Marta Perry - Land's End

Something bleak closed over Trent’s anger, and he pushed Sarah’s hands away as if he couldn’t stand to touch her anymore. “If you think that, you’re even more naive than I thought you were. Anyone is capable of betrayal. Anyone.”

“Not Miles,” she insisted. “I don’t mean to hurt you. But I’m here, and I intend to stay until I find out the truth.”

His dark, winged eyebrows lifted slightly. “And if I tell you you’re not welcome here?”

“Then I’d say that you don’t own St. James Island. Not all of it, anyway.”

Something, perhaps faint, bitter amusement, crossed Trent’s face. He moved toward the door. “You may be surprised.”

“You can’t force me to leave.”

Trent pulled the door open, then paused, a dark silhouette against the rectangle of sunlight. “Goodbye, Sarah. I don’t expect I’ll see you again.”

has written everything from Sunday school curriculum to travel articles to magazine stories in twenty years of writing, but she feels she’s found her home in the stories she writes for Love Inspired.

Marta lives in rural Pennsylvania, but she and her husband spend part of each year at their second home in South Carolina. When she’s not writing, she’s probably visiting her children and her beautiful grandchildren, traveling or relaxing with a good book.

Marta loves hearing from readers and she’ll write back with a signed bookplate or bookmark. Write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, e-mail her at marta@martaperry.com, or visit her on the Web at www.martaperry.com.

The Lord is my stronghold, my fortress and my champion, my God, my rock where I find safety, my shield, my mountain refuge, my strong tower.

—Psalms 18:2

This story is dedicated to Christine Teisher,

with much love. And, as always, to Brian.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Years ago there had been no bridge to the island, and it had slept in haunted isolation. Now two lanes of concrete spanned the sound, carrying Sarah Wainwright quickly from the Georgia coast to St. James Island. Too quickly. She wasn’t ready.

Perspiration slickened her hands against the steering wheel. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t pull off, couldn’t turn around. The bridge funneled her inexorably to the one place in the world she didn’t want to be. The entire past year hadn’t been enough time to prepare herself for what awaited her on St. James.

The island appeared, a green, insubstantial smudge against a clear May sky, and Sarah’s stomach lurched. St. James—home to an uneasy, volatile mixture of local Gullah fishermen and the rich incomers who’d turned one end of the island into a private enclave for the wealthy and powerful.

St. James had been Sarah’s home, too, for six short months. Then betrayal and tragedy sent her fleeing back to her native Boston.

Fleeing unsuccessfully. She’d discovered, since the anniversary of Miles’s death in April, that she couldn’t outrun grief. It hung, persistent, on her heels, hampering her every step, demanding her constant attention. Demanding that she face it here, on St. James. Her stomach gave another protesting spasm as the car wheels rolled off the bridge and onto the island.

Live oaks, shrouded with Spanish moss, canopied the road. Sarah shivered in spite of the heat. Haunted.

I don’t believe in ghosts, Heavenly Father, but no other word fits.

St. James was haunted by its own past, and now haunted by her past, too, and that of the husband who’d died here—died in an apparent lovers’ tryst with his employer’s wife.

The lobby of the St. James Inn was shuttered and cool, its only inhabitant the manager, leaning on his desk. Sarah caught the expression of shock mingled with avid curiosity that crossed his face at the sight of her, quickly replaced by his professional welcoming smile.

“Dr. Wainwright. This is a pleasant surprise. We weren’t expecting you.” He glanced nervously at the desk computer and patted his thinning hair. “Were we?”

“No, you weren’t.” She’d known instinctively it would be a mistake to announce her coming.

She smiled, wishing she remembered the man’s name. It would give her a fraction more leverage. Obviously he remembered hers. The island had probably talked of little else for months.

“I’m sure you can find a room for me.” The inn mainly housed overflow guests from the big houses, and they both knew May wasn’t the high season.

“Why…um…” He punched a few keys on his computer, clearly hoping for inspiration. Sarah knew exactly what he was thinking. What would Trent Donner want him to do? “Does—does Mr. Donner know you’re coming?”

Nobody on St. James, conceivably nobody in Georgia, crossed Trent Donner with impunity. Sarah’s stomach lurched again. Sooner or later she’d have to face him. Was she a coward for hoping it would be later?

She managed a cool smile. “I thought I’d surprise him. I’ll go out to Land’s End tomorrow.”

Maybe it was the casual mention of the Donner estate. Something eased in the manager’s face. “Why don’t we give you the suite you had the last time you were here?”

A lady never shows her feelings in public.

Her grandmother’s maxim, drilled into Sarah from birth, stiffened her spine and kept a smile frozen on her face. Knowing what he must, how could the man assume she’d want the suite she’d shared with Miles when they’d first arrived on the island?

