Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (38 page)

"Strong words for a whelp your size." Somehow Jack managed a weak smile. So the boy was Miriam's brother, not her son, or his, either. Now that he could breathe again, he could just remember a baby still in skirts toddling about the tavern when he'd left. Besides, Zach would never be so accommodating now if he'd left Miriam to bear his bastard, but for a bewildering moment the possibility had still been there. Strange how quickly his conscience had been willing to claim the boy as his blood, stranger still how disappointed he felt to learn the truth. "I'd wager your mother doesn't like you taunting old Lucifer in her house."

The boy wrinkled his nose sheepishly. "Not exactly," he admitted. "I 'spect she'd paddle me good. But my brother Zach says swearing's not a sin among sailors, as long as you don't do it before ladies."

"Like your mother?"

The boy nodded vigorously. "
Especially
my mother. But since I mean to be a sailor like Zach, I warrant there's no harm in practicing." He squinted up into the sun, carefully considering Jade from the gold rings in his ears to the toes of his well-worn seaboots. "I 'spect you've heard of my brother Zachariah. He's about the best sailor ever came out of Westham, and set to make captain himself by year's end."

Jack would take exception with that "best sailor," but the judgment of worshipful younger brothers could be forgiven. Again he felt an odd twinge of regret for everything he'd missed.

"Oh, aye, I know Zach," he said as he crouched down to the boy's level. From the willow basket half-full of driftwood beside him, it was clear the boy had been sent to gather kindling on the beach, and from the large, dead, and noisomely vile horseshoe crab in his hand, it was just as clear that he was willing to be distracted. He wasn't Miriam, but he was still close enough to her to be a comfort to Jack.

"Zach and I have been mates since we were scarce old enough to find mischief," he continued. "And your sister Miriam—I've been friends with Miriam every bit as long."

"You're friends with Miriam?" The boy scowled uncertainly. "Miriam doesn't keep friends with men, excepting Mr. Chuff, and he can't count as a friend since he's going to be her husband. And he'll never be
my
friend, anyways."

Jack beamed. No wonder he'd taken such a liking to this boy. "Well then, I'd be honored to be considered your friend," he said, his large hand swallowing up the boy's smaller one. "I'm Jack Wilder, and mind you call me Jack."

The boy stared at him with such unabashed awe that Jack wondered uneasily if even he, too, had heard tales about his adventurous past.

"I'm Henry," he managed to gulp at last. "Henry Rowe. Your servant, sir."

"No servant about it," said Jack firmly. "You call me Jack."

"Jack, then." The boy flushed and grinned with adoration. "Good day, Jack."

"Good day, Henry." Jack lowered his voice in confidence. "And I can prove I know your sister, too. I know she likes plums better than apples and puts so much molasses and milk in her tea that the spoon fair stands upright on its own in the cup. I know she sings worse than a donkey, but that she can copy any birdcall so true that the creatures fly straight to her hand, pleased to make her acquaintance. And I know she has three tiny freckles on the back of her left knee, one, two, three, same as the stars in old Orion, rising up north above her garter."

"Lordy," breathed Henry, his eyes round. "I didn't know about those freckles!"

"Then maybe they should be our secret," said Jack, lowering his voice to a gravelly whisper. "You know how ladies can be about such matters."

Henry nodded with seven-year-old sagacity. "She'd tell Mama I'd been spying on her in the privy."

"And there you'd be, flogged again for something that wasn't your fault." Jack sighed dramatically. "It's an unjust world, Henry Rowe, and you're a wise man to watch after your back. But here, here's a safer thing to tell about Miriam: she loves hunting buried treasure."

"Miriam?" asked Henry, truly puzzled. "How could Miriam like hunting treasure when she hates getting dirty?"

"She always got plenty dirty with me," confided Jack. "And sandy, too. Digging for treasure's not tidy work."

Henry wriggled with excitement, the horseshoe crab flopping against his leg as he pressed closer to Jack. "Where'd you go hunting?" he demanded. "How much gold did you find?"

"Carmondy Island, not far from here." With his forefinger, Jack traced a crude map in the sand of the coast around Westham, adding a lopsided circle below the mouth of the river for the island. "Mirry and I— and Zach, too, when he was in the humor—must've dug up half that infernal island, and never found so much as a ha'penny. But drunk or sober, my Uncle Joe, before he died, always swore my father's portion of Avery's treasure was hidden there on Carmondy. 'Fifty paces from the highest water,' he said, and my Uncle Joe never—"

"
Henry Rowe
." Miriam's voice was frosty as her shadow fell across the treasure map. "You know better than to go talking to every ragamuffin stranger you find on the beach!"

"But he's not a stranger, Miriam!" Henry scrambled back to his feet, clutching the horseshoe crab for reassurance like some foul-smelling weapon. "He's Jack Wilder, and he's a friend of yours and Zach's, and now me, too, and he was telling me all about—"

"Go to the kitchen
now
," ordered Miriam, pointing toward the tavern for emphasis. "Mother was looking for that wood a half an hour past Go, Henry.
Now
."

