Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (33 page)

Zach reached him first; Caleb lingered by the skiff, clearly hesitant. Without saying a word, his brother dropped a wrapped bundle in his hands. Noah started to loosen the piece of cloth, then halted, staring.

He fondled the worn material, his anxiety building. "Where did you get this?"

"Where did you leave it?" Zach's tone held a faint thread of anger.

The material, once pale blue, was now the color of chalk. And stained in spots—with blood from a long-ago split eyelid. "The docks. Or Stymie's sloop, maybe. He ferried me to Morehead City that night. I changed into a shirt I grabbed from a clothesline." He swallowed, fighting the dread creeping higher. "Where did you get this, Zach?" But he knew, oh, he knew. Elle had kept his shirt for all these years. The shirt he'd been wearing the night he left Pilot Isle.

He wasn't sure
what
that made him feel.

Queasy, impatient, fearful.

"Noah, you know where I got it. She left you a coat, too."

"Left? Where is she?"

"Wherever she went, your friend Caroline went with her, so she's not alone, thank God." Zach retraced his steps, his stride chafing and furious. As he neared the skiff, he called over his shoulder, "I don't understand why Ellie wanted you to have that. You'll have to ask her, if you ever get to."

Noah flung the shirt to the ground and stared at the book in his hand. He had only seen it once, but he would never forget what his mother's diary looked like. Not when her secrets had cost him so much.

Why had Elle left this for him?

A moment passed and then he understood.

This was her way of saying good-bye.

* * *

"Are you going to go get him or do I have to?" Zach banged the skillet to the stove. A tarnished ladle followed.

Caleb slouched in his chair, hung his head over the back and groaned low, where Zach couldn't hear it. He drummed his fingertips on his thighs, wishing the aroma of dinner—fried ham and sweet potatoes—did something besides make his gut twist. He didn't want to face his little brother across the scant width of a kitchen table. Not right now. Ellie had been gone for three weeks and each day proved worst than the last.

"I don't like going there," he finally said. Shamed him, yes, because only children feared the burying ground. Shamed him, but truth was truth.

"I don't care what you like, Cale. Go get him. He's like Rory right now. Doesn't eat here, I don't know if he eats at all." Zach slammed a bowl of gravy to the table, rocking Caleb's glass of tea. "From the lost weight, I don't think he's eating anywhere
but
here, that's for sure. And what about the stunt he pulled with Sean Duggan, knocking him unconscious on the docks. Whatever Mrs. Bartram wrote in her letter, Lord, I believed Noah was going to kill the man. Someone has to talk some sense into him."

Caleb grabbed his wobbling glass in both hands. He'd been trying to get Noah's skiff ready, hoping that would lighten his brother's black mood. "I don't understand women. I've been asking Christa to marry me for nigh on five years, and she always says no. Holy Mother Mary! What do you want
me
to say?" He took a slow sip of tea. "Anyhow, thinking about him and Ellie, well, it kind of makes me uncomfortable."

Zach wedged a knife between the pan edge and a cake of corn bread, snapped his wrist, and popped the steaming loaf onto a plate. "Makes you uncomfortable to imagine your brother in love?"

Caleb wiped his chin and squirmed against the unforgiving seat. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, it is
Ellie
. Professor spent the night on Devil with her. God knows what they did."

Zach wedged a piece of corn bread into his mouth and chewed, a smile growing. "Doesn't take God to figure that one."

"Stop. I don't want to hear this. Practically my little sister you're talking about."

Propping his hip on the counter, Zach folded his arms, and settled his stoic gaze on his brother.
Damn,
Caleb hated that look. "I never understood Noah either, Cale, if that admission makes you feel better. Less than you, safe to say. Always a step ahead of me, a step ahead of any child I ever met. And then Momma died, leaving me to raise him. I tried my best. And when the two of you... well, I figured giving him some time to think was the way to repair things." He cupped his elbows in his hands and squeezed hard. "Let emotions settle. Only, he had the hurt fixed in his heart, so deeply fixed, there was no way to budge it. Every day that passed, he built these walls around himself, holding us out, betrayed and alone. And, he's doing the building again, only this time with Ellie."

