Love Unexpected (5 page)

She nodded and squeezed her brother tighter. Right or wrong, rash or not, she was married now. She'd just have to make the best of her new situation. And hope that she hadn't made the worst mistake of her life.

P
atrick plunged the oars in and then heaved them up, the water rolling off in a peaceful rhythm. Rowing was such a familiar act, something he could do in his sleep. With the sun shining over him and a breeze caressing his body, he'd already slackened to a restfulness he hadn't experienced in over a week.

If he closed his eyes, he'd be asleep within seconds. But he had to stay awake a few more minutes until they reached the lighthouse.

“Fishy?” Josiah's steady stream of questions was the only thing keeping him awake. Except for once, the questions weren't directed at him. Instead, the boy sat next to Emma in the bow and had chattered with her nonstop.

“Oh, I like that one.” Emma peered over the edge of the cutter. “It's more colorful than the last one.”

“Fishy fast.” Josiah waved his hand in imitation of the way the fish swam.

Emma had her arm around the boy in a protective gesture,
drawing him away from the edge whenever he started to hang over too far.

Thank
you, Father
. Tonight, when he was tending the light, he'd make sure to pour out his gratitude, but for now in his exhaustion the short prayer would have to do. He drew in a deep breath and let the cool air drive away the sleepy fog threatening his eyelids.

“There's another,” Emma said, pointing into the water, her voice tinged with delight.

She wasn't pretending to enjoy the fish watching with Josiah. Her face radiated enthusiasm, and Josiah seemed to be glowing under her attention. Already in the short time since they'd left Burnham's Landing, Emma was proving to be a better mom than Delia had ever been.

Of course, he couldn't fault Delia too much. She'd done the best she could under the circumstances and considering the fact that she'd been an only child and had never been around babies. But the truth was, Josiah hadn't shown any signs of missing her in the past twenty-four hours since she'd died. He doubted the boy understood that she was gone, since she'd never really been all that present in his life anyway.

He supposed that was why he'd been able to agree to Holy Bill's suggestion that he marry Emma. He'd watched her brief interactions with Josiah, the kindness she'd shown his boy when she'd folded the paper, the gentle way she talked on his level. She possessed a warmth and tenderness that Delia never had.

Patrick dug the oars deeper and silently berated himself for his negative thoughts. Delia might not have been the best mother, but he couldn't fault her knowledge of the lighthouse. Besides, maybe Emma wouldn't be quite so warm once she got to know him better.

Even though he was trying to keep guilt from slithering up, it was hissing at the back of his mind. At the moment of the wedding, he'd accepted Emma's polite statement about leaving the past behind them. But now he couldn't keep from questioning exactly how much Holy Bill had told Emma about his past crimes. Probably not enough or she wouldn't have been so willing to marry him.

He steered the boat toward the bend of the harbor, to the bottom of the isthmus that the French explorers had named Presque Isle, meaning
almost an
island
.

“Oh, look!” Emma stared between the spruce and pine. “The lighthouse.”

Rising above the dark spires was the whitewashed stone tower with the lantern room gracing the top like a polished jewel. The entire structure was conical in shape and was almost forty feet high. The size was somewhat short and squat compared to the seventy-five-foot tower Delia's father managed at Fort Gratiot.

Even if Presque Isle Light wasn't as tall as most other lighthouses, it had been built on an elevated area, so that it could illuminate the mouth of the harbor for vessels traveling either from the north or south.

Like the other lighthouses spread out along the Michigan coastline, it had been built to help ships navigate the treacherous inland lake and diminish the all-too frequent accidents.

“It's lovely.” Emma tossed him a smile over her shoulder.

He nodded. Yet having been built almost twenty years ago, the structure was in poor condition when he and Delia had arrived last summer. And now after the harsh winter, there was always something that needed fixing.

“The keeper's dwelling is next to the tower,” he said, glimpsing the building through the trees. Though it wasn't connected
to the tower like many keeper dwellings, he thought the house sufficient enough; it had kept them safe and dry during the past winter.

Emma strained to see the house. He wasn't sure he wanted to witness her reaction. Delia hadn't liked it, had thought it too small. Of course, she hadn't wanted to move to Presque Isle. She wanted him to wait for a better keeper position, something more prestigious like her father's instead of a tiny lighthouse in the remote wilderness. The fact that Delia's cousin, Bertha Burnham, lived nearby had been the only consolation.

He steered his boat toward the dock. The shore here was dotted with boulders, brush, and wildflowers, similar to the rest of the shore that surrounded the harbor.

When the cutter bumped against the planks, Emma grabbed on and maneuvered the boat closer. She didn't wait for him to secure the cutter before climbing out. She lifted Josiah and, instead of putting him down on the dock, hoisted him to one of her hips, all while staring in fascination at the keeper's cottage that sat back away from the water's edge on a grassy patch of land.

Josiah wrapped his arms around Emma's neck and allowed her to carry him down the dock and onto the shore. She started up the path through the brush and rocks, carrying Josiah as if that were the most natural action in the world.

Panic momentarily panged through Patrick's chest. The house was in disorder, the laundry in piles, the dishes unwashed. He'd had no time to tend to ordinary household chores since Delia had fallen down the winding tower stairway and had hovered between life and death for nearly a week. It had been all he could do to take care of Delia, watch Josiah, and keep the light burning at night.

With fumbling fingers he tied up the boat and then sprinted up the path to the keeper's dwelling. “Wait,” he called, but Emma had already opened the front door and was stepping inside.

