Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (38 page)

Readers familiar with the Outer Banks may recognize Pilot Isle as Beaufort, North Carolina. Indeed, I loosely based my setting there, thanks in large part to information provided by the kind ladies at the Beaufort Historical Society.

I incorporated artistic license in these areas, mostly calendar changes, which I hope the reader will forgive. In 1902, the second Federal fisheries laboratory in the United States was completed in Beaufort—still there to this day. Woods Hole, the first, was established in 1871, actually placing its construction before Noah's birth. But I know he would have wanted to take part, so he did. The scholarship Elle received I based on the ones given by the American Association of University Women, founded in 1882. They bestowed their first loan, much as I described it, in 1901, three years after Elle received it.

The lifesaving program is a marvelous part of the Outer Banks history and well worth further research. Also, the University of South Carolina, in 1898 called South Carolina College, did admit female students. As an alumna, I wanted Elle to be one, too!

Page forward for an excerpt from Tracy Sumner's

Tides of Passion

Excerpt from

Tides of Passion

by

Tracy Sumner

Chapter 1

Women can't have an honest exchange

in front of men without having it called a cat fight
.

~Clare Boothe Luce

North Carolina, 1898

Savannah knew she was in trouble a split second before he reached her.

Perhaps she should have saved herself the embarrassment of a tussle with the town constable, a man determined to believe the worst of her.

However, running from a challenge wasn't her way.

She laughed, appalled to realize it wasn't fear that had her contemplating slipping off the rickety crate and into the budding crowd gathered outside the oyster factory.

No, her distress was due to nothing more than Constable Garrett's lack of proper
clothing
.

In a manner typical of the coastal community she had temporarily settled in, his shirt lay open nearly to his
waist
. She couldn't help but watch the ragged shirttail flick his lean stomach as he advanced on her. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, his physique belied his composed expression. Yet Savannah detected a faint edge of anger pulsing beneath the calm façade, one she wanted to deny sent her heart racing.

Wanted
... but could not.

Flinging her fist into the air, she stared him down as she shouted, "Fight for your rights, women of Pilot Isle!"

The roar of the crowd, men in discord, women in glorious agreement, eclipsed her next call to action.
There
, she thought, pleased to see Zachariah Garrett's long-lashed gray eyes narrow, his golden skin pulling tight in a frown. Again she shook her fist, and the crowd bellowed.

One man ripped the sign Savannah had hung from the warehouse wall to pieces and fed it to the flames shooting from a nearby barrel. Another began channeling the group of protesting women away from the entrance. Many looked at her with proud smiles on their faces or raised a hand as they passed. They felt the pulse thrumming through the air, the energy.

There was no power like the power of a crowd.

Standing on a wobbly crate on a dock alongside the ocean, Savannah let the madness rush over her, sure, completely sure to the depths of her soul, that
this
was worth her often forlorn existence. Change was good. Change was necessary. And while she was here, she would make sure Pilot Isle saw its fair share.

"That's it for the show, Miss Connor," Zachariah Garrett said, wrapping his arm around her waist and yanking her from the crate as people swarmed past. "You've done nothing but cause trouble since you got here, and personally, I've about had it."

"I'm sorry, Constable, but that's the purpose of my profession!"

He set her on her feet none too gently and whispered in her ear, "Not in my town it isn't."

As she prepared to argue—Savannah was
always
prepared to argue—a violent shove forced her to her knees. Sucking in a painful gasp, she scrambled between the constable's long legs and behind a water cask. Dropping to a sit, she brushed a bead of perspiration from her brow and wondered what the inside of Pilot Isle's jail was going to look like.

Fatigue returned, along with the first flicker of doubt she had experienced in many a month. Resting her cheek on her knee, she let the sound of waves slapping the wharf calm her, the fierce breeze rolling off the sea cool her skin. Her family had lived on the coast for a summer when she was a child. It was one of the last times she remembered being truly happy.

Or loved.

Blessed God, how long ago that seemed now.

That was how Zach found her. Crouched behind a stinking fish barrel, dark hair a sodden mess hanging down her back, her dress—one that cost a pretty penny, he would bet—ripped and stained. She looked young at that moment, younger than he knew her to be. And harmless.

Which was as far from the truth as it got.

