Kiss River

“Hello!” he shouted, just as a wave crashed onto the beach.

The woman didn’t turn her head, and he guessed she could not hear him over the sound of the sea.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo!” he hollered. “Hello!”

Sasha came running at the sound of his call, and this time the woman peered over the edge of the tower at him. So high above him, she was very small, her features invisible. If she answered him, he didn’t hear her.

“It’s dangerous up there,” he called. “You’d better come down.”

The woman stood up, but Clay instantly changed his mind. It would be too dark inside the tower. “Wait there!” He held up a hand to tell her to stay. “I’ll come up and get you. I have a flashlight.”

He told Sasha to stay on the beach, then waded through the water to climb the concrete steps into the foyer. Turning on the flashlight, he saw the familiar, eerie, nighttime look of the stairs and railing against the curved white brick wall. He was used to the stairs and took them easily, without a hint of breathlessness. He made the climb nearly every day, sometimes more than once. The tower was a wonderful escape.

The salt breeze washed across his face as he stepped above the broad, jagged-edged cylinder of bricks. The woman stood up again, backing away a bit, and he thought she might be afraid of him. Understandable. It was dark; she had nowhere to run.

“You could trip going down the stairs in the dark,” he said quickly, showing her his flashlight.

“Oh. Thanks.” Her dark hair blew across her face, and she brushed it away with her hand.

She was extraordinarily beautiful. Very slender—too slender, perhaps—with long dark hair and large eyes that looked nearly black in the dim light. There was a fragility about her, as if a good gust of wind could easily blow her from the top of the tower.

As though reading his mind, she lurched a bit, grabbing the railing. He knew how she felt. The stairs held you suspended in the air above the tower, and it was easy to experience vertigo. The first few times he came up here with Terri, he’d actually felt sick. The stairs were solid and sturdy, though. It simply took the inner ear a while to get used to that fact.

“Sit down again,” he said. “We’ll wait till you feel steady on your feet before we go down.”

The woman sat down without a word, moving to the edge of the step closest to the railing, which she quickly circled with both her hands. Clay sat one step below her.

“What brings you up here?” He tipped his head back slightly to look at her, hoping he didn’t sound as if he was accusing her of something. Behind her windblown hair, the sky had turned a thick gray-black. There were no stars. No moon.

“Just … I …” Her gaze was somewhere above his head, out toward the dark horizon. “What happened here?” she asked, letting go of the railing with one of her hands, waving it through the air to take in the lighthouse and all of Kiss River. “What happened to the lighthouse?”

“Hurricane,” Clay said. “More than ten years ago.”

“Ten years.” The woman shook her head. She stared out to sea, and Clay thought her eyes were glistening. She didn’t speak.

“I’m Clay O’Neill,” he said.

The woman acknowledged him with a brief smile. “Gina Higgins.” She pointed behind her to the keeper’s house. “Has that become a museum or something?” she asked.

“No.” From where he sat, the house looked like a church, its windows filled with color. “It was abandoned for many years,” he said. “Then a conservation group I’m part of took it over. My sister and I are living in it while it’s being restored. We help with the work and act as general contractors, for the most part.” The restoration was progressing very slowly, and that was fine with him. There was no target date, no reason to rush.

Gina looked over her shoulder at the house. “The stained glass …”

“It’s my sister’s,” he said. “She just hung it in the windows while we’re living here. It’s not part of the restoration.”

“Your sister made it?”

“Yes.”

“What a talent,” Gina said. “It’s beautiful.”

He nodded, glancing at the house again. “She’s pretty good at it.”

“And what are the plans for the house when it’s refurbished?”

“Actually, none, so far,” he said. Holding tight to the railing, he stood up to peer over the edge of the tower, hunting for Sasha. He spotted the dog nosing at a pile of seaweed and took his seat again. “Possibly a little museum,” he said. “Possibly a B and B. Maybe even a private residence. The situation is unusual, since the lighthouse is off limits. They aren’t sure they want to draw people out here. I was surprised to see you here, actually. How did you get in?”

“I walked in from the road, where that chain is. I ignored the No Trespassing sign.” She looked beautifully sheepish. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s off limits because it’s dangerous out here, as you can probably tell,” he said. “But you haven’t gotten yourself killed, so no big deal. Were you hiking? Exploring? Most people don’t even realize this lighthouse is here anymore.”

