Passions in the North Country (Siren Publishing Classic) (31 page)

Jenny turned away from Devon and started to wander through the grand house. Though almost devoid of furniture, Jenny could envision a home ready to occupy. A bookcase next to the window that overlooked the beach, a table next to the fireplace, a chair and a sofa pushed against the wall in the huge living room…Everything fit perfectly and it really seemed to Jenny that she was arranging things in her mind’s eye just as she had seen them somewhere else, perhaps in a dream.

During their tour of the house, Jenny had the same feeling as with the Captain’s rooms. Even though she had never been there before, things were familiar to her. It was the same in every room of the house.

They walked upstairs with her leading. “I feel like Nancy Drew,” she said with a laugh.

Devon laughed at her.

“What’s this?” Jenny asked, trying to open two French doors that led to a veranda whose design she had never seen before.

“It’s a widow’s walk.”

“Widow’s walk?”

Devon jiggled the lock until the door opened. “In the old days, when fishermen were late returning from a trip, wives used to stand out there and keep watch for their loved one. When passers-by saw a woman pacing back and forth, they called it the ‘widow’s walk.’”

“How sad,” Jenny said, deeply touched.

“When a widow made her walk, it sometimes meant one more lost fishermen. That meant the woman might live lonely for the rest of her life, and the fisherman’s soul might wander forever in search of his beloved.”

Jenny strolled out on to the widow’s walk.

Devon followed her. “The ocean gives joy to people, but people who live here know how quickly it can take something away, too.”

Jenny thought of Miriam’s husband.

“The ocean has been swelled with tears from grieving widows,” Devon said, as if quoting from a poem. “With every storm, the souls of the lost rise up in search for those they cherished.”

Jenny gazed at the untamed, surging waves and thought of how she had only ever seen the beauty of the ocean. “How many lives has it claimed?”

“Listen to the howling wind,” Devon whispered, putting his finger over her lips and looking out at the water. “Can you hear that voice?”

Jenny, like a little girl, stared at Devon with eyes wide open. She shook her head.

“Imagine,” he began, “that a man and woman are passionately in love, but he goes to sea, never to return. With every fiber of her being she prays that he make his way home, and with all his strength he tries to come back to her, the one and only woman he ever loved. Can you imagine that?”

“I can,” Jenny replied quietly.

“Listen to the wind,” he repeated, a glint in his eyes. “A man is calling across time and space, unable to rest until he is again with the woman who claimed his heart.” He paused meaningfully. “Now imagine such a love—a great, boundless love—that began the moment they met, and developed over time, growing daily, year after year after year. But what if these lovers never consummated their union, never even touched? Theirs would be the most painful of all separations, and their ghosts would do all they could to realize what in their lives they had been unable to.”

“The Captain and Maria,” she whispered.

He nodded. “He died at sea and she lived the last years of her life alone.”

Though Jenny listened hard, she heard no voice. She turned her head sideways and put her ear to the breeze when she noticed an old oil painting hidden by an indentation of the walls. She moved closer and scrutinized the picture. A beautiful woman, dressed in the habit of a Roman Catholic nun, sat in a high-backed wing chair, a huge, handsome man with dark features standing beside her.

“Devon, come look at this!” Jenny called.

He leaned over the railing of the widow’s walk, looked right and left, then came into the room and stood beside her, also studying the painting.

“This must be them.”

“Yes,” he said, stepping closer. “I didn’t know there were any pictures.” He studied Maria’s face. “She’s beautiful,” he said. “Even more beautiful than I imagined.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Jenny said, staring at the Captain.

Devon liked the fact that she found the Captain handsome. It intrigued him.

She looked at him. “If he lived next door, you might have to worry,” she joked.

Devon laughed. “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers either.”

Jenny hugged and kissed him. She felt safe and secure in their banter, not worrying in the least if he would lash out jealously.

“Maria was funny and happy,” Devon said, “at least until the Captain died. For months afterward she was flat, tired, drawn.” He stared into the eyes, eyes that seemed to look back. “Her great regret was that she never lay down with the Captain, never let him feed at her garden, and never accepted his seed. It haunted her.”

“Why is that painting here?”

“Well, my dear, it’s because this house is the work of our dear Captain.”

“Are you serious?” Jenny asked, still unable to believe she was looking at the man and woman who were the ghosts in her dreams.

“Quite serious. When I first bought the inn, I learned of the man. He built the inn, fell in love with Maria, then built this house for her.”

She looked hard at him. “They were going to move into a house together?”

“No. The side-by-side rooms they could explain as ‘rooms’ at the hotel. Living together, the Captain and the nun, no, not an option.”

“He built this home for her?”

“He did. It was his hope to marry her and to have a family. This house was a dream, albeit a cruel one, but he built it anyway. It was to sit here, unoccupied, until they could wed and live together as husband and wife.”

“Oh.”

“From the widow’s walk you can see the Newbridge Strait. Every fishing boat passes through that strait and Maria could not bear to look out over the sea because the sea had claimed her beloved. She remained in her room until the end, but when she died, they found her in the Captain’s bed. She had crawled in there that last day of her life, the only time she had ever entered his room.”

