My Seaswept Heart (22 page)

Anne looked down at her lap, then began doing
what he asked. “What are you going to do?” He was busy rummaging
around the bottom of the boat, making the sides dip and sway.

“This should do.” He held up a piece of wood,
no longer than his arm. “I, Mistress Cornwall, am going to see
about our supper,” he informed her, then proceeded to whittle
matching notches at one end. He worked quickly, pausing several
times to match up the knife handle with the grooves. Then he made
deeper grooves at the other end.

“Rope,” he commanded, reaching for the yarn
Anne unwound. Then he carefully twisted and braided the knife
around the wood, knotting and reknotting until he was confident it
held securely. After cutting that off, he tied the rest of the yarn
to the other end, then wound that around the seat and knotted
it.

When he was finished, he held the weapon up
for Anne to see, a grin brightening his face. “Well, what do ye
think?”

She didn’t know what to say. “I...”

“’Tis a harpoon.” With that he stood, bent
over the side, peering into the indigo water. “Shark meat isn’t too
bad, but I think I’ll forgo the pleasure of wrestling our friend
tonight. Perhaps something small, though.” As he spoke he kept his
gaze trained on the swells.

The boat tilted and Anne grabbed for the
sides, when he lurched forward, tossing his makeshift weapon
overboard. The first few times he pulled the harpoon back
empty.

The third time he gave a whoop and tugged it
back, a bright yellow fish wriggling on the blade. Sliding it off,
he twisted to try his luck again. By the time it was too dark to
see anything beneath the clear surface, there were five fish, all
small and brightly colored, on the bottom of the boat.

Without removing the knife from the stick, he
began slicing and gutting the fish.

~ ~ ~

It tasted terrible.

Anne at first balked at the idea of eating
raw fish, but given the alternative... Besides, the captain seemed
to be wolfing down his share without any hesitation.

Using her front teeth Anne tore another piece
of flesh from the scales and chewed. By now it was dark, the only
light skimming across the waves came from the quarter moon. She
felt all the more alone and defeated.

The captain, on the other hand, seemed to
have gained a fighting spirit. After finishing his fish he reached
for the oars and settled into a steady rhythm of rowing. At first
Anne said nothing, thinking he might only wish to put some distance
between the shark, who she hadn’t been able to see since darkness
fell, and themselves. But when it appeared that he planned to
continue, she asked where he was going.

She could tell he glanced up, though it was
too dark to see his expression. “Don’t take too much to heart,
Annie. ’Tis still a waste of me time and yours. But I’m feeling a
bit revived, so...” He let the rest of his words trail off.

So he was rowing them... someplace. Though he
denied knowing where, Anne noticed he occasionally tipped his head
to study the heavens. The stars hung bright in the black velvet sky
and Anne wondered if he gleaned some reading from them.

But she didn’t ask, for she sensed he would
deny it. And maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t want her to put
false hope in something he couldn’t provide. At any rate, she
followed his suggestion that she settle into the bottom of the boat
and get some rest. It was cooler now and Anne was glad for the
coat, but though she tried, sleep would not came. Not even with the
gentle sway rocking her and the hypnotic swish of the oars.

“What made you become a pirate?”

Jamie paused, braking the flow of his pull
through the water when he heard her question, so unexpected in the
darkness it seemed to come from his own mind. He thought her
asleep, spared for a bit the reality of what was to come. Selfishly
he was thankful she wasn’t. For he was lonely to his soul. He’d
been thinking, of the past... of his wasted life. And sitting on
the cusp of oblivion, facing his own mortality, as he was, his
thoughts were far short of comforting.

So he carved the oars through the swells and
smiled. “What makes ye think I wasn’t born one?”

“Because I doubt that’s possible,” came the
voice from the darkness.

He decided to tell her the truth. What
difference did it make? “’Twas the hangman’s noose that convinced
me that piracy was my calling.”

“If you don’t wish to tell me, just say
so.”

“But ’tis true. I swear it. I’m surprised
Israel didn’t tell you the tale, he seemed so eager to have ye
trust me.”

“He didn’t say. I thought perhaps he didn’t
know.”

“He knew.” Jamie pulled in the oars and
stretched his back. “Israel was one of the first of his kind I
encountered on my sordid voyage toward freebooting. ’Twas a ship he
captained that captured one I’d booked passage on.”

“Booked passage?” The tone was skeptical and
Jamie could hardly blame her.

“Aye. Thoughts of staying in Scotland and
hoping not to be recaptured held little appeal to me. I was a sad
product of the defeat at Culloden. Caught I was, red-handed. The
British brought the lot of us to trial and charged us with
sedition. I barely knew what the word meant, except that being
found guilty of it made one forfeit his life.”

“How old were you?”

“Old enough to know better than to tangle
myself with a lost cause,” he answered cynically. “Seventeen,”
Jamie added more to himself than for her benefit. “Anyway, I
managed to find a berth on a vessel heading for the colonies.” He
took up the oars again. “But the brig was attacked, those aboard
were given the choice of joining the pirate crew or being killed.”
He paused. “I chose to live.

“Clever choice,” Anne mumbled and heard him
chuckle. But when he spoke again his voice lacked humor.

“Sometimes I wonder.” He took a deep breath.
“But what’s done is done, and I’ll not regret it.”

“It would be a waste of time to do so.”

“You’ve the right of it there, Annie.”

After that neither said anything. The moon
rose, the stars dimmed, and still Jamie rowed, wishing he knew why
he bothered. He assumed, her curiosity quenched, Anne was asleep...
that is until she spoke again.

“You think we’re bound to die, don’t
you?”

