A Northern Romance: Atlantic Romances, #1

One

MAY 1985

Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the ice-capped northern sea, stared back at her from the gilded mirror of the luxurious hotel washroom. Liquid brown eyes glowed as if lit from another world; her straight long brown hair brushed to a sheen and framed her pale golden face. A sealskin cloak shimmered silver and gray, and floated in the slight breeze of passersby as if lighter than the wind, outlining the slim figure beneath it. The goddess lifted her head haughtily, knowing that her time had come.

She was Sedna, if only for one magical evening. Sedna, who had refused to marry until the perfect man came along and who, sacrificed to the merciless ocean to quell its rage, had survived victorious to emerge from that icy depth.

Tonight she wasn’t Conor McLowrie, daughter of the town drunk, child of poverty sprung from Lower Crank Cove.

Tonight with her hard-won Commerce degree, she was determined to shed poverty’s mantle. Good living was there to be had, if a girl was smart and used what she had earned. She was Sedna, if only for this evening. And this evening was all she needed, for the perfect man had come along.

Fake it till you make it, she said to her reflection. I’m good enough for him.

Conor could almost hear her father’s voice, the Irish lilt still strong after a quarter century of living in Newfoundland and thirty years of heavy binge drinking.

‘The fairies kissed you on the night of your birth, Conor,’ he'd told her many times while in his cups. Her parents had given her a boy’s name, which she’d hated back in her school days when she was different enough without that extra burden. But it had grown on her over time, and now she liked the distinction it gave her.

Her charming Dad wove magical stories about the little people, sorcerers and gods from all traditions as he and she walked along the rocky northern beaches and through the wild woods of her childhood home. On a good day, you could see Labrador across the strait.

He captivated her young imagination with the poetry of his words. As a little girl, she‘d taken his words literally and believed herself to be specially favored by these otherworldly beings. But after her mother died and the homeschooling discontinued, Conor had been forced out into a harsher reality where her friendly fairies didn’t exist and where she was made aware of her family’s poverty for the first time in her short life.

‘Fairies? Hardly,’ she almost said aloud, denying her father room even in her head. She'd made her own luck through hard work and being smart. The ticket for tonight's masked ball, the annual end-of-year fundraising gala event for the medical students association, that hadn‘t come cheap. Conor didn‘t know anyone else here, but she knew that she must start acting as though she belonged if she were to fulfill her ambitions. Fortunately, she’d found ten yards of sheer white silk at the charity store. Cleverly cut, hand stitched and painted with fabric dye, it made a watery seal skin cloak. Not only were the flowing, shimmering lengths perfect for making her into Sedna, the costume also looked expensive. She was satisfied.

Even if the costume didn’t make her stand out, her hair sure did. She kept hers long and straight and glossy in its natural state, while every other woman in the room was vying to have the biggest hair of all. Crimped and permed and back-combed and bleached and oozing with product. She hated that look. Conor’s brown, almost black hair hinted of an exotic background, a touch of non-fashionable Native American, perhaps the Inuit whispered to be in mother’s genes somewhere way back.

Fairies? Gazing at her image in the large mirror, she changed her mind, for perhaps her father's little folk had come back to her this evening, bringing with them Devon.

Devon Radford. Walking out of the washroom, she let the syllables of his name flow over her tongue as she whispered his name. Of course she‘d been aware of him before tonight. He was a presence on campus with his shiny red convertible, his year-round tan, his European clothes. His looks were the results of many decades of the most selective breeding old St. John’s money could buy.

He was Devon Redford, the Golden Boy. As well-trimmed as the university’s rose garden and just as much a fact of campus life, she had likewise never expected him to impact on her life. He was not a person even Conor with her powerful ambitions would ever have dreamed of approaching.

But Devon had approached her! And suddenly, anything was possible.

She'd been at the buffet table. The hors d‘ouevres at this do were fabulous, almost worth the price of the ticket alone. Conor was a snacker with an incredibly fast metabolism. While she could never eat a lot of food at one time, she had to eat constantly or she would soon be overcome with hunger. This ability to burn calories kept her slim but there was also a downside, for her system became especially over active when she was nervous. Like right now. She had to eat in order to quiet the rumblings from within.

Helping herself to the spiked punch, she’d become aware of the presence across the table from the crystal bowl. She looked up. And up. The Viking loomed before her, his natural six feet heightened even more by the tall horned helmet on his head. His blue eyes stared steadily down at her large brown ones, as if entranced.

‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ he said in his deep voice as he reached his hand towards her. ‘I’m Devon Radford.’

As if the whole world didn't know who he was.

‘Conor McLowrie,’ she replied, grasping his long fingers in her own delicate hand. Her heart felt as if it had stopped and she couldn’t find the air in her lungs for speech. What is this? She scolded herself. Mister Golden Boy comes knocking and you‘re so stunned that you stand there without a thing to say?

Come on, girl, she told herself. He doesn’t know you‘re poor. He doesn’t know you’re not in his league. You can do this.

Conor glanced at him through her naturally long dark lashes, an imitation of the great screen goddesses of the ‘fifties. Her family hadn‘t been able to afford satellite TV when she was a child and the one channel their old set could receive had always played black and white movies on Sunday afternoons. Sunday had been a special day of the week, for it was the only day her father could be counted on to be sober. He’d loved the old movies, and so she had loved them too.

She let her eye travel down the length of Devon’s body flirtatiously.

‘A Viking in my waters?’ she asked in a low-pitched voice, forcing him to lean across the table to catch her words.

