If I Wait For You (4 page)

Footsteps slapped the mud behind her,
harsh breathing sounded too close. She turned, unable to resist
checking to see how close the men were, and screaming when she saw
a blood-spattered knife just feet from her face. And then she hit
the hard wall of a male chest, her scream cutting off
abruptly.

“
Oh, my God.”

His voice. What was he doing here? she
thought dazedly, looking up to see West Mitchell’s rain spattered
face. He clutched her shoulders tightly, and put her away from him
to take a step toward the men who had skidded to a halt and were
quickly escaping. Sara stood in the rain feeling oddly detached
from herself as she watched the men throw themselves around a
corner and disappear. Apparently realizing pursuit would be
useless, West turned back toward her, his hard gaze going to her
neck.

Sara looked at him curiously. “Mr.
Mitchell,” she said, but the words sounded odd to her, as if she
spoke into a vast, empty room. She meant to thank him, but her neck
hurt so. Moving a hand to the painful spot, her eyes widened when
she felt the thick slickness of blood. She drew her hand away and
stared at her red-coated palm, trying to accept what her eyes told
her. She looked up to West, then again at her hand.

“
Mr. Mitchell,” she said,
wavering on her feet. “I’m bleeding.”

West caught her before she
slumped in a faint to the street, his eyes trained on the wound to
her neck. He quickly discerned that the flow of blood, while
horrendous, did not pulse from the long slashing cut, but instead
seeped in a steady way. The girl’s jugular had not been severed,
but that was little consolation. She was bleeding badly and would
die unless something was immediately done to stem the flow.
Cradling Sara Dawes in his arms, he made his way to the
Julia’s
gangplank,
striding up it as if he held a feather pillow in his arms and not a
full-grown woman. He moved down the companionway and headed toward
his mate’s cabins, kicking on the third mate’s door.

“
Come quickly, Mr. Dawes,”
he said, then turned without waiting for his mate to answer. Behind
him he heard Zachary open the door. “It is your sister. She has
been injured.”

“
Sara.”

Within moments, Zachary was there,
following behind West and into his cabin. The young man looked as
if he might faint when he finally realized how badly his sister had
been injured.

“
Who did this?” he
demanded, his eyes on his sister’s pale face.

“
Two men were giving chase
when she ran into me. I recognized neither of them,” West said as
he unbuttoned her dress and peeled back the top to better reveal
her wound. While the wound appeared gruesome, he knew it wasn’t
nearly as bad as it looked. He pressed a cloth against her
neck.

“
Is she…will she…” His
mate’s eyes filled with tears, and West was reminded that this
young man had just lost both his parents and believed he might lose
his sister, as well.

“
It looks far worse than it
is. See? The bleeding is nearly stopped. We must not allow
infection to set in and she should be fine.”

Zachary knelt by the bed and held his
sister’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Sara,” he whispered. The girl stirred
slightly but remained unconscious. “Please Lord, I cannot lose
her,” he said against her hand.

West left the room and hurried to the
surgery where he collected a needle and thread and clean bandages,
wetting one with clean water before returning to his cabin. The
girl looked impossibly pale lying on his sheets, her hair a mass of
wet tangle around her head. The blood, seeping through his
makeshift bandage was almost garish in comparison to the rest of
her. He’d told his mate she would not die, but he had no way of
knowing how much blood she’d lost, nor how strong a girl she
was.

As he stepped close to his bed, his
mate moved back allowing him to examine the wound more closely. He
carefully pulled away the bandage, wincing when he saw how very
close she’d been to dying instantly. As it was, she would need a
few stitches to keep the wound closed.

“
Whiskey, Mr.
Dawes.”

Zachary hurried to his cabinet and
pulled down a small flask.

“
This is going to sting
like hell, so she might awaken. Stay close so she may see you if
she does.” He soaked a cloth with whiskey, then carefully patted
the wound. As the captain of a whaler, he’d tended wounds far worse
than this. Yet there was something unnerving about tending the
pale, soft skin of a woman. Once the wound was cleaned, he realize
it was only deep in one small area and would require few
stitches.

