She placed the ruby in his grasp and he studied it, frowning. “I’ve come to hate this. But it’s finally served the purpose it was intended for. To bring people together.”
“It’s a medicine stone,” Ellie said quietly. “It finds its way back where it belongs.”
“It’s yours,” Mother added. Jake flinched. He never wanted to touch the ruby again, and he didn’t want Ellie to touch it either. “It’s yours,” Mother repeated, and went to Ellie. “It should have been yours on your twenty-first birthday. From mother to daughter. I’m a year late, but I intend for the tradition to be kept from now on. Just as it always was, before Alexandra.”
Her eyes gleaming, Ellie held out a hand. Mother placed the stone in her palm. Jake met her eyes. Pride. Confidence. She was not afraid of the stone anymore. He told himself that meant something. If there had been a curse, it was over. They had won. He had to believe that.
He turned around slowly. Samantha looked up at him with incredulous hope that slowly changed to grief. “She really did steal the ruby,” Sam said in a hoarse whisper. “You were right.”
“I don’t care. I only care that you’re with me. If … that’s what you still want.”
She nodded. Fatigue and weeks of shattering grief clouded her eyes. He touched her cheek and knew she needed time to pull all the pieces together. Time to come back to herself. Time to believe she could be with him without terrible consequences. He fumbled with his shirt pocket and produced her necklace. Its ruby didn’t gleam like the Pandora stone. It had no value to anyone but him and her. Her eyes filled with appreciation when she saw it. Jake carefully slipped the tarnished chain over her head. “Welcome home,” he said.
Mother gave her and her sister one of the upstairs bedrooms, and reported wistfully over the next few snowbound days that they slept together, fully dressed, as if they expected to flee again at any second. Mother took a dim view of Jake venturing upstairs to check on Samantha himself; no matter how gallant his intentions, Mother suddenly bristled with rules about bedrooms. She needed to prove all the chaperoning skills he and Ellie had deprived her of testing when they were younger.
Mother, Father, and Ellie discussed the ruby and Alexandra endlessly. Ellie huddled in her bedroom with the ruby in her hands, confiding only to Jake that she felt the history of at least a dozen ancestors who’d conjured medicine with it, and that she was sure, now, that it was a good talisman in her possession.
Jake forced himself to hold it but felt nothing, and the blankness was so foreign and unpleasant, he returned it to Ellie quickly. He had misused it once, and it would not forgive him any more than he forgave himself.
But it had protected Samantha and Charlotte for him, so maybe there was some pattern he could not yet understand. Having Samantha was all that mattered to him.
She seemed reluctant to set foot outside the house, not even to admire enormous icicles hanging from the rough log eaves or the aura of sunlight reflected from tree limbs covered in crystal gloves. Jake watched her from a troubled distance. She was too practical to admit it, but she was afraid she’d break the spell.
“What do you expect?” Ellie asked him. “She lost her mother a couple of months ago, she’s been through hell, and she came here with nothing but the clothes on her back and what she could carry in a bag. And frankly, dear ol’ socially inept brother of mine, you’re always watching her like you want to carry her off to your lair. Lighten up. She loves you. I feel it like a big warm blanket every time I’m around her. But she needs to get her bearings.”
Jake retreated. He and Samantha were suddenly awkward with each other, a shyness he’d never expected. Father cautioned him needlessly about the natural aftereffects of stress and grief; her fragile emotions were no mystery to Jake. He was content to sit with her in the company of her sister and his family. Mother found her anxiously scrutinizing a torn quilt as if it were wounded. Samantha was soon ensconced on the living room couch, Mother’s sewing kit beside her and the quilt in her expert hands. She had found her therapy.
Charlotte prowled the kitchen, watching Mother cook until Ellie sensed her wistfulness and whispered to Mother that Charlotte needed something to do. The moment Mother handed her a spatula, Charlotte brightened, and from then on the kitchen was her sanctuary.
