Chapter Twenty-Five

“Where is he?” Lisbeth Sinclair blew through Josie’s front door like the tail end of a hurricane, shoulders set and eyes resolute. “I want to see him.”

Behind her back, her husband shot Douglas an apologetic look. He carried his youngest child, Andrew, in his arms. The other two boys, Archie and Alasdair, who were fifteen and sixteen respectively, were away with their boat on a fishing jaunt. Much as she wanted to see them, Dorothea could only think that for the best. There were already enough opinions clogging the air.

Josie stationed herself in front of Lisbeth, her diminutive form a frail but staunch barrier. “He’s upstairs, and yes, you can see him. But the man’s in a bad way, Lisbeth. If he is who Rab thinks—and I can’t help believing this is all some crazy misunderstanding —it’s none of his fault anyway.”

“I know that.” Lisbeth waved her hand wildly at Dorothea. “But he’s my daughter’s lover, Josie. Her lover.”

Dorothea gasped. “Who told you that?”

Her father dug a crumpled paper from his pocket and thrust it at her. She unfolded it and read: Emergency. Coming home with injured lover.

“Marielle sent this,” she tried to explain. “I never… That is, I told her to let you know I was bringing an injured friend.”

Her mother stared at her. “Then you’re not in love with him?”

Dorothea flushed. Her lips worked over a denial that wouldn’t come.

“Oh, God, it’s just like the past come over again.” Lisbeth seized Rab’s arm. “Dorothea, have you slept with him?”

“Mother, get hold of yourself. It’s not what you think. He may not even be who you think.”

“Well, let me see.” Lisbeth caught up her skirts and made for the stairs, with Josie right behind her and Dorothea bringing up the rear. Lisbeth marched across the landing to Daniel’s room, only to stop in the doorway as if someone had struck her. She gripped the door jamb, and her fingers turned white.

Douglas and Daniel had put Hare in Daniel’s bed, where his copper curls made a bright splash of color against the white pillowcase. Eyes closed and perfectly motionless, he once more looked dead.

Lisbeth gazed upon him, gasped painfully, and folded to the floor in a faint.

****

“Tell me all of it,” Dorothea bade her mother. “You’ll have to, now.”

Lisbeth, ensconced on the daybed in the Griers’ parlor, where her husband had placed her after carrying her back downstairs, said nothing. She merely stared at Dorothea out of a face nearly as pale as Hare’s.

They sat alone, everyone else chased from the room by Josie.

Concern and consternation still had Dorothea’s pulse elevated. She’d never known her mother—a strong and quite practical woman—to faint under any circumstances. This did not bode well.

With false calm, she went on, “I already know parts of the story. You were married to Declan O’Shea before you married Pa.”

“I was so young. Young as you are now. I thought I knew what I wanted, and he had that charm, that Irish charm…”

“There was some kind of scandal.” A miracle, really, that no one had spoken of it in all this time.

“He cheated on me. We’d only been married a year, but he fathered a child on the barmaid at the Hogshead—Maggie Grier—and another on a woman who lived in that big house out on the bluff. He was as false and fickle as the sea, and it nearly cost me everything.”

Dorothea reached out and grasped her mother’s hand. “Maggie Grier was Douglas’s mother, right? And the child Declan O’Shea fathered on her—you think that’s Hare?”

Lisbeth shuddered involuntarily. “I first saw him when he was a few months old—the spit of Declan with that red hair and the same tawny eyes. Timmy, she called him.”

Dorothea’s heart sank. “Listen, Ma, that man upstairs might be your first husband’s illegitimate son. That doesn’t mean he’s anything like him—faithless and fickle. You don’t know what Hare, that is, Timothy, is like. He never even met his father.”

“Why do you call him ‘Hare’?”

“That’s the name he’s taken, working in Boston—his persona, if you will.”

“A lie.”

“No. He’s a man of honor, a hero fighting for the rights of his fellow workers and for the welfare of families in the city. And I”—Dorothea drew a shaking breath—“can think of no finer future than to stand beside him.”

Lisbeth blinked. “Honor? The son of Declan O’Shea?”

“Ma, if he is Declan O’Shea’s son—and it does seem as how he must be—he’s inherited nothing from him but that red hair and the unusual eyes.”

“Impossible.”

Dorothea’s temper, on tap always at any show of injustice, flared. “Shall I tell you about the impossible? He and I spent the night together. Oh, don’t look at me that way—I’m a grown woman, and I love him. I would have given myself to him then—given all of myself. He wouldn’t have it; he was too set on protecting me, afraid I’d made a hasty decision.”

Lisbeth’s lips worked, but no words came.

Tears flooded Dorothea’s eyes. “And now he’s so sore hurt, attacked for what he believes, and I can’t get him to come awake. I was sure that, once we got here, the peace and safety of this place would heal him. But he just lies there, Ma, and I can’t reach him. I can’t!”

Lisbeth sat up and gathered Dorothea into her arms.

