Sea of Christmas Miracles (4 page)

Using all her strength Margaret straightened
the tiller enough to hook the rope around it. Then, holding on to
the side of the wildly tossing boat she reached beneath the seat
for the small stash of necessities she’d packed. The knife handle
was slippery and she dropped it into the ankle-deep water in the
bottom of the boat.

Plunging her hand into the freezing water she
grabbed the knife and scrambled toward him, knocking her knee
against the side as she did. She flipped off the sodden blanket,
then began sawing at the rope that bound his hands, her movements
jerky. When the hemp snapped he yanked his hands free, flexing his
fingers and reaching for the knife. Their eyes met, holding
momentarily, before she let loose her grip.

If he planned to have his revenge there was
nothing she could do about it now. Margaret braced herself, but he
ignored her. Quickly he sliced through the ropes around his ankles,
then scrambled past her to the rudder. He slipped it free of its
tether and yanked hard, forcing the small craft toward shore.

They were perhaps a mile from land. Margaret
caught glimpses of trees through the blinding rain that pelted the
small craft.

“We’re taking on a lot of water. Bail!”

Margaret heard him bellow and looked around.
He simply yelled at her again.

Floating in the ever-rising water that filled
the bottom of the shallop was a tin of peppermints. She’d planned
to drop one of the candies into the toe of each child’s Christmas
stocking. Now she simply dumped the brightly colored mints into the
swirling water and began scooping with the empty tin.

Seawater was pouring over the sides so
quickly that she couldn’t keep up. Margaret knew it wasn’t her
imagination that the small boat was riding lower in the crashing
waves.

She glanced toward Thomas. He stood, bent
over the rudder, using all his strength to keep them heading toward
the shoreline.

“Not much farther,” he yelled, and Margaret
had a moment of hope. Perhaps they would escape a watery grave. She
quickly tossed a tinful of frothy liquid overboard.

The next moment she looked up to see a wall
of water descending on her. Her scream only forced her to gulp a
mouthful of saltwater. Then she was falling, swirling about in the
churning foam.

“Margaret!” Thomas leaped to the side of the
boat and stared over the side. He could see nothing but gray, icy
water. “Margaret!” He gave one fleeting glance toward the
shoreline. “Oh, hell,” he yelled as he jumped overboard.

Thomas thought he was cold before, but now
the chill was numbing. He forced his arms and legs to move. The
saltwater stung his eyes and he tried to keep some orientation as
to which way was up as he searched through the churning water, but
he could see nothing. His lungs burned and felt ready to explode.
Knowing he should try to make it to the surface, Thomas’s mind
rebelled. Just one more second...

“God’s blood, boy, the wench is there, by
your hand.” As unbelievable as it was Thomas
knew
he heard a
voice yelling in his ear. His arm jerked out, almost of its own
accord, his fingers tangling with something silky. Maggie’s
hair.

He pulled, grabbing for more to hold on to.
When his hand found her arm he hung on tight and kicked. Pushing
against the turbulence, he forced them toward the surface.

His first gulp of air was painfully sweet.
Then he thrust Margaret up above the crashing waves. He didn’t know
if it did any good. She was limp and unconscious. He hoped it was
only that. If she were dead.... Thomas didn’t want to think of
that. He did his best to keep her head above water, a near
impossibility, as he twisted around looking for the boat. It was
nowhere to be found. He couldn’t even tell which way the shore was.
The waves were so high that at first he couldn’t see anything but
water and more water.

Then a spear of lightning lit the heavens,
illuminating a staggered array of windswept palmettos. The vision
was gone before he could be certain it wasn’t just that—a vision of
his imagination. But Thomas kicked, sending him toward the
spot.

It seemed as if he’d been in the water
forever. He couldn’t feel his arms and legs and only hoped his
brain was sending out the correct signals to get him moving toward
shore. The white-capped waves buffeted him around, negating much of
his progress.

Thomas tried as hard as he could, but the
edges of his world were turning gray and there didn’t seem to be
anything he could do about it. He tried thinking of his family. Of
how devastated they would be when they heard of his death. Of how
he should have planned to go home for Christmas. Tomorrow was
Christmas Eve. They’d all gather in the parlor, his mother and
father, his sister Merry and her brood.

Then his disoriented thoughts wondered to the
woman he was towing. Margaret Howe Lewis. She was a strange one.
Desperate and impassioned. About what he didn’t know. Whatever her
cause. Whatever the reason she’d kidnapped him, he’d never know.
Just like he’d never see those full lips smile. He’d never kiss
them.

Inexplicably the thought saddened him. It
made him almost as sad as never seeing his family again. Foolish.
Foolish. His mind was leaving him. Just like his arms and legs
already had. He tried to tighten his grip but wasn’t even certain
he was still dragging Margaret with him.

He couldn’t go any farther.

The water felt warm... almost soothing. Like
when he was a boy and floated on his back in the blue-green waters
beyond the breakers. He’d stare up at the clouds and imagine he was
drifting up. Now he’d drift up with Margaret. Maybe he’d see her
smile then. Maybe....

“God’s blood, boy, you’re almost there. A
Blackstone doesn’t give up.”

“What?” Thomas jerked his eyes open, when he
heard the voice again. The same one that had told him to reach out
to find Margaret. Gone was the warm water and the comfortable, safe
feeling. His arms and legs were so cold, they burned and he was
fighting a cruel and unforgiving sea. “Who’s there? Who said that?”
Thomas used precious strength to yell into the storm. The only
response was the howling of the wind, the roar of the sea.

He didn’t think he’d ever been so angry. How
dare someone yell at him like that and make him go through this
torture. He should—“Ouch! Damn it!” Thomas’s knee hit something
hard that sent pain searing through his body. When his free hand
flailed out he encountered sand. The shore! He didn’t think he had
the strength to stand, but after crawling forward, he managed to
push to his feet.

