Looking for a Hero (5 page)

What godforsaken thing have I done to deserve the wrath of the child, and now the woman?
he wondered. Bloody hell, he should have left without them, but he'd let an ounce of long-forgotten compassion work its way out of his stone-cold heart.

Somehow he found the strength to fight back,
but it was difficult, given the fact that the woman had straddled his stomach and was alternately beating his chest and slapping his face. If she wasn't such a firebrand, he might take pleasure in admiring the view of her breasts swaying with each stroke to his body.

There was no time for admiration, though—not while she had the upper hand. He had to gain control. In one swift move he wrapped an arm around her slender waist and rolled her to the sand, laughing at the anger in her flaming green eyes.

“Take your hands off of me or I'll…I'll….”

He never saw her move, never felt the jerk of her knee until it hit his groin, not quite on center, but close enough. Pain ripped through him, and another bout of godforsaken nausea, but still he kept his hold on her arms and pressed the length of his body against hers so she couldn't move again.

“Damnation, woman!” he groaned through gritted teeth. “Do you mean to unman me?”

“I mean to
kill
you,” she spat out, the force and truth of her words hitting him square in the face.

“What did you do to my daughter?”

“I have done nothing to the child.”

“You were pointing a sword at her. She was crying.”

The woman struggled, but he was twice her size, making it impossible for her to escape. He refused to let her go until she saw reason—or at
least, realized that the blood from his neck was dripping onto her chest.

“Get off me,” she moaned, but all he did was move closer, looking at her eye to eye.

“Give me one good reason.”

The child screamed, and that was reason enough.

Black Heart spun around to see Casey holding the cutlass again, and his only thought was that she'd injured herself on the blade.

Dear God, let her be unharmed
, he silently prayed.

Shoving away from the hellish woman, he quickly, carefully retrieved the cutlass from Casey's hands and stuck it into its scabbard.

The girl screamed again, and giant tears flowed from her big, bright blue eyes.

Bloody hell!

“Stop crying!” he demanded in frustration, then swept the child up into his arms and smoothed a curly strand of hair from her tear-dampened cheek.

Half a moment later, the she-devil lunged at his back. “Get your filthy hands off my daughter!”

She clawed his skin, and he could feel her nails through his coat and the linen of his shirt.

“Stop it, woman,” he yelled, holding onto the girl with one arm, trying to pull the mother's fingers from his neck with the other. “'Tis not my intention to harm the child.”

“Then let her go.”

He could see the child's lips puckering as she
looked at her mother over his shoulder. “Mommy, I hurt…I hurt….”

“Let her go, damn you!” the woman screamed, striking him once more in the temple.

“Blast it, wench! 'Tis me who is injured, not the child.”

He whipped around quickly, unbalancing the woman as he moved. Her hands ripped free from his clothes, and he watched with a grin as she stumbled backward and landed on her backside in the sand.

“Damn you!” she sputtered, scrambling up from the ground.

Without thought, he drew his cutlass and held her off. “Stand back, woman. I mean the child no harm. And if you will keep your infernal hands off me, I'll not harm you, either.”

“You've already hurt her. She's bleeding, can't you see?”

“'Tis me who's bleeding!” he bellowed, wondering when his words would penetrate her skull. “She sliced my throat, and I do believe she came damn near to cutting off my head.”

“I'm sorry, Mommy. I was only playing,” Casey cried. “You have to fix the cut. Please.”

The woman stared at him for the longest time with pursed lips and angry eyes. Her gaze traveled to his neck, to the child, and to the blade he was holding between them.

Slowly he sheathed the cutlass. He'd never drawn a blade on a woman before. But he'd never
met a woman from whom he'd had to protect himself.

She stepped forward, yanked Casey from his arms, and set the child firmly on the ground, then moved protectively in front of her. He could see her fists clench at her sides. Her stern face was frozen like the figurehead on one of Her Majesty's ships. God, but she was beautiful—in spite of her anger.

“Were you planning to steal my boat?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“I suppose you were going to steal my daughter, too?”

“I beg your pardon, madam, but I'm here because I mistakenly thought you might need my help. As for your daughter, she accosted me, not the other way around. Now, if you'll stop blustering like a sea hag, we can get off this blasted island.”

“You can stay on this
blasted
island. We're leaving.”

“I thought you might tend to my wound.”

“I'd rather see you dead.”

“You and a hundred others, madam. Perhaps you'll get your wish if I continue to bleed.”

“My wishes rarely come true, so I doubt you'll die.”

Without taking her eyes off him, she picked up the child, then stormed away from the clearing, like the hurricane that had whipped across the island yesterday.

What an impertinent, infuriating woman, thinking
she could just walk away and leave him behind.

