Page 115 of A Shore Thing

He kept looking at her.

“Kit,” she said. “Celebration and sea lettuce aside, there remains a very strong possibility my talk will create conflict.” She’d thought he understood. “I don’t want the Satterlees implicated in my quarrel.”

“It’s not your quarrel. You are not belaboring a personal grievance. You are taking a stand in accordance with your principles. Do the Satterlees share them?”

He appeared resigned no longer. His eyes were silver fire.

“I believe they do,” she said softly. He had understood. He’d understood everything. He’d listened to what she’d told him, and he challenged her now on a point of strategy. He advocated for a collective effort, and it made sense that he would. He’d come of age rabble-rousing with his Sisters, musketeers of the brush and chisel.

All for one, and one for all.

“Then write them,” he said.

“I could.” She licked her lips. They might support her, if pressed, but at what cost? “Heywood wields enormous influence.”

“More reason to band together. The Satterlees are from New York, yes? They must have yet more friends. Heywood’s voice is louder than yours, and theirs, but perhaps not louder than a chorus.”

She hesitated, hit by a wave of longing. His being was as beautiful as his face. How had she ever thought him vain and capricious? The surface glitter distracted from the substance.

“So you’ll write?”

She shook herself. “I will consider it.”

A pleased smile drifted across his mouth. “You need comrades.” He reached out, caught a loose lock of her windblown hair, and gave it a gentle tug—a comradely tug.

Her huge, unprotected heart lurched.

She managed to smile back. “Such as you?”

He inclined his head. “If you’ll have me.”

She swallowed hard and locked his gaze. That was just it. She wouldn’t have him. She’d have distant affinity, another correspondent, albeit one whose letters didn’t go into the pigeonholes of her desk. She’d keep them beneath her pillow, or in the carved box she’d ported around the world, battered container of her few sentimental trinkets.

“Comrades,” she croaked, and pumped his hand, which made him laugh and tug her to her feet.

—

They’d been riding for less than half an hour when thunder burst the iron-gray vault of the sky. Kit felt a corresponding explosion in his head. The ground seemed to shake. Day turned to night, pitch-black and demon-ridden. The wind’s moan became a roar, and raindrops hard and sharp as teeth bit his face.

He tried to speak to Muriel, but wind snatched the words away. Wind had unraveled her chignon, and her shining hair fanned, twisted, and fanned again. Her face was pale and undaunted. It told a story: she’d traveled the world and weathered worse.

He didn’t signal for them to stop. She had the look of a woman who’d ride through hellfire, and besides, there was nowhere to stop. The moor might have been the middle of the sea, for all the harborage it offered.

His vision flickered. Brilliant blades of lightning carved the clouds.

Muriel’s rippling hair flashed red.

In that moment, he couldn’t tell if he’d been struck by a bolt, or if she had. The illumination was blinding in its intensity and outlined every detail of her face. He felt seared, and his nerves jumped when the thunder crashed. He realized he was pedaling faster, out of a mad impulse, as though he could throw out his arms and pull the lightning from the sky, pull it away from her. He wanted to protect her with his life.

Hubris.

He twisted and called out, feeling both agitated and absurd. “You weren’t struck by the lightning?”

“I don’t know.” She caught up to him, eyes wild and bright with excitement. “Would my fingers still be this cold?”

“You’re laughing.” He squinted and confirmed it for himself with a low mutter. “She’s laughing.”

She bared her small white teeth. “I told you I love storms.”