Windswept (2 page)

“Jacob! Come quick. I think the
Southern Star
is approaching.”

Even if his first mate’s voice hadn’t rung with urgency, Jacob would have welcomed the interruption. As it was, the news that came down to him from Willy’s position in the cupola was extremely important and eagerly anticipated. Jacob bounded from his chair and climbed the stairs two at a time to the catwalk above the two-storied building which housed Proctor Warehouse and Salvage Company.

He joined Willy in the tower. “Do you think it’s her?”

“Aye, Jacob. I’m certain of it now.” He handed a brass telescope to his friend. “There’s no mistaking the half moon and star on her flag.”

Jacob sighted the approaching clipper ship and nodded. “It’s the
Star
all right. That means our newest judge is about to arrive in town.”

Willy Turpin looked down at the floor boards beneath his brogans and shook his head, appearing for all the world as if the weight of the entire wrecking industry was on his thin shoulders. “Let’s hope he’s a fair man, Captain, or woe be to us all.”

Jacob clapped his friend on one of those drooping shoulders. “I’ve a mind to have a pint, Willy. What do you say to going over to Teague’s for a swallow?”

Turpin slowly raised his head and a smile spread under his peppered moustache. “We could sit out on the veranda and perhaps have a look-see at the
Star
as she pulls in.”

Jacob urged Willy to the stairs and followed him down. “I never thought of that,” he said, though of course he had. “But now that you mention it, it gives us two good reasons for going to Teague’s.”

The veranda of Jimmy Teague’s Tavern looked over the harbor, and it was to this part of the establishment that Jacob and Willy carried their mugs of ale. Settling themselves at a table nearest the water, they had a clear view when the tall masts of the
Southern Star
appeared around the tip of the island.

One by one each of the sails was goose-winged and then lowered completely as the mammoth passenger clipper inched closer to the longest dock in the harbor.

“I’d hate to have to manage her, wouldn’t you, Willy?” Jacob said of the cumbersome vessel which measured well over two hundred feet.

“Aye. She’d be as hard to navigate as a three hundred pound woman, not that I haven’t tried my hand at such a task.”

Jacob took a long swallow of dark ale. “But you wouldn’t try it again, right, mate?”

Willy chortled with good humor and wiped foam from his moustache. “Never say never, captain, not on an island where the men outnumber the women three to one.”

Jacob laughed. “Good advice there, Will.” He angled his mug toward the
Southern Star
. “They’re lowering the gangway. Guess we’ll have a look at the judge soon enough.”

Activity on board the
Star
held both men’s attentions. They were used to seeing passengers disembark in Key West, but never before had Jacob seen such a profusion of trunks and baskets and valises as accompanied the current arrivals. Though he couldn’t yet get a clear glimpse of the passengers, a woman’s voice carried to him on the calm breeze. The authority in her tone left no doubt that she was orchestrating the unloading of goods.

“Carry that one straight up,” she said. “Don’t tip it to the side.”

“It will take two men to carry this one. If one tries alone he’ll surely drop it and ruin all my crystal.”

“Do watch that basket. The boys’ beds are in there.”

Willy spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Makes you ever so glad you’re not a deckhand, doesn’t it, Captain?”

“It does at that. As well as not under the thumb of some female."

“We’ll proceed first,” came the woman’s voice, “and you men follow with our things so I can make sure you tote them properly.”

Porting assignments completed, at last the
Star’s
passengers appeared at the entrance to the gangway, three women and one man, each milling about as if deciding who should lead the way. Or perhaps uncertain as to which one would be brave enough to traverse the steeply sloping twenty foot plank. The matriarchal leader took the situation in hand once again. “Eleanor, dear, you go first. And watch your step.”

A slim woman in a dark green traveling suit climbed the stairs to the gangway, took hold of the rope guide and cautiously took her first steps toward land.

Though the woman made an interesting picture heading toward shore, Jacob’s keen gaze darted to movement on one of the mooring lines attached to the stern of the
Star
. A Key West wharf rat, one of many renowned for their acrobatic skills, had jumped onto the rope from the dock and was racing toward the gangway in the center of the ship. The single-minded rodent no doubt intended to make its way to the galley for a snack, and would be no happier to come face to face with humans than they would be to meet him.

Jacob anticipated the inevitable encounter. He jumped up from his chair and leapt over the railing separating Teague’s from the harbor. He intended to warn the woman called Eleanor of a possible trauma to her delicate sensibilities should she be the squeamish type as most women were when it came to nine inch rats. What he didn’t count on was the reaction of two additional members of the animal kingdom, both of whom were every bit as aware of the rat as he was.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Dogs snapped and yapped in feral excitement. A woman screamed. Eleanor in the green suit stopped half-way down the gangway. A pair of furry cannonballs propelled themselves from the screaming woman’s arms. The rat did exactly what it wouldn’t have done if it had been thinking clearly, which of course it wasn’t in the midst of all that racket. It leapt onto the gangway in front of the woman in the green dress.

The woman, to her credit, maintained her dignity and her footing. She appeared to have made the wise choice to let the rat have its run ahead of her to land. The dogs however had another plan. They streaked toward the woman, their cockles raised and the fur around their yapping faces laid back as if they were caught in a hurricane.

Running one on each side of her, both dogs disappeared momentarily under the hem of the lady’s dress. Their forward speed was great enough that the fabric obstruction barely slowed them down. They emerged on the other side of her skirt still blazing after their prey. And Eleanor went down on her rump.

She grasped one of the rope guidelines with both hands, which caused her to swing to the side. It was this motion, and the moisture on the gangway which proved her undoing. She slid entirely under the rope, and with feet and arms flailing in the air, she plummeted to the sea. And the female still on the
Southern Star
, now dogless, screamed even louder.