He shoved aside the sympathetic twinge, determined not to let his role as a father cloud every damned judgment he made. Due to this woman's meddling, his town folk pulsed like an angry wound behind him, the ringing of the ferry bell not doing a blessed thing to quiet a soul. All he could do was stare at the instigator huddling on a section of grimy planks and question how one uppity woman could stir people up like she'd taken a stick to their rear ends.

No wonder she was a successful social reformer up north. She was as good at causing trouble as any person he'd ever seen.

"Get up," Zach said, nudging her ankle with his boot. A slim, delicate-looking ankle.

He didn't like her, this sassy, liberating
rabble-rouser
, but he was a man, and he had to admit she was put together nicely.

She lifted her head, blinking, seeming to pull herself from a distant place. A halo of shiny curls brushed her jaw, and as she tilted her head up, he got his first close look at her. A fine-boned face, the expression on it soft, almost dreamy.

Boy, the softness didn't last long.

Jamming her lips together, her cheeks plumped with a frown. Oh yeah, that was the look he'd been expecting.

"Good day, Constable," she said. Just like that, as if he should be offering a cordial greeting with a small war going on behind them.

"Miss Connor, this way if you please."

She rose with all the dignity of a queen, shook out her skirts, and brushed dirt from one sleeve. He counted to ten and back, unruffled, good at hiding his impatience. What being the lone parent of a rambunctious little boy would do for a man.

Just when he reached ten for the second time and opened his mouth to order her along, a misplaced swing caught him in the side and he stumbled forward, grasping Savannah's shoulders to keep from crashing into her. Motion ceased when she thumped the wall of the warehouse, her head coming up fast, her eyes wide and alarmed.

And very, very green.

He felt the heat of her skin through the thin material of her dress; her muscles jumped beneath his palms. Her gaze dropped to his chest, and a soft glow lit her cheeks. Blushing... something he wouldn't have expected from
this
woman.

Nevertheless, he stared, wondering why they both seemed frozen.

Zach was frozen because he'd forgotten what it felt like to touch a woman. How soft and round and warm they were. How they dabbed perfume in secret places and smiled teasing smiles and flicked those colorful little fans in your face, never
really
realizing what all that nonsense did to a man's equilibrium.

It was the first time he'd laid his hands on a woman since his wife died, except for a rescue last year and the captain's sister he'd pulled from the sea.
She
had thrown her arms around him, shivering and crying, and he'd felt for her, sure he had. Grateful and relieved and humble that God had once again shown him where the lost souls on the shoals were.

He hadn't felt anything more. Anything strong.

This wasn't strong either, nothing more than a minute spike of heat in his belly.

Nothing much at all. He didn't
need
like other men. Like his brothers or his friends in town. He had needed once, needed his
wife
. But she was dead. That life—loving and yearning and wanting—had died with her.

"Your mouth is bleeding," Savannah said and shifted, her arm rising.

Don't touch me
, he thought, the words bubbling in his throat.

Cursing beneath his breath, the full extent of his childishness struck him. She would think he'd gone crazy. And maybe he had. Stepping back, he thrust his hands in his pockets and gestured for her to follow, intentionally leading her away from the ruckus on the wharf.

Buttoning his shirt, he listened to her steady footfalls, thinking she'd be safe in his office until everything died down.

"I'm sorry you've been injured."

Dabbing at the corner of his lip, he shrugged. He could still hear the rumble of the crowd. No matter. His brother Caleb would break it up. They'd argued about who got what job in this mess.

Zach had lost.

"What did you expect, Miss Connor?" he finally asked. "People get heated, and they do stupid things like fight with their neighbors and their friends. Hard not to get vexed with you standing up there, rising from the mist, preaching and persuading, stirring emotion like a witch with a cauldron."

She rushed to catch up to him, and he slowed his deliberately forceful stride. "Those women work twelve-hour days, Constable Garrett. Twelve hours on their feet, often without lunch breaks or access to sanitary drinking water. And for half the pay a man receives for the same day's work. Some are expecting a child and alone, young women who think they can disappear in this town without their families ever finding them. Their lives up to this point have been so dominated and environed by duties, so largely ordered for them, that many don't know how to balance a cash account of modest means or find work of any kind that doesn't involve sewing a straight stitch or shucking oysters."