A Light For My Love (5 page)

He put the sheets down and flopped back on
the too-soft mattress, feeling morose. As a youngster, the only
sense of family he'd ever known he'd found here. He hadn't expected
to come back and find everything to be the same after all these
years.

But he hadn't expected everything to be
different, either.

*~*~*

After she finished the kitchen floor, China
went directly to her bedroom at the end of the hall and closed the
door. She sank to the little sofa in front of the cold fireplace.
Her legs felt like rubber and her hands trembled so, she could
barely pull the handkerchief from her pocket. She twisted the
square of linen, nervously tying the corners in knots.

Captain Jake Chastaine, she sneered to
herself, the brawling fisherman's son, the one who'd convinced her
brother to abandon his family and sail around the globe. How dare
he come here? she marveled. Oh, and he was proud of that title,
wasn't he,
Captain
Chastaine?

For the first few months they'd been gone,
she'd let herself hope that Quinn would come home. He'd have his
adventure and then return. She'd worried and fretted, wondering if
Quinn was safe, thinking she'd forgive him—and even Jake—for
anything, just to have the family together again. But when the
months rolled into years, she'd begun the struggle to put them both
out of her mind. The pain she'd felt eventually healed, but had
left a scar in her heart.

Now instead of getting Quinn back, Jake was
here, and she felt that scar begin to ache again. He looked so
different. He was still able to charm Aunt Gert, too. He'd actually
blushed when Gert had reminded him that she was still his aunt. But
there was something more to him that maturity alone hadn't given
him. It was hard for her to put a finger on. It was the air of
experience he had about him, an authority, a seasoning that could
only come from the kind of work he'd done and the places he'd seen.
It should have come as no surprise to her that he was more
attractive and compelling than before. Still, after all his
misdeeds and escapades, she thought it only fair he should be
weathered and coarse and ugly.

She rose from the sofa and went to her cheval
glass. Putting a hand to her cheek, she knew she, too, looked
different from the eighteen-year-old girl Jake had last seen. Her
face had lost its gentle roundness, and she felt as though every
trial of the last seven years must be written there.

Well, she thought, a pretty face could hide a
disloyal heart the same as a tired one. More easily, in fact. That
made her remember Jake's remark about the carriage house. She was
almost certain he didn't know anything. He'd been gone a long time,
and she and Dalton Williams were very careful to keep that secret.
Even Aunt Gert didn't know about the carriage house.

She wandered to the window and looked out at
the Columbia River, moving in its relentless path toward the open
sea. That sea had taken so much from her—Quinn, her father. Even
Ryan.

Quinn. In all these years she hadn't had one
word from him. Not a letter or a wire. She struggled against the
hurt that rose from this thought. It was Jake's fault, she reminded
herself. Jake was the one who'd dreamed up the idea of going to
sea.

China stayed in her room, looking at the
river from her alcove, until her own gloom touched the January day
and evening settled in. She thought of sneaking down to the kitchen
to bring dinner up here, but that would be a cowardly thing to do
and her pride wouldn't permit it. So a few minutes before six, she
changed her clothes to go downstairs. As she stood before her
mirror repinning her hair, she wondered how in the world she'd be
able to sit at the same table with Jake, three meals a day, for the
next two months.

*~*~*

Jake woke suddenly, his eyes snapping open to
darkness. He jerked up to his elbows in a middling panic. Had he
slept through his watch? That

was impossible—the second mate would have
come to wake him. No, wait, he was the captain now. Captains didn't
stand watches. Automatically his mind turned to estimating the
Katherine
's location. He always had an approximate idea of
where his ship was, no matter which ocean she sailed, even during a
storm. Now he came up with a blank. Expecting to feel a slight
rolling under him, to hear creaking timbers, the very silence and
stillness of his bed added to his groggy confusion. Then he saw a
square of feeble moonlight on the wall next to him and remembered
where he was.

