Raquel Byrnes Read online

  Suddenly, waves of sorrow and shame I’d fought so hard to quell washed over me, and I flashed on my day at the church. The feel of white satin under my hands, the bouquet clasped to my sobbing chest as my would-be sister-in-law led me from the vestibule. He wasn’t coming. He didn’t want me anymore.

  And now this. I’d summoned all my courage to travel to these wet and cold woods for what? To be rejected all over again. To be not good enough once more? I had to get out of here. I couldn’t bear to feel their eyes on me in the morning, looks of pity that I’d grown to dread. Shaking my head, I grabbed my purse and yanked open the door. Walking quickly along the corridor, down the steps, and back to the front door, I moved as silently as I could.

  Pushing through the double wood doors, I dragged the suitcase behind me. In my hurry, I stumbled down the stone steps, nearly losing my footing as the oversized case tumbled, coming to rest near the front tire.

  I fought with the suitcase, shoving it into the back seat with ragged pleas for its cooperation on my trembling lips. I climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the car door, and tried with shaking hands to start the car. It coughed, then revved. The front door cracked open and Mr. O’Shay stared out at me with a puzzled look.

  “Go, just go,” I sobbed.

  Pulling away, I took the turn around the driveway way too wide, and ran over some bushes as the car barreled back down the road towards the iron gate. Eyes blurry with tears, I didn’t react to the headlights that burst suddenly from the thick mist. A horn blared as I swerved. The wheel jerked from my hands, and I veered off the path. The car rattled and bounced down the embankment’s uneven ground. A large tree jumped out of the fog right in front of me. I screamed as the car hit it with a jarring blow, and my jaw snapped shut as my head hit the steering wheel. Everything stopped.

  Moaning, I felt the bump on my forehead. Pain flashed behind my eyes, and I gasped with the force of it. Unclasping the seatbelt, I stumbled from the car, groping blindly in the dark fog.

  “What were you thinking?” a man’s voice, low and tense, called out from the fog. “You were speeding.”

  Confused, I heard movement, and someone scrambling down the embankment.

  “Are you OK?” the man shouted.

  I couldn’t tell the direction from which it came, and I turned in a circle. A wave of dizziness made my stomach lurch. I staggered for the car.

  “My head,” I croaked. “I hit—”

  The ground tilted. My head spun. I was falling. Strong arms snatched me before I hit the ground.

  “Whoa,” the man said, concern creeping into his voice. “You shouldn’t try to walk ’til we get help.”

  I glanced up. Framed in the glow of the headlight, a man with piercing blue eyes and light hair looked down at me, his handsome face etched with a thin scar that ran the length of his jaw. It made him all the more magnetic. I smiled at him, my thoughts tumbling together; I thought he was old. How did he get that scar?

  “I came to take care of you, Mr. Hale.” My words sounded muffled to me; far away.

  “Take care of me?” His blond hair, backlit by the headlight, made a halo around him. “You’re hurt. Be still.”

  Sudden clarity rang through my mind at his mention of injury, and I tried to stand. “I’m fine, Mr. Hale.” I tried to wiggle free of his hold, but he held fast.

  “You don’t look fine.” His eyes narrowed. Sounding gruff, almost irritated, he bent and lifted me in his arms and carried me up to the road.

  “This is unnecessary,” I protested, but my head spun again, and I rested my cheek against his chest as he climbed. Warm and solid, he smelled like grass and sunshine. When he set me on my feet, I glanced back down the embankment at the sedan’s off-kilter lights, worry gripping me again. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hale, really. I’ll pay for the damage and for the bushes, too.”

  He opened his car door, and the interior light cast his face in shadows. My heart thrummed, a flush creeping up my neck under his intense gaze.

  “I’m not Davenport Hale,” he said. “I’m his son, Simon.”

  A far away buzzing sounded in my ears. I shook my head, trying to clear it. The movement sent a fresh stab of pain flashing across my vision.

  Simon reached for me.

  “I’m…” I didn’t get the rest out before the world grayed and blinked out.

