A Wild Yearning (36 page)

Delia jerked her gaze from his, finding a sudden fascination with the flames in the hearth. "It's late and you girls should be in bed," she said in a voice that croaked. Ty started to get up, but Delia stopped him. "No. I'll see to them. I've been sitting about all day long and I feel the need to stretch."

When she came back down after tucking the girls in bed, she paused in the doorway to look at him. They had not lit the tallow dip, so the only light in the room was the fire. He lay sprawled before it, sitting on the bench with his back braced against the table. He'd discarded the blanket, and his chest was bared to the flames. He had drawn a tankard of spruce beer from the brew kettle in the corner and it rested in his lap. He looked rumpled and lazy and adorable.

A log on the fire fell with a burst of sparks and a licking of flame. He turned, fixing her with eyes that seared her with their intensity.

"They went right to sleep," she said.
Damn, why did her voice keep croaking like a frog's?

"That's good." Draining the tankard of beer, he set it on the table. It was so quiet she could hear the ticking of Mary's lantern clock and the sound of the rain dripping off the eaves. For the moment the wind had eased.

She came into the room, although she didn't sit down. "They'll probably wake up in the middle of the night though, screaming about cannibal giants who devour little girls."

His mouth slanted into a delightful, lopsided smile... and her heart flipped over.

"Glooscap will watch over them." He stretched his legs out, linking his fingers behind his head, elbows spread wide. The movement rippled the muscles on his chest and exposed the dark shadow of the hair beneath his arms to her fascinated gaze.

The room suddenly seemed too small. They hadn't touched once all evening, not even accidentally. Yet she had never been more aware of him than she was at this very moment. Nor more aware of how much she loved him. And how much she wanted him.

She could barely breathe from the pressure in her chest. "Ty, I thank you for all you've done today. But it's not right... your being here now. I think you ought to leave."

His eyes blazed up at her so fierce and hot she had to stiffen her spine to keep from swaying. "What are you afraid of?"

"You," she whispered throatily. "And myself."

His arms fell as he straightened, slowly. He stood, bringing himself up right next to her. He still didn't touch her, but he might as well have. He was stripping her naked with his eyes.

"I love you," he said.

For a moment a fierce joy flooded her, so raw and bright it was like the sudden flare of a pitch torch. Then reality returned. And with it anger.

She slapped him, hard. So hard his head snapped to the side and he emitted a tiny grunt of surprise. When he swung his face back around she hit him again, on the other cheek this time, and harder.

She would have slapped him a third time except she realized he was doing nothing to defend himself. He stood rigid before her, his hair tumbling over his brow, his face flushed an angry red beneath the gray shadow of his beard. Her palm burned and her heart was splintering into little pieces at her feet.

"I love you," he said again.

"Damn you." She had to gulp in drafts of air to keep from sobbing, from screaming... from dying. "Damn you, damn you, damn you..."

"I love you, Delia," he said a third time. "I know it's too late, but I... I just thought you should know."

He plucked his shirt from the peg where it hung by the fire and headed for the door. He stopped to put his shirt on, along with his boots.

He paused with his hand on the latch. "Delia...?"

"Go!" she screamed at him. "Go! Go! Go! I hate you!"

He went.

But as soon as the door shut, she stumbled after him. Her fingers fumbled with the latch, then stilled. She pressed her cheek against the wood and slid slowly to her knees, moaning and crying his name.

The nor'easter blew for three days. It brought with it two gifts from the sea.

They heard about the gifts when the militiamen returned on the sloop from Wells. Lobsters, the men said. Lobsters in such numbers had been washed ashore that they could be collected by the wagonload and used as fertilizer for the fields. And something else had come with the tide as well—a cannon off a shipwrecked French privateer.

All of Merrymeeting gathered on the green with their carts and wagons for the trip down to the beach. Just as they were about to set off, Ty rode out of the forest on his pacer, looking —in his fringed buckskins, knee-high moccasins, and fox-fur cap—more savage than the wilderness from which he'd emerged. Delia's eyes went immediately to him, but when he turned in her direction she quickly found something on the other side of the green to engage her fascinated attention.

He loves you!
her heart sang, a refrain it had been singing for three days.
He loves you!

And then, as always, came the dirge that would cause her eyes to burn with tears and her chest to feel tight and weighted with despair.
Too late. Too late. Too late.

"You ever been to a clambake, Delia?" Nat asked. He sat on the cart seat beside her, relaxed and smiling for a change.

Her husband.

Delia forced a smile and shook her head. "No, I never have, Nat. It sounds like fun."

Too late. Too late. Too late.

"And good eating too." He turned to Meg and Tildy, who sat, legs stretched out, in back of the cart. "Isn't that right, girls?"

Nat had been softening lately. Although they were still solemn, the haunted look had left his gray eyes and on occasion he even managed a few smiles. Delia had expected him to scold her over her carelessness with the ax, but he'd appeared more genuinely concerned than angry. He'd reacted that way as well after she'd nearly drowned herself trying to rescue Tildy's doll.

