The shot splashed harmlessly into the sea.She sank to her knees, the deck rolling beneath her, and opened her palm.The Ring glowed faintly.
If I cast it away now, will I return?
She closed her fingers around it and looked up at Caleb.Lightning forked across the sky, framing him in silver, a fierce figure of command amid the tempest.
Her heart tore in two.How can I leave him now?
The heavens split open with thunder.Rain came in sheets, blurring the chaos around her.She could barely see the lines of the ship, only the blur of men hauling, shouting, living.
“Ease the mains’l!Strike the royals!”Alden’s voice roared again from the quarterdeck.“The storm hides us, Captain!”
Now or never, Desi.
Forcing back the agony wrenching her heart, she hurled the Ring to the planks and closed her eyes.
Nothing.
No pull of the sea.No swirl of bubbles.Only the thunder of heaven, the groan of rigging, and the wild pitch of the deck.
Confused, she snatched it up again, the gold slick against her skin.
“Aye, God be praised for the storm,” Caleb shouted, lowering his scope.“It cloaks us from their guns.”
Then, he saw her.
For a breath, he stood frozen, as if she were a specter conjured by the lightning.Then his lips parted, and joy broke across his face like dawn through a cloud.
He moved—quickly, powerfully—across the deck.She rose, trembling, heart racing.
And then he was there… arms wrapping around her, drawing her against his chest, his warmth chasing away the storm’s chill.She pressed her face to him, inhaling salt, gunpowder, and that unmistakable scent that was him—salted leather, rain, and memory.
Rain poured over them, mingling with her tears as he nudged her chin up, his eyes alight even through the storm.Water streamed from his lashes, down the hard line of his cheek.
“You came back!”
Desi couldn’t speak.Only smile.Only breathe him in.
Alden appeared beside them, his grin quick but knowing.“Welcome back, Miss Starr,” he said as though her sudden reappearance amid cannon fire were a trifle.“We’ve still a storm to manage, Captain!”
Caleb gave a curt nod, then leaned close to her ear.“Find Ayida.Get yourself dry.I’ll meet you in my cabin.”
Taking her arm, he guided her toward the companionway, his hand firm around hers.She slipped on the rain-slick deck, barefoot, half in disbelief, half in relief.
But Caleb’s grip never loosened.His presence was an anchor, a harbor, and home.
And as thunder cracked overhead and the men shouted, “Heave to!Secure the guns!”
Desi knew.She was truly home.
♥
The storm’s fury waned, though theSentinelstill groaned beneath his boots like a weary beast.Caleb’s knuckles ached from gripping the rail through wind and wave, his voice raw from barking orders—“Ease the main brace!Keep her head to wind!”—yet through it all, one thought burned bright and steady.
The lady in his cabin.
When the last streak of lightning faded, and no sails haunted the horizon, he leapt down the companionway with the giddiness of a schoolboy.His boots clattered on the ladder, the air below deck thick with the mingled scents of oak, tar, and lingering smoke.
He found her pacing, Patches curled in her arms, her hair still damp and glimmering like spun gold beneath the cabin’s wavering lamplight, her cheeks flushed rose against sun-kissed skin.She wore one of his sister’s gowns, the pale blue muslin one, delicate as seafoam.
