Sanctuary(121)

Human tracks had churned up the sand as well, and the wind would take them all.

Despite the grazing, thousands of white star rush and fragile marsh pinks spread their color.

Would she have walked this way, Jo wondered, alone, at ilight? It had been a clear cycning, and a lonely beach drew troubled hearts as well as contented ones. The wind would have been stiff and fresh. And even after the tide receded, leaving the sand wet, the wind would have chased it along in streamers that scratched at the ankles.

she'd wanted to walk. she was angry, upset, wanted to be alone. It was a warm night. she might have headed down the shoreline, just following the water. That's more likely than anything else."

she turned, looking out over the low hillocks to the sea. The wind lifted sand and salt spray, sending the sea oats waving, sifting a fresh coat over the pennywort and railroad vines that tangled.

"Maybe they've found her by now." Nathan laid a hand on her shoulder. "We'll call and check when we get to the cottage."

"Where else would she have gone?" Jo shifted, to stare inland where the dunes crept slowly, relentlessly, toward the trees in smooth curves. "It would have been foolish to wander into the forest. she'd have lost the moonlight-and she'd have wanted her shoes. Would she be angry enough with her husband to stay away, to worry him like this because of a house?"

"I don't know. People do unaccountable things to each other when they're married. Things that seem cruel or indifferent or foolish to outsiders."

"Did you?" she turned her head to study his face. "Did you do cruel, indifferent, and foolish things when you were married?"

"Probably." He tucked the hair blowing across her face behind her ear. "I'm sure my ex-wife has a litany of them."

"Marriage is most often a mistake. You depend on someone, you inevitably lean too hard or take them for granted or find them irritating because they're always there."

"That's remarkably cynical for someone who's never been married."

,,I've observed marriage. serving's what I do."

"Because it's less risky than participating."

she turned away again. "Because it's what I do. If she's out some where, walking, avoiding coming back, letting her husband suffer like this, how could he ever forgive her?"

Suddenly she was angry, deeply, bitterly angry. "But he will, won't he?" she demanded, whirling back to him. "He'll forgive her, he'll fall at her feet sobbing in relief, and he'll buy her the tucking house she wants. All she had to do to get her way was put him through hell for a few hours."

Nathan studied her glinting eyes, the high color that temper had slapped into her cheeks. "You may be right." He spoke mildly, fascinated that she could shift from concern to condemnation in the blink of an eye. "But you're heaping a lot of blame and calculation on a woman you don't even know."

"I've known others like her. My mother, Ginny, people who do exactly what they choose without giving a damn for the consequences or what they do to others. I'm sick to death of people. Their selfish agendas, their unrelenting self-concern.

There was such pain in her voice. The echo of it rolled through him, leaving his stomach raw and edgy. He had to tell her, he thought. He couldn't keep blocking it out, couldn't continue to shove it aside, no matter how hard he'd worked to convince himself it was best for both of them.

Maybe Susan Peters's disappearance was a sign, an omen. If he believed in such things. Whatever he believed, and whatever it was he wanted, eventually he would have to tell her what he knew.

Was she strong enough to stand up to it? Or would it break her?

"Jo Ellen, let's go inside."

"Yeah." she folded her arms as clouds rolled over the sun and the wind kicked into a warning howl. "Why the hell are we out here, worrying ourselves over a stranger who has the bitchiness to put her husband and friends through this?"

"Because she's lost, Jo. One way or another."

"Who isn't?" she murmured.

It would wait another day, he told himself. It would wait until Susan Peters had been found. If he was daring the gods by taking another day, stealing another few hours before he shattered both their lives, then he'd pay the price.

How much heavier could it be than the one he'd already paid?

When he was sure she was strong, when he was sure she could bear it, he would tell her the hideous secret that only he knew.

Annabelle had never left Desire. she had been murdered in the forest just west of Sanctuary on a night in high summer, under a -white moon. David Delaney, the father he had grown up loving, admiring, respecting, had been her killer.

Jo saw lightning flash and the shimmering curtain of rain form far out to sea. "Storm's coming," she said.