Cecily McGiver stood near the prow of the Kidder and stared anxiously out over the dark water at the long stretch of wilderness that would become her home.
Over a week’s delay in Panama City, due to the leaky boiler of a ship they had planned to take, forced them to miss the monthly steamer. Rather than wait for the next, Asa Mercer found passage for his small expedition on a lumber bark bound for Puget Sound. From there, they boarded this sloop and now arrived, in the dead of night, on the final leg of their two-month journey.
How could relief be found coiled up in the bindings of such fear?
“Nothing like our reception in Teekalet, is it?” Sarah, one of her traveling companions mused. “Those loggers were so happy to see us, all that hootin’ and hollerin’ and carryin’ on—and here, it looks as if barely a soul came to greet us.”
Sarah voiced Cecily’s thoughts, though only one man’s presence mattered.
It had been a full decade since she’d last seen Zeke. Was his one of the ghostly, dark shapes standing on the wharf? She doubted she would recognize him. Even back then she’d barely known him.
“Say, she doesn’t look so good.”
Sarah’s worried tone snapped Cecily from the past, to her ten-year-old sister who fiercely clutched her hand.
“Gwennie?” Cecily crouched down to see her face. Pale and drawn, it bore dark circles that had ringed her eyes since midjourney and were apparent in the lamplight. “Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice came as fragile as a will-o’-the-wisp, barely heard over the constant slosh of water.
Cecily squeezed her hand. “Only a little longer and we’ll see you tucked snug in bed with a warming pan at your feet. I promise.”
The sloop soon docked, but Cecily felt no better for their arrival. Her legs wobbled, her balance precarious. Gwen clutching so tightly to her hand did not help, and she feared she might fall into the water and take her sister with her.
Cecily listened with half an ear as a stout man holding a lantern greeted them, detaching himself from the small welcoming committee that had assembled—several men and women, one of whom eyed Gwen with suspicion. A protective instinct led Cecily to edge with Gwen to the back of the group. Her mind no longer felt connected to her body, which perched on the brink of mutiny to her ebbing will. If she didn’t find somewhere to sit down soon…
She turned to scan the area.
A distant shape bearing a lantern broke from the darkness of clustered trees. Her shipmates had their backs to Cecily, too absorbed in the spokesman’s effusive salutation to notice the stranger. Cecily watched the shape take the form of a man. He approached, his face indistinct in the flickering lantern light, the hat he wore concealing his features. His spry step and lean build suggested him to be younger than their greeters.
Cecily took a hesitant half step when the newcomer came close.
“Zeke?”
He eased his hurried advance into slow, determined steps.
“You must be Cecily.”
His voice came rich, warm, and deep, and she looked up in confusion. What she could see of his hair hanging below his ears was dark, not fair, and he was much taller than she remembered. Of course, he would be. They had been children when he saved her from the bully who pulled her braids, and the passage of time would account for such changes.
“Yes, I’m Cecily. And you must be Zeke?” she inquired a second time, still uncertain.
He looked over her head to the group behind.
“May we go somewhere and talk?” he asked in the cautious, quiet tone reserved for breaking bad news. She had heard just such a tone a little over two months ago and eyed him warily.
“I prefer to remain here. Why will you not answer? Are you Zeke?”
“No, miss. Please, if you’ll just step with me there, over by those crates, I’ll explain.”
Suspicion weighed her down, and her legs felt ready to bow beneath their load. “No, I don’t think so. Where’s Zeke?”
He hesitated. “I’m sorry, Zeke is dead.”
He got no further. The boards on which Cecily stood seemed to cave beneath her feet, carrying her into a fog of dark oblivion.
Garrett barely saved the woman before she hit the ground or toppled into the black water. The rapid flutter of her lashes had warned him, and he stepped forward and caught her with one arm in the nick of time. Holding her against him to gain better balance, he set down his lantern then shifted her slight weight to lift her fully into his arms.
A tug at his coat made him look down. Wide green eyes in a wan face regarded him solemnly.
“Please, mister, is Cecily going to die?”
The wobble of fear in the woebegone voice touched his heart, and he gave the girl a reassuring smile.
“She’s just a mite weary, I reckon. Hasn’t got her land legs yet. Let’s take a seat on one of those crates. Grab the lantern and come along.”
At least he hoped Cecily McGiver would be well, not having foreseen her reaction and not sure whether weariness or shock was its cause. Like the child, the young woman also looked and felt like a bundle of skin and bones. Did they not feed them on this excursion?
No one had noticed her quiet swoon, and Garrett carried his precious cargo, leading the little girl to a short stack of crates. He set the woman on one, using the side of another to prop her back, then took the lantern from the child. Kneeling before the woman, he took gentle hold of her face, noting her fine features in the lamp’s golden glow. Hair that blazed like flame and skin as flawless as cream. Like the child, dark circles shadowed the skin beneath her eyes he recalled being a deep green.
“Miss…” He slapped her cheeks lightly to rouse her.
She groaned and struggled to open her eyes.
As green as the sea in the shallows on a summer day…
Seeing him loom close, with his hand on her jaw, she jerked back in shocked alarm.
“It’s all right,” he soothed, releasing her. “Are you all right?”
She pushed herself up to sit taller. “I…just dizzy.” Memory made her frown. “What you said—about Zeke?”
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I was on my way to my cabin when I saw the boat docked. I wanted to be the one to tell you. Zeke was a friend. He spoke of your arrival.”
“Oh.” She stared ahead at nothing, shaking her head as if in a daze. “I hardly knew him, really. We were from the same town of Lowell, in Massachusetts. I saw his ad, and…Oh, sweet mercy, what have I done?” she whispered. “I should never have come here. What shall I do?”
The question seemed more self-directed than a plea for advice, but he answered, hoping to reassure her. “I understand teaching positions are reserved for all the women.”
“But I’m not one of them, not really. I traveled with them, yes, but I can’t teach, I have no certificate and…” Her eyes widened. “Where’s Gwen? Where’s my sister?”
“I’m here,” a small voice piped up behind Garrett. The girl stepped into the pale circle of light.
Cecily reached for her, drawing her close. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
The child nodded, wrapping both arms around her sister. “You won’t die, too, will you?” she asked plaintively.
“Now, what kind of talk is that?” Cecily retorted lightly, though Garrett heard the tremor in her words. “I’m of strong stock, at least that’s what Auntie always said. And so are you. We’re McGivers, you and I. We made it across an ocean. We’ll do just fine.”
A ghost of a smile lifted the child’s pale lips.
Garrett watched the emotional interaction between sisters, not unmoved. “Is the girl ill?” he asked Cecily.
“No more than a wretched case of seasickness.”
He nodded in sympathy. He’d seen grown men three times the girl’s size succumb to the devilish waves.
“What will you do now?” He asked the question she earlier posed.
“The hotel will put us up for tonight, according to our welcoming committee. Tomorrow I’ll find other arrangements.”
Garrett knew that several families offered to take in Mercer’s girls upon their arrival but had a bad feeling, call it a hunch, about the plight of these two waifs. He’d been taught never to bypass a soul in need and wasn’t about to start now. Yet the idea that sprang to mind rendered him speechless, and he wondered if long hours poring over books had addled clear thought. One somber look into two pairs of anxious eyes set his mind on a trek that would surely knock his world flat and send the whole of it catawampus.
“If I might make a suggestion…” he said when he gathered the nerve to speak.
Cecily nodded for him to go on.
One part concern, one part need, and more than his fair share of guilt bolstered him to say the rest.
“Marry me.”