"Maybe she'll—"

"She won't come back, not while he's here. You remember what he told us, the list she found? Hell, what's she to think?"

Defeated, Caleb scooted his chair back and rose, his shoulders hunched. He rubbed the nape of his neck, trying to remove the stiffness. "I'll go. I hate the danged burying ground, but I'll go."

"Just listen if he wants to talk. Simple." Zach turned to the stove. "Besides, I'm leaving to pick up Ellie's friend, the woman who's running the school. Savannah. I can't remember her last name." He jammed a dishrag in the waist of his trousers. "Anyway, I don't care how you do it. Drag him here by his toes. I'm not letting him withdraw from this family again. And you're going to help me, even if you have to spend the night in a graveyard."

Caleb put his shoulder into the screen door. "Not funny, Zach. Lots of spiders in that creepy place." The door smacked behind him as he stalked across the porch, Zach's laughter trailing him.

* * *

She could be pregnant.

Settling back, Noah rested his head against the gnarled wisteria vines circling the oak's trunk, wondering a little angrily if Elle had considered this fact. Three times posed significant risk. He hadn't minded taking the risk or asking her to. He assumed they would wed soon after. Dammit, every day spent imagining a child growing inside her pushed him closer to the edge.

His child.

He closed his eyes and let the unbidden images flow, accepting the agony as his due. To save his sanity, he allowed this painful process twice a day. When he woke, reaching for her, and again in the afternoon, after stocking the laboratory library. Nights were unbearable unless he labored to the point of exhaustion. Which should cover him tonight as he had just finished a twelve-hour shift on the
Nellie Dey.

He searched for a comfortable spot, leaves crackling beneath him. Dappled sunlight danced over his unlaced brogans and seared his skin through his clothing. High above, branches stirred restlessly—restlessness he understood.

He located the marks in the tree trunk with ease. Like he did each day, he traced them:
Elle loves Noah.
Christabel had carved the words when he was fourteen, disfiguring two trees in the burying ground—which most people avoided unless lowering a loved one—and every tree in the schoolyard. It had taken her an entire summer to complete the project, she'd once told him. Naturally, he had been mortified.

Now... now he wished some of them read
Noah loves Elle.

Because he did love her.

More deeply than he had believed was possible.

Would she have left if she'd known? Would it have made any difference? Hadn't he proven his love during their night on Devil? He assumed he had. Didn't such spirited lovemaking speak the same of her feelings?

Her betrayal, even if the fault lay at his doorstep, cut as deeply as Christa's marks. He questioned ever trusting Elle, ever trusting
himself,
again.

Behind him, the creak of the gate sounded, followed by a heavy tread on the path. Noah leaned out and a frown spread. He watched Caleb chart a hesitant course through the graveyard, dodging the shell slabs with devout consideration. He remembered his brother's fears: spiders and haunts.

Caleb halted, his fists diving into the pocket of his trousers. He stared at the vaulted brick Noah propped his left arm upon. "You shouldn't be leaning all over someone's final resting place, should you?"

Noah spared the worn tombstone a glance. "Navy captain, dead for fifty years. I don't think he minds the company."

Caleb fluttered leaves with a halfhearted kick. "Zach made dinner. Wants you to come home."

"I'm not hungry."

"Have you eaten today?"

Noah tilted his head, incensed for no good reason. "What is this? The damned Inquisition?"

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean, so I won't get mad. But, you'd better not think to push me too far."

Noah swore beneath his breath, a vulgarity he'd never said to his brother, never said to anyone.

