A Gentle Fragrance Read online

  Copyright

  ISBN 1-59789-133-9

  Copyright © 2006 by Pamela Griffin. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  One

  The South Pacific, 1921

  If he ever returned to New York, he was a dead man.

  Bill Thomas stood at the stern of the ship, his pensive gaze sweeping the deep blue ocean and the globe of an orange sun setting beyond a distant island. Here at sea, they would never find him. Yet this time, that reminder did little to steady his nerves.

  As he stood watch, the fire of the sky faded to dull blue and violet. The sea grew ever darker, save for two ripples of crimson forming a trail of light toward the horizon. His mind traveled a course all its own, reliving the peril of two years ago.

  Somehow, he’d succeeded in escaping Manhattan and gaining employment as a sailor on this vessel. New York remained a distant memory. But even after sailing the high seas for fourteen months, he couldn’t shake the fear of reprisal that often had him looking over his shoulder. His brother, Brent, would say the hounds of heaven were giving chase and the guilt for Bill’s past crimes was finally catching up to him. Maybe Brent was right, though ironically this time Bill’s escape had nothing to do with his own folly.

  With his hands spaced wide apart and gripping the rail, he leaned forward. In the last glimmer of evening light, he noticed the water break and white spray shoot upward. Within seconds, a dolphin arced above the surface, outlined for a moment against the horizon, then disappeared back into the water to repeat the process. The antics of the playful water animal brought a faint smile to Bill’s face.

  Yes, he was a fugitive, but he couldn’t have picked a better spot in which to find sanctuary. This chain of South Sea Islands held a mystery that intrigued Bill each time the ship anchored near them to deliver and collect goods. The expansive sea offered secrets of continual interest. Life could be worse.

  A thud struck the deck behind him, louder than the creaks of timbers and slap of waves hitting the hull. Bill sharply pivoted to look. In the shadowy twilight, he couldn’t make out any sign of life on board. Only the usual ropes, barrels, and crates. A full moon rose above the waters, and faint stars dotted the sky, but he wished for more light.

  “Ahoy, who goes there?” Slowly he headed in the direction he’d heard the noise.

  No response.

  Hair bristled at the back of his neck, but he continued forward as duty demanded.

  After investigating the area to find it empty, he scolded himself for allowing old fears to harass him once again. He was free of all that had happened in New York. There was no reason to keep dwelling on those days.

  Returning his attention to the dolphin, he squinted to see the sea creature and noted that it now jumped closer to the ship, its splashes easily heard. The sun was only a memory; the sky the color of faded ink.

  A thick arm grabbed Bill around his upper chest from behind while something razor-sharp sliced into his ribs. Vision clouding from pain, Bill barely made out the terse words whispered in his ear, “Sleep with the fish. Compliments of Vittorio.”

  Nausea rose to his throat as his attacker pushed him over the rail. The sea rose up to meet him as his wounded body splashed into the ocean. Thrashing his arms to keep afloat despite the searing pain, Bill spat out salty water. “Help!” His plea came faint. He choked down a breath, certain it would be his last. His blurry focus latched onto the bright moon shining like a beacon.

  “Dear God, save me!” he cried through water that invaded his mouth and nose and strangled his words.

  The ship sailed farther away. He struggled to stay conscious, to stay afloat, but he could feel his body weaken and his mind fade with every slosh of the waves against his face.

  He was going to die.

  ❧

  Sarah opened her eyes and sat straight up in her rope hammock. It rocked back and forth with the motion, and she caught a startled breath. What had awakened her? A sense of foreboding, as if something had happened or was about to happen, plagued her mind and spirit.

  She swung her legs over the side, gripping the hammock to steady herself. The moon’s glow washed the inside of the thatched hut with brilliant white light. Her father’s form lay inert in the hammock across the room. His loud snores proved he was breathing and well, so the danger didn’t lie there. She looked out the square hole of the window, her focus going to the moon etched on a blue-black canvas of sky spangled with stars.

  The urgency to go outside overwhelmed her, and she walked out the door.

  A warm scented breeze caressed her face and body and stirred the coconut palm fronds as she took the familiar pathway. She could walk it even if there were no moon by which to see. The village path was to her right, but she felt the strong impression to go left. Standing high upon a cliff, she surveyed this edge of her island world and noticed movement in the ocean near the beach. Moonlight illumined the waters.

  A villager’s boat? At night? All the fishermen returned with their catch hours ago. While she watched, her eyes widened. That was no boat!

  She raced down the path leading to the empty beach, not stopping when her feet reached the sea’s warm, foamy waters. Splashing through, she continued as fast as her legs could move against the press of hindering water. When it surrounded her waist, she dove into the next shallow wave and began swimming with skill, matching that of the dolphin to which someone clung—a man, she could see as she swam nearer.

  “I will help you,” she called in her native tongue, but he didn’t respond. Grabbing his arm in order to shift his inert body toward her, she was surprised when he weakly struggled to be free.

  “I mean no harm,” she tried again.

