“What?”
“Well, that’s not exactly—”
Interrupting Alicia, Nate continued, his eyes on Blake’s. “She asked me last night and who was I to refuse? The lady wants to know about the ship.” Nate gestured down the length of the deck that gleamed in the morning sunlight. “Since we’re up early this morning, it’s the perfect time.”
Blake wanted to flatten Nate when the man winked at Alicia.
“You
take the helm,” Blake grumbled.
“I’ll
show Alicia around.”
Nate shrugged, moved to the wheel. If Blake wasn’t mistaken, the man was biting his cheek. Blake didn’t appreciate being herded, but Nate was right. It was the perfect time. The sun was warm, the wind was stronger than it had been but still enjoyable, and it would afford him more time with Alicia.
“Let’s start at the front,” Blake said. With her hand entwined in his, they moved to the bow, the canvas billowing above them.
“Do you know much about ships?” he asked when they’d reached the front.
Alicia smiled. “I know they float, have sails, and the front is the bow and the rear is the stern. And,” she added, holding up a finger, “they all have names.” She frowned. “Captain told me what yours looked like, but I don’t remember him giving me its name.”
“Captain?”
“Oh.” Alicia’s eyes widened and she gnawed at her lip. “He, um, well …” She shrugged. “He encouraged me to come aboard.”
At least she looked sheepish. Blake doubted he’d see the same expression on Captain’s face next time they encountered each other.
“Or course he did,” Blake mumbled. “Don’t know why that surprises me.”
“He’s a very nice man,” Alicia reminded Blake.
“I’ll try to remember that when I see him. Anyway, my ship’s called the
Blue Rose.”
He didn’t tell her he’d named it so because his mother’s favorite color was blue and she preferred roses. “We’ll start with the basics,” Blake said instead.
“The larger the ship, the more it can hold. But the more supplies, the more guns it has, and the slower it moves. The smaller ones go faster for two reasons. One, they have less cargo encumbering them, and two, because they are shallower on the draft.”
“The draft?”
“The amount of ship that’s below the water, is the easiest way to say it. Captain said your sister was in a sloop. It would be smaller than this one, but also a little faster. This one’s a schooner,” he said, trailing his hand along the smooth gunwale.
“Is it only the size that tells you what kind of ship it is?”
“Usually it’s a combination of the ship’s size—its number of gun decks—as well as the number of masts and the manner in which the sails are attached to those masts. Take mine. She’s a two-masted schooner, so those two long poles you see are the masts. The larger ships can have up to four.”
“Is that also a mast?” she asked, pointing to the pole that extended over the water at the bow.
“In a manner of speaking. We call that the bowsprit. The smallest sail at the end of it is called a—”
“A flying jib.” Alicia gasped, her hand at her throat.
“You know its name?”
“I—the name, it just came to me. Give me a moment.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, her pretty mouth pinched and the hand that remained entwined with his shook. After a few silent minutes passed, she pulled her hand from his and moved to the gunwale.
“Alicia?”
Her heavy sigh had him moving closer to her side. His hand caressed her shoulder.
“What is it?”
“It’s these bits and pieces of my past that creep up on me. Once, sitting in the sun outside the house, I had this fleeting feeling of sitting in water and being so cold and afraid that I remember shivering despite the heat. There were a handful of times growing up that I used to wake up at night with my ears full of cannon blasts only to find myself in my bed with Jacob and Anna asleep downstairs.
“But there were never enough to these glimpses for me to remember anything significant. It’s always these random thoughts and scraps of information and then nothing. No matter how much I focus on remembering more, nothing comes to me.” She kicked the gunwale. “It’s so frustrating!”
He rubbed her shoulder. “We can stop, if you want. I can show you the rest another time.”
She turned, placed her hand once again in his. Sadness lingered around the edge of her smile.
“No, let’s keep going. Maybe I’ll remember more.”
Her spirit amazed him. He couldn’t imagine not knowing his past. The fact that she could forge ahead despite the pain and frustration of not knowing her own history was a testament to the woman’s strength.
He guided her along and was relieved when the last of the sadness slipped away. Soon she was once again looking at him, her eyes bright.
