“Put that thing down before you hurt someone.” He stepped toward her.
“Don’t move! I mean it, Kit. You will not carry me off this ship, and you will not sell it for fill.” She now held the gun in two shaky hands.
Caution stopped him, that and the look of utter fear on her face. If she was as scared as she looked, waving that gun around when she was so frightened could be disastrous, especially from his point of view—that of the gunbarrel.
“Get off the ship.” Her aim dropped an inch. “Now, please.”
Kit held his hands out in front of him and slowly backed out of the cabin. He needed to think of some way to get that thing away from her before she hurt one of them. She followed him out the door into the narrow companionway. He backed up the stairs and contemplated slamming down the hatch door, but he discarded that plan because the gun could blow the door and him clear to Kingdom Come. Maybe he’d be able to get the weapon when Hallie maneuvered the stairs. Lack of space forced ship companionways into little more than steep, narrow ladders, and women’s huge skirts would—dammit!—she had those prison-pant things on.
It irritated him even more when Hallie ascended the stairs. The freedom of movement must have surprised her, too, because she looked down in surprise at her attire.
His long arm shot out and grabbed her wrist, forcing her arm and the gun barrel straight into the air. His body pinned hers to the locker wall just as the gun discharged, sending a shower of wood splinters raining on them. He could feel her head burrowing into his chest while he coughed from the descending cloud of splinted wood.
The cloud settled but neither combatant moved. And it was quiet, so quiet that you could almost hear the sun set.
The gun dropped from Hallie’s numb hand into a tin bucket, and the resulting clatter rang clear through every tooth in her head. She was afraid to look up, but Kit’s fingers released their tight hold on her wrist, and his hand slid, slowly, down the bare skin of her inner arm, over the sensitive hollow of her armpit; and his palm, hot and damp, closed over her hard-tipped breast.
Hallie could feel his eyes boring their heat into the top of her head, but still she fought the overpowering urge to look up. She was afraid, and though Kit Howland angered her—though he didn’t give a fig about her father’s ship, though he was arrogant, demanding, and even though he laughed at her—Hallie couldn’t deny that he still owned her heart. It was no different today than two years ago. Only now she wasn’t a gawky young girl; she was a woman. A woman he’d kissed. And when he touched her the last thing she wanted to do was fight with him. Her body was like clay, his hands were the sculptor’s, and passion between them became that magic creativity—the force that forms a priceless work of art.
The action of his hand as it held her, and felt her, was now something she craved, like the intimate friction of his tongue in her mouth. When his lips whispered across her temple, her own lips parted instinctively, and she had no choice but to surrender and look up into the dark, verdant depths of his eyes.They kissed with eyes open, watching. Once again Kit wedged his knee between her legs, but this time, when her burned leg needed the protective barrier of her petticoats, that protection wasn’t there. Hallie gasped and broke away.Excruciating pain that shot through her.
Hallie turned her shoulder into the nearby wall, waiting for the pain to pass, gulping in air, tears burning her eyes. The wall was cool against her fiery skin, and its support felt heaven-sent. She could hear Kit mumbling, and she looked up.
“For Christ’s sake, your face is pale.” Kit’s angry expression changed to one of panic. “You’re not going to faint again, are you?”
Before Hallie could answer, Kit picked her up and carried her out the afterhouse door. “Breathe!” he ordered the second they were out on the open deck.
“You can put me down, Kit,” Hallie said. The pain in her leg had lessened to a slow throb.
“Not until you do what I say.Breathe!”
“But—”
“Breathe, dammit!”
Her pain dimmed, replaced by the irritation of his tone. He had no reason to shout at her like that. She surely didn’t needhimto tellherwhat to do. It made her feel... stupid, and she was not stupid.
So, he wants me to breathe, does he?
Hallie leaned her face right into his and started panting as hard as she could.
“Hi.”
Both Hallie and Kit looked down at Knut.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Breathing,” Hallie said in an exaggerated tone.
“Pushing her luck,” Kit shot back with equal meaning.
“Put... me... down,” Hallie ordered through her locked jaw. When he pulled her closer to his big chest, her temper burned all the hotter. “I said, put me down.”
Kit didn’t budge. Instead, he willingly joined her in a stubborn stare-down.
“Hallie? Know what?” Knut asked.
“What?” Hallie responded absently. Kit finally set her down, and that made her feel better, until she caught a gander at his face. It was bathed in a confident “I won” smile.
