Dixie Browning – The Virgin And The Vengeful Groom (страница 2)

Somewhere in one of those boxes might lie the explanation for why he’d always felt drawn to salt water. Why he’d ended up choosing a career as a Navy SEAL over his stepfather’s farm.

A mosquito landed on the tender flesh of a newly healed skin graft. He swore, slapped, and swore again. This recovery business was a pain in the—in various parts of his anatomy. Patience had never been one of his virtues. At least here he had time and privacy. The house itself was a gaunt, unpainted relic, sparsely furnished but, surprisingly enough, still solid. The outbuildings had weathered a few too many storms to be worth repairing, even if he’d had a use for them. Even if he’d planned on hanging around. As for the rest of his estate, it consisted of roughly a hundred-odd acres of blowing sand, stunted trees and muddy marsh that stunk to high heaven whenever the wind was off the sound.

Not to mention the small, private cemetery with half a dozen or so leaning tombstones. Most of the names had been sandblasted until few of them were even legible. One stood out. His father. Matthew Curtis Powers, born September 9, 1931, died, September 9, 1997. Ironic. He could think of better ways to celebrate a birthday.

Curt took a deep, cautious breath. Too deep and it hurt; too shallow and he got that suffocating feeling again. Nightmare stuff.

It’s over, man. You’re out of it.

Physically he was out of it. Mentally…he was getting there.

At least he had something to focus his mind on. That helped. The nightmares came less frequently now. Once he got involved in rediscovering the father he remembered only dimly—the man who had taught him to fish when he was barely old enough to hold a fishing pole and promised that one of these days they’d buy a boat and sail to the West Indies—he’d be well on the way to full recovery.

In a week or so he would drive to Norfolk and reclaim the rest of his inheritance. While he had no intention of hanging around any longer than necessary, it didn’t hurt for a guy to know something about his past—his roots.

Moving with the deceptive ease of someone afraid of jarring something loose, Curt made his way to the kitchen, squeaked open the rust-speckled refrigerator and scowled. “Well, hell,” he said plaintively.

No beer. Also, no bacon, no eggs—nothing but a chunk of green cheese that wasn’t supposed to be that color. No more leftover pizza—he’d finished that off for breakfast. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to making another supply run. Especially as he’d insisted on keeping his four-by-four instead of trading it in on something with an automatic transmission. The drive down from the hospital in Maryland had damn near killed him, but he’d stuck it out on the theory that if it hurt, it must be good for him. Once he’d opened the house up, aired it out and unloaded his few possessions, he had hauled south to the nearest village to hire a carpenter. While he was there, he’d stocked up on the necessities of life: beer, bacon and eggs and a variety of canned goods.

This time the drive wasn’t too bad. The usual beach traffic, but what the devil—he was in no hurry. He pulled in at the post office to collect the accumulation of junk mail, then drove on to the nearest supermarket. It was late August. The place was mobbed. As a rule he did his shopping before eight in the morning or after ten at night. If there was one thing that galled the hell out of him—and actually, there were several—it was having strangers stare at him as if he were some kind of freak. So he had a few scars—so what?

So he walked kind of funny. So what?

Kids were the worst. They’d stare at him, half scared, half fascinated. As if he were a carnival display or something instead of a guy who’d happened to get in the way of a few pounds of miscellaneous scrap metal. “You ain’t seen nothing, kid,” he was tempted to growl. “Wait till I take off my pants.”

But of course, he never did. His own mama, bless her frivolous, lying soul, had taught him a few manners before he’d left the nest.

Bracing himself not to use the shopping cart as a walker, he started with the As and tossed in a couple of apples. Next, he grabbed a few cans of beans, some corned beef, bread and beer. Enough of the Bs. He moved through the alphabet to cookies, candy, cheese and coffee, then located the eggs. His unwritten list was another of the mental exercises designed to keep his brain from atrophying. By the time he’d done pickles and preserves, he’d had enough. Skipping ahead to the Vs, he opted for a copy of today’s Virginian Pilot instead of vegetables. He had canned beans and pickles, after all.