Seeing that she was truly interested in what he was saying had pride settling warmly in his chest. He loved his ship, every board and every rope. Eric had never understood that and his father even less so. He’d tried explaining it, several times, but neither had realized what it meant to Blake. It got to be that he’d stopped trying to make them understand.
For years he’d longed to be able to share his ship with someone who would look at it with the same wonder he had the first time he’d clapped eyes on it. Eric had enjoyed the water, but Blake had known by the look on his brother’s face that he didn’t understand, didn’t feel the same connection. Neither had his father. The only times he had come to the water were to see Eric and Daniel off and to forbid him from attending Anna’s funeral. Blake would never forget the look on Jacob’s face. He had looked at the ship with resentment, and the youngest of his sons standing on it with disappointment. Shoving the hurt away, Blake continued.
“Everything on a ship has a name and a purpose.”
Alicia tilted her head to the side. “How long did it take you to learn it all?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Even when I was a young boy, I’d spend as much time at the harbor as I could. I’d ask any sailor that happened by about ships. Most were happy enough to tell me, and my presence became so commonplace that soon they let me onto the ships, showed me everything.” He sighed. “I couldn’t learn it fast enough. By the time I left home, even though I hadn’t spent much time on the sea, I knew what was needed to sail a vessel.”
“And you bought this ship straightaway?”
“No, I had no money at the time. I’ve only had the
Blue Rose
for three years.”
Alicia squeezed his hand. “And you love her.”
It wasn’t a question. It was said with affection and understanding and not a hint of recrimination or disgust. He drew her into his arms, felt his heart pull when she lifted her head and met his gaze. Her hands went around his waist. He smiled, then lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss to show what her understanding meant to him. He took his time about it, and when her mouth moved under his, opened for him, he forgot the reason for the kiss and simply lost himself in the wonder of it.
When it ended, her smile was every bit as wide as his. He brought their joined hands to his mouth and pressed a kiss to hers.
“You don’t have to go below today.”
The day was a glorious wonder for Alicia. It reminded her of walking through Port Royal in the early morning and watching the town slowly come to life. The crew trickled up, by twos or threes, until the deck was full of men. She had no idea of their duties but enjoyed watching the activity nonetheless. When a few began to climb the rigging, she watched in fascination until they’d climbed so high Alicia’s stomach clenched. Since she hadn’t been sick in a while, she decided it best to look away before she changed her good fortune.
Despite her asking, neither of the three men that alternated keeping her company—Blake, Nate, and Vincent—would assign her a task of her own. Instead she passed the time asking questions and trying to keep all the different words straight in her head. Mainsail, foremast, bilge, fore and aft, topmasts. There were two of those but at the moment she couldn’t think of the difference. She did know that the side of the ship she was leaning against was actually called a gunwale.
Blake came to stand beside her. They’d had such a marvelous day. If he hadn’t been with her on the quarterdeck, he was on the main one, and more than once he’d turned to catch her watching him or she’d feel his gaze on her and turn to see she was right. Always a warmth settled around her when his eyes connected with hers. But times like these, when he was close enough to touch and she smelled the ocean and wind as well as his heat, every nerve in her body went on alert.
“Do you ever tire of it?” Alicia asked.
“Of what?”
“Of the endless water, days at sea. Of not having solid ground beneath your feet.”
“I did the first few weeks. Now I can’t imagine being anyplace else.”
“I think I would. I enjoy being able to walk the streets, to smell the earth after a rain, to sleep on a bed that doesn’t move.”
Blake shrugged. “I can do all those things when I make port.”
His eyes crinkled against the glare of the sun reflecting off the steel blue water. Small creases folded out from the corners of his eyes. Wind whistled between the canvas, snapped the sails when a gust blew through. After a day outside, Alicia was now used to the shouts hollered between crew members if someone needed help or if one man annoyed another. The crew was often annoyed.
“You really don’t miss it, do you?”
He looked at her. “Miss what?”
“Port Royal.”
“There’s nothing there for me, Alicia. Hasn’t been for quite some time.”
Because she feared he’d leave, she placed a hand over his. “There’s the house. The shop.”
