Merline Lovelace (14 page)

The boat rocked as he went down on his knees and turned Sarah over. Not knowing how badly the impact with the hull had injured her, he was afraid to pump the seawater from her lungs. To his profound relief, she choked, then groaned, then choked again. Her lids fluttered up. She stared at him unseeing for a moment. Suddenly, she stiffened.

“Charlie!” Frantic, she grabbed at Jamie’s arms.

“He’s safe. Burke hauled him aboard.”

With a sob, she sank back against his loose hold. The small movement brought another groan, followed by a grimace. Before Jamie could ascertain the extent of her injuries, she thrust herself to one side and retched up the seawater she’d swallowed.

Jamie had never been so glad to see anyone hanging over the gunwale in his life. The fact that Sarah could move on her own laid to rest his sickening fear that
she might have broken her back or her ribs. He reached for her, intending to steady her while she emptied her stomach, but she flapped a hand protestingly.

“No! Let me…Oh!”

Jamie sat back, his chest still heaving from his own exertions. Water dripped from his hair and stung his eyes. The sea slapped at the boat’s sides. With the sound of Sarah’s helpless retching in his ears, he scanned the rolling swells in search of the
Phoenix.
When he spotted his ship in the distance, the salt water that had made its way down his gullet almost rose up to choke him, too.

It was hard to miss the schooner’s tall, triangular sails or the sharp-set masts. It was even harder to miss the dark clouds that rushed toward the ship, carrying with them a solid gray curtain of rain. At the speed the squall rolled in, it would envelop the
Phoenix
long before she could complete a turn. It would envelop the small, open boat as well. By the looks of the whitecaps lashed up by the oncoming storm, he and Sarah were in for a wild ride.

A low moan pulled his eyes from the approaching storm. Slowly, Sarah lifted her head.

“Here, sweeting, let me help you.”

Shoving the oars and mast pole stored under the seats out of the way, he eased her into a slumping sprawl with her back to the side. She put out her hands to shift to a more comfortable angle, and gasped. Her face, still a sickly, greenish shade, went white around the eyes and mouth.

Instantly, Jamie’s fears came rushing back. He crouched beside her and raised her hips a bit to untangle her twisted black skirts and sodden petticoats.
Gently, he straightened her legs and ran his hands along their length.

“Did you break any bones?”

“I don’t…think so,” she managed to say in a voice made hoarse by seawater.

“Where are you hurt?”

As if in a daze, she lifted her hands. Jamie cursed viciously when he saw the raw, bleeding rope burns and reached for her skirts again. The wet petticoat gave at the first tug. Swiftly, he tore two long strips from its bottom. While the boat rose and fell with ever increasing violence and the sea began to spit under the first bullets of rain, he bandaged her hands as best he could. That done, he swung around and reached for the wooden box stowed under the rearmost seat. His jaw tight, he eyed the ship’s name burned into the lid.

The
Phoenix.
The mythical bird that rose from the ashes of its own funeral pyre. A fitting symbol for a man whose naval career had ended in disgrace. Whose brother had turned him away from his home. True to its name, the schooner had been Jamie’s rebirth. Now, it appeared, the sea chest bearing the same name might well provide the only means for him to defy the fates once again.

Swiftly, he knocked out the peg securing the lid. If Jamie had learned nothing else in his years at sea, he’d learned that survival could and often did depend on the simplest preparatory measures. As captain, he insisted that his ship’s boat always contain a store of water and biscuits, a compass, a folded sail, and ropes to hoist the canvas to the mast pole now resting alongside the oars in the bottom of the boat. With the squall almost upon them, he wasn’t fool enough to attempt
to set the mast or raise the sails, but the ropes could yet save Sarah from a watery grave.

Raising his voice to be heard over the now roiling sea, Jamie shouted instructions as he slipped a length of twisted hemp around her waist.

“Listen to me, Sarah. We’ll soon have a wild ride. If the boat gets swamped, it’ll go under, but come up again soon enough.”

Unless the force of the waves smashed it, he thought grimly. Or the fierce currents carried it onto one of the submerged coral reefs that made these waters so hazardous. Or…

He pushed the endless possibilities from his mind. Swiftly, he fashioned a slipknot that would give if Sarah had to pull on it and tied the other end of the rope around the seat set athwart the middle. Hunkering back on his heels, he summoned a grin.

“Are you ready for your next adventure, Miss Abernathy?”

