Tides of Passion (36 page)

The situation, one Irish had created, called for desperate measures.

Chapter 18

The surest test of discipline is its absence
.

~Clara Barton

Since she had returned to New York, Savannah had found her father's behavior curious indeed. This morning, for instance, he had looked over his shoulder with each block they covered along Fifth Avenue. You couldn't traverse crowded city streets without your mind on your business. You'd get run down by a horse and carriage or trolley car. Or an automobile being driven by an inexperienced driver, of which there were many.

Savannah had ended up walking behind her father and apologizing to every person he bumped into or made dance aside in their haste to avoid him.

They didn't speak during the walk from Central Park to their home. This broke no new ground, yet he seemed almost, dare she say,
nervous
.

Which made
her
nervous.

He couldn't know about her marriage, could he? No one in the city did. Unless Zach had contacted—

Clutching her parasol close to her stomach, she shook her head, cutting off the thought before it had time to mature.
No
. Zach wouldn't do that to her, knowing how tremulous a relationship she shared with her father. However, would he come storming into town and attempt to drag her back to Pilot Isle under the guise of a committed husband?

Perhaps. Men were dreadfully possessive, and as she had found, Zach was no exception.

Truthfully, she hadn't left thinking he would never come and get her, not with
his
baby on the way. Nevertheless, if she could place money on any bet in her lifetime and be sure to come out a winner, that bet would rest on Zachariah Garrett's capable shoulders.

If he came for her, he meant to put her first. If not to love her, then commit himself to the best of his ability. She felt as sure of this as she did of the sun setting in, oh, two hours or so. It would go against Zach's code of ethics to take her back to Pilot Isle if he couldn't give her what she wanted.

Under those circumstances, it would be against her will.

Because she wanted
him
. Heart, mind, and soul. And she didn't plan on settling for as little of his heart as she'd been getting. Although as desperately as she missed him, at this point she may take what she could get.

Her father looked over his shoulder again, nearly running into a lamppost.

"Father, what is wrong with you this morning? You're positively befuddled."

Daniel Morgan fished his watch from his waistcoat pocket and recorded the time with a mumbled bit of conversation with himself. He never bothered to answer
her
. Typical.

What if Zach didn't come
, Savannah asked herself as she nodded her head contritely at a dapper gentleman her father nearly collided with. What if he found freedom and his old life to be the one he cherished? Her options would run out quickly. She had relinquished her modest apartment in the city upon acceptance of the position with Elle's school and had no place to stay
but
with her father. And they were a volatile mix: oil and water with a stick of dynamite throw in for good measure.

Shooting him a side glance, she knew this situation wouldn't last for long.

Once, her life had seemed meaningful—lonely but meaningful. Now, nothing was the same. She loved a man who didn't return the feeling, and with every beat of her heart, their baby grew inside her. Knocking her parasol against her boot, she recognized the ache in her heart. Heaven, she missed Zachariah. His deep voice, his wise, gray eyes, even his maddening certitude.

Too, she missed the camaraderie of small-town life and the simple bonds of friendship. Sniffing the air, she shook her head. She missed the smell of the sea without the taint of diesel fuel or coal. Wearily, she climbed the stairs leading to the front door of her home. James opened it with a flourish as they approached, giving her a strangely shrewd smile before turning to her father and whispering in his ear.

How rude
, she thought, frowning as she checked the entry table for calling cards. Habit, nothing more. No one knew she had returned.

Hand pressed to the small of her back, her father guided Savannah toward the library. At the doorway, he brushed the crown of her head with his lips, the most affection he had throw her way in years, and murmured, "Good luck." Then he shoved her inside, and before she had a moment to contemplate the bizarre turn of events, she heard the tumblers twirl as he locked her in.

"Are you daft?" she shouted, banging her parasol once against the door. Tearing her gloves off, she pivoted on her heel. Clearly, her father had lost his mind. Perhaps she should contact the good doctors at Bellevue as soon as she escaped.

She crossed to the window, which sat a good distance off the ground, she noted as she peered out. Not an option in her condition. Perhaps before, she could have risked it.

Quite suddenly, she noticed two things.

Music hummed from the phonograph in the corner of the room, and cigar smoke circled the room in a lazy spiral. Turning, she felt the hair along her nape lift as her skin began to tingle.

Zach
.

As if he sensed her regard, he swiveled around in her father's chair. Electric bulbs suspended from the ceiling by a tangle of wires doused light over his face and winked off his spectacles. She took an involuntary step back, bumping against the narrow library table. A vase tumbled to the ground with a shatter.

"Careful," he said, indicating that she should move away from the mess. "I never intended for my appearance here to startle you so badly that you hurt yourself."

She reached around to place her gloves and parasol on the table, her mind spinning. Zach's appearance in the house hadn't been the thing to steal her breath. Oh, my, no.

It was the way he
looked
.

Attired as he was in a high-buttoned black frock coat, waistcoat, and striped trousers, she could have taken him into any drawing room in the city. Even Mary Astor's. Yet more than clothing captured her attention. He had the look of a warrior about him: caged, restless, feral. His tie dangled limply from his neck, his hair spiked from his ears and brow, arranged there by his careless fingers. Dense stubble dotted his cheeks and neck, and his eyes were small gray fires in his otherwise calm face. The angry scar on his temple reminded her of all they'd been through and her foolishness in imagining for a moment that he would let her run.

