Scarlet Butterfly (7 page)

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” Carolina said. “May I try it?”

“Sure, come inside.” He lifted the net and made room for her as she slipped inside. “You pull the edge of the hammock out and sit in the middle.”

But Carolina was too light and the hemp was too strong. Every time she tried to lie down, the edges simply closed over her as if she were a fish caught inside a net.

“Here, let me sit beside you and hold it open.”

Sean sat. That was a mistake. He so outweighed her that she tumbled into his waiting arms as if it had all been planned.

“Whoa!”

They were both snarled in the swinging net.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to separate herself by twisting in Sean’s arms. But the more they struggled, the more entangled they became. Sean’s fingers inadvertently found Carolina’s ticklish spot. She jerked and began to laugh. It was as if her earlier dream of swinging in a hammock with a lover had come true. Sean was silent for a moment; then, as she began tickling him back, his laughter joined hers.

“All right, already,” she heard him say. “You’ve got me at your mercy. What is this, death by tickling?”

“You started it.”

Hands touched, legs grazed. The hammock turned, finally dumping them unceremoniously to the deck, his strong body landing first, cushioning the blow as she landed on top.

“Are you all right?” he asked from his position beneath her, his smile quickly replaced by a scowl.

“I think so. You don’t have to be ashamed of having fun. You have a nice laugh, Sean Rogan. I don’t think you laugh much.”

There was a breathlessness in her voice.

“I don’t have much to laugh about.”

“But of course you do. You have this wonderful boat, and the freedom to live any way you choose, to be—to be here. You can’t know what that means.”

Freedom was important to her. He didn’t yet know why, but he could understand. And she was right—the boat
was
important, not because it was his, but because it had been wounded and he’d given it life again. There was something wounded about Carolina Evans too.

“You’re here too,” he said, his eyes searching for something that he couldn’t name.

“Yes, I am. What happened to your face?” She couldn’t stop her fingertips from tracing the scar that ran from his hairline to his eyebrow and to the corner of his frowning eyes.

“I slipped through a hole on deck and caught a splinter as I fell.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Like hell.”

“You curse a lot, don’t you?”

“I guess you’re not used to hearing such language from the men you know.”

“No, the men I know are more … refined, they’d say. I’d call it more controlled. They don’t allow their emotions to show quite so strongly as you do.”

“What makes you think I let my emotions show?”

She allowed a playful smile to part her lips. He could see her small pink tongue and white teeth.

“Don’t you?” she asked, and gave a wiggle to her body, the body that was pressing against the part of his anatomy that continued to defy his control. “I’d say your emotions are very strong, and very obvious.”

With a growl, he came to his feet, bringing her with him. “Stop it, witch, or you’re liable to find out how strong I really am.”

“I think, Captain Rogan, that I might like discovering the extent of your strength.”

He held her arms, pushing her away as he took a deep, calming breath. “No, Carolina. And you’d do well not to tempt me. You don’t even know me. I’m not what you think. I“m not some safe haven in the storm. I hurt people; that’s why I prefer inanimate objects that don’t resist my control.”

“ ‘Hurt people’? I think you’re the one who’s been hurt. Now you’re a recluse, Rogan, a rough, quiet man who avoids people. But you’re not violent. Ida, the woman at the inn, told me how kind you are, how you contribute money to the town, how much they depend on you.”

“I’m just buying my privacy. That’s self-defense, not kindness. I can’t imagine why Ida told you anything. She knows better.” His moment of lightness was gone. “Let’s eat, before the stew burns.” He deftly turned her around and pushed her toward the galley.

Carolina didn’t think she was hungry, but after she tasted the first sip she realized how wrong she was. For the first time in a long time, she relished the food she was eating.

“You know I can’t take your bed,” she said.

“Well, I suppose you could share it with me.”

She studied him carefully. “I think I would, but I don’t believe you really mean that.”

“You’re right, Carolina Evans. So I’m going to sleep on deck. But meanwhile we’re going to talk. You know that I’m an honorable hermit with money. I think it’s time I knew about you. Tell me your story.”

