The Night Mark(103)

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s 1921, Faye. In eighteen years and three months, Nazi Germany will invade Poland, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Be safe, Faye. Keep your children safe.”

“I will.”

Pat looked out to the sea, back at her. “Let me know you’re all right.”

“How?”

He looked back at the house. “Put a note or something in a coffee can and bury it under the north end of the seawall. I’ll dig up. I want to know how you’re doing. Since you’re my wife and all.”

“I’ll let you know.” Because he was her husband and because he had saved her life and because she loved him as a friend and a priest, she kissed him on the lips.

“Safe travels,” she said. “Husband.”

With a last look back at her, back at the past, he took off running, bare feet slapping on the dock as he ran to the end and dived off into the water. Faye jogged after him and watched as he swam out deeper and deeper into the ocean. She saw waves rising higher and higher. One washed over Pat as he swam into the wave, and when the wind subsided, Pat was nowhere to be seen.

Faye watched the water until the waves subsided and the ocean quieted once more. She walked back to the cottage alone. Carrick stood on the porch waiting for her.

“He’s gone, is he?” Carrick asked.

Faye nodded.

“You all right?” he asked.

“It’s just strange knowing I’m never going to see him again. Or maybe I will...if I live long enough. But he won’t know me. Isn’t that weird?”

“Not homesick, are you?” Carrick searched her face.

She smiled. “Can’t be homesick when you’re home, right?” She leaned against him, and he held her in his arms and now...now she was home.

“Come inside,” he said. “We should make this marriage official before I have to go to work.”

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said, glaring at him.

Carrick grinned, and the grin was a warning. He swept her up in his arms, opened the door and carried her over the threshold into the house. Their house. Their home. Their wedding night.

“Okay, put me down now,” she said. “I can walk the rest of the way.”

“I carried a girl up the lighthouse. I can carry you up to the bedroom.”

“I’d rather walk so you can save your strength and screw me longer.”

Carrick put her flat on her feet.

“I’m never going to get used to hearing a woman talk like that,” he said, shutting the door behind them.

“Shocking, is it?”

“Hard to shock an old sailor,” he said. “But I’d love to see you try.”

“Come upstairs,” she said. “We’ll see what I can do.”

She started for the stairs, and Carrick grabbed her from behind, picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. He threw her down onto the bed before she could even get the lamp lit.

Screw it. Who needed light?

Carrick kissed her, his hands threading through her hair, his mouth to her mouth and his heart beating hard enough she felt it against her chest. Quickly, like he couldn’t bear to wait a single second longer, he stripped her out of her clothes and took off his. As he entered her, Faye wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung to him as he went deep, lifting her hips to take him deeper. He had his arms around her back, and he kissed her neck and collarbone, biting her bare shoulders. Later they would go slow, take their time with each other. But not now. Now it felt urgent, necessary. She needed it from him, and he gave it to her so hard he grunted with every thrust as she groaned with every withdrawal. It was hot in the room, and the sweat and her wetness sealed them together. Her hips pulsed against his. She couldn’t get enough of him, no matter how hard he took her. The weight of him on top of her was the weight of her happiness. She’d die if she didn’t come, but she needn’t have worried. Carrick rolled her back on the bed and grabbed her by the backs of her knees, forcing her legs as wide as she’d ever opened them. God, they were married and this was missionary position, and yet it felt like the dirtiest sex she’d ever had. It was the sounds he made, and the bed made, and she made, and the sweat and the smell in the heat. All of it was so unbearably erotic and arousing, and when she couldn’t bear any more of the overwhelming pleasure, she came with a cry that would have woken the neighbors if they’d had any. She lay back, spent, but still held on to Carrick as he moved inside her. When she came, he did, too, wrapped in the full embrace of her arms around his neck and her legs around his back and her heart around his heart.

For a long time afterward, they lay together on the bed, still entwined.

“This...” Faye said. “I remember this.”

“What?” Carrick asked.

“Being happily married,” she said. “I’d almost forgotten what that feels like. Are you happy?”

Carrick chuckled softly as he rolled off her and ran his hands through his sweat-soaked hair.

“Very. So happy you’re not really a girl of twenty I could cry. There are things I want to do to you...”

Faye laughed, drunk on postcoital bliss.

“Do them,” she said. “Do them all. But in a few minutes. I need to recover here. Been a long time?”