The Lightkeeper

He told himself to be calm, to wait. She’d gone out shopping or for a breath of air. Yes, that was it. But later, after questioning the doorman and learning that she’d left the week before and hadn’t been seen since, he was forced to admit that she was gone.

With some surprise, he looked down at the bouquet of flowers he’d brought her. He hadn’t even remembered he was carrying it. He’d mangled them beyond recognition, breaking and bruising every flower in the bunch.

Jesse stared at the rough-hewn ceiling beams, listening to the wag of the clock pendulum. Then, after a long time, he pulled his boots back on and went to tend the horses.

On his way to the barn, he encountered Erik Magnusson. Towering at least six and a half feet in height, the youth moved with a giant’s ambling gait, unhurried and untroubled by the press of the world. The wind blew his straight, straw-colored hair across his brow.

“Morning, Captain,” Erik called. Erik always called him by the head lightkeeper’s title. “Did the lady from the sea wake up?”

“No.”

“Father said we’re going to tar the bottoms of the surf runners today.” Erik’s mind always flitted from one subject to the next like a hummingbird going from blossom to blossom. Jesse liked the big lad, but he never quite knew what to say to him.

“That’s fine, Erik,” he said. “It’s good to keep the boats in proper order.”

“You never take the boats out,” Erik said, planting his hands on his hips. “Why do you never take the boats out?”

Because I’m a coward, Jesse thought.

“Why is that, Captain?” Erik persisted.

“The boats are for rescue and should never go past the surf,” Jesse said, then started walking away. “I’m off to the barn.”

He turned the four geldings out to the sloping pasture. Palina’s rooster crowed, the sound insulated by distance and by the light, fine mist that hung in the morning air.

He ambled down the long, switchback trail to the beach. Twenty-four hours ago he had been on this same path, and in his arms he had held an extraordinary and unwanted burden. For years he had been successful in getting people to leave him alone, but the red-haired woman was different. He couldn’t make her go away.

Why was he so reluctant to help her? He had come here to do just that—save victims from the sea, help boats navigate the perilous shoals at the mouth of the Columbia. It was the life he’d carved out for himself. It was his penance.

He negotiated the twisting path and walked across the damp, densely packed sand. His gaze automatically scanned the area, seeking more wreckage from the ship that had brought him the woman. But he saw only the endless expanse of the strand, littered here and there by seaweed or a chunk of driftwood. The morning breeze rustled through the dunes, rattling the reeds like dried bones.

A harsh barking sound came from Sand Island in the middle of the huge estuary. Sea lions. Sometimes they came to the cape, but Jesse shooed them off. Fishermen often shot the seals to keep them from preying on the salmon and steelhead.

As he walked, Jesse filled his lungs with heavy salt air and tried to empty his mind. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her, the fairy-featured woman who had invaded his house, his life. Companionship was the last thing he wanted. No one seemed to understand that. The people of Ilwaco regarded her presence as a great adventure. Palina termed her a gift. Fiona called her a challenge.

He tried to tell himself she was no different from other women. He’d trained his mind well, punished himself effectively through sheer force of will. Women left no impression on him, sparked no desire, awakened no yearning.

Yet the stranger in his house was different in a way he couldn’t explain. Though he didn’t even know her name, some deeply suspicious part of himself knew she posed a threat to the life he was now living.

He turned his back on the sea and looked at his world, a lonely king surveying an empty realm. The lighthouse station was the quietest, most remote place on earth. Jesse had run here, thinking it was where he belonged, at the edge of the world.

But, as it turned out, he hadn’t run far enough.

Jesse’s movements were slow and deliberate as he got out a low stool and placed it squarely beneath the trapdoor to the attic crawlspace. It had been ages since he had needed anything from the storehouse above the ceiling.

But he needed something now. He hoped his equipment was in working order. Standing on the stool, he reached into the hole and groped around through cobwebs and sawdust. Eventually his questing hands found a bulky, oblong box and the three lengths of wood that went with it.

He set the box on the scrubbed kitchen table and stared at it for a long time. He had not used the camera in years, not since…not in a very long time. He wasn’t even sure it still worked.

