Surrender (14 page)

She set down her breakfast tray and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve a mind!”

“But you must swear to behave. You cannot try to escape.”

She was so desperate to get out that she swore without a second thought, then wondered briefly if it wasn’t really all right to lie to the enemy. She was obliged to escape if she could.

Mr. Douglas, apparently, was no part of the outing. Risa didn’t see him. She and Jeremiah walked past the few crew members on deck and from the sloop to a small dock, where Big Tim and a smaller Seminole man waited with three horses.

She saw the “town” Jeremiah had described. It was a few wooden houses, roofed with palm fronds. Still, as she had hoped, there were dozens of small boats pulled to the shoreline. Escape from here just might be possible.

But not at the moment.

There were only three horses for four people because she was to ride with Big Tim.

Might as well attempt to escape from a gorilla.

As soon as they reached the beach, the fourth man, the Indian introduced to her as Johnny Lightfoot, departed with the horses. She wasn’t going to ride away, that was certain.

But as the day progressed, she decided to leave thoughts of escape for later. They had indeed brought her to an exquisite, pristine beach. The sand was soft and pure white; the sky a crystal-clear blue.

The beach was empty of all other life—except for the birds and sea creatures that freely roamed there.

It was so good just to be in the open air. Jeremiah had packed her a picnic lunch complete with sweet oranges, smoked fish, fresh bread, and a bottle of deliciously mellow Burgundy. Not too sweet, not too dry. She wondered how a wine steward might describe it. “Mellow, pleasant. Perfect for prisoners having picnics; blends away the rough edges.”

She stretched out on a blanket on the clean, cool sand, and felt the sun above her. Naturally, any amount of sun or wind burn was entirely unfashionable, she reminded herself, but she didn’t care. The sun felt wonderful. She didn’t care if her cheeks burned as pink as roses.

She’d been left alone. She knew that Big Tim stood guard at one end of the beach, while Jeremiah did so at the other. It was Jeremiah who came to her just as the sun began to fall. “Miss Magee, I’m sorry, but we must head back.”

“Must we?” she inquired softly.

He nodded solemnly.

She rose, stretching. She could still feel the warmth of the sun, and the wine. She smiled, feeling both stubborn—and somewhat light-headed.

“One minute, Jeremiah,” she told him. Then she walked toward the water.

“Miss Magee …?” Jeremiah said nervously.

She reached the water and waded into it, soaking the bottom of the legs to the trousers she still insisted on wearing. She turned back to him, in a mood to be contrary, yet thinking somewhat guiltily that he wasn’t the one she should be making miserable. But then again, he was one of McKenzie’s crew members, and therefore a party to her abduction.

“I think we should stay out awhile longer.”

Jeremiah shook his head firmly. “We really shouldn’t have come out at all.” He walked toward her. “Miss Magee?”

She smiled, and he came even closer, she suddenly bent down and scooped up a handful of water to toss his way. “Miss Magee …”

She laughed, turned, and started running.

At that moment thoughts of escape were not at the top of her mind. The water was simply beautiful, the sand was so clean and pure against her bare feet, and it just felt good to run. She heard Jeremiah—huffing and puffing behind her. She turned back to him, laughing, skirting around so that he skidded and plunged full length into the water as she changed direction.

“Jeremiah!” she taunted as he rose. “As a young man, surely you can outrun me!”

“Now, Miss Magee, this isn’t a game …”

But it was a game. One she would win. Big Tim was down at the southward end of the beach. He was huge; he could probably stop a freight train. But he wasn’t fast.

The wine would give her the confidence, or the foolishness, she now needed.

She started running northward, back toward the town—with the multitude of ships in the harbor. She ran hard, and fast.

Of course, the beach was long. And she had to pause, look back. Jeremiah was running after her—then he suddenly stopped. Bent over, hands on her knees as she inhaled deeply, Risa frowned as she watched him. He had just suddenly stopped chasing her. Had she gotten so far away then that he couldn’t possibly catch her? Or was he winded, too? Would he catch his breath and start after her anew? He looked quite alarmed, and she felt somewhat guilty again. Poor Jeremiah. There would be hell for him to pay for losing her. And still—just what could Jerome McKenzie do to the lad?