He caught the flirtation and he smiled with anticipation.

‘I don’t know about that,’ he admitted honestly, secure enough in himself to be unafraid to show his ignorance. ‘I love your costume, but who are you supposed to be?’

Of course he’d never heard of the Native traditions and myths. His family background was as pure white Colonial as you could get, not even a drop of French in that bloodline. She drew herself up to her full height. This was exactly five feet two inches but she knew her slimness and the stiletto heels made her look taller.

‘I’m Sedna, the lnuit goddess of the sea,’ she said, and flicked her head so that her hair fell like a curtain across her face, leaving only her smouldering brown eyes showing, glittering gold sparks within their depths.

The intimacy of the gaze across the white linen tablecloth told her he was hers, and their first touch confirmed it.

Was it the costume, or had the power of Sedna truly entered her for that evening? Maybe mixed with her father‘s chaotic Celtic genes there was Inuit blood somewhere from her mother's family tree if it could have been traced, although few people along the coast in her home-town would admit to having Native blood in their veins, not back then.

Perhaps it was the fairies smiling at her, as her father had claimed so many evenings as he sprawled in his chair, drunk on whiskey, spouting poetry.

Whatever it was, it was strong magic, the first time she’d ever been in love. For four beautiful weeks, Devon hardly left her side and never had she experienced such a whirlwind romance. He clearly adored her, and she him. Four years older than her twenty-three, he’d just graduated with his medical degree. He was now a full doctor of medicine and ready to take the world by storm. They were in love. When she wasn’t applying for jobs and making the rounds to prospective employers, he filled her days and her evenings.

He took her for drives in his little red Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible while they listened to his Eurythmics and Dire Straits CDs. It was sort of a dorky little car, but its unpretentiousness suited Devon. They went to the Symphony, to plays, and he bought her flowers and expensive trinkets which caught his eye. He lavished her with his family money to show how much he cared.

Conor pretended to be used to such luxury. She acted as if she expected this treatment, as though every man in her life had had money to burn on her. When Devon talked of skiing in Europe and British Columbia, she murmured agreement, although the only skiing she’d ever done were on a pair of too-large hand-me-down cross country skis on the barrens of the Northern Peninsula, during the endless winters up north. When he talked of tanning on Caribbean beaches she spoke as though she, too, knew the pleasures of lying on a tropical beach being served umbrellaed drinks. The closest thing to a beach she’d ever known was the pebble-strewn shore by her father’s home, where you could sun-bathe for one month a year if you didn’t mind the endless wind, but there was no swimming in those waters so close to Labrador.

She loved him so much, she wished she didn’t have to lie. But once started, she had to keep it up.

The times when it was just her and him were best. During her years at university, she’d been too busy to make real friends but Devon had a seemingly endless supply. And a shallow, snobby crowd they were too. The get-togethers they attended with his circle always involved drinking copious amounts of alcohol on George Street, the young men holding contests to see who could drink the most booze and pick up the cutest chicks. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

‘You don’t want to join them?’ she asked one evening as they sat on the tall bar stools, watching the antics on the brightly lit dance floor.

‘No, I‘m not into that’ he said with a shudder. ‘They’re drunken idiots. I don’t want to be like that.’

‘So, why do you hang with them?’ she pressed loudly over the music.

He looked surprised at the question.

‘They’re my friends.’ he replied simply, as if the answer was obvious. ‘I've always hung out with them. Besides, someone has to be sober enough to drive.’

Devon’s friend Melissa, the only female in the crowd, also held hack from the booze on their nights out. Seeing the pair around campus, Conor had always thought they were an item, for they often walked around arm in arm, glued at the hip. They looked good together, with their height and blonde looks, like a matching pair of fashion dolls.

He laughed when she asked him about it, wondering if there was something she should be aware of.

‘No, Melissa's a friend, always has been,’ he replied, then a twinkle appeared in his eye. ‘Why? Are you jealous?’

‘No,’ Conor said, reluctant to admit that yes, she was jealous of the two’s apparent closeness, perhaps a little threatened if she were to be really honest. There had been no downright unfriendliness on the blonde woman’s part, yet whenever Conor approached, Melissa seemed to melt away from Devon’s arm, the malicious smile on her face lingering like the Cheshire Cat’s grin as she slipped off into the depths of the disco.

He laughed when she brought it up again, trying to calm her uncertainties.

‘That's just — Melissa,’ he explained with a shrug, dismissing her worries. He smiled as he placed his arm around her slim shoulder. ‘Don't mind her. I’m with you.’

She tried not to, but still the woman made her uncomfortable, the way she watched Conor from across the room with a knowing smile, as if she was aware the brunette wasn’t what she appeared to be. It was true, Conor was acting a part and pretending to fit in with Devon's wealthy crowd as if she belonged.

Yet she wasn’t lying in her adoration of him for him because, wealth and background aside, Devon was her perfect fit.

They laughed at the same jokes, could discuss philosophical points for hours. They revealed their dreams and plans, and Conor soon discovered that he was more than just a golden boy. Devon wanted to travel, to make his mark on the world, to somehow use his gifts to make the world a better place.

‘How do you mean, exactly?’ she had asked him, one evening as they sat by the window of the hotel bar on the hill overlooking the city. Rain streamed down the glass outside making the streetlights below twinkle as if under water.

Devon paused, his single malt cupped in his hands, the arms of his impeccable navy crewneck sweater pushed up to reveal strong wrists. He watched the last of the violet dusk silently move to black.