He followed in her wake, taking full advantage of the view before him. She had shapely legs, not too long, not too short, nicely rounded hips, trim waist, and from what he remembered, she had a bosom that would pleasantly fill both his hands.

She was carrying the child through the water when he reached shore. He would have carried them both had she waited, but she was in too big a hurry to get away from him.

Without so much as a thank-you for staying behind or for getting her vessel back into the sea, she waded bosom deep, until they reached the ladder suspended over the side and climbed into the boat after her daughter.

He stood on the beach, legs spread wide, his arms folded across his chest. “Is it your intention to leave without me?” he called out over the gently rolling waves.

“You got here of your own accord. I suggest you find your own way off the island.”

“Would you leave me here to starve?”

“I don't give a damn what happens to you. You tried to kidnap my daughter.”

“Must I argue that point yet again?”

“Mommy.” He heard the child's soft wail. “You can't leave him here. He might die, and I'm the one who hurt him.”

The woman looked briefly at his neck—a cause of little concern to her, he was sure. She frowned at the weapons he had tucked into his belt, and
then her eyes traveled to the scar on his face, the patch on his eye.

The girl tugged on her mother's arm. “Please, Mommy.”

“I don't want that man anywhere near us,” she muttered to the child. The woman ignored him completely and set about hauling in the anchor.

It had taken him a year to get off the island the first time he'd been marooned there, and he'd be damned if he'd let her leave him stranded again.

Invitation or not, he was getting on that boat.

Wading quickly through the water, he hoisted himself up the ladder and onto the vessel before the woman had raised the sail.

She jerked around and glared at him. “Get off my boat.”

He folded his arms over his chest and shook his head, an action that seemed to anger her more than mere words.

She lunged, striking his stomach with her shoulder, and before he could push her away, she'd wrested his dagger from his belt and pointed it at his belly.

“Get off my boat.”

“I will go nowhere, madam, lest I go with you. Argue and sputter as you wish, but it will serve no purpose other than to fuel your anger and strain your throat.”

Her blessed bosom rose and fell with the deepness of her sigh.

“Well, you're not staying on this boat as long as you've got that arsenal strapped around you.”
She held out the hand that wasn't holding the dagger to his middle. “Give me the rest of your weapons.”

“I will not.”

He grinned.

Her jaw tightened.

“All right,” she said, through clenched teeth. “You can ride back to St. Augustine with us. But so help me, if you put one hand on my daughter or me, I'll run you through with your very own blade.”

He laughed, stuck a finger against the flat edge of the dagger, and pushed it away from his stomach.

Settling against the cabin, he folded his arms across his chest and winked at the scowling lady.

“Sail away, madam. 'Tis a most pleasant and entertaining voyage I am looking forward to.”

K
ate shielded her eyes from the glaring sun, looking out across the glassy sea for some sign of land, but St. Augustine was nowhere in sight. The trip that should have taken just under two hours had now stretched into three, and for the first time she wished Joe had spent more money on the sailboat, buying one equipped with an engine so it could go faster on days, like today, when the wind was too weak to billow the sails.

Below deck, Casey slept, cuddled up safe and snug on one of the berths, far from the steady gaze
of their unwelcome passenger. She herself wasn't so lucky.

With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, Casey's pirate silently watched her every move, his eyes much too often roaming to the broad-bladed dagger she clenched in her fist.

“I assure you, madam,” he'd said, when they'd first set sail, “you have no need for protection from me.”

Ted Bundy might have said something quite similar to the women he'd murdered, but she wasn't a fool and she wasn't taking any chances, not with her life, and definitely not with Casey's.

He'd said nothing more after those first few words. Instead, he'd stood quietly, watching the ocean one moment, the sails another, moving only to accommodate the tack of the boat. He seemed intrigued by the way she handled the main sail and jib, but he never smiled, never sat. He just stood steadfastly, booted feet planted wide on the deck, arms folded across his chest. It seemed as if sailing on the open sea was something he'd been born to, as if his body were perfectly in tune with the gentle roll of the water.

He'd be an interesting man to study, to learn more about, if he didn't look so frightful.

He was tall. Six-one, six-two, she imagined, and the heavy heels on his boots added at least an inch to his height. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow, and as far as she could tell through his disheveled clothes, there was not an ounce of fat anywhere on his body.

Coarse black whiskers coated his cheeks and chin, making him look like a fiend—half-man, half-beast. But Casey was wrong about the scar. It wasn't red and ugly, it was thin and white, and it swept from the edge of his patch down to his lip. A well-deserved disfigurement, she imagined.

“Does the scar intrigue you, madam?”

Kate's focus was drawn from the corner of his mouth to his eyes—the azure blue one that seemed to be laughing at her, and then the one covered with black satin.

“I'm only curious about how you got it,” she said, her gaze never once leaving the smirk on his face. “Did you irritate someone?”