  2

  Voices, harsh and urgent, pulled me from a fitful dream. I awoke thrashing in the bed with a sob tearing from my dry throat. Panting, I blinked away the remnants of my nightmare and scanned the unfamiliar room, heart racing. An argument floated on the cool wind blowing through the open window. I couldn’t make out the words, but the tones were unmistakable. Anger. Frustration. Pleading.

  I wasn’t in the servants’ quarters. I frowned, and the movement sent a spark of pain tearing across my temple. I hissed, felt for the bump on my forehead, and discovered a bandage. It all flashed back—the fog, the crash, and Simon’s achingly handsome face staring down at me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d made a complete fool of myself. Unwilling to look helpless, or be pitied, I’d panicked and made things worse.

  I swung legs over the bed and let my eyes adjust before standing and steadying myself with a hand to the headboard.

  Done in blue and cream silks, the bed was dark, canopied, and massive. Across the room, sheer curtains billowed away from open French doors like lazy wisps of smoke. It was daylight, and from the angle of the sun, afternoon or later.

  Padding across the wood floor and throw rug, I sidled next to the window looking down into the yard. Mrs. Tuttle stood near the river-rock fence. Knee high, it ran the length of the circular driveway. She was talking to someone, a person sitting on the fence, but the branches of the trees obscured the face and body. Tuttle punctuated her words with a paper in her hand, flapping it and gesturing with angry pokes.

  Wind rattled the chimes on the balcony, their tinkling frantic with the sudden gust. Tuttle looked up toward my window, and I ducked from view, heart ramming. Jagged spikes of color danced behind my eyes, and I squinted against the headache my movement brought on.

  I didn’t want them to know I was awake. I wanted to slip out unnoticed, maybe call a cab…did they have cabs on this tiny island? The car I’d leased at the ferry dock was at the bottom of the ravine. People used golf carts here to get around. I remembered seeing them when I disembarked.

  Scanning the floor, I searched for my shoes. They poked out from under the bed, and I crawled across the dark Persian rug ignoring the protest of my sore muscles. My purse lay on the chair by the door, and I slung it over my shoulder on my way out. The door, heavy like the front ones, creaked when I pulled it.

  The very first step I took out of the room was onto a squeaky floorboard. I cringed and froze. Not hearing anyone, I stole out into the hallway. I wasn’t on the third floor. I could tell from the view of the front door over the railing. A long black chain, dusted with fine spider web filaments, held a wrought iron candle chandelier. I peered through the metal scrollwork at the floor below. Not seeing anyone, I started down the stairs with my back against the wall as I tried to stay out of sight of the hallway.

  I wasn’t sure who else lived here. With Mrs. Tuttle outside reaming someone out, I had a good chance at making my escape unnoticed if no one sneaked up on me.

  A picture frame snagged my shoulder, and I flailed as I tried to keep it from crashing down the wood steps. Holding it in my hands, I frowned. Faded sepia colors displayed a grisly scene of two men flanking a gutted deer. Hanging by its rear legs on a post, the cavernous carcass dwarfed the men standing next to it. My lip curled with disgust, and I turned to rehang the photo only to find similar scenes trailing down the wall. Black and white photos, faded with time; their subjects wearing pith helmets and hunting clothes straight out of a Victorian era safari. Men and boys, even some women, stood dominion over bear and larger animals claiming victory with a foot on the prone carcasses.

  “What is this place?”
/>   I stepped back from the wall, craned my neck to see the photographs. There must have been two or three dozen. None taken past the 1920s. Maybe they’d just run out of wall for the macabre display. A shudder rattled up my spine.

  Below me and to the left, in a hall leading away from the foyer, a door opened and light splashed across the dark wood floor. Mrs. Tuttle was coming back in, her voice echoing along the hollow hallway.

  I crept down the rest of the stairs stopping to press against the frayed tapestry wallpaper lining the area by the hall tree. A torn strip scratched at my neck, and I jumped.

  “Get a grip, Rose,” I whispered and rolled my eyes despite my nerves ticking into high gear.

