Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (44 page)

"There wasn't anything to tell," she said quickly, though at once she felt her cheeks flush at such a glaring untruth. "That is, anything that it was his affair to know."

"Oh, no, no, no," boomed Jack, sweeping his arm through the air as if to clear away any stray doubts. "Why shouldn't he believe you're still a virgin?"

"He wouldn't have known!"

He rested his hands on the side of the boat, leaning his face close to hers. "Sweetheart, men
know
. Especially men expecting to find a sweetly untutored bride in their beds. Though given Chuffs preference for pocket watches over women, maybe he's the one man who wouldn't notice."

Before she could answer, he'd hoisted the straw hamper with her mother's supper from the boat and begun down the beach, whistling the same raucous song that they'd heard coming from the Green Lion.

"Come back here with that!" shouted Miriam crossly, swinging her legs clumsily out of the boat to follow. "Mama fixed that for Chilton and me, not for you!"

"I've already stolen Chuffs bride," called Jack without turning. "Might as well hang for taking his supper, too."

Barefoot, he walked through the edge of the water, his swaggering stride loose and long over the packed sand. But Miriam, in her best leather shoes, thread stockings and petticoats, was forced to follow across the upper beach, where the sand was soft and slow and her heels sank deep with every step. The last time she'd been on the island, she'd been barefoot, too, but then Jack had been at her side, not thirty paces ahead. She raised her skirts to avoid a soggy pile of seaweed, and when she looked up again, Jack had vanished.

"Jack?" she called as she hurried along. "Jack, where are you?"

To her surprise, the island was still the same small, unruly place she remembered, where beyond the beach lay a murky tangle of wildrose vines and purple poke-berries, scrub pines and large rocks patched with gray-green lichens. Scattered across the island were deep, weedy pits yawning like open graves, left by disappointed treasure hunters years before. The only sizable tree, a gnarled oak with a thick, jutting branch, still stood sharp against the night sky. Though the exposed roots of the oak had served as her princess's throne, legend said the branch above had been used as a gallows by Avery's crew who'd hanged three traitors there, and this was the superstitious reason why the tree had never been cut for firewood. At least, that had been Jack's explanation, and considering that his father had been among those doing the hanging, as a girl Miriam had never questioned it.

Nor, really, did she now. As much as she wanted to stay angry at jack, as grim as her situation would be with Chilton, she found herself unconsciously being drawn back into the island's mystery, and when she looked up at the moon through the gallows-oak before her, the same shiver of excitement that she'd felt as a child beside Jack and her brother tickled up her spine.

"Jack?" she called again as she made her way around to the east side of the island, the side that faced the open sea. "Jack, where—
oh
!"

Four years and more disappeared in an instant. He'd led her unwittingly back to their special place, a small rise above the sand and between the rocks, beyond the dusty miller and marram grass, where the overhanging branches and vines wove together into a natural shelter overlooking the ocean. The vines were thicker, the branches taller, but nothing important had changed.

Nothing, yet everything, and her heart twisted at the difference.

"I knew you'd remember the way, princess," said Jack. He'd pulled off his shirt and the gun belt, and, bare-chested, he sat cross-legged in the sand, coaxing a small driftwood fire to life. Behind him was the open hamper, the contents already spread invitingly across the old coverlet her mother had packed with the food. "It's your own palace, after all."

Her palace, and his, too. No,
theirs
, and the temptation of all he was offering—and what he wasn't—made tears sting her eyes. She wanted nothing more but to join him there, yet still her battered, bewildered conscience held her back.

If only she'd been able to build the same store of memories, the same shared past, with Chilton that she had with Jack, then she would not be here now. If only she'd been content to be wooed with words alone, and not missed the kisses that Chilton had been too gentlemanly to offer, then she wouldn't have melted like butter when Jack had kissed her again. If only Chilton could
understand
the way Jack did, understand everything about her, the way he had in the boat earlier.

If only she'd loved Chilton the way she still loved Jack…

"It was just that one time, Jack," she said, desperation making her return to their earlier conversation as if there'd been no break. "Just that once before you left. Nobody else knew. It wasn't as if I'd—as if we'd—"

"As if I'd gotten you with child?" The little fire began to glow, its light washing up across his face to show how his first grin had faded into something far more serious. "Do you know that when I first met little Henry on the beach, I thought he was ours?"

"Henry's too old," she said swiftly, fighting the rocking jolt of her own emotions. "He's nearly eight."

"Oh, I realized that soon enough," he said, prodding at the fire. "But I wanted to believe we'd had a son, Mirry, more than I can tell you."

He didn't have to tell her, because when he'd left, she'd wanted it, too. Even as she'd fearfully counted the days until her courses came, part of her had longed for his child, a piece of him that would be hers to keep forever. In a way she wished it still. To discover that they'd been wishing for the same thing was one more shared secret, another bond that tugged them inextricably closer together.

Oh, Lord, Jack was right: why couldn't she even admit to herself what she really wanted?

"Look, Mirry." He'd sat back on his heels and was now holding something up on a plate for her to see. "Even your mother knew I'd be the one, not Chuff. She made us orange cake again."

