Happily Ever After

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  Shock rippled through her as she stared at the unusual piece of jewelry.

  It was quite unlike any other ring she had ever seen—a rare design. A hieroglyphic eye, with a single overlarge multifaceted ruby pupil winking out at her. The sides were etched, but not so finely that it seemed inappropriate for a man to wear. The filigree was reminiscent of ancient scrolls, and the ring, indeed, was old.

  Anger crept up her spine.

  The thing was, this was not the first time Sophie had seen this particular ring.

  Sophie had first noticed it in an old shop. She had been out with her mother when they had stumbled on the novelty. She’d purchased it for Harlan before his first trip to the Yucatan, thinking he would like it to remember her by.

  Knowing it was there, she turned the ring to look for an inscription, and found the underbelly had been brushed until it shone a brighter silver than the rest. Gone. Eradicated. Whatever had been written there was lost in the vigorous buffing, but Sophie knew what words had been engraved there: For Harlan with love.

  She stood up, her face burning with sudden rage, and quickly thrust the hem of her shirt into her pants.

  It wasn’t as though she were angry on Harlan’s behalf because he deserved anything that came to him, but she certainly had no love for thieves!

  She didn’t much care what she looked like at the instant, and didn’t care if he was avoiding her. Someone had to answer for this! She had no idea how Shorty had come by it, but Sophie was certain it wasn’t by honorable means. And there was no chance it was merely a good likeness. Ready to do battle to get answers if she must, she went in search of Jack.

  He wasn’t in a good mood.

  In fact, he was in a downright rotten mood, and it was getting worse by the instant.

  His shoulders were stiff and his body tense, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie. Every time he closed his eyes, her silhouette materialized before him, beautiful and sensuous, moving like ocean waves under a sultry moon. He tried to block the vision, but her soft cries filled his ears, tormenting him.

  The echo plagued him incessantly.

  He hadn’t been able to face her since that night, because if he did, he was bound to take her into his arms—to hell with Penn—and kiss the fool out of her.

  He could no longer deny it; he wanted to make love to her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. What wouldn’t he give for just a single night in her arms... to hear her cry out his name in the throes of her pleasure. She was both curious and passionate—full of life—every man’s most fervent dream.

  The taste of her lingered on his lips, tempting him... driving him to distraction.

  If she would allow it, he would show her everything—share all that he had—all that he was.

  He wanted Sophie at his side while he muddied his hands in the dirt. He wanted her to be there when he made his greatest discoveries, wanted to jump with joy over them with her in his arms. He wanted to lift her up and carry her to their bed in celebration. He wanted her with him always.

  And for the first time in his life, he thought of children. Could he be a good father with the life and career he had chosen?

  He wanted to try.

  He imagined a little girl... like Sophie... with wayward curls and a button nose... with dirty hands and a pristine white dress... pink ribbons falling out of her hair and a joyful smile on her face.

  Muttering beneath his breath, he tossed down his clipboard and supply list, his mood spiraling downward. He was never going to get through this inventory with these thoughts bouncing round his head—ricocheting like rubber bullets off his skull.

  They were driving him insane. Hunger left him weak. Thoughts of Sophie made him hungrier. And Kell’s relentless smirk was beginning to get under his skin.

  ‘You’ve got it bad,” Kell said to him, and chuckled.

  Jack shot him a cutting glance, but said nothing.

  What was there to say? He did have it bad. He wanted something he couldn’t have.

  “Tell her,” Kell suggested.

  Jack raked a hand through his hair and shrugged. He gave Kell a harried glance. “Why bother?”

  Sophie was engaged to be married to the only man Jack had ever detested. Harlan was more her kind. He came from her world. Jack didn’t have the same things to offer: If she wanted high society and prestige, he didn’t have a chance of fulfilling those needs. If she needed a conventional home, he wasn’t even sure what the hell that was. He and his father had pretty much fended for themselves after his mother’s death.