Three days after she’d brought them home, Lily still hadn’t got around to finding putting-places for the contents of a single box. She was too caught up in exploring her treasure trove. Organizing could wait. Imagine, a diary written more than a hundred years ago. For all she knew, she was the first person to read it since the woman named Bess had made the last entry.

“Okay, Bessie, where did we leave off?” she murmured. “We were hiding from that jerk who had locked up your crew, right?” Propping her feet on one of the boxes, she opened the diary she’d been reading. The stuff was gold, pure gold. Diaries, travel journals—and she hadn’t even started on the novels yet. Six boxes full of who-knew-what wonderful material. It was better than winning the lottery.

The handwriting was better formed than her own, but it was still hard to read. Now and then Lily had to look up a word in the dictionary. Even so, it was amazing how a woman of the twenty-first century could slip into the skin of a woman from another era. Bess Powers had grown up in an unorthodox way and gone on to do her own thing.

So had Lily. They had both overcome amazing odds to make something of themselves—Bess in an age when women were supposed to be seen and not heard, to wear corsets and bustles and high-top shoes.

She’d even smoked cigars. Lily didn’t smoke. She didn’t drink. She didn’t even take aspirin for headaches or cramps; however, she occasionally allowed herself to over-indulge in junk food.

“You’d have loved subs, Bessie. With peppers and onions and provolone and oil and vinegar—we’d have royally pigged out.”

Bess had eaten raw fish aboard ship and something called salt horse, which might be horse, or it might be kangaroo, for all Lily knew. Neither animal sounded particularly appetizing. She had picked and eaten fruits that Lily couldn’t even pronounce, much less visualize. Lily wanted to believe she would have done it, too, in Bess’s place, because the more she read, the more convinced she was that she and Bess Powers were two of a kind, separated by a century, give or take a few years.

It was almost as if fate had guided her that day. She had gone to the storage unit to leave a box of books—author’s copies of her first three paperbacks, plus a few foreign copies. Doris, her housekeeper, threatened to burn the things the next time she tripped over them, but there was simply no more room on her crowded bookshelves. That was when she’d noticed the auction. A few people were bidding on the contents of three units on which the rental payments had fallen too far behind. Standard procedure, she’d been told when she’d asked what was going on. “But that’s awful,” she’d said at the time, even as she edged closer to get a look at what was on the block.

The boxes had been opened. Nothing but old books and some old newspapers—the others only glanced and turned their attention back to the two chairs, three bicycles and a suitcase of winter clothing.

For reasons that hadn’t made sense at the time, and hardly did even now, Lily had felt defensive on behalf of the papers. Poor things, no one had wanted them. Lily knew what it was like to be shunned. Sensible or not, she’d gone all defensive and put in a bid on the lot. At least she could give the things a decent burial. Burn them or something. Maybe even try to locate the owner.

Feeling self-righteous, she had taken a second look and discovered among the ancient newspapers what appeared to be travel journals or logbooks, a few old novels, the covers all mildewed, and several diaries, the locks no longer effective as the leather straps had more or less disintegrated. That was when she’d first felt it—that all-but-imperceptible quiver of excitement that always came when she hit on the seed of a solid plot. Sometimes it was the people, sometimes the conflict—this time it was a woman named Bess, who had written diaries.

Diaries that Lily was increasingly certain she’d been meant to find all these years later, because she and Bess were kindred spirits. Oh, yes they were, and if that sounded spooky, so be it. She didn’t have to admit to anything, all she’d had to do was pay for the stuff, drag it to her car, squeeze it in and get it home and up to her third-floor apartment.

Which she had ultimately done, her appetite whetted by the promise of mystery, tragedy, possibly even romance….

The boxes had been heavy, her car was small. Enter the second coincidence, or as Lily preferred to think of it, the second omen. She was of two minds when it came to publicity. Personally, she hated it. As Lily O’Malley, bestselling novelist, she had learned to tolerate it, although even the best publicity was not without dangers. Occasionally a fan grew somewhat…obsessive.