Page 101 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
Niina’s footsteps sounded as she walked across sticks and leaves leading back to the lighthouse.
Abel cleared his throat and turned to Rebecca. “I’ll ... be at the lighthouse.” He was the new lightkeeper now, she the lightkeeper’s wife. Their bond of Kjersti had long since passed away with her, and now the bond of their child was a tenuous tie that kept them together.
“Abel?” Rebecca said.
He stopped in his retreat and turned back to her. “Yes?”
“You’ve been more than gracious to me.” Rebecca made sure he saw the gratefulness in her eyes. “Thank you.”
He shifted his weight, looking down at his feet before raising his gaze back to hers. “You’re my wife, Rebecca.”
“I know that.” She swallowed hard against the tears that clogged her throat. “But...”
Abel frowned and took a step back toward her. “But what?”
She shifted away from him, unable to read the tenderness and concern in his eyes as anything other than obligation. “You married me to help me escape my father, and now ... now I have. And with Edgar and my mother, I—” she paused and cast a glance back at their graves—“I don’t know...” Her words trailed; they hurt her throat. They hurt herheart.
Fingers lifted her chin as Abel gently raised her bruised face to his. There was kindness in the ice blue of his eyes. And something else. Always there was something else that she couldn’t define. It had been there that night outside of Kjersti’s room when desperation had pulled them together. When he had taken her into his arms and closed the door with his foot behind them. When he had taught her what it felt like to be a wife, to be held, to be enveloped in the concepts of security and faithfulness. Even if it was a facade, and only for a moment, she had felt it. Craved it. Wanted it. Wantedhim.
Rebecca wanted to love him. She ached to love him wholly. To show him gratefulness for the gift of caring for her. To bring a smile to his eyes when she gave him his firstborn. She wanted to gift him her love, but not with the risk of her taking it back. But how did she tell him? How did she tell a man who had loved her merely by action and sacrifice? Could there be more than that? Could they love with passion and heart and soul while building a life of day-to-day care and sustainability?
Was it too much to dream that a home could really be a place where she could rest in theknowingthat she was there for Abel, and Abel was there for her?
“You ask too many questions.” Abel’s breath on her skinawakened her to the realization he had drawn close. His lips brushed her cheek, and Rebecca frowned in confusion.
“I’ve not asked a question,” she argued tentatively.
“Rebecca,” Abel breathed. It was a whisper that caressed her skin, bandaged her heart, and reassured her that she was safe. “I will not leave you stranded.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, a featherlight kiss that weakened her limbs at the same time it strengthened her spirit. “I will not watch you drown.” Another kiss to the opposite corner of her mouth. “I will not treat you as anything other than my most precious treasure.”
“But I...”
“But you what?” His lips moved against hers, and his breath mingled, intoxicating and comforting all at the same time.
“I don’t know how,” she admitted. It was her worst fear.
Abel drew her closer until she fit against him where she belonged.
“Let me show you,” he whispered against her hair.
Rebecca gazed over his shoulder, the sunlight breaking through the treetops and falling on Edgar’s and Annabel’s stones. No. She didn’t knowhowEdgar had saved them from her father. She had an intuition that all was not as it should have been, though—how could it? A love that left broken vows in its wake? A forbidden devotion shrouded in the unrealistic hope that somehow true love could be found.
No.
Her father, Edgar, Annabel? Their love had been broken. No matter how it all unraveled. It had been woven by ambitions and passions and everything but what Abel now offered to her.
Himself.
Just himself.
Nothing less and nothing more.
Love was patient, and it was kind. It wasn’t proud. It didn’t dishonor another. It didn’t envy.
Rebecca closed her eyes against the grave markers, againsther father’s map that she had buried beneath Edgar’s marker in a tin box. Instead, she breathed in the promise that emanated from Abel’s body against hers. Love protected, it trusted, it hoped.
And always, no matter the personal cost, it persevered.
ANNABEL
