Wherever You Are

by Sharon Cullen

She looked at a crudely finished table and chair. Her gaze skipped to the desk then the lanterns hanging on the walls. Okay, what if she were in the eighteenth century? How’d she get here?

  She closed her eyes and massaged her temple. How? She’d been talking to Zach’s mother, Emily.

  Small pieces—snatches of conversation, impressions, feelings of deep sorrow, grief, despair, were the only things Juliana could grasp from that day. Nothing concrete, nothing that would tell her what exactly catapulted her from the Langtree’s kitchen in Kansas—twenty-first-century Kansas—to a burning ship in the eighteenth century.

  “Oh, Lord.” What was she supposed to do now?

  Find a way back.

  But how?

  Slowly, gingerly, she slid to the edge of the bed, making sure the blanket was wrapped securely around her. Black dots danced in front of her eyes and her stomach churned. The full impact of her predicament slammed into her. She was simultaneously horrified and terrified. It was too much—being flogged, possible time-travel. Do not pass out, Juliana MacKenzie. She wrapped her arms around her middle, stretching the healing skin of her back. She’d been flogged. Beaten. And the man who ordered her flogging had nursed her through a fever. At least she was pretty sure Captain Morgan had been the one who’d taken care of her.

  A vision of those large calloused hands undressing her and healing her took her by surprise. She remembered his voice calling to her, reaching out to her through the pain and the darkness. He’d been gentle and kind. Had that been Morgan or someone else?

  She couldn’t separate reality from memories because intertwined with those visions were memories of Zach’s face and Zach’s voice.

  She took several deep breaths. The pain in her back wasn’t as sharp or as cruel as before but it was still there, a stark reminder of the horror she’d lived through. She never again wanted to feel that helpless or be at the mercy of someone as sadistic as Captain Morgan. Even if he had healed her.

  Why? Why had he healed her? Why order her beaten then heal her? She vaguely remembered the woman, Isabelle, and the conversation between Isabelle and Morgan. And the disbelief when Isabelle left her in Morgan’s care. After that she was left with the fuzzy memories of Zach and the unbearable heat of her fever.

  One thing at a time, Juliana. Stand, walk around, don’t pass out. Baby steps.

  She stood slowly, pushing away from the bed but keeping one hand on it as she raised herself. It took a few moments for the room to stop spinning. She realized she was clutching the dagger again. What possessed him to hand her a weapon?

  Because you’re no match against him. Of course. She’d known from the first moment she saw him on the deck of the burning ship with rainwater running down him that he was deadly with those dark, fathomless eyes and muscular body. Just because he tended her back and nursed her wounds didn’t mean she could trust him. She’d keep the weapon close at hand.

  She pushed away from the bed and took a deep breath, testing her strength and her ability to stand upright for more than a few seconds without passing out. The room didn’t tilt and she took a shaky step forward.

  She needed clothes.

  Her hand on the wall for balance, she made her way to the foot locker at the end of the bed and lifted the lid. The hinges creaked and for a moment she had a flash of déjà vu. She paused and thought hard but all she could bring to mind was a trunk in a cluttered room and a strange mixture of fear and sadness. Frustrated, she tucked the memory away with all the other snatches of memories and knelt down.

  From out of the trunk she withdrew a large white shirt with flowing sleeves and a tie at the neck. She put it on carefully, moving slowly so as not to reopen the healing wounds. Next she pulled out a pair of pants, but they weren’t like the pants she normally wore. These would only come to a man’s knees but for her they were more like capris. They buttoned at the bottom but she left them undone. They were crudely made and hand stitched, the fabric rough. What she’d give for Levi’s right now. She stood a little too fast. Her head swam but she yanked the pants on anyway. They were too big around the waist and she had to bunch them in her hand to keep them from falling around her ankles, but at this point she’d take what she could get.

  She noticed a book tucked into the bottom of the locker. She pulled it out and flipped through it.

