Forever

by Holt, Cheryl

  When he stood again, he asked, “Will you join me?”

  “No.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “I guess I am. Or perhaps—with me being in the shade—I’m not as warm as you.”

  He trudged over to her, and as she watched him approach, she scowled, and he inquired, “What is it? Aren’t you impressed with my masculine physique? I’ve been told I look quite dashing.”

  “I’m extremely impressed with it. As you know.”

  “You should be,” he joked. “I’m an incredible male specimen.”

  “I’ve previously mentioned how humble you are.”

  He nestled next to her, and she laid a palm on his thigh, which thrilled him. Her touch was electrifying, and it made him keen to engage in naughty activity.

  “I’ve seen the scars on your back,” she said, “but I didn’t realize you’d been maimed in the front too.”

  He glanced down at the old signs of repeated injury. He’d survived so many battles, had been wounded so many times, that he forgot the marks were present.

  “It’s nothing,” he claimed.

  She pointed to an ugly laceration on his side. “How did you get this one?”

  “Saber slash.”

  To a puckered gash on his other side. “And this one?”

  “Knife fight.”

  The same on the other side. “This?”

  “Knife fight again.”

  A cut near his neck. “And this?”

  “Whacked with an axe.”

  The most deadly one of all was a rough and ragged hole in the center of his chest.

  “And this?”

  “Pistol shot in a duel.”

  “A duel! Over what?”

  “A loose trollop with whom I shouldn’t have trifled.”

  She scoffed. “You didn’t duel over a woman. I refuse to believe it.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t always the most well-behaved fellow.”

  “I don’t think you’re well behaved now.”

  He chuckled. “You could be right.”

  “From the mutilated state of your body, I have to assume you’ve spent your whole life in combat.”

  “Only the past decade or so.”

  “Tell me the truth. Are you a pirate? Is that why you’re in this condition? Have you been boarding ships, murdering passengers, and seizing their possessions?”

  He hemmed and hawed, then admitted, “I’ve sailed with pirates and other notorious characters.”

  “Why would you?”

  “I didn’t have a choice. I was conscripted against my will, and it’s dangerous to hook up with ruthless brigands. I ended up in all sorts of lethal situations. Often, it’s kill or be killed. It’s why my name is Nine Lives. I was indentured and sold and—”

  She gasped with astonishment. “You were bartered over as if you were a slave?”

  “Yes.” He laughed. “Don’t look so shocked. There are huge swaths of the globe that aren’t very developed. Slavery is common.”

  “But you’re British!”

  “In the places where I was trapped, it didn’t matter.”

  “Did you ever try to escape?”

  “Constantly. It’s why my back is so wretched. I was always caught, and the punishment was swift and brutal.”

  “I had no idea,” she murmured.

  He waved away her sympathy. “It’s over.”

  “How did you wind up owning your ship?”

  “I stole it.”

  “You stole it?” She tsked with exasperation. “I can’t ever decide when you’re being serious and when you’re jesting.”

  “I didn’t technically steal it, but it wasn’t mine.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “It belonged to a pair of coldblooded bandits who were terrorizing the coast of South America.”

  “You were part of their crew?”

  “For two years.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “A plague swept through our camp. Nearly everybody perished but for Robert and myself. I simply mustered the sailors who were left, loaded all the pilfered items in the hold, and sailed away.”

  She gaped at him as if it was the strangest story ever, and he supposed it would sound that way to someone who hadn’t endured it. As to himself, it was his history, his reality. To him, it didn’t sound odd at all.

  “What is your plan these days?” she asked.

  “I don’t have a plan. I’m merely glad to be free and on my own.”

  “You won’t…won’t…begin pirating again, will you? I’d hate to think you’d continue with your life of crime.”

  “I won’t continue pirating. You don’t need to fret about that. I’ve had more than enough excitement.”

  She brightened. “Why don’t you return to England? You’d be safe there, and you could recuperate and start over.”

  “I’ve considered it,” he lied, for of course he was headed to England—as soon as the repairs were completed.

  “I’m sure your sisters would be ecstatic to see you,” she said. “And what about your parents? Are they still alive? I don’t believe you ever told me.”

  “They’ve been dead for years.”

  “You should go home,” she firmly declared. “It’s been perilous for you out in the bigger world.”

  “It definitely has been.”

  “I’ll worry about you if you keep sailing the oceans.”

  “Would you worry? Really?”

  “Yes, you dolt. Now that we’re friends, I have a vested interest in your survival.”

  She rested her palm on the center of his chest, directly over the spot where Alex Wallace had shot him. The scar was the prime evidence of how their quarrel had ignited all the disasters that had followed. It was the major proof that he could and had made very stupid choices in the past.

  He couldn’t remember anyone touching the scar before. Not since his Moorish doctor in Italy used to poke and prod at his infection. Her caress rattled open an unlocked place inside him where he’d stuffed all his misery and woe. He never pulled it out and looked at any of it. He never contemplated that dark era. What was the point?

  It had been such a pathetic, grueling period. As an aristocrat’s son, he’d assumed he was immortal, that nothing bad could ever befall him, but Alex Wallace had established that he was very, very human. On the trip to Italy, he’d almost died a dozen times over.

  He’d scarcely been acquainted with Eugenia Wallace, the woman who’d caused all the trouble. She had been married. She had committed adultery, yet her husband had blamed Hayden and tried to murder him. All of it had seemed so ridiculously unfair.