  The one thing Jack did have to hold up as an example was that his father had loved him unconditionally, and Jack wasn’t the least bit ashamed to say he loved him back just the same. His father had given him everything—even the courage to roll up his sleeves and fight for the things he valued in life. It had been his father who had encouraged his education, and his father who had taken on every opposition to enroll him in Boston’s most prestigious university. He’d taught Jack to fight for the things he wanted, and to stand on his integrity, and that was the crux of the problem.

  Every last bone and fiber in his body wanted to fight for the woman he loved—damn it, yes, he was in love with her! But everything he knew about integrity said he should walk away before it was too late—before he caused her pain. She wasn’t his to love. She was promised to another man, and it didn’t matter that Jack didn’t like the bastard. It didn’t matter that Jack thought he was a miserable son of a weasel. What mattered was that Sophie had already made her choice, and Jack would be the worst kind of rat to encourage her to fall in love with him.

  And he thought he could: He could see it in her eyes. He could hear it in her wistful sighs when she looked at him... or maybe the sighs were his own.

  Damn, he couldn’t tell.

  “You can’t avoid her forever,” Kell intruded on his thoughts. At the instant, he didn’t much appreciate his buddy’s advice.

  “The hell I can’t!”

  “Look,” Kell argued, “you’re stuck with her from now until the time you deliver her to Penn.”

  “Yeah, well...” Jack’s mood wasn’t in the least danger of improving over that remark. “Thanks for pointing that out.”

  “You made her a deal,” Kell continued, ignoring his sarcasm, “and even if you didn’t, it’s not like you can just take her off the ship in Mexico and point her in the right direction, and say go. I know you, Jack, and you aren’t the kind of man who would let a woman fend for herself. Even if you weren’t headed to the same damned place she was, you would have delivered her there anyway— whether you liked her boyfriend or not.”

  It was true, damn it.

  Even if Jack didn’t care anything about her—and he did—he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t know she’d gotten to her destination safely. He felt responsible for her now. He’d accepted her money, and he’d allowed her to leave the safety of her home and surroundings, and he was responsible for her—at least until he handed her over to someone who could look after her just as well.

  And that thought left another sour taste in his mouth.

  Penn was a lazy, self-aggrandizing mooch. If he cared for Sophie as much he cared for his life’s work, she’d be lucky not to suffocate in her tent if it happened to fall down on her, because Penn wouldn’t lift a finger to help her. He swore he’d kill the son of a bitch if he let anything happen to Sophie.

  “Any way you look at it, Jack, you’ve got another week or so to spend with her, so you’d better find a way to deal with whatever it is you’re dealing with.”

  A week wasn’t nearly enough time.

  His gut wrenched at the reminder.

  No more than five more days and she’d be gone from his life completely. The most he could hope for would be to catch a glimpse of her with Penn now and again—while she remained on site. After that... once she returned to Boston, as she would inevitably... what then?

  The thought that he might never see
her again made him quite literally and physically ill.

  “I say you tell her the truth.”

  Leave it to Kell to call it as it were.

  Jack hadn’t told Kell a damned thing about what he was feeling, but he didn’t bother to deny it. Much as he hated to admit it, sometimes Kell knew him better than Jack even knew himself. At times it annoyed the devil out of him.

  As it did now.

  Kell seemed to be studying him. “You don’t still believe she’s spying for Penn, do you?”

  It would certainly make things easier if she were. Because then he could tell her to take a long walk off a very short pier. He didn’t answer, didn’t want to.

  “We’re through here for today,” he told Kell, and began to replace the tarp over their supplies. They would need to procure a few more items once they reached port and then hire a guide, but otherwise everything was pretty much in order. “Grab the other end of this and tie it down, will ya.”

  Kell shook his head. “Stubborn bastard. You’re going to lose her.”

  He never had her to begin with.

