Tides of Honour (13 page)

She climbed into the middle of the bed, sitting up so she could still see the view of the sparkling ocean outside the window, and set one hand gently on his stump. Not with curiosity but with a calm sort of possession. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. Danny stiffened at her touch, embarrassed, and she felt his immediate urge to pull away. She'd expected the impulse, and she didn't release him. It was so important that he feel what she was doing. Her fingers slid smoothly over the scars, holding him in place while he gripped the sheets.

“Audrey.” His hoarse whisper was urgent, pleading, but she didn't say anything, just kept staring out at the sea, touching his leg.

Eventually the grip of his fingers on the bed relaxed slightly, and she put both of her hands on the rounded edge of what remained of his leg. She squeezed, gentle but firm, then started moving her thumbs in circular motions over the ugly lines.

From the corner of her eye she saw Danny's eyes almost roll back in his head, and she imagined the waves of pleasure washing through him at her touch. Pain and relief all in one. She kept on, saying nothing but giving him peace as he'd never imagined.

Eventually he opened his eyes, and the calm behind them raised tears in her own.

“Why are you doing that?” His voice was hoarse.

“Do you like it?”

He sighed and closed his eyes as she massaged the forgotten muscle beneath his knee. “You have no idea how much I like it.” This time when his eyes opened, she saw pain. Not from what she was doing but from the hurt in his heart. “But you don't have to. I mean, it's pretty horrible just looking at the thing. It must make you ill, touching it like that.”

“You still don't know me, do you, Danny?” she asked gently. “I want to give you pleasure. And touching you gives me pleasure as well. I see nothing horrible here. I'm touching a part of you, a part which never left you. It's still your leg, and I love every piece of you.”

“Fat lot of good it does me, this thing,” Danny said with a snort.

Her thumbs dug in a little deeper, and his eyes fluttered closed. “This is something small I can give you,” she said, needing him to understand. “I can take away the bad and give you the good for a while. If you had an entire leg, would I be able to give you this?”

“That's a funny way to think of it.”

She shrugged. “I suppose. That's how I think of it.”

For a moment he simply breathed and she imagined swirls of pleasure swooping through his mind like chickadees flitting from tree to tree. “Sure do love you, Audrey,” he whispered.

“I know,” she said with a smile.

Danny Baker

October 1917

TWENTY
-
ONE

October grabbed the mercury and
squeezed it down to temperatures Danny knew well. The frozen air carved lines of ice which divided the harbour, the curves constantly drawn and redrawn by razor-edged winds. Gusts rattled the windows and roared through the trees until they hit the walls with a boom, shaking the foundations of the house.

Danny's wife had never experienced a Canadian winter before. He saw the lines of worry on her face when they blew in hard, but he also saw her fine-boned jaw clench with determination. If everyone else was calm, she would be too.

She was stronger than he was in every way, and he envied her. She seemed to grow braver by the day, while Danny felt his courage crystallizing with the cold. He was a cripple. He would never be able to give her the world, which was what she deserved.

He lay awake for a long time, listening to her fall asleep. Hours later he awoke to darkness, the still of the air telling him morning was far away. Audrey lay awake beside him. He could tell by her breathing, though he could also tell she was trying very hard to be still.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you.”

“I don't mind. Are you okay?”

She rolled toward him, and he felt the pressure of her head against his arm, asking in. He lifted it so she could pass underneath and lay her head on his chest, then he lowered his arm so it fell across her side, pulling her closer, keeping her safe. She didn't say anything for a while.

“Do you ever have trouble sleeping?” she asked.

Danny thought about all the nights when he never caught a wink. When his mind echoed with pounding guns and screams. When his memory showed him nothing but corpses he had been forced to use as stepping stones. When he first saw his leg, lying in the gore, six feet away from where it was supposed to be. How he reached for the leg in his dream. How it was never within his grasp.

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

“I do,” she said. “Sometimes I think I hear the cannons. Sometimes I dream of the planes, those big ugly planes that tore up the sky, and they're circling down to chase me, but I have nowhere to run.”

“Is that what woke you tonight?”

She nodded slightly, and strands of her soft brown hair slid over his chest. “There were soldiers, and they shot you dead . . . but you weren't really dead. You got up and tried to reach my hand, but we kept moving farther apart. Oh, Danny. It was awful. I was all alone.”

Her hair was soft against his chin, tickling it, and he kissed her brow. “You okay now?”

