Happily Ever After

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  He didn’t trust her, but even less did he trust himself.

  He couldn’t seem to think straight when he was around her. His body took over and his brain turned to mush.

  Damned Penn.

  “Ouch!”

  He hadn’t met to hurt her. His gaze jerked up. “Sorry. I know it hurts, Sophia.”

  She nodded, her eyes watering. “It’s all right,” she absolved him, “I know you must.”

  He returned to working on her palm, squeezing out the slivers as gently as he was able, unnerved by the way her pained expression made him feel.

  “You really did a number on it,” he said.

  She laughed softly, nervously perhaps.

  He’d like to say it served her right, but he couldn’t find it in himself to wish her harm. Her leg brushed his knee and his body stirred.

  Damn it.

  What was wrong with him?

  He was getting aroused just taking splinters out of her hand. The sweet, feminine scent of her teased him. The softness of her hands preoccupied him, taunting him with images of her gentle caresses. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining the pale skin beneath her bodice ... the rise and fall of her breasts... remembering the taste of her mouth.

  Her closed-mouth kiss had been far too brief, and he found himself craving the taste of her on his tongue. She had teased him only, giving him the briefest sense of what she would taste like.

  He wanted her.

  There was no denying it.

  He swallowed thickly and reached down to draw his knife from his boot, trying to ignore the heat simmering in his trousers.

  Seeing the blade flash, she cried out and jerked her hand back. “You are not going to use that on me!”

  “Actually, I am,” he said, and smiled up at her, firming his grip upon her hand.

  Both her hands flew up at his declaration, and her expression turned suddenly combative. “No, you most certainly are not!”

  Her temper was a good thing, he decided. He was far more at ease around her when she was being a spitfire. Timidness just didn’t suit her. Nor did it suit him either.

  It confused him, brought out conflicting emotions that he’d rather not deal with.

  He held his dagger in an open hand. It had been a gift from his father, and to him from his father before him. With its heavy metal handle and curved blade, he was well-aware that it seemed far too dangerous a tool to be using on her tender flesh, but it was all he had. And he was very, very adept with it.

  “It’s up to you, Sophia. Live with the splinters, or let me take them out.” He left it up to her, making no move to return to the task until she gave him leave.

  After a moment, she lowered her hands, but kept them out of his reach.

  “I’ll just use the tip,” he promised, sensing that she wanted to trust him.

  Her huge eyes slanted, and he stared into them, trying to decipher their strange color—greenish-gold at the instant, but a green so dark they were almost black... and dancing flecks of red maybe from the flame of the lantern.

  “You won’t let it go in too deep?”

  Jack blinked at her question.

  The allusion was completely lost to her, but not to him. His body hardened at the images that assaulted him—his body poised over hers, coaxing her to open for him. Damn, it, he wanted to go very deep. He glanced down at his knife, then back into her wide eyes.

  She couldn’t know what he was thinking.

  Need clawed at him, and he resisted the urge to readjust his jewels because she was staring at him too intently. His body strained against his trousers, and he shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’ll … uh … only put the tip in,” he swore, and his voice sounded raw even to his own ears.

  If she happened to look down... would she understand what she saw?

  Was she as innocent as she made herself out to be?

  He wanted to know. He willed her to look, wanting to see her reaction to the need in his eyes and his full erection.

  “If it hurts,” he added, clearing his throat, “I’ll... uh ... pull out at once.” He studied her expression. She wanted to trust him, he could see that.

  Too bad he couldn’t return that trust.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise,” he swore, and winked at her. “I’ll be gentle.”

  Her brows knit. And then she took a deep breath. “Well... all right,” she relented and offered her palm once more. “But don’t push it in too hard!”

  His body hardened completely and unmistakably.

  “You ... uh ... have my word.”

  Damn, he had to stop thinking about this—that—or he was liable to slice off her hand. He swallowed hard, trying to clear the cobwebs from his suddenly musty brain.

  “Forgive me,” she said, concern coloring her voice. “I know I’m being a ninny, but it just seems so ... big!”

  Jack choked on her choice of word.

  She couldn’t possibly know what she was doing to him with no more than a simple conversation. His hands trembled.

  Or maybe she did?

  His eyes were drawn to her bodice, searching for some evidence that she shared his bawdy thoughts, but the thickness of her dress completely hid pebbled nipples.

  If he reached out to touch those lovely breasts, would her nipples be hard through the layers of her gown?

  Like the Princess and the Pea... a man’s fingers knew instinctively what lay beneath.

  His thumb itched to brush her nipple with a lover’s touch, take the supple treat into his mouth.

  He stuck the handle of his knife into his mouth while he adjusted her hand. It was a poor substitute.

  He cleared his throat, and tried to change the direction of his thoughts, reminding himself what he had caught her doing … preparing to burn the proof of her espionage. The splinters served her right.

  He peered up at her and found her staring at him, deep in thought.

  What was she thinking? Was she wondering where the telegrams were?

  She blinked down at him, her expression vulnerable. “Sophia?”

  “Yes?”

  He went back to working at her splinters. “What were you doing in the kitchen?” he asked outright.

