The Wedding Ransom (37 page)

Now that the more immediate threat had been dealt with, Rafe directed his attention toward Maggie.
Poor thing. She looked positively whipped
. And no wonder. It had been an eventful few minutes.

With the lawmen gone, the pirates closed ranks, flanking Rafe and Maggie, folding their arms across their chest as they faced their old enemy. Ben spoke for them all. “All right, Andrew. Here’s the chance you’ve wanted for years. Talk to our Maggie.”

Maggie’s heart pounded as Montgomery faced her, hat in hand. “May I speak with you alone?”

Snake let out a snort. “Maybe when the ocean changes from blue into pink and purple polka dots.”

“Now, Snake,” Gus said. “Give Andrew a chance here.”

“That’s right,” Lucky added. “Drew has been awfully helpful so far. Why, if he hadn’t been so quick to jump in after me when I fell off my horse while we were fording the river, we wouldn’t have gotten here in time.”

“It’s up to Mary Margaret,” Ben said, frowning at the bickering men. Turning to her, he said, “I think it might be a good idea, though. Otherwise, we may drag this out until morning.”

Maggie slowly shook her head. “You should stay. All of you.”

“Do you want me to kill him for you, Maggie?” Snake asked. “You say the word and it’s done.”

It lent a normalcy to the moment that brought a smile to her lips. “Thank you, Papa Snake, but I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just say the word,” he gruffly replied.

“I’m not leaving, either,” Rafe declared. He threaded his fingers through hers and gently squeezed her hand.

“I don’t want you to leave.” Rising on her tiptoes, she pressed a quick kiss against his cheek. “I need you beside me, Rafe.” He preened a little at that, and his action gave her strength. Finally, she was ready to face her father.

Andrew Montgomery looked every inch the successful planter. He was a handsome man, she realized as she studied him closely. He stood tall and distinguished-looking in his black frock coat. The wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat he wore didn’t completely hide his salt-and-pepper hair. And his eyes, well, they were hers. Turquoise blue and uncertain. Hesitant. Anxious. So very much like her. Maggie swallowed hard and asked, “What is it you want to say?”

He cleared his throat and gave a little grin. “Now that the moment is here, I’m not quite certain.”

Maggie took a step closer to Rafe. He wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulders as Montgomery continued. “I listened closely when you spoke to the ranger about family and forgiveness, and I am hoping you will extend that generosity of spirit to me.”

Maggie gazed out at the green-tinted water of Lake Bliss, emotions blowing through her like the trade winds. Anger, hurt, hope—she didn’t know how she felt. She didn’t know how she should feel. Gripping Rafe’s hand in a tight squeeze, she asked the question uppermost on her mind. “Why didn’t you want me?”

Andrew Montgomery grimaced. “You don’t start with the easy ones, do you.”

“Are there any easy ones?”

He shook his head. “Not in this situation, no.” Exhaling a long sigh, he stuck his hands in his pockets and followed the path of her gaze toward the lake. “Allow me, if you will, to start at the beginning. I believe if you understand my background, perhaps you’ll find it easier to make sense of my mistakes. I am the second son of an English earl. My brother inherited the title upon my father’s death, shortly before my eighteenth birthday. The new earl and I didn’t see eye to eye on many things—we detested one another, to be truthful—so when he ordered me to America to research a potential investment, I willingly went along. When pirates attacked the ship and offered me a position on the crew, I jumped at the chance to join them.”

“He had a swashbuckler look about him,” Gus piped up. “We thought from the first that he’d make a good hand.” Lucky and Snake nodded their agreement. Ben’s expression remained impassive.

“I was young and cocky,” Montgomery continued. “I know in my bones I’d have died that first year had Ben and the others not taken me under their wings. For a while, life was good. It was a grand adventure. And then I met your mother.”

“Lady Abigail Summers,” Maggie said.

Montgomery nodded. “Yes. Abigail.”

“The she-cat.”

“The vixen.”

“The peahen.”

“The nag.”

“The bitch,” concluded Montgomery.

Maggie realized then that the papas’ routine was even older than she’d previously known. Her father bent and scooped up a handful of pebbles. He tossed one, then another toward the lake, ailing short each time. “I’d never seen a more beautiful woman. I won her, and somewhere along the way I fell in love.”

“I’ve been tying rope all my life,” Snake sagely observed, “and I’ve never yet run across a set of knots the likes of which she tied in Andrew.”