He bounded after her and nearly ran into her as he entered the front hall. She peeked into the sitting room that doubled as his office. The curtains were wide open, and sunshine spilled across his untidy desk, his logbooks, and the many other journals and records the board required him to update on a daily basis about the weather, storms, purchases, and shipwrecks.

He was behind with logging information from the past week and now had even more to add with the steamer going down last night.

Emma examined the room, which contained his desk, positioned under the window for the natural light, a fireplace, and two chairs facing it—a rocker and a stuffed chair that was faded and worn. She glanced at his basket of neglected whittling, the several items he'd been carving, and tools. Other than that, the room was as sparsely furnished as the day he'd moved in. There wasn't a rug on the floor or a picture on the wall.

“Sorry it's so neglected,” he said.

She surprised him by smiling. “It's beautiful.”

Josiah was chattering again, his little voice echoing off the bare walls.

Emma murmured to him as she crossed the hallway to the open door of the front bedroom. The curtains were closed, but even so, the sunlight streamed through the crack of calico and illuminated the clothes he'd left strewn on the floor and the unmade bed.

He stepped into the room, swiped up several items, and tossed them onto a bigger pile of dirty clothes in the corner. He shoved
aside the clutter on the top of the chest of drawers and placed her bag there.

“Feel free to rearrange things to make space for your belongings,” he said. She apparently didn't have much. Even so, he wanted her to feel at home now.

She averted her eyes, but not before he caught sight of the embarrassment that flooded them.

He looked at the bed before him, and his entire body leaned toward it, his knees weakening, his eyes faltering. Exhaustion hit him with the force of a November gale.

“Josiah can show you the rest of the house, can't you, lad?”

Josiah nodded and tugged on Emma's hand. “Show my bed.”

She seemed almost relieved to move away from the bedroom.

Patrick stumbled toward the bed, not bothering to shed his shoes or coat. He was already half asleep on his feet. Then he remembered to call after her, “Would you wake me by seven o'clock if I'm not already up?”

She stopped and gave him a shy glance over her shoulder. “Of course.”

Without another thought, he closed the distance to the bed, fell across the thin mattress, and was asleep before his head could find a pillow.

Emma swept the kitchen floor, wishing for the broom she'd fixed that morning at the Burnham cabin. The spindly broken bristles on the one she held were useless. Still, she'd had no trouble making a mound of dirt.

“Sweep, sweep?” Josiah asked from his high chair at the table, where she'd finally positioned him with a couple of items from the depleted sideboard—a wedge of cheese and dried beef jerky.
She'd also found a tin half full of flour, a small can of baking soda, and a crock of lard. But since she hadn't known what to do with them, she'd resorted to a simple meal. Fortunately, Josiah didn't seem to mind the plain fare.

It was almost time to wake Patrick. She'd peeked in on him on a couple of occasions and he'd been in the same position each time, sprawled across the bed where he'd collapsed, his feet dangling over the edge. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, she would have thought him dead.

Once she'd considered removing his boots and helping him get more comfortable, but when she approached the bed, a shaft of sunlight had fallen across his scruffy face, the strong line of his jaw and his mouth. She hadn't been able to resist thinking about the kiss he'd given her at their wedding, the softness and warmth of his lips against hers.

Her limbs had quivered with nervousness, and she'd stopped. She didn't want him to wake up while she was pulling off his boots and think she was inviting herself into bed. So she backed slowly out of the room and hadn't gone in again.

Thankfully, none of Josiah's noises had awoken Patrick. None of her banging and scraping had bothered him either, as she'd done her best to scour the kitchen from top to bottom.

It had taken her some time and plenty of failed attempts to light a fire in the cast-iron stove, but once she finally had one blazing, she'd heated water, washed the dishes, and scrubbed the table that had been coated with food spills. Then she'd turned her efforts to the walls, cupboards, and finally the floor.

For the most part, Josiah had played in the kitchen while she worked, often attempting to help her, but usually making puddles or soaking himself in the process. She leaned against the broom handle and breathed in a sigh of contentment. Here
she was, in a home of her own, with a husband and a child. This was all hers now, everything she'd always wanted.

The kitchen was as plain as the rest of the house, the faded blue curtains on either side of the lone window being the only bit of color in the barren room. Even though the house was undecorated and lacked a homey quality, the idea of bringing it to life excited her. She'd always dreamed about fixing up a home, and she knew she could make this one warm and welcoming—just as her mam had done in their simple cottage in Ireland.

“More?” Josiah asked as he shoved the last square of cheese into his mouth. The table in front of him was empty except for a few crumbs.

“We say
more, please
.”

“More?”

“
Please
,” she instructed him.

“Please,” he mimicked.

He was in obvious need of a woman's training. Perhaps his mother had been ill for some time. That would explain the unkemptness of the home and her child.

Emma sliced two more pieces of cheese and handed them to the boy. He grabbed one, but she stopped him with a touch of her hand.

“You need to say
thank you
, little love.”

“Thank you, little love,” Josiah said earnestly.

She couldn't contain the small laugh that bubbled up.

And when he gave her a big scrunched-eye smile in reply, more laughter spilled out. His smile widened as if he knew he was the source of her laughter, although he clearly had no idea why.

What would it be like someday to have a whole houseful of
children? She hadn't wanted to let herself dream about having babies before. It had always been too painful to see women younger than her coddling their little ones. But now that she was married . . .

Footsteps plodded in the hallway, and Patrick stumbled into the kitchen, combing his disheveled hair with his fingers.

“Mr. Garraty,” she said, flushing and praying he couldn't read her thoughts. “You're awake.”