Fate had doomed him. Again. After being locked in a French hellhole of a prison for four years, he was now suddenly in a lifeboat with a prime dish who had a sweetheart of a body. And she thought he was a priest. Hell, he’d better act like a priest. Along for the ride were three orphan children and a noisy goat, all of them floating somewhere in the South Pacific.
Ain’t life grand?
She handed him the compass. He didn’t say anything, just stood and turned around, bracing one foot on the plank seat while he bent to secure the lines.
“Look out!” Smitty screamed.
Too late he realized she meant him.
The goat butted him. Hard.
The compass flew from his hand, and Hank sailed over the side headfirst.
He swore. Very loudly. Very graphically.
The worst word in his vocabulary... and five more just like it.
The compass hit the water first. He hit the water second. He surfaced ready to kill the goat. Seeing red and a dead goat, he swam to the lifeboat and climbed inside, cursing the air blue.
The children cowered in their seats, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open. Smitty pulled the baby closer to her just as he spat his last “Damn that goat to hell!”
He shook the water from his face and head. Glaring, he reached for the goat, which was innocently chewing on a banana peel.
“Muck! Muck! Muck!” The baby chanted, then pushed the blanket away from her bright face and repeated, “Muck, muck, muck, ssssi-it!”
They all stared at little Annabelle, who was grinning proudly.
“Daaaaamn goat!” she added and clapped her hands There was a full minute of silence.
“Colorful language,Father,”Smitty said knowingly.
He looked up at her.
“Colorful enough to melt those rosary beads.” He clamped his mouth shut on his next curse. She pinned him with a narrowed look. “Justwhoare you?”
4
He was no priest.
Margaret sat there, watching the man’s face for some clue to who or what he was. All she saw was a calculating edge that did little to put her at ease. He’s going to lie to me, she thought. After a long minute of silence she said, “I assume you have something to hide.”
He laughed at that, loud and cynically, then he sat down on the plank seat behind him and eyed her from a ruthlessly ridged expression that gave nothing away.
She waited.
So did he.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
“I’m the man who saved you and those kids.”
She never took her eyes from his, a maneuver her father had taught her.Look people square in the eye, my girl. You’ll be surprised what you’ll find out.She waited a few long and silent seconds in which she realized that from this man’s eyes she would find out little or nothing.
None of her usual methods worked. He didn’t seem to mind the long lapses of silence that bothered most people into saying something just to fill the awkward moment.
“I asked you a question.”
Putting him on the defensive didn’t work either. He said nothing.