  His eyes closed. He began sliding off the dolphin. She grabbed him before his head went under and wrapped her arm beneath his limp shoulders around the broad expanse of his chest. Awkwardly she swam with her burden, grateful for the waves that helped push her toward land until her feet could again touch the ocean floor. She considered it a blessing that he’d not been near the coral reef farther down the island, for surely if he had, he would have been cut to ribbons. With difficulty, Sarah dragged him, pulling under his arms, onto the packed wet sand of the beach, until she felt sure the ocean wouldn’t carry him away again.

  From where had he come? His fair features gave testimony to the fact that this was no islander. For the first time she saw a dark stain at the bottom of his striped shirt.

  The man was injured!

  She dropped to her knees beside him and pushed the material up so she could see. The surf rushed against them, water washing the blood away from a deep wound that marred his side. Once the wave receded, the wound began to flow again, worrying her. If she didn’t do something soon, he could bleed to death.

  Using what was on hand, Sarah struggled to rip away his shirt from his body to make a bandage, pulling at the tear at the side. He regained consciousness and open dulled eyes. Again he weakly struck out, attempting to fight her off. Surprised, Sarah drew back.

  “No,” he groaned in the English tongue of her father. “Leave me alone! I didn’t
kill Marco.” He weakened, arms dropping to the sand. His eyes flickered shut. “Didn’t. . . doublecross. . .no one.” These last words were faint, and Sarah had to bend her ear to his mouth to hear.

  Seeing he was again unconscious, she hurried to resume her task and tied the torn material in a knot around his torso. Sarah studied his ashen face, praying he wasn’t dead. She pressed her palm against his chest. Relief washed through her when she felt a faint heartbeat.

  Knowing she’d done all she could and must now get help, she pushed herself to her feet and sped up the path to her father’s hut.

  Two

  Bill opened his eyes. Brightness seared them, and he raised a hand to shield his face, then cried out as fire ripped through his gut. Within seconds, a vision blocked the sun. He wondered if he had died. For surely the form of the woman who’d come to stand near him was that of an angel.

  She wore her black hair loose, past her hips. A breeze from somewhere ruffled wisps of it over bare shoulders and arms. Her feet were also bare, and she wore a bright red sarong covered with white flowers. Did angels wear such finery?

  He shifted and gave another muffled cry. The vision knelt and laid her slender hand against his shoulder. “You must lie still. You were wounded and feverish, but my father and I are taking care of you. You have been with us three days.”

  Her husky-soft voice soothed, and he relaxed back onto what he now realized was a straw mat. His throat felt dry. “Water,” he rasped.

  She left and soon returned with a wooden dipper. Slipping her hand behind his neck, she helped him raise his head. Cool and pure, the water slid down his throat.

  “Where am I?” he asked when he could talk.

  “On our island in my father’s hut. He’s a missionary to the people here.”

  He took note of her clear skin, a pale pecan-brown. Her almond eyes were brown also, but with golden lights in them, and her lashes were thick and black. Her delicate bone structure, lush thick hair, and slender carriage reminded him of the many beautiful island women he’d seen, but her coloring was too fair to be a native’s.

  “What’s your name?” he whispered.

  “Sarah.”

  The door to the hut opened. A tall, thin man walked inside, his scraggly beard, mustache, and hair salt-and-pepper gray. His swarthy skin was almost as tanned as Bill’s arms and torso. Like the woman, he wore no shoes, though his trousers and shirt looked American.

  “Ah, good,” he said. “Our patient is awake.” Green eyes twinkled in a weathered face. He set a straw basket onto a carved oak desk, oddly out of place in this primitive hut.

  Sarah gracefully rose to her feet. “Father.” She kissed his cheek and took the basket to a table. He walked closer to Bill and squatted beside his mat.

  “Welcome to our modest home. I am Josiah LaRue, sent as a missionary from America to this island more than twenty years ago. And you are?”

  “Bill.” Uncertain of whom to trust, he didn’t give his last name.

  “Well, Bill, consider yourself fortunate. If that dolphin hadn’t brought you here and my daughter hadn’t been at the beach to bring you to land, you would be a dead man. If not by drowning, then by sharks. The Lord must have a great mission in mind for you.”

  Josiah’s mention of God made Bill uneasy. Why should God save him? He’d done nothing right in his sorry existence. The man’s words fully sank in.

  “A dolphin brought me?”

  “Yes. Queerest thing I ever heard of, but Sarah was a witness. The dolphin carried you to the island. I imagine it’s the same one that’s become something of a pet of hers. In my forty-eight years on this earth, I’ve learned the Almighty can and will use anything to achieve His purposes. Once He caused a donkey to speak to a man named Balaam, so I suppose He could and would use a friendly dolphin to help rescue a lost seafarer.”

  Bill remembered. He had cried out to God to save him. Just as he thought he would sink to the ocean floor, the dolphin he’d been watching from the ship glided near him, slowly circling. Desperate, he’d grabbed its dorsal fin. The dolphin had nosed under, lifting Bill partly out of the water, and he’d held on. Bill remembered little of what happened next.

