“I have to get home.”
“What ails her?”
She shook her head.“A deadly disease.”
He reached for her hand.
Against everything within her, she took it, trying not to show how his touch affected her.
“As much as the thought of you leaving pains me, and it does.”He rubbed his thumb over her fingers, shooting a pulsating charge down to her toes.“I will do all in my power to return you to your sister.I simply do not have a clue how to do that.”
His gaze dropped to her lips, and she knew he thought of their kiss.
Retrieving her hand, she stepped back.One more kiss like the one they’d shared and she might lose all rational thought and never want to return home.
“’Twas like none other,” his sultry tone, deep and passionate spun around her heart.
Her breath hitched and she took Patches in her arms, if only to keep from dashing into his.Yes it was!But she must get his mind on something else, anything else, or she feared from the look in his eyes, he’d kiss her again.
A pink ribbon enclosed in glass caught her eye.No doubt a gift from a lover.“What is this?A macho guy like you has a pink ribbon on his desk?”
“Macho?”He frowned, and the spell between them shattered.“’Twas my sister, Esther’s.”
Crud.She felt like a heel for making him relive that night.
“’Tis a reminder of my failings and what I owe her.”He glanced at the ribbon, a haunted look in his eyes.
Hoisting Patches in one arm, Desi picked up a small frame from beside the ribbon.“I’m sure she has forgiven you.”A beautiful young woman with honey-blonde hair stared back at her from the smallest painting she’d ever seen.“Is this her?”
“Aye.”He approached, his scent of salted leather and bay rum bringing all her senses to life.Staring down at the miniature, he smiled.“She’s beautiful like her mother.”Then pivoting, he moved away as if the sight of her was far too painful.“She is scarred for life.”
A lump formed in Desi’s throat.This man carried a heavy burden, and more than anything, she wished she could take it from him, comfort him in some way.
But a strange clamor pounded the ship, like thunder, but different.The hammering above them ceased, followed by shouts and the thumping of bare feet on the deck.
“Stay here,” Caleb commanded before he shot out the door.
♥
Caleb burst up the companionway to a piercing chorus of squawks and screeches and a massive, dark shadow gobbling up the sun.His crew, shock written on their sweaty faces, squinted upward.The sky churned with wings—gulls, terns, frigate birds, and crows all circling in a frenzy above theSentinel.
Without warning, they shot down like lightning, diving at rigging, clawing at tarred ropes, pecking at sailcloth.Fearful shouts and curses joined the shrieks as some of his crew drew blades, slashing this way and that, while others flailed arms and hats, anything they could find to scatter the feathered fiends.
“Saints preserve us!”Liam bellowed, slashing his knife at a gull that had bit his hand.
Alden raised his arms as a shield.“Hold steady, lads.They’ll be gone soon.”
But more birds came, dive-bombing buckets of pitch, splattering fresh canvas with droppings, and scraping talons over unprotected scalps.
Drawing his blade, Caleb hacked at the crazed vermin, his mind reeling in confusion at the demonic onslaught.Where had they come from and why?He’d never seen anything like it.
A crowd of merchants and sailors stared at them from the docks, mouths open and eyes bulging.The birds only attacked theSentinel.
A gull dove at Caleb, beak open.Ducking, he flattened his cutlass against it, then flung it aside.Pistol shots echoed through the humid air as some of his men fired into the manic horde.Others beat birds with belaying pins, still others swung coats at the oncoming flocks.More than a dozen men lay on the deck, scraped and bloody.
Leaping into the ratlines, Liam swept his blade at a group of terns pecking the foremast, scattering the birds, only to have more replace them.Alden, a bloody gash on his arm, gave Caleb a look of fear, but more than that, a look that urged him to do something.
The deck of theSentinelwas a battlefield, pieces of chopped wood, severed rope, spilled tar, torn canvas…and blood.