  He must have pricked her a bit too hard. “Ow!” she exclaimed, but didn’t jerk her hand away.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, glancing up at her, and almost meant it.

  “Well...” She frowned at him. “I... ummm... well, you see... I was...”

  She was searching for an excuse.

  He tried to sound casual, though he was anything but. “Looking for something?”

  “I suppose you might say that,” she replied, sounding a bit uneasy. He glanced up to gauge her expression and found her eyes narrowed on him.

  He watched her intently.

  “What exactly were you looking for?”

  Her cheeks turned pink again. “Actually,” she told him, averting her gaze, “I was trying to figure out how to use the oven.” She peered back at him with lifted brows as though she expected a reaction from him.

  “You were trying to figure out how to use the oven?”

  She nodded once. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Well... you see ... when I was on deck ... I couldn’t help but overhear what they were saying about the cook—Shorty is it?”

  Jack lifted a brow. “What about him?” Clever little liar.

  She smiled shyly, looking every bit the virtuous little miss, and Jack clenched his jaw. “Well, when I heard he’d been left behind ... I thought I’d surprise everyone and cook breakfast in the morning.”

  He didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from his tone. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes.” Her smile brightened, and she seemed oblivious to his skepticism. “You see ... I truly meant it when I said I wanted to make myself useful.” She batted her lashes, looking quite pleased with herself.

  She was waiting for him to pat her on the back, he realized, and Jack just wasn’
t going to do it.

  He didn’t believe her.

  “How good of you,” he replied, and dropped her hand. “I think that’s all of ’em,” he said, and stared up at her in disbelief.

  She was either a very good little actress, or she was telling the deuced truth.

  He just couldn’t tell which.

  The evidence, however, seemed undeniable.

  For an instant, he considered pulling out the telegrams and confronting her with them, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up his poker hand. There was time enough to figure out how best to handle this. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  In the meantime, he decided, Mizz Sophia Vanderwahl was fair game—Harlan be damned. As far as Jack was concerned, with her kiss, she had declared herself available to him. If she had misrepresented herself, well then ... he sure as hell wasn’t about to feel the least bit guilty over taking what she willingly offered.

  And if she was telling the truth... he still felt not one iota of loyalty to Penn. He had no respect for the man, so why should he honor the man’s engagement?

  Either way, he knew only one thing for certain... Sophia Vanderwahl had the damnable most beautiful mouth he had ever sampled.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jack awoke to the smell of bread baking. The tantalizing scent drifted into his cabin, teasing him out of bed. Like a zombie, he made his way into the mess hall, and true to her word, he found Sophie fast at work in the kitchen, and his crew salivating mindlessly at her skirts—and not entirely over the prospect of food.

  He smiled at the sight she presented, adorably unkempt, skirts mussed and hair escaping pins as she labored diligently despite the distraction of thirty-five men hounding her heels. He would have stepped in, but she handled them easily enough, putting them to work—Randall gathering silverware and Kell delivering plates, Pete in charge of forming a line for those who had already received their dishes. For their efforts she gave them a smile that endeared her to one and all.

  But despite Sophia Vanderwahl’s killer smile, they should have all stayed in bed.

  The bread turned out as black as the oven itself and the smoked meat as ashy as carbonized paper.

  Peeling away the charred layers of his breakfast, Jack took a glance around the room. It was like looking into a mirror with thirty-some faces—every expression the same. No one wanted to hurt Sophie’s feelings, but the question was the same in every gaze.

  How could anyone screw up something so simple?

  Sophie stood over them, looking as uncertain as a newlywed bride with honeymoon jitters. When no one spoke up, she finally took her own plate and sat in the only empty seat remaining in the mess hall... right in front of Jack, next to Kell.

  “I think it is a little burnt,” she told Kell as she sat.

  Kell smiled uncomfortably and nodded, pushing a rock-hard piece of loaf into his mouth. “It’s fine,” he told her, his words muffled by the ungodly crunch.

  As they watched, he crunched down on his food, and Jack thought maybe it hurt him to chew, because he winced with every bite.

  Sophia looked at him then, apologizing with those honey-colored eyes that left him dazed every time he stopped to look into them.

  “The fire burned a little too high,” she explained, and shrugged nervously. “I didn’t realize ... until they were already quite ... done.”

  Jack coughed.

  Overdone, he wanted to say.

  He lifted up a piece of incinerated ham and put it into his mouth. It tasted like ash, and he resisted the urge to spit it back out. She was watching him much too intently, and the look in her eyes told him that she really had tried, that it seemed to matter how he responded.

  Unsure why it was important to him that her feelings weren’t hurt, he swallowed, wincing as a jagged piece of ham tried to make its way down his parched throat. He attempted a smile for her, and closed his mouth when he looked at Kell’s ash-blackened teeth.

  “It’s quite ... good,” Kell offered politely, nodding just a little too enthusiastically.

  Jack stifled his laughter.

  Kell was a poor liar, he decided, but a better man than Jack was, because Jack couldn’t seem to muster the words to give her the assurances she seemed to need.

