Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (8 page)

"Chicago's a long way, honey. Miles and miles. She's there, and you're here. Seems you have the advantage. Not so hard to make him fall in love with you if you put your mind to it."

A ragged laugh burst from her lips. "Noah Garrett, in love with me? Rich, Christa, really rich."

"Listen, from one woman who loves a Garrett to another who loves a Garrett but won't admit she does, it isn't that hard. You just got to make them see what's already there. Caleb never knew what hit him. Plain as the writing on a chalkboard most times. Men are just too stupid to read the message."

Elle shoved a spiral of hair behind her ear, wondering why her chignons never held for more than an hour. "Let me say this once, so I don't have to repeat it. I will never make a fool of myself over him again. I loved him, yes, I admit.
Loved.
A young girl's infatuation that is a faded memory now. As pathetically faded as this dress." She plucked at her bodice. "I avoided the post office this morning, because everyone is watching me, expecting me to swoop down, snatch Noah between my teeth, and fly off with him."

"Can you say you wouldn't enjoy flying off with him in your jaws? Can you
really?"

Elle dropped her head to her hands and groaned. "Oh, Christa."

"I say you can't, because I saw him today, walking back from the docks. Honest, I nearly dropped my sack of potatoes. He grew up mighty fine." Christabel clinked the cup against her teeth. "Taller than any man on the street; a head full of hair the color of good scotch whiskey. Fancy fishing pole thrown over a broad shoulder. Picture spindly Noah Garrett having broad shoulders? Not as broad as Caleb's, mind you, but a surprise considering what a scrawny boy he was."

"He was never scrawny."

Christabel threw back her head and laughed.

"Stop it," Elle whispered. "Do you want the whole town to know what we're talking about? Heaven, that's all I need."

Christabel pressed her hand to her mouth, her head bobbing. "Sorry, sorry."

"I can handle this, I'm telling you. I can handle
him.
Don't go making a scene."

"Uh-huh. Did you see the clothes he wore? Slicked sharp as Sunday, neat as a pin. You always liked him spit-shined, didn't you?"

Elle pinched the bridge of her nose, a nagging headache creeping up on her. "Sure, I loved feeling fit for the rag box compared to him."

"Rag box? No, just a handful of trouble every now and then. Still are, I guess. But a man forgets all his arguments real quick when he looks into a face pretty as yours. Rag box? That's a new one." She gazed into her empty cup, her voice going soft. "Ellie, you and Noah were the sweetest things I ever saw."

"Sweet?"

"Oh, he acted like you rubbed him the wrong way, or acted like you didn't rub him at all. Once or twice, not long before he left, I know I caught him looking at you, a spark of interest showing." Christabel dabbed the frayed edge of her apron against her lips. "You see, honey, I recognize the spark of interest in the Garrett grays."

"Good for you. Good for Caleb. Just leave me, leave Noah, out of your spark-of-interest, Garrett-gray theory."

Christabel shook her head and sighed theatrically. "Sure a shame. Imagine the children you two would have. Smart as whips with a dash of spunk thrown in."

Elle's stomach twisted. Would they have had green eyes or gray? Hair the color of a burst of sunlight or dull, stringy red? Elle lifted her head to discover a shrewd smile crossing her friend's face. "Damn," she said and wrenched to her feet.

"Wait, honey, your daddy left this."

Elle grabbed Noah's textbook and skirted the crowded tables, ignoring the amused glances and the whispered comments.

All the way home, the book pressed to her bosom, Elle wondered how many people believed she still loved Noah Garrett.

* * *

Elle gave the dangling front doorknob a gentle twist, fearing it would fall off and roll into the tangle of shrubs surrounding the porch. Another chore to add to an unbearably long list. Tossing her shawl and gloves on the hall-tree shelf, she made her way along the darkened hallway.

Elle slid the pocket door aside and twisted the gasolier switch, flooding the parlor with murky light. Sinking to the edge of the tattered love seat, she turned her attention to the leather-bound volume in her hands. She read enough to see the red-and-gold slip marked an essay about coral erosion. Unfortunately, she could not read the text well. As her father had pointed out, her French equaled a child's.

Asking for a translation was a remarkably devious way of diverting her father's attention. Especially for a boy who had once dragged her into the mercantile and made her apologize for stealing apples.

