Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (22 page)

A gentle surf lapped at the beach where Hannah and Drew stood to take their vows before Judge Jeremy Eckler, Roger Mayfield, and a pelican perched on a driftwood log. The bride wore her mother's powder blue silk wedding gown, the groom a set of clothing taken from the clothesline before being completely dry. Neither bride nor groom wore shoes; both wore smiles of utter joy.

Roger Mayfield cried with unabashed fanfare when his daughter promised to love, cherish, and never, ever again leave her husband. Judge Jeremy watched the seagulls diving for their supper and whistled softly when the groom took his direction "Now kiss your bride" to record lengths.

The mood was rushed as Mayfield and Jeremy boarded their sailboat for the trip to Galveston. As father of the bride, Roger wanted to be well away from Wild Horse Island before his baby girl went to her marriage bed. Such things did a father no good to consider. At the same time, as president of the Texas Historical Preservation Society, he was near bursting with excitement at the thought of retrieving the Declaration of Independence from his new son-in-law's safe.

Jeremy Eckler was in a hurry to leave, too. As payment for his judicial services, Drew had gifted him with an entire set of Castaway Bait Company fishing lures. Jeremy intended to turn the wheel over to Mayneld on the trip up the coast and get in a few hours' trolling. "I like the looks of that Lone Star Bobber," he called to Drew as the boat slipped its mooring.

"It's a good one," Drew agreed, keeping his arms wrapped around his bride.

"I prefer the Musky Wriggler, myself," Hannah said, snuggling back against her husband.

They watched and waved until the sailboat disappeared from sight. Drew turned to his wife and said, "Well, Mrs. Coryell. We have about an hour before dark. Any ideas on how you would like to spend the time?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

He grinned, took her hand, and started to lead her toward the cabin. Hannah, however, planted her feet and refused to go. "I want to go fishing."

"You what?" he snapped.

"Yes." She tugged his tie free, then began to work the buttons of his shirt. "You see, Mr. Coryell, I am an avid angler, and I am searching for that perfect lure, a unique bait that will be mine and mine alone."

Drew both relaxed and tensed as she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, then turned her attentions to the button at his waistband. "I suspect that as president of the Castaway Bait Company, you might have just what I've been looking for."

"You think so?" Drew rasped as her fingers worked her magic and his pants dropped to the ground.

"Oh, my. Oh, yes. I knew it." Hannah's eyes twinkled wickedly as she dropped to her knees before him and said, "Now that, Drew Coryell, is what I call an eight-inch Throbbing Bob."

Geralyn Dawson lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband and three children. She loves college football, hates sorting socks, makes a mean bowl or chili, and wishes her sons would shave their sideburns.

Geralyn won the National Readers' Choice Award for
The Wedding Raffle
and was a finalist for Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award for
The Wedding Raffle, The Bad Luck Wedding Dress
, and
The Bad Luck Wedding Cake. Romantic Times
magazine has recognized her work with nominations for a Career Achievement Award and Reviewers' Choice Awards.

Her books reflect her strong belief in the power of love and laughter. You can write Geralyn at P.O. Box 37126, Fort Worth, Texas 76117, S.A.S.E always appreciated, or e-mail her via her homepage at
http://www.GeralynDawson.com

Cornwall

1843

People in these parts still talk about the ruination of Miss Sydney Eloise Windsor, a lovely professor's daughter from London.

Her downfall had been Wicked DeWilde's saving grace.

Some of the older villagers swore she was the spirit of a drowned Burgundian princess. They said she had been brought back to life by an ancient warlord whose ghost haunted the cove of St. Kilmerryn. The desolate knight had waited for centuries for this woman. On foggy nights his figure stood sentry on the cliffs, searching the sea for her lost ship.

Sydney looked nothing like a Burgundian princess. At least not until the warlord gave her the gold torque, which she only wore to bed, with nothing else, to seduce her husband.

Still, this was Cornwall, the land of maidens turned to stone on the moor for dancing on Sundays, the land of giants and the Secret Folk. Anything could happen here, and often it did.

People in these parts did like to talk over a furze fire, and DeWilde Manor with its unconventional master and mistress had provided plenty of fodder for that.

There was that great black dog who adored her ladyship for one thing, and the terrifying stories that poured from Lord DeWilde's pen. Not to mention the demon that her ladyship had ghost-layed in a burial cairn, and the duel his lordship had fought, over her honor, in his drawers.

With only an apple pie as a weapon.

It had all started with a shipwreck.

Sydney had been taking a nap when Jeremy had run the yacht onto the rocks. So, apparently, had Jeremy, or he would have been paying more attention. But the four passengers were wide-awake now, wondering if they were to be drowned or dashed to death on a spine of submerged rocks. Sydney thought of her family and how they would miss her.

She didn't have time to be afraid when they ran aground. She was too busy bailing water out of the yacht with a soup tureen. She could hear her friends, trapped somewhere above, shouting for help. Twilight had just fallen. A wave of icy water knocked her across the cabin. She fell into the wall and started to lose consciousness.

