Obsidian (16 page)

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.” She’d heard those words all her life, but never had they been as ominous as they were at this moment. Her brother was somewhere out there, looking for shelter from the coming storm and probably blaming everyone else for his misfortune. He didn’t have a clue how much chaos he’d caused. And now, in desperation, her uncle had taken off to look for him, leaving her behind to just wait and watch. If only there was something she could do to help.

Jamie maneuvered along the flat sections of floating dock that were tied to the wharf. It rocked beneath his feet as water sloshed up and over the sides. He bent over to check a rope that was securing a wooden skiff. Having Jamie around had become a blessing, an unexpected comfort. She didn’t know what she’d have done without him here. He’d arrived in Chandler a total stranger and yet, somehow she’d come to rely on him as if she’d known him forever.

Roe and John Henry were huddled around the old barrel stove. They were the older generation, the ones that had never even left the security of Chandler. But what had she done with her life? She may have gone off to college to get her degree, but she’d been pulled back here. There had never been a question of what she would do with her life. She’d always just done the expected, even when their father died. She’d come back to run the business and to be close to her brother. She’d never worried about making or having choices. There had never been any to make.

Marrying Tommy had also been a given. Somehow, everyone had just automatically assumed that they’d end up together and in a short amount of time they’d gone from being friends, to dating, to being engaged and then married. No one had ever questioned it. Still, here she was alone.

Once again, she looked out the window at Jamie. She’d been wrong about him and while he’d never set out to correct her impression of him, she had discovered that Jamie Rivard was a good man. Something about him radiated strength and he had a nurturing spirit, though he didn’t appear to want it. She’d needed someone and he’d come along at just the right time. Fate had sent a helping hand.

“Shelby, have you heard from Marianne today?” Roe said over the brim of his coffee mug. “John Henry and I went by her place this morning, but we didn’t see any sign of her. Did she go somewhere to ride out the storm?”

“She should be there. She wouldn’t go anywhere without at least letting me know.” A new worry filled her. It wasn’t like Marianne to leave her house, especially if a storm was coming. Set up on the cliffs and in the stand of pines, her house was protected from the water and wind. “Maybe I should go check on her and make sure she’s okay.”

The only problem was that her uncle had taken the truck. She looked out at Jamie. He was moving the lobster cars to the protection of the wharf pilings. Maybe he’d take her to check on Marianne.

He’d just finished tying up the last of the cars, when he caught sight of her making her way down the gravel path.

Jamie moved back out onto the float to pick up a bucket when he noticed that she was hanging close to the shelter of the wharf. She could wait until he was done. He was using this time to pull his thoughts together, but it was proving harder than he’d thought.

“Go back inside, Shelby. I can finish this up. There’s no sense in both of us being out here.” He waved a hand at her, motioning her back to the store.

He went back to picking up the loose buckets and ropes on the float. He stumbled a few times as the waves rocked the wood beneath him, bracing his feet against the movement; he bent over to retrieve another bucket and almost lost his balance when there was a touch on his shoulder.

“What the . . .” A very white-faced Shelby gripped at his arm.

“I told you to go back inside. I’ll handle this out here. It’s getting rough.” He tried to shake off her grip, but stopped when she wouldn’t let go. He looked again at her face and stopped. Sheer terror filled her. Shelby was scared to death.

He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. Her fingers grasped at his back, as she clung to him, whimpering like a lost child. Her breath was warm against the coolness of his skin as she buried her face against his chest.

He had to get her out of there.

He half-pulled, half-carried, the shaking Shelby up onto the dock and onto firm ground.

“What were you doing out there?” He grabbed her by the forearms and pulled her back from him. Her head was bent, her shoulders quaking. He put a hand under her chin, raising her gaze to his. Tears streamed down her cheeks leaving wet trails on her face.

“I tried to yell, but you couldn’t hear me.” Her words came out in short gasps. “I’m so sorry. I just . . .” Her words trailed off and were caught by the wind. He put an arm around her and held her next to him as he walked back up to the store. Once inside, he sat her down next to the stove. Her hands were still shaking, but her breathing had begun to ease up.

Roe set a cup of steaming coffee into her hands and motioned for her to drink it. “Are you okay, gal? What were you doing out there?”

He shook his head at Jamie. “I don’t know why she’d do such a cussid, darned thing. She’s downright scared of the water since Tommy died. Hasn't been out in a boat in a couple years.” Even for all the harshness of his words, the old man settled a gentle hand upon her shaking shoulder.

“I’m so sorry.” He’d seen the terror in her eyes out there on that dock. He handed her a cup of coffee and she clutched it between her shaking fingers.

“I thought I could go out there, but the waves are so rough. You couldn’t hear me, so I moved a little bit at a time trying to get your attention.” She shuddered. “I don’t know what happened.”

“I do. You’re afraid of the water and you came out there anyway to get me.” He moved to stand next to her.

“What I don’t understand is how you can run a business like this when you have a fear like that?”

Shelby shook her head. She was calmer now. “I wasn’t always afraid of water. It’s just been the last few years since Tommy died that I haven’t been able to go out there.”

The words were enough for him to understand the terror he’d seen on her face. Death had a way of placing unrealistic fears and expectations on a person. For Shelby, they had meant that she couldn’t face the very thing that gave her a living.

“But if you can’t go down there then how do you run the wharf business?”

She shrugged. “During the summer I hire a few of the local boys to help out. They do most of the work down there. What they can’t do, my uncle has been doing.” She got up to place her mug on the counter. She stood still, her back to him. He looked over at Roe and John Henry. Both old men where shaking their heads in concern.

“So, what was it that you needed so much that you were willing to come out there and get me?”