"There's a goodness in you, Delia," he had said that evening just before bed. "A real goodness. It shows especially with the girls. They're coming to love you. Even Meg," he'd added, producing a half-smile. Then his eyes had searched her face as if seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time.

The ten-mile trail to the beach was nothing but a pair of parallel cart ruts. As they followed the estuary, Delia could see that, indeed, thousands of lobsters had been washed ashore during the storm. They carpeted the ground, their shiny gray shells glinting wetly in the sunlight. Many still lived and the earth seemed to be undulating like waves with their movement.

By the time they arrived at the beach the carts were filled with the lobsters. Snagged between two lichen-covered rocks among debris from the wrecked ship awaited the sea's second gift—a cast-iron, three-pound cannon. The men gathered around it, talking excitedly among themselves, for one shot from such a weapon would scare off a whole tribe of Abenaki on the warpath.

"We could drag her back to the blockhouse with an ox team," Colonel Bishop said, rubbing one ruddy cheek. "She's been partly spiked. Do you think you could get her to fire, Sam?"

The red-headed blacksmith caressed the cannon's barrel almost lovingly. "Aye. But we haven't any shot. Too bad that French bang-boat didn't part with the cannonballs while she was givin' us the cannon."

"She'll discharge a load of musket balls though and that can be just as effective," Ty said. He glanced up in time to catch Delia's gaze on him. She glared, then looked away. "All we need is a fuse and powder," he finished, frowning at Delia's stiff back.

With the wagons loaded down with the crustacean fertilizer and the cannon dispensed with at least in theory, the folk of Merrymeeting settled down for the main event of the day—the clambake.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a "bake". Usually in the summer months a fog bank lay like a dirty gray blanket just off the shore. But the storm had blown away the fog and the horizon where sea met sky was a sharp blue line. The air was clear enough to ring and the sun bright enough to blind the eyes, and sea birds slashed and wheeled across the cloudless sky.

As they would need several fires for their "bake," the settlers split into groups. Nat led Delia and the girls over to their neighbors, the Sewalls, and soon they were joined by Sam and Hannah Randolf and their brood. Delia was amazed to find Hannah up and about already. The women ooohed and aaahed over the new baby, who was nestled snugly within a pilgrim basket, sucking on a pap bag. Meg and young Daniel Randolf immediately got into an argument over who could eat the most clams.

Delia was sure Ty would soon amble over to their fire and she tried to arrange her face into the mask of polite indifference she intended to present him with that day. She waited, tense with anticipation, her eyes following his every move while pretending not to.

He joined the Bishops instead.

Each group laid stones in a circle and kindling on top. The fires were lit with a tinderbox—a quick strike of steel against flint, a flare of gunpowder, a glowing wick held to bits of birch bark. Armloads of wood were piled on the flames until the fires blazed. The stones had to get good and hot.

At low tide they walked the shingled beach, raking the sand and mud for clams to the accompaniment of the roaring, booming breakers, for the surf was high because of the storm. Delia had uncovered a small green crab and was poking it with a stick when a familiar voice behind her said, "Be careful, Delia-girl. Those are mean little devils. They latch onto a toe or finger, and they don't let go."

She straightened with a snap and started off down the beach away from him. His hand fell on her arm, jerking her around. The abrupt movement pulled the stitches in her thigh and she set her teeth in a cry of pain.

Ty's eyes bored into hers, unrelentingly fierce. "Do you intend to spend the whole day alternating between glowering at me in fury and pretending to ignore me?"

"You flatter yourself, Dr. Savitch. Until this moment I hadn't noticed you were here."

"We have to talk," Ty said between his teeth.

"I can't imagine what we could have to say. Oh, perhaps you wish to discuss your recompense for sewing up my leg. I'll speak with my
husband
about it. We're a little short of hard money at the moment, so would a couple of chickens suffice? Or perhaps a suckling pig?"

Ty ground his jaws. "Damn it, Delia—"

"Excuse me, doctor, but I see my
husband
is trying to get my attention." She brushed past him, hurrying toward Nat, who was busy untangling a bright orange starfish from Tildy's hair and not even looking in her direction.

By the time the clams were gathered, the fires had reduced themselves to embers. The hot stones were swept off with a spruce limb and the buckets of clams were dumped on top the stones. Onto the clams went lobsters and over it all a pile of rockweed to hold in the steam.

When the seafood had been cooked and eaten, and washed down by jugs of cider and spruce beer, the settlers began to gather up their children and gear, preparing for the journey home. Delia looked carefully to be sure Ty wasn't watching her.

He wasn't. He was over by the cannon, deep in conversation with Colonel Bishop and Sam Randolf, no doubt planning how to haul the weapon back to Merrymeeting. Convinced there was no danger of his following her, she told Nat where she was going and struck off down the beach, limping a little on her sore leg. She had been puzzled by something all afternoon and she wanted to get a closer look at it.

