Caleb wasn’t sure he could do that.Not when the screams of the wounded and dying still rang in his ears during the day and haunted his dreams at night.
“I beg you, Caleb, put the Ring away.And the next time disaster strikes, particularly of the demonic kind, use the Name mightier and greater than any ring or anything on earth, the name of our Lord Jesus.”
Before Caleb could answer, Brandt charged into the cabin, medical satchel in hand.“Here to dress your wounds, Captain.Just tended to the lady per your orders.”
“And how does she fare?”
“Sit,” Brandt ordered Caleb onto a chair.“And off with your shirt.”
Caleb would punish him for ordering him about in such a harsh tone, but the doctor meant well, and he was by far the best ship’s surgeon to ever sail the seas.Hence, pulling his shirt over his head, he drew his sword and laid it on the desk, then promptly obeyed.
“Oh, my.The varmints surely made mincemeat of your back.”Shaking his head, Brandt opened the satchel and pulled out several vials.
“The lady?”Caleb asked, wincing as the man dabbed some infernal liquid on his cuts.
“She had a fair amount of nips on her feet and arms, but she’ll recover nicely.As will all the men.Unless those rodents carried some disease.”
Alden sat back in his chair.“The only disease they carried was of the hellish kind.”
“Aye, I’d agree with you if I believed in hell.”The doctor moved his torturous ministrations to Caleb’s arms.
Alden raised a brow.“Then how do you explain their sudden appearance and in so great a number?From whence did they hail?And more importantly, how did they disappear?”
“Don’t know, but there’s a reasonable explanation for everything.Quit your squirming, Captain!”
“Aye, aye.”Caleb forced a grin, despite the pain.
“I’d give you some rum if you’d take it.”
Caleb was about to answer the man when an angel entered the cabin.
♥
The ship jerked to the right as it rolled over what must have been a large wave, and Desi’s supposedly locked door jerked open again.Instead of staying put as she ought to do, she wandered down the hall to the captain’s cabin.Honestly, she had no idea why.Maybe she hoped to overhear something that would explain why or how she came to be here, wherever here was, or why rabid rats disappeared into thin air, or better yet, how she could get back to her own time.Or planet!What she didn’t expect or even hope for was a vision of the captain’s bare chest.
Not that she hadn’t seen men’s chests before.Tons of them, having grown up in Florida.But this was a chest to be marveled at.A chest carved in stone, every line, every curve perfectly molded, perfectly tanned, perfectly sculpted, every muscle in its place, exuding a power and strength that clearly the man possessed both inside and out.
For a moment, she stood there mesmerized.Apparently, the feeling was mutual as the man himself gazed at her as if she’d flown in through the windows.“Walking through walls again, I see, Miss Starr?”
Alden leapt from his chair and offered it to her.
She didn’t intend to stay, but her feet pained her something fierce.“Thank you.”She slid onto the velvet padding.“Seems you and the captain were the only ones smart enough to wear shoes,” she said, nodding toward the boots they both wore.Better that than continue staring at the captain’s chest.
Crud.He seemed to have noticed, too, as a grin lifted one side of his lips.Vain pirate!She looked away.Sunlight glinted off various navigational instruments strewn across the captain’s desk and then shimmered off something pink in a glass container she’d not noticed before.Odd.A clue?Her gaze scanned the ever-present Bible, a complete contrast to the fully-loaded weapon’s rack to her right.This place was a mystery.This man was a mystery.But how she could get home was the only mystery she longed to solve at the moment.
Rising, she moved toward the pink object, curious, while at the same time trying to keep her eyes off the captain.An impossible task.Yet…instead of his godlike physique, this time she saw his back covered with ripped flesh and bloody marks.
Her intake of breath brought his gaze back to her.
The ship bucked over a wave, and she leaned against the desk for support, the timbers creaking and howling as if they were also wounded.Maybe they were.“I’m sorry.”She swallowed a lump in her throat.“The rats really got you.”
“He’ll live,” Brandt declared as he wrapped strips of cloth around Caleb’s chest and over his back.
Caleb shrugged.“The doc’s right.’Tis nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.That could have beenmyback.”That fact didn’t alarm her nearly as much as this man’s chivalry.
Alden grinned.“One thing you should know about the captain, Miss Starr, is that he never passes an opportunity to impress the ladies.”