“Oh, I’m an amateur lighthouse historian,” Gina said. She touched the camera hanging around her neck. “So I was curious to see the Kiss River light and get some pictures of it. Where is the rest of it? Where is the Fresnel lens?”

She pronounced the word FREZnal instead of FraNELL. Odd for a lighthouse historian. But she’d said she was an amateur; she had probably seen the word in writing but had never heard it spoken before.

“The Fresnel lens is somewhere at the bottom of the ocean,” he said, diplomatically using the correct pronunciation, and even in the darkness, he could see coins of color form on her cheeks.

“Why didn’t they raise it?” she asked. “It’s very valuable, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yes, but there was a lot of opposition to raising the lens,” he said. His own father, once an advocate for saving the lighthouse, had led the fight against finding the lens. “The travel bureau and the lighthouse society wanted it raised, but the locals tend to think that things should remain right where nature puts them. And, as you can imagine, they’re also not keen on bringing even more tourists to the area as it is. Besides, who knows? The lens could be in a thousand pieces down there.”

“But it also could be in one piece, or in just a few pieces that could be put back together,” she argued, and he knew she had a feisty side to her. “I think it’s a crime to leave something that’s historically valuable on the bottom of the sea. It should be displayed in a museum somewhere.”

He shrugged. He didn’t really care about the lens. Never thought about it, actually. In the great scheme of things, it did not seem worth getting upset over.

“It was a first-order lens, wasn’t it?” Gina asked.

“Yes. It’s three tons, at least. Whether it’s in one piece or a hundred, it would be a job to bring it out. Once they got the thing up, it would probably have to spend months in an electrolyte bath so the metal parts didn’t disintegrate in the air.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she said. “The metal parts are brass, aren’t they? Brass wouldn’t need an electrolyte bath.”

She was right, and he was wrong. And also a little impressed.

“And if it’s three tons,” she continued, “it couldn’t have drifted too far from the lighthouse, then, could it?”

He looked out toward the black cavern of the sea. Long ago, he and Terri would drive up here to Kiss River and sit on these stairs at low tide, trying to spot the lens, expecting to see it jutting out of the water. They never were able to spot it. “It was an unbelievable storm,” he said. “And there have been a few just as bad since then. The coastline’s really changed here. Before that storm, the water was never up this high. It’s washed away the beach. By now the lens could be just about any—”

“Hey!”

The shout came from the beach, slipping past Clay’s ears on the breeze. Leaning over, he saw a flashlight far below them.

“Hey, Lace!” he called back. “We’ll be down in a sec.”

Turning to Gina, he stood up. “That’s my sister,” he said. “Are you ready to go down?”

She nodded. He held his hand out to her as she stood up, but she didn’t take it. Leading the way down the staircase, he kept his flashlight turned backward a bit to light the stairs for her. “Watch your step,” he warned. “It’s not as easy in the dark.”

He moved slowly, aware that Gina had a death grip on the railing behind him, and it was a while before they exited through the tiled foyer. The waves washed over their feet and legs once they’d descended the three concrete steps into the water. Sasha bounded toward them, splashing their arms and faces as they waded to the dry sand where Lacey stood.

Gina nearly ignored Lacey as she squatted low to the ground to pet Sasha, and Clay’s opinion of the woman instantly rose a few notches. Sasha rolled in the sand, exposing his stomach to the stranger, and Gina obliged by rubbing his belly.

“That’s Sasha,” Clay said. “And this is my sister, Lacey. Lacey, this is Gina …?” He couldn’t recall her last name.

“Higgins.” Gina stood up, wiping her sandy hand on her shorts before extending it to Lacey.

“Are you a friend of Clay’s?” Lacey asked as she shook Gina’s hand, and Clay heard the hope in her voice. His sister would love nothing better than for him to have a new woman in his life.

Gina smiled at her. “No,” she said with a slight laugh. “I’m a trespasser, actually. I was up on the lighthouse when it got dark and your brother rescued me. That’s all.”

“Really?” Lacey raised her eyebrows at him.

“She came in from the road,” he explained.

