When he reached her side, she continued gasping for air.
“How did you get out?”
“A window. But she pulled me down with her. I almost—” A cough wracked her and her face slipped beneath the water.
Wrapping an arm around her chest, Christian tugged her close to him and started back toward the longboat. He helped push her in and joined her a moment later.
The men had moved to the edges to make room and she lay on her side, chest heaving with each ragged breath she took. She closed her eyes and Christian reached down to make sure she was alright.
Before he could touch her, she raised her hand, white-knuckled around a huge shell. “I got it,” she whispered.
The cabin boy stared at her with wide eyes. “You almost drowned yourself for a shell?”
She gave a small smile. “Not just a shell. The map is in here.”
Christian grabbed her shoulders and pulled her upright. “Are you hurt?”
She laughed, then winced. “I hurt everywhere.”
He ran his hands down her arms, up her sides. No broken bones.
When he finished his perusal, she cocked her head. “Worried, Lieutenant? Be careful, or I might think you care for me.”
I do care for you.The words echoed in his mind, unspoken.
Griff wiped at tear-streaked cheeks. “Glad to have you back with us, Captain.”
She frowned at him and her shoulders slumped. “I’m no captain.”
Her soft statement brought a chorus of nays from the men gathered round and a sad smile tugged at her lips. “Look at where I got us. Shipwrecked and adrift at sea.”
Her grip on the shell faltered and it tumbled to her feet.
Griff cleared his throat and pointed north to the sliver of green on the horizon. “Not adrift. Everyone made it off the ship alive. We’ve strong men aplenty and oars. We’ll reach that atoll by dusk.”
“And then what? Who knows when the next ship will pass by?” She pressed her eyes shut. “I failed you all. I could have killed him on his ship. Started to. But I couldn’t go through with it.”
Christian’s jaw ticked. She’d nearly killed his father. The man who’d killed her parents.
Griff reached out and touched her shoulder. “Taking a life is not something to be done lightly. No matter how much they might deserve it. Once you’ve crossed that line, there’s no turning back. It changes you—forever.”
Christian could still remember the first time he’d killed a man in battle. The retching and violent dreams that had followed. The questions he’d been forced to ask himself. Wondering if it could have been avoided. “He’s right. Not killing him doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you human.”
He reached down and picked up the shell, hefting its weight untilsunlight reflected off pale pink tines.
Red stared at him with watery eyes. “You should toss it overboard. That map has brought nothing but misery.”
She stared out at the floating wreckage and her face paled.
Funny how a brush with death could change perspectives. She was right. So why didn’t he throw it? He tilted the shell until a wax plug became visible. He peeled it back and a corner of parchment became visible.
Such a small, inconsequential thing. A piece of paper. Yet so many lives had been lost over the years for it. His gaze slid back to her. The spunk that had lit her eyes, both as Red and Miss Warstein, had faded. He didn’t like it.
The crew stood silent. Waiting. These men had given everything for the promise of what the map represented. Gruff faces, weathered by years of sun and salt, watched him with wary, and weary, eyes.
Something squeezed his heart. Sympathy? For pirates? He shook his head. It had to be the aftershock of the day’s events. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to throw these men’s dreams overboard.
He reached down and picked up Red’s limp hand, giving the shell back. The chilled flesh gave him pause. She wasn’t staring at the wreckage after all and didn’t flinch when he passed his other hand in front of her eyes. Shock.