  “Did you fall overboard?” Josiah asked. “I assume from your clothing that you’re a sailor.”

  “Yes. I fell overboard.” Bill left it at that. The less these people knew, the better.

  The man was quiet a moment, his intent gaze causing Bill discomfort.

  “You must have hit something sharp on your way down,” Josiah said. “The gash in your side was deep, but with my daughter’s knowledge in healing herbs and the little suturing I’ve learned, it’s on the mend now.” He straightened to a stand. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Josiah gave a nod. “You must be hungry. Sarah, fix our guest a meal.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Bill looked past Josiah to Sarah. Unsmiling, she steadily regarded Bill. The way she stared made him look away, uneasy. How could she know he was holding back the truth?

  ❧

  Sarah sliced the white meat of a coconut. Each chop of the knife punctuated the truth ringing in her mind. The man called Bill had lied to them. Why? And whom had he thought he’d addressed when he fought her help that night on the beach?

  As it had many times, her gaze went to his slumbering form. Never had she seen eyes so light in color, reminding her of shallow turquoise waters, or hair so pale. It grew past his ears and resembled the shade of yellow grasses near the center of the island when the noonday sun hit them. When she’d first seen his hair wet that night on the beach, it had been dark, and she’d been surprised to see the color lighten once it dried. She’d never seen hair do that. Curious, she further studied his face. His profile resembled the picture of an aristocratic prince in a history book of her father’s. Yet this man was no prince.

  He lay there, frail as a newborn. Bruises marred his stomach and arms, but his muscular torso gave testimony to untold strength. He must be strong to endure what he had. She’d been amazed she was able to drag him from the sea, and he’d survived the stabbing, though certainly that must be in part due to their many petitions to God. Sarah was certain it was a stab wound Bill had suffered, not a “gash” he’d received during his fall into the ocean, as Father suggested.

  Two years ago, a boy had been attacked with a knife after a village ceremony. Sarah’s father had attended the boy. His wound resembled Bill’s, though sadly it was closer to the heart, and the boy died.

  “Sarah?”

  Her father’s muted voice caught her attention. Abandoning the preparation of their meal, she moved to join him where he stood by the open door. He led her a short distance from the hut, into the shade of a coconut palm.

  “You are so like your mother, quiet and still, but your eyes reveal your secrets. You’re not happy Bill is staying with us.”

  “I do not trust him.” Sarah lifted her palms in a delicate shrug. “Yet what else is to be done? He needs our help. You’re a missionary; you cannot turn him out.”

  “You’re right, Sarah. I can’t.” Her father lifted his gaze to the white clouds in an azure sky, a gesture used when he had something of merit to say. “I sense his wound is not merely of a physical nature. The fearful words he yelled to you that night prove that. After talking with him, I sense a spiritual struggle similar to what I endured after your mother died. It’s my duty as God’s chosen servant to help this young man in whatever way possible, in the nurture of both his body and his spirit. Perhaps he was sent to us for that purpose, Sarah.”

  For a time, neither spoke. Sarah waited until he again looked in her direction.

  “If it is your will to have him here, Father, then I will make him feel welcome.”

  “That’s my beautiful girl.” He hugged her close with one arm.

  Still, unease twined around Sarah when she thought about the man called Bill.

  ❧

/>   Bill surveyed the round hut for what must have been the hundredth time. Never one for inactivity, he was about to go mad from lying flat. According to his mental time track, two days had passed since he’d woken from the fever. A total of five days on this island. The girl and her father treated him well enough and saw to his every need, but he almost wished they’d been cruel to help ease his guilt for withholding the truth and for invading their home. True, the man was a missionary, accustomed to lending aid. But that fact strangely doubled Bill’s guilt.

  His stoic brother had tried to get him to see the light of Christianity, a light from which Bill had always run fast and run hard. Now he lay stranded, physically helpless, in a missionary’s hut. How disgustingly ironic.

  Bill looked out the window at a pale square of blue. Palm fronds edged it, and he heard the ocean’s surf nearby. Again his mind went to that night aboard ship. Weeks ago, they’d left port with a batch of new sailors, and Bill had been nervous, plagued by the past. One sailor, Guido, used his work as an excuse not to look at Bill, even when Bill addressed the man directly. Had Guido been Bill’s assailant?

  The crisp sound of a page turning had him shift his focus to the girl. She sat relaxed in her hammock, reading a book.

  “What is there to do on this godforsaken island anyway?” he grumbled.

  “You are bored?” she inquired, not looking up from the page. “Would you like one of my father’s books to read?”

  “No, I would not like one of your father’s books to read,” he clipped, frustrated. “I want to get outside this hut!”

  “Soon, you will heal.” She turned another page. “Your wound is better with each day.”

  He snorted. “That’s what you said yesterday. And the day before that.”

  “Instead of being angry, you should thank God that in His great wisdom He has seen fit to keep you alive.”

  Bill knew that, but her offhand reminder didn’t improve his attitude. “Will you please look at me and at least acknowledge my existence? If I’m to be stuck here, the least you could do is talk to me.”