  February 11th, 1727—Winds calm, SSW, course 71ºS-43ºW. Fresh water low. Spotted sail to the nor’west 3 pm.

  Juliana sat back on her heels. February 11, 1727. She fingered the thick pages. This wasn’t your everyday notebook paper but yellow and stiff. Like parchment.

  She leafed through the rest of the book but found more of the same written in what had to be a quill and ink. There were blotches here and there where the ink had been too thick, a few marks that looked as if someone had sprinkled water on it. Some food stains. She touched the dried ink.

  Someone had written this, someone who ate and drank and dipped quills into an inkpot to record the day’s activities. Someone who lived hundreds of years before she was born.

  Carefully she closed the book and replaced it, more troubled than she’d been before.

  She went to the small desk where a map lay open. The shape of Florida was huge in comparison to the rest of the United States and America dropped off into nothing past Ohio.

  As if it was still uncharted.

  She brushed her hand across the map. A strange-looking tool that looked to be the forerunner of the compass lay next to it and she touched it with the tip of her finger.

  She pressed her fist against her stomach. Too many things added up for this not to be true yet how could it be?

  How did she end up in the eighteenth century?

  Chapter Five

  Patrick pointed toward the northeast. Morgan lifted his scope, searched the horizon and cursed silently. “How long has that sloop been following us?”

  “Just spotted ’im.”

  “Colors?”

  Patrick shrugged. “None we can make out, but she’s still too far away t’ tell.”

  “Best guess?”

  “Pirates.”

  That had been his guess as well. Damn. He looked up at the sails of his ship. “How long have we been becalmed?”

  “Half hour at most.”

  Morgan swiveled around and searched for the Eve, the ship Isabelle and Reed were sailing. They were a few miles away on the Adam’s aft port.

  “Make sail,” he told Patrick.

  Patrick turned around and cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Maaaaake Saaaaaiiiillll.”

  Immediately sailors began climbing the masts like ants on a stick full of honey. The huge cream-colored sails began to unfurl, from the main topgallant sail down to the foresail. From the yardarm to the blunt. Usually the sight of the wind billowing the sails and the feel of the ship lurching forward made his blood sing, but with no wind, the sails hung limp and his stomach clenched. The good news was that even if a small gust of wind came by, they would move.

  Morgan checked the position of the sloop as Patrick turned back to him and stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “’eard you’d flogged a woman.”

  “I didn’t know she was a woman.”

  One bushy eyebrow lifted. “Seems to me a man would know a woman when he saw one. She say why she was on yer ship?”

  “No.” But he had his suspicions. Suspicions he wasn’t quite ready to face.

  “You ask ’er?”

  “She doesn’t remember.”

  Patrick shot him a disbelieving glance. “You gettin’ soft in yer old age?”

  “I’m still younger than you, you bilge rat.”

  Patrick chuckled. “What you goin’ t’do with ’er?” he asked.

  Morgan sighed and leaned on the railing. That was a question he’d been circling. “I have no idea.”

  Patrick withdrew the cigarette and studied the unlit tip. “I ’ave a bad feeling about this ’un.”

  “The ship or the woman?”

 
He tossed the cigarette over the side. “Both,” he said before sauntering away.

  “Yeah,” Morgan said to himself. “Me too.”

  She drifted toward Morgan, skirting the edges, keeping to the shadows. She didn’t want to trust the man who had her flogged, but she had no choice.

  She’d harbored a deep-seated hope that when she walked out of the cabin she’d miraculously find herself in the twenty-first century. What she found instead was a ship, scruffy men and a vast ocean stretching into infinity. She couldn’t ignore her rising panic as she made her way around the edges of the ship, but she could push it away. Don’t think about it.

  She carefully stepped over a coil of rope and caught sight of Captain Morgan speaking to a very large, well-muscled man who, in her day, would fit right in with a biker gang. She hurried toward them, instinctively feeling safer now that she had Captain Morgan in her sight.

