Bryan knew exactly how he was going to end his life. The island was only about two miles square. The pretty house he’d built sat on a tiny knoll in the middle, surrounded by ever-swaying palm trees. There were perfect, smooth, white sand beaches surrounding the house where Marnia had delighted in finding all kinds of colorful shells that high tides washed ashore. There was also a little private cove where they’d found romantic isolation when the tide was out. He would end his misery there, would drink himself to a stupor during ebb tide, then let the ocean take him to peace.

Walt Gibbons stared at Bryan again, then turned away to go below and find chores there. He could stand to witness the wretched despair no longer.

Bryan cursed and squinted his eyes against the sun’s glare. He was sick of the devils plaguing him, torturing him with visions of Marnia. There, in the distance, he could see the cardinal brilliance of her red hair, bobbing up and down on the waves. An illusion. A mirage. He would drink in the sight all the same as it appeared and disappeared with the rise and fall of the water. Floating. Marnia was floating on something there, in the Gulf Stream. Another trick of Satan’s, but this time he would not succumb, would not do as he had done so many times in the past when, mind and heart drenched and deadened by drink, he would see her and think it was her and cry out and try to get to her, only to grasp thin air…and fall to his knees and burrow his face in his hands and sob wildly and brokenly in disappointment. No more. No more would he allow the torment. He would merely watch till the apparition disappeared on its own…when Satan and his demons realized he would not allow himself to be duped again.

He leaned over the railing, straining to watch as the ghost came closer. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Oh, the devil was playing a good trick this time, for the vision seemed real. Marnia was lying facedown on some kind of crate, sleeping, and her clothes were tattered and torn. He frowned. Before, the dreamy apparition had always been gay and happy, laughing, dancing, whirling around and around in gossamer gowns of rainbow colors, and there had been music, the sound of silver bells caught on the night wind…and then she’d danced away as he called her name, groping for her with arms outstretched. But this time she seemed hurt, suffering.

Bryan gripped the railing, knuckles turning white, teeth ground together and jaw clenched so tight as to send pain stabbing down the side of his neck. His eyes were bulging, and he wished to God he’d never started the day by downing a huge glass of whiskey, because if he were sober, he would be able to wave away the tortured vision, but now he was yielding, for it seemed so real…so damned real.

“Go away,” he whispered hoarsely, anguish mingled with fury causing him to lean out farther over the thin railing. “Get away from me, Satan! Get away, I say. You’ll have me soon enough. Let me get to the island, and you can have me then. Stop your torture…”

Bryan froze, felt his eyes bulging from their sockets as he suddenly realized it was no apparition. Marnia really was down there!

He threw one leg over the railing, cried out to anyone who could hear, “Help, somebody—Marnia’s down there. It’s her! Get a life ring. Toss it to me!”

Monroe Burton looked up from what he was doing, gasped at the sight of his skipper preparing to jump overboard, realized in horror he had finally crossed over that thin line to insanity. Running to the hatch and the narrow stairway below decks, he screamed down, “Somebody get up here and help me with this loony! He’s goin’ overboard!”

He ran across the deck, leaping over riggings as he called, “Mr. Stevens…skipper…don’t do it! Wait, please—”

It was too late.