“That will be fine.”

She tried to put herself on autopilot to get through the next few minutes. Fill out the registration card, exchange comments about the weather. Follow the bellman, tip him, don’t think about staying here with Miles when they’d first arrived on the island.

Finally the door closed behind him, and she was alone in the quiet room with its cool white shutters, bamboo furniture and four-poster bed. Staying here was no worse than staying in any other room. No place on the island would be free of memories.

That was why she’d fled, wasn’t it? And that was why she’d come back.

Her parents hadn’t seemed surprised at Sarah’s abrupt decision to return to the place of Miles’s death. Duty loomed large in six generations of New England virtue, and they clearly felt Sarah had left duty unresolved, racing home the day after Miles’s death, hiding from reporters, evading even her friends.

But then, her parents had never believed Miles Wainwright could be guilty of betraying both his marriage and his employer by having an affair with his employer’s wife. Or by dying with her. Not Miles Wainwright, descendant of his own six generations’ worth of Puritan values.

She hadn’t believed it either, in spite of overwhelming evidence that Miles had, indeed, had an affair with Lynette Donner and died with her in a gas heater accident at the cottage where they’d met. She hadn’t believed, couldn’t believe, what Lynette’s husband so obviously did.

For weeks, maybe months, Sarah’s mind had winced every time it came too close to the thought of Miles and Lynette together. If she didn’t think about it, it didn’t happen.

Over time, the anguish and grief receded to a dull, hollow ache, only flaring painfully when unexpectedly jostled, like a deep wound beginning to skin over with tender, fragile flesh. Work had helped. She’d taken on emergency room duty at the hospital, grateful for the killing schedule that let her fall into bed, exhausted enough to sleep, every night.

Eventually she could actually look at the possibility of Miles’s betrayal for more than a moment at a time. Look at it, assess it, bring reason to bear.

And find that she still, more than a year after the fact, didn’t believe it. Miles—loyal, upright Miles—was not a man who’d betray his marriage and his employer. He wasn’t.

To the weight of her faith in Miles, Sarah added faith in her own perceptions. I couldn’t not have known that Miles was deceiving me, could I, Lord? If her perceptions were that skewed, the earth was no longer solid under her feet.

So she’d come back to St. James. Everyone—Lynette’s husband, the police, the coroner—everyone was wrong. Whatever Miles had been doing at Cat Isle that day with Lynette, he wasn’t having an affair. Somewhere on St. James there were answers, and this time she wouldn’t run away. This time she wouldn’t leave until she found them.

A knock shattered the stillness. The manager, having forgotten something in his nervous haste? She smoothed her linen slacks, wrinkled from travel, and opened the door. And confronted Trent Donner, filling the doorway with well over six feet of fury, all of it radiating directly at her.

“What are you doing here?” He surged inside on the words. Sarah stumbled back a step or two, heart hammering against her ribs. Trying to keep him out would be as futile as trying to stop the tide.

“The manager called you,” she stated flatly.

She should have known he would do that. She should have been prepared, instead of standing here with her mouth dry from shock. She’d forgotten the aura of power Trent brought with him into a room, as if everyone and everything rotated around him.

“Of course.” Trent dismissed the man with a negligent gesture.

Sarah found her temper at the unconscious arrogance of the man. Good. One always needed an edge in dealing with Trent Donner, and anger seemed to be the only edge she had.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Answer a question with a question. Catch your breath. Slow your pounding heart.

“I’d think that would be obvious.” Trent’s voice was hard, incisive, with an edge of mockery. He took a swift step forward, and the afternoon sun crossed his face, lighting the harsh angles of cheekbone and jaw.

Sarah drew in a breath. The last time she’d seen him, it had been across two motionless bodies and the wreckage of too many lives. His normally impassive face had been etched with pain, grief and a kind of hopeless rage.

Now the lines seemed permanently engraved, turning the strong planes of his face into a marble mask. Only his clear gray eyes were alive, blazing with feeling. With fury. Her heart jolted, sickeningly. She was trapped by his presence.

“I didn’t…”

Sarah heard a faint waver in her voice, stopped and swallowed. She could face drug overdoses and multiple fatalities in the E.R. She could face him.

“I’m sorry if my being here upsets you, but I do have ties here.” She forced herself to meet his fierce gaze calmly. “My husband died here.”

“I hardly need a reminder of that.” His voice, normally deep, roughened and deepened still further. Shared pain flicked past the anger Sarah held like a shield, catching her on the raw.

That elemental pain must be the only thing they shared. She wanted, suddenly, to comfort him, and knew in the same instant that she was the one person who never could.

Perhaps he saw her wince, perhaps he only heard the revelation in his own voice. He paused, another feeling quarreling with the anger.