In the Arms of a Pirate (A Sam Steele Romance Book 2) (38 page)

“How badly are you hurt?” she demanded.

He wasn’t the least bit fooled. “Not badly enough that I can’t accept a hug if you’re careful.”

Her lips trembled, giving her away before she walked into his open arms. Her arms were so light around his middle he barely felt her, but he didn’t miss the tremors that shook her. “I’m all right, Sam. It’s over.”

As he placed a kiss to her head, he noticed Sarah took Carracks to the bowsprit, away from everyone, while Cale limped alone to the gunwale. Aidan sighed. He’d get to them, but first he had things to say to Sam. It wasn’t until Sarah explained how she’d felt during the battle that he’d understood it must have been what he’d put Samantha through the past four years. Four years he’d made her endure the worry and for what? His own selfish needs?

“I’m sorry Sam.”

She leaned back, brows drawn. “For what?”

“For scaring you. Not only today but every day I sailed with Cale. I knew I worried you, but I didn’t realize how much until today.” He rubbed a hand over his heart. “It’s hell not knowing if the one you love is alive or dead.”

Sam laughed through her tears. “It is at that.” She sobered, wiped her cheeks. “You love her?”

“I do. I didn’t expect to fall in love and certainly not with Roche’s daughter but—”

“Sometimes the least likely match is the best one,” she smiled as she looked over to Luke, held out her hand. He walked over, ignored her hand and wrapped his arm around her waist.

“And the baby?”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Despite Luke agreeing to let me join in the battle, I was hardly able to draw a weapon.” She narrowed her eyes but Aidan noticed there wasn’t any heat behind it. “He shielded me most of the time.”

“As it should be, luv,” Luke said, placing his hand over Sam’s stomach. “You’re carrying precious cargo.”

Aidan’s heart warmed as it always did watching these two together and he hoped he and Sarah could be half as happy as Luke and Sam were.

“Where are the others?” he asked, just then noticing Blake, Nate, and Morgan weren’t there.

“When they knew you weren’t hurt, they turned and headed back for Santo Domingo. Well, Nate and Blake did. Morgan didn’t say where he was going.”

“But they’re not hurt?”

“No more than the rest of us,” Luke said, gingerly tapping his split lip.

“How badly was Cale wounded?” Aidan asked, his attention shifting to the man at the gunwale.

“He wouldn’t tell me,” Luke grumbled, “but he let Samantha have a look.”

“It went through the muscle of his leg.” Her eyes filled with sympathy. “He’s hurting more than he’s letting on.”

Aidan knew she was speaking of more than Cale’s wound. “I know,” he said. This was tricky business and he hoped he’d reached a conclusion they could all live with.

“Sam, I hope you know how much I love you. You’re as much a mother to me as my own was. More, in fact, as I’ve known you longer.” He wiped a stray tear. “Thank you for saving my life. For giving me a life. And Luke,” he said, turning to the man he thought the world of. “You gave me your name when I didn’t have one but more than that, you were a father to me and you raised me to be the man I am. I don’t take that lightly.”

“You’re my boy in every way that matters,” he said, his voice gruff.

“Then, if it’s all right with you both, I’d like to remain Aidan Bradley. It’s who I am.”

They came at him as one, holding him tight. Aidan’s eyes were as wet as theirs when they pulled apart.

“I’m honored,” Luke said.

“The honor is mine, Luke, but I need you two to understand that Cale is my blood and while I won’t carry his name, I want him in my life. In our lives. And if, one day, I call him father, it in no way lessens what I feel for either of you.”

Luke pursed his lips then nodded. “I can live with that.”

Aidan raised a brow. “And you’ll be nice to him?”

“How about polite?”

Sam smacked Luke on the arm. “He’ll be nice, I promise for both of us. He’s a good man, Aidan. I had a chance to talk to him before we met up with you. He feels awful about everything.”

Aidan looked to Cale. How many times in the four years they’d sailed together had he seen the man alone and felt sorry for him? Well, he wasn’t going to be alone any longer. He had Grace and the child. And Cale had him as well. Aidan kissed Sam’s cheek, squeezed Luke’s shoulder. Then, still amazed at how his life had changed in such a short amount of time, took his place next to his father.

“Sam says that leg of yours will be paining you.”

