I stayed on the porch, taking several deep breaths, wanting to calm down before I joined the others. The last thing I needed to worry about was gangsters hanging around my parents’ house.
“Everything okay?” Lewis asked as he stepped onto the porch, the screen door creaking with his arrival.
I tried to steady my nerves as I said, “I’ll be fine.”
“Does your beef with Andrew have something to do with Alice?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I’m a police detective, Carrie. It doesn’t take much to notice the tension in this house.”
“I’m happy my parents haven’t figured it out.”
He shrugged and leaned against the pillar that Andrew had just occupied. “You might be surprised.”
I stared at him. “You think Mother and Father know?”
“It might explain why they’ve allowed a complete stranger to live with them.”
Nibbling my bottom lip, I contemplated his words.
“Come on,” he said with a smile, putting his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go inside before your mother starts to worry. Ingrid’s roast smells delicious, and I already saved the seat next to you at the table.”
“So you can tease me?”
He laughed. “So I can flirt with you.”
I rolled my eyes—but deep down, I knew he wasn’t teasing, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that information.
Because the only man who had made my heart race with attraction was on a pirate ship, two centuries away. And he hadn’t teased me once.
11
JULY 4, 1727
MATANZAS, CUBA
I stayed on the ship the next day as Captain Zale, Marcus, and Hawk went ashore to Matanzas to sell some of the plunder they’d taken from theAdventurer. The bay where we were anchored was beautiful, and from where I stood at the ship’s rail, I saw several wooden homes, churches, and businesses in the small Cuban city. Heavy clouds hovered above us, threatening more rain, and the wind had caused whitecaps to form in the dark water. It blew the palm trees this way and that, until they looked like they might snap.
My mind wandered to the night before around the supper table with my family—and Lewis. He had sat next to me, and he had teased me like old times. I used to despise it, but now I appreciated the familiarity of his playfulness. At least it was something I understood and could predict. His seriousness caught me off guard and made me feel strange.
“We haven’t seen you around much this past week,” Timothy said as he came up next to me at the railing. “The quartermaster said you’ve been feeling ill. I’m happy to see you’re looking better than ever.”
It had been four days since my bath, and I was still appreciatingmy relatively clean skin and hair. I’m sure the others noticed, though Timothy was the first to mention it. Ned had only scowled at me when I resumed my serving duties, probably realizing the bathwater he and I had carried to Marcus’s cabin had been for me.
“I’m feeling better,” I said, though I kept my gaze on the bay.
Timothy leaned against the railing. “The sky doesn’t look good. Some are convinced that our Jonah is bringing all this bad weather.”
I didn’t respond.
“They’re also saying that’s why we haven’t had much luck selling off the plunder. Hopefully the captain can get a good price for some of it today.”
We’d stopped in Havana the day before, but the local government had run us out of the city. Havana was larger than New York and Boston, and it should have been a good place to sell their loot, but the large forts guarding the city, and the wall that was almost completed around it, meant that they had control over who entered and exited.
So Captain Zale had chosen to stop at the smaller city of Matanzas to the east of Havana, though his reception was yet to be seen.
“’Tis just superstition,” I said to Timothy about the Jonah on board.