Jenny looked at Devon with fascination. “I feel like I know them.”

“You do.”

She laughed strangely. “What?” she said.

“You know them,” Devon told her, “because we are them. We are the Captain and Maria, Jenny. Their spirits wandered, looking for hosts, and they found us. They became part of us, and then they became us.”

“Yes,” she agreed, accepting it. “They were miserable, incomplete. They were doomed to wander the earth forever if we did not open the door.”

He nodded. “But we did open it, didn’t we?”

“Um,” she said sexily, her eyes flashing. “We opened it wide.”

“They needed it,” Devon said, “and so did we.” He paused. “Tomorrow morning I plan to watch the sunrise from the overlook,” he said, gesturing at the high hill where Jenny had watched the whales. “Would you like to come?”

“I’d love to.”

That night they met in a rendezvous in Maria’s room, and Jenny surprised Devon by waiting for him in blue nylons and garters, white, transparent panties, and a light blue bra through which he could see her pert nipples. He was wearing only a towel, his towering cock manhood sticking out like a tent pole.

“Anything you want,” she said, feline seduction in her eyes. “Anything.”

For the next two hours they made love, hugged, talked, then made love again, their bodies presented without shame, without embarrassment, without inhibition. When they reached the point of no return, they both thought they might die. Their hearts were racing, their minds numb, their bodies indistinguishable. It was a mad dance of flesh seeking flesh, hard driving into soft, love defining itself, acceptance, ecstasy.

The next morning they drove to White Sands Beach in the darkness, though a full moon shone low in the sky. Devon took Jenny’s hand and led her across the beach. There was no wind and the waves of low tide barely made a sound.

“It’s cool today,” Jenny said, doing up her jacket. She wrapped her hand around his arm and put her head on his shoulder.

Devon pulled her close to his warm body. “I’ve never been happier,” he said.

“Me, too,” she told him. “I mean it.”

She laid her cheek against the soft security of his sweater and walked along beside him, feeling almost like they were joined. They strolled the entire length of the nature trail as the first rays of light poked over the eastern horizon. Everything that was dull began to assume form. Jenny saw great mountains of stone in the ocean as they, almost surrealistically, appeared from nowhere. It was like witnessing Creation itself. First the outlines, then shapes, then colors. On the rocks below them, birds left their nests and glided down to the sea. Then the sun, brilliant and welcome, appeared above the water almost as if rising out of the ocean.

Jenny looked at Devon and shuffled even closer to him. “It’s unbelievably beautiful! Spectacular! I’m so glad you brought me here.”

“I’m glad you came.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand.

“This dawn is our story,” he said thoughtfully. “The world was dark and formless, but the sun rose to give light and shape. My world was dark and formless, too. But the sun rose for me. You are my sun, Jenny. You brought light and warmth into my life.”

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

“I love you,” he said with such deep sincerity and emotion that Jenny was filled with a joy she could not comprehend.

They looked out over the ocean for a few more minutes, then started back. Suddenly she stopped. The sun reflected brightly off the widow’s walk of the old gothic house. The house was so incredibly beautiful that Jenny could think of nothing more wonderful than living there and having the ocean and beach greet her at the beginning of each day. Behind it was a community of several dozen houses, many of them apparently American draft dodgers from the Vietnam War and their families. Around the homes were swing sets, fishing nets drying on the ground, and women putting wash on clotheslines.

“I’d love to buy the house the Captain built,” Jenny said. “This place is heaven.”

“You can’t,” Devon informed her with a somber glance.

Jenny looked questioningly at him.

“Somebody already bought it,” he explained.

Jenny visibly sagged.

“Who?” she asked.

“The historical society sold it for one dollar.”

“One dollar!” she cried in despair.

“They’ve apparently been holding onto it until just the right person came along. Now they’ve found him and sold him the house for one dollar.”

“I can’t believe it. Who bought it?”

“I did.”

“What?” she muttered, gazing at him in astonishment.

“They felt that I would be the perfect person to restore the house and take care of it. But I don’t want to live there alone. I want to fulfill what the Captain and Maria could only dream of.”

Jenny’s heart pounded so quickly and powerfully that she felt like she was shaking.

Devon took a small case out of his pocket and opened it to a beautiful, glittering diamond. “At first I resisted, but I still fell in love with you. Now life seems meaningless and empty whenever you’re not around. I couldn’t bear to live without you, Jenny.” He held up the ring. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, leaping into his arms. “A thousand times yes!”

He stroked her wi
th his fingertips and held her tightly. She could feel his chest heaving and his heart pounding mightily.

“How I love you!” he said emotionally. “How deeply I love you, my dear, dear Jenny.”

THE END

Summer Newman has been published internationally by over 60 magazines and newspapers, including by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and has published dozens of romance stories with magazines out of New York, Summer has been published widely in fiction and non-fiction, publishing on topics ranging from sports to the outdoors to political op-eds in a prominent newspaper. Summer studied in the Honors English program at Saint Mary’s University and majored in Russian Literature at Dalhousie University.
 

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