“There, now,” she whispered, just as she had when Dorothea was little and had skinned her knee. “There, now.”

“Jo says nothing is stronger than love.” Dorothea wept. “But even my love can’t call him back.”

“Hush. Jo’s right. I know that’s true.”

“Ma, his heart’s so hungry for love—starved. I’ve never known one hungrier, except maybe Dougie’s. I kept telling myself if I could just feed his heart, answer that hunger with enough love, he’d wake up. But now I don’t know.”

Doing a complete turnaround, Lisbeth raised Dorothea’s chin and met her eyes. “Don’t you fall apart on him now, Dora. If love’s what he needs—well, then, keep giving it to him. He never had any from his father, and precious little from his mother, as I recall.”

“Then, Ma, you promise not to hate him?”

“How can I, dear? He’s already in your heart.”

****

Hare and Dorothea walked together along a shore in a far distant place—a rough, grassy track that led northward toward the past. Or was it the future? He found he couldn’t tell, only that peace existed here, and Dorothea’s voice floated constantly in his ears.

To be sure, the lass loved to talk.

On their right lay rocks verging the wide, gray-blue ocean—the exact color of his Dora’s dreamy eyes—stretching away to a barely perceived horizon. Or maybe that wasn’t the ocean at all. Perhaps those were Dora’s eyes and he now existed only inside her, for he had lost any real connection to the world.

Yet she held him—or her voice did; it kept him from slipping away, as did the comfort of her presence. Her hands stroked his hands or his face, now covered in beard, and her love flowed into him wherever her fingertips met his skin. Her love wrapped around him like the blankets she tugged up to his chin and the warmth of her body when she lay beside him.

As soon as she left him—and that wasn’t often—he began to slip away. His moorings creaked, and he felt himself slide backward from this path they trod together into oblivion. Then his heart called to hers.

“Here,” she said now. “Just another sip.” He felt the rim of a cup against his lips. “It’s broth. Mind you don’t choke. Doc Stevens says if you don’t eat you’ll just grow weaker, and we can’t have that, can we? Drink it for me.”

He did, obligingly. He would do anything she asked of him.

“Where are we going?” He indicated the path ahead.

“Into the future. No, don’t you dare look back, Timothy Grier.”

“You know my name.”

“I know everything about you.”

“What’s up ahead?”

“Who can tell? I know what’s not there, and that’s the past. When we reach that place up ahead, you’ll see it’s ruins, all ruins.”

“Will you be there with me?”

“I’ll always be with you. Now, drink.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“Hold me.”

She did—so close in the night he couldn’t tell where his flesh ended and hers began. They walked together through the warm night, with stars spread above like the painted ceiling at Sybil’s.

“How long has it been?”

“Days and days.” She sounded like a child when she said that. Yet no child, this. Deep in the night he kissed her, or thought he did.

“Here, my love—let your brother lift you up so we can change the bed.”

Brother?

Strong arms bore him upward, and a voice rumbled. Dora answered, and he struggled to open his eyes.

“I want to see him. And God, lass, I want to see your face.”

“Then come awake. All you need to do is wake. I’m here.”

“What will happen when we reach the future, Dora mine?”

“We’ll get married.”

“Will we?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t you remember I asked you, before?”

“What did I say?”

“Your lips said no—they’re foolish lips. But your heart said yes, and I’m only listening to your heart. I already have my dress planned. So you better not disappoint me, Timothy O’Hare Grier. Open those eyes and make me the promise.”

“I wish I could.”

“I will talk you into submission. Tell me how soon you want to marry me.”

“Soon. Today.”

“We can’t till you open your eyes. And how many children do you want?”

“Children!”

“Oh, Mr. Timothy O’Hare Grier, there will be children. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Ah, then—three. Five. Ten.”

She laughed, but he could hear the tears.

They reached the end of the path. To the right lay a clutter of rocks fronting the sea, beyond a stretch of shingle beach where the water washed in like an eager lover reaching.

To the left…

“What’s that?”

“The ruins. This is the place. The place where the past and the future meet.”

It had once been a cottage, most likely. Now only the chimney stood, stone on stone, like a stark finger piercing the sky. The roof had fallen in and the walls crumbled.

His past had crumbled.

He couldn’t feel the pain of it anymore. All he could feel was Dora’s hand in his and her love filling him, filling his heart to overflowing.

She turned toward him on the path, tugged at both his hands so he faced her, and gazed into his eyes. What beautiful eyes his Dora had, brimming with strength and determination. They put the ocean to shame.

“It’s time,” she told him.

“For what?”

“For you to choose. You can see the past is gone—there’s no going back, and it can’t reach you anymore. But I’m here, and I’ll never desert you. Choose. Choose me and open your eyes.”

She kissed him then, the kiss he’d awaited for days. The warmth of her poured into him, heat enough to melt away the last of his doubt.

With joy filling him, he opened his eyes.