Contrary feelings invaded her: anger that he had gone into cahoots with her father and joy to see him well.

Joy to see him at all.

And as usual, something potent and wild sizzled between them, as though they were connected with electric wires themselves.

He puffed on one of her father's cigars, his skeptical gaze sweeping her from head to toe and back. A thin wisp of smoke circled his head. "Irish, you're looking mighty expensive."

She glanced down at her chemisette, silk jacket, and trained skirt. Gleaming patent leather boots glinted backed at her. Her grandmother's ear bobs tapped her neck. Leaning back against the table, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked him over as derisively. "I could say the same about you."

Mirroring her gesture, he glanced at his clothes, a smile hitching his lips. "Caroline felt I couldn't arrive looking like, as she put it, a country bumpkin."

"I have to ask. Did you travel a thousand miles to lock me in my father's library and critique our wardrobes?"

He raised a hand, his gaze both amused and hard. "Locking you in was his idea. He believed I couldn't keep you from leaving any other way, the damn fool."

She bit the inside of her cheek, holding back her own oath. She had forgotten about his high-handed manners. Involving her father in her private life. She should kill them both. "What does
that
mean, pray tell?"

Zach laughed around the cigar, spitting out a stream of smoke. "Just because he can't handle you doesn't mean
I
can't. And you know it."

A slow smile moved across those inviting lips of hers, exactly like that darn cat she'd been feeding who now hung around the house like an old friend. Did she think it was a game that she'd run off to this godforsaken city, causing him to come after her like an irate papa?

"You're furious with me," she said with irritating delight.

He imagined she would clap her hands if she thought she could get away with it. If she didn't look so good—and he hadn't missed her so much—he would go right over there and, well, shake her. Probably end up kissing her, too, and messing everything up.

"Furious? Now why could that be? I loved riding a foul-smelling train for two days only to nearly be run down by an out of control engine on wheels the moment I stepped out of the station." Ash fluttered to his trouser leg and he brushed it away.

"I can't live here," he said, just in case his Irish devil thought that was a possibility.

"Why would you have to?"

He stubbed out his cigar in a fancy dish he hoped was an ashtray. "I know Pilot Isle isn't as exciting as—"

"That isn't why I left." She sighed. "Heavens, you still have no idea."

Zach steepled his hands over his patterned waistcoat. Dammit, if she wanted to hear that he loved her and he said it now, she wouldn't believe it. "What
do
you want, Irish?"

She stared at him so long and so soulfully that he shifted for a position that didn't highlight his aroused distress. He was no longer used to celibacy. But it was much more than that. Loneliness had been eating a whole in his heart since the moment she left.

Something else he would tell her if she wasn't looking so suspicious over there.

"What can you give, Constable?"

Everything
. Instead of saying what would sound false to her in this distrustful mood of hers, he turned to study his crushed cigar, following the smoldering trail of smoke to the ceiling. "I want you to come home with me."

"Because of the baby."

"Because of everything."

Shaking her head, she crossed the room. Running her hand over a shelf of leather-bound books, she selected one. "Shakespeare," she said, showing it to him with a wounded smile.

What the hell
?

He answered his own question when she slipped a small key from inside the pages. On his feet and behind her in a flash, he slammed his hand against the door to prevent her from leaving. "You're not leaving here until we straighten this out."

Glancing over her shoulder, she took the key and slipped it down the neck of her frilly shirt. Her eyes glowed, with what, he wasn't sure.

A memory flashed through his mind of kissing her breasts and having her beg for more. "Is that an invitation, Irish?"

"If it was, would that be enough for you?"

He frowned. "Why do I feel like that's a trick question?"

She turned fully then, slamming her bottom against the door. He felt the wash of her breath on his cheek, and his head pounded harder. "You called out for her when you were ill."

Zach closed his eyes to her hurt expression and the pain in his head.
Jesus, so that was the problem
. Reaching up to rub the back of his neck, he said without thinking hard about it, "All I remember is waking up and asking about
you
." Clear as day, it was time to tell her he loved her. Whether she accepted it graciously or not. Counting to ten and back, he rehearsed a sincere admission. He felt it, deep in his bones. Saying it right there in those words should've been enough... but with women it never was. Attractive packaging mattered.

Just when he felt ready, he heard her unlock the library door, then move across the room, her boots tapping against the floor and then the rug. "I'm in love with you, Zachariah. Much to my dismay at the moment. However, I assumed my leaving might help you understand how difficult it was to sit by your bedside, praying for your recovery, only to have you awaken and call out Hannah's name. It seems you've given me the truth on occasion, wrapped in a ribbon of lies."

Zach thumped his head back against the door. He felt like throwing himself on the floor and having a fit that would make Rory proud. Blast, what timing the woman had. He'd be damned if hearing that she loved him didn't make him so happy he wanted to cry.

But did she have to say it
first
?

"What, Constable? No response?"

Forcing his eyes open, Zach located her in the shadows. He could see her distress clear across the room. It felt as if a knife had been plunged into his heart when she looked at him like that. "Would you believe me if I told you that I'm in love with you, too? That I have been for a long time? Maybe since the first day? More than I ever loved Hannah, which, true as it is, has been eating me up with guilt?"

She swallowed, her hands clenching into fists at her side. Her cheeks paled in rapid degrees, her lips pressing so tight they had to sting.