Pretending to admire the stately structures lining Portland’s streets, Ariah studied the profile of the man next to her on the seat of the rumbling wagon as it carried them out of town. The only similarities she could see between Bartholomew Noon and the architecture she was supposedly enjoying were their stalwart solidity and craggy surface. Ensconced inside one of the buildings or seated beside the man, a woman would feel safe.
But there, all likeness ended. The edifices lining Jefferson Street were relatively common—Bartholomew Noon was not.
His face put her in mind of a sculptor’s work, of sensitive hands armed with clay, dabbing on a bit here, pinching off a tad there, and smoothing with the swipe of a thumb, before moving on. It was a face of inconsistencies, a face as complex, she imagined, as the man himself. Dark, brooding, intense. Predatory.
In his ridiculously long wire Pritchard Monteer had described his uncle as a man to whom women generally gave a second glance, and Ariah agreed. Some, no doubt, would even call him beautiful. A few might be challenged to see what it took to make those full, sensuous lips curve in genuine joy. Others, noting his forbidding expression and the sense of barely contained power hidden inside that massive body, would give him a wide berth.
Ariah Scott was fascinated. His full mouth hinted at sensitivity. The brooding sable eyes suggested comparison. Try as she might to give her attention to the passing sights, her gaze was drawn back to him again and again. She kept her hands clutched in her lap, her skirts properly swept aside so they wouldn’t brush his muscular limbs, as she resisted the urge to stare, to study, to touch.
“I’m very eager to see the lighthouse.” She looked away, desperate to get her mind on something other than the man at her side. “I’ve never seen the ocean, but I’m terribly excited to think that I’ll be living so close to it. Are there many birds? I am an ornithologist, so I’m hoping to spend some time studying the birds there. I hope there’ll be sea lions, too. You’d think any sort of lion would be ferocious looking, but the sea lions I’ve seen in pictures struck me as enormous pillows with mustaches.”
Ariah knew she was prattling and thought at once of the “Hints on Etiquette and Personal Manners,” she had read during her train ride. They had been in a book, Dr. Chase’s Recipes, or Information for Every Body, given her by Aunt Ida. “Be discreet and sparing of your words,” it had instructed. She’d completed only the first paragraph of that section and already she’d broken one of the rules.
Actually, Ida was the wife of her father’s law partner, Lou Steinberger, and not related at all. But to Ariah the Steinberger’s had been “Aunt” and “Uncle” for as long as she could remember, and, in truth, they were the closest thing she had now to blood relatives.
Except for Uncle Xenos.
Ariah’s stomach clenched with the agony of a grief—and fear—so new she had yet to come to terms with it. Perhaps, if her father had not died so suddenly, so cruelly, if she had at least dared to attend his funeral, his death would seem more real. As it was, she had found it all too easy to push the painful reality aside for hours at a time during her journey west, to think only of the future the rattling, shrill-whistling train was carrying her to. A future that hadn’t existed until a few brief days before her departure.
The hair at her nape prickled as she sensed Bartholomew Noon’s eyes on her. Quickly she brought her emotions under control. She wasn’t ready yet to talk about her father. Or why she had been forced to abandon everything comfortable and familiar and agree to a marriage with a total stranger. The pain was too fresh, the fear too real.
Out of the side of her eye, she peeked to see if Mr. Noon was still watching her. He appeared so confident and competent, one boot braced on the front of the wagon, his arm resting on his thigh. What would he do if he knew of the danger that even now might be tracking her across the country? Certainly this man appeared strong enough to take on any foe. Even outraged Greek uncles. Squeezing her eyes shut, Ariah prayed that wouldn’t become necessary.
“We do see sea lions from time to time.” His voice seemed to emerge from deep inside his massive chest, a sort of half-growl, half-caress that reached into Ariah and helped soothe her overwrought nerves.
“Mostly they stay out on the seastacks though,” he added.