Caleb jerked him up by the front of his shirt, brought them nose-to-nose. "Listen, you half-witted fool, I don't want to do this again. I lived through it once already. With Zach, after Hannah died. Crazy fits and black moods, not eating and not caring." Caleb released him, then grabbed Noah's wrist to steady him. "Ellie isn't dead. If you want her, find her. Quit rolling around in grief that isn't real. Real is the stone slab Zach puts flowers on every week. That's life lived without someone."

"You don't understand, Cale."

"I'm sure I don't."

He yanked a piece of moss from the bark and mashed it between his fingers. "I gave her all I had to give... and she left anyway."

"Yeah, you gave everything. Good aims are fine and dandy, but did you say the words?"

Noah didn't ask what his brother meant. Flinging the crumpled greenery to the ground, he shook his head.

"Aw, you
have
to say the words. Just whisper them a few times to yourself first. Then, they'll come spilling right out, even when you wish they wouldn't."

"I never got the chance to say them." He frowned and plucked at another bit of moss. "Not literally anyway."

"Literally? I guess that means you never actually said it." Caleb laughed and rocked back on his heels. "Funny how you can be so smart in some ways and dumb as a brick in others."

Noah cut his eyes toward Caleb. "What the hell do you mean?"

He threw his arm over Noah's shoulders, a stretch when he stood inches shorter. "I mean, little bro', you've joined the ranks of the unlucky souls who have to work for a woman's affection. About time, because you never had to work for Ellie's before. I guess I don't know much about women, confusing creatures, but I do know this much... they delight in the niceties."

"Niceties?"

"Little presents. A lace handkerchief or a colorful hair ribbon, maybe pretty flowers or a tin of powder. You could try those fancy words you think but never reckon you'll have to
say
. It won't get you far to keep quiet. You need to come right out and make a fool of yourself."

Noah snatched his satchel from the ground. "That's the most ridiculous advice I've ever heard."

"Maybe." He shrugged. "Only, who has a woman and who don't?"

"Woman?" Noah slapped dried leaves from the shoulder strap. "Hell, you can't even get yours to marry you."

"Mighty true, but at least I know where mine
is
."

Noah clenched his fists and took a furious step forward. "I could find Elle if I wanted to. I have some ideas, you know."

Caleb walked backward, shaking his hands, a silly smile on his face. "I'm sure you do, Professor. You always did have plenty of
ideas."

"Elle left Pilot Isle with a woman who has been my friend for years. Caroline has a good idea where Elle is. Jesus, don't you think I would find her if I wanted to?" Actually, Noah had telegraphed Caroline three times. She had refused each request, once going so far as to advise him to stew in his own juices. "She left me, Cale, meaning she doesn't
want
to get married. What would you have me do? Drop to my knees and beg, give her the opportunity to rip my heart out completely?" He kicked the gate open and stalked down the sidewalk, Caleb right on his heels.

"Marry? Damn, you got to tell them you love them before you start asking. Though it hasn't worked yet for me." He clapped Noah on the back. "No wonder you messed this up. Like I said, smart in some ways, dumb in others. Makes me happy to realize I've got more brains than you about something."

"Realize? You don't realize anything." Noah shrugged from the grasp and crossed the street at a trot. He could see Zach's steep hip roof and the wooden shakes that needed replacing just ahead. Might as well go over there, he thought, all this talking had made him hungry.

Caleb jogged beside him. "Hate to disagree, but I do know one thing."

"Yeah, what's that?"

Caleb patted his chest, a smug grin plumping his cheeks. "Stopped by the post office on the way here, and I got a letter from your lady friend, Mrs. Bartram, right here in my pocket."

Chapter 17

"There is some rough rocky ground..."

C. Wyville Thomson

The Depths of the Sea

Elle passed a boisterous group of men wearing odd-looking shirts she had come to find they played football in. She acknowledged their subtle leers and soft whistles with a steady gaze, refusing to let them intimidate her. South Carolina College had eight female students in the fall of 1898, and horse-faced or winsome, they elicited a fair share of attention.