“On the contrary, he irritated me. Unfortunately, he had a crew of over eighty men standing behind him and I had but myself. My hands and legs were bound, and….”

The laughter disappeared from his eye as he turned away and looked at the calm surface of the water. “My face was used to test the sharpness of my enemy's dagger,” he said coldly, and when he looked back, she saw only emptiness in his stare. “He wanted me to know that he was my master, that he could do anything he bloody well pleased—to me or anyone else.”

Kate swallowed, half believing the horrid story, half not. “And your eye?” she asked. “He didn't…cut it out, did he?”

Laughter burst from his throat, a devilish laugh that raised goosebumps on her arms. “Aye, madam.
Would you care to see?” He reached toward the patch.

“No!” Kate blurted out. “I was just curious, that's all.”

She turned away, suddenly more interested in studying the water than making note of his features, but the tone of his voice, his English accent and manner of speech, stayed with her. He sounded too refined to look so disreputable. Dressed in pirate costume the way he was, she could only assume he was an actor, a British actor, who someone had gotten fed up with and dumped overboard.

She'd dump him overboard if she could. The sooner he was out of sight, the better. She didn't like the manner in which he stared at her. You'd think she was naked, like a marble statue in a museum, the way he analyzed every inch of her.

“How'd you get on the island?” she asked, tired of the quiet that had enveloped them.

“I blew in with the storm.”

Obviously he wasn't a man of many words.

She studied the finely crafted dagger in her hand, the pistol shoved under his belt, and the jeweled hilt of his cutlass.

“Why do you need so many weapons?”

“Protection from women like you.”

Well, asking questions was useless. His answers were less than civil and just as far-fetched as the one he'd told about his scar. A barroom brawl seemed a more logical explanation for that.

God, but she wished they'd reach St. Augustine.

The sun was high in the sky now, beating down on them in all its glory. She could feel a trickle of perspiration slowly making its way down her chest, leaving a dark blue streak at the center of her bright blue suit. Another trickle followed, and the man standing before her watched its descent, from the hollow of her throat to the crevice between her breasts. He raised his eye, but he didn't smile. Instead, his steady gaze seemed to burn through her, hotter than the blaze of sun.

“Please don't watch me like that.”

“I am a man, madam, and you have chosen to flaunt your godgiven charms in front of me. 'Tis better that I watch you than ease the agony your appearance has caused me since first we met.”

Without much thought, she raised the dagger threateningly in front of her. “Touch Casey, touch me, and I'll make sure you're incapable of easing your agony ever again.”

That damnable laugh of his rang out once more. “I do not rape, madam. When I want a woman, I make love to her. I do not do it in front of a child, I do not do it without consent. I do it when the woman's cravings are equally as strong as mine—if not more so.”

With his egotistical speech completed, he began to remove the wide leather belt about his waist.

“What are you doing?”

He did not answer. Instead, he unbuttoned the front of his coat, and slowly revealed the white linen of his shirt, damp with perspiration and clinging to a very muscular, very hard chest. If he
got too close, she'd use the knife, but she had the feeling it would bend if she tried shoving it through his heart.

In spite of the knot growing larger in her throat, she maintained an outward calm. She'd be damned if she'd let him get the better of her. “Have you already forgotten what you said about raping a woman?”

He moved the short distance toward her and held out the coat. “The sun will burn your skin if it is not properly covered. Lest you confuse my concern for your welfare with lust, madam, I will allow you to drape it over yourself.”

He was maddening, with his condescending tone and his brief attempt at gentlemanly ways. She knew she should thank him for his kindness, but being polite didn't seem necessary at the moment, not when he continued to glare and smirk and make her wish she could jump overboard rather than suffer his stares.

She toyed with the coat, thinking about returning it to its owner, but she found herself studying the intricate stitching at the seams—hand sewn rather than machine made, like the delicate white lace christening gown she'd created while waiting for Casey's birth.
How did he come to own such a coat?
she wondered. Garments as carefully sewn as this hadn't been fashioned since at least the nineteenth century, or they cost a fortune if you could find a tailor with the skills to do such work.

Perhaps he'd stolen it, along with the rest of his
costume. That seemed as likely an explanation as the barroom brawl was for the scar.

She found herself stealing a glance at Casey's pirate, but quickly turning her eyes back to the coat when she met his intense, burning stare. Once more she concentrated on the garment. Etched brass buttons bearing the imprint of crossed swords ran the length of the jacket, and swirls of gold braiding decorated cuffs and pockets. The fabric was royal blue velvet, but what should have been soft was rough, a consequence of soaking too long a time in water and then baking dry in the sun.

