Chapter 18 #2
She looked as if she might object to his tone, then simply lifted one brow and allowed him the dignity of pretending he had not been evasive.
He stepped into the boat first and steadied it while she climbed in after him.
The moment she sat, he moved to the mast and began to rig the sail.
The motions were familiar enough to soothe him at once. His hands knew the knots.
The lines. The small corrections. The way the wind would catch if he angled the sail just so.
The tension that had lived in his shoulders since the confrontation seemed to loosen at once.
He felt her notice. That was her habit. He supposed she needed to notice everything to know what to expect.
Especially from someone as unpredictable as he had been lately.
The boat drifted away from the cove with the tide, but he kept them close enough to remain in sight of the shore and the children’s play area farther along the beach. Clara and Mrs. Maggie would have the children near the little fenced section where they could be watched.
Jamie adjusted the tiller and let the wind take the sail.
Eloise looked around the boat, then back at him.
“You look different out here.”
He glanced up. “Do I?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
She considered for a moment. “Less as though you are about to quarrel with the world.”
He chuckled ever so softly.
“That is flattering.”
“It was meant to be.”
The boat moved cleanly along the water now.
The coastline stretched beside them, dark green and gray against the pale sky.
The sea was calm, the motion steady beneath them.
Jamie felt the tension in him ease further as the shoreline opened.
He had always felt more like himself on water.
Especially right then. He looked toward the rocky coast and then back at her.
“You asked me once what I knew of the sea,” he said.
Eloise met his gaze. “I did.”
He nodded slightly. “I was in the Navy for years before everything went wrong.”
She did not interrupt.
He had not intended to begin there. But once the words were in the air, he did not wish to draw them back.
“The good years,” he said. “The ones before the blast. Before I came home. Before I was forced into this house and this title and everything else.”
He paused, his hand steady on the tiller.
“The sea was the nearest thing I had to freedom.”
Eloise listened without speaking.
He continued. “There was purpose in it. Real purpose. Not the sort of purpose men speak of in drawing rooms, but the sort that matters when the weather turns and the men beside you are depending on you not to fail them.”
The words gradually came easier than he had expected. Perhaps because the water made honesty less difficult. Or perhaps because Eloise was watching him without pity.
“I liked the men I served with,” he said. “Most of them. They were plainspoken. Stubborn in ways that made sense. They did not care that I was polished. They cared whether I knew my work.”
He glanced at Eloise. Her expression had softened. He knew he had her attention. That both comforting and dangerous.
He pointed ahead to the left where the cliffs rose darker against the water.
“There are seal colonies there in the warmer months.”
Eloise looked. “There are?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Enough to make the children noisy.”
A small smile flickered over her face.
He turned the boat a little farther out. Beyond the next curve of coast, he could see a hidden strip of beach the children had not yet found and a narrow pocket of stone where the water shallowed and bright fish moved in silver flashes.
He pointed again.
“There is another cove farther down. The children do not know it yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have not shown them.”
“Why?”
“I am keeping something for myself.”
That seemed to please her more than it should have. He looked toward the shore and then back again, continuing because the words had begun to come and he did not wish to stop.
“Logan saved my life after the blast.”
Eloise went silent again, returning to her empathetic, quiet listening.
Jamie kept his eyes on the water.
“Most sensible men would have run,” he said. “He did not.”
“He dragged you from the wreckage.”
“Yes.” His mouth tightened. “I should have died there.”
Eloise did not answer that. He was glad about it. The memory was still too close to the surface some days. The sound. The fire. The ruined metal and the shouting and Logan, who had acted when a lesser man would have thought only of himself.
He turned the boat slightly and kept his voice steady.
“The sound never leaves,” he said.
Eloise’s face changed at that. Not in a way that suggested pity. Only complete attention and understanding that he needed to keep talking.
“I have not talked about it much,” he admitted.
“Why now?”
He glanced at her.
The answer was a little too honest to say plainly. Because you are here. Because you listen.
“You asked the right questions,” he said at last.
The faintest line appeared near her mouth.
“That is a dangerous compliment.”
“It was not meant to be dangerous.”
She looked at him for a moment, then turned her gaze back toward the water. He could not tell whether she was comforted or made uneasy by the trust he was giving her. He only knew the boat seemed smaller all of a sudden. Not in a bad way.
In an intimate one. He was sharing his world. He did not say so aloud. Neither did she. That made the sharing itself more powerful than speech would have.
When she leaned forward to look over the side at a shoal of fish, the boat rocked. He moved without thought. His hand went to her waist at once to steady her. The contact was immediate. Firm. Instinctive.
He felt her figure through her dress and the brief, surprising stillness that seized both of them at once. He kept his hand there a moment longer than he needed to. Just one. Maybe two. Eloise did not move.
The silence that followed was the loudest thing Jamie had heard in years.
He removed his hand slowly. His fingers brushed her side before they fell back to the tiller.
Eloise straightened, but not hurriedly. He glanced at her and saw that she was still not looking at him. Perhaps, it was better that way.
The boat drifted onward. The water was very smooth. The quiet between them settled into something strange and charged. He did not know what to call it. All he knew was that he did not want it to end. That was worrying.