Tides of Passion: Historical Romance (Garrett Brothers Book 2) Read online

  Tides of Passion

  Tracy Sumner

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  A Note from Tracy Sumner

  Meet Tracy Sumner

  Also by Tracy Sumner

  Praise For …

  Tides of Passion

  Copyright © 2018 byTracy Sumner

  Published by Tracy Sumner © Tracy Sumner 2018

  First published in paperback by Kensington Publishing

  Cover Copyright 2018 The Killion Group, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Interior Format and Cover Design by The Killion Group, Inc.

  Learn more about the author and her books at

  Tracy-Sumner.com

  On the original acknowledgement page for Tides of Passion, I dedicated the book to my colleagues at the World Trade Center. I reread this dedication as I was editing the book for its e-release, and although it’s been many years, I still think about those buildings and the people who worked inside them, well, almost every day.

  1

  Women can't have an honest exchange

  in front of men without having it called a cat fight.

  ~Clare Boothe Luce

  North Carolina, 1898

  Savannah knew she was in trouble a split second before he reached her.

  Perhaps she should have saved herself the embarrassment of a tussle with the town constable, a man determined to believe the worst of her.

  However, running from a challenge wasn't her way.

  She laughed, appalled to realize it wasn’t fear that had her contemplating slipping off the rickety crate and into the budding crowd gathered outside the oyster factory.

  No, her distress was due to nothing more than Constable Garrett's lack of proper clothing.

  In a manner typical of the coastal community she had temporarily settled in, his shirt lay open nearly to his waist. She couldn’t help but watch the ragged shirttail flick his lean stomach as he advanced on her. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, his physique belied his composed expression. Yet Savannah detected a faint edge of anger pulsing beneath the calm façade, one she wanted to deny sent her heart racing.

  Wanted... but could not.

  Flinging her fist into the air, she stared him down as she shouted, "Fight for your rights, women of Pilot Isle!"

  The roar of the crowd, men in discord, women in glorious agreement, eclipsed her next call to action. There, she thought, pleased to see Zachariah Garrett's long-lashed gray eyes narrow, his golden skin pulling tight in a frown. Again she shook her fist, and the crowd bellowed.

  One man ripped the sign Savannah had hung from the warehouse wall to pieces and fed it to the flames shooting from a nearby barrel. Another began channeling the group of protesting women away from the entrance. Many looked at her with proud smiles on their faces or raised a hand as they passed. They felt the pulse thrumming through the air, the energy.

  There was no power like the power of a crowd.

  Standing on a wobbly crate on a dock alongside the ocean, Savannah let the madness rush over her, sure, completely sure to the depths of her soul, that this was worth her often forlorn existence. Change was good. Change was necessary. And while she was here, she would make sure Pilot Isle saw its fair share.

  "That's it for the show, Miss Connor," Zachariah Garrett said, wrapping his arm around her waist and yanking her from the crate as people swarmed past. "You've done nothing but cause trouble since you got here, and personally, I've about had it."

  "I'm sorry, Constable, but that's the purpose of my profession!"

  He set her on her feet none too gently and whispered in her ear, "Not in my town it isn't."

  As she prepared to argue—Savannah was always prepared to argue—a violent shove forced her to her knees. Sucking in a painful gasp, she scrambled between the constable’s long legs and behind a water cask. Dropping to a sit, she brushed a bead of perspiration from her brow and wondered what the inside of Pilot Isle's jail was going to look like.

  Fatigue returned, along with the first flicker of doubt she had experienced in many a month. Resting her cheek on her knee, she let the sound of waves slapping the wharf calm her, the fierce breeze rolling off the sea cool her skin. Her family had lived on the coast for a summer when she was a child. It was one of the last times she remembered being truly happy.

  Or loved.

  Blessed God, how long ago that seemed now.

  That was how Zach found her. Crouched behind a stinking fish barrel, dark hair a sodden mess hanging down her back, her dress—one that cost a pretty penny, he would bet—ripped and stained. She looked young at that moment, younger than he knew her to be. And harmless.

  Which was as far from the truth as it got.

  He shoved aside the sympathetic twinge, determined not to let his role as a father cloud every damned judgment he made. Due to this woman's meddling, his town folk pulsed like an angry wound behind him, the ringing of the ferry bell not doing a blessed thing to quiet a soul. All he could do was stare at the instigator huddling on a section of grimy planks and question how one uppity woman could stir people up like she'd taken a stick to their rear ends.

  No wonder she was a successful social reformer up north. She was as good at causing trouble as any person he'd ever seen.

  "Get up," Zach said, nudging her ankle with his boot. A slim, delicate-looking ankle.

  He didn't like her, this sassy, liberating rabble-rouser, but he was a man, and he had to admit she was put together nicely.

  She lifted her head, blinking, seeming to pull herself from a distant place. A halo of shiny curls brushed her jaw, and as she tilted her head up, he got his first close look at her. A fine-boned face, the expression on it soft, almost dreamy.

