Once a Pirate

by Susan Grant

  “A second chance,” Carly whispered as the revelation sank in.

  “We’ll make it legal this time.” He fingered the place where she’d worn the ring. “As soon as I can walk.”

  The thought hit her all at once. “You said you couldn’t remember much. What if you’re married?”

  He pressed her hand to his lips. “My father has telephoned several times. He assures me there are no wives. There was a fiancée several years ago, but she’s history.”

  She laughed with the odd sound of his modern speech.

  “You’ll be a duchess someday. Are you up to that? I know how you feel about aristocrats.”

  “Anything, Andrew. Anywhere. As long as I can be with you.”

  His dimples deepened. “I promised you forever, Carly.”

  Her lips caught his words. She shuddered with the passion in his kiss, losing herself in the magic, the miracle, the mystery of it all. Somehow, between life and death, between heaven and earth, she’d found a love transcending time itself.

  Epilogue

  Seven Years Later

  Carly leaned forward as Chris Eaton, Spencer Aviation’s chief pilot, rolled the helicopter into a bank for one last sweeping pass over the island.

  “There he is!” Carly sang out, drawing the children close. “There’s Daddy. See him? He’s coming out of the water now.”

  The children wriggled out of their seat belts and scrambled onto her lap. Their soft, fragrant hair brushed Carly’s cheek as the three of them pressed their faces to the Plexiglas.

  Andrew had thrown off his scuba gear and was jogging toward the landing site, waving vigorously at the helicopter. He’d sounded positively triumphant when he’d telephoned her at dawn the day before.

  Almost to the point of obsession, he’d been searching for the wreck of the Phoenix for years, determined to find it. Now, he hoped, he had.

  “I see him now!” squealed five-year-old Amanda.

  Clearly perturbed that his little sister—who was an entire year younger—had spotted his father first, Theo demanded, “Mandy, where?”

  “There.”

  Theo’s Spencer-blue eyes lit up. “I see him!”

  Except for a sprinkling of freckles on their noses, all three of Carly and Andrew’s children resembled their father. After their youngest, eighteen-month-old Rose, had been born, yet another replica of Andrew, Carly told her husband that his Spencer genes had employed bully tactics to remain dominant, marching over her DNA and clubbing her Callahan genes into submission.

  “I bet Daddy missed you a whole lot,” Carly said.” ‘Cause we missed him, right?”

  “Yes!” they chorused.

  Carly deftly deflected their bony knees and elbows. Five months into her pregnancy, her stomach was still on the tender side. She hadn’t been showing last month when Andrew headed to western Africa from his family’s estate, where they were spending the summer. But she sure was now.

  “Seen enough, Carly? Ready to go on in?” Chris asked from the front seat. With his prematurely gray hair and easy grin, Carly figured he had to be one of Cuddy Egan’s descendants.

  “Ready.” She gave him a thumbs-up. She was on maternity leave from her part-time flying job in the Navy Reserve, and it felt great getting back in the air, even if it was only as a passenger.

  She lifted Amanda off her lap and buckled her in. “You, too, Theo. Strap in.”

  Carly leaned back against the leather headrest as the helicopter descended. The brief flyby of the tropical island had brought back many memories. Memories that only she and Andrew shared—a past life and love that would forever remain their secret.

  Gusts from the blades whirled up a cloud of sand. The humid air was turbulent, but the children giggled in delight. They seemed unaffected by two exhausting days of travel—an airline flight from Heathrow to Athens, a charter to an overnight in São Tomé, and then one of the company helicopters to the island.

  With a solid thunk, they landed. The blades slowed with a gradually decreasing whine. Chris slid his sunglasses into his hair and proceeded to shut the helicopter down.

  Carly tossed an assortment of toys, empty containers of apple juice, and a paperback into her voluminous straw bag. Slipping off her strappy sandals, she dropped them in, too. “Okay, kiddos. Let’s go see Daddy.”

  The children burst past the door and sprinted toward Andrew. Sunlight flashed off their coltish limbs and their wavy chestnut-colored hair.

  Wearing only a pair of baggy cutoff khakis and an enviable suntan, Andrew propped his fists on his hips and waited for the children to reach him.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  He scooped up Amanda and spun her around. “How are you, beautiful? I missed you!” Grabbing Theo on the second pass, Andrew hugged them close. “I missed you, too, little man.”

  Carly walked over the pebbly sand to her husband. The trades ruffled her shoulder-length layered hair, and her tomato-red sundress stretched deliciously tight across her expanding bosom. Granted, she and Andrew loved children, but graduating into a B-cup-size bra by the time Rose was born had Carly longing for at least a half dozen more.

