Upon a Mystic Tide (42 page)

As he feared, she thought he’d ranked her second. All this other was just bluster to hide behind. “No, Bess. It’s not like that. I swear—”

She stopped and spun around. “Don’t you swear squat to me, Jonathan Mystic. Not squat. I’m trying very hard to hang onto a sliver of patience and grace here, and you’ve already made it nearly impossible. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Not now. We’re going to go see Hatch, like we promised Miss Hattie, and, after we have, then we’ll settle this.”

“But, honey, if you’ll let me explain—”

“Not now!” She held up a hand and lowered her voice. That she’d raised it clearly surprised both of them; her face was as red as her dress. “I’m angry and humiliated, Jonathan. And I’m hurt that you’d be the one to do this to me. I can’t be logical or rational yet.”

She was hurt. “But not as hurt as when you thought Miguel had done it.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What? You expect me to cry again? To run to you for comfort when you’re the one who did this to me? Jonathan, please. This is the real world, darling. We’re divorcing. You can’t—”

His jaw went tight. “We agreed not to mention that for six more days, Bess.”

“We
agreed
to be honest. You weren’t. That negates—”

“I’m holding you to our agreement, woman. Don’t doubt it. I mean to have my time with you.”

“Why?” She guffawed. “Haven’t you humiliated me enough? You won’t break me, Jonathan. I won’t let you. But you can hurt me, and I won’t lie about that. So why don’t you just tell me how much hurt you have to inflict to feel vindicated, and then we can call this charade done. And while you’re at it, maybe you can tell me why hurting me is so damn important to you.”

Before he could answer, she turned and strode up the path lined with spiky evergreens so dense that their sun-shadowed trunks looked black.

Near a clump of intruding hawkweed, the evergreens thinned. He caught up with her, then clasped her arms, the bag of muffins dangling from his left hand. “I don’t
want
to hurt you. I’ve
never
wanted to hurt you. Damn it, Bess, after last night, how can you even
think
I’d want to hurt you?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, dipped his chin, and fought for control of his emotions. When he thought he had a grip on them, he again met her eyes. “We made love. For the first time ever, we made love. I never really understood the difference before, but now I do, and I can’t believe that you don’t. I won’t believe it unless you look me in the eye and swear it, Bess. Can you do that? Can you look me in the eye and swear it?”

She groaned. “I can’t.” Dropping her forehead against his chest, she groaned again, deeper. “Why do you do this to me, Jonathan? I should be furious with you—I am furious with you. But all I want to do is to kiss and make up. I hate me for that. And I don’t much like you for it either. It’s absurd. Ridiculous. And if you tell me it’s the magic, I think I might just sock you in the nose.”

“It’s not.” She wasn’t going to leave him. She would calm down and give him his chance to explain—later. But she wasn’t going to leave him. His heart twisting, he hugged her to him. This much he had to tell her now, before her anger could fester, before she let too much old baggage interfere, and he talked but she couldn’t hear. “Elise bought the station when you filed for the legal separation, honey. I don’t know why, and I just learned of it yesterday. The sale taking place now is just a formality—that’s confidential. I think she’s giving Millicent a way to save face. I don’t know. I don’t need, or even want, to know.” He buried his face in the cove of Bess’s neck. “I just know I don’t want to lose you again over this. I—”

Bess looked up at him, her eyes wide. “You don’t want to lose me?”

He shook his head, let her see the truth in his eyes.

“But you knew this last night. And you didn’t tell me. You made love with me, and you didn’t tell me.” She paused to steady her voice. “You don’t trust me, Jonathan. How can either of us lose what we don’t have?”

“Bess, please.” Emotionally, she was sliding away, distancing herself; he could feel it. “Please, let’s just go sit out on the cliffs and talk this out. Please.”

“I’m not ready yet. I need time to think. And Hatch is expecting us. We’ll see him, and then we’ll talk.”

“All right.” Jonathan would have agreed to anything. And he would agree to anything—just so long as she didn’t run out on him again. That, he couldn’t take. People who mattered had run out on him his entire life, and he couldn’t take losing anymore. Especially not Bess. Please, God, not Bess.

They walked on to Land’s End in silence.

The path split.

One fork dead-ended at the base of the lighthouse tower, the other led to the side door of the attached house. A gray fence enclosed a small area at the tower base and, just outside it, Hatch sat on a bench made of two concrete blocks and a plank of wood, whittling. Tiny shavings clung to his beige, long-sleeved T-shirt and blue slacks.

Hearing them approach, the bent old man lifted his head and smiled, softening his weathered face.

Bess smiled back, though her heart wasn’t in it. Looking into his wizen eyes, an odd sensation crept over her and seeped inside.
Tony, I’m scared.
The memory of what she’d told him that night on the stairs flooded back. She had no reason to be afraid, but she was, and she couldn’t shake the feeling, or identify its source. For some reason, anticipation and anxiety filled her. Something life-altering was about to happen; that standing-on-a-precipice feeling already had her suffering an adrenaline surge, already had aroused her fight-or-flight instincts.

“What are you whittling?” Jonathan asked Hatch.

Wood shavings sprinkled down onto his scuffed black boots. He blew at them, then held up the wood. “A gull.”

“It’s pretty,” Bess said. “We brought you some muffins from Miss Hattie.”