Grateful for the distraction, Ariah said, “Seastacks?”
Without looking at her, he nodded. “Small islands of rock. Basalt, primarily.”
“Oh. I thought sea lions liked to lie on the beach and bask in the sun.”
“They do, but spending much time close to shore usually wins them a bullet in the brain.”
Ariah gasped and clutched at his arm. “Why? Who on earth would shoot such gentle creatures?”
Bartholomew glanced down to gauge the genuineness of her reaction. What he saw pleased him almost as much as her delicate hand on his thick forearm. “Fishermen don’t like anything harvesting salmon or shellfish but them.”
“That’s selfish. Why doesn’t someone stop them?”
Her face was so close he could count the spikes of her lashes and see the pale tracery that made the blue of her eyes look like fractured glass. How he longed to cover her small hand with his own, to lean forward and…
Bartholomew gave himself a harsh mental shake. The girl would soon be his niece, for God’s sake. And even if she wasn’t, Ariah Scott was a fragile, beautifully wrought piece of crystal, shining and pure. He was a clumsy oversized chamber pot. For him to think of her with such heated prurience was immoral.
“Don’t the fish belong to the sea animals as much as they do to humans?” Her eyes altered to a periwinkle blue as her anger grew.
Bartholomew took a deep breath and froze his lust with an iceberg of guilt. “The fishermen are only trying to protect their livelihood, can’t blame them for that. And the law is on their side. Anyway, until someone sees beyond his next plate of steamed oysters and gains enough influence to get things changed, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
To his disappointment she removed her hand from his arm, leaving him feeling surprisingly bereft and alone.
For a long moment she stared blindly at the road ahead, her generous mouth pursed. When she spoke, her voice was soft and reflective as though she were merely speaking thoughts aloud. “’The most vicious acts are done involuntarily’.”
Taken aback, Bartholomew stared at her in stunned surprise. Any female spouting Greek philosophy would astonish him. To hear it from a nymph of a girl like Ariah was both a shock and a thrill. With a grin so broad it used muscles he was sure he hadn’t exercised in years, he offered a favorite quote of his own. “’He who commits such acts is in a worse state than he who knows the good and wills it, but is overcome by passion—’”
“’For the former cannot help doing evil,’” Ariah finished for him in delight. She had been right; his body might look as though it belonged on a wrestling mat or behind a plow, but it contained the soul of a poet. “You’ve read Plato?”
“Some. Who taught you his philosophy?”
Did she dare to tell him the truth? Surely it could not hurt to admit her heritage. “My mother. She was born in Crete.”
His brows rose again. “You’re Greek?”
“Only half. My father was a Scot.”
Bartholomew caught her use of the past tense when speaking of her parents, but gave it little thought. He was too caught up in the pleasure of knowing he now had someone with whom he could share one of his interests.
“Plato had another teaching you might find fitting,” he said.
“What is that?”
“That through the order of nature which God sustains, He sees to it that justice is always done.”
Her eyes filled with anguish before she looked away to stare into the distance. “I hope He does, Mr. Noon. More than anything, I hope He does.”
Her voice was velvet soft, yet vehement. So vehement that he wondered if she were still thinking of sea lions or of something much more personal. Her sudden vulnerability filled him with a need to protect her, cherish her. But he said nothing.
Soon Portland’s bustling streets and thoroughfares were left behind. The road narrowed and became rougher. Houses grew smaller, more rustic, farther apart. Evergreen forests carpeted with ferns—rich green where the sun infiltrated the deep shadows—brought soft exclamations of delight from the parted lips of Bartholomew Noon’s young passenger. A few brilliant pink, wild azalea blossoms, brought on by the unseasonably warm weather of the past few weeks, provided a startling contrast to the more somber greens and browns.
Burying her grief by imagining her future home, Ariah said, “May I ask you something, Mr. Noon?”
He glanced down and saw with relief that the sadness had faded from her eyes. “Of course.”