She stared up at him, as bedraggled a creature as Jamie had ever seen. Her hair was plastered to her head and fell in rattails over her shoulders. Her face still carried a sickly hue. Her black gown had torn at the neckline, baring one shoulder and upper arm.

Jamie’s heart wrung when she essayed a wobbly smile. “I’m far from ready, but I suppose I have no choice in the matter.”

Never, ever, had he known a woman quite like this one.

“No choice whatsoever,” he replied cheerfully, reaching for the oars. “Hang on, sweetheart.”

S
arah opened her eyes to a blinding white light Immediately, she squeezed them shut again.

Instead of white, red now danced on her lids. Her head whirled dizzily. A roaring sounded in her ears. She had no idea how many minutes or hours passed before she dared to try again. Lifting her lids the minutest fraction, she squinted through salt-encrusted lashes.

Gradually, the dazzling light resolved into a cloudless blue sky. A sweep of gulls. A ruffle of movement at the periphery of her vision. Frowning, Sarah tried to turn toward the movement.

That was when she discovered that she was lying flat on her back atop a soft, springy nest. It rustled beneath her when she shifted and gave off a pungent odor that reminded her of turpentine. How odd, she thought. How very odd.

She frowned again and opened her eyes another degree or two. The ruffling movement became a waving line of green. Palm trees, she decided with some effort. Quite the tallest palm trees she had ever seen. They seemed to stretch straight into the sky.

She lay in a state of boneless immobility, staring at the trees. Bit by bit, other realizations seeped into her consciousness. The roar gradually became the crash of surf against a shore. The odd odor wafted from the tropical mango leaves that made up her bed. The stiffness in her limbs didn’t appear to be permanent. Sensation came back to her arms and legs, prickling and needling when she attempted to stir.

With the return of sensory perceptions came disjointed memories. A boat. A storm. A rope cutting into her waist. Jamie battling wind and rain and smashing waves to…

Jamie!

Sarah jerked upright, or tried to. Her springy nest tipped at the abrupt movement. She rolled sideways, hitting her palms against a hard, unyielding surface. Pain shot straight up her wrists.

Cradling her arms, Sarah struggled upright. Panic knifed into her heart with every breath.

Where was Jamie? Dear Lord above, where was he?

She gathered her feet under her and tried to rise. She’d made it halfway to her knees when his voice cut through her rising fear.

“So you’re awake, are you?”

Gasping, Sarah twisted around. Jamie strode toward her. Barefoot and shirtless, he wore only his stained and torn knit trousers. With his black hair standing in stiff spikes and bare shoulders showing a crust of white, he looked vital and robust and unbelievably wonderful to her. Waves of relief pounded through her with the same roaring force as those hitting the shore. She plopped back down onto her makeshift bed, her throat working painfully.

He dumped the armload he’d been carrying and
hunkered down beside her. “Here, take a drink. It will wash the salt from your gullet.”

He tipped a rough, fibrous shell to her lips. Milky liquid trickled into her mouth and traced a welcome path down her throat. Suddenly, Sarah couldn’t get enough. She drained the shell, then sucked greedily at its moist meat.

“Easy, Sarah, easy. There’s plenty where that one came from.”

He proved his point by plucking another coconut shell from a pile she only now noticed beside her leafy nest. With a quick thrust, he struck it against a sharp projection in the stony shelf beneath her bed of leaves. The coconut split into jagged halves. Handing her one piece, he tilted the other to his mouth.

Cradling the hairy shell in her sore palms, Sarah drank more slowly this time. The liquid soothed her raw throat and gave her the courage to ask the question that had begun to press with increasing urgency in her mind.

“Where are we?”

Jamie tossed his shell aside. “On a coral atoll somewhere north of Batavia and east of Sumatra, as best I can tell.”

As best he could tell? That sounded rather ominous. Sarah swiped her tongue across her milky lips. “And the ship’s boat?”

He shook his head, his eyes rueful. “Smashed to matchsticks.”

“I see,” she said faintly.

She didn’t, of course. She had no idea how the boat had been smashed, or how they’d arrived at this coral atoll. Even less how long they’d been here.

She remembered the storm. The driving rain and
winds. Jamie’s thigh and arm and shoulder muscles straining as he fought to keep them from swamping. She recalled praying, and clutching the sides, and bailing furiously with her bandaged palms for what seemed like hours and hours on end. Vaguely, she could hear an echo of Jamie’s warning shout, and see a curtain of white foam rising up from the gray waters.

