Twice Loved (copy2) by LaVyrle Spencer

Author:LaVyrle Spencer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-07-03T03:08:57+00:00

***

The body was found shortly after midnight, “neaped” on the shore after the tide had turned back to sea. The church bell signaled the message. At the sound of its muffled knell in the distance, three heads snapped up. Nobody moved. Rye stood yet in the water. Laura, still in her white dress with its hem gray and ruined, looked like a ghost beside Dan in his dark, shrunken suit.

Rye broke the silence. “They must have found him. We’d better go.”

Yet they were reluctant to turn back. Waves slapped softly at Rye’s ankles. The night air was thick and blanketing. The eerie bonging of the bell sent shivers up their spines.

Finally, Rye moved to Dan’s side, placed a hand on his arm, and felt shudders there. “Are you all right?”

Dan seemed to be staring at nothing. “Let’s just hope the sea returned a whole body.”

Rye moved his hand to the side of Dan’s neck and let the pressure of his palm speak a message too poignant for words. He turned, the lantern swinging squeakily on its hinges, and as if by some silent signal, Rye and Laura moved to flank Dan as together they made their way back, trudging desultorily through the fog, with shoulders often touching.

The sea had been generous. It had returned Zachary Morgan whole, undistorted. It was the living who felt distorted by the events of that day and that night, for in the moment just before parting, when Dan stood hollow-eyed, weaving as if ready to collapse, he reached a hand to Rye in thanks. As their palms touched and then clutched, they found themselves again roughly clinging while Laura stood in the shifting mists, watching.

Separating from Dan, Rye turned to her and ordered softly, “Take him home to bed. He needs some sleep.” Speaking the words, Rye felt as if he, too, were drowning.

Laura’s eyes were incredibly weary as she looked up at Rye. The tracks of tears painted colorless lines down her cheeks, reflecting the light from the lantern. Then suddenly she moved close, swirling about Rye like the night mists, her arms momentarily easing his pain as she pressed her cheek against his.

“Thank you, Rye.”

Over her shoulder, Rye saw Dan looking on while a single, raspy word came to his own throat. “Aye.” His hand touched the small of Laura’s back for only a brief second, then she and Dan were gone, into the eerie fog that shut them away and left Rye isolated, alone.

Heaving his tired legs up the lonely steps to the loft above the cooperage, he pictured Laura and Dan going to bed together, comforting each other. He fell onto his own bed with a weary sigh, eyes sinking shut, wishing for arms to comfort him, too. The day’s events passed before him in hazy review, and he rolled over, curling his body toward the wall.

Then without warning, Rye Dalton wept, anguished sobs of hopelessness and grief such as he had not known since he was a boy. Ship heard

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