Ariah allowed her gaze to settle on the large, bare hands riding relaxed between his spread knees, their grip on the reins seeming loose though she knew he was in complete control. Capable looking hands, the fingers thick but not overly stubby. Handsome hands, she decided, in spite of the small scars speckling the deeply tanned skin. Were the palms tough and hard with old calluses and how would they feel on her skin?
Flustered by her errant thoughts, she blurted out what was on her mind. “Is…is my fiancé, Pritchard Monteer, as pleasant to look at as you? Or will I find him squat, pock-faced or half-bald?”
Bartholomew looked at her in astonishment, tipped his head back and bellowed with laughter.
“No,” he said when he finally contained his mirth. “Pritchard’s nothing like me. He’s shorter, but certainly not squat. Actually, we aren’t related by blood. His mother and my wife are sisters.”
That brought up her head. “Your wife?”
“Yes.”
Why did Ariah find that disappointing? “She also lives at the lighthouse?”
“She does.” Bartholomew cursed himself for the despondent note that crept into his voice. “There are two houses at the station, both new and well equipped, though we have no electricity or even gas lighting, since we’re so isolated. Hester and I live in one of them. You and Pritchard will share the other with Seamus, the First Assistant Keeper.”
“Oh.” She seemed to consider this. “Seamus is not married?”
Bartholomew chuckled. “That old seadog? He’s well into his sixties and so salty from his years on the sea that I doubt any woman could live with him. In the same room, anyway.” Not wanting to alarm her, he added, “Actually, he’s likeable enough and easy to get along with, so long as you don’t mess with his pipe. Or his goats.”
“He has goats? Are there other animals there?”
“Two milk cows, four horses, chickens, two goats and the Chinese pheasants I breed.”
He felt her gaze on him and couldn’t help but look down at her. Her eyes glowed with excitement.
“You raise pheasants?”
The wagon jolted as the front wheel rolled onto a rock. She clutched at his thigh to keep from being thrown across his lap and her breast flattened against his arm. His pulse doubled. He gripped the reins hard to keep from reaching for her. The wheel bumped down off the rock and the wagon straightened. Even after Ariah had righted herself and let go of his leg, a few seconds passed before he could speak calmly.
“One of our Oregon judges, Owen Denny, discovered these pheasants in Shanghai when he was consul general there about ten years ago,” Bartholomew explained. “Denny liked them so much he shipped several crates home to establish colonies of them here. I became interested in them about five years ago, but was too busy tending my father’s dairy farm at the time. That’s one of the reasons I took the job as Head Keeper at Cape Meares, so I could start raising them. I sell live birds all over the country, to men who hope to establish them in their areas. Shipped a load off to Kentucky yesterday.”
“How exciting. I love birds. May I help with them?”
He wished she wouldn’t smile up at him like that; those blue eyes radiating such joy, her mouth moist and parted. It kept his pulse thrumming with a need he did not dare satisfy. He leaned further over his knees to hide the evidence of her effect on him. “We’ll see.”
Bartholomew spent a goodly amount of time studying the towering sky that afternoon. He didn’t like the look of the clouds rolling up from the south. Oregon had been enjoying the warmth of an early spring, but he knew that could quickly change. Now dusk was just around the corner. One more hour could see them at the Olwell place. He wiped a hand down the back of his neck. The image of Nehemiah Olwell’s bushy white brows raised to his fading hairline at the sight of Miss Ariah Scott made Bartholomew sweat.
Nehemiah was a Baptist circuit preacher. In good weather, he rode a swaybacked mule to the settlements, bringing the Word where it might otherwise never reach. Nehemiah’s sons Joe and Lemuel worked the homestead. Along with their wives and a pack of children as wild as timber wolves, the two younger Olwells shared a large house with their parents and an unmarried sister called Toots.