“I walked around the chain,” Gina said. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see—”

“No big deal,” Lacey said, waving her unlit flashlight through the air. Her long red hair was tied back against the breeze, and her fair skin glowed white in the darkness. “We don’t own this place.” She glanced from Gina to Clay and back again, and he could almost see what she was thinking. Right age, very attractive, perfect for Clay. “Are you here on vacation with your family?” she asked. “Or with a bunch of girlfriends?” Clay nearly groaned at her transparent probing. Why didn’t she just come right out and ask the woman if she was available to be fixed up with her pathetic brother?

“I’m alone,” Gina said. “Just here for a few days.”

“She’s a lighthouse historian,” Clay said.

“Amateur,” Gina added, glancing away from him. She was probably still embarrassed over her pronunciation of Fresnel.

“Well, listen.” Lacey swatted a mosquito that had landed on her bare shoulder. “Have you eaten? Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Oh, no,” Gina protested.

“We know absolutely every minute detail there is to know about the lighthouse,” Lacey coaxed. “We can tell you everything.” He knew his sister would not take no for an answer. He understood how her mind worked. It wasn’t so much that she was hoping to fix Gina up with him, or that she was eager to tell her stories about the lighthouse. It was that she couldn’t bear to think of anyone being alone.

“I bought plenty of fresh tuna for dinner, so you might as well stay,” Clay said, surprising himself as well as Lacey. “Then one of us can drive you back out to your car.” The truth was, he didn’t want her to go, either. He wanted to see her in the good light of the kitchen. He wanted to find flaws in that perfect face.

Gina looked down at Sasha, who was leaning against her thigh. She scratched the dog behind his ears.

“All right,” she said. “That’s so nice of you. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about walking back through those woods, with the wild horses and pigs and all.”

He and Lacey stared at her, then started to laugh.

“Wild pigs?” Lacey asked.

“I’d heard there were wild pigs,” Gina said. “Boars, I mean.”

“A long, long time ago,” Clay said, wondering where she’d received that piece of information. Whatever lighthouse source she was using had to be ancient. She hadn’t known the Kiss River had been destroyed. And wild pigs?

“The horses were moved way up past Corolla and fenced in,” Lacey explained. “Too many were getting killed because of the traffic. And it used to be open range here, long ago. Full of cows and hogs, and some of them did run wild. Mary Poor, who used to be the keeper, told me about them. I think there’s still some wild boar up in the wildlife refuge.”

“You know Mary Poor?” Gina asked. The name was obviously familiar to her.

“I did,” Lacey said. “She died a few years ago, but I used to visit her in the nursing home where she was living.”

“I’d love to hear more about her,” Gina said.

“Sure,” Lacey said, motioning in the direction of the house. “Let’s get dinner started and I’ll tell you all about her.”

The three of them began walking toward the house, sand sticking to their damp feet. Gina was tall and long-legged, and she carried her sandals dangling from her fingertips. Watching her, Clay nearly forgot about the charcoal.

“I’ll fire up the grill,” he said, breaking away from the women to make his way to the shed where he kept the charcoal. He was only half-surprised when Sasha elected to stay at Gina’s side rather than walk with him. His dog could be as manipulative as his sister.

* * *

When he brought the grilled tuna steaks into the kitchen, he found Lacey and Gina making salad and boiling cobs of corn. They were deep in conversation, deep in that world of women that was so natural for them and so elusive to men like him. They were talking about the history of the light station, Lacey entertaining Gina with tales of the keepers, Mary and Caleb Poor. She knew far more than he did, due to both her interest in the subject and her relationship with Mary, and Gina kept her eyes on his sister while she tore apart the leaves of romaine, clearly enraptured.

In the light of the kitchen, Lacey and Gina looked like two women in a painting, one a redhead, the other raven-haired. Both beautiful. Both slender, fair-skinned. His twenty-four-year-old sister looked tougher than Gina, though. The muscles in Lacey’s arms and legs were tight and defined. Her face was fuller. She not only had her mother’s vivid hair and artistic talent, but her dimples as well, along with that pale, freckled skin that needed serious protection from the sun. Although she was also fair, Gina looked as though she might be able to tan well, but he doubted her skin had seen the sun in years. She was older than he’d thought, a couple of years older than himself. Thirty maybe. The damp sea air had found its way into her hair, which had taken on the same windblown, wild look that would mark Lacey’s hair if she were to let it loose.