The coarse fabric scratched her skin when she drew it about her shoulders, but it blocked the unmerciful sun, for which she was thankful. It smelled of brine and the distinctly masculine scent of the man who'd lent it to her, but wrapped inside it, she felt cool, almost comfortable.

Again she looked at him, at the scar on his face, the patch on his eye, and the scabbed-over cut at his throat. Damn! Her own daughter had been responsible for almost killing the man. He hadn't threatened to sue. He hadn't struck back. What he'd done was show concern when he thought Casey might have been hurt. He'd also gotten her sailboat back into the water when she hadn't been able to do it herself, and he'd given her the coat off his back.

As much as she hated to admit it, a nice man—a gentleman, perhaps—lurked behind the scar, the beard, and the patch.

Reluctantly she smiled. “Thank you for the coat. I suppose I should thank you for getting the boat back in the water, too. I never could have done it on my own.”

“You're quite welcome madam.”

“Must you continually call me that?”

“What, pray tell, should I call you?”

“Kate. Kate Cameron.” She imagined the polite thing to do was ask his name in return. “And you?”

“Morgan Farrell.”

Kate fought back her grin when he swept a courtly bow.

“Why are you dressed like a pirate, Mr. Farrell? Are you an actor?”

“Actor?” he asked indignantly. “Do I look as though I spend my days frolicking on a stage?”

“What other explanation is mere for parading around in pirate costume?”

He cocked one dark eyebrow. “Would you prefer that I parade around naked, as you are doing?”

“I don't give a damn how you dress, I just think it's rather strange….” She let the thought trail away, finding it useless to argue with the man, and a waste of energy to explode over his insensitive and immature comment. Instead, she tugged at the coat that was slipping over her shoulder and put her mind back on sailing to St. Augustine. The sooner she got there, the sooner she could rid herself of Morgan Farrell.

He settled once more against the cabin and easily fell into his routine of staring at her. She glared
right back, but she kept her focus away from his eyes and concentrated on the wide shoulders and broad chest hidden behind the voluminous white shirt. It laced up the front, with ruffles at the wrists, and was neatly tucked into smoke gray trousers that fit snugly over thighs she could only imagine were as well muscled as the rest of him. The black leather boots were cuffed just above his knees, and she followed the length of them all the way down to his toes, then made a slow journey up again. His jaw was strong and square, and his nose, although straight and well proportioned for the rest of his face, had a slight bump at the bridge. Broken at least once in a fight, she imagined.

His skin was tanned a swarthy bronze, and there were narrow white creases at the side of each eye, as if he'd squinted too much in the sun. Hastily she skimmed over his one azure eye that twinkled because, damn it, he knew she was studying him.

There was little else to do when the wind refused to cooperate. And he was intriguing, after all, especially his brownish-black hair that glinted in the sunlight as it spilled over his shoulders and halfway down his back. Thick, glorious hair, the kind many women paid a fortune to possess, the kind many women had probably run their fingers through, the kind many women would probably love to have feathering their body in the midst of making love.

Damn! Why was she thinking such thoughts?
Had the incessant sun given her some type of heat stroke? Surely she was losing her mind, to find such a vile, nefarious-looking man…handsome. She'd never cared for men like him. She liked men clean cut and blond—like Joe—and despised the ones who walked around with a gold stud in their ear. And this man had hoops the size of quarters dangling from each.

Definitely not her type. But since she wasn't in the market for another man, it didn't really matter. Knowing what possessed him to dress like the men who'd sailed the seas over two hundred years ago was no concern of hers, either.

“Your face contorts with much confusion, madam. Is there something else you would know of me?”

“I know your name….”

Her words trailed off when she saw the unmistakable black and white stripes of the lighthouse not too far in the distance. They were almost home, thank God.

“I don't need to know anything more about you, Mr. Farrell, especially since we'll be parting company as soon as we reach the harbor.”

“Perhaps I choose to know more of you.”

“Look. I gave you a ride home, and I have no intention of giving you anything else. When we get to the marina, you're going in one direction, and Casey and I are going in the other.”

“I beg to differ with you, madam—”

“Kate,” she interrupted. “My name's Kate, not madam, and you can disagree all you want, but I
want no further association with you.”

“I will see you home,” he said adamantly. “A woman—especially one dressed in only a corset—has no business walking on the streets alone.”

Kate frowned at his words.
Corset?
What was he talking about? “This is a
swimsuit
, Mr. Farrell, and no one will look twice at me when I walk home.”

“Then they are fools. I would look more than twice—
Kate
.”

“You're wasting your flattery on me. I'm not interested in men like you.”

He grinned. “That is not the truth, madam. Your eyes betray you.”

Kate laughed. “You'll soon know just how honest I am, Mr. Farrell. We'll be in the harbor in a few minutes, and then Casey and I will turn our backs on you and walk away. It will be quite easy to leave you, and even easier to forget you.”