Jack's smile grew with undisguised pleasure. She must have come from the kitchen herself, for her cheeks were rosy from the heat of the fire and there were cross little daubs of flour on her chin. And how he loved hearing her give orders like this, all stem and full of fluster! He could think of several he wished she'd give to
him
.

"Ah, Mirry, don't go blaming the poor little lad so," he said as Henry labored up the path through the dune, the heavy basket thunking clumsily against his bare shins and the dead crab's long, pointed tail dragging forlornly through the sand. "I was the one who kept him, not—"

"I know exactly what you were doing, Jack Wilder!" she said indignantly. "Filling his head with your treasure nonsense, luring him into dreams of growing rich on gold stolen from others instead of working honestly for it! If you hope to reach me through him, why, it won't work, Jack, and I won't have you doing it to Henry!"

"I meant him no harm, Mirry," he said, sweeping off his hat and holding it contritely over his chest. "Besides, Henry's a clever boy, and I doubt hell take any of what I said amiss."

But her eyes didn't warm to that elegantly swept hat, and her mouth didn't soften. "Cleverness has nothing to do with it. Henry's only seven, and ripe to believe every last lie he hears from a sailor, honest or not."

"Then we haven't one damned thing to quarrel over." He might as well put his hat back on his head for all the good it seemed to be doing him. "I was only telling the boy old stories of when we were children, digging holes out on Carmondy. Happy times, weren't they, lass?"

She hesitated, and he could see the memories flicker through her eyes, clear as day and every bit as happy for her as they'd been for him. Zach had been right: she did still love him, and Jack's hopes soared.

"You do remember the island, don't you, pet?" he continued, his voice dropping low and husky as he spun the past out for her once again. "How the vines hung low from the scrub pines and made shady nests for us away from the sun? Wild roses in June, raspberries in July, pokeweed in August, with those cross old terns overhead, scolding us like nobody's business. And remember how we'd swear to save the cakes and cider we filched from your mother's kitchen until noon, a reward for digging all morning? We never did last the morning, not once. But I've not forgotten the flavor of those orange cakes as you slipped pieces into my mouth with your own dear little fingers, or how you'd laugh with delight when I pulled you close and let me kiss the crumbs away, as if you'd planned it that way from the beginning."

He'd wager his life she hadn't forgotten. From the way her lips had relaxed while he'd spoken he knew she remembered the first tentative kisses they'd shared in that musty green haven, kisses that had tasted of cider-soaked crumbs and innocent inexperience, the sweetest kisses he'd ever known.

He took a step toward her, swinging his hat gently from his fingertips.

"Remember how we'd claim Carmondy for our very own?" he said softly. "And a ruddy fine little kingdom it was, too, with you as the princess-queen on your throne, there on the roots of the single oak? It's still there, you know, that oak. I saw it when I sailed past the other day. We could go back to the island, Mirry, just the two of us. We'll see if I can make you sigh with pleasure again, and if your lips still taste of orange and cider. Happy times, princess, happy times worth remembering."

All they needed was time to talk and to sort out the misunderstandings between them, to find their way back to the things that had bound them so tightly together once before. He knew it was possible, and from the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes he knew she did, too.

But when, finally, he reached for her hand, she pulled back, and to his sorrow he saw how she'd shuttered those same eyes against him.

"Nothing to do with that island or your father or your Uncle Joe brought any of us happiness, Jack," she said, even as the tremor in her voice betrayed her, "and you're a fool if you remember it otherwise. You hurt me once because of it, but I won't have you hurting me or Henry or anyone else in this family again."

And with one swift sweep of her toe she obliterated the treasure map he'd marked in the sand, and left him alone with his hat hanging in his hands and more hurt than she'd ever know bottled up tight in his heart.

"A gift?" Miriam set the pewter pitcher on the table and turned to smile at Chilton as he came through the doorway of front room. "You've brought a gift for me?"

"Yes, yes, my dear, all for you," said Chilton. The package he handed her was long and flat, swaddled in dun-colored muslin and tied with green ribbons. "Though I must confess I am the mere messenger, obediently conveying the offering of another."

Miriam frowned. Who's that?"

"I do not know," said Chilton as he patted the package fondly, almost as if it were a pet. "All the boy who brought it would say is that it is a bridal gift for Miss Rowe. But I have my guess: a certain gentleman in Cambridge, a learned colleague of mine with exquisite tastes."

Miriam glanced at him uneasily. Westham was too small a town for anonymous gifts, and the giver she had in mind was neither learned nor a gentleman. She hadn't heard from Jack since she'd found him with Henry yesterday, but she knew him too well to believe he'd given up already.

"Open it, Miriam!" ordered Henry as his tow-blond head crowded in beneath her arm with his own sense of urgency. "Open it now!"

With everyone in the front room watching, Miriam had no choice. She wiped her hands on the front of her apron, then carefully untied the ribbons and unwrapped the muslin. Out onto the table slid length after length of pale yellow silk cloth, glistening like gold in the morning sun as it slipped sensuously over her hands.