Propping her feet on a tasseled ottoman, Elle hoisted the book against her ribs. She flicked her finger over the dog-eared pages, paused to read the notes scribbled in the margin.

An hour later, the case clock chimed; the book thumped to the floor. She reached for it, stopped, sighed. Noah's accomplishments were buried in the index at the rear: doctoral research, expeditions in the Pacific. He had even lived up to his childhood nickname. Heavens, she had eaten lunch with a true professor with her skirt hiked around her knees.

She kicked the book, then curled her toes in pain. She hated this feeling of... inferiority, of envy. If she had finished university, maybe she could converse about science or literature, history or mathematics. A semester of domestic economy wasn't likely to help her much.

Elle let her gaze stray to the pilot coat hanging over the arm of the love seat. She drew her hand back before her fingers brushed the sleeve. She and Noah did not have one interest in common except a thirst for knowledge, something he did not even recognize in her.

She wasn't sure who he was anymore. The person in the book; the biologist who had traveled the world and written research papers; the man who received perfumed letters from a married woman and stood so tall he had to duck through doorways.

She didn't know him.

She didn't think she would ever know him again.

* * *

Noah felt the stare burning into his back a full minute before he turned. Shading his face, he squinted into the sun, seeing only the darkened silhouette of a woman. A jolt of undesired anticipation tore through him, then trickled away when he caught the scent.

Fruity. Banana? Somehow, he knew Elle Beaumont would never smell like banana. An angry sea or a fistful of dirt, maybe, but never banana.

The silhouette hopped up a step, going from sunlight to shade. Flashing blue eyes tipped at the corner. Hollow cheeks, slim lips. Young and blond, very blond. Noah shrugged away his discomfort.

She took another step, her pleated skirt brushing his trouser leg. "Hello," she said in a laughing, breathless rush.

"Hello." He caught the nail that dropped from his lips. "Can I help you with something?" He perched his hip on the coach house railing, which wobbled precariously.

Another addition to his repair list.

"No." The young woman bounced on her toes, buckling her boots where the patent leather cap cut in. "My name's Meredith. I'm waiting"—she giggled and glanced over her shoulder—"for Miss Ellie to finish her other lesson. I come twice a week from three to four. She's teaching me to do my daddy's accounts. He owns the mercantile. I wasn't too good in school. Numbers and all, I mean. But Miss Ellie says I can do anything if I set my mind to it. Even add my daddy's accounts and not tangle them up worse than two tomcats in a feed sack. My daddy would rather have a son do them, if he had one. But he doesn't, so he's stuck. With me, and with Miss Ellie, who he thinks is tetched." She emphasized this by drawing a circle around her ear. "But it's only because she's smarter than he is."

Noah swung his gaze toward the coach house. The metallic ping of a typewriting machine had woken him from restless slumber, dreams idling just below the surface. Zach and Caleb... and Elle, circling a campfire on Devil Island, youthful faces glowing in the amber light.

"I remember you," Meredith cut in, before he had time to refocus on her face.

He glanced back slowly, raised a brow as he tugged his leather glove off with his teeth.

"You used to stop in my daddy's store when I was real little. Bought a lot of cotton handkerchiefs, for ship's sails you told me. Your brother Caleb even let me see the models one time, in his shed out behind your momma's house."

Noah loosened his fist, dabbed the fleck of blood where the nail had pieced his palm. Not much of a shed, more of an enlarged privy. He'd spent many hours in that dusty old shack, watching Caleb work his magic on piece after piece of wood, threading sail for Noah's favorite model, the American block sloop. The old shed stood less than a mile from here. He frowned and shoved the notion of returning from his mind.

Caleb had likely smashed that shed to bits—along with his block sloop.

"Your name's Noah?"

"Yes, that's right," he said, and tugged the other glove free, a trace of unease mounting at her predatory look.

"The Spring Tide Festival is in two weeks." She flashed a crook-toothed smile, the first imperfection he had witnessed. "I didn't know if anyone told you about it. Or if you've decided who you might be squiring."

Squiring?

Meredith followed the statement with a bounce and a giggle. He almost reached out, fearing she would topple down the staircase. "The committee decorates a stretch of beach on Devil. A big tent, lots of pretty ribbons and white clematis, daisies and carnations if they bloom early. Old-time oil lanterns. Sailboat races during the day. Music and dancing at night. It's wonderful." She twisted her hands together and released a dreamy sigh.