She didn’t recall going into the sea, or being towed at the end of the rope Jamie had lashed around her waist, although now that she thought about it, she ached around her middle like a barrel with its ribs stove in. She certainly didn’t recall coming ashore. Nor, she realized with a start, could she remember seeing even a shadow of the
Phoenix!

She twisted on her leafy bed, searching frantically for a glimpse of white sails or tall masts. Beyond the foaming reef that formed the outer edge of their atoll lay a placid, empty sea.

“Dear heaven above!” she gasped. “Where’s the
Phoenix?
”

Jamie shifted on his heels and squinted at the shimmering horizon. “Somewhere north of Batavia, and east of Sumatra, I would guess.”

“I…see.”

A new panic cut under Sarah’s breastbone. Her sister and brother were alone aboard the ship and no doubt prostrate with grief over her disappearance. This, after the recent loss of their papa! How would they cope? Who would care for them?

Sarah closed her eyes, fighting the rush of heartsick sympathy for her siblings. This time, she wouldn’t be there to offer Charlie the shelter of her arms or wipe away Abigail’s tears. This time, they would have to find comfort where they could until…

Her eyes flew open. Until when?

“How long do you think it will be until the
Phoenix
finds us?”

Jamie swiveled back to face her. He spoke slowly, as if not to frighten her, but his message struck her to the heart.

“It could be days. Or weeks. Or years. Or never, Sarah.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. Jamie’s jaw muscles knotted, but he continued in the same deliberate voice.

“The Malay Archipelago stretches for thousands of miles, and includes at least that many islands and atolls. Some, like this one, are too small to appear on any charts.”

“Dear heavenly Father!”

“Liam can’t carry on too long or too wide a search for us, Sarah. The bigger, more populated islands are home to the most scurrilous predators that ever fouled a sea. He would risk the ship and his passengers if he put in to these pirates’ lairs.”

“Surely another ship will come by, then?” she asked with a touch of desperation.

He shook his head. “We left Canton early. Most of the traders will stay snug at anchor until the end of the monsoon season. We can’t rely on a friendly ship to pass this way until they begin their homeward voyage.”

“What…?” She fought for breath. She would not panic. She would not. “What shall we do?”

“We make ourselves comfortable,” he answered with a shrug.

“Here?” she whispered, as if he could mean some other place.

A small measure of rigidity left his mouth and shoulders. His gaze swept the shoreline, then came back to Sarah.

“It won’t be so bad. We have plenty of mangoes and coconuts and litchi to feast on, in addition to whatever fish and birds we contrive to catch. With the monsoon rains that sweep this area each day, we’ll be able to trap enough fresh water for drinking and even bathing. We’ll make do as long as we must.”

As long as they must!

Sarah sat silent, gripped by the enormity of their isolation. The ocean’s roar grew until it filled her ears. The panic she’d struggled so hard against a moment before broke free of her tenuous barriers. It rose in her throat, threatened to choke her. She was perilously close to bursting into tears when Jamie pushed himself to his feet.

He reached down a hand. Held it out to her. Strong, sure fingers slightly curved. A callused palm. A white, faded scar on the heel.

Slowly, so slowly, Sarah lifted her hand to his. He grasped her wrist above the sea-stained bandages. With his aid, she got to her feet.

They were bare, she noted with a distant corner of her mind. She’d lost her slippers to the sea, and a good portion of her mourning dress. Its torn sleeve left one shoulder bare to the sun. A side seam had ripped, and the hem on that side dragged the ground like a lopsided train. Stiff and showing wavy lines of dried salt, the black fabric scratched every place it touched her skin.

Ignoring the prickly rasp of her dress, Sarah tried a step. Her shaky legs refused to support her. Jamie folded her into his arms, and she sank against him
gratefully. With her back to his chest and his hold loose about her waist, they faced the sea. It stretched vast and limitless before them.

She wouldn’t panic, Sarah commanded again, more forcefully this time. She wouldn’t!

She forced herself to think only about the fact that they were safe. For the moment, at least. She had almost conquered the shivers that threatened to wrack her from head to toe when Jamie’s voice broke into her fierce concentration.

“You know, there are some compensations to being marooned on this uncharted coral reef.”

Sarah swept the small atoll with a doubtful glance. “Are there?”