Shelby turned back from the counter. She was fast recovering. Her shoulders were straighter now and he could see again the gentle strength just below her surface.

“I need to check on Marianne, but I can’t get there in this weather without a ride. My uncle took the truck and I was wondering if you’d take me out there?”

“You want me to take you out on my bike in this weather?” It’d be a hard ride, with the wind picking up as it was. The late afternoon sky was already turning evening dark and there wasn’t much time before the rains would start.

“Roe said that she wasn’t there when they went to check on her and that has me worried. She depends on me and she rarely leaves the house.” She looked up at him with her brown eyes and his arguments went out the window.

“Fine, we’ll take my bike. It isn’t the best weather for it, but it will have to do.”

The wind whipped past her and she braced herself during the short walk from the bike to Marianne’s house. It was an eerie time of dusk, when the stormy sky was gunmetal gray and the ground was shadowed from the coming dark.

Rain pelted them, coming down in a torrent, reverberating like thunder against the roof as they ran for the house. Shelby pulled the screen door open and it screeched as she stepped into the shelter of the porch. The wind moved the screens back and forth with every gust. Jamie was behind her. Dark rivulets of moisture ran down his shirt leaving a dusky trail.  She chanced a look at his face. His eyes were shadowed, but she could feel his gaze on her. She trusted this man with her life. When had that happened?

Shelby pushed the hair out of her eyes and pulled her wet shirt away from the front of her. An uncontrollable shiver ran up her spine. Her nerves were raw, her stomach sore from worry.

A light shone through the kitchen curtains. It was a welcome sight in such horrible weather. She reached for the handle only to find the door was ajar. She swung it open the rest of the way and stepped into the kitchen as Jamie followed behind her.

“Does she always leave her door open like that?” he asked.

“No. But she gets forgetful when she's painting.” She stepped farther into the room and looked around. The cat’s dish sat empty on the counter, the unopened cat food can beside it.

“Marianne!” There was no response, only gusts of wind blowing the rain against the house and rattling the windowpanes.

Meribelle came from under the table to wind herself between Shelby’s feet. “Where’s Marianne, girl?” But the cat only sat back on its rear quarter and stared up at her with wide eyes.

“Marianne?”

“Maybe she went out for awhile.”

Shelby looked out the window and the fast approaching storm. “She wouldn’t have gone out in this. With her arthritis it’d be too difficult. She has to be around here somewhere.” A million ideas began running through her mind. Maybe Marianne was hurt? Maybe she’d fallen and struck her head? Maybe she couldn’t call out to them for help?

She stepped into the darkened hallway. “Marianne, where are you?”

The living room was as dark as the hallway. She walked toward the wide expanse of windows banking facing the ocean. Marianne’s painting was still on the easel, unfinished, a brush set in the tray as though it had been discarded in haste.

“I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.” Jamie looking out the window at the rain pelting the grass that edged the cliffs.

“She’s got a great view here. I bet she sees everything.” Jamie picked up the discarded binoculars on the windowsill as Shelby wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. She wasn’t fighting just the chill of the rain-soaked clothes, but the feeling of dread that was fast filling her.

Jamie stopped in front of the painting, taking special interest in the wet paint that dotted the corner of the board. “Wherever Marianne is, she hasn’t gone far. The paint is still wet on this part here by the boat house.”

He squinted harder at the corner that Marianne had been working on. Now was not the time for looking at paintings. Something in her gut was telling her that everything was not okay here.

“Marianne wouldn’t have just walked off. She has to be here somewhere.” Maybe she was upstairs. Marianne kept to the large living room, preferring to sleep on the couch downstairs rather than to make the painful climb. Shelby’s foot had just hit the bottom step when Jamie’s voice stopped her.

“Oh God!” He raced for the door, his footsteps clamoring against the wooden floor. She ran after him. Her heart was pounding in her ears; her mouth had gone dry.

She followed as best she could as his long legs jumped the few steps off the deck to the ground and ran to the granite stairs leading down the cliff. The wind pushed at them like some maniacal hand sweeping them along and then pushing them back again. The trees bent as the wind drove through them, the sound echoing in her ears. It was as though she was on a merry-go-round that was tilting out of control. The rain had transformed the green grass into a slippery slide and she found herself colliding against Jamie’s solid back as he skidded to a halt. She was struggling to right herself when she felt his arm circle her, pulling her tight against him and she pushed at him; determined to see what had made him stop. But he held her tight to him, his fingers cradling her head. Her wet hair slapped against her cheeks as the rain clung to her eyelashes making it difficult to see.

“Don’t look, Shelby.” She pushed at his hands until she could look over the side of the embankment. At first she couldn’t see much. The wind and rain conspired together, creating a vacuum of sound and feel. Her body and brain were numb from the stinging of the rain and the onslaught of circumstances.

The low scrub pine edging the rocks were like bony fingers twisting in the wind. Her gaze traveled downward, following the path of gray stones marking the steep cliffs until a tiny pinpoint of light caught her gaze. At first glance she dismissed it, an obvious trick of the storm. But then her gaze fell again on the light and the lighter gray of a sweater that covered an edge of a nearby rock. Bile filled her throat and she choked back the uprising in her chest. It was Marianne.

Jamie pulled her back again, steadying her, his body firm against hers. He reached up to pull her gaze back to his.

“Shelby.” She could hear his voice saying her name above the whining of the wind, but the terror had frozen her to her spot.

“Shelby, you’ve got to listen to me. I need to go down there, but I want you to stay here.” Somehow she managed a nod.

She sank to her knees in the grass. Marianne was gone. She knew it, even before he reached her crumpled body. Marianne was gone and they were too late.