A Light For My Love by Alexis Harrington

laughed about it now, but at the
time she'd been so agitated she was nearly useless. China, often
the one to take charge despite her youth, had found a piece of
beefsteak for Quinn's eye while he slouched in a chair at the
table, scowling at Jake.
    China hadn't meant to stare at Jake. But she
had never been that close to a boy from "down the hill," as she and
her friends had referred to the people living near the docks. He
was so different from anyone she knew, so fascinating and scary.
His clothes were old and worn and poorly mended. And she didn't
like him. Not because he was poor. She knew her own father had had
modest beginnings. No, she disliked Jake because he was tough and
dirty and looked like nothing but trouble. Still, she'd supposed
she should see to him.
    But when she approached him and tried to look
at his hand, which by that time had blood-soaked his shirttail, he
backed away, nearly snarling at her.
    "Don't touch me," he snapped. "I don't need
your help."
    "Fine, then," she replied, surprised by his
raging hostility. "Your mother can take care of it." His face went
oddly blank at her remark. Later she learned that his mother was
dead.
    Jake wouldn't come into the kitchen but
lingered by the back door, his sea green eyes flashing. His stance
was rigid, hostile, and too cocky by half to suit China. Yet when
he'd looked at her again, for just an instant she thought she saw
something else in those eyes. Something that stopped her in her
tracks and made her feel pity for him, although she couldn't
imagine why. He was the one who'd hit her brother.
    He shifted his glare to Quinn. "I don't want
to have to whip you again, and you know I can do it. So don't come
down to Tenth Street looking for trouble."
    Then, bleeding and scraped as he was, he
turned and was gone.
    But in the way of boys and youth, the
argument was forgotten, and China had seen Jake back at the house a
week later. And he and Quinn had begun a friendship that would take
them around the world together.
    Even at fifteen or sixteen, Jake had
sometimes been known to get roaring drunk on a Saturday night,
after having spent the week working on his father's fishing boat.
On those occasions he would participate in spectacular fights.
China had never understood why he bothered to attend mass the next
morning. She'd see him sitting in a back pew, fidgeting
uncomfortably in the ill-fitting, old-fashioned dress clothes he
wore, his thick hair combed flat to his head with water. She was
certain she felt his eyes drilling into the back of her head. It
was a scandal, the way he looked, his face bruised and puffy. She
had never shared Aunt Gert's view that it was repentance and Jake's
basically good heart that brought him to Father Gibney. Jake had
never been repentant a minute in his life, for anything. She'd seen
it in his swagger, in the way she caught him looking at her when
she suddenly turned in his direction.
    China dragged herself to the present. Now
that he was grown, he'd given her no reason to change her mind
about him. Oh, true, some of that cockiness he'd had seemed to be
gone—now he was commanding in a way that gave her the impression he
expected to be obeyed.
    Gert, China, and Susan crossed the hall to
the dining room, bearing the breakfast dishes. China could hear
Captain Meredith still taking advantage of the audience he'd found
in Jake.
    "In ribbons was her tops'il and I thought
Davy Jones would have us sure, that blackest of black nights—"
    "If you two will take your places, we'll eat
breakfast," Aunt Gert said. She put the mush on the table, then
pointed to a chair directly across from Susan's. "Jake, you can sit
there."
    Grateful for the reprieve, Jake stood behind
his chair, waiting for the others. The old captain told a good
story, but there was no stopping him.
    Jake flexed his shoulders, trying to work the
ache out of his back. Sleeping on the lumpy, sagging bed in that
cold room had told on him. He'd already had a knot on his head
before