“Think about it,” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll have all the privacy we need to master the intricacies of Reversed Ducks Flying.”

She jerked out of his arms and spun on shaky legs. Surely, she hadn’t heard him aright.

She had. Unrepentant, he grinned at her. “Just say the word, sweetheart, and I’ll continue the demonstration I began aboard the
Phoenix.
”

Sarah spent the rest of the day alternating between bouts of worry over her family, desperate searches of the horizon for some sight of the
Phoenix,
and determined attempts to put Jamie Kerrick’s teasing offer to teach her carnal delights from her mind.

While she fretted, Jamie went to work.

With her hands bandaged and her bare feet too tender for the rough limestone shore, Sarah was no help to him at all. Instructing her to keep to the edge of the impenetrable mango forest that dominated the small island, he collected enough fruit and fresh water
from the depressions in the hardened limestone to slake their hunger and thirst for the rest of the day. Then he set about weaving sandals and broadbrimmed hats from palm leaves. Sarah felt ridiculous when he tied hers on her head with thin vines, but had to admit that the woven layers provided welcome protection from the sun.

Hands on hips, he surveyed the lean-to of coconut fronds. “This will do for tonight. I’ll construct something more durable tomorrow.”

Sarah swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. She wasn’t sure which alarmed her more…the thought of sharing this small, loosely woven shelter with Jamie or the idea that they might need a more permanent one. She grew ever more tense as evening approached.

They shared a simple meal of fruit. Dusk darkened to night. Stars spread across the indigo sky like spangles on a ball gown. Sarah excused herself to tend to her personal needs. Still she couldn’t bring herself to crawl under the coconut leaves.

Jamie made no secret of his amusement at her obvious reluctance. A grin tugged at his mouth whenever he caught her glancing at the shelter.

When Sarah could no longer keep her eyes open or her head up, she surrendered. Stretching out under the leafy lean-to, she lay stiff atop her bed of mango branches. She fully expected Jamie to repeat his earlier offer, and rehearsed in her mind the words to set him soundly in his place again.

At the sound of his approach, it suddenly occurred to her that words might not be enough. They were alone together on this uninhabited atoll. The man made no secret of his appetites where women were concerned. Sarah herself had felt the evidence of his
rampant maleness when he’d kissed her so thoroughly aboard the
Phoenix.

Perhaps…Her throat tightened. Perhaps she would have to fight him off.

As quickly as the notion crept into her mind, Sarah banished it. She’d spent enough time in Jamie Kerrick’s company by now to know he wouldn’t abuse her against her will. Still, she lay tense and fully prepared for verbal battle when he claimed his own leafy bed.

“Good night, Sarah.”

The rustle of the leaves as he settled in almost drowned her terse response. She waited for another comment. A provocative reference to the
Ars Amatoria.
A brush of his hand or his leg against hers.

At first, Sarah didn’t recognize the sound that rose intermittently above the roar of the surf. Then she realized he was snoring. The man was snoring! Not with great, whisker-lifting gusto, as her papa had. Kerrick’s was more of a soft, whistling release, followed by a swift, sharp intake.

Suspecting a subterfuge, Sarah kept up her guard. The minutes crawled by. The stars shone with unwinking brilliance. A gull flapped its wings on the rocky shelf that formed the tip of the atoll and still Jamie slept the sleep of the consciousless. Or, Sarah thought with a touch of envy, that of a man without the burden of a family to fret over. His deep, stentorian breathing soon lulled her into a restless slumber.

She woke the next morning stiff and itchy. A sudden fear swept through her when the first sight that greeted her eyes was Jamie’s empty bed. Pushing herself up on her still sore palms, she searched the shore
with an anxious eye. When she spotted him sluicing himself down in the shallows, her incipient fear gave way to relief, then to maidenly embarrassment, and slowly, inescapably, to silent admiration.

He’d shed his knit trousers and wore only his linen drawers. The wet fabric clung to his muscled form, displaying every bulge and hollow to Sarah’s eye. With his broad shoulders, tapered chest, and lean hips, he reminded her most forcefully of the sketches of Greek gods in some of the translations in Papa’s library.

She should look away, she told herself sternly. She should not make their situation even more difficult by imprinting the most improper images on her mind like this. She did turn her gaze aside finally, but not before her skin turned hot and itchy and quite uncomfortable under her salt-stiffened black gown.