“Alicia.” His eyes grew solemn, lost the warmth they’d held all day. “They mean nothing to me.”
“You’re wrong. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t look so sad. You wouldn’t have been so angry last night.”
“I’m entitled to be mad. It doesn’t mean I’m ready to turn the ship around and go back.”
“You came to his funeral. You were mad at me for years, and you hadn’t even met me. You refuse to read the letter. That tells me it means something to you.”
He sighed, pressed his free hand to his eye. “I’d really hoped we were past this.”
“I may have been their daughter for a time, but their sons,
both
their sons, were everything to them. I didn’t replace you in their hearts. I couldn’t have.”
Blake yanked his hand back and he moved away. He gave Vincent some instructions on his way past and disappeared below. She counted to thirty and then she followed.
“Alicia, I really don’t want to repeat what happened last night,” he said from the table.
He was sitting on a chair with his booted feet propped on another. Restrained anger rippled in the air.
“Good, neither do I.” She kneeled at his side, fixing her gown so she wasn’t stepping on it. “Blake, you’ve come to mean something to me and I don’t want to hurt you. But I really think we need to talk.”
He sighed deeply. “I’m not talking.”
“Fine, then I will.” She grasped his hand, squeezed it within her own, and began from the beginning.
“From the time I woke up at the Davidsons’, I never felt anything but love. Even without memories, I felt their affection. I never doubted what they told me about my memory loss because I had no reason to. They always treated me as their daughter.
“And as much as they loved me, I always knew a part of their hearts was reserved for Daniel and Eric. I saw that every day in the little things, such as when Anna cooked. She’d place a piece of pie before me and say, ‘Apple was always Daniel’s favorite.’ Sometimes she’d add an extra blanket to my bed and say, ‘Eric always got a chill when it rained.’ She prayed every night. She’d say a prayer for each of you, and though Jacob pretended not to hear or care, he always rose as Anna was finishing, and more than once I heard him murmur ‘Amen’ as he walked out the door. He never changed the name of his shop. To this day the sign above the door says ‘Davidson and Sons.’ ”
“He was just too lazy to change it,” Blake murmured, though his voice held some of the emotion she knew he was feeling.
“There was nothing lazy about a man who worked long hours in a sweltering blacksmith shop six days out of seven, and I know, because it’s hard work. If he’d wanted to change the sign, he could have.”
Blake cocked his head. “Why do you work in the shop? Doesn’t Charles still work for him?”
“He does. But I’m not there because I have to be, nor have I ever been. I adore that shop. Soon as I was recovered, I followed Jacob there every chance I had, much to Anna’s dismay,” she added with a laugh.
“I can’t explain why I went, only that there was something about Jacob that drew me. I loved watching his hands work, listening to the rhythm of his voice when he spoke. From the first time I walked into the shop, he began to teach me about his work. I don’t think he did it really believing I’d take over for him, but more because I listened. From there it became habit. We walked there together and he heard my ideas. He never dismissed them if they were wrong, but rather encouraged me to consider doing it another way.”
“You love it,” he acknowledged.
“I do. And it didn’t take Anna long to realize that either. She knew there was no prying me away. I’m good at what I do, Blake, but more than that, I love what I do.”
“It can’t be an easy place for a woman to be.”
“The shop is easy, it’s everyone’s reaction to me being in it that’s difficult.”
He arched a brow. “Then why do you stay?”
She shrugged. “It’s who I am. I’d never be happy hosting tea parties and socials. Your parents knew that and your father was just happy to have me by his side.”
“Yeah,” Blake grimaced. “I’m sure he was.”
“He was, because all he ever wanted was to work with his family, to have them beside him. His face lit up when I walked in. I think that’s why he never cared what others thought, because to him, family stayed together.”
“Please,” Blake scoffed. “He sent me away. That’s not indicative of a man whose family means the world to him.”
Alicia considered him a moment. “Did you know Jacob carried a rock in his pocket? It was a small thing that had been polished smooth by time and water. It was gray with specks of pink. It didn’t seem remarkable but he never went anywhere without it. I imagine it came from one of you.”