And Margaret was with him. Thomas dragged her
onto the beach, pulling her far enough so that she was out of the
pounding surf. But the rain still pelted both of them.

“Margaret!” Thomas dropped to his knees in
the sand. Her face was ashen in the surreal light of the storm.
Thomas brushed aside the strands of sodden hair and bent close,
listening for her breathing. He could hear nothing.

“Margaret,” he yelled her name again, cursing
the storm and the woman, rolling her onto her stomach with hands
that were numb with cold. “Margaret.” He kept calling her name as
he pushed on her ribs. Over and over again. “Damn it, Margaret,
wake up!”

When she started coughing he didn’t think
he’d ever heard a sweeter sound. “Oh God, Maggie.” He twisted her
around bending her over his arm. Hugging her lithe body to his when
she finally stopped retching up seawater.

Her eyes were large and dazed as she looked
at him. She’d lost the spectacles during their ordeal. “Cold,” she
mumbled before shivers consumed her.

What was he thinking? They might have
survived the sea, but they were far from safe. They were both
soaked to the skin, and freezing. If he didn’t find them some
shelter, they would surely die of exposure.

But there was nothing. Nothing.

Thomas staggered to his feet, squinting
through the rain. Perhaps under the trees—Lightning again sizzled
the air. He stopped and stared hard. It wasn’t possible, but he
thought he saw...

Scooping up Margaret he stumbled forward. It
had to be a mirage. They couldn’t be so lucky as to come ashore
near a small cabin. But as he struggled closer, Thomas realized,
impossible or not, it was true.

Even in the storm-darkness he recognized the
place. He’d been here often enough as a child. First with his
father to visit the ancient Indian, Natee, then later by
himself.

There was a ramshackle porch that kept most
of the rain off Thomas as he pushed through the door. He knew
there’d be no one there, Natee died nearly ten years ago, passing
on to the Great Unknown as he’d called it.

Inside things were much as he remembered. One
shuttered window allowed very little light inside, but Thomas knew
the room. It was sparsely furnished, the way Natee liked it. A
table and chairs were off in a corner beside an old wood stove that
Thomas and his father brought down here after the old Indian
complained of the cold the winter Thomas was eleven. Natee had
rebelled against using it until Devon Blackstone, Thomas’s father,
started a fire, demonstrating how much warmer the cabin was.

The pile of bedding in the corner was
leaf-littered, but Thomas didn’t think Margaret would even notice.
He set her down gently, then looked around for a way to start a
fire. There was kindling stacked by the stove, bone dry as if it
had been there for the decade since the old man’s death. Thomas
imagined it had. He found some matches, then held his hands out
toward the warmth radiating from the dusty iron as the flames
licked up around the wood.

After shaking out the bedding, freeing it of
as much debris as he could, he arranged a pallet close to the
stove. Even after moving Margaret onto the blankets she continued
to shiver beneath her sodden clothes. Deciding it was for
her
own well-being, Thomas leaned over and began unfastening
the score of tiny buttons that marched down the front of her coat.
His hands were still numb and fumbling. She hung limp-armed as he
lifted her to remove the soaked garment. Her blouse, with its
mutton-leg sleeves also sported an array of tiny buttons that
challenged Thomas’s near frozen fingers.

He expected to tackle her corset next, but
there was none, only a woolen undergarment that started at her neck
and covered her arms. With this she wore a pair of woolen
knickerbockers. Thomas had undressed his share of women, but he’d
never uncovered such a strange and decidedly unprovocative
hodgepodge of underclothing.

Which was just as well, he told himself,
because he wasn’t interested in anything but warming up the
indomitable Miss Lewis. Still, as he stripped her bare, he had to
constantly remind himself of that. Swallowing, forcing himself to
remember they’d just barely escaped with their lives, Thomas
flipped a moth-eaten woolen blanket over her.

Turning his back he removed his own wet
clothes, hanging everything as best he could over the table and
chairs so they’d dry. Then trying not to recall the way she’d
looked lying naked on the pallet, Thomas slipped in beside her.

He lay perfectly still listening to the fury
of the storm, the crackle of the fire, the sounds of her chattering
teeth. Or was that his own? Even out of his wet clothes and with
the fire, he was chilled to the bone. And he was sure she was,
too.

He was doing this for her own good. Thomas
kept telling himself that as he inched toward her. She came
willingly when he reached for her. Wrapping his arms around her
Thomas cuddled her body against his. Heat seemed to blossom between
them. Closing his eyes he tried to sleep, but all he could think of
was the feel of her... and the unexplained voice he’d heard
earlier.

Thomas woke with the uncomfortable feeling
someone was watching him. It only took a slight twist of his head
to realize someone was. Margaret Howe Lewis stared at him, her soft
gray eyes dream shadowed. It was barely dawn, and he could still
hear the drumming of rain overhead. The cabin was chilly, the fire
burned down, but Thomas did nothing about adding more wood. He
simply stared back, entranced.

Not entranced, Thomas corrected. Women didn’t
entrance him. He responded to them on a physical level. And there
were times he’d been captivated by their beauty. But entranced?
Ridiculous. Still, he couldn’t seem to look away, and although she
was definitely prettier than he’d first thought, it wasn’t that
that held him.

Thomas couldn’t say why he lay there, staring
into her eyes, hardly able to breathe. No more than he could reason
why he risked his life to rescue a kidnapper, or why he heard a
voice while doing it.

Then she smiled, a soft, sleepy smile and he
felt a tightening around his heart. He remembered thinking of her
smile when it looked as if they would both die. Thinking he never
saw it, and never would. Knowing now that braving the stormy sea
was worth it.