"She knew nothing of the sort" Miriam sniffed back her tears. Better to concentrate on cake than on babies. "Mama bakes orange cake for every guest who dines at the Lion."

"Ha, I don't believe it." He broke off a corner with his fingers and popped it into his mouth, winking at her as he relished the taste. "Heaven, Mirry, pure heaven. Come, here with me now, before I eat it all myself."

"You wouldn't dare." She
was
hungry, and thirsty, and he looked endlessly more comfortable up there on the coverlet beside the fire.

"Damnation, Miriam, you know better than to dare me to do anything." He smiled wickedly as he stood, licking the last crumbs from his thumb, then reached for and raised the cutlass, sweeping the blade to point in her direction. His bare skin gleamed with a faint sheen in the firelight, every muscle defined and accentuated as he toyed with the long-bladed weapon. "Now, princess, must I come fetch you myself, or will you come of your own will?"

She met his gaze over the blade of the cutlass and sighed. She'd never known anyone with eyes the color of Jack's, or any with the power to bewitch her the way his could. All he had to do was smile at her as he was smiling now, and she felt her heart race and her palms grow damp, even her blood quickening with anticipation. It was more than enough to make ner forget being a lady with a house and flower garden in Cambridge, and being second in value to an ugly old pocket watch. In a way, she supposed that Jack had done her a favor. For as respectable as Chilton was, how could he—or any other man under heaven, really—how could he possibly ever compete with Jack when he looked at her

She was as good as ruined already. She might as well have something to remember for it, and Jack was the one man she wanted with the memory.

She bunched up her skirts in one hand and began scrambling up the hill.

"I'm coming because you've no right to eat all that food yourself," she said breathlessly, "and not because you're waving some silly sword in front of my face. Besides, it's probably no more sharp than your pistols were loaded."

In one fluid motion he turned and slashed the cutlass through the stunted wild cherry tree behind him. Leaves and twigs showered down, and a branch as thick around as Miriam's wrist sliced off neatly to drop to the sand.

"Mercy." Miriam stopped and stared at the trembling branch, remembering how Jack had used the cutlass to toy with Chilton. She'd only sensed the unpredictable danger in him then; now she'd seen the proof.

"I warned you not to dare me, didn't I?" He slid the cutlass back into its scabbard and held his hand out to help her. "Take your place, my princess, and let me serve you however you please."

She ignored his offered hand, instead sinking down on the coverlet on her own, thankful that he wouldn't know how weak her knees felt beneath her. Briskly she turned to reach into the hamper, pulling out two bottles her mother had swaddled in damp cloths to keep chilled.

"The perry was meant for Chilton, but I suppose it's yours now," she said as she handed the larger corked bottle to Jack. "The other's lemonade for me."

Jack wrinkled his nose with distaste. "Perry? Pear milk, fit for old maids and nursing babes? No rum?"

Miriam shook her head.

"Perry. Lord." Jack sighed as he uncorked the bottle and handed it back to Miriam. "You drink first, princess. Perry's sorry stuff, but I won't have you sipping lemonade."

She hesitated just a moment before taking the bottle and tipping it back. He wasn't going to be the only one accepting dares. Though the syrupy liquor was sweet, like the fruit, the alcohol in it burned down her throat. She coughed with surprise, wiped her mouth, then drank again, and when she handed the bottle back to Jack, her triumphant little smile was backed by a pleasant, growing fuzziness in her head.

"Good lass," said Jack, his voice sliding low. "Never anything priggish or overnice about my princess. But how, I wonder, will that perry taste on your lips?"

As he took the bottle, he reached out to brush a stray drop of the liquor from the corner of her mouth. The drop vanished, but his fingers remained, tracing her lower lip in a leisurely path with his thumb. He didn't pull her into his arms, or slide his hand around her head to tangle in her hair, or tip her chin to kiss her the way she expected. No, the way she
wanted
, if she were honest. Yet there was only his silver gray eyes, heavy-lidded as they watched her respond, and his thumb, rough and callused, moving gently across the cushion of her lower lip, teasing her until she closed her eyes in dizzying defense, her mouth finally slipping open with a little groan of frustration.

Even then she could feel him shift closer, feel the heat of his body next to hers as his thumb eased from her lip to cradle her chin.

But shutting her eyes only seemed to awaken her other senses further, her whole body growing infinitely aware of so much beyond that touch of his thumb on her yearning flesh: the summer-night breeze that was almost chill on her skin as it came in from the sea, balanced by the heat and scent of the little fire, the sugary sweetness of the perry, the rush of the waves as they rolled and broke on the beach, the shrill, endless drone of the sand locusts in the grass.

It was a rich and complicated place, this island kingdom of hers so dear to her heart, and in the center, where it seemed he'd always been, where he'd always belonged, was Jack. The lightness of it was so overwhelming that she shuddered, her breath coming out in a little flutter of joy against his finger.

"Ah, Mirry," he said, a rough whisper on her cheek. "Didn't I tell you not to dare me?"