"It" was an enormous mound of oyster shells, higher and broader than any building she had ever seen. Guano covered the mound like a thick dusting of snow. Periwinkles had burrowed into the crevices and in places white barnacles were glued to the packed shells in bands. She ran her palm over the tightly packed shells, rough and sharp and smooth in turn. She couldn't imagine how such a thing had come to be there. Surely the mound had been created by man, for it was too unnatural to be a product of nature. But if man made this oyster-shell mountain, toward what purpose? There was an ancient, mysterious feel to it; she thought it had been there for years, perhaps centuries.

She felt his presence before she saw him. She turned slowly to face him. The most beautiful man she had ever seen, all the man she could possibly want, the man she loved. The man who had said, too late, too late, that he loved her.

"Delia—"

"Don't you dare tell me you love me, because I bloody well don't want to hear it."

"I love you!" He had practically shouted it into her face, and Delia cast a panicked look back down the beach, fearful the others had heard. She whirled around, limping toward another mountain of shells. He followed.

When she got within ten feet of the mound, she stopped. She had to tilt her head way back to see the top. She flapped her hand at it. "What the bloody hell are these things?"

"Nobody knows. They were made by people who lived here thousands of years ago. The Abenaki call them the oyster-shell people, but no one knows what they did with all those oysters, whether they ate them or used them for fertilizer or—"

"How long?"

Ty shrugged and a lock of hair fell across his brow. "Nobody knows—"

"How long have you loved me?"

His intense eyes searched her face. "Since that afternoon on Falmouth Neck. Maybe since I came upon you fishing with that old Indian. Hell, maybe since I first looked down on you sprawled so indecently and seductively on my bed."

"You bloody bastard. Why did you wait so long to tell me? Instead you kept shouting in my face that you
didn't
love me, and you let me go and
marry
another man. Well, I hope you're bloody miserable now. I hope you're suffering."

"I am suffering, Delia."

He looked it. His skin had a greenish tinge and his eyes were bloodshot. Dark bruises marked the hollows above his sharp cheekbones. He looked as if he was suffering from the aftereffects of too many flips.

And a broken heart,
her own heart cried.

"I'm suffering, Delia," he said again.

"Good!"

She whipped around and headed further down the beach, picking her way through the gleaming piles of brown, rubbery rockweed exposed by the tide. She stumbled over one and he steadied her with a hand under her elbow. She jerked it free.

"What are you doing following me like this? Do you want all of Merrymeeting to know you're lusting after your neighbor's wife?" In fact, they were out of sight of the others now, the oyster-shell mounds blocking their view of the clambake fires.

"I'm not lusting after you," Ty said.

"Bloody hell you're not."

"Stop cursing. You sound worse than a—"

"Grog shop wench?" She stopped and turned to face him.

She pulled off her cap, tossing her head, and the wind snatched at her hair, billowing it about her face in a smoky cloud. She stood before him and she knew—with the sun capturing the red lights in her hair, setting it afire, and the wind whipping roses into her cheeks, and the sea spray moistening her lips—she knew that she was beautiful.

She watched his eyes grow dark with desire, saw his breath quicken and the pulse in his neck begin to throb. And she knew, too, what she would find if she looked down.

Deliberately, she let her eyes fall to his crotch. His sex, thick and rigid, strained against the confines of his tight breeches. Proof of his hunger, of his need, of his desire.

She stared at it for a long moment, then let her gaze travel slowly back up his chest, to his face, where a band of hot color stained his cheekbones. She almost felt sorry for him then. Because, being a man, he couldn't hide what he felt. He couldn't know that beneath her heavy short gown her breasts were tightening, that beneath her petticoat her knees were quaking, that between her legs... between her legs was a hot, wet craving that ached to be satisfied.

She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself—which drew Ty's eyes down to her breasts, and his blush deepened.

"All right, damn it, I am lusting after you," he ground out, with a soft moan. "But, Jesus, Delia, there's more to it than that. I love you. I want to live with you, to marry you."

"I'm married to Nat."

"You don't love Nat!"

"How I feel about my husband is none of your business."

He had turned half away from her, but he spun back around. His arm snaked out and he crushed her against him, bringing his mouth down over hers before she could draw breath to protest.

And then it was too late for protesting. She didn't even offer token resistance—her emotions were too raw, her body too vulnerable. He kissed her and she kissed him back, ravenously, plundering his mouth with her tongue, opening her own mouth to his sweet, hot invasion. When the kiss finally ended, they were both gasping for air, and she had knotted her fingers into his shirt to keep from sinking into the sand at his feet.

He turned his cheek, rubbing it in her hair. "Ah, Delia my love, my life. Come away with me—"

"I
can't.
You know I can't," she cried, her face contorted with misery. She had wanted to make him suffer, to make him ache with love as she had ached. But revenge wasn't sweet; it was bitter, bitter, and she was the one who was aching and suffering. "I can't," she moaned.