Montgomery sent the remaining rocks sailing, and this time a pair of them made it to the water. “She was my dearest dream. My deepest desire. But it wasn’t like that with her. For Abigail, love was nothing more than a game. She didn’t love me. I was only a holiday diversion for her. Still, even knowing that, with her having said it to my face, when she left me I wanted to die.”

The grandfathers nodded solemnly. “You almost did die once or twice,” Gus said. “Remember that knife fight with Pegleg Purcell?”

That started a discussion of various bar battles and street fights. Maggie’s frustration built like steam in a stew pot. “Papas, do you think you could hold off on the reminiscing for a bit? I’d like to hear the rest of this story.”

“Sorry, Magpie.” With shuffling feet and sheepish looks, the pirates finally settled down.

Montgomery sucked in a breath, and let it out with a whoosh. “It didn’t take too long for the love I felt for Abigail to turn to hate.”

“So you hated me, too,” Maggie said, taking it like a lash to the heart.

Not meeting her gaze, Montgomery smiled and shook his head. “Not at all. I pray I can make you understand this. In my young and foolish mind, on that day when I first learned of your existence, I gazed not upon your sweet shining face, but on the deceitful, hurtful visage of your mother. Even as a child of four you had her look. You favor her even more now. In fact, you are the very image of Abigail.”

“The beautiful wench.”

“The lovely witch.”

“The elegant wanton.”

“The sumptuous whore.”

“Hey!” Rafe rounded on the pirates. “Take care with the names you use, you old barnacles. He said Maggie was her image.”

Ben’s face turned the slightest bit pink. “Yes, you are right. We apologize, Mary Margaret.”

Montgomery gave the pirates a quelling look, then returned his attention to Maggie.

“Looking at you, I saw nothing of me. So, I saw nothing.”

“And my mother? What did she see when she looked at me? Obviously not love.”

“I don’t know about that,” Gus said, his eyes solemn and honest. “I think in her own way she loved you. I do know that day on the beach she didn’t want to give you up.” He glanced around at the other papas. “Don’t you agree?”

They all nodded, and Maggie felt the tiniest spark of warmth invade an old, cold hurt.

Ben said, “Abigail was a weak woman, Maggie. She didn’t have the strength to keep you, to own up to her responsibilities in the face of public censure. She didn’t have your strength.”

Montgomery cleared his throat, recalling Maggie’s attention. “Neither did I. Seeing her again like that made me crazy. In my pain, I decided she lied. I told myself you weren’t my child, that she’d taken a lover and tried to pass his get-off as mine. I was wrong, of course. Captain Ben and the others tried to make me see it at the time.” He lifted a finger to a small faded scar on his temple. “They gave it an excellent effort.”

Lucky grinned. “We beat you like a tied-up billy goat.”

Montgomery ignored him. “I was a dangerous man those first years after she left me. Mean and brutal and ruthless. Then, after she brought you to the island, I only grew worse. If you believe nothing else I say here today, believe that you were better off with these men than with me during those first few years. To this day I am grateful they took you in.”

“As well you should be,” Ben grumbled.

Rafe muttered something under his breath that Maggie couldn’t quite pick up. A belligerent light shined in his eyes and impatience bristled in his tone as he said, “Let’s go to the whip, shall we? If you were so dad-blamed grateful they took her in, then why did you steal all the treasure from the cenote?”

Montgomery looked deeply into Maggie’s eyes as he answered. “Because I wanted this opportunity to speak with my daughter. They wouldn’t allow me to see her. They refused—”

“Now wait a minute,” Snake interrupted.

“You watch your tongue,” Gus warned.

“Hush!” Maggie demanded. “All of you. I want to hear what he has to say, but—” She turned toward her father. “—I won’t listen to anything bad about my papas. If they wronged you, it was done out of their love for me. Tell me what you will, as long as you keep your slandering tongue off my papas.”

Montgomery’s grin was unexpected. “No wonder they are so proud of you. Gus and Lucky boasted about you all the way from Triumph to Lake Bliss. And I see now that what they said was true. Very well, Daughter, I’ll do as you ask. Suffice to say that some time ago—years ago—I realized the errors of my ways. But because I was still too proud, too protective of myself, I made unreasonable demands upon your guardians. We ended up in a winner-take-all war for you as a result of it. That war ends here today.”

