Twice Loved (copy2) (49 page)

The sudden jarring sound was so overwhelming it set Laura’s heart thumping—or was the reaction caused by the sight of Dan, still hesitating twenty feet across the wharf, restraining himself just as she was?

But then Josh spied Dan and lurched to his feet, running the length of the wharf. He flung himself into the arms of the man who knelt down, then scooped the child up, and clung to him a last time while a woeful wail carried above the wharf.

“Papa ... Papa ...”

Cap’n Silas commanded, “All aboard!”

The steam whistle shrilled again while over Josh’s shoulder Dan Morgan blinked and tried valiantly not to let his tears spill over.

Laura lifted pleading eyes to Rye, and even as her feet began moving, she felt Rye’s hand grasping her elbow, hurrying her toward Dan. Dan set Josh on his feet and met Laura halfway. As her arms went around him, his hat was knocked onto the silvery boards of the wharf, but nobody seemed to notice. Rye’s eyes had locked with those of DeLaine Hussey, and he nodded a silent good-bye while she pressed trembling fingers to her lips.

Laura felt Dan’s heart slamming piteously hard against her breasts before she pulled back to look into his face. His lips were set grimly against his teeth, but his nostrils trembled while he blinked repeatedly. She lay a gloved hand on his cheek and managed two shaky words. “Good-bye, Dan.”

He seemed unable to trust himself to speak. Then, to Laura’s dismay, he suddenly pulled her against him once more and kissed her full on the mouth. When he put her away, her tears had wet his cheeks, and she realized Josh was standing alongside, looking up at all three of them.

Rye’s hand met Dan’s in a solid handshake, and their eyes joined in a last farewell.

“Take care of them, my friend.”

“Aye, y’can be sure of it.”

Their voices were unnaturally deep with emotion, and their four hands clung, gripping so hard the knuckles turned white.

From the gangplank, Cap’n Silas called, “Got a schedule t’ keep. All aboard!”

Then Josh was on Rye’s arm, looking back over his father’s sturdy shoulder at his papa. Tears streamed down his freckled cheeks, and the rooster tail at the back of his blond head bobbed with each long-legged step that bore him away. Laura, too, felt Rye’s commanding grip on her elbow and passed the sea of faces toward the boat with tears now blinding her completely.

***

They stood at the rail of the steam packet—Rye with Josh in his arms, Laura beside him, and Josiah on her far side. Ship whined and nudged between them, lunged up and caught her front paws on the port beam. There was a clunk and a lurch, then the cumbersome packet began to move, shivering to life with ponderous reluctance until the rhythmic clunk picked up speed and became the incessant heartbeat of the vessel.

Each of those at the rail had singled out a face on which to linger. For Josh it was Jimmy Ryerson, who waved one freckled hand and wiped his eyes with the other. For Laura it was Jane, who held her youngest and pressed a cheek against his hair. For Rye it was Dan, who had picked up his hat but seemed to have forgotten to put it on his head. But Josiah turned from the faces on the wharf to lift his gaze over the top of the bait shack and the candle shop beyond to the roof of a small wooden building scarcely visible in the distance. He dropped his hand to Ship’s head and stroked it absently. The dog whined, raised doleful eyes to Josiah, then watched the shore slip away into the mists of Nantucket Harbor.

They remained at the rail for a long time, with eyes cast astern toward the little spit of land they loved. As they passed the shoals, the projecting fingers of Brant Point and Coatue seemed to want to pluck them back and hold them. But the 
Clinton
 headed into the sound toward the long tip of Cape Cod, chugging along steadily until Nantucket appeared no more than a pebble floating on the surface of the water before it dwindled, then disappeared altogether in a haze of distant fog.

Laura shivered, glanced up, and found Rye studying her.

“Well, would y’ like t’ see our quarters?”

Our quarters.
 If anything had the power to wrest Laura’s dolorous thoughts from the place they’d just left, it was those two words.

“I guess I’d better, since we’ll be spending two weeks in them.”

The five passengers headed belowdecks. The 
Clinton
 was far less luxurious than the steamboat 
Telegraph
 would have been, for though it hauled a capacity of thirty passengers, the chief purpose of the Albany packet was transporting cargo, thus the accommodations could scarcely be called cabins. Rye led them to two rooms that were little more than partitioned spaces, offering thin-walled privacy but little else.

