the sudden glitter of tears in Kate’s eyes. Looking from the young, handsome woman to the fair child who could have been her daughter, he found himself praying she would accept the flowers, for all their sakes.
Though few of his prayers had been answered of late, his heart lifted when Kate knelt before the silent child. Taking the flowers, solemnly she kissed a dimpled cheek. “Thank you, Tessa. I’ve never had a bouquet or a present as lovely.”
Tessa ducked her head shyly, saying nothing. Even when Kate said goodbye, the child didn’t look up or speak.
“Have a good day, ma’am.” The lady spoke for both.
“Thank you.” Kate paused at the exit. Stroking the flowers across her cheek, she smiled. A blinding, wonderful smile. “How could I not?”
Devlin caught his breath, dazzled by the woman he’d glimpsed. The woman Kate Gallagher must be again. Impulsively, he moved toward her. An insistent voice called him back.
“Your change, sir. And your coffee.”
“Keep it.” Eager for another glimpse of that woman, he flung the words over his shoulder.
“I can’t, sir. Please.” The clerk’s plea was plaintive, even disturbed. “It would mean my job.”
Impatient, Devlin returned to the counter. He wanted neither change nor coffee. The purchase had been justification for time spent in the store, an excuse to stay close to Kate. Taking up the coins, mindful not to forget his purchase lest he be summoned back again, he hurried to the exit. Pausing to tweak a golden curl and wink down at little Tessa, he stepped into the street in time to see the lady of his concern drive away.
He’d come to the coastal town because he’d given his word. All he intended was a quick trip from the Chesapeake, a short stay and a quicker look at Valentina’s latest lamb. Then, home.
If there was such a place.
Quickly in, quickly away. An ironclad plan, with no expectations of more. But that was before he’d seen Kate Gallagher.
“‘The best-laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft agley,”’ he quoted in a muttered undertone. All for a smile.
Could he leave now? With a ghost of the rueful grin that had once set every young heart it touched aflutter, he mocked his own frailty. “I must. I should. But how, Lady Golden Eyes?”
Two
Music washed over him, ebbing and flowing like the tide lapping at his feet. In the time he’d sat on the derelict palmetto washed from another shore, the mood of the pianist changed. From tentative beginnings the tempo had gradually quickened, then swelled, filling this secluded section of shore with its moods.
First it was wild with the violence of unspeakable torment. Next, fiercely angry, each note resounding as if the musician fought the music, the instrument, and herself. Then the temperament changed, quieted. In slow, muted notes despair reached a deeper level, and Devlin heard the throb of anguish that defied solace.
As the piano fell silent, one note lingering in the night, he knew he’d been given rare insight into the heart of Kathleen Moira Gallagher, daughter of a roving diplomat. Once a model and an icon of beauty, a gifted pianist and a lawyer, an agent of The Black Watch and Simon’s mediator par excellence, now she was simply a grieving woman whose soul stumbled.
When he’d followed her surreptitiously from Ravenel’s to Summer Island, the gated, guarded seasonal playground of the wealthy of Belle Terre, it was to quiet a need he thought had died forever on Denali. To subdue a faltering, resurrected impulse to ease the hurts of others, he’d come to make himself believe he, least of all, could lead her back into the life she should have.
A simple matter, quickly done. So he hoped. Instead he’d tarried long in this single day he’d promised Valentina he would devote to Kate Gallagher. Tramping from one end of the somnolent paradise to the other, seeking proof of peace, the healing panacea Kate needed, he’d delayed and detoured, exploring marshes, docks, and the house that would have been his. Had he decided to stay.
Before he was ready, before innate urges were stifled, night had fallen. With the lights of Belle Terre sparkling in the near distance, the moon lifted over sea and shore like a great gold and silver globe. Silver and gold, the color of her hair. A reminder he didn’t want. And, without intending it, he’d found himself on this part of the shore, sitting at the base of zigzagging steps leading where he’d never meant to go. To Kate.
When the first note sounded, he’d turned from it. The step away wouldn’t come. He willed himself not to stay. He had.
Crouching on the salt-scoured palmetto, he listened.
Now the shore was quiet, the spell of her music ended. He was free to go. He knew he wouldn’t. “The blind and the halt, Kate.” He stared up at her house and the light that left more in darkness than it illuminated. “We shall see where one leads the other.”
He turned again, truly leaving this time, but only to make the calls that would confirm his stay on Summer Island. As he moved deeper into darkness, away from the little light, he didn’t notice the woman on the deck above. He didn’t see her drifting like a waif down the steps to the shore. He didn’t know she knelt in the sand contemplating his footprints as if they would tell a story. Or that when she stood, it was to search him out with a puzzled frown, studying the familiar lines of his retreating figure.
“No.” Out of habit Kate pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. The insidious thrum of tension was there. The encounter with the dangerously attractive but enormously annoying man hadn’t helped. Then, as if that weren’t enough, Jericho Rivers, sheriff of Belle Terre and the surrounding county, called to say the island might soon have another resident.
In the confusion of the abrupt interruption by an emergency call, Jericho hadn’t given her a name, but managed to assure her that the newcomer was a friend, a good man. High praise from the taciturn sheriff. Surely it stretched the realm of coincidence to imagine the man in the grocer’s and Jericho’s friend were the same.
It couldn’t be. Letting her hair fly in the wind, Kate remembered Devlin O’Hara. The mischievous look, his fascinating eyes at odds with his smile. A deep voice with an edge of uncertainty, as if it had been a while since he’d laughed or teased.
Despite her annoyance, she hadn’t been blind to his charm. Or was it that he was charming and she noticed that annoyed her? Did it matter? The new islander wouldn’t be Devlin O’Hara.
If it should be, they needn’t meet again. Though the land mass was considered small with three miles of beach, there were only six houses lining the shore. The property of each was bounded on the west by the narrow river separating the marsh from the mainland, and on the east by the sea. With each possessing docks on the riverside and decks at the front with promenades to the shore. Trailing north to south, each house was set in the middle of a half-mile tract. Except Sea Watch, her home in recent months.
Indulging a penchant for privacy, the owner of Sea Watch set his house on the southernmost tip, where sea and river merged. Thus, with nearly a mile setting the house apart from the others, she needn’t trip over anyone.
“No matter who he is.” Peering after him, she discovered he’d moved beyond the natural curve of the island and out of sight. That was as she wanted him.