Toots. Bartholomew had had a hunch for some time now that her interest in him was less than proper. That notion—to his shame—had provided fuel for more than one unwonted fantasy on nights when he became overwhelmed by needs his conscience and Hester forbid him to sate.
A nighthawk darted up from the rutted road, startling the horses and eliciting a startled cry from Ariah. Bartholomew firmed his grip on the reins and brought the team under control. Between the mossy trunks of Douglas firs the sinking sun reflected muted shades of coral and orange off low-banked clouds. Soon it would be dark and he would have to find a place to spend the night.
Miss Scott had made no complaints about the long hours sitting on a hard, bumpy wagon seat. But there was a definite droop to her shoulders and her straw bonnet failed to hide the bluish shadows under her eyes, or the thickly lashed lids threatening to close over those unforgettable eyes. He had to make up his mind; the Olwells or a camp in the wilderness—just the two of them.
As though feeling his gaze on her, she straightened her spine and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind a delicate, seashell ear. Her stomach rumbled. She clapped a hand to it and gave him a wan smile.
Bartholomew made his decision. “There’s a stream a little way ahead. We’ll stop there.”
Though he didn’t bother to examine his motives, he didn’t lie to himself either. Bartholomew never hedged at looking reality in the eye. If his interpretation tended to be a bit pessimistic, that was another matter.
He wanted Ariah to himself. Nehemiah’s disapproval of a married man traveling with a woman who was not his wife was only a convenient excuse.
The idea of spending the night only a few feet away from her, smelling her subtle scent of lily of the valley and femininity, listening to her soft breathing, and imagining what that luscious mouth would taste like, how she would feel beneath his exploring hands… Hell, it was headier than a bottle of old Seamus’s demon rum.
“I think I hear the stream.” Ariah squirmed with enthusiasm. Her arm brushed his and a charge, like the electric currents they were using in Portland now to create light, sizzled through his body.
“Won’t be long now.” He smiled, leaning into the current rather than away.
Ariah returned the smile, causing his insides to tighten. Her head swiveled as a piercing whistle cleaved the air.
“That’s the train to Yamhill,” he said. “The tracks pass quite close here.”
The team broke out of the trees into a clearing. The wide stream meandering through was easy to spot, shining silver and orange in the last rays of sunlight. Dusk hovered, adding mystery and intrigue to the lonely spot.
Bartholomew brought the horses to a halt well off the road. He jumped to the ground and hurried around the wagon before Ariah could climb down. Looking up at her, he held up his hands. Without a moment’s hesitation, she placed her palms on his shoulders and let him lift her into the air.
His hands were so broad they embraced her entire midriff, the tips of his thumbs nearly reaching the under sides of her breasts. His breathing quickened. For several seconds he battled an impulse to pull her against him. If Ariah noticed that he held her longer than necessary before setting her down, or if she heard the wild hammering of his heart, she gave no sign. Her hands slid slowly down his muscular arms, coming to rest lightly below his elbows while she gazed up at him through the fading light.
The sight of those lips so close to his blocked sanity and reason from his mind. Caught up in the romance of twilight and blazing sunset, Bartholomew lowered his head toward hers.
“Hey! Bartholomew, is that you?”
Bartholomew’s head snapped up. His hands fell from Ariah’s tiny waist and he jerked himself away as though caught pilfering coins from a collection box.
A horse and rider appeared out of the darkness along the riverbank. Bartholomew stepped out from the wagon for a closer look. His heart, which had dropped into his stomach, fell the rest of the way to his feet.
“It’s me,” he said. “How are you, Joe?”
Joe Olwell pulled up a few yards short of the wagon and slid to the ground. A few years older than Bartholomew, he was taller but only half as wide. “Good, by golly. Good as a Sunday afternoon with chicken frying, the kids off chasing roosters and the wife smiling that ‘Let’s make hay’ smile o’ hers. Don’t get no better’n that, do it?”
Bartholomew chuckled. “I reckon not. But what are you doing here?”