“I'm all right. I'm safe with you.”

Danny tightened his hold on her, but it was more to comfort himself than to reassure her. He wanted to keep her safe, sure. But he'd never admit to her how often he looked to her for stability,
for sanity. She was wrong. It wasn't he who kept her safe. It was she who kept them both alive.

He pressed his lips into her hair and stroked it as she began to doze. He saw the planes, the cannons, the soldiers, the guns, the blood, the oily smoke choking the air . . . and he saw the space between Audrey and him widening. He didn't even try to sleep.

He had never meant to let his disappointment see the light of day. He didn't want her to know. But it simmered so close to the surface sometimes, he wasn't sure he could keep it under the lid. As much as he tried to control himself, sarcastic remarks and quick, unnecessary snarls had begun to spit out and sizzle in the air between them.

Most of the men nearby had gone off for the winter, headed into the backwoods to fell hardwood and sell it to the mill. It was a strange life the shoremen led: half a year in the water, half a year in the bush. Neither job worked for Danny anymore. These days he was useless at anything he'd ever done before.

When he awoke, Audrey was usually there, waiting for him. If he woke up feeling fine, he saw the love in her eyes. He knew deep down that she didn't care if he had any limbs at all. Other times he was cool toward her, wallowing in self-pity, and she would curl up near him but give him room. She never went too far away.

Johnny had started bootlegging a few months back, and he'd made great money on the water while Danny lolled about being Audrey's pet. He'd suggested the idea to Danny, but when he mentioned it to Audrey, it was obvious she didn't like the idea. She was frightened by the stories she'd heard, about ships sinking or getting shot down. About Johnny's friends who had ended up in jail. About men getting killed. And she was right to be afraid. But Danny'd had enough of feeling financially impotent. He was sick of standing back, watching their tiny coffer grow penny by
penny without any help from him. He couldn't fish, couldn't trap. He could work with wood, but fishermen were suffering so much these days, no one could afford to buy a new boat. They patched their old ones up instead. Not that they'd buy one in the winter anyway.

And there was no damn way Danny was going to spend the rest of his life making frames for Audrey's pretty pictures.

Johnny came to him one day with a different idea.

“There's a big opening at the docks,” Johnny told him. Through his connections, Danny's brother knew everyone who was anyone in Halifax. “It's perfect for you and pays pretty well.”

Danny stared the gift horse in the eye. “Why hire me?”

“Because you're my brother. Family's important with these guys, and they trust me. That means they're trusting you.”

Danny tilted his head and glared at Johnny, thinking it through. Yet another reversal in roles. He wasn't particularly happy at having to depend on his younger brother, but deep down he was proud of Johnny. He'd grown up just fine and had friends in all the right places, friends who would stand up for him if they were needed. And so far Johnny'd avoided being sent off to Europe. He didn't seem even remotely interested in the war. Why would he be? Johnny was making all the money he needed right here.

“What's the job?”

“It's at the docks, managing inventory. Watching shipments and keeping track, you know? Being the ears and eyes.”

“Just not the leg.”

“Right.”

“I'm in.”

Audrey wouldn't be happy. She'd said she never wanted to move from the Eastern Shore. But Danny had no choice. He was treading water where he was, and he couldn't keep his head above
the tide for much longer. Maybe she wouldn't be quite as upset when he told her he was on the docks instead of a rum-runner's ship. But they'd still have to move to Halifax, which she didn't want to do. She'd had her fill of city life in London. He understood that.

In the end, he figured out how to make her happy—or at least relatively happy. It was the art. Always the art.

“There are folks in the city who can afford to hire you on, Audrey,” he said one night. They lay in bed and she was snuggled up against him, warm and soft after their lovemaking.

“Oh?” she said. She yawned and tickled his chest with her fingernails, drawing figure eights around his nipples. Goosebumps rose over his body, and he let the sensation distract him.

“So you'd be at the docks, and I would paint? We could both make money?” She sounded vaguely pleased, as if she were rolling the thought around in her mouth, seeing how it tasted. “That sounds good. We could make enough money so we could come back here, right?”

He sighed. “You really don't want to go?”

“Oh, Danny.” Her hand dropped flat on his chest. “You know I'll go anywhere you ask. But I love it here by the sea. So quiet and beautiful.”

“But we need money, and I'm not making much. You've already painted for everyone out here. You need new customers. Rich ones.”

She smiled, but he read the warning in her eyes. “Don't say we're doing this for me, Danny. I'd rather live here with nothing than get rich in a dirty city.”