  Jack shot him a glance. “Someone put those telegrams into the stove to be burned,” he reminded Kell. “They didn’t just magically appear there. If you have a better explanation as to how they got there I’d like to hear it.”

  Kell shrugged, then shook his head, at an obvious loss for explanations. Without another word, he began to batten down the tarp. Jack secured his end, then lifted up his clipboard from the deck where he’d tossed it, waiting on Kell to finish.

  “Think Jose will take us out to the site again?”

  Jose Salvatore was Maria’s father, their guide on previous trips. Jack sure hoped he’d agree to take them out, but there was no telling what Maria might or might not have told him. For all Jack knew he’d be shot on sight, but the man was a damned good guide, so Jack intended to brace himself for the worst, and ask.

  When Kell was done, Jack tossed him the clipboard. “When we get into port, you can go after the items left unchecked, and I’ll face Salvatore.”

  Kell broke into a smile. “Hell’s bells!” he exclaimed, “I almost forgot about the fair Maria!” And his grin widened.

  Jack threw up a hand. “Don’t start, Kell!”

  “I’m not starting anything! You go face him,” he said, and began to chuckle, as though Jack’s choice of words had struck him as hilarious. “You and your deuced women!”

  Sophie wasn’t like the others.

  Jack rolled his eyes and turned to leave Kell to his merriment.

  He wasn’t in the mood.

  Sophie was different.

  He loved her.

  He’d been young and stupid once, but it had never really mattered. Now, finally, he’d met the one woman he truly wanted, and she was out of his reach.

  “Where is he!” he heard the object of his distraction shout from the opposite end of the ship. “Where is Jack!”

  She had come up from the mess hall and was upset about something. It wasn’t difficult to read her mood, particularly when her voice was raised several octaves above usual.

  Good, he needed an outlet.

  “He’s workin’ with Kell, Miss Vanderwahl. Over there. But... I wouldn’t disturb him if I were you.”

  “You aren’t me!” she answered flippantly. Jack couldn’t suppress a smile at her very saucy response.

  “Miss Vanderwahl!” Randall seemed determined to protect her from Jack’s present mood. “I wouldn’t—”

  “Let her go,” Jack heard someone say low.

  Jack cast a glance over his shoulder at Kell, warning him without words to keep his mouth shut.

  Kell’s brows lifted, and he shrugged. “I didn’t say a bloody thing,” he protested, but he didn’t have to. His expression said enough. He was divided between his own sordid sense of amusement and a need to protect Sophie.

  She brought that out in a man: somehow made him want to take care of her, though she seemed perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  “Stay out of it,” Jack warned him.

  “Jack!” she called out, coming nearer.

  She was ready to nail him for something. Jack could hear the attitude in the stomp of her feet as she marched across the deck.

  If anyone was going to protect her from his present mood, it was going to be Jack, but Sophie Vanderwahl didn’t need protection. No Vanderwahl he had ever met had backed down before anyone—not even before truth. Sophie was as stubborn as her father was, with a temper besides.

  And Jack was ready for her.

  Something like birds’ wings took off in his belly as he braced himself to see her.

  But he wasn’t ready: Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of her.

  class=Section29>

  CHAPTER 25

  He stood speechless.

  Christ, he didn’t know whether to laugh or throw himself overboard to put himself out of his misery.

  She came scrambling down the stairs, wearing the tightest pair of trousers he had ever seen in his whole deuced life. That beautiful little bottom wiggled deliciously as she descended, and he swallowed whatever sarcasm he’d had in store for her.

  With hands on her hips, she spun to face him, her cheeks blooming with rosy color, her amber eyes flashing with anger. She held out something in the palm of her hand. “I found this in the cook’s cabin!”

  Jack couldn’t take his eyes off her breasts... her blouse... it wasn’t quite buttoned all the way, leaving him a tantalizing view of luscious cleavage... and not just for him...

  He turned and shot Kell another glare.

