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his
adventure and then return. She'd worried and fretted, wondering if
Quinn was safe, thinking she'd forgive him—and even Jake—for
anything, just to have the family together again. But when the
months rolled into years, she'd begun the struggle to put them both
out of her mind. The pain she'd felt eventually healed, but had
left a scar in her heart.
    Now instead of getting Quinn back, Jake was
here, and she felt that scar begin to ache again. He looked so
different. He was still able to charm Aunt Gert, too. He'd actually
blushed when Gert had reminded him that she was still his aunt. But
there was something more to him that maturity alone hadn't given
him. It was hard for her to put a finger on. It was the air of
experience he had about him, an authority, a seasoning that could
only come from the kind of work he'd done and the places he'd seen.
It should have come as no surprise to her that he was more
attractive and compelling than before. Still, after all his
misdeeds and escapades, she thought it only fair he should be
weathered and coarse and ugly.
    She rose from the sofa and went to her cheval
glass. Putting a hand to her cheek, she knew she, too, looked
different from the eighteen-year-old girl Jake had last seen. Her
face had lost its gentle roundness, and she felt as though every
trial of the last seven years must be written there.
    Well, she thought, a pretty face could hide a
disloyal heart the same as a tired one. More easily, in fact. That
made her remember Jake's remark about the carriage house. She was
almost certain he didn't know anything. He'd been gone a long time,
and she and Dalton Williams were very careful to keep that secret.
Even Aunt Gert didn't know about the carriage house.
    She wandered to the window and looked out at
the Columbia River, moving in its relentless path toward the open
sea. That sea had taken so much from her—Quinn, her father. Even
Ryan.
    Quinn. In all these years she hadn't had one
word from him. Not a letter or a wire. She struggled against the
hurt that rose from this thought. It was Jake's fault, she reminded
herself. Jake was the one who'd dreamed up the idea of going to
sea.
    China stayed in her room, looking at the
river from her alcove, until her own gloom touched the January day
and evening settled in. She thought of sneaking down to the kitchen
to bring dinner up here, but that would be a cowardly thing to do
and her pride wouldn't permit it. So a few minutes before six, she
changed her clothes to go downstairs. As she stood before her
mirror repinning her hair, she wondered how in the world she'd be
able to sit at the same table with Jake, three meals a day, for the
next two months.
    *~*~*
    Jake woke suddenly, his eyes snapping open to
darkness. He jerked up to his elbows in a middling panic. Had he
slept through his watch? That
    was impossible—the second mate would have
come to wake him. No, wait, he was the captain now. Captains didn't
stand watches. Automatically his mind turned to estimating the Katherine 's location. He always had an approximate idea of
where his ship was, no matter which ocean she sailed, even during a
storm. Now he came up with a blank. Expecting to feel a slight
rolling under him, to hear creaking timbers, the very silence and
stillness of his bed added to his groggy confusion. Then he saw a
square of feeble moonlight on the wall next to him and remembered
where he was.
    He sat up and rummaged in his coat for a
match, striking it with his thumbnail to read his mariner's pocket
watch. It would be just his luck to be late for dinner and give
China another reason to level that frosty sapphire glare on him.
Before he could open its gold case, the watch chimed six bells.
Great, he thought dourly, seven o'clock straight up. God forbid
that she'd bother to get him. It wouldn't have inconvenienced her
to send Ryan up here to knock on the door. The fuse on his temper
began to shorten.
    He shook the match out and huddled deeper
into his coat to ward