In the Arms of a Pirate (A Sam Steele Romance Book 2) (25 page)

“If they don’t?”

Aidan refused to believe otherwise. “They will. For now, let’s get off this beach. I’ll give them a few more hours, and then we’ll make alternate plans. Keep that hat low,” he ordered.

With long, purposeful strides, Aidan headed back the way they’d come, forcing Sarah to hurry in order to keep up. More drunkards had found their way outside and a handful lay sprawled on the street, a puddle of vomit next to them. The stench was that of rotting rubbish. Even the smoke fires couldn’t mask the vileness. If it bothered Sarah he couldn’t tell. It was as though she simply accepted what was and found a way to live with it.

Damned if he wasn’t impressed.

At the back of Doubloons, Aidan repeated the knock he’d performed earlier and Captain answered in the same manner.

His thick, wiry brows drew together. “What’s happened?”

“My ship has yet to return.”

“Weather’s fine,” Captain said with a knowing look.

“We need a place to stay for a few hours.”

Captain crossed his arms over his impressive girth. “And if they aren’t back?”

“Then I’ll be needing another ship. But I won’t give up faith yet. I’ve some good men on the
Revenge
.”

“Ye know where me home is,” Captain reminded him.

He did, it was why he’d come back. “In case anything was to go wrong, I left instructions with three of my most trusted crewman. They are to come here and say, ‘There is none more honorable than Vincent’. If someone says it to you, direct them to your house.”

“Aye, ye have me word.”

“Thank you for this. You know, if you ever need a favor…”

Captain waved that away. “Ah, be gone with ye. ’Tis an easy enough thing to do. Ye go and wait. With any luck, I won’t see yer face again tonight.”

“Let’s hope.” Aidan shook the man’s hand, managed not to grimace when Captain squeezed.

Leaving Doubloons behind for the second time that night, Aidan prayed he wouldn’t have to be back a third. Because if he did it would mean he’d lost the
Revenge
.

Again.

*

After the hot,
sweaty smell of Doubloons and the disgusting stench of Tortuga’s streets, Sarah dreaded what awaited them at Captain’s home. She held her breath when Aidan let her pass into the small one-room house before him and only when her lungs were burning did she dare take in a careful breath.

“This is better.” She breathed as Aidan lit a lamp.

She didn’t mind the clothes littering the floor nor the dirty dishes piled—much as his supplies had been in Doubloons—in an unsteady heap. She was delighted to breathe without choking.

Sarah whisked off her hat, hung it onto one of two chairs flanking a small table. The room was small and with all the clutter felt even smaller. Missing the fresh air and open space of the beach, Sarah drew open the window above the table. The dull curtain fluttered as the moist evening breeze slipped into the room. Thank God, Captain’s home was closer to the beach than the heart of Tortuga or she’d never have dared open the window.

More, she was grateful for the blessed lack of drunken pirates, the absence of sailors who loathed her and a distance from a father she no longer wanted to claim as her own.

“Sarah?”

She startled, turned from the window. “Yes?”

“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

She nearly didn’t hear him this time either. Standing at the hearth, the lamp casting flickering shadows on his chiseled face, his sword at his side and the black scarf low on his forehead, Sarah struggled to hear past the sudden buzzing in her ears. “I’m sorry. I was lost in my thoughts.”

“They must have been troublesome ones. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a heavy sigh.”

“I was thinking about everything that’s happened since you charged into my home.” She offered a smile as she sat. “It’s been exhausting.”

He pushed away from the hearth and after clearing Captain’s things from the other chair, took the seat opposite hers. “I’m sorry. I wish it could be helped, but using you is the only way I can be certain Roche will come.”

Sarah cast her eyes to her lap. “Hearing him tonight, how he spoke of me, it was as though I’m nothing more than a possession to him. A link to my mother.”

“What happened to her?”

“She fell ill when I was a small child and died soon after. I don’t remember her.”

“She must have been a remarkable woman.”

“Why would you think so?”

“Because you’re nothing like Roche. You’re kind, thoughtful, fair. Roche doesn’t possess any of those traits.”

She hadn’t realized how desperate she was to hear those words until Aidan said them. They were a balm to her battered heart. After overhearing her father’s foul words in the tavern, remembering every crime Aidan and his men had accused him of, she’d feared she’d only ever be seen as his daughter. Poisoned tree, poisoned fruit.

Her throat was thick when she answered. “Thank you.”

The chair groaned as he shifted. “I’m sorry if my words and those of my crew had you doubting yourself.”

“Only a little,” she said, raising her head and offering a weak smile.

Aidan shook his head. “That was my own weakness, not yours. I loathe your father and it was easy to assume you’d be just like him.”

“I think, in your shoes, I’d have done the same.”

He laughed. “I doubt it. You’re not so mean. Even in your effort to escape your home, you were certain to leave a note leaving your maid blameless.”

Sarah squirmed in her chair as her ears pricked with heat. “You saw that, did you?”

His lips quirked. “You were a surprise to me from the beginning.”

“I was a princess,” she reminded him.

“You had the palace and the servants and so it was easy to see you as one. Besides,” he added with a wink that went straight to her heart, “calling you that always had the lovely effect of getting you riled.”

“Yes,” she conceded. “It always did.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, content for the moment to hear the night creatures hum and chirp through the open window. Eventually, however, reality needed to be addressed.