“It does?” Ben asked.

Andrew Montgomery faced his old captain. “I want that more than anything. I don’t want to take her away from you, Ben. I simply want you to share her with me. I want the chance to know my daughter. I want the chance to prove my love for her. And since I’m exposing my soul here, I might as well tell you the rest. I’d like to be your friend again—yours and Snake’s and Gus’s and Lucky’s. I’ve missed you.”

“You’d better hold right there, Andrew,” Gus said. “You’re bordering on sappy. Corsairs don’t get sappy.”

Montgomery turned to Maggie. “What do you say, Miss Maggie? Will you give me this chance? Will you allow me into your life? Will you forgive me?”

Maggie heard the echo of Nick Callahan’s words. Forgiveness wasn’t that easy. She looked up at Rafe, silently asking for guidance.

“It’s your decision, love,” he told her. “Look to your heart. It’ll tell you what to do.”

Forgiveness. Could she practice what she preached? Maggie closed her eyes and thought of all he had explained. She understood him better now, and she could empathize with what he’d done. But getting those feelings from her head to her heart where a little girl’s hurt had burrowed in years ago wasn’t that simple. “I need time.”

Andrew Montgomery, her father, nodded. He blinked away the suspicious sheen glistening in his eyes and gave a poor imitation of a brave smile.

“Well, shoot,” Rafe said, snapping his fingers. “I have an idea. Ben? Why don’t you lead your buccaneers here back up to the house. Fetch that bag of jewels from my brother so we can make the deal with Barlow Hill.”

“The cottonworm.”

“The cankerworm.”

“The lugworm.”

“The bollworm.”

“The woodworm.”

“Good Lord,” Rafe said with a grin. “Y’all do entertain a man. Maggie and I will be up to the hotel directly. Tell Luella I’d appreciate it if she saved me a glass of that sweet tea.”

“What is it, Rafe?” she asked once they were alone.

“Two things. First of all, there’s this.” He tugged her into his arms and gave her a long, luscious, toe—tingling kiss.

“Hmm,” Maggie said when he finally drew away. “I needed that. And what was the second thing?”

“What second thing?”

She laughed. “What’s your idea, Rafe? Does it have something to do with my father?”

He gave his head a shake. “Dang, woman, you kiss the smart right out of my head.”

“If only I could do the same with your mouth.”

“Honey,” he leered. “You’re welcome to do anything your little heart desires with my mouth.”

“I’ll save the thought for later. Now, do you have something to tell me about Andrew?”

“No. Something to show you. Wait right there a minute.” Rafe walked over to the tree where his horse was tethered. Unbuckling the strap on his saddlebag, he flipped back the cover and reached inside. Maggie’s curiosity blossomed when she saw the big stack of ribbon-wrapped letters he pulled from within.

He carried them back to her and presented them with a sense of ceremony. “I don’t know what these say. I found them in the safe with the bag of jewels. It’s Montgomery’s handwriting and they are addressed to you. Maybe if you read them, you’ll find your answers.”

Maggie stared down at the cream-colored parchment in her hands. “I’m scared, Rafe.”

“Don’t be scared. I’ll be right here with you. I’m sort of hot, though. Why don’t we go dip our toes in the lake while you’re doing this. All right?”

Slowly, Maggie nodded. Soon they sat side by side, bare feet dangling over the bank into Lake Bliss. Rafe put an arm around Maggie and leaned her against him, whistling a happy fiddle tune beneath his breath.

Maggie broke the seal on the topmost letter and began to read.

My darling daughter. Today is your tenth birthday. I would give everything I own to be with you today.

R
afe’s heart felt as big as Texas as he watched Maggie welcome her father into her life a short time later. Her eyes were red and swollen with the remnants of the tears she’d cried while reading the stack of birthday, Christmas, and, later on, Texas Independence Day letters her father had written her but never posted. The words he’d penned had given her a glimpse of his past regrets and future hopes, and made it easier for her to allow the healing of forgiveness to begin.

When Maggie hugged her father for the first time ever, Andrew Montgomery’s face lit with a smile as bright as the sky on a cloudless summer morning. The pirates, for the most part, took it in stride. Snake’s scowl softened with grudging acceptance. Ben gave the proceeding a look of guarded approval. Lucky got so excited he swallowed the stub of his smoke, and Gus grinned with the smug satisfaction of a job well done.