He was right. She owed him the truth. If, after hearing it, he dumped her in the river, it was probably what she deserved. Lord knew she’d thought about jumping in enough times herself.

“All right. As you already know, I’ve been ill. I was always small, frail, but they never found anything wrong. If I had a cold, it turned into pneumonia. If I skinned my knee, it got infected. I missed a lot of school as a child.”

“So, you weren’t strong. That happens. Your mother must have worried about you.”

“My mother died when I was six. Afterward my father kept me pretty close. If I didn’t come in contact with sick children, I might stay healthy, was his philosophy. There were nurses, housekeepers, tutors. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I began to seriously question my isolation.”

“What was wrong with you?”

“There was nothing wrong. I finally figured it out and forced my father to agree. At last he relented and said that I could attend college, so long as it was the local one and I lived at home. And I did, for over two years. Then I turned rebel. I ran away.”

“I can understand that. Nobody wants to be totally controlled. But even I can tell that you aren’t very strong.”

“No, you don’t understand. I rebelled because I didn’t believe that I was really sick when I was growing up, no more than any other child. He’d lied to me—out of fear, I think. My mother was a weak woman with many problems, and after she died he thought I should be protected.”

“So you grew up and ran away. Why?”

“I wanted to find my own way, make a life for myself. He refused to let me go. But I had my own money, the interest on a trust fund from my mother. I applied to Southern Methodist University, and when I was accepted, I simply packed my bags, wrote a note for my father, and left. The next day he was in Dallas trying to take me home.”

“What is your father, a tyrant?”

“No, not really. He’s just convinced that he’s right, like most attorneys who always win.”

“An attorney? Damn! I’m convinced that the worst people on the face of the earth are lawyers.”

“Oh? Do you have someone in your family who’s an attorney?”

“Yes, me.”

It was Carolina’s turn to groan. Of all the professions in the world, her sea captain would have to be an attorney, like her father. But that was where the similarities ended. Her father would never be caught dead in a pair of worn shorts on a boat moored in the middle of a marsh. No, their professions might be the same, but that was all.

“Go on,” Rogan said, filling their glasses with more ice and sweet tea. “You ran away from home and went to college. What was wrong with that? Did you run off with a guy?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“It was toward the end of my senior year when I got into trouble. I passed out, and my friend called my father, who accused him of not taking care of me—as he’d been paid to do. This time I had to go home.”

“Your father paid someone to look after you, and he got you in trouble? No wonder you didn’t want to marry him.”

Carolina took a big sip of tea as she considered his question. Then she began to laugh. “Marry him? You thought—?” She laughed again, then turned serious. “No, Rogan, this time I really was sick. My passing out started with a seizure. All those years, when Father told me I was too sick to live a normal life, I wasn’t. Then, when I finally broke away, all his predictions came true.”

“How? What happened?”

He looked at her closely, touching the feathery ends of her short hair, and lifted his eyebrows. “Your head really has been shaved.” His fingertips found the scar at the base of her skull and paused.

“No—well, yes, I had surgery. But that wasn’t the only reason I lost my hair. They finally found out that I had a kind of tumor, a cyst on my pituitary gland that messed up my thyroid, my hormones, all my controls. First they operated. Then came the radiation therapy.”

“And? Are you all right now?” He knew his voice was harsh, that he was ordering her to say she was all right. As he waited, he realized that he had no right to be angry or to care. But he did, and that shocked him.

“They think so, with medication,” she whispered. “I’ll probably never be more than five feet two inches
tall. And if I weigh more than a hundred pounds, I’ll be overweight. But otherwise, I’ll probably be fine.”

“Damn!”

“Damn!” the parrot repeated. Somewhere in the cabin below there was a loud thump, and the ship rocked as if a barrel had rolled from one side of it to the other.

“There it goes again,” Sean said, striding out of the galley and into the cabin below. “Poltergeists.”

Carolina sat in the galley, the small lamp casting long shadows across the small room. She imagined her great-grandmother six times removed, sitting in the same galley with Jacob. She didn’t know how Sean would feel when he learned that over a hundred years earlier, their ancestors must have been lovers. Did that mean she and Rogan were related? Then she decided it didn’t matter.