  Peering at the hall opposite the foyer, Mrs. Tuttle’s voice faded, and I used the opportunity to slip into the hall. The swinging door opened up into a huge kitchen of granite and glass. A rough-hewn, weathered table the size of a barn door took up the center of the room. Skirting it, I reached for the door leading outside, peeking out the bubble-glass windows before turning the handle. It squeaked, and I gritted my teeth.

  Had these people never heard of oiling hinges?

  Once on the porch, I slowed, no longer feeling the urge to run. Sunlight angled through the thick spires of dark green pine trees that hovered and swayed over the roof. They cast long shadows which made the walls of the house cold beneath my hands as I took the steps leading down to the driveway. Cracked, with chips missing, the disrepair didn’t take away from the beauty of their color. River rocks with hues of the ocean led down to the driveway. Rose and lavender bushes lined the flower beds, their colors fading with the August chill. Nestled between the plants, strange sculptures peered through pitted marble eyes. Trolls with jutting noses and bat-winged gargoyles gnashed their pointed teeth as I wandered past.

  Shaking my head, I stayed off the pavement and skirted the edge of the woods along the driveway. I scurried towards the crash site hoping to find my mahogany box and suitcase still in the car.

  Without the fog brooding over the landscape, I saw the massive trunks and deep forest that butted up against the winding path. Used to the open beach and desert spaces of southern California, the cluster of trees huddled overhead, crowding me as I walked.

  Metal clanking and male voices drifted, and I squinted at the broken log guardrail a few yards down. Rutted dirt and cracked branches on either side of the hole in the railing told me I’d found my handiwork. I chewed on my thumbnail wondering who might be down there and if I should bother them.

  I had no choice. I needed my things. Testing my footing, I extended a leg over the edge onto the jagged log. It held and I took another step, slipped, and went skidding on my heels and backside down the dirt trail. I jolted to a stop spilling onto my hands and knees. Ahead, near the crumpled car, O’Shay and Simon turned as I stumbled out of the tall grasses.

  “You have thing for grand entrances, don’t you?” Simon asked. He raised a blond brow, his eyes striking in their similarity to the cobalt blue sky above. “Are you all right?”

  Wiping scraped and dirty palms on my jeans, I managed a painful smile and a nod.

  Shirtsleeves of his white oxford rolled up, his muscular forearms and gloved hands strained with the chain in his hand. It threaded through a pulley and attached to my car. The chain, in turn, connected to a winch on the truck next to them. Wrestling with the broken metal that refused to budge, he looked beautiful and formidable at the same time. Like the Greek heroes I’d seen in schoolbooks as a child.

  Heat flared across my cheeks when he glanced my way.

  “I just wanted to get my things,” I said, realizing I was staring. “My suitcase and box.”

  Simon shook his head, let go of the chain, and sent it clanging against the arm of the winch. He rubbed palms together and tilted his chin down, looking at me from under a sheath of golden hair.

  “Your things are back at the house,” he said. “Tuttle knows where they are.”

  “Oh.” The bump on my forehead hurt. Biting back the frustration welling, I nodded. I’d skulked through the house like a cat burglar for nothing. “I was just leaving and I thought—”

  “Not with that bump on your head,” Simon interrupted. “The doctor hasn’t cleared you. Besides, it’s too far to walk back to the ferry; and as you can see, both your car and mine are not available.”

  He motioned behind me, and my hand flew to my mouth. On the road, slightly down from where I’d gone over the ravine, his large black sedan squatted crumpled and listing on the road.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hale. I—I didn’t realize I caused so much damage.”

  “Mr. Hale is my father, Rosetta. Call me Simon.” He had a slight accent, not quite English, but rather east coast wealthy, as my mother called it, as though he’d been educated abroad.

  He tossed some keys to O’Shay. “Thank Myers for the use of his truck, but we need something bigger. This car isn’t moving.”

  “Right, then,” O’Shay said. He climbed into the truck’s cab and slammed the door. It coughed to life and eased away from us.

  Simon moved closer to me, his eyes narrowed. “Where were you going so fast last night? You nearly killed us both. I hope it was worth the risk.”

  “I was…leaving,” I said and took a step back from his space with a fluttering stomach. “I was upset.”

  “Clearly,” he intoned and pointed to his own forehead. “Headache?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Well, as I said, your leaving is not happening today.”