As he opened the door and stood back in the narrow companionway, Laura peered inside to find, to her dismay, a pair of single bunks, berthed one above the other, a small bench seat bolted to the wall, a tiny shelf above, and a whale-oil lantern swinging from the overhead beam. But her eyes were drawn to the sight of her suitcase sitting beside Rye’s sea chest.

Before she could react, Josh pushed at his mother from behind. “Let me see!” He squeezed past and headed into the cubicle, but a restraining hand fell on his head and forced him into an abrupt about face.

“Not so fast there, young man! Y’rs is the next one!” Laura’s heart reacted with a flutter, and she wondered if Josh would put up any objection to being separated from her in the midst of all these strange surroundings and events. But she had little time to speculate, for there was a moment of confusion while she dipped inside the open door to let the three, plus Ship, pass along the companionway to the next door.

“Y’ and Josiah will be sharin’ this compartment,” she heard, then poked her nose around the doorway to find a second cubicle identical to the first.

“Me and Josiah?” Josh looked up dubiously at Rye.

“Aye, y’ and Josiah.”

“Where’s Mama gonna be?”

“Right next door.” Rye nodded toward the first cabin.

“Oh.”

At Josh’s unenthusiastic grunt, Josiah spoke up in his slow New England drawl. “Got somethin’ here I been meanin’t’ show y’, Joshua.”

Josh’s expression was skeptical as his glance passed from Rye to Laura. It was one of the weirdest moments of Laura’s life, hoping for approval from her son to sleep with his father! But just then Josiah bent to retrieve a small wooden carton with airholes along its sides. He sat down on the lower berth and gave the container his full attention, carefully placing his hands on its cover as if it were a magician’s box. Josh’s attention was captured.

“What is it?” The boy moved nearer his grandfather’s knee.

“ ’Tain’t much. Just a couple little companions f’r the long trip.”

The wooden lid came up in Josiah’s hands, and from within the box came a duet of 
cheeps.

“Chicks!” Already Josh was reaching eagerly, smiling and fairly squealing, “You mean we can keep ’em on the boat?”

“We’d better. The way I heard tell, there ain’t many chickens in Michigan. Thought we’d best start up a flock right away so y’r mother’d have eggs f’r her cookin’.”

Ship nosed forward and sniffed at the puff ball in Josh’s hand. Already Josh seemed to have forgotten Rye and Laura. Josiah reached into his breast pocket and found a cold pipe, clamped it between his teeth while studying the boy, the chick, and the dog. He raised laconic eyes to Laura while continuing drolly, “Y’ know, Joshua, I c’d use some help pamperin’ them chicks, so I hope y’r mother don’t mind if y’ sleep in here with ’em.”

Josh spun around and all but climbed Laura’s skirts in enthusiasm. “Can I? Please, can I? Me and ... me and Grampa, we got to take care of ’em and keep ’em warm and stuff, and make sure Ship don’t eat ’em up!”

Rye and Laura laughed. She managed to catch Josiah’s eye, found a charming twinkle there, and hoped he understood the wordless message of thanks she flashed.

“Yes, of course you can, Josh.”

Immediately, he turned back to the box on Josiah’s knees. “We gotta name ’em, don’t we, Grampa?”

“Name them chickens? I never heard of no chickens with names!”

“Well, I can see you two don’t need us, so we’ll get settled next door.” Rye took Laura’s elbow and a shaft of fire seemed to sizzle up her arm. Josiah and Josh didn’t even look up as they made their exit.

Inside their own cabin, the door was closed and all was silent but for the pulsating throb of the steam engine shimmying up through the floor. There was no porthole, only the oil lamp swaying on its hook, and Laura knew, to the exact highlight and shadow, what Rye’s face would look like by its golden light should she turn and lift her eyes. But she stood facing the bunks, feeling him close behind her shoulder.

“It’s not very fancy,” he apologized, but she heard instead the note of tight control in his voice.

“When have I ever needed anything fancy?” She felt both of Rye’s hands move up her back and circle her neck.

“Never,” he said thickly. Then, as if he didn’t trust himself, he dropped his hands from her.

“Were the chicks your idea?” she asked.