He cocked a brow. “Blueberry? I like her apple, but her blueberry’s my favorite.” He set the gull down then lay his whittling knife beside it, careful not to nick the bench and dull the blade. “Ready for the tour?”

Bess couldn’t do it. She wanted to leave. Now. Jonathan had made love to her, lied to her and made love to her, and she wanted to get this done and be by herself for a while so that she could get their relationship and everything that had happened settled in her mind. “Another time, Mr. Hatch.”

“Hatch. No mister. Just Hatch.” Brushing at the shavings clinging to his thigh, he sniffed. “Don’t smell like apple. Hattie’s got a heavy hand with cinnamon in her apple.”

“They’re blueberry,” Jonathan said, then passed the bag.

Hatch set it down on the bench beside him. “Didn’t figure today was a good day for the tour, so I didn’t figure on getting any muffins. Nice surprise.”

Feeling about as up for a tour as for the coming confrontation with John, Bess frowned. “Why did you think we wouldn’t want to tour—”

“Hattie called and told me about the
Southern Pride
and the girl you’re looking for.”

Bess’s heart picked up its beat. “Do you know anything about her?”

“It’s a distinct possibility.” He looked from Bess to John. “Done some checking, though I really didn’t need to. Memory like a steel trap.” He tapped a gnarled fingertip to his temple. “About four months after your little lady went missing, which I hear from Hattie would be about the time
Southern Pride
was headed up to Nova Scotia, me and Vic was out fishing. Seen signs of wreckage, though none that identified a specific craft, in our estimations.”

John had stiffened, squared his shoulders, and hung onto Hatch’s every word. “Could it have been
Southern Pride?”

Hatch shrugged. “You’ll need to weigh the matter, but I’m thinking it could’ve been. We found a young lady’s body near Little Island. Coroner said she’d drowned,” he paused to make the sign of the cross, “and Sheriff Cobb didn’t have a sandmite’s shade of luck identifying her. She was eighteen, according to the coroner.”

“Dixie’s age,” John said in a voice that sent a tremor quaking through Bess. “Was she ever positively identified?”

Hatch rubbed at his jaw, rustling his stubbly gray whiskers. “Nope, but we tried long and hard. Not knowing who the little lady was, Miss Hattie worried something fierce. Closest I ever seen Hattie Stillman to being sick, aside from when her soldier died, of course. Said there had to be kin worried about the little lady, and until they knew what had happened to her, they’d never know a minute’s peace.” He leaned back and shook his head. “Yep, we tried long and hard, but had not a sandmite’s worth of luck. Buried her out on Little Island.”

A shiver raced up Bess’s backbone. The graves she and Jonathan had stood before just yesterday. Could one of them actually have been Dixie’s?

John’s dark brows knitted and he fisted his hand alongside the thigh of his jeans. “Why was she buried out there rather than in the cemetery behind the church?”

Bess had wondered that, too. The church had a pretty little cemetery behind it. Why the isolation of the island?

“Miss Millie insisted,” Hatch said. “The little lady had on an amulet with a ruby the size of your thumb in it. When the sunlight caught it, Miss Millie said it reminded her of the ocean view from Little Island at twilight. So,” he shrugged, “we figured the little lady would rest easy there.”

Bess gasped. “A ruby amulet?”

“Yep. Stone as
big as the end of my thumb.” Hatch reached into the pocket of his worn blue pants and pulled out something shiny.

“We’ll have to have the body exhumed to be positive but, Hatch, I’m nearly certain the young lady was Dixie Dupree.”

John’s face was pasty white. In a show of support, Bess reached for his hand and laced their fingers, certain his inner turmoil matched or doubled her own. The wind tugged at his pale yellow shirt, whipped through his glossy black hair, carrying his scent and that of the sea
 . . .
and that of rain.

Looking out onto the horizon, Bess’s heart sank. Above the angry white-capped waves, the sky was a sleety, dark blue, almost navy. She stiffened, emotionally battening down for yet another storm.

“Ain’t no need to go disturbing the dead, boy.” Hatch passed John the shiny disc, his voice low and steady.

“A doubloon?”

Hatch nodded, his wise eyes solemn.

Jonathan frowned. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“You’re needing proof, boy, and this old man knows it. But disturbing the dead resting peaceful would upset Miss Hattie, and we try to avoid that. She’s had enough upset in her life. We do our best to protect her against suffering anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t need to.” He picked up his knife and gull and put the blade to the wood. “Just take that doubloon and go out to Little Island. Aaron Butler will run you out there.”

“Why?” Bess’s frightened feeling intensified, and she had to remind herself to breathe. Tony must have something to do with this. He wouldn’t want Miss Hattie upset. But how could going out to Little Island with a doubloon give Jonathan any proof that the woman who’d drowned had been Dixie?

“Because Little Island is where the little lady’s grave is, Mrs. Mystic.”

Besieged with eerie feelings, Bess didn’t bother telling him her preference for Cameron. Neither did John. He stared into the old man’s eyes, long and hard and deep.

“There are two graves there, side by side,” Jonathan finally said. “Did you find the body of a man out there, too?”

Thomas Boudreaux. Bess tightened her grip on Jonathan’s hand. Could his be the second grave?

“No. Only the little lady.”

“Who’s in the other grave?”

“Don’t matter, in my estimation,” Hatch said in a tone warning the subject wouldn’t be discussed further. “If you’re standing facing the graves, the little lady’s is the one on the left.”