He released her, then touched the brim of his priest’s hat and gave her his best “The Lord be with you.”
She smiled again, and he stifled a deep groan.Whoa, boy.
She had started to turn away.
In an old habit borne from too many years spent in rum joints, he raised his hand to swat her on her sweet butt.
She paused midturn, snapping her fingers as she murmured, “Oh! I knew I forgot something.” She glanced up.
His hand was level with her nose.
She grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “Thank you, Father!”
A second later she had whipped around and was rushing toward the gangplank.
Hank stared at his right hand, then at the back of her tall figure as she ran up the ship’s ramp. He grinned, then called out, “May He shine His countenance upon you.”
She stopped halfway up the ramp and waved, then turned back around.
“And give you peace!” His gaze shifted to her ass.What a piece...
He just stood there, even after she had disappeared onboard. Legs, he thought. Beneath that skirt were yards of long legs. He shook his head and gave a short whistle.
A moment later he felt the nudge of the crowd that still milled around the dockside. He turned back and looked.
No dogs. No guards.
No French militia.
Nothing but the crowd.
He grinned, stark and white and full of the devil, then strolled toward the gangplank. He shoved his right hand back into his pocket. In his left hand, he casually tossed a small leather pocketbook he’d picked from her purse.
He approached the crewman. “The young woman who just went on board dropped her pocketbook in the crowd.”
The man appeared to listen with only half an ear. He cast a quick glance at the small purse, then at Hank. “Yes... yes, Father.” He waved Hank aboard the steamer. “Go aboard and find her.”
Hank walked up the ramp toward his freedom, whistling a barrel house rendition ofAve Maria.He handed the pocketbook to a steward and waited until the man disappeared in the passage, then casually made his way along the railing toward the stern.
He slipped up a stairway to the upper deck and moved toward the closest lifeboat. Covertly, he unsnapped the tarp, glancing left, then right. The crew was busy readying for departure.
In a flash he stowed under the tarp. He quickly refastened the tarp snaps.
Canvas life vests were clipped to rings in the lifeboat and oilskins and blankets were wrapped in an extra tarp. A tin box of supplies, a lantern, and a container of water were wedged into the bow. He pried open a can of potbeef and devoured it, the other stolen banana, and a few crackers, then washed them down with some of the water. The bread and cheese he’d swiped from an outpost the night before had been a better meal. Probably because he’d washed that down with three stolen beers.
He took a few of the life vests, blew them up, and lay back, using them as pillows and the tarps and blankets as a bed, and he waited. Before long the steamer whistled and moved away from the dock. The ship rocked on the sea, slowly, like the hips of a native girl.
Hank took a deep breath, the first one he’d taken in a helluva long time. One more breath of freedom, and it all caught up with him, the torture, the running, the isolated hell of the past four years.
God... He rubbed his face with a hand and let his head sag back against the vests. He took in deep chestfuls of air. Sea air, not the heavy tight air of a cell. He closed his eyes, and before long every muscle in his hard and tense body had relaxed.
His days were his again. His alone. His nights, too. No more bars. Except those that served cold beer and strong whiskey.
No more stakes, just beefsteaks, thick and rare.
No chains. No pounding the rocks. No stifling cells where sleep was impossible. Sleep was possible. Real sleep. Not those catnaps he’d taken for so many years. He had the freedom to sleep.
For the first time in too long he felt as if life had dealt him an ace.