Earlier he’d wanted her to stop her
foolishness and face reality. Now he couldn’t stand the thought.
But he couldn’t lie to her either. Instead he pulled in the oars
and shifted off the seat to settle beside her in the bottom.
Without a word he lifted her up against him.

His palm covered her check as he pressed it
to his chest.

It was the sun, bright and incessant, that
woke them up.

Anne opened her eyes to find herself staring
straight into his. At first, mesmerized as she was by the clear,
sealike color, she forgot where they were. Finding herself in his
arms was just a continuation of a most pleasant dream. One that had
haunted her sleep. All she could do was smile.

He wanted to forget.

Fatigue and the constant draining of the
tropical sun had been enough to allow Jamie to drift off to sleep.
But though he’d appreciated the feel of Anne in his arms,
frustrating as it was, his dreams were dominated by demons. Demons
of his past.

But now, awake and looking into Anne’s
multifaceted brown eyes, feeling the gentle softness of her body
pressed to his, the devils that haunted him, seemed more like
ghosts, wispy figments fading away on a strong-edged sweep of
desire.

The arm that pillowed her body tugged closer.
The hand still molded to her cheek shifted, tilting her face. His
thumb traced a smear of grease across the slant of her brow.

“’Tis inconceivable to me that no one saw
through your disguise.”

“They saw what they wanted to see.”

His mouth inched closer. “They were
blind.”

“Perhaps, but—” Anne’s protest that she had
fooled him for several days was cut off when his lips touched hers.
Tremors of pleasure, stronger than she could control, shot through
her, curling her toes. His mouth rubbed against hers, a delicious
light friction. Then his tongue was there, dampening the
sun-parched fullness, silently begging her to open to him.

She had no choice.

Anne accepted his kiss as she had on the
beach at Libertia, with wonder that he could do so much to release
her passions with so little effort.

Their positions were cramped, the wooden
seats imprisoning them at the top, the slanting sides of the boat
cradling their backs. But Jamie managed to shift, pressing his body
tightly against hers. A wave of fevered desire quickened his
loins.

He pulled away enough to read her expression.
For there was no way she could know how much he wanted her. Under
the circumstances it surprised... and embarrassed even him. His
life was one of debauchery. But there was something about taking
her, forcing her, while she had nowhere else to turn that he found
unacceptable. Even as his body screamed for release.

He didn’t want her to think badly of him.

Jamie spread his fingers back through her
hair. “Annie?” Her name, the question, was barely more than a
whisper, lifted and carried away by the soft morning breeze.

His mouth skimmed from her cheek to the tip
of her nose, the abrasion of his whiskers sending shivers down her
spine. She swallowed, sensing a hesitation that seemed foreign to
him. She longed for the kisses that overwhelmed. Kisses that would
stamp out reality... at least for the moment.

She tangled her fingers in his hair and drew
his mouth back to hers.

And he was lost.

A moan escaped him as her lips opened, and
then his tongue was inside, tasting. She was all sweetness and
surrender. Kissing him back with an urgency that matched his
own.

Jamie’s legs tangled with hers, and he wished
he had room to move, but he forced that thought from his mind. No
use fancying something that couldn’t be. Better to let erotic
oblivion seize control.

Her jacket was coarse and bulky and Jamie
longed to peel the fabric aside and rediscover the silken skin
beneath. He faltered with the buttons, his fingers unwieldy,
unwilling to break the seal of their lips to see what he was about.
The jacket
V
’ed open and he fumbled through the linen
shirt.

When he finished exposing her to the sunlight
and his eyes, Jamie bent down, nestling his face against her
skin.

That’s when something bumped the boat.
Hard.

Anne screamed as it lurched to the side, then
swished back to right itself.

There was a flurry of arms and legs as Anne
and Jamie tried to extricate themselves from each other and the row
of wooden seats.

They were banged again, this eliciting a
string of curses from the captain as he bumped his head against the
side.

“What is it?” Anne managed to pull her head
high enough to look over the edge. What she saw made her cry out.
“It’s the shark!”

Jamie was desperate now to be free of the
confining seats. Each time he knocked an elbow he berated himself
for getting in such a bind. When he finally yanked his body from
beneath the seats the boat was listing from side to side so
violently that water sprayed over them. He grabbed for the
makeshift harpoon, determined to kill the attacking shark or die
trying.

Clambering to his knees, Jamie lifted his
arm, the knife blade aimed toward the mass of grayish brown
floating near the surface of the water. He blinked, ready to begin
a downward thrust. And stopped.

“What is it?” Anne asked when he collapsed on
a seat, his head thrown back in laughter. “Why aren’t you killing
it?” She managed to free herself from the bottom, but her coat was
twisted and her hair tangled down in her face. With one hasty swipe
she brushed it aside, trying to figure out what was so funny about
being attacked.

“’Tisn’t a shark,” Jamie managed to say. He
stuck the harpoon under the seat and reached into the water,
shaking his head when Anne gasped. “’Tis but a dolphin.”

“A dolphin?” Anne leaned forward cautiously
at the same time the creature lifted its head. Diamondlike droplets
dripped from the snoutish nose. No gaping mouth full of jagged
teeth appeared. Instead Anne found herself staring into rather
soulful eyes. And feeling foolish. “I saw the fin,” she mumbled,
annoyed when Jamie laughed all the harder.

Now he was actually petting the dolphin as if
it were a lapdog, going so far as to scratch behind where its ears
should be. Which seemed a bit reckless to Anne after what the
creature did to their boat. The dolphin still had it bobbing in the
wake of its playful antics.

“What does it want?” Anne settled on a seat
and rested her chin in the cup of her palm.

“Some company, I’d wager.”