“
Hold her hand, Mr. Dawes,
I have to stitch her up a bit.”

“
I swear I will kill
whoever did this to her,” his mate vowed low.

“
Don’t be foolish. Your
sister needs you now more than ever,” West said blandly, his
concentration on pulling the needle through her impossibly soft
skin. “There,” he said, tying a knot. “Good as gold.”

“
Thank you sir,” Zachary
said. “I don’t know if I could have done that. I can’t stand the
thought of hurting her. She’s such a good girl, sir.”

“
I’ve no doubt,” West said,
gently wrapping a bandage around her neck. “Stay here, tonight,
lad, and I’ll take your cabin.”

“
Thank you, sir.” Zachary
pulled his cabin’s only chair next to the bed, and clasped his
hands as if in prayer.

West was awakened the next morning by
a loud knocking on his door, his thought immediately going to the
girl in his cabin.

“
Enter.”

Zachary opened the door, looking
hesitant about walking into his own cabin.

“
How is your sister, Mr.
Dawes?”

Deep weariness, but no grief, was
etched into the young man’s face. Clearly he had not slept the past
night. “She awakened briefly, then fell back into a peaceful sleep.
She is sleeping still.”

“
That is good news,” West
said, rubbing the sleep from his face. He motioned the young man
out of the room and bade him to follow him to the after cabin. The
room, which ran along the stern of the ship, held a bank of windows
that let in the soft yellow of the early morning sun. West moved
behind the table that served as a desk and sat down.

“
Though it appears your
sister will live, I fear she will not be recovered completely
anytime soon, and we sail in twenty-four hours.” His mate stood
before him looking as if he might crumble to the ground at any
instant. “Sit, Mr. Dawes, before you fall over.”

His cheeks tingeing slightly red,
Zachary did as the captain said.

“
I must ask forgiveness of
you and your sister for disbelieving the danger she was in.”
Zachary looked startled and began to reject the need for such an
apology, but West waved away his words. “I don’t know that I would
have done anything differently had I known, but I feel the need to
express my deep distress over your sister’s injury.”

West closed his eyes briefly, as much
to block the sight of his mate’s disbelieving look as to rid
himself of the insane proposition he was about to espouse. “Clearly
your sister needs protection, and I am willing to offer that
protection.” The words came out gruffly as if wrenched unwillingly
from his throat.

“
Then you’ll marry her,
sir?” Zachary’s expression was of disbelief and joy, a joy West
quickly dashed.

“
No. I have not changed my
opinion on that matter. I would never bring a wife aboard a whaler,
not even one I wanted. However, I feel strongly that your sister
has few other choices left to her than to escape New Bedford.
Someone tried to murder your sister, Mr. Dawes. I do not believe
those men meant to hall her before a judge, nor collect a reward.
This is not the wild west, sir, where criminals are wanted dead or
alive.”

“
That thought had come to
me, as well, Captain.”

West steepled his hands before him.
“Here is my proposal.” He nearly winced at his ill-chosen words. “I
am willing to act as protector of your sister. She may remain on
the ship under my guardianship.”

Zachary, who had begun to relax,
stiffened slightly. “I do not understand your meaning,
sir.”

“
There is only one way a
respectable woman is allowed aboard a ship, and that is as the
captain’s wife. Again, as I do not wish to marry her, the only
other alternative is for your sister to pose as my wife. Her safety
will be preserved, as will be my tenets.”

“
I’m afraid I do not
understand why you would allow a woman on board to pose as your
wife on the one hand, and not allow a wife in truth to sail with
you. It seems to me, sir, that if your objection is to having a
woman on board, my sister would qualify.”

West tapped his fingers against his
lips, uncomfortable explaining his position. In truth, he did not
think it appropriate for a woman to be on board, if only because a
woman was at times a distraction, but he had no strong objection.
Many captains brought their wives along during the long years away
from home. And many wives died.

