He stopped himself.
In his arms?
What the hell did that mean?
Safe
Still, it was a long ten minutes before his headlights found her.
She was soaked to the skin. Her legs were splattered in mud, her hair was dripping and her white blouse was plastered to her body.
As the cart came to a skidding stop, he could see she was shivering. He wished he’d thought to bring a blanket to wrap around her for the ride home.
Before he could jump out to help her, she climbed gingerly into the cart. So instead, he stripped off his shirt, draping it around her wet shoulders and tugging it closed at the front.
“Thanks,” she breathed, settling on the seat next to him, wrapping her arms around her body.
He grabbed a flashlight from its holder behind the seat and shone it on her bare legs. “Where are you hurt?” He inspected methodically up and down.
She turned her ankle, and he saw a gash on the inside of her calf, blood mixing with the mud and rainwater.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” she ventured bravely.
But Zach’s gut clenched at the sight, knowing it had to be painful. The sooner they got her home and cleaned up, the better.
He ditched the flashlight, turned the cart on and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his body in an attempt to warm her up.
“What happened?” he asked as they straightened onto the road, going back downhill.
“Ginny wanted to put the roses on Sadie’s grave. But she was too tired after the tour of the garden.” Kaitlin paused. “It’s really nice up there at the cemetery.”
“I guess.” Though the last thing Zach cared about at the moment was the aesthetics of the cemetery.
Then again, Kaitlin was fine. She was cold, and she needed a bandage. But she was with him now, and she was fine. He reflexively squeezed her shoulders.
“I’m soaking your shirt,” she told him.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I feel stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. It was nice of you to help Aunt Ginny.” It really was. It was very nice of her to traipse up to the cemetery to place the roses for Ginny.
“The other cart’s still back there,” she told him in a worried voice. “It wouldn’t start. Did I do something wrong?”
“The battery life’s not that long on these things.”
She shivered. “Will it be hard to go and bring it back?”
“Not hard at all,” he assured her. “But we’ll wait until the rain stops before we do that.”
The rain was pounding down harder now, the lightning strikes and thunder claps coming closer together. The cart bounced over ruts and rocks, the illumination from the headlights mostly absorbed by the pitch-dark.
“Thanks for rescuing me,” she said.
Something tightened in Zach’s chest, but he ignored the sensation. She was his guest. And there were real dangers on the island. The cliffs for instance. He was relieved that she was safe. It was perfectly natural.
“It was nothing,” he told her.
“I was getting scared,” she confessed.
“Of what?”
“I’m here on a mysterious pirate island, in a graveyard, in the dark, in a storm.” Her tone went melodramatic. “The whole thing was starting to feel like a horror movie.”
Zach couldn’t help but smile at her joke. “In that case, I guess I did rescue you.” He maneuvered around a tight curve, picking up her lightening mood. “And you probably owe me. Maybe you could be my slave for life?”
“Ha!” She knocked her head sideways against his shoulder, her teeth chattering around her words. “Nice try, Harper. First you’d command I stop blackmailing you. Then you’d make me divorce you. Then you’d fire me and kick me out of your life.”
Zach didn’t respond. That wasn’t even close to what he’d had in mind.
Eight
In Kaitlin’s guest bathroom, the claw-footed bathtub and homemade lilac candles were completely nineteenth century. While the limitless hot water and thick terry robe were pure twenty-first.
She was finally warm again.
Zach had brought Kaitlin straight to her room in the castle, where someone had laid out a tray of fruit and scones. He’d called Dylan on the way to let them know everything was fine. Half a scone and a few grapes were all she could manage before climbing directly into the tub, while Zach had disappeared into some other part of the castle.
Now the second floor was shrouded in silence. One of the staff members had obviously been in her room while she bathed, because the bed was turned down, her nightgown laid out and the heavy, ornate drapes were drawn across the boxed windows. She guessed they expected her to sleep, but Kaitlin was more curious than tired.
On her initial tour of the castle, she’d discovered the family portrait gallery that ran between the guest bedrooms and the main staircase on the second floor. She’d glanced briefly this morning at the paintings hanging there. But now that she’d read the family tombstones, she couldn’t wait to put faces to the names of Zach’s ancestors.
She opened her bedroom door a crack, peeping into the high-ceilinged, rectangular room. There was no one around, so she retightened the belt on the thick, white robe and tiptoed barefoot over the richly patterned carpet.
Chandeliers shone brightly, suspended from the arched, stone ceiling at intervals along the gallery. Smaller lights illuminated individual paintings, beginning with Lyndall Harper himself at one end. He looked maybe forty-five, a jeweled sword hilt in his hand, blade pointing to the floor. She couldn’t help but wonder how many battles the sword had seen. Had he used it to vanquish enemies, maybe kill innocent people before stealing their treasure and taking their ships?
Of course he had.
He was a pirate.
She returned her attention to his face, shocked when she realized how much he looked like Zach. A few years older, a few pounds heavier, and there were a few more scars to his name. But the family resemblance was strong, eerily strong.
She left the painting and moved along the wall, counting down the generations to the portrait of Zach’s father at the opposite end. She guessed Zach had yet to be immortalized. Maybe he’d refused to sit still long enough for his image to be painted.
She smiled at the thought.
She’d counted twelve generations between Lyndall and Zach. The paintings on this wall were all men. But she’d noticed the ladies’ portraits were hung on the opposite side of the room.
She walked her way back, studying Lyndall all over again. The main staircase of the grand hall was behind him in the painting, so he’d definitely been the one to build the castle. It was strange to stand on a spot in a room, then see that same place depicted nearly three hundred years earlier. She shivered at the notion of the pirate Lyndall walking this same floor.
“Scary, isn’t it?” came Zach’s voice, his footfalls muted against the carpet.
For some reason, his voice didn’t startle her.
“He looks just like you.” She twisted, squinting from one man to the other.
