The Night Mark(93)

Carrick said nothing. He looked at Pat and then at her.

“What on earth are you saying to me?” Carrick said.

“Please listen to him,” Faye said. “He has something to tell you. About me.”

“I’m listening.” Carrick raised his chin, his expression closed and carved out of granite.

Pat took a breath, glanced at the ocean, stared at it as if waiting for it to tell him a secret. He smiled like he remembered something, then looked back at Carrick.

“Do you believe in miracles, Carrick?”

Carrick narrowed his eyes at Pat, but nodded.

“Good,” Pat said. “Because one just happened. And I can prove it.”





23


It was the longest day of Faye’s life. Pat and Carrick sequestered themselves in the watch room of the lighthouse to talk while Faye distracted herself by clearing storm debris from the yard. When her extreme exhaustion caught up with her, she finally slept. Even her sleep exhausted her as her dreams were plagued by images of Marshall and his gun, Marshall and his boat capsizing, Marshall and what could have been had Pat not come to save her.

And Faye? Would Pat save her now? Would Pat be able to convince Carrick of the truth about her identity? Would Carrick shrink from her in horror? Or accept her and love her for who she really was? Even then, he would have to grapple with the knowledge that Faith had drowned herself. Had Carrick loved Faith, or had he simply been offering her safe harbor from her abusive husband? Either way, Carrick would grieve her loss. Faye would respect that and keep her distance if need be. No one honored mourning more than a woman who’d lost her husband while she was still in love with him.

Faye’s nap left her feeling more tired than before she let herself sleep. She hadn’t been this tired in a long time. The last time she’d felt this sort of bone-deep exhaustion, she’d been pregnant with Will’s baby.

And now she was pregnant with Marshall’s.

She should have known that was what it was—the dizziness and the nausea and the tiredness, not to mention the weight gain Dolly had noticed when she’d measured Faye for trousers two weeks after measuring Faith for skirts. But how could Faye have known? Who wouldn’t be dizzy and nauseous after being yanked decades years back in time? And who wouldn’t be tired doing manual labor every day? And who wouldn’t gain weight eating food cooked in lard? Even now Faye wished she could convince herself that it wasn’t true, that it wasn’t happening, but for one thing.

The pregnancy didn’t matter.

How could it? Carrick would find out she wasn’t the woman he’d known, and reject her. Then Faye would go back to her own time, where she wasn’t pregnant. She should have known she couldn’t simply slip on someone’s life like borrowing someone’s coat on a cold day. This journey had seemed like a gift, the rarest and most precious of gifts, but it was no gift. If Faye was to stay here in 1921, it would be at a great price. A price too high, since it would be Carrick paying it.

Despite her tiredness, she rose and dressed in her best black skirt, her prettiest white blouse—Faith’s best skirt, Faith’s prettiest blouse. Whatever happened with Carrick, at least Faye wouldn’t feel like a fraud anymore, like a thief. Faye pinned up her hair as well as she could and washed her face, ready to meet her fate if her fate was ready to meet her.

A peaceful quiet pervaded the cottage, the calm after the storm. Faye’s footsteps echoed hollowly on the steps and the floor as she walked down to the kitchen. Dolly sat at the table reading a book. When she saw Faye, she pushed a piece of paper her way with a note already written on it.

“I have to stay the night again,” it read. “Big boat came by and told the Chief it’s too choppy still for little boats.”

The big boat was likely a coast guard ship patrolling after the storm. She wondered if they’d found Hartwell’s body yet or Marshall’s.

“Stay as long as you need to,” Faye wrote, grateful for her company.

“Hungry?” Dolly wrote.

Faye shook her head no. Nervousness tied her stomach in such knots no food could fit in it. She felt like a defendant in a court trial awaiting the jury’s decision on her fate. Who could eat at a time like that?

“Who’s that man?” Dolly asked, scribbling the question in her loopy, girlish handwriting.

“Friend of mine from home,” Faye wrote. “Patrick Cahill.”

Dolly tapped her pencil on the page before writing something with a grin on her face.

“He’s handsome.” Dolly’s cheeks darkened in a blush.

Faye smiled. The knot of her stomach loosened slightly.

“Don’t even think about it,” Faye wrote. “He’s going to be a Catholic priest.”

Dolly’s eyes widened with shock. Then she sighed. Twice.

“Don’t worry,” she wrote to Dolly. “You’ll find true love someday and get married. If you want to get married, you will.”

“I want to,” Dolly wrote. Then she paused before writing something else. “Do you think a man will want me with my ears?”

Faye wrote, “Yes. Men like girls with ears.”

Dolly pursed her lips at her. She clearly did not find Faye’s joke amusing.

“YES,” Faye wrote in all caps. “You’re beautiful and smart and have lots of talents. A man will want you even if you can’t hear. I promise. He’ll be lucky to have you.”