As cold as it might seem, he had no
compunction about allowing a woman on board that he held no
devotion for. Such an unorthodox passenger would simply mean
suffering a minor nuisance—she was simply another mouth to feed,
which in turn would translate into a slight decrease in profits.
Were he not the owner of this ship, he would never consider such an
arrangement. West had no trouble thinking about this girl as an
extra bit of baggage. Let her brother entertain her. He would give
her a place to sleep, food to eat, and that was all.

But a true wife, well, that was a
different kettle of fish altogether. A wife would expect
conversation, smiles. A wife would expect children and love, things
a husband would gladly give her. And that was why West would never
allow a wife on board his ship. The thought of asking a woman he
loved to risk her life simply to be with him was unconscionable.
Elizabeth had understood, had not even pressed the point, much to
West’s vast relief.

It had been different with his brother
Jared and Abigail; when they married, there had been little debate
about whether she would accompany him on his whaling voyages. Now,
Abigail was dead and his brother ravaged by grief. Just that
morning he’d spoken of Jared with their mother.

“
I expect Jared will be
home soon,” she’d said. “It’s already been more than three years.”
Julia’s voice trailed off.

“
And that long since either
of us has heard a word from him,” West said, more harshly than he’d
intended.

“
He’s changed.”

That was a terrible truth. Jared,
always a robust and jovial man, was now nothing but a hollow shell.
Five years previous, Jared had married the girl he’d been smitten
with since he was ten years old. Abigail was a captain’s daughter
and used to the whaling life and what it meant for women—long
waits, endless loneliness. Jared would not have that life for his
beloved, and Abigail, a sweet and gentle girl, agreed to sail with
him. She would suffer anything, she’d told her new husband, if only
she could be with him.

Abigail, along with their
nine-month-old baby girl, died of infection at sea after being
splashed by boiling whale oil spouting from the bubbling caldrons
aboard ship. Jared blamed himself, for the sea was rough, perhaps
too rough, for boiling the blubber, and he blamed himself for
allowing Abigail and their baby on deck during the dangerous
enterprise.

Jared’s family was gone, and the
incident only cemented West’s belief that a wife should not be
aboard ship—nor languishing alone at home as his mother had done.
He was not so wedded to the whaling life that he would grieve its
loss. Hardly. The day he stepped aboard to start a journey, he
always felt a gut-wrenching sickness. No one knew, of course. No
one, except perhaps, his mother. But he knew even she would be
shocked to learn just how much he loathed the whaling life, the
life he’d been born and bred to, the only life he’d ever
known.

He could almost hear his father’s
sneer: “You goddamned coward. You’re no son of mine. Sissy
boy.”

He’d been fourteen when he’d made his
first kill. Fourteen without a hint of peach fuzz, but made of
sinew and grit, and the almost pathetic determination to please a
father who could not be pleased. He’d begged to be allowed to head
the fourth whaleboat, and took his place at the steering oar
proudly when three giant sperm whales were spotted off the
starboard bow.

At first, it had been exhilarating,
the sea whipping salty spray into his face, the oarsmen heaving,
groaning and cursing, as he prodded them on. They rowed endlessly,
oars bending from the effort, sweat dripping from the men’s brows
even in the cold of the Atlantic. He drove the boat nearly onto the
great whale’s back, shouting in triumph as the boatsteerer heaved
the harpoon deep into the whale’s thick blubber. And then they were
off, the rope whirling out of the boat, hissing against the wood as
the whale frantically tried to escape the harpoon imbedded in its
flesh.

The whale pulled them for what seemed
like miles. West stood at the bow, having switched positions with
the boatsteerer, lance at the ready. The whale, as they all did,
began to tire. “Won’t be long now, boys,” he shouted at the men who
stood ready with the oars. The men began hauling on the rope,
pulling the exhausted whale closer and closer to the boat, close
enough finally for West to thrust his lance deep into the whale. He
did, until the ocean ran red with the beast’s blood, until its
spout showered them with hot spray, blood from its fatally wounded
lungs.