He sat up and rummaged in his coat for a
match, striking it with his thumbnail to read his mariner's pocket
watch. It would be just his luck to be late for dinner and give
China another reason to level that frosty sapphire glare on him.
Before he could open its gold case, the watch chimed six bells.
Great, he thought dourly, seven o'clock straight up. God forbid
that she'd bother to get him. It wouldn't have inconvenienced her
to send Ryan up here to knock on the door. The fuse on his temper
began to shorten.

He shook the match out and huddled deeper
into his coat to ward off the chill. It looked like he'd have to
buy a meal from one of the saloons downtown. While he was at it,
he'd get a stiff drink, too. He'd need it to stay warm in this
cupboard.

His mind made up, he stood without thinking
and banged his head on the low ceiling over him. "Son of a bitch!"
he swore loudly, stooping and rubbing his scalp. Lighting another
match, he held it cupped in his hand and went to the door. He
yanked it open, nearly pulling off the knob. As he walked through
the black passageway to the stairs, he resolved to get
several
stiff drinks.

But before he did anything else, before
another minute passed, he was going to find Miss China Sullivan and
demand a room on the second floor.

*~*~*

"Don't worry about the dishes, Aunt Gert,"
China called from the kitchen. "I'll wash them. You go on to St.
Mary's." She ran hot water in the sink, clanking the cooking spoons
and silver noisily. Then she found a tray in the butler's pantry in
the hall and brought it to the table to put a napkin on it. From a
pot on the stove she ladled leftover chowder into a bowl. All the
while she listened tensely to hear the front door close.

Aunt Gert was due at St. Mary's Church on the
next block to play piano for the benefit musicale rehearsal. She'd
been pressed into service by Sister Theresa after the nun had
broken her finger playing baseball with her geography students on a
rare sunny day. Gert would be busy all week with the practice, and
the timing couldn't be better.

"I should be back by about nine, dear," Gert
replied, coming to the doorway while she buttoned her cloak. "That
is, if there are no more arguments about the program. Last night
Mrs. Rand got into a huff about having to perform first. I'm taking
Susan with me. It will do her good to get out among people."

China glanced at the tray, then walked toward
Gert, barely resisting the urge to take her aunt's arm and escort
her to the foyer. "Have a good time."

Gert sniffed. "I don't know about that. If
the church didn't need a new roof, I'm not sure I would be so eager
to do this. I'd rather stay here and work on my cards." Gert's
collection of calling cards had grown to imposing proportions, and
she endlessly sorted and arranged and rearranged them. "Oh, that's
good, China," she said, nodding at the chowder, "I'm glad to see
you're fixing something for Jake. I wish he could have come to
dinner, but I put some roast chicken and dressing on a plate for
him. It's in the oven."

"Um, well, I suppose you don't want to keep
Sister Theresa waiting," China prompted again, growing nervous.

Aunt Gert turned toward the front door. "No,
no. Patience is certainly not one of her virtues. By the way, did
you give Jake your father's old room? He'd probably be comfortable
there."

"
I
would not be comfortable with him
there!" China exclaimed, stiffening her back slightly. Indeed, she
thought it was a perfectly dreadful idea. That room was directly
across the hall from her own and much too close. With his
reputation, she wanted Jake as far away from her as possible. "I
put him upstairs."

“Yes, dear," Gert went on, "but in which
room?"

"He chose the one with the window," China
declared, her tone defiant.

You mean in the servants' quarters?" Gert's
voice dropped as though she spoke of the anteroom to hell. "But
China, it's so plain and bare up there. And there's no heat on the
third floor—you wouldn't even let Casey sleep in those rooms."
Casey had been their elderly dog. They'd buried him next to the
gazebo a year ago.

"Casey was old and sick," China said. "Jake
is anything but. He'll manage. Don't worry about it, Aunt Gert."
She stressed the last sentence, meaning to convey that the subject
was closed.

"Well, dear, it doesn't seem
right . . . "

China listened to Gert's voice and footsteps
trail off and held her breath until she heard the front door open
and close again. Letting out a sigh, she went back to her task.