  Kell shook himself out of his stupor and seemed to understand at once. He nodded, sputtering laughter. “I’m going!” he said, and he did so at once, but not without casting Sophie one last glance. He shook his head as he passed.

  Reduced to a nearly primitive state, Jack actually growled at Kell, and knew it was true in that instant that man hadn’t progressed as far as he liked to believe.

  In fact, it was only a thin thread of reason that kept him from tackling Sophie where she stood and devouring her right on deck in front of his crew.

  What in God’s name had possessed her to dress that way!

  He didn’t see what she had proffered until she thrust it before his face once more. Something bright red gleamed before his eyes, but his brain couldn’t quite wrap around the object... not while her breasts were jutting out at him beneath the threadbare shirt. If he looked hard—and he was, he couldn’t help it—he could see hardened nipples nudging against the loose fabric.

  His brain went dizzy, and his mouth immediately dry.

  “I found this in Shorty’s cabin!” she said again, her eyes narrowed at him.

  Along with the clothes she was wearing, he presumed.

  Jack tried to clear the fog of lust from his brain. “What is it?” he asked stupidly.

  “It’s a ring, of course!”

  Of course.

  Jack stared at it, blinking.

  Sun shone into the monster jewel. It sparkled fiercely before his eyes, nearly blinding him. His gaze returned to her shirt. She waved the ring at him again, recapturing his attention, and he had to pry his eyes free from the object of his desire. He reached out to take it from her, shaking himself out of his stupor. He shook his head and cleared his throat. “What would Shorty be doing with that?”

  She jerked it away before he could seize it. “That’s what I’d like to know!” she exploded once more, holding it up as proof of something, though Jack hadn’t the slightest notion what.

  His brain wasn’t working. All the blood had rushed somewhere below deck.

  “No need to shout,” he told her. “I’m not deaf.” Or blind, either ... but he was going to be if she didn’t stop flashing that deuced jewel at him!

  “I’m not shouting!” she shouted. “But if I were, I’d have every right to!” she informed him baldly. “This ring belongs to Harlan!”

  That definitely caught his a
ttention.

  He blinked at her, then at the ring, trying to understand what she was trying to tell him. “Harlan?”

  “Yes! Harlan!”

  Jack tried to comprehend what it was she was telling him. “Are you sure?” She’d found Harlan’s ring in Shorty’s cabin? He reached out, wanting a better look now.

  She jerked it away. “Of course I’m sure!” she countered, waving the monstrosity at him. “This is Harlan’s ring! I bought it for him!”

  His brows collided as he stared at the enormous ruby eye. He hadn’t seen a ruby that big in his entire life.

  “You bought that for Harlan?”

  Her eyes sparkled nearly as brightly as the jewel. “Yes. As a going-away present!” Her face turned brighter pink, but her gaze shifted away momentarily, and then back—as though she were embarrassed by the evidence of her affection for Harlan.

  She damned well ought to be. The money she had spent on that single piece of jewelry might have fed the entire Yucatan peninsula!

  “And you found it in Shorty’s cabin?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, waving it again. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me how it got there!”

  How the hell was Jack supposed to know that?

  He shook his head and tried to reach for the ring once more. This time she let him have it. Watching her expression, he tested its weight in his hand. It was solid silver, heavy. He turned the ring to check for an inscription and found it had been polished clean.

  He eyed her speculatively. “And you’re absolutely sure this is Harlan’s ring?”

  She cocked her head in challenge. “Just how many rings like that do you think exist?”

  She had a point. It was ugly as hell... and assuming the ruby was real, it wasn’t very likely there was another just like it.

  She’d found the ring in Shorty’s cabin. That fact reared up at him like a rattler’s warning. The telegrams had been hidden in the stove. It didn’t take a genius to deduce the obvious: Shorty was somehow in cahoots with Penn, and by some stroke of luck, they’d managed to leave the jackass behind. In doing so, they’d been spared whatever Penn had planned.