He shrugged, continued to look out at sea. Aidan followed his line of sight, spotted Nate and Blake’s ships sailing in the distance.

“Was your pistol really spent?” Aidan asked.

“I assumed so but I never checked. I just saw it and grabbed it.”

“You could have been killed.”

Cale turned his blue eyes toward Aidan. “I wasn’t going to let him shoot my son. Not without doing everything I could to stop it.”

It was what Aidan had thought, and hearing it only made him feel worse for how he’d treated Cale when they’d both learned who the other really was.

Suddenly the words wanted to stick in his throat.

“I said a lot of things to you at Nate’s I’m not proud of.”

“It was a lot to accept.”

Aidan nodded. “It was. I needed time to sort it out, make sense of things.”

Cale was a master of stoic expressions and the one he wore was impossible to read. “And now?”

“I remember some things, from before.” Aidan leaned against the gunwale. “You taught me to fish.”

Cale nodded. “You used to beg me to take you, from the time you tottered out of bed in the morning until we laid you in your bed at night.”

“I remember riding on your shoulders.” Aidan took a deep breath. “You were a good father, I remember that.”

Cale’s voice filled with emotion. “You and your mother were my pride and joy. There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of you, missed you both until I thought I’d die with the missing.”

Aidan ran a hand over his tight neck muscles. “That’s why you drank? Those few times a year when you got drunk?”

Cale dipped his head. “Birthdays and our anniversary.”

Aidan jerked. “When is my birthday?”

“The nineteenth day of August, sixteen hundred forty four.”

“You didn’t even have to think about that.”

Cale’s gaze never wavered. “As I said, there hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of you.”

“And I accused you of not caring, of forgetting. I’m sorry. Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. I always knew you were mourning family.” He shrugged. “I just never imagined I was part of that family.”

Cale’s laugh held no humor. “I wish I could explain why I never recognized you. You look so much like your mother; I should have seen it right away.”

“Well, you last saw me I was five and you didn’t see me again until I’d had my sixteenth birthday. Not only had I changed and had a completely different name, you had no reason to believe I was alive.”

“I didn’t. There was so much blood… But I did search for you. I searched until I’d almost lost my mind with it.”

“And the treasure?”

Cale cursed. “That damned treasure. Yes, I searched for it for years as well. Somehow I thought if I found it, then you and your mother hadn’t died without reason.”

Something dawned on Aidan and he shook his head.

“What?”

“You gave up the map to the treasure because you’d lost your family over it. But by giving it up in that poker game, it led you back to me. Our paths would have never crossed if not for that map.”

“My God,” he murmured. “And I almost just burned the damn thing.”

“But you didn’t and here we are.”

“And where might that be?” Cale asked.

Around them, under Luke’s command, the men had begun the process of doing what repairs needed to be made to get them underway. The hole in his cabin was above the waterline but it nonetheless needed to be patched or it wouldn’t take more than a few big waves to sink them. Luke, carrying a length of wood and ordering Sam not to touch the other end, lowered it through the hatch into Aidan’s cabin.

Everyone worked. Lucky and Chunk were reinforcing the boom. Debris was being picked up and dealt with. The dead, except for Roche who’d been tossed overboard while he and Sarah were below, were being tended. But what he really noticed was the people who mattered most in his life were all there. And he intended for it to stay that way.

“I’ve decided to remain Aidan Bradley,” he said once more looking at Cale. “It’s who I am now.”

Cale nodded, said nothing.

“It doesn’t change the fact that I’m your son.”

“Much to everyone’s displeasure.”

“Nobody’s displeased, least of all me.”

Cale’s eyes sharpened. “You were.”

Since there was no point in denying it, Aidan didn’t bother. Instead, he looked at the man who’d sired him, who’d loved him ever since.

“I may not be taking the name you gave me, but I’ll not deny you’re my father. You’re a good man, were a good captain, and, from what I remember and what I know you’ll do again with Grace’s child, you’re a hell of a father.” His voice thickened. “I’m honored to be your son and it’s my hope that we can be in each other’s lives and rebuild what was stolen from us fifteen years ago.”

Cale looked down then out to sea. Aidan could see his jaw working. When he faced Aidan again, he didn’t bother to hide his turmoil.