  Sophie’s brows lifted when she saw Kell’s teeth ... and the black inside his lips... and thank God she broke the ice with a horrified little squeal.

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed, dropping her own bread and slapping a hand over her mouth. “Tell me you aren’t missing teeth because of me!”

  It sure as hell looked like it, and it sounded that way as well.

  Kell looked panicked for an instant, his eyes going wide as he shoved a finger into his mouth to feel for missing or broken teeth. There were none, and his relief at finding them intact was evident in his gasp of relief.

  “Damn!” he said, casting an uneasy glance at Jack. “Scared me for a sec.”

  Sophie turned to Jack then, pursing her lips and trying not to laugh.

  Jack grinned at her, knowing his smile would be as flattering as Kell’s, and was rewarded with her sparkling laughter. The sound of it sent a shudder of desire through him.

  Christ, she wasn’t merely lovely when she laughed, she was dazzling. Her laughter glistened even in her eyes. He wasn’t quite prepared for the way it affected him and he found himself completely disarmed.

  Even Kell seemed to hold his breath until the spell of laughter subsided, and then he turned to meet Jack’s gaze, and Jack groaned inwardly, recognizing the instant infatuation in his friend’s eyes.

  Damn, but she was going to be trouble ... in more ways than one.

  And Jack was in trouble too, if she could win over his motley crew with a lousy as hell breakfast like that!

  Judging by the expressions on all of their faces, she’d somehow done exactly that.

  God bless the irksome wench.

  Sophie didn’t try to fool herself. She knew her first attempt at cooking had been a complete disaster, but it obviously had not gone unappreciated. The crew either felt terribly sorry for her, or they had taken her gesture for what it was ... a hand in friendship.

  In either case, they seemed to have adopted her as one of their own—Kell in particular.

  Sophie rather liked him.

  The tall, dark-haired giant was a Bohemian of sorts. His shoulder-length hair was bound at the nape like some old-time pirate’s, and his dress, as well, was reminiscent of another age. His mirth never faded from his bright blue eyes, and his patience was remarkable. For that Sophie was indebted to him.

  Without having been asked, he had taken the time to show her how the stove worked so that she might do better with her next effort. And then he’d given her a tour of the ship. She had only to ask about the cannons, and he determined to show her how they worked.

  “Are you certain it’s no trouble?” she asked, afraid to become an inconvenience. He had spent practically all afternoon amusing her, and she was beginning to feel guilty about monopolizing his attention. She knew he had work to attend to.

  “No trouble at all,” he assured, and winked, then drew her aside to watch from a safe distance as he properly packed the cannon.

  Sophie clutched her hands together as she watched him work. The prospect of actually seeing the gun go off left her with a strange sense of anticipation—like a child waiting for a display of fireworks.

  “You say this was a vessel used for exploration?”

  “Yep,” he told her. “Primarily by topographers.”

  Sophie’s brows knit. “Why would a topographer need cannons, I wonder.”

  He stopped what he was doing to answer her question. “It’s an old ship, Miss Vanderwahl. The canons were their sole means of protection on highly ungovernable seas.”

  “Please call me Sophie!”

  He nodded. “All right, Sophie,” he replied warmly.

  The crew on deck began to gather around them, watching as well, curiosity snatching their attention.

&
nbsp; “They are so tiny!” she declared, speaking of the cannons. “Why so little?”

  “She was never meant to be a warship,” Kell disclosed. “No reason for heavy artillery.”

  Her brows knit as she watched Kell struggle with the preparations. “Quite a tedious process!”

  “Sometimes it was,” he agreed. And then he finished at last and lit the fuse. “Ready?”

  Sophie nodded excitedly.

  He backed away from the cannon and took her by the shoulders, pulling her out of harm’s way.

  The cannon went off with an explosion that nearly left her deaf.

  “Oh, my!” Sophie exclaimed.

  The cannonball landed in the ocean with a lame splash, not more than fifty yards from where they were.

  Sophie laughed. “How pitiful!”

  Kell nodded. “Yep, and at this point, the ships are crashing,” he told her, donning his storyteller’s cap. “The crew is off and running to grab their real guns...

  Sophie grinned at his boyish gestures. He brandished his finger at her as though it were a pistol.

  “No swords?” she asked.

  “Nope, no swords,” he said. “Guns ...” He stopped and winked at her. “Or maybe a few poison arrows... we’re going into savage country,” he reminded her. “Wanna try the cannon?” he asked abruptly.

  Sophie blinked in surprise. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. C’mere, I’ll teach you how.”

  Sophie followed him. It was, after all, just a baby cannon, hardly much bigger than a rifle. What harm could possibly come of it?

  Kell walked her through the entire process, and she felt almost like a pirate standing beside him, packing the powder to his boyish utterances. “All right, here they come!” he encouraged. And, “Hurry ... they’re almost upon us!”

  Never mind that this wasn’t a pirate ship at all, it felt dangerously exciting to play along.

  The crew joined Kell in his banter, and Sophie never felt so much a comrade in arms. She giggled as she rushed her preparations, trying to arm the ship before they could be overtaken by their imaginary foes.