She had an uncomfortable vision of the boy strapped to a mast while Jerome ordered his first mate, Mr. Douglas, to take a cat-o’-nine-tails to him. Only back in pirate days did such awful things happen, she tried to tell herself. And still…

They had shot and branded deserters in the Union army. She knew that. No matter how young the soldiers. No matter how sad the occasion. She knew that it had happened; her father had told her. It was war, and no quarter was given.

She had to stop thinking!

She couldn’t worry about Jeremiah.

After all, the little scamp had expertly drugged her to assure her silence. And McKenzie wouldn’t shoot him. She had the opportunity; she had to run. To escape.

She turned to run and stopped in her tracks.

Someone was in front of her. Against the falling sun, she couldn’t see who, but a huge obstacle lay in her path.

Big Tim? She looked back.

No … no, Big Tim was far back on the beach, moving slowly, he hadn’t yet reached Jeremiah.

She looked forward.

The falling sun shifted. The obstacle was a man on a horse. At first he was nothing more than a powerful silhouette on the horizon.

Then he moved the reins, and the horse started
forward through the shallow surf. And she saw that Jerome McKenzie had come back at last.

Why she ran then, she’d never know. It was foolish. She was trapped.

Yet she ran anyway.

She heard a pounding in her ears, and she thought that it was the staccato pulse of her own heart. Then she realized that the horse had eaten the distance between them. She tried running into the deeper water. She dived to swim below the surface, changing her direction. Still, she emerged in the shallows, gasping for breath. She quickly looked around and saw the horse, a healthy gray, racing toward her.

Before she could run or dive, McKenzie came leaping from the horse, catching her by the shoulders, and bringing them both crashing down into the surf.

She eluded his grasp, rising, sputtering for breath, and stared at him across the shimmering, shallow water. His dark hair was wet and slicked back. His eyes reflected the deep blue color of the sea. His white cotton shirt, soaked, clung to his muscled bronze flesh while his dark breeches soddenly hugged his lean hips, buttocks, and long legs. His hands were on his hips, and he looked decidedly irate. And yet still … she felt her pulse race. She was startled to realize just how striking a man he was, with an immensely masculine … sensual power. She was alarmed by her own reaction to seeing him, the quickening of her heart; even the very anger that flared inside her, the need to do battle against him.

“You know,” he grated out, trying very hard, so it seemed, to keep his voice level, “I’ve warned you.”

“You’ve warned me?” she repeated, astounded, her brows flying up in disbelief. “You’ve
warned
me—about what?”

“I’ve warned you not to give anyone any more trouble.”

“Oh! Don’t give anyone any more trouble—or what? You incredible ass. You’ll abduct me—keep me prisoner. You’ll make me entirely miserable. What can you do to me that you haven’t already done?” she demanded furiously. The wine she’d consumed on the beach was giving her a fine sense of temper and bravado. Actually,
she wanted to do so much more than yell at him. She wanted to shake him. Drag him down into the surf. Draw her nails down his copper-tinted flesh. Curl her fingers around his throat … pound against the hard wall of his chest.

And she wanted to run away from him again … and from the strange, savage anger he awakened within her.

She didn’t run away. But she did touch him. Jaw locked, she took a long step toward him and slammed a fist against his chest. Once, then a second time, then a third.

“What more can be done to me, Captain?” she repeated furiously.

He caught her wrist, fingers a vise as he stared at her.

“Oh, Miss Magee, there’s so—so! —much more that can be done to a prisoner!” he assured her, his voice deep, resonant.

Pointedly, he dropped her wrist. She backed away.

He stood in the surf, wet clothing plastered to his body, hands on his hips, like a king in his paradise. Perhaps it was his kingdom. He knew the swamp, the waters, the islands. They were in his precious state now, where it seemed he ruled over the azure sea and the sugary sands, as supreme as an ancient golden god.

She’d be damned if he’d intimidate her. “Are you threatening me?” she inquired coolly.

“Damned right,” he assured her, teeth grating.

It was the wine—surely. That, or pure insanity. But she was tired of his superiority. And she was tired of being a prisoner.

She decided she’d backed away from him once too often.

Her temper soared. Foolishly.

Yet she couldn’t control it.

She burst through the few feet of water separating them like an enraged buffalo, butting into him with all of her strength—and an impetus that slammed him down hard into the surf. A battle fought, and won.

For a brief moment she was victorious … and free.

B
rief—indeed, her freedom was brief.

She quickly learned that if Jerome McKenzie was going down, he wasn’t going down alone. Even as he fell backward, he reached out, arms encompassing her. She came flying down after him, and a soaring spray of crystal-tinted water flew around them as they plummeted beneath the surface.