He put the plate of tuna steaks on the porcelain-topped table and Gina brought over the salad, while Lacey carried the platter of corn.

“Where do you live?” Clay asked, taking his seat at the table. He passed Gina the tuna steaks, motioning to her to help herself.

“Bellingham, Washington,” Gina said. “It’s north of Seattle.”

“Washington!” Lacey said. “What are you doing out here?”

“I had time off,” Gina said, reaching for the salad, and, Clay thought, measuring her words. “I teach school, so I have summer vacation, same as the students. I’m familiar with the lighthouses in the Pacific Northwest, and I wanted to visit some in the East. I thought I’d start here.”

Clay laughed as he transferred one of the steaks to his plate. “Well, you picked the wrong one to start with,” he said. “Tomorrow you can drive up to the Currituck Light. That one’s in great shape and open to the public.”

“Bodie’s not that far,” Lacey added. “And Hatteras is only a couple of hours from here. You probably know that they moved the Hatteras lighthouse a few years ago because it was going to fall into the sea, just like this one did—” Lacey nodded toward the beach “—so you might find that really intriguing. They have a video there you can watch.”

Gina nodded. “Thanks,” she said, poking corn holders into the ends of the cob on her plate. “I’ll be sure to see them all. But right now I’m a bit distressed over the fact that the Kiss River lighthouse is crumbling away. And I don’t understand why no one has tried to see if the lens is still in one piece.”

“I agree with you,” Lacey surprised him by saying. “I think they should have at least salvaged the lens.”

“You’ll have to fight Dad on that one,” Clay said.

“Why your father?” Gina looked from him to Lacey.

“He’s got OCD,” Lacey said with a flash of her dimples. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder. He used to be obsessed with saving the lighthouse. He led the Save the Lighthouse committee. After the hurricane, he became obsessed with keeping it the way it is and leaving the lens in the ocean.” She held up a hand to ward off the obvious question. “Don’t ask me to explain why my dad is the way he is, because I can’t.”

“Is he … does he … have some say in what happens to the lighthouse and the lens?” Gina asked.

“Not officially,” Lacey said. “But when it comes to the locals, everyone follows his lead.”

There was silence at the table for a moment, filled only by the crunch of corn and the chink of forks against the plates. Gina took a swallow of iced tea.

“This is the first time I’ve eaten fresh tuna,” she said, putting down her glass. “It’s wonderful.”

“My favorite,” Lacey agreed.

“You must get a lot of salmon where you live,” Clay said.

“Tons.” Gina nodded. She cut another piece of the fish with the side of her fork, but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “If I wanted to look into getting the lens raised,” she said, returning to the more difficult topic, “is your father the person I should talk to?”

Clay didn’t understand her apparent interest in the lens, but after growing up with his father, he was accustomed to an unexplained fixation on the Kiss River light. He nodded. “If you don’t have his backing, you can forget about getting anyone else’s,” he said. “But … and don’t take offense at this, please … you have to keep in mind that you’re an outsider here. People won’t much care what you want. The fact that you’re a lighthouse historian, though, might give you a little credibility.”

Gina’s huge, dark eyes were on him as she set down her fork. “Where would I find him?” she asked. “Your father?”

“He’s a vet,” Lacey said. “He works at Beacon Animal Hospital in Nag’s Head.”

“Is that far from here?”

“Half an hour,” Clay said. He pictured Gina walking unannounced into the animal hospital, and his father’s response when he realized the purpose of her intrusion. “If you want to contact him, though, I’d call him first. And don’t get your hopes up.”

“I won’t.” Gina smiled at him, but it was a quick smile that seemed somehow false. “So,” she said, “what sort of work do the two of you do? I assume you’re in construction?”

Lacey shook her head. “I’m a part-time vet tech at the animal hospital,” she said. “And a full-time stained-glass artist.”