Her last impression was of a blue light flooding the cabin and the sense of a man's gauntleted hand lifting her to safety.

She never saw his face. Nor did the others when she thought to ask them about it. The light had disappeared by the time the yacht had washed ashore, and she decided she'd probably imagined the whole thing after all.

It had been a recipe for disaster, Sydney thought as she fished her soggy reticule from the wreckage: a full liquor cabinet and four young fools in a racing yacht blown off course by a squall into a treacherous crosscurrent on the Cornish coast. Her friends might be good fun, but they had a total disregard for common sense, and Sydney was never going to get in a situation like this again.

"Who put all these rocks here where I couldn't see 'em?" her friend Jeremy, Lord Westland, shouted.

Jeremy's young wife, Audrey, a trim blonde whose father owned the yacht, gave him a shove. "Freddie's lying in his cabin half-dead. Save him and stop that shouting like a woman."

Sydney shoved her dripping hair from her face. "He isn't half-dead. He's half-drunk. I tried to lift him, but he refuses to be budged. I left his head resting in the commode. At least he can get air."

"It's a wonder we weren't all killed," Audrey exclaimed, emptying water from the tiny heels of her fashionable silk shoes.

Her cousin Freddie popped up between the ruins of mast and auxiliary sails. "I say, did we beat His Grace?"

"Not only did we not beat him, Freddie, but we're shipwrecked," Jeremy said.

"Shipwrecked?" Freddie stared in disbelief at the ocean breakers crashing over the damaged wooden hull. "Well, blister me. I had no idea."

Sydney picked a path across the silk-tasseled cushions and splintered timber to take refuge on the rocky shore. "My father predicted something like this would happen."

"Well, if you knew we were going to be shipwrecked on the godforsaken coast of Cornwall, you should have warned us," Audrey said sourly.

Freddie wobbled up between the two women, a bottle of gin under each arm. "Exactly where on the godforsaken coast of Cornwall are we?"

"The locals call it Devil's Elbow," a deep voice said behind him.

"Devil's Elbow?" Jeremy scratched his head. "I don't suppose they have a decent supper room or hotel here."

"They do not," the deep voice said, openly amused this time.

"Who said that?" Sydney whispered.

"Maybe it was the devil," Freddie ventured. "After all, this is his elbow."

The foursome turned in unison, heads lifting to the bleak wall of diff that rose before them. Fog drifted in swatches across the cove. Dusky shadows distorted shapes and made everything look out of proportion.

The dog sitting on the shelf of overhanging rock, for example, looked like the mythical monster Cerberus guarding the gate to the underworld.

Audrey gasped and backed into her husband.

Her husband rubbed his eyes at the apparition, or whatever it was.

Freddie took a drink, gaping like a carp.

"Oh, dear," Sydney said, hiccoughing loudly.

The dog wagged its tail and began to bark.

"Look," Audrey whispered, "there's a house on the cliff. The dog must belong there."

A brooding granite Georgian mansion with corner turrets sat on the cliff edge in lonely grandeur. Gaslight glowed behind the leaded windows, creating an aura of seclusion and mystery.

"Civilization," Freddie said, sighing in relief.

"That," the deep voice said dryly, "is a matter of opinion."

The tall form of a man detached itself from an unseen path carved into the cliff. He wore an unbuttoned black overcoat with narrow trousers and polished boots, and he moved with power and purpose. His lean face tightened in amusement as he came close enough to examine the four survivors.

Sydney suppressed the urge to stare at him and marvel over his athletic build. They were going to need a strong man to repair the yacht. The fact that he was as handsome as sin was completely irrelevant. She was betrothed to another man, and she had no business noticing such things as a square jaw and compelling gray eyes and shoulders of granite.

"What good luck that you've found us, sir," she said energetically. "Our yacht is—"

"—ruined." He strode around her, poking his ebony cane at a brass chandelier that glinted like a mermaid's offering in a tidal pool. " Ruined beyond the slightest hope of redemption."

"Does that mean we're out of the race?" Freddie said, lowering his bottle.

Jeremy blinked, suddenly sober. "Do you mean she can't be fixed?"

"Not by me," the stranger said. His gaze cut back to Sydney, lingering for several seconds on her pale face before it dropped to the bloodstains that had blossomed on her wet skirts.

A wave crested on the shattered hull and threw cold spume into the air. The sea sounded suddenly calm and rhythmic, as if by ruining the yacht some unseen spirit had been appeased.

"Where is that blood coming from?" the man demanded in a voice one could hardly ignore.

"I banged my knee up a bit when we ran aground," she said meekly, responding to his masterful tone.

Audrey looked at her in concern. "Sydney doesn't weigh a shilling. She flew across the cabin when we ran aground, but she's too well-mannered to complain."

"Or too drunk," Freddie said.

The stranger came up to Sydney, gently lifting her skirts up to her knee. Sydney knew she ought to protest this impropriety, but no sound came out of her throat. Audrey was watching her in horror. But all Sydney could think was,
Oh! His touch is making me tingle all over, and what luck I'm wearing my new stockings
.