Jake disappeared the morning the ice began melting and the roads were passable. He returned late that afternoon with the knuckles of his right hand raw and swollen.
Samantha saw him before anyone else, and immediately noticed. “What did you do?” she asked, and for the first time since the night she’d arrived, she took his hand.
“I drove to Durham and found Tim. I hit him only once, but I think I broke his jaw. I told him I’d kill him if he did anything to either of you again.”
She didn’t look surprised. She studied him, frowning mildly. He knew she was measuring him against the image she loved, trying to decide how much the two overlapped. “You should have taken me with you,” she said finally.
Concern blanked out his intuition. For a second he couldn’t judge her feelings. “So you could have stopped me?” he asked wearily. “I’m not good with people. I wouldn’t have known how to get my point across with words. But I’ll try to do better.”
“No. I mean so you could have held his arms while I hit him.”
She raised his hand to her face and carefully pressed her cheek to his bruised knuckles, looked up at him tenderly, then quickly released his hand and moved away.
Jake was speechless—not an uncommon circumstance for him—but he realized suddenly that the awkward times were only a phase in getting acquainted like regular people, like digging patiently through rocky earth because eventually the pure, sweet prize would find its way into your hands.
They were going to be all right with each other.
Chapter
Eighteen
Everything had its place, its harmony, and Jake was wrong to think he could ignore it. Clara muttered darkly as she sprinkled dried horse manure like a tonic among the sleepy green shoots of her spring flower beds.
Clara was mad at him, so during the two months since Sammie’s arrival in the Cove she’d stayed away. But others in Cawatie didn’t. They were too curious about the Raincrows’ crazy behavior, awed by the idea that anyone would openly snatch Alexandra’s nieces away from her. How had they managed it? No one knew. Secrets were like new spring plants—people fertilized them with gossip and hoped they’d bloom.
Clara had sorted through the chatter for small, trustworthy clues to the situation. Sarah Raincrow showed off new curtains and drapes Samantha had made for her and proudly said there wasn’t an unmended shirt, sheet, quilt, or tablecloth in her house. She said she never had to cook another meal, not with Charlotte in her kitchen. She said she’d never seen two girls more determined not to be dependent on anyone.
Sammie Ryder knows that anything they give her just draws the family deeper into trouble, Clara had decided. Jake thought she’d move right in and forget my warnings.
Clara had also heard Sammie had been trying for two months to find a job at the shops in Pandora, but no one would hire her. They gave excuses, but the truth was as clear to Clara as the creek that flowed past her garden.
Alexandra had put the word out. No one in town dared hire her runaway niece.
What had Jake expected—that none of Clara’s warnings mattered? That he could thumb his nose at a ravenmocker and then go happily on his way?
She flung the last of the manure on her flower bed.
The world had been put right as far as Sarah was concerned. The tradition that had meant so much to the Vanderveers and Raincrows had survived despite Alexandra; the ruby belonged to Ellie, as it should, and Ellie had taken it back to the university, wearing it in a small leather pouch around her neck.
Charlotte was finishing up the academic year at Pandora’s high school, and seemed to have settled happily under Sarah’s wing. Sarah liked fussing over her; Charlotte was a typical teenager
—full of questions and self-doubt, eager for guidance in ways neither Jake or Ellie, with their unusual aplomb, had never needed Sarah.
And Sammie—Sammie was a strong, quiet, inordinately wise young woman, and if Sarah had had any doubt that Sammie deserved Jake’s devotion, getting to know Sammie had erased it.
Sarah wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder and anxiously drummed the tip of a paintbrush on her easel. “Hi. Have they been by the office? Have they called yet?”
“They’re buying a used car, not negotiating the federal budget,” Hugh answered drolly.
“It’s more than a car. It’s another twig in their nest.”
“If they were buying it together, I might agree with you. But it’s Sammie’s car, bought from her own savings. I’m afraid I haven’t seen much sign of nest-building in the past two months.”
Sarah huffed into the phone. “What do you think they do during those long walks they take every day? My dear old boy, do you recall what we did when we were dating? We didn’t just walk.”
