even play checkers. Not even for black-eyed peas. Calls it gambling, and gambling’s a sin in his book. So you can see the fix I’m in.”
She couldn’t, but she was beginning to see where the conversation might be headed. Evidently, the slow-talking minister would be expected to take care of Mr. Meeks and keep him entertained until he was on his feet again.
And just as evidently, Mr. Meeks’s patience would be sorely tested.
“Now Grey, he’s a meddler, for all he means well. Long as they’re living here on his island, a man don’t have no choice but to go ’long with his notions, ’specially since they generally turn out right good. I reckon he told you about the plans he has to pair up the single men with wives and start raising younguns?”
She wasn’t about to admit that she’d come here believing St. Bride meant to marry her himself.
“Used to be families living out here back in his pa’s day. Storms run most of ’em off. Shoreside washed in near half a mile. Since then, sand covered up just about everything left standing. He tell you about that?”
She shook her head. The man had told her little except that life on his island was hard, and that she would never be able to survive here. He could hardly know she had survived far worse than wild winds and raging seas.
He had also told her she was pretty. No one had ever told her that before—at least, not without wanting something from her.
“Won’t be easy, finding a schoolteacher. Finding the preacher and getting him to take on another charge was hard enough. Poor man can’t hardly keep up with things as it is. Like I said, he talks so slow it takes him two hours to get through a one-hour sermon.” He chuckled, and Dora felt some of the tension that had gripped her ever since she had recklessly answered the advertisement begin to ease.
“Licensed to marry folks, though, that’s mainly what he’s here for. Married Sal and me, right and proper. We was older than some, but when Sal came out, St. Bride, he thought we’d suit, set a good example, he said.” Nodding, he added, “Said words over her grave when I buried her.” He paused as if, satisfied with his summary, he was searching for his next topic. He had told her several times over about his wonderful Sal. The poor man was obviously starved for companionship.
So much for the wonderful Mr. St. Bride.
Dora leaned to one side to peer through a window, wishing she could see the docks from where she sat. What if Emmet was wrong and the Bessie Mae & Annie hadn’t actually sailed yet?
But even if by some miracle she mananged to catch the boat before it left, would she be any better off? There were few jobs available for women who’d been coddled all their lives. When the time came, no matter what their personal inclinations, they were expected to marry men of their fathers’ choosing—men who would continue to pamper them. As far as Dora was concerned, even that door had been closed.
From her rocking chair—Sal’s rocker, according to Emmet—all she could see was that towering monstrosity of a house on the dunes. Castle St. Bride.
Fortress St. Bride, she amended bitterly.
“So I said to myself,” Emmet Meeks went on, and Dora turned her attention back to her elderly host, wondering if she’d missed something. “Either she will or she won’t. Don’t do no harm to ask.”
“To ask?”
“Don’t take offense, Miss Sutton, but the fact that you come here in answer to St. Bride’s piece in the paper means you’ve run plumb out of luck over on the mainland.” She opened her mouth and closed it again. It was no less than the truth. “Happens, I’m alone in the world but for a dog that lives with me,” he went on. “After my wife died I went over to the mainland for a spell. Saw a doctor, thinking maybe I could get me a pair of spectacles—it was getting so I couldn’t even see the channel markers, let alone the shoals. Doc said I had clouds in my eyes—said the best specs in the world couldn’t clear ’em away.” He stirred his tea, sipped it and continued to speak, thoughtfully peering into his teacup. “Saw another doc while I was there. Told me my heart was tired.”
“Oh, no…” she murmured.
“Said if I was lucky, I still had a few good years left before it gave up the ghost.” His clouded blue eyes captured and held her clear gray-green ones. “What I’m trying to say, Miss Dora, is that I’d as soon not live ’em alone. I’ve got my dog, but Salty, she’s not much of a one for conversation.”
Dora was aghast. What could she say under the circumstances? Was he asking her to marry him? Was he daft?
More to the point, was she?
Because she actually found herself considering it. Seriously considering marriage to a man she’d known less than an hour.
Yet, was it any worse than marrying one she’d never even met? That was what she’d been prepared to do until she’d been rejected.
“I’d not ask much of you, Miss Dora. If you’ll agree to stay on as my companion—as my friend—I can’t pay you much, but I promise to deed you my house and my land and bless you with my dying breath for your kindness.”
Grey made it as far north as Long Point and dropped anchor in Wysocking Bay. He’d have liked to get farther, but sailing alone in his 30 foot sloop, he preferred to lay over until daylight. Too much was depending on him to take any foolish risks.
Damn it all, why had the woman showed up just as he had to leave? It would be several days—possibly as much as a week—before he could get back, and then he’d have to start all over again.
There had to be a way to word his advertisements so that only the right sort of woman would apply. Not too young, not too old, like poor Sal. Not too pretty, but not plain as a mud fence, either. Sturdy women, not given to fancy pink dresses and flimsy pink slippers.
Going below, he unwrapped the supper his housekeeper, a giant of a man named Mouse, had provided. Cheese, cold cornbread and smoked fish, with a handful of dried apples to follow. Back up on deck, he consumed the lot without tasting any of it and thought about the woman. Dora Sutton.
Who the devil was she? Why would a woman with her looks bother to answer his advertisement? While he might not be up on the latest fashions, he knew quality when he saw it. That fancy pink frock of hers, in spite of the stains and wrinkles, was quality.
She hadn’t taken his money, which meant she was not entirely without resources. Otherwise his conscience would never let him rest until he’d tracked her down and seen to his own satisfaction that she was all right. He’d been called a martinet—his own brother had once jokingly called him a tinhorn dictator—but he would never willingly allow anyone to suffer as long as he had the means to prevent it.
Thank God she was no longer his problem. She was the kind of woman who set a man’s sap to rising—his own, included. Being married wouldn’t change that fact. All she would have to do was stroll down to the landing on a busy day and every tongue between North End and Shallow Gut would be dragging on the ground. Next thing, there’d be fights among his men, demands that he find them a pretty, yellow-haired wife with high breasts and a hand-span waist.
Did they think he could simply sail across the sound, pick out a few likely candidates, knock them over the head with a club and drag them back to the island? Matchmaking required patience and careful planning. It took guts, tact and finesse, not to mention the ability to handle large amounts of frustration.
Any way you looked at it, turning a rough crew of transients and watermen into a settled, civilized community was damned hard work.
Thank God he had what it took to do the job.
With a million stars reflected in the black water all around him and Dora Sutton stuck in his mind like a peck of sandspurs, Grey allowed himself the rare indulgence of reliving a Chapter from his past. Back when he’d first fallen in love with her, Evelyn had been almost as beautiful as the widow Sutton. A tall woman, she’d had auburn hair and an imperious