Page 6 of Defended By the SEAL
She smiled a saccharine grin. “That’s why you’re here. To make sure that doesn’t happen.”
He nodded once. “As you wish.” They headed for the car rental counter, Cowboy choosing the heaviest SUV with four-wheel drive they had available. They made their way out to the vehicle, then got onto the road.
It was even worse than he’d feared, wind and heavy rain battering the SUV as if racing them to the shore, the rain gradually changing to a frozen mix that iced over roads before turning to this hailstorm of biblical proportions. It was dinnertime, but the sky was so dark it looked like the dead of night.
Charlotte wasn’t talking to him, and every beat of silence seemed to stretch out eternally. He missed their easy rapport. He missedher. If only she’d realize what he’d been trying to tell her for months—that they should become husband and wife—she’d be as happy as him, he was sure of it. She just needed to open her heart little wider, not close it off.
Up ahead, the car in front of him slowed abruptly at the threshold of a low bridge before creeping across the expanse. Cowboy could just barely make out the reason for the other vehicle’s hesitation—the glistening whitecaps of the bay were a mere two feet shy of the roadway. “Jesus Christ, look how high the water is. If it gets much higher, this bridge could wash out.”
“It’s happened before. She was stranded for two weeks after Hurricane Mercer went through here.”
“Maybe she learned her lesson and evacuated this time.”
Charlotte laughed without humor. “No way. She thought it was a grand adventure. There are six of these bridgesconnecting one island to the next. Her island is the last one in line.”
“Her island?”
She shrugged. “Not literally. It’s only a couple of square miles. There are a few seasonal houses and an old lighthouse. The rest is state land. Wooded, mostly.” Her voice took on a wistful quality. “It was the most amazing place to play when I was a kid, especially the lighthouse.”
“They just let you play in there?”
“My grandma owns it. It was falling down, and the state auctioned it off. She fixed it up inside, made a little apartment and an office for my grandfather before he passed away.”
She’d never told Cowboy about this place, and it reminded him of how much he still had to learn about her. Charlotte was a woman of intricate details and depth. It was one thing he loved about her, but being excluded now felt like an additional arm’s length between them.
“My cousins and I slept out there once when we were in high school. People said it was haunted, but I didn’t believe it until that night.”
“What happened?”
“It rained most of the day, but I remember it smelled like a storm was coming. It’s maybe two hundred yards from the house along this narrow flagstone path, and you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face without a flashlight. Creepy, you know?”
Cowboy hated ghost stories, but he’d be damned if he would admit it. His hand gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly.
“My cousin Tierza had stolen a pack of Marlboro Lights from my Aunt Belinda,” she continued. “We went to the top of the lighthouse to smoke them on the gallery, the littlewalkway that goes around the top. You ever been in a lighthouse before?”
“No.”
“This is one of the oldest in the country. Not old enough to get all the fanfare and tourists of the Portland Head Light, but old enough for the governor to come out for the ceremonial lighting on its 200thanniversary next month. It’s even a stop on the free cruise for veteran’s that goes by here on its way to Acadia.”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her. “Anyway, I think it’s cool. It has a big spiral staircase inside the structure. The top floor is the lantern room, where the old mechanics for the light are. It was originally gas, with gears that needed to be wound by the watch keeper, but the coast guard converted it to electric like fifty years ago. I don’t think any of that stuff works anymore. There’s a switch on the wall on the first floor, but all of us were too afraid to touch it, not wanting to get in trouble.”
He could picture it, the round walls and spooky preamble reminding him of an Edgar Allen Poe poem he’d had to read for school. “Okay.”
“The light was off when we got up there.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t stay that way.”
“You’ve seen this one before.”
He shook his shoulders, a chill running through him. “Go on.”
“We were talking and laughing. My cousins were smoking. I tried it but it tasted terrible. The ocean was rough, the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks drowning out any other noise. That’s when the lantern started to glow like a candle. All three of us just turned around and stared at it. It wasn’t electric, Leo. It looked like a flame.”
She blew out air slowly. “It scared the shit out of us. We ran down the stairs and that’s when we heard the screaming. It was so faint we almost ran rightby. I opened the door to the lower gallery and there was Jonah, my five-year-old little cousin, hanging half-off the gallery bars and wailing. He’d followed us out there. We never would have heard him from the top of the lighthouse, not with the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. I don’t know how we heard him at all.”
“Was he okay?”
“Yes. Tierza and I grabbed him and got him back up. But he would have died if it hadn’t been for the ghost.” She shook her head. “We told the adults, and I think Grams was the only one who really believed us.”