  The children scampered off to watch the divers working near the turquoise water. Andrew hurried toward her, a look of boyish excitement on his face. It looked as though he hadn’t bothered to shave in days, and his hair, which had grown longer than he usually wore it, curled defiantly at the back of his neck. Except for the fine lines etched around his mouth and eyes, and a hint of gray at his temples, he looked exactly as he had on the Phoenix.

  One hundred and eighty years ago.

  Andrew tucked her into his embrace and kissed her. “Hello, love,” he said in his deep, rich voice.

  Carly twined her arms over his sun-warmed shoulders and inhaled deeply. “Missed you.”

  “It was a long trip,” he said, smoothing one hand over her belly. “Feel all right?”

  “A bit tired. São Tomé is beautiful.”

  “How’s my baby Rose?”

  “She’s great. Your parents are busy spoiling her.”

  “The usual,” he said.

  Carly laughed. “Rosie misses you. We all did.”

  A tender brush of his lips over hers told her he’d felt the same. “We raised the chest yesterday,” he said. “It’s intact.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “When can we open it?”

  “Now.” He took her by the hand, leading her to the water’s edge, where Theo and Amanda were romping over the sand on a caffeine high fueled by the Cokes the divers had given them.

  Grabbing them both by the waistbands of their shorts, Andrew plucked them off their feet. “Come on, you two. Treasure time.”

  They squealed and pedaled their legs faster. Andrew dumped them on a blanket spread over the cool, shady sand under a tarp. Yet unopened, the rusted chest was propped on a platform, surrounded by the various tools that had been used to unlock it.

  Theo’s eyes widened. “Is it really a treasure chest, Daddy?”

  “It certainly is.”

  “Did a pirate man leave it here a long time ago?” asked Amanda. Popping her thumb back into her mouth, she contemplated her father with a gaze that seemed to hold wisdom far beyond her years.

  Andrew winked at Carly. “Aye. Once, a pirate and his fair maiden left it here long ago.”

  Carly gave a soft laugh. He hadn’t used that word in years.

  Taking her hand in his, he asked, “Ready, love?”

  Her heart thundered, and her skin felt flushed. “I’m so nervous. I think this is it.”

  “I do, too.”

  Bits of rust floated like snowflakes as he lifted the lid. Fingers twined, they leaned forward.

  Carly gasped.

  Andrew breathed words of astonishment.

  Nestled in a nest of age-blackened gold coins was a sapphire the size of a small egg. And next to the jewel sat the most amazing thing of all. A Glock 26 handgun.

  That evening, Carly crouched between Theo and Am
anda in one of the two tents Andrew had erected on the beach. “Isn’t this exciting? We’re camping next to the lagoon. First thing in the morning, we’ll go swimming.”

  Amanda’s eyes were already closed, and Theo’s were halfway there. Carly kissed them on their soft little mouths, then their silky heads. “Love you. If you need me or Daddy in the night, remember we’re right next door.”

  They nodded drowsily. She tucked the quilt over their legs and backed out of the tent. In the moonlit darkness, she felt Andrew’s arms come around her from behind.

  She leaned into him. “Hi, sweetheart.” He smelled faintly of beer and cigars, having shared briefly in the divers’ celebration before returning to the tents.

  Pressing his lips to the side of her throat, he caressed her stomach with his palms, so tenderly, the way he’d done when she’d carried Theo, Amanda, and Rose.

  A meteorite arced across the indigo sky, trailing a frothy tail of stardust in its wake.

  “A shooting star,” they chorused in hushed voices.

  “Make a wish,” Andrew said.

  Carly squeezed her eyes shut then said, “Your turn.”

  “I already have.” He turned her to face him, holding her close. “The same one over and over.”

  The moon rose higher. The sea hissed with the ebbing tide as night birds flitted overhead. Cradling their unborn child between them, they clung to each other as the moment lingered, stretched out, the wheels of time grinding inexorably forward to the future they both welcomed.

  “I love you,” she whispered, goose bumps prickling her arms. “I’ve always loved you.”

  Andrew settled his mouth over hers, kissing her with an intoxicating mix of passion and familiarity, a longtime lover’s kiss, a kiss that spoke of respect, of trust.

  Of destiny.

  Exhaling slowly, he drew back and fingered the top button of her dress. She smiled knowingly, then put her hand in his.

  “Come, Aphrodite,” he said, leading her toward the lagoon. “I want to see you in the moonlight.”