“My dear old girl, I have very vivid memories of what we did. And that’s why I grilled our son about their nature hikes just the other day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Father-son business,” he answered gruffly. “Confidential.”
“Well?”
“They just talk. Believe it or not.”
“Now, look, I know they’re both as prim as old maids, but I’ve watched them trade too many moon-eyed looks to think they haven’t—”
“He says she’s still in mourning. That it wouldn’t feel right, at the moment, to do more than talk.”
“I know how Sammie thinks. She admitted to me that she suspects Alexandra is behind the cold shoulder she’s gotten from every shopowner in town. Damn Alexandra’s time. I’m telling you, Sammie isn’t just in mourning for her mother—she’s afraid she’ll be a burden around Jake’s neck.”
“Good Lord, she’s got no reason to feel like a charity case. She’s mended every piece of clothing we own. She’s made new curtains for every window of our house—and Jake’s too. She made Charlotte a whole new wardrobe to replace what they left at Alexandra’s. She gives Charlotte an allowance and insists on giving you money for groceries.” He paused. “You’ve got to keep Charlotte from cooking for us. It may be good therapy for her, but I’ve gained ten pounds.”
“Sammie wants Charlotte to be no trouble to us. I’ve seen Sammie poring over her checkbook at night. Her savings are running out.”
“I suppose it would be highly old-fashioned of me to point out that women don’t have to earn their own livings before they can get married. Jake would take care of her. Jake wants to take care of her and Charlotte.”
“You are an old Neanderthal, but I love you dearly. Call me if you hear from them.”
“I promise I’ll call.” From his tone, she could almost see him smiling. “But you have to promise you’ll stop worrying—and that you’ll go for a walk with me after dinner. A long walk. We’ll mash some daffodils.”
“Hugh. We’ve got to set a good example.” But she was smiling too. She felt giddy these days.
“Feel the gears needing to shift.” Jake sat close beside her, one arm stretched across the back of the seat, lying casually against her shoulders. The station wagon was worth every penny of five hundred dollars, and not one red cent more—as Sam had pointed out firmly when its owner wanted six hundred. It was as big as a tank, and it lumbered around the empty parking lot of Pandora’s elementary school like a big, paneled beetle in the late afternoon sun. “Feel the vibrations with your fingertips,” he added.
Sam pushed the floor shift, and the gears protested like a metallic monster gnashing its teeth. She grimaced. “I need specifics,” she told him grimly. “Don’t talk about vibrations. Tell me what speed is right.”
“It depends.”
The gears groaned again. She stamped the clutch and took a deep breath. “I thought machines worked on precise principles. I’d never have bought a stick-shift if I had to learn car psychology to drive it.”
“This is a fine old car. A bargain. Your eyes lit up the second you saw all the space in the back.”
“I had images of it filled with bolts of cloth. I was seduced. You said it’d be easy to learn to drive.” She shifted again, without any better success. “I will learn to drive it, but it may need a new gear box.”
He put his hand over hers on the knob of the shift. The contact was warm and strong and helplessly appealing. Sam resisted the urge routinely. For two months she’d held her feelings back, afraid to waltz into his arms, afraid this was all a dream. She couldn’t quite name what she was waiting for—the soft click of her conscience, assuring her that Aunt Alex couldn’t harm him for helping her, an anchor of some kind that would make her believe she couldn’t be carried back out to sea, dragging Jake and Charlotte with her to drown.
“You think too much,” he said softly. “Just let things slide where they belong. Go with the flow.”
He said it with the slightest hint of provocation, but enough to turn her muscles to jelly. Sam met his eyes. She let the car roll, and he eased the gearshift noiselessly into first. It was like a dance; she was hypnotized by the guiding pressure of his hand and the amused intensity in his scrutiny. Sam steered the car in a large circle, glimpsing oaks at the edge of the parking lot as they slid past. She had trouble taking her eyes off him. “Step on the clutch again,” he whispered. “Careful. No need to stomp it. Smooth.”
