“I’m Margaret Huntington Smith.”
He glanced up at the blonde.
Three names. Now there was trouble.
He didn’t respond, just lifted the lantern up and stared at her. She was a looker, even soaking wet. Especially soaking wet. He could see right through her thin clothing.
However, any bright ideas he had for taking Madame Smitty there on a few hot voyages had gone straight to hell when those kids had peered down at him from the ship.
He looked from her to her children, who were wrapped in the tarps and blankets. The baby cuddled inside a dry blanket in her lap. The lantern cast a shallow amber glow on their upturned faces, all looking at him expectantly.
He looked away, watching the dark sea and night sky that surrounded them. He saw nothing but black, as if fate had pitched them into a deep hole to see if they could survive.
He knew how to survive. Hell, he had been doing it long enough. Yes, he could take care of himself just fine. But a woman and her three kids? They were not part of the plan.
“Father?” She was waiting for an introduction and giving him one of those direct looks again.
He silently swore. He’d forgotten about the priest’s clothes. He fiddled with the lantern and pretended he hadn’t heard her.
She waited, then glanced around at the sea. “This was supposed to be a holiday,” she said, almost as if she were speaking to herself alone.
He gave a bark of sharp laughter. “I suppose you might say I was on a holiday myself.”
She looked back at him, then glanced at her children. There was a lost look about her, a sense of helplessness when she looked at her children.
A vulnerability he noted and stored away. He unclamped the small mast from its fittings and mounted it into the mast hole. He spent a few minutes with the sail lines, then nodded at the kids. “Where’s their father?”
“Dead,” the little girl answered in a bitter tone he knew only too well.
Hank gave her a sharp look.
She stared right back at him.
“How old are you, little girl?”
“I’m Lydia, not little girl,” she said, her chin in an angle of so-what’s-it-to-you. “I’m eleven.” She pulled her blanket tighter around her angry, childish face, then averted her eyes from his and stared at the bottom of the boat. “Our mother’s dead, too. Everyone’s dead.”
So their mother was dead, he thought. He glanced at Miss Smitty, who had just become fair game again. “Their parents were killed in an accident,” she said, placing her arms more tightly around the children. “A matron was taking them to an orphanage on Cook Island. We became friendly on the voyage between island stops.”
She paused, then glanced out at the sea for a moment. “She was trapped inside the stateroom next to mine. I managed to get to the children, but...” Her voice drifted off, and the young girl began to sob again. The woman turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry, Lydia.” She put her arm around her. “It’s okay. Get it all out. Go ahead and cry.”
Hank looked away and rolled his eyes. He didn’t think Lydia needed any encouragement. All she had done was cry.
The little boy, however, was sitting very quietly. He stared at Hank with wide and curious eyes. There was something grounding in those eyes. An odd mixture of innocence and caution, like someone who been hit for no reason.
The kid had gotten his first bad taste of the life Hank knew. He’d been younger than this kid when life had dealt him a bad hand. He hadn’t been innocent for very long. But he did remember the feeling of confusion. He looked at the boy again. “You wanna help me, kid?”
The kid bobbed his head. “I’m Theodore.”
“I remember.” Hank pointed to the bench in front of him. “Come here.”
The kid shrugged out of the blanket and sat on the seat, his look serious.
Hank looked down at him. “How old are you?”
“I’m five,” he said, then added quickly, “but I’m not the baby. Annabelle’s the baby ’cause she’s not even two yet.” He pointed to the bundled baby in Smitty’s lap.
Hank handed him the ends of the lines. “Here. Unwrap these from the sail.”
