“How many? A dozen?”
He grinned. “That, and then ten times more.”
Chapter 15
By the time I’d finished my chore, I couldn’t stand to see another apple. A mountain of the things sat beside me on a small table tucked into the far back corner of the kitchen. Cook stood at the counter rolling a small hill of pastry crusts. He snatched a handful of apples, tossed them together with spice and sugar, and in the blink of an eye had a pie ready for the hot stove. The galley soon filled with the smell of apple pie, and the scent soothed my frayed nerves.
That is, until the crew started coming into the galley, their noses in the air. They took seats at the tables, their mouths salivating at the scent.
“Smells good, Cook!”
“You got extra sugar in those things?”
“I could eat a whole one!”
“And you’ll be over the side tossing it to the fish again like last time,” Cook scolded him as he pulled out the first dozen. “Besides, nobody’s getting any until you use Rose’s skins to catch yourself some fish.”
The men’s cheer died faster than a tango at a funeral. More than one cast a dark look at the kitchen, and I was glad I could shrink behind the mountain of my work.
One of the men stood and climbed off the bench. “I think I just lost my appetite.”
Another one followed his example. “Me, too.”
The whole company jumped when Cook slammed his fist on the counter. The wood creaked under the pressure, and pie tins danced. The men winced beneath the sharp look of the normally friendly chef as he stared at each of them.
“This is the captain’s ship, but this is my galley,” Cook growled. “So when you come down here, you treat your fellow mates with respect, or you keep your mouth shut. Got it?”
The men bobbed their heads. Cook drew his hand off the counter. His large hand had left a faint depression in the wood. “Now then, you fellas get over here in a nice line and we’ll give you your peels so you can catch your dinner.”
The sailors scurried to obey. I hauled the mountain over to the counter, and Cook doled out the peels. A few of the men cast dark looks at me, but one glare of warning from the chef quieted their tongues. In a few minutes, the galley was emptied except for Cook, me, and a bunch of cooling pies.
And my guilt.
I plopped back down in my chair and clasped my hands in my lap. There weren’t any tears in me, but perhaps that was the exhaustion. That, and the worry. I’d been cutting and peeling apples for several hours, and there’d been no word about the captain.
Cook lumbered over to the table and took a seat opposite me. The chair groaned beneath his girth. “Don’t you mind them, Rose. They’re a rough lot, but it’s only because they care so much that they’re giving ya the evil eye.”
I let out a long, shuddering breath. “It’s hard not to care when you’re the one who put him in that bed.”
“I told you before, Rose. The captain would’ve gone into that jungle even for that slithery creature, Ramaro. He’s the kind of fella who likes to swagger around and play the stern father figure to these rope-climbing kids, and that’s just the type to go jumping off the ship and rescuing a pretty woman like yourself from the beast.”
I leaned back and furrowed my brow. “What’s this curse of the women, anyway?”
He chuckled. “Don’t think too much about it, Rose. It’s an old superstition that sailors have. They have a full hold of the things. Everything from what cracks to step on to whether to toss the rope over the left or right side of their shoulder. You wouldn’t believe what they carry around, too.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Like what?”
He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest so they lay over his ample stomach. “Well, some of them carry around a dead creature from their homeland. Thinks it gives them an anchor to the world that no storm can break. Others use herbs.” He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Sometimes I catch them stealing some of the food when they lose their lucky charm.”
“Do any of them work?”
He grinned and tapped his temple. “It helps them think it works, and a man with encouragement can do a lot more than a man without.”
“So I don’t have to go picking up anything special?” I guessed.
Cook’s sharp eyes looked me over. “From what I hear, you have something better than a lucky clod of dirt. You have a voice that attracts the waves.”
I blinked at him until my mind recalled the episode at the bow of the ship. I laughed and waved him off. “I’m sure that was just the captain playing tricks on me.”