  Boy, the softness didn't last long.

  Jamming her lips together, her cheeks plumped with a frown. Oh yeah, that was the look he'd been expecting.

  "Good day, Constable," she said. Just like that, as if he should be offering a cordial greeting with a small war going on behind them.

  "Miss Connor, this way if you please."

  She rose with all the dignity of a queen, shook out her skirts, and brushed dirt from one sleeve. He counted to ten and back, unruffled, good at hiding his impatience. What being the lone parent of a rambunctious little boy would do for a man.

  Just when he reached ten for the second time and opened his mouth to order her along, a misplaced swing caught him in the side and he stumbled forward, grasping Savannah's shoulders to keep from crashing into her. Motion ceased when she thumped the wall of the warehouse, her head coming up fast, her eyes wide and alarmed.

  And very, very green.
<
br />   He felt the heat of her skin through the thin material of her dress; her muscles jumped beneath his palms. Her gaze dropped to his chest, and a soft glow lit her cheeks. Blushing... something he wouldn't have expected from this woman.

  Nevertheless, he stared, wondering why they both seemed frozen.

  Zach was frozen because he'd forgotten what it felt like to touch a woman. How soft and round and warm they were. How they dabbed perfume in secret places and smiled teasing smiles and flicked those colorful little fans in your face, never really realizing what all that nonsense did to a man's equilibrium.

  It was the first time he'd laid his hands on a woman since his wife died, except for a rescue last year and the captain's sister he'd pulled from the sea. She had thrown her arms around him, shivering and crying, and he'd felt for her, sure he had. Grateful and relieved and humble that God had once again shown him where the lost souls on the shoals were.

  He hadn't felt anything more. Anything strong.

  This wasn't strong either, nothing more than a minute spike of heat in his belly.

  Nothing much at all. He didn't need like other men. Like his brothers or his friends in town. He had needed once, needed his wife. But she was dead. That life—loving and yearning and wanting—had died with her.

  "Your mouth is bleeding," Savannah said and shifted, her arm rising.

  Don't touch me, he thought, the words bubbling in his throat.

  Cursing beneath his breath, the full extent of his childishness struck him. She would think he'd gone crazy. And maybe he had. Stepping back, he thrust his hands in his pockets and gestured for her to follow, intentionally leading her away from the ruckus on the wharf.

  Buttoning his shirt, he listened to her steady footfalls, thinking she'd be safe in his office until everything died down.

  "I'm sorry you've been injured."

  Dabbing at the corner of his lip, he shrugged. He could still hear the rumble of the crowd. No matter. His brother Caleb would break it up. They'd argued about who got what job in this mess.

  Zach had lost.

  "What did you expect, Miss Connor?" he finally asked. "People get heated, and they do stupid things like fight with their neighbors and their friends. Hard not to get vexed with you standing up there, rising from the mist, preaching and persuading, stirring emotion like a witch with a cauldron."

  She rushed to catch up to him, and he slowed his deliberately forceful stride. "Those women work twelve-hour days, Constable Garrett. Twelve hours on their feet, often without lunch breaks or access to sanitary drinking water. And for half the pay a man receives for the same day's work. Some are expecting a child and alone, young women who think they can disappear in this town without their families ever finding them. Their lives up to this point have been so dominated and environed by duties, so largely ordered for them, that many don't know how to balance a cash account of modest means or find work of any kind that doesn't involve sewing a straight stitch or shucking oysters."

  She stomped around a puddle in their path, kicking at shells and muttering, nicking her polished boots in the process. "If you can reconcile that treatment to your sense of what is just, then we have nothing more to discuss."

  Zach halted before the unpretentious building that housed Pilot Isle's lone jail cell, getting riled himself, an emotion he rarely tolerated. He didn't know whether he should apologize or shake the stuffing out of her. "I'll be glad to tell you what I reconcile on a given day: business disputes, marriages, deaths, shipwrecks, the resulting cargo and bodies that wash up on shore, and just about everything in between. What you're talking about over at the oyster factory has been going on forever. Long hours, dreadfully long.

  The men may well get paid a higher wage—I couldn't say for certain—but they labor like mules, too. Do you think Hyman Carter is begging people to come work for him? Well, he isn't. It's a choice, free and clear." Reaching around her and flinging the door open, he stepped inside and, by God, expected her to follow. "What the hell can I do about that?"

  Her abrupt silence had him turning. Savannah Connor stood in the doorway, bright sunlight flooding in around her, again looking like a vision of blamelessness, of sweet charity. She even smiled, closing the door gently behind her. Troubled, Zach reviewed his last words, racing through them in his mind.

  "Oh no," he said, flinging his hand up in a motion his son knew meant no, flat out. "I'm not getting involved in this campaign of yours. Except to end it, I'm not getting involved."

  "Why not get involved?" she asked, the edge back. "Give me one worthy reason why. You're the perfect person to request a review of the factory's processes."