She tried to escape from his hold, struggling to rise. He didn’t release her, but brought them both halfway up, on their knees in the surf.

“You do not act—not one tiny bit!—like a Southern gentleman. You’re why the South should lose the war. You should be shot, hanged—sent to prison to rot—”

“Well, do you know what, Miss Magee?” he interrupted, blue eyes blazing against the hard contours of his bronze face. “You don’t act one bit like a lady. You could just be gentle and well behaved—like a normal woman!—and a normal prisoner of war! You—”

“Oh, just let go of me!” she cried furiously, trying again in earnest to wrench away from him.

“Stop, you’re caught, you’re going to—”

His words were cut off by a loud, rending sound as her cotton shirt, caught on his scabbard, ripped cleanly apart as she tried to rise. She swore, spinning around to assess the damage. But her movement ripped it further. As she came to her feet, a large swatch of the white cotton was torn away on the hilt of his sword.

“Oh … hell!” she cried. She was on her feet; he remained on his knees. She looked around desperately, cheeks flushing brilliantly as she expected to see Big Tim and Jeremiah. But both were gone. The pristine beach seemed to stretch out forever, empty of other life except
for the horse, which had ambled out of the surf and waited in a cove of trees. They might have been alone on earth.

“Rebel!” she muttered, pushing him angrily in an attempt to make him fall, and make good her escape. Her torn shirt flapped out in the breeze as she ran. But she hadn’t knocked him over, and he was a strong, fleet runner. She heard his splashing footfalls overtaking hers as she neared the beach. She looked back to see the grim power with which he ran, and she cried out as his arms swept around her, bringing them both tumbling down again, this time to the whiteness of the wet sand.

He straddled her as she gasped deeply for breath. Her torn shirt lay open, and she knew it; she met his eyes, and his eyes met hers.

It seemed that she could not quite catch her breath. Nor would clever words come to her. She stared at him, lips trembling, limbs shaking. “Rebel!” was the best she could manage.

“Yankee,” he returned.

“Rebel!”

“Yankee!”

She fell silent, her breasts rising and falling with each anguished breath.

Then he reached out, and touched her face. His knuckles brushed her cheek. She inhaled sharply, amazed by the streak of fire that seemed to sear through the length of her.

Such warmth …

It was the sun, it was the wine. It was something that had to do with the perfect day, the sheer blue of the sky, her brief taste of freedom, the pulse of the waves, breaking against their limbs.

Slowly, he leaned down and kissed her.

Touched her lips with his own.

And the fire burned with a blinding heat.

His mouth molded over hers, hard and persuasive. Parting her lips to the thrust and play of his tongue, passionate, determined. His fingers cupped her cheek, then moved … soft and mercurial as they brushed her throat, collarbone, breast …

She should not be doing this, she thought. But thought
slipped away from her. The world spun. Sand, sea, and sky. The fire of his passion burned deeply into her, like a brand, and she felt the responding heat within herself. His mouth continued to ply hers …

And his hand …

Stroked her flesh. A touch not quite so light now. His palm cupped her naked breast, his fingers rubbed and teased her nipple. She writhed, anxious to escape the feeling, anxious to know more of it.

His kiss continued. Like no other. Demanding and seductive. She was vaguely aware of a tug at the rope that tied Jeremiah’s too-big pants around her waist. Then she felt the brush of his fingers, slipping beneath the belt line and running over her abdomen, stroking lower into the triangle of soft, curling hair between her thighs. It was time to protest. She couldn’t, she was too entranced, as if she were drugged. His touch fascinated, awakened, aroused her. She could hear the surf, an ebb and flow, feeding the fires inside her, like the heat of the sun beating down on them. His lips parted from hers at last; she kept her eyes closed, yet somehow she was aware he looked down at her, waiting for her to look at him. She could not. He groaned softly, and she felt his lips again, this time against her throat. He moved lower and rimmed her breast with that same mercurial touch, sucking upon the nipple then, teasing it with his tongue. Her fingers wound into his hair. She should be ripping at it, pulling him away. Her fingers were rigid, shaking, holding him to her instead. Warmth cascaded all around her with a wild, throbbing sense of excitement. She told herself it did not exist. She warned herself that she’d be sorry. But she wanted this. Once she had been in love, and she had behaved properly, a perfect lady, and so she had failed to experience that love.