Chapter Twenty-One
Kate blew a sweat-soaked strand of hair out of her eyes, stifling a groan of pure misery. She was hot, filthy and infinitely tired of drifting along in this bloody boat. Her skin was chapped and dry, burnt from the punishing rays of the sun.
Talon’s tense, bitter silence was driving her insane. Since the night they’d fought about Daniel, he hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words. If she asked him a direct question, he gave her a yes or no response, and he issued a curt command or two when they made camp on the beach each night, but that was it.
He acted as though she’d hurt him, which was ridiculous.
He sat across from her, bare-chested, his muscles flexing beneath an expanse of sun-bronzed skin, the crisp whorls of dark hair damp with sweat. His strength and endurance amazed her. She knew he was exhausted, but still he pressed on.
Probably because he wanted to be free of her.
Unable to bear the silence any more, she asked the question that had been haunting her for days. “Why did you bother to take me off that ship, Talon? Why didn’t you leave me to die with Daniel?”
“I never meant to leave Daniel behind. I told him to meet us at that lifeboat.” He stopped rowing, swiping the sweat from his eyes with his forearm. “Christ, do you really think I’d have let you die?”
“I don’t see why not,” she answered. “With Daniel gone, your father will probably leave you something. An estate. Money. Why leave me alive? It doesn’t make any sense. I’ll only give him something else to hold over your head. If I’m not pregnant, you’ll have failed to do as he asked. I’m sure he won’t be very happy about that.”
She didn’t know why she was pushing him so hard, but she was desperate to crack that icy veneer. She wanted to make him angry, wanted him to show her something of his true self, his real emotions.
Talon gave her a cold smile. “Well, I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time. I’m sure if I’d thought about it as much as you have, I would have left you there. In fact, now that you’ve brought it to my attention, I’ll have to think of a way to get rid of you.”
Kate swallowed, wondering if she’d gone too far. She searched his face, which suddenly looked faintly sinister disguised by the fading bruises and nearly a week’s worth of thick, black beard. It was as if all the trappings of civilization had fallen away. This man looked every inch the bloodthirsty pirate.
And she was entirely at his mercy.
“Nothing too bloody, I hope.” She smiled, trying to bring humor into their conversation, missing the days when she’d felt comfortable with him.
He ignored her, picking up the oars and rowing with renewed vigor. Silence lapsed between them once again, and her apprehension grew. Good Lord. Was he truly thinking of ways to dispatch her?
Suddenly, he let the oars clatter to the bottom of the boat and leaned forward, pinning her with his furious gaze. “Damn it, Kate. Sometimes I would like to kill you. I’d like to place my hands around your pretty little throat and squeeze until you shut up, squeeze until you stop looking at me as if I’m a monster.” He shook his head. “I never claimed to be a hero.”
He looked so tired, so utterly drained, that all her nervousness disappeared and she was forced to remember all his kindnesses to her.
“If you want me to quit looking at you that way, then give me one reason to trust you again, one excuse that makes any sense at all.” She implored him with her eyes, begging him to set her world to rights. She didn’t want to believe her love for him had been completely unwarranted.
He sighed and looked away. A muscle in his jaw clenched. “There’s a part of me that wants to tell you everything, fall down on my knees and beg you to believe in me again.”
She held her breath, hoping against hope that she’d finally broken through his defenses.
Talon met her gaze and shook his head. “The time for trust and love and explanations has passed. We can’t go back to the way it was. It will only be harder on both of us in the end if we try.”
* * * * *
Talon remained mute the rest of the day, concentrating on the ache in his shoulders instead of the piercing pain in his heart.
Kate had asked him for the truth, had given him the perfect opportunity to tell her how his father had blackmailed him.
Unfortunately, her questions had made him think about what would happen once they found their way out of the wilderness.
She was probably right about Sutcliffe. If she wasn’t pregnant, his father would deem the mission a failure and follow through with his threats.
Either that, or he’d force Talon to try again.
He stared at her through the shifting flames, watching as she spread out her blankets. She looked up and met his gaze, her expression lost and lonely. “This country is so wild, so huge. Sometimes I think we’ll be lost forever.”
He gripped his cup of coffee a little tighter, raising it to his lips and taking a bracing swallow. “Still don’t trust me to get you back to London?”
“I don’t even know if I want to go back. There’s nothing there for me now.”