“You’ve got a way with cars.”
“It’s all in the timing.” His hand flexed on hers. She shifted into second. The engine purred. He smiled—slow, approving. “See there? We’ll be cruising along in high any minute, before we know what’s happened.”
Out of control, Sam thought, and jerked her attention to their course. Too late. They had meandered out of the circle and were bearing down quickly on the curb at the lot’s edge. She forgot the clutch and jammed her foot on the brake. The old station wagon seized up like an asthma victim just as it hit the curb. The impact tossed her forward, and Jake thrust his arm across the steering wheel. Her forehead bounced on the corded surface of hard muscle.
“See what happens when you don’t pay attention to specifics?” she said, embarrassed. “You made me run into the curb.”
“Me?” He frowned and gestured dramatically with one of his big, suddenly clumsy hands. “I was in charge of shifting. You were in charge of looking out for curbs.”
“Well, maybe I like a bumpy ride.”
“You’re gonna be hell on mailboxes and fireplugs.”
A soft laugh burst from her, and she was so surprised to feel like laughing, she couldn’t stop. She bent her head to his arm and chortled. Jake leaned closer to her. “I can’t promise that I’m good at much else,” he said sternly, “but I can damn sure teach a girl how to drive.”
“Oh, Jake.” She twisted toward him suddenly, lifted her face, and kissed him. It was an awkward attempt, spontaneous and meant to reassure him. She caught just the corner of his mouth, lingered there in a startled daze as a current of long-denied excitement overwhelmed her, then drew back.
She had always known that the moment they opened this door, it would be impossible to close it again. They traded a searing look, his eyes half closed and his face flushed. Slowly, he kissed her back, a straight-on, careful caress, infinitely gentle but hungry.
She wound her arms around him. The scent and taste of him consumed her. He was holding her so tightly, neither of them could breathe, and she was dimly aware of gasping between kisses, and of the sound of his own rough inhalations. Everything was quick and fervent—stroking his hair, catching his face between her hands, arching against him when his fingers slid down her spine, her floppy shorts riding up on one leg as she pressed her leg snugly to his thigh, reveling in the coarse texture of his jeans and the hard, flexing muscles underneath.
She had never been drunk before. Knee-walking drunk was how s
he felt now, and for the first time she understood why every society since the beginning of time tried to make rules about sex. Wanting someone the way she wanted Jake was a powerful addiction. She drew on the last of her failing willpower and gently tried to push him away but realized it was a halfhearted effort. “I know. I know what’s been going on. I’m ruining you. Stop. You’re making me forget too much.”
He pulled back from her just enough to look into her eyes. His expression was anguished and bewildered. He shook his head warily. “If this is what getting ruined feels like, for God’s sake, don’t stop.”
“Jake.” She gripped the front of his thin cotton shirt. “I saw Patsy Jones a few weeks ago, when I was job hunting. She told me. None of the jewelers in town will buy stones from you anymore. The sheriff won’t ask you to track for him.” Her voice was raw. She tugged at his shirt fiercely. “Aunt Alex isn’t just trying to keep me from making a living around here, she’s after you too.”
He gripped her shoulders. His eyes darkened. “Listen to me. There are a dozen people outside this town who’ll buy what I bring them. And plenty of tracking work I can do outside Pandora—I don’t take money for that anyway. God, I knew you felt guilty and it had something to do with me, but I hadn’t figured it out yet.”
“I’m making you an outsider in your own town.”
“I’ve never been anything but an outsider. And neither has Ellie. People have always said we’re strange.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you. You make it too easy to forget everything—”
“I want you to forget about everything but me. Because that’s how I feel about you.” He sank his mouth onto hers. Sam’s argument was temporarily lost in the blindness of need. It was true. She couldn’t rationalize against this tidal wave of love and desire, even as fear rose up inside her like a dark taunt. They clung together in silent harmony, but tears slid down her face.