“Run out the guns!Fire as ye bear!”
A roar like Judgment Day split the air.The deck quaked beneath him as flame and thunder erupted.Grapeshot and chain screamed through the gap, shredding rigging, snapping masts, and rending sailcloth to ribbons.
“Reload!”Caleb bellowed.“Again, lads!Give the devil his due!”
The enemy’s return fire faltered, then ceased.Through the drifting smoke, Caleb spied Montverre’s colors sagging, his frigate listing hard to leeward.
Cheers exploded across the deck.Caleb raised his glass.“You’ll not have the Ring this day, marquis,” he bellowed.
Flames climbed the enemy’s rigging, licking canvas until the whole ship was a pyre.Frenzied men dipped buckets into the sea and hurled water onto the flame, but the fire devoured her whole.
An hour later, theSentinel’screw had pulled a dozen half-drowned Frenchmen from the sea.The wounded went to Brandt; the rest to the hold.Montverre was not among them.
Desi—now dressed once more in a gown—appeared on deck as the last burning mast sank beneath the waves with a hiss that echoed like a sigh from hell.
She came to his side, eyes reflecting both grief and hope.“Is he finally dead?”
Caleb nodded.“Unless he’s part fish.”
He wanted to ask why she had returned so soon and whether she meant to stay, but duty called.He still had damage to survey, orders to issue, and a crew to steady.
Lifting her hand, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, thoughts and heart spinning with but one desire, that she’d stay with him forever.
Chapter 36: Home At Last
It had been an hour since Caleb had sent Desi below to wait for him—an hour she’d spent wandering through his cabin, touching the things that made him…Caleb.His sister’s ribbon under glass.The sea-worn Bible on his desk.His maps, weapons, and the chest that smelled faintly of salt and leather.She lingered over everything, drawn to the essence of him like a compass to true north.
At last, she drew one of his shirts from the trunk and pressed it to her face.His scent—sun, smoke, and sea—filled her lungs and wrapped around her heart.
TheSentinellay still upon the waves.No sail filled, no sea rushed against the hull.Through the stern windows, the sun dipped low, dragging its molten light across the water like liquid fire.
She was back.
And unless Caleb had other plans for the Ring, she was back for good.
A girl born in the twenty-first century, destined to live out her life in the eighteenth.Smiling, she stroked Patches’s fur.“With God, all things are possible, I suppose.”She glanced up at the verse carved in the wood, finally realizing its meaning all along.
Purring, Patches leapt from her arms and curled upon the bed.
The door creaked open.Even before she turned, she felt him.Caleb’s presence filled the room like sunlight piercing storm clouds, warm and commanding.She knew he loved her.But would it be enough?Was this handsome pirate-preacher willing to tie himself to a woman outside of time, live with her countless idiosyncrasies, quirks that may very well annoy him when familiarity sets in?
She faced him.His wind-tossed hair brushed his broad shoulders.Stubble shadowed his strong jaw.But his eyes—those steel-gray depths—devoured her as though he’d starved a lifetime.He closed the door behind him, unbuckled his cutlass, and set his coat aside.Then he came toward her—slowly, reverently, as if one wrong move might break the fragile spell that bound them.
“Next time I arrive from the future,” she stammered, “it would be kind of you not to be in the middle of a life-and-death battle.”
He said nothing.Only kept advancing, the corners of his mouth curving with wonder.
“I mean—”
Her words vanished beneath his kiss.
It was no gentle brush of affection, but a claiming—fierce, desperate, full of the ache of two worlds colliding.His mouth moved against hers, stealing all thought, all reason, until she knew nothing but him—his hands in her hair, the rough warmth of his chest, the solid strength that held her like a harbor after a storm.
When he finally drew back, her breath came in shallow waves.He leaned his forehead to hers, voice low and husky.“Forgive me, but I had to make sure you were real.”
Desi smiled against his lips.“Perhaps we should do further testing.”
He chuckled, brushing a thumb over her cheek.“After a kiss like that, best I keep my distance… lest I lose what remains of my restraint.”