“Fishing, what else? It’s Saturday, ain’t it?”
Bartholomew nodded and shook Joe’s hand. Fishing was Joe Olwell’s passion. Every Saturday night found him waist deep in slow running water, a pole in his hand and hope in his heart. He didn’t do it the easy way like the twins did, with fat wriggling worms few fish could resist. Joe tied his own flies. Trout killers, he called them.
For Nehemiah and Lemuel—like Bartholomew—it was the pheasants, with their spectacular red eye-patches and iridescent rust-hued feathers, but in Joe’s eyes nothing was prettier than a big sly trout.
Ariah stepped out from behind the wagon and Joe gave a soft, wordless exclamation of appreciation.
“What the G-golly dickens you got here, Bartholomew?”
Bartholomew’s heart, which had settled down somewhat, kicked up a notch. The fat was in the fire; there would be no way to get out of spending the night at the Olwell’s now.
“My wife’s nephew, Pritchard…you remember me telling you he came to work at the station as Second Assistant Keeper? He’s getting married. This is his bride, Miss Ariah Scott.”
Joe snatched his battered hat off his head and gave Ariah an awkward bow, his wide, nearly drooling gaze never leaving her face. She smiled and nodded, her hands clasped behind her back. The heavy knitted shawl she’d wrapped around her to ward off the evening chill parted, awarding the men a view of her slender, curvaceous figure set off by her brightly colored traveling suit.
Bartholomew heard Joe’s sharply indrawn breath and sympathized. Although he had had an entire day to get used to the sight of her, his body still reacted to Ariah’s beauty and sweetness with shock and sudden heat.
Joe sidled closer and whispered. “What’s she doing here with you, Bartholomew? Running away with her, are ya?”
Bartholomew made a sound in his throat that could have been a chuckle but came closer to a choked gasp.
“No, Joe. She arrived in Portland this morning on the train. Since I had to see a crate of pheasants off to Kentucky, Pritchard asked me to pick her up and bring her back with me.”
“G-golly dang, if you ain’t the lucky one.” Louder, he said, “Well now, you wasn’t getting set to make camp here, was you? The house ain’t no more’n a whisper away. You know the folks’d be hurt if you didn’t spend the night with ‘em.”
Bartholomew bit back a grimace and brushed his hand down the back of his neck. “Didn’t want to impose, Joe.”
“Horse—” Joe flashed a glance at Ariah and didn’t finish the colorful expletive. “You know Ma’d never call it imposing, even if you brought along half a dozen folks.”
Joe gave the girl another long look and grinned. “And the twins…well, now, reckon they’re gonna consider this ‘bout on a par with a Christmas morn.”
Bartholomew frowned. He hadn’t even considered the twins. They must be seventeen now, blond masculine replicas of their pretty mother, and all rampant sexuality. He took a protective step closer to Ariah, but before he could think of a reasonable excuse to refuse, she spoke up.
“We’d love to visit your family, Mister . . .”
Realizing his lapse in manners, Bartholomew quickly filled in, “Olwell, Joe Olwell.”
Ariah blessed them both with a tantalizing smile. “Mr. Olwell, it’s very kind of you to offer us shelter for the night.”
Joe crushed his hat in both hands. Color suffused his face as he shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Naw, ’taint nothing. Plain food and a bit of Bible reading from Pa is all, but you’re welcome.” He backed toward his horse. “Let’s get going then.”
Joe patted a wicker basket tied to the back of his saddle, along with a two-piece bamboo pole that cleverly fit back together when needed. “Got me the finest passel o’ trout you ever seen. Ma’ll be waiting with a hot frying pan when we get there.” He winked at Bartholomew. “Better’n pheasant breasts fried in fresh churned butter.”
Bartholomew let the jibe pass, not feeling particularly jovial at the moment. His fate was set. All he could do was lift Ariah back onto the wagon, follow Joe across the stream and on to the Olwell homestead.