Oh, yes, he remembered running after Caleb and Elle, struggling to divert some catastrophe. Pocketing the nail, he offered a tight smile. "I have a lot of work—"

"Work?"

"The fisheries laboratory. Out on the point."

"Oh." She slumped.

Across the way, the door to Elle's
school opened, and a young woman stepped outside. No sign of Elle. Shrugging a bead of sweat down his neck, Noah barely harnessed a sigh of relief.

Meredith cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered, "I have to go. Miss Ellie is a stickler for punctuation."

Noah laughed; he couldn't help it. "I'm sure she is."

"Bye, Noah. Maybe I'll see you later." Lifting her skirt, she danced down the stairs, a wad of peach cloth clamped in each fist. "Maybe even at the festival."

He followed her progress through the overgrown grass, all the while marveling at the peculiarity, the sheer fickleness, of women. With the toe of his boot, he located the nail Elle had snagged her skirt on yesterday. Lifting the hammer, he pounded it in deep.

Elle settled her shoulder against the doorjamb below and took advantage of her luck. Dove gray clouds crowded the sky, dimming the flood of sunlight streaming over Noah. He shifted, knee flexing as he put his weight on it, and clamped a nail between his teeth. As he skimmed his fingers along the step above him, the muscles in his shoulders bunched beneath pressed blue cotton. She smiled; he looked dressed for church, not repairs. Swiping his wrist across his brow, he tilted his head enough for her to study his shaded profile, to determine the changes ten years had brought.

An air of masculinity, to be sure. Grooves chalked a mouth she would call virile and beautiful. Faint lines spreading from eyes the color of wood smoke. Gaze moving lower, she noted firm ridges of muscle in his arms and his thighs.

Looking away, she drew a breath of humid air and leaned in to see Meredith diligently working on her assignment. A pretty girl, a tad young, but not
too
young. Elle had seen Noah laughing with her. If he asked her to the Spring Tide Festival, Elle would have to watch him hold the girl against his chest and—

You must get that boy out of your mind, Marielle-Claire.

Her father's warning pounded through her, in time with Noah's hammer blows. She recognized the danger here. For her, Noah would always be a swift route to heartache. Corroborating the hazard, he shifted and the play of movement stretched his trousers over his firm buttocks.

"What are you doing?" she shouted, moving across the yard and climbing the coach house staircase with the grace and speed of a madwoman.

He shouldered a bead of sweat from his cheek and spit a nail into his gloved palm. "Hammering."

"Yes, I can see that. No need. And if there are repairs that need to be done, I can do them."

A gust of wind chose that moment to race in from the ocean and slap a loose shutter against the house. Noah lifted a tawny brow, the edges of his lips curling. "You're doing a fine job."

"The school takes most of my time. Besides, I'm not really very handy. Well, Widow Wynne can't afford workers and neither can—"

"A deal, Elle."

"Deal?" Clearing her throat, she forced the nip of suspicion aside. Deals created by men never seemed to get women anywhere in her experience.

He braced his elbows on his knees, dipped his head, and laughed. A stray lock of hair on the crown fluttered like a flag. Elle twisted her fingers in the folds of her skirt to keep her hands from wandering where they shouldn't. "What kind of deal?"

Noah's head lifted, his eyes warm and clear. "Don't look so dubious. This isn't one of Caleb's deals. You don't have to worry about it biting you in...." He laughed again and rubbed his hand over his mouth. "You don't have to worry, that's all I'm saying. I worked as a laborer to put myself through university, so I'm qualified. I'll purchase the supplies and complete the repairs in exchange for help I'm going to need for the next month. Someone to transcribe my notes. A student of yours, possibly."

"There is one student." She worried her lip between her teeth. "Annie's trying to improve her penmanship, which is adequate, but her reading skills are good. Only, this sounds like a lousy deal for you. You pay for the materials
and
do the work?"

"Let me worry about that. You can't ignore the repairs any longer. This blessed place is collapsing around you." He nudged his spectacles higher on the slope of his nose. "And my notes aren't complicated, simple details concerning the lab's construction. I'm to wire Chicago once a week with a report. Took it by this morning, and the telegraph operator wasn't able to read my handwriting."