Carolina knew little about the first Carolina because she’d died shortly after her child was born. To their child, Jacob had been a stern, unbending man. The journals had clearly shown him to be dictatorial and possessive—something, she’d decided, like her own father.

“Nothing down there. There never is,” Rogan said as he entered the galley once more. “Sounds, movement, tobacco smoke—I don’t know.”

“Tobacco smoke? Have you given any thought to the possibility that there might be somebody here, watching?”

Everything went still. The ship seemed to pause in mid-rock. Bully hushed. For a moment neither Sean nor Carolina could hear the other breathe.

“There’s nobody along this river for ten miles, other than Harry upstream who brings me fish and
old Lucy who sends me fried pies. Nobody is watching us, I’m certain!”

This time the boat rocked, and Bully cried out in alarm.

“And furthermore, I think it’s time that you told me the real truth. Why are you here?”

“There is no other reason, at least not one I’m sure of, Rogan. During the time I was sick I discovered the journal in my father’s library. I became fascinated with it. My father explained that my mother had read the journal and that after learning Carolina was an ancestor, she’d named me for her. I can’t explain why I came, but I think maybe it was because I really was sent for.”

Sean couldn’t conceal his amazement. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” When she nodded, he asked, “By whom and for what reason?”

“I don’t know. Why did you come here? Why did you raise the ship? How did we come to be together, here, in this time? Almost a hundred and fifty years later, Rogan and Carolina together again?”

“I’m not buying that, Goldilocks. You’re here, but not for long. I don’t know anything about Jacob Rogan and don’t want to. The Rogans have spent the best parts of their lives reliving past glories and trying to capture new ones. I put that behind me two years ago. I’m here, and I’m living my life in this minute. I don’t have much use for fate. I don’t believe in the Ouija board, and fortune-tellers are only for the fanciful who want an excuse for failure. I’ll take care of me and my future, and I’ll do it alone.”

He looked so pained, so desperate. She understood his need for freedom. “I know; I’ll be leaving soon. I’m sorry I intruded.”

“You’re not the complication, Goldilocks. The bad guys are my loving family; and the power players, the politicians, the crooks are the complications. Now I’ve got the State of Georgia breathing down my back, claiming the
Butterfly
. And you didn’t have a thing to do with that.”

“I heard you tell Harry about their claim. How can they do that?”

“It seems there is a law about antiquities belonging to the state.”

“But the
Scarlet Butterfly
is yours.”

“I know, but without a bill of sale I really can’t prove it, and there’s a law that says any object found in navigable waters legally belongs to the state. And the St. Marys River is navigable.”

“But you said this is a lake.”

“A saltwater lake, fed by both the river and the Atlantic, which makes it part of Georgia.”

“Can’t you fight it?”

“Oh, I intend to, but I’m told that I’m not likely to win.”

“Oh, Rogan, I’m so sorry. I wish I could help. You’re welcome to my records. Carolina’s daughter’s journal refers to her father, Jacob, and the
Butterfly
.”

“You really have a journal that says Jacob Rogan owned the
Scarlet Butterfly
?”

“Not exactly. It just refers to the boat and the captain sailing the
Butterfly.
That ought to mean something.” Carolina thought about the journal for a moment and began to smile. “Hey, that has to be the answer—why I’m here. It really is fate. I was meant to come here, to bring you the journal.”

Rogan shook his head. He didn’t believe in fate. A
man made his own choices and set his own course of action. Like his brother had said, the woman was a fruitcake. Well, not a fruitcake, maybe just a disillusioned child who needed magic in her life. And, he decided, she was leaving the next day. He had to stop her fantasy before it became contagious.

“Oh, Rogan. I just remembered. The journal was in my suitcase.”

“And your suitcase is gone. So much for your being my angel of mercy.”

“But we can find it. It’s red, and it ought to be easily seen.”

“That suitcase could be caught in the swamp, the marsh, or have already washed out into the Atlantic. Thanks, but I doubt it would have helped anyway.”