He knew she meant it, but his mind was already made up. He was so tired of feeling useless around his parents' house. He wanted to build a home for the two of them but couldn't afford the lumber. If he could only get some money, he could do whatever
he wanted. He decided to play his last card. The one he knew was unfair for him to play.

“Oh, well. Maybe we won't then. Schneider's always looking for help with the rum-running.”

The minute the words left his mouth, he knew he shouldn't have said them. She would have gone anyway. He felt even worse when she shot him a furious look.

“You know I'd do anything to keep you off those foul boats,” she muttered.

“Good,” he said briskly, needing to change the subject. “Johnny's friend Franco says he knows of a guy with a few houses to let, and maybe Johnny can bunk with us for a while.”

He didn't like the bullying tone of his own voice, and he knew she didn't either. But it had to be done. He'd had enough of heading upstream with a sieve as a paddle.

“I'm going to sleep,” she said. She rolled away from him, pulled the blankets up to her neck.

“Fine,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “You have a good sleep. We can talk more in the morning.”

She said nothing. For a while he just stared at the profile of her body, snug and separate from his, and wondered what he'd just done.

A week later, Danny, Audrey, and Johnny rented a small, two-bedroom furnished house in Richmond, a ragged section of Halifax. The place belonged to one of Johnny's bosses, and it was nothing much—actually, it was less than that—but it was near the docks, close to where Danny and Johnny needed to be. Johnny wouldn't always be there, since he was out on the sea running rum quite
a bit these days, but Danny was happy to have him there. And Audrey loved Johnny too. They had gotten along like brother and sister from the beginning.

True to his word, Johnny did seem to know just about everybody. When he first brought Danny to the docks, he introduced him to Charles. Charles was in charge of security, and he was Danny's direct boss. Danny's job was a mishmash of things, including overseeing and keeping track of everything being loaded and unloaded at Pier 6, occasionally pitching in if they were a man short, and standing up to troublemakers. He took to wearing his peg again, wanting to keep his disability hidden for as long as possible. It'd be hard for Danny to intimidate a man while leaning on a crutch.

On his second day at the job, Charles introduced him to Stan O'Malley, who in turn presented him to Pierre Antoine, the company's owner, the businessman with all the connections, the guy everyone called the “top dog.”

Both Johnny and Danny took off their caps as they were introduced. O'Malley stood silently off to the side, his expression blank. Mr. Antoine was about a head shorter than Danny, with jet black hair and a sturdy build. He wore a long black coat that Danny thought might have cost an entire month's rent or more. The man regarded Danny shrewdly before saying a word. Then he nodded briefly, as if he'd made a decision.

“Welcome to Halifax, Monsieur Baker,” he said, smiling vaguely. “You are my new inventory manager, I understand.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.”

“This is a very important position, you understand.”

“Of course. You can count on me, sir.”

“I'm sure I can.” His eyes went past Danny and touched on Johnny. “You come highly recommended, though I understand you do not have any qualifications.”

“My brother's a hard worker, Mr. Antoine,” Johnny assured him. “He won't let you down.”

The sharp gaze returned to Danny. “I will be receiving regular updates on your progress, Monsieur Baker. As important as I believe it is for us to help family, you must understand that I run a business. If you do not carry out your responsibilities to my expectations, you can easily be replaced.” Mr. Antoine reminded Danny of a bird he'd seen in a book one time. A peacock. All bustled up, full of bravado, parading around like a politician, using his polished French accent as a tool. Then again, it must be working for him, because he was obviously successful.

Just behind Mr. Antoine, Danny spotted Audrey approaching. She was carrying a small bag in her hand, and he recalled that he'd forgotten to bring his lunch that morning. Antoine didn't miss Danny's moment of distraction. He turned to see what might be interrupting their conversation, and Audrey gave them both a shy smile.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said.

Danny held out his hand, and she shuffled to his side. “Mr. Antoine, this is my wife, Mrs. Audrey Baker.”

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

The businessman's transformation was startling. He was suddenly all charm. He held out his own hand, and Audrey glanced at Danny with a question in her eyes. He lifted his eyebrows, giving an approximation of a shrug, and she set her hand in Antoine's. The Frenchman lifted it to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

“Je suis enchanté, Madame Baker,”
he said gently, and she blushed that delicious shade of pink Danny loved to see, though he wasn't especially happy to see her do it for another man.