CHAPTER ONE

      “OH,” NELL cried, “just look at the view! Please, Wendell…can you stop for a minute?”

      “It’s only the barrens,” her companion said. “Nothin’ much to look at.” But, obligingly, he put his foot on the brake pedal and the ancient truck wheezed to a halt.

      Nell opened the door, which squealed a metallic protest, and slid to the ground. Dumbstruck, she gazed around her.

      I’ve come home, she thought. This is where I belong.

      Although it wasn’t the first time in the past two weeks that she had had that thought, it was the first time it had struck her with such intensity. Newfoundland, island province off the east coast of Canada, had captured her imagination and her heart from the moment she had stepped off the plane in St. John’s and filled her lungs with cool, fog—swept air that smelled of the sea. The spell had woven itself around her tighter and tighter every day that had followed. And now she was totally its captive.

      Somehow I’ve got to stay here. I don’t know how. But somehow.

      She couldn’t go back to Holland and pick up the placid threads of a life that could have taken place on another planet, so remote did it seem, so alien to the woman she had become in just two short weeks.

      Wendell cleared his throat noisily. “You ready to go, missie? I got to get to the coastal boat in Caplin Bay on time to unload this stuff.”

      Nell turned around, the sunlight twined in her chestnut hair. Wendell’s age was anything from seventy up, and his clothing in a state of disrepair that more than matched his truck. But his bright blue eyes twinkled in a way that she was sure would have been quite irresistible in a younger man; and for the past three hours he had regaled her with hair—raising tales of ghosts and smugglers and shipwrecks. She said impulsively, “I’m going to stay here for a while—just let me get my gear out of the back.”

      “Stay? What for?”

      Because it’s so beautiful that I could die happy right now? Because I’ll do anything to delay the moment I have to get on the coastal boat in Caplin Bay and go to Mort Harbour?

      She said lamely, “I want to take a few pictures—it’s so pretty.”

      “Hell of a place in winter.” Wendell scratched at his whiskered chin. “Don’t feel so good about leavin’ you here, missie. This ain’t St John’s, you know. Not much traffic on this road so as you’ll get another ride.”

      “I’m used to hiking. Besides, I’ve got my tent and I always carry food with me. I’ll be fine.” She flashed him a quick smile, hurried around to the back of the truck and wrestled with the lobster twine that kept the backboard in place. Then she hoisted her pack onto her back and retied the knots. Feeling the heat reflecting from the pavement, she walked to Wendell’s window and held out her hand. “Thanks so much, Wendell. I really enjoyed meeting you. Perhaps I’ll see you again when I reach Caplin Bay.”

      “I hangs out there quite a bit You take care now, missie.” He shook her hand with surprising strength, winked at her and, in a clash of gears, headed down the road. The truck belched a farewell puff of black smoke. The rattle of the engine diminished in the distance. Nell moved to the gravel shoulder of the road and looked around her.

      They had been climbing steadily through scrub forest until Wendell had turned the last corner. Spread all around her were the barrens—rounded outcrops of granite surrounded by low shrubs and licked by the pink foam of bog laurel. Delicate tamaracks huddled in the hollows. The afternoon sun glinted on the scattered ponds, turning them into gold coins tossed with a profligate hand over the landscape. The silence was so intense as to be almost a presence in itself.

      Nell took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the clean, sweet air. She couldn’t go back to Holland. She’d smother there. Maybe, just maybe, when she got to Mort Harbour, she’d find a welcome…

      A slight movement caught her eye. She turned her head. Where the rocks rose to a