“I promised Grace we’d go to Ireland if that’s what she wanted.”

“If Grace wants to go, take her. I don’t plan on being Steele but I will be keeping the ship and it happens I know how to sail it,” he added to keep things light. To keep his own emotions from overflowing.

“I’m going to marry Sarah,” he stated. He wasn’t asking for permission or a blessing. He’d chosen his path and would walk it regardless of what Cale thought. Still, he had to admit he’d prefer the man’s acceptance. “Would you like to meet her?” he asked.

Cale wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “I would.”

Aidan called her over, took her hand, and drew her against his side. He tipped his head, rested his cheek on her head and for a moment just savored his life. Then, realizing Sarah and Cale were staring at each other in silence, Aidan introduced them.

“Sarah, my father, Cale. Cale, this is Sarah.”

“Hello,” she said, looking Cale in the eye and jutting her chin just a little.

Pride and love spilled over him. She claimed she wasn’t brave but he knew by her stance that she wasn’t going to let Cale’s opinion of her affect her. There was no hiding who she was, but neither did she seem prepared to pay for it the rest of her life. It took courage to make such a stand, as it had taken courage and strength to survive what Roche had put her through.

He was damn honored she’d agreed to be his wife and intended to prove it the rest of his life.

He wasn’t sure, not really, what Cale would do. Despite their earlier words about not punishing the child for who its father was, Aidan could nonetheless admit there was a difference between a babe who’d never know its father and a grown woman who’d been raised by hers. Cale had lost a wife and, for many years, a son to Roche. As much as he didn’t want Cale to hold that against Sarah, a part of him would understand if he did.

But then Cale smiled, reminding Aidan just what kind of man he was, the kind of man Aidan came from.

“How do you feel about visiting Ireland?”

“S
on, you’ll wear
a hole in the floor, if you keep that up,” Luke said.

“Easy for you to say now,” Aidan grumbled.

Luke bounced his six-month-old son in his arms, pride and love shining through his good eye. “I wasn’t near as panicked as you are.”

Cale sputtered. “You were worse.”

Luke arched a brow. “Worse, was I? I seem to remember you charging for the door every time Grace screamed. It took both of us”—he gestured between himself and Aidan—“to keep you back.”

Cale kissed his daughter’s head. She was only a month younger than Luke’s son. “I did no such thing.”

In the end, Cale and Grace hadn’t gone to Ireland. Grace had formed friendships with Alicia and Claire while the others had been battling Roche and she hadn’t wanted to take Cale so far away from Aidan. As she’d also made peace with her own family in Montserrat, she’d acknowledged everything she needed and wanted was in the Caribbean.

With a new wife and family, Cale hadn’t wanted to return to Nevis, where he’d once lost everything. As he and Luke managed to get along most days, and he’d wanted to be close enough to Aidan to have a chance to build a relationship, he and Grace had chosen to settle in St. Kitts. As had Aidan and Sarah. Sarah was thrilled with her new sister and doted on her every chance she had.

Sarah. He glared at the closed door again, willed it to open. Willed his child to hurry up and come into the world before his father died of worry. Willed Sarah to be strong enough for the both of them.

Despite the sweat trickling down his back, and the heart hammering its way out of his chest, Aidan had never been more content. The
Revenge
was sail worthy again and he and Cale had been the first to take it out—they’d gone fishing. They took turns taking on merchant work, but otherwise spent their time helping Luke and Sam build ships.

He stopped pacing to stare at one of Sarah’s paintings. The walls of their house were filled with her art but he loved this piece the most. The
Revenge
, in full sail, with Aidan—wearing his black bandana—at the wheel and Sarah standing at his side. The ship cut through the sparkling waves and despite his having given up Steele, the skull and crossbones fluttered in the wind. He’d have quite the stories to tell his child.

Sarah screamed. Aidan jumped. God dammit, how much longer was this going to take?

“Son.” Luke grabbed Aidan’s forearm. “She has a midwife and she’s with Samantha and Grace, who did this themselves not so very long ago. She’s in good hands.”

Aidan nodded, but words failed him. Sarah was everything to him. She was his light, his joy. In her arms or at her side, he felt prouder than he’d ever felt standing at the helm as Steele. He hated that she was in pain, that he wasn’t somehow able to shield her from it.