  She found a convenient place to rest out of everyone’s way, yet still close enough to Morgan that she heard the cadence of his voice.

  The man he was speaking to intrigued her. He had a full head of gray hair pulled into a braid as thick as her wrist and a heavy beard that hung to his chest. He was a bow-legged barrel of a man at least a head shorter than Morgan with a twinkle of laughter in his eyes.

  Their relaxed stance was evidence they were comfortable together.

  The gray-haired man wandered off in a rolling gait that marked all men of the sea, leaving Morgan alone. He raised the telescope to his eye and turned toward the horizon. His long hair hung down his back, the color so varied it was hard to describe. She settled on caramel.

  “You shouldn’t be up yet,” he said.

  It took a moment for her to realize he was talking to her. Had he known she was there all along? Probably. He was a suspicious man who more than likely was aware of his surroundings at all times.

  He turned to her. “How’s the back?”

  “Better.”

  “You’re pale.”

  “I’m blonde. I’m always pale.” She let her gaze wander over the water. She’d never seen the ocean before but had always pictured it as wind-tossed, the waves tipped with white foam. This was entirely different. Smooth as glass, it was inviting.

  Captain Morgan leaned against the rail and tapped the telescope on a tightly-muscled thigh. “I see you’ve raided my clothes.”

  “I hope you don’t mind.”

  He shrugged. “Isabelle probably has a trunk of women’s garments around here since this is her ship. I can try to find you some shoes.”

  She stared down at her bare feet. The bottoms were sore from climbing the rope ladder but not nearly as torn up as she thought they’d be. Had Morgan doctored her feet as well?

  He made a sound in his throat and pulled a dagger out of his boot. Automatically Juliana flinched.

  “Take it easy,” he said harshly. “Those breeches are too big for you and I can’t have them falling down around your ankles.” He marched over to a coil of rope, cut a piece off, and thrust it at her with a snarled, “Use this as a belt.”

  She quickly tied it around her waist.

  Morgan leaned an elbow on the railing and kept tapping his thigh with the telescope.

  “Why aren’t we moving?” She stepped up beside him.

  “We’re becalmed.”

  “Be-what?”

  “Dead in the water. No wind.”

  “Oh.” She looked up at the slack sails because his gaze on her was disconcerting. “How long will it last?”

  “Could be a quarter of an hour, could be weeks.”

  Weeks? Was he serious?

  The horror she felt must have been written on her face because he said, “It probably won’t be too long, though.”

  “What were you looking at?” She pointed to the telescope and he handed it to her. She focused it on a ship far away in the distance. “Friends of yours?”

  “If I had to guess, I would say pirates.”

  The blood drained from her head and she had to lean against the railing to keep her knees from buckling. How much more could she handle? Burning ships, rats, flogging. Now pirates? “How do you know they’re pirates?”

  “The sloop’s sitting high in the water for one thing, meaning it’s not carrying cargo. Only one reason why you wouldn’t carry cargo on the ocean. You’re the Navy or you’re a pirate.”

  She peered through the telescope but didn’t see any difference in the way the ship was riding the water. “Will they attack?”

  “Probably.”

  She was surprised her strong grip didn’t crush the telescope. “But they can’t move either, can they?”

  Morgan pointed to a line of clouds gathering behind the sloop. “A storm’s brewing. Hope and pray the winds don’t hit them first.”

  Juliana swallowed. “We’re sitting ducks, aren’t we?”

  He lifted an eyebrow and his silence told her all she needed to know, but before she could contemplate his answer, he threw her another zinger. “You running from something?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s the reason most people stow away though I have to admit, you’re my first female stowaway.”

  Her instincts told her to keep her time-traveling a secret. They probably didn’t burn people as witches anymore but she’d keep quiet all the same. Better to go with the stowaway story until she got her bearings.

  Morgan crossed his arms and eyed her narrowly. “You running from the law?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not the law.”