“Nay, my father gets the credit for that.”

“Josiah is very astute.”

“Aye.”

She wanted to turn, but felt as shy as a violet blossom. Her heart was giving the engine some competition, throbbing so powerfully she thought surely it was her own pulse shaking the boards beneath the soles of her shoes.

Rye cleared his throat. “Well ... I have t’ talk t’ the captain, so why don’t you—”

“Josiah didn’t dream up those chicks for nothing, Rye,” she interrupted, turning at last to face him. “Don’t you dare run off to the captain without—”

His mouth cut off her words, and she was in Rye’s arms at last! His kiss was a rich, sensual welcome while his arms slipped within her cape to haul her up tight against his chest, and hers looped about his neck as her feet left the floor. Then Rye’s warm, wet tongue was all over and around Laura’s, and she whisked the cap from his head and held it in one hand while the other threaded his coarse hair.

He turned, backing her up against the cabin door, pressing the length of his body against hers while their kiss became a wild search for relief. She ran her tongue along the sleek texture of his teeth, then explored the moist depths of his mouth, missing none of its familiar landmarks.

He let her slip down only far enough that their stomachs and hips met and used his tremendous strength to wedge her between the door and his body, pressing so hard the breath was forced from her lungs. He was fully tumescent and wasted not a moment letting her know. His hips made figure eights as they ground against hers, thrusting the hard male ridge against the equally hard rise of her mons.

Desire sent a liquid rush of feeling to the part of her against which Rye pressed. She felt it, gloried in it, welcomed it! But Laura was impaled against the door, unable to transmit her own tacit message of arousal.

“Rye, put me down,” she managed.

“If I do and my hands are free, there’ll be no stoppin’ them.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes y’ do. Y’ want t’ get married first, so I’ll put y’ down, but then I’ll go see the captain about arrangin’ it, agreed?”

“Blast you, Rye Dalton,” she murmured against his lips, provocatively inserting her tongue into his mouth between words. “What a time ... for you to do ... the proper thing.”

“Agreed?” he repeated, moving his head back only far enough to escape her darting tongue.

“Oh all right, agreed.”

She felt her toes regain the floor, and his hands steadied her for a moment while her skirt still clung to his trousers. He backed a step away and the skirt fell properly into place.

His voice seemed to throb like the engine while his impassioned blue eyes fixed upon hers. “But I’m warnin’ y' t’night will be a different matter.”

She rose up on tiptoe and placed the wool cap on his head, adjusted its narrow visor to a raffish angle, and studied her effort. “It had better be,” she rejoined softly.

They kissed once more, Rye’s hands running possessively up her ribs while she touched his jaw. Then he put her away and backed off a step. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Meanwhile, get y’rself ready for our weddin’ ... again. Only this time when he says 
till death do us part,
 y’ can believe it.”

Then he turned and was gone.

She smiled at the door, then spun around. Her body felt combustible! This restraint was playing havoc with her composure. She took four deep breaths, but found it did little good, and at last ran a hand down the front of her skirt and clutched herself in an effort to quell the throbbing begun by his caress.

What time is it? Barely noon. How many hours to wait? Until at least eight o’clock, when we can respectably retire for the night. Goodness me, how will I last that long?

***

She removed her bonnet and cape and prowled about the small cabin, testing the mattress, pushing the suitcase and sea chest against the wall. There was no unpacking to do because no place was provided for the storage of extra clothes. Time crawled.

When Rye returned, he found Laura sitting on the edge of the lower bunk. She flew to her feet as he stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned back against it.

“Four o’clock,” he announced without preamble.

“Four o’clock,” she echoed like a litany.

“Aye. In the captain’s cabin.” His eyes assessed her yellow dress with an expression of strained forbearance.

“Well,” she said breathlessly, raising her palms and glancing around as if expecting some diversion to come jumping out of the cabin walls.

He sucked in an enormous breath, let it out slowly while tilting his cap back beyond his hairline with a thumb. Then he heaved himself away from the cabin door, opened it, and stepped back. “Let’s go see how the chicks’re doin’.”

Laura’s knees felt watery from relief.

The four of them spent a pleasant half hour watching the chicks and the dog, who by now was less inquisitive and allowed the tiny yellow birds to be placed between her paws and even on her head.