  “But…” I didn’t know how to contradict him. I didn’t know how to keep from staring into his eyes. My jaw worked ineffectively, and then I flopped my arms at my sides. “What am I supposed to do, then?”

  He shrugged and started rolling down his sleeves. “Are you normally this reckless, Rosetta?”

  “Reckless?” I crossed my arms, insulted. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you normally show up at jobs for which you aren’t hired and then attempt to kill your would-be employers while fleeing the scene?”

  The amused tilt of his full lips sent a flush rising to my cheeks, and I turned from him, my hands on my face.

  “Yes, all the time,” I snapped. “I love looking ridiculous in front of…of…”

  Gorgeous men.

  Waving him away, I peered into the broken window at the items scattered about. I snagged my cell phone from the driver’s side floor. The screen was cracked and it wouldn’t turn on. I dropped it back into the car. I hadn’t been able to get reception out here last night, anyway. I pulled sunglasses from the backseat and slipped them into my purse, and then grabbed my small leather Bible.

  “I didn’t mean to insult you, Rosetta. It just seems impulsive for someone your age.”

  I whirled to face him. “My age?”

  “Well, you know what I mean,” Simon said evenly, his gaze holding mine. “What brings you way out here to our strange little island? I’m sure there are plenty of cranky old men to take care of in California.”

  “Small talk?” Raising a brow hurt the knot on my forehead, and I hissed at the pain. “I think we’re past that.”

  “Really?” He leaned against the car, his arms crossed. Shadows cast half of his face in darkness. “Where are we, then?”

  “Let’s see. There’s insulting, name calling,” I ticked answers off on my fingers.

  “You forgot vehicular assault and fainting,” Simon added with a smirk.

  I scowled. “Oh, yes, then there’s me leaving,” I said and stalked back towards the road. In my haste to get down to the car, I hadn’t realized how steep it was. I eyed the rise of dirt back up to the house level and gulped.

  “A suggestion,” Simon called from behind me.

  I turned to him. “Sure.”

  “Through the meadow.” He pointed to a trail leading into the tall grass to the left. “It’s a longer walk, and I’m sure far less entertaining for me, but it’ll get you back to the house.”

&n
bsp; Clearing my throat, I nodded. “Thank you.”

  No point in striving for dignity anymore. I never seemed to be able to leave in a proper huff.

  I took the trail to a clearing. Waves of purple and pink flowers swayed in the cool breeze. Their sweet scent drifted as they swished with the tumbling wind. August back home was sticky and hot. Out here, the whispers of fall chilled the air. I shivered and looked back over my shoulder at Simon. He wasn’t near the car anymore. I couldn’t see him at all. I’d never reacted so thoroughly to anyone before, blushing and stammering like a schoolgirl with a crush. What was wrong with me?

  Extending my arms over the waist-high blooms, I waded through the field and let the petals tickle my palms. The tourist website had described Noble Island as beautiful and foreboding. Given to sudden shifts in weather, it was unpredictable by nature. As if reading my thoughts, an abrupt change from daylight to gray drew my gaze skyward. Dark clouds slid across the pale sun and whipped up a wind.

  I hugged myself and hurried towards the other side of the clearing to the trees. Halfway there, sudden movement in the flowers caught my eye. I froze. A flash of raven hair rifled through the blooms and was gone. Heart ramming in my chest, I scanned the stems, squinting. Farther away, a child’s giggle, distorted by the wind, echoed across the field.

  “Hello?” I took a step back into the clearing. “Who’s out there?”

  The field swayed in rivulets with the buffeting wind as I strained to hear more. Thunder rumbled overhead, the dark clouds roiling with flashes of purple. If there was a child out here in this weather, they’d surely get chilled. Another step and I caught sight of pink material billowing over the flowers, but it was gone before I could focus. The hair on my arms spiked with building static and a bright thread of light tore along the sky. It lit the pale face of a child peering out from behind a tree across the clearing. The face vanished with the flash.

  “Lost?” a voice asked over my shoulder.

  Gasping with fright, I staggered and turned to face Simon.