  He looked as if he didn’t believe her. “Who’s Zach?”

  She jumped, so startled to hear him say Zach’s name she was speechless for several moments. “Z-Zach?”

  “You mentioned his name a few times.”

  Somewhere in the region of her heart a steady pain took up residence. Enough that she wanted to rub at it and make it go away.

  Daniel had been right. Before her ex-husband left her, he’d hurled the accusation that she was still in love with Zach and she wouldn’t be happy with anyone else. Of course, she hadn’t believed him, but the more she thought about it, the more she wondered. Hence the reason for her call to Zach’s mother. A visit that somehow landed her here.

  “He’s no one,” she said and the pain in her heart grew nearly unbearable with the lie. Zach had been everything to her.

  Morgan studied her for so long she had to consciously tell herself not to squirm. “Keep to the upper decks,” he finally said. “It’s not safe any lower.” He walked away, leaving Juliana alone with her thoughts, a ship full of men who eyed her like a Thanksgiving feast and pirates on the horizon.

  Juliana rested her elbow on the railing, put her chin in the palm of her hand and stared out at the ocean. If she closed her mind to everything, ignored the fear that constantly nibbled at her brain, she found some inner peace in staring at the water and feeling the warm breeze stir her hair. Somewhere deep down was a feeling of contentment, of finally finding a place where she belonged.

  But that was ludicrous. Maybe she harbored an untapped love of the water but it didn’t erase the fact that she was a misplaced misfit—something she’d been all her life. Only this time she was really misplaced. Three hundred years misplaced with no idea how to get back.

  So lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t hear anyone approach and jerked when someone stopped beside her.

  “I apologize,” Thomas said.

  “For?”

  “Flogging you.”

  Seeing him this close without the veil of fear and pain, she noticed how young Thomas was, probably just past twenty. But his eyes, the gateway to his soul, spoke of a man who’d endured and witnessed what most men of her time would never experience. Probably never want to experience.

  He looked worse than she did. His nose was red and swollen and both eyes were black. “I’m sorry for breaking your nose.”

  He grimaced and gingerly touched the bridge of his nose, but the grimace turned into a smile. She was surpri
sed to see dimples appear on both cheeks. “You did a good job, eh?”

  She found herself smiling back. The action almost felt foreign.

  “How is your back?”

  “Better.”

  He snorted. “You lie, but I thank you for it. My name is Thomas.”

  “The quartermaster,” she said. “I remember.”

  “If you ever need anything, I’m at your mercy.”

  “You don’t owe me.”

  “I do.”

  “I broke your nose. We’re even.”

  “Not even close.”

  She wanted to argue but the guilt in his face and the horror of what he’d done mirrored her own and somehow, inexplicably, their combined horror forged a bond between them. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Where will you go once we reach London? Mayhap I can help.”

  Juliana bit her bottom lip. Mostly she thought of how to return to her own time and pushed away thoughts of what she’d do once they reached London. What if she couldn’t find a way back? What if she was stuck here forever?

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” she admitted.

  “Then allow me to help, my lady.”

  She was profoundly relieved to have at least one ally in this strange journey and someone she could turn to once they reached London.

  Thomas quickly straightened, his smile wiped clean by a frown. He nodded, turned on his heel and hurried off, leaving Juliana alone and confused, until she saw Morgan stalking toward her with a scowl that pulled his brows low.

  “You should get some sleep,” he said gruffly.

  She stared up at the sky, surprised to see it was nearly dark. Her body felt heavy, as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and her back ached but she had no desire to return to the small, stuffy cabin.

  “I’m fine.” She moved away from the railing. It was just her luck that she stumbled over some sailing paraphernalia. The damn stuff was strewn everywhere. Morgan’s hand shot out and grabbed her before she fell.

  “You’re exhausted,” he nearly growled. “And your bandages need changing. You’re bloodying my shirt.”

  He was right of course. She was being pigheaded when she should be grateful.