She sold herself short, Clay thought. Vet tech and stained-glass artist just scratched the surface of who his sister was. She also volunteered on a crisis hot line, tutored kids at the local elementary school, read to residents in the nursing home where Mary Poor used to live and attended Al-Anon meetings in support of her biological father, Tom Nestor, who was also her stained-glass mentor and—at long last—a recovering alcoholic. She gave blood regularly and had donated her bone marrow the year before. She had, in short, turned herself into their mother, who the locals used to call Saint Anne. Lacey’s gradual metamorphosis into Annie O’Neill made Clay uncomfortable.

“And how about you?” Gina was looking at him.

He finished chewing a mouthful of salad. “Architect,” he said.

“Really?” Gina asked. “What sort of architecture?”

“Residential,” Clay said. “I have an office in Duck.”

For the first time that evening, he felt the too-familiar dark cloud slip over his shoulders. It used to be that, even before Clay would say he was an architect, he’d say that he trained dogs and their owners for search and rescue work. That had been his avocation and his passion, but he hadn’t put Sasha through his paces once since Terri’s death, and he no longer bothered to return the calls from people looking for training. Lacey had nagged him about it at first but quickly learned that approach could only backfire. It made him angry. It made him wonder if she’d loved Terri at all. She used to say that Terri felt more like a sister than a sister-in-law. Then why didn’t she understand that he just didn’t feel like doing a damn thing that reminded him of his wife?

“What grade do you teach?” Lacey asked their guest.

“Junior high,” Gina said. “Science.”

That explained her knowledge of brass and the electrolyte bath, Clay thought.

“Rough age,” Lacey said, and Clay had to smile to himself. Lacey had been one of the roughest fourteen-year-olds imaginable.

“I love it,” Gina said. “I love the kids.”

“Do you have any of your own?” Lacey asked.

Gina didn’t answer right away. She toyed with her salad for a moment, pushing a cherry tomato around with her fork. “No,” she said. “Someday, I hope.”

“Are you married?” Lacey asked. God, Clay thought. His sister could be so damn nosy. But his eyes fell to Gina’s hands, searching for a wedding ring. She wore two rings, actually: on her right hand, a small ruby in a white-gold or platinum setting, and on her left hand, an onyx set in silver. Her fingers were long and slim, like the rest of her, and her nails were unpainted, pink and rounded, cared for but not pampered.

Gina shook her head. “Not married,” she said.

Clay stood up and lifted his plate from the table to carry it to the sink. He had never been very good at sitting still for long, especially not for after-dinner small talk. He was just like their father that way, filled with a nervous sort of energy that had driven Terri crazy and was now doing the same to his sister. Lacey had long ago given up on asking him to stay seated for a while after dinner.

“Well.” Gina looked at her watch as if he’d given her the cue that it was time to leave. “I’d better be going,” she said. “I still have to find a room for tonight.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Clay asked from the sink. It was a Friday night at the end of June. She would never find a room.

“No.” She looked guileless. “I didn’t think about making a reservation. After I saw the traffic coming over the bridge this afternoon, I knew I should have, but …” Her voice faded away as she shrugged. “It’s not a problem for me, though. I slept in my car the entire trip out here. I can certainly do it one more night.”

“That’s crazy,” Lacey said. “You stay with us tonight, Gina. Tomorrow you can look for a room. No way we’re letting you sleep in your car.” Lacey didn’t look at him as she spoke. He knew she didn’t want to see any disapproval in his eyes.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Gina said. She looked genuinely chagrined by the invitation. “You’ve already been so kind. And after I trespassed on your property and took over your evening.”

“You’re staying here,” Lacey insisted. “The spare bedrooms haven’t been redone yet, but you’re welcome to take one of them as is, if you like. We have clean sheets for the bed. So you have no excuse not to stay.”

He knew he should speak up himself. He should tell her it was okay, that he’d like her to stay, but for some reason the words were stuck in his throat.

Gina played with her crumpled napkin where it rested on the table. “Well, thank you so much,” she said, glancing from Lacey to him. “I can’t believe how nice you two are being to a perfect stranger.”

“Let’s go move your car,” Lacey stood up.

“May I use your bathroom first?” Gina asked, and Clay pointed the way. Once she was out of hearing range, Lacey dared to look at him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

“No,” he said. “It’s fine.” But he couldn’t explain the apprehension he felt at the thought of sharing the house with this stranger, a lighthouse enthusiast who couldn’t pronounce Fresnel, if even for just one night.