  Ignoring her, he slumped into the chair behind his desk, dug his cargo ledger out of the top drawer and a water-stained list out of his pocket, and began calculating entries. He was two shipwrecks behind. The town couldn't auction property—funds they desperately needed—until he, as keeper of Life-saving Division Six, completed the sad task of recording every damaged plank, every broken teacup, every sailor’s shoe.

  Work was good for the soul, he had always thought; it had saved his a couple of years ago.

  Besides, maybe Miss Connor would quit talking if he didn't look at her.

  Moments passed, the only sound the scratch of pen across paper and the occasional crunch of wagon wheels over the shell-paved street out front. When the cell's metal door squealed, Zach started, flicking ink across the page. He sighed. "I'm almost afraid to ask what you're doing."

  Looking up from plumping the cot's pillow, she flashed a tight smile. "Getting ready for a long night, Constable Garrett. You're writing"—she pointed—"a summons for me in that little book, correct? What will it be? Disturbing the peace? Instigating a mutiny?" She shrugged, clearly unconcerned. "I've been charged with both of those before."

  The fountain pen dropped from Zach's fingers. "Arrested? Ma'am, I've no intention of—"

  "Thirteen times if you count the incident in Baltimore. That time, the police took us to a school instead of the local station. They didn't have a separate holding area for women and felt it would be inappropriate for my group to share quarters with common offenders."

  Thirteen. Zach coughed to clear his throat. "I'm not arresting you. I only brought you here until things calm down on the wharf."

  Savannah smiled, relief evident in the droop of her shoulders. "Then you'll help me. Thank goodness."

  Gripping the desk, he shoved back his chair. "No way, no how. Are you deaf, ma'am?"

  "Are you, sir? Did you hear those women out there today begging for equal rights? Women under your protection I might add."

  His lids slipped low, the spasm of pain in his chest hitting him hard. Protect. Zach had spent his life trying to protect people. And so far he'd failed his wife, his brothers, and 81 passengers that he and his men had not gotten to in time. All events Reverend Tiernan said were in God's hands and God's hands only.

  On good days, Zach agreed.

  Opening his eyes, he forced his way back to his work, recording the wrong number in the wrong column. "Hyman Carter is a decent man. Pays his taxes, attends town meetings. He even donated enough money for the church to buy new pews last spring."

  "He bought your loyalty in exchange for pews?"

  His head snapped up. "No one buys my anything, Miss Connor."

  She simply raised a perfectly shaped brow, sending his temper soaring two notches.

  "Listen here, ma'am. That scene you caused today isn't the way to accomplish much in a town like this, though I'm sure it works fine in New York City. Personally, I don't cotton to taking orders from a mulish suffragette whose only aim in life is to secure the vote."

  She took a fast step forward, her cheeks pinking. "Constable Garrett, you've grown too comfortable."

  "That I have."

  "No excuses?"

  "Not a one."

  "Well, you must know I won't rest until we come to a reasonable compromise."

  "All right, then, you must know I can't
change a man's way of running his business if it doesn't fall outside the law." He dipped his head in a mock show of respect. "Ma'am."

  "Don't you realize that the situation at the oyster factory isn't just?"

  A headache he hadn't felt coming roared to life. Pressing his fingers to his temple, Zach said, weary and unrepentant, "When did you get the idea life was just, Miss Connor?"

  Savannah turned, pacing the length of the small cell, the sudden flicker of emotion in Zachariah Garrett's smoke-gray eyes more than she wanted to see, more than she could allow herself to. Feeling sympathy for an opponent violated a basic tenet of the abolitionist code. And whether she liked it or not, this man was the gatekeeper.

  In more ways than one. She'd only been in town a week, but it was easy to see who people in Pilot Isle turned to in crisis. She had heard his name a thousand times already.

  Just when she had devised a skillful argument to present for his inspection, a much better one strolled through the office door.

  The woman was attractive and trim... and quite obviously smitten with Constable Garrett. Unbeknownst to him, she smoothed her hand the length of her bodice and straightened the straw hat atop her head before making her presence known.

  "Gracious, Zach, what is going on in town today?"

  Zach slowly lifted his head, shooting a frigid glare Savannah's way before pasting a smile on his face and swiveling around on his stubborn rump. "Miss Lydia, I hope you didn't get caught up in that mess. Caleb should have it under control by now though."

  Miss Lydia drifted toward the desk, her clear blue gaze focused so intently on the man behind it that Savannah feared the woman would trip over her own feet if she wasn't careful. "Oh, I didn't get near it, you know that would never do. If Papa heard, he'd have a conniption. But I was at Mr. Scoggin's store and it was all anyone could talk about." She placed a cloth-covered basket on his desk. The scent of cinnamon filled the room. "Lands, imagine the excitement of a rally, right here in Pilot Isle."

  Zach sighed. "Yes, imagine that."