Within her lap, Sarah twisted her hands together. “I don’t know what to do, Aidan. It had all seemed so simple and naïve before. I’d escape, have an adventure, live some new experiences. Eventually, my father would find me, or I’d allow myself to be found and he’d come to see reason. I’d return home, but with the freedoms I was denied before.”

She shook her head at her own foolishness. “I will never go back there. Even if you succeed in killing him, there is nothing in that house worth going back to.” Her chest tightened. “Have you ever had such a thing happen? Where everything you’ve known and believed is a lie?”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw. He held her gaze, said nothing. Hurt brewed in his eyes and the silence was no longer easy and comfortable. Guilt settled onto her shoulders like a brick. She’d hoped for a few hours of respite from fear, worry, and pain and instead she’d managed to wound Aidan. She pushed her chair back. Her time would be better spent tidying Captain’s home. After all, he was kind enough to—

Aidan reached across the small table, held her hand before she could stand. “Yes,” he said.

Surprised and curious, Sarah pulled her chair forward. “You have?”

He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Even though he was frowning, she didn’t think there was a more handsome man out there.

“Until the night your father attacked our family celebration, I believed my name was Aidan. I didn’t remember anything before I was five. All I knew was from that age until I was eight I’d been nothing but a slave on a plantation.”

Sarah remembered him saying he’d been sold into slavery. “What happened when you were eight?”

“Samantha—the first Sam Steele—who was also a slave there, rescued me and a few others. She stole the owner’s sloop and off we sailed. For four years after, we searched for the man who’d attacked her father’s ship and killed her family.”

“Did she ever find him?”

“Aye. But she’d needed to recruit another pirate to help her, Luke Bradley.” He smiled and Sarah knew by the warmth in it, he had great affection for Luke.

“Luke killed Dervish in the end. Shortly after, Sam and Luke admitted their love and were married. Since Sam had taken me in and I had no recollection of my last name, I became Aidan Bradley and Sam Steele was no more.”

“But aren’t you Sam Steele?”

“There have been others between Sam and I who held the role. One of them, the last before me, was Cale Hunter.”

His deep sigh as he tipped his head back to study the ceiling told Sarah Aidan’s hurt was somehow tied to Cale.

“I sailed as Cale’s first mate for four years when he was Steele. He was a quiet man, kept to himself. He took the role in honor of his late brother, Vincent.”

“The same Vincent you mentioned when you were speaking with Captain?”

Aidan once again brought his gaze to hers. “The same. Vincent was hurt in battle and when he realized he’d never have the chance to be Sam Steele, he asked that Cale be found and asked to stand in his stead.”

Sarah pursed her lips. “It speaks well that Cale would do such a thing for his brother.”

“He hadn’t spoken to Vincent in years, was too ashamed to have a dwarf as a brother.
That
doesn’t speak of well of him.”

“Clearly, he’d since changed his mind. He wouldn’t take on such a duty, for four years, without a great deal of love and respect for his brother.”

Aidan scowled. “At any rate, I was the man’s first mate and I’d come to think of him as a friend.”

Sarah braced herself. Whatever put the bitterness in Aidan’s voice couldn’t be good.

“After the initial attack from Roche, Cale was wounded, as was your father. When Roche tried to flee, it was I who chased him.” He closed his eyes as though remembering. Sarah wanted to reach out and pry his fists open. “I recognized him. When he was close enough to see clearly, as it was dark outside, I knew I’d seen that face before.”

“But you
had
seen him before. You told me you attacked his ship; that was how you’d saved Grace.”

“We attacked his ship, true enough, but your father had already escaped. I never saw him that day.”

Sarah rubbed her brow. A headache was brewing as she struggled to make sense of all these events. “But he killed your mother. You would have seen him then?”

“Until I saw your father last week at Nate’s, I had no recollection of anything before the plantation.”

“You’d lost your memory?” She couldn’t imagine such a thing. It must have been terrifying.

“I had, yes, though I hadn’t realized it. I’d assumed no child remembered their early years.”

“And seeing my father brought the past to you?”

“Sadly, yes. Not only did I remember everything he’d done to me and my mother, I also remembered who my father was.”

The pieces all came together and Sarah gasped. “It’s Cale.”

“You asked if I’ve experienced having everything I know and believe to be a lie,” he glowered. “Yes, when I grasped that I not only had a father, but I’d sailed with him for four years without him even recognizing me. When I remembered I wasn’t Aidan Bradley but rather Caden Hunter. When I understood that no matter which path I choose to go, someone will be hurt.”

*

Lord, now that
he’d started he couldn’t seem to make it stop. His chair hit the floor as he stormed to his feet. “If I don’t acknowledge Cale, I feel I’m somehow not acknowledging my mother either. That those first years of my life didn’t matter.” He rubbed the base of his hand over his heart. “She died protecting me. How can I turn my back on her?

“But if I forgive Cale and once again become Caden, I’ll hurt the two people I love most in this world. Samantha saved me in every way that matters. She and Luke made me who I am today, not Cale.” Frustrated, he slammed his palm against the door. If only Roche hadn’t attacked Nate’s, then none of this would have happened.

“I envy you.”

Aidan spun. “You envy me?” he growled.

Eyes shining, she came to her feet. “Yes, I do. You have two families that love you and want you as their own. One of them isn’t even your blood. I have a father who doesn’t love me, who only keeps me as a reminder of his dead wife. I’ve been given no love and you have it coming at you from every side. Maybe Cale should have recognized you. Maybe he believed you dead and so wasn’t looking. The point is, he wants you now, does he not?”