He flipped up the dual latches and lifted the lid. The odd device, with its mouth of brass, its glass plates and black silk shrouds, lay where he had flung them so long ago. The vials of chemicals had corroded at the caps. Red spots mottled the albumen papers.

Photography was a vexing business of washing the plate, coating it with gun cotton dissolved in alcohol, dipping it in silver nitrate. The exposure had to be enhanced by a flash in a pan, then the plate developed with acid and more chemicals. It was easy to make a mistake. He had found that out when—

He cut off the thought, cursing the memories that kept pounding at the edges of his awareness, wanting to be let in. He had come to the bluff in order to forget, and now the presence of that woman was making him remember another time, another life. Gritting his teeth, he assembled everything he needed; the chemicals and the plates, the tripod and the black silk shroud. Moving quietly, he went into the birth-and-death room.

She lay sleeping, her limbs loose, her breathing peaceful and even. Her hair streamed in a ruby and gold tangle across the pillow. Her body curved in on itself, protecting, always protecting the belly.

Jesse tried not to stare. Tried not to think. He made himself concentrate on the task at hand. He wanted her out of here. The best way to do that was to find her next of kin. He needed to take a photograph and circulate it, have it published.

Yes, that was the answer. Maybe the grateful family would come for her before she woke. Before he learned one blessed thing about her.

He positioned the tripod at the foot of the bed. Then he placed the camera box on top of it, aiming the eye at the woman.

And suddenly, the memories he had kept dammed up inside him broke through, and the past stormed across his mind. He felt it like a physical blow, heard the laughter of a woman long dead and saw himself, a much younger Jesse, laughing with her….

“Hold still, darling, I’ll just be a minute.”

“Oh, Jesse, you take forever.” A dainty hand in a lacy glove smoothed across his brow, pushing aside a persistent lock of hair from his eyes. Pink-tinged lips smiled up at him. “Just make the picture and let’s eat.” The lacy hand gestured at the lavish picnic spread out upon a fringed blanket in the middle of a flower-studded meadow. “Aren’t you starved?”

He had abandoned the camera then, reaching her in three long strides, sweeping her into his arms. The picnic and the photograph had been forgotten until much, much later, when cool shadows slipped across the field.

“There won’t be enough light left for a picture, Jesse.”

He ran his hand through the tousled silk of her hair. “We have all the time in the world, sweetheart.”

Stifling a ragged growl, he rid himself of the memory almost violently, like a wounded man yanking out the knife that had stabbed him.

Damn. It had started already. The stranger, with her serene face and air of mystery, was making him think, making him remember, making him feel.

The sooner he got rid of her, the better.

With grim determination he finished setting up the equipment. Then he looked at his subject. She lay like a rag doll, her hair covering part of her face and her arms and legs slack. No one would recognize her in this state.

He had to touch her. There was no other way. He stepped forward and took her by the shoulders, careful not to jar her injured collarbone. She made a sound, half sigh, half moan, and he froze. God, if she woke up now, he’d scare her out of her wits.

Almost as much as she scared him.

Her head flopped to one side, and she settled deeper into sleep. He still held her by the shoulders.

It was then that he noticed it. Her warmth. It seeped into him like rays of direct sunlight. The living radiance passed through his fingers and burrowed deep inside him. He was achingly aware of the soft, yielding flesh and the fragile bone structure beneath. The sensation of holding another human being was so overwhelming that he didn’t quite know what to do.

She smelled of sea and wind and womanhood, and he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get his bearings while his senses listed crazily.

The ordeal took endless minutes. He propped her against the pillow, centering her head just so. Then, not knowing what to do with her loose arms, he crossed them atop the quilt. But as soon as he got her hands in place, her head sagged to the side. He bolstered the pillow, making a trench. Then her hands sprang free as she stretched luxuriously.

Jesse swore quietly between his teeth. How did undertakers do this, anyway? At length he succeeded in arranging her so that her head was centered, the hair pushed away from her face, her hands demurely crossed.

“Stay,” he whispered. “Just stay there a minute. I only need another minute.”