She looked at the chowder in its plain white
bowl. Soup wasn't much of a dinner for a big man used to big meals.
After a second's hesitation she went to the oven and pulled out the
warm plate Aunt Gert had left there for Jake.

She glanced over her shoulder now and then,
half expecting to see him. She didn't know why he hadn't come
downstairs for dinner, and she supposed she should have gone to get
him. After all, the money he'd paid secured him a place at the
table. But, blast it, she'd told him what time dinner was served.
She herself had been so edgy, her food had sat untouched. The shock
of seeing him again, combined with the anticipation of having to
sit across the table from him, took her appetite. When he didn't
appear, she was relieved.

Just as she was filling a coffee cup to
complete the meal, she heard footfalls pounding down the back
stairs. Alert to the sound, she lifted her head. Jake. She knew it
was him—no one else in the house used that staircase. Quickly she
grabbed her old shawl from its hook next to the back door and threw
it over her head and shoulders.

The steps grew closer.

She snatched up the tray and—silver, there
was no silver. Her heart beating fast, she put the tray on the
table again. Then she rushed to the china cabinet and jerked open a
drawer to pluck out a fork, knife, and spoon. Footsteps sounded in
the hall.

Hurry, she told herself. She had to be
outside before Jake saw her. She pulled open the back door and
rushed into the foggy winter night.

*~*~*

Jake arrived in the kitchen just in time to
see an indistinct female figure run past the window through the
misty light that reached the walk. The blue gingham curtain on the
back door pane still swung gently on its rod. He walked to the door
and opened it, but couldn't see much besides the vague shape of her
skirt moving across the yard toward the carriage house. He closed
the door again and scanned the room. The smell of food lingered in
the air, but there was none to be seen.

His stomach growled, and Jake, his appetite
raging and his patience gone, strode down the hallway. He looked in
the dining room, the library, and the front and back parlors. He
found no one except an old man dozing in a chair by the fire in the
back parlor. One of the boarders, Jake assumed. He retraced his
steps to the kitchen, but China wasn't there. No one was there.

Baffled, but by far more irritable and
hungry, Jake walked back to the front door and let himself out. His
boots carried him down the path to the sidewalk. He glanced back at
the big house. Jake had few regrets in his life. He hoped that
returning to Astoria wouldn't prove to be one of them.

China stood before a lamp set on a small
cherry table at the second-floor hall window. Given the elegance of
most of the other furniture in the house, this serviceable lamp was
plain to the point of homeliness. Lacking even a hint of
decoration, its chimney and base were clear glass, showing its wide
ribbon of wick floating in the kerosene. She had others that were
much prettier and more delicate of craftsmanship, made of milk
glass and hand-painted with roses and forget-me-nots. But to China,
no other lamp burned as bright, no other was as necessary. She
patted her apron pocket to make sure she had matches, and heard the
dock downstairs mark the quarter hour. Fifteen past ten. Usually
she lit the wick right after sunset, but so much had happened
today, she hadn't been able to get to it. Now it was late and
everyone in the house had settled down for the night.

Everyone except Jake.

She extended her hands to lift the lamp's
chimney, then paused. Pulling aside the lace curtain, she tried to
see down to the street, looking for an approaching figure. The gas
streetlight on the corner was a watery yellow orb in the mist,
seemingly suspended high above the sidewalk with no post. She
couldn't see anything except black night and the rain that had
fallen steadily since morning.

Jake wasn't home. She knew because she'd
crept up to the attic a few moments earlier to check. She hadn't
heard anything of him since he'd come pounding downstairs just
after dinner, and she assumed he'd gone out. Slinking along the
passageway like a thief, a skill at which she was becoming quite
adept, she'd seen no band of light under his closed door. She'd
knocked once, sharply, then swung the door open and found the room
empty. She hadn't stayed there long—what if he'd walked in and
found her? He might think she wanted to talk to him or something.
Besides, the room was uncomfortably chilly. But she'd been there
long enough to glimpse his sea bag propped against the wall, and
his chronometer and octant on the dresser, so she knew he'd be
back.