The billowing skirt of a green dress spread over the water at least two dozen yards off shore. Jacob knew the Gulf was no deeper than the woman’s chin at this point, however she appeared not to be aware of it. She waved her arms frantically and choked and sputtered the distressing fact that she couldn’t swim.

“Bloody hell!” Jacob swore as he tore off his boots. Then he jumped off the dock and swam for her.

She wasn’t easy to save. When he reached her, the water lapped at his chest, but the victim failed to notice he was standing. She balled the front of his shirt in her fist and tugged with all her might, nearly pulling him under.

“Blast woman, hold still!” he shouted.

Her fingers dug into his shoulderblade like sponge hooks, and she squealed in his ear. “But I…I can’t swim!”

“You can stand, can’t you?”

The question calmed her, or more likely shocked her, and she clung to him and stared with large, confused eyes. “What?”

“Madam, it’s not deep. Look at me. I’m standing.”

Logic registered somewhere in her mind and in fact even forced something like a giggle up from her throat. Her feet found the bottom of the harbor, and her grip on his tortured body lessened. “Oh. I see,” she said.

He pointed toward the shore. “Shall I walk you to Key West, madam?”

She tried to take a step, but was unsuccessful. “I’m afraid I’m mired in something, and my skirts are sodden.” She looked at him with eyes the color of the noon sky, and it seemed as if they might fill with tears. “I’m so sorry, but it appears I can’t move.”

Considering the amount of clothing she was wearing, Jacob wasn’t surprised she was stuck in the squishy sand. Water must have added pounds to her natural weight. “In that case, if you’ll try to be a bit more gentle, I’ll allow you to put your arm around my shoulder a second time.”

The eyes grew wide again, so wide a man could get lost in them and forget what he was about. “Pardon me, sir?”

“To keep your balance.” He scooped her up in his arms, and she emitted a tiny yelp. Then he carried the entire package… trembling woman, soggy skirts, and at least five pounds of soaked raven hair to the shore.

“My hat,” she said when they were nearly at the dock.

He turned back and saw a little pointed green thing, tipped over like a canoe with an ostrich feather as its rudder. It was floating hopelessly north, well away from the Key West harbor. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, madam. It’s not the proper hat for our climate anyway.”

He set her on the dock and was tempted to swim after the hat after all just to escape the crush of agitated humanity that descended upon them. The dogless woman, who just moments before had been the image of decisive leadership, half swooned in Captain Murdock’s arms while muttering a series of unrecognizable squawks about her daughter and her boys. A deckhand worked her fan like a metronome against her flushed face.

A distinguished middle-aged man huffed about in a take-charge manner and inquired after the drenched woman’s well being. That was how Jacob learned that she was called Nora, and how he surmised he was listening to the no-nonsense baritone of Key West’s newest Federal judge.

And a female in a striking red dress with hair to match fixed her gaze on Jacob as if he were a worm and she the bird. When he returned her glance, she winked at him, and in a French accent declared that the world could never have enough heroes.

And Nora, still shivering with emotions he could not identify, regarded him with those fathomless blue eyes. Her curling dark hair fell around her shoulders in matted disarray. Her chest heaved against her soaked bodice. Her gown clung to her slim figure hinting at the shapes underneath. And in a modest voice, she proclaimed, “Thank you for coming to my assistance.”

“My pleasure, miss. It’s what I do, actually, but I should add that I’ve never performed a rescue so close to shore.”

She looked down at her dripping skirt, raised the hem slightly off the ground and shook it around her ankles. “Yes, well, I’ve never fallen off a ship before.”

The judge accepted a blanket from the ship’s mate and wrapped it around Nora’s shoulders. “Yes, thank you, sir,” he said. “I’m Thurston Seabrook, and this is my daughter. We are all indebted to you for your quick thinking…”

Jacob was only half listening. He was more concerned about a problem Nora seemed to be having with her dress. For several moments the hemline had mimicked a marionette, jerking awkwardly around her ankles. When he had a pretty good idea what was causing the strange occurrence, he bent down and reached under her hem.

“I beg your pardon,” the judge blustered. “Remove your hand at once!”

Jacob did, and produced from the folds of Nora’s skirt, a blue crab who wiggled his appendages in a frantic effort to return to the sea. Jacob grinned as he held the crustacean in the air. “It appears that Nora came ashore with a stowaway in her stitching.”

The judge sputtered and coughed. The woman in red hooted with laughter. Nora stared at the creature in awe. And the woman in Captain Murdock’s arms shrieked with horror.

Jacob tossed the hapless crab in the water, wiped his hand on his pants and offered it to the judge. “The name’s Proctor, Your Honor.”

Regaining his composure, the judge cut short the handshake, narrowed his eyes under bushy brows and said, “So you’re the
infamous
Captain Proctor.”

Chapter Two

The man who had come to Nora’s rescue dropped his hand from her father’s and crossed his arms over his chest. He cocked his head at a slight angle and stared at Thurston Seabrook with cool slate-colored eyes. “I’m Jacob Proctor,” he said. “I didn’t know I had earned the title ‘infamous’.”

“Oh, but Captain, you have,” Thurston replied. “Your reputation has spread all the way to our nation’s capitol.”

“And to what do I owe this dubious honor?”

“By virtue of claiming wrecking master rights to more wrecks than any other salvager on the island. By holding more auctions of goods and garnering higher percentages of profit than any other similar business in Key West.”

“Since when is it a crime to make money, Your Honor?” Proctor spoke Thurston’s title as if the words were dripping in hemlock.

“Making money isn’t a crime. The way you go about it may well be.”

Proctor altered his stance just a little, and the result was a squaring off, as Nora imagined boxers do in a ring. “I would be careful about insinuations you make, Judge, especially as you’re a newcomer to the island…”