  He’d grown up as an immature, spoiled boy, whom people had cosseted and loved. Initially, he’d taken out his anger on his parents, but as he’d healed, he’d calmed his mind and his attitude. He’d worked hard to show them he was sorry for his juvenile rages and posturing.

  Then…they’d drowned in that storm, and he would always curse himself for those months in Italy. He’d been so ill and knocking on death’s door, but so awful to them.

  He wished he’d never gamboled in London or crossed paths with Eugenia Wallace. He wished he’d listened to his friends who’d warned him about her and her dangerous husband, but he hadn’t listened, and his stubbornness had set in motion every appalling event that had occurred.

  He rarely wondered about Eugenia Wallace, but he often obsessed about her husband. What had become of him after the duel? Hayden had been an earl’s son, a viscount with his own separate title. A commoner couldn’t try to kill a viscount. It simply wasn’t allowed.

  Had Wallace suffered any penalty for his homicidal attempt? Or was he—to this day—blithely strutting about England and proud of what he’d perpetrated?

  If they ever bumped into each other, how would he, Hayden, react? Would he pretend no acquaintance? Would he ignore the man and walk on by? Or would he draw his pisto
l and shoot Alex Wallace right between the eyes?

  He had no idea.

  Usually, he thought he was over the entire episode, but in a convoluted manner, he felt that Alex Wallace had slain his parents. If Wallace had understood his wife was a trollop, if Wallace had never lost his temper, there would have been no reason for Hayden’s parents to sneak him out of England, to waste a year in Italy, to sail the hazardous seas and sink in a storm.

  Did Alex Wallace deserve to pay for the catastrophe he’d engineered? Was he liable for any of the harm? Should he have to atone for his role in the debacle?

  The questions were vexing. Depending on Hayden’s mood, he had different answers. He wasn’t the naïve child he’d been. He was tough and violent, and he’d learned to fight and win, was capable of any type of brutal response.

  He gazed at Helen, and a thousand emotions bubbled up. He yearned to confess his identity, yearned to explain about the duel and the aftermath. But if he started to talk, he might never stop, so he removed her hand from his chest where it was so tenderly covering his wounded heart.

  He sat next to her on the bank and lifted her onto his lap again.

  “You’re all wet,” she scolded, “so I’ll be wet too.”

  “At least I didn’t drop you in the pool, dress and all.”

  “Thank heavens for small favors.”

  “Are you sure you won’t swim?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Your loss, Helen Barnes. I’m much better now that I’m cooler.”

  “I’m quite grand too.”

  She riffled her fingers through his hair and pushed it off his forehead. It was a possessive gesture, a wifely gesture, and it was blatant evidence of how he needed to be cautious with her, but how he wasn’t being cautious at all.

  “All right, you bounder,” she said, “we’ve loafed and chatted and gotten more comfortable. I’ve been very patient, and I demand you tell me why you dragged me out here.”

  “Are you annoyed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I should seek a boon for sharing my information.”

  “I’m not giving you a boon, you greedy cur, for I’m certain it would entail my providing you with something I never should.”

  “You know me so well.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  It was the worst comment she could have uttered. Their connection was binding them tighter and tighter. How would he ever cut the cord in a gentle way?

  “I’ve been riding to Santa Cruz every afternoon,” he told her.

  “Yes, you have. I’m completely and absurdly focused on you, so I’m aware of where you are every second.”

  “I’m vain enough to say I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Isn’t vanity one of the Seven Deadly Sins?”

  “It might be, but if it is, I hardly care. Another black mark on my soul won’t matter.”

  “Don’t brag about your failings or I’ll have to spend the rest of my life in church, on my knees and praying for you.”

  He chuckled. “Quit distracting me.”

  “How am I distracting you?”

  “You’ve planted an image in my brain of you on your knees.”

  “How is that distracting?”

  He always forgot she was a maiden and a spinster. He scowled. “Never mind. I’m being risqué, when I shouldn’t have been.”

  “You were risqué? How?”

  “Never mind!” he groused more sternly. “Just listen.”

  “I’m listening, I’m listening.”

  “I’ve had men searching for your father.”

  “You have? That’s so kind of you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

  “You’ve embarrassed me too. You’ve been in town, tending to my business, and I’ve been lounging in the shade at your camp and letting you do all my work for me.”

  “It was no bother.”

  “It was an enormous bother,” she countered. “What have you discovered? Is there news? There must be if you’re so determined to discuss it.”

  He hated to apprise her, but he had no choice. “It appears your father landed on Tenerife, then he sailed away a few days later.”

  “What? No! It’s not possible. He wouldn’t be that negligent. Becky and I journeyed so far to be with him. He was expecting us.”

  “I realize that.”

  Her shoulders slumped with defeat. “What have you learned that makes you think he left?”

  “For all of Santa Cruz being out in the middle of nowhere, the harbormaster keeps excellent records. Vicar Barnes arrived—his name was on a passenger manifest—and he stayed in a hotel by the harbor for two nights. Then he fled.”

  “Why? Do you know?”

  “No one had an explanation as to why. He simply packed his bags and went.”

  “To England?”

  “The ticket he booked was on a ship to Spain.”

  “Spain!”

  “It seems he was in a hurry to leave, and he took the first berth he could purchase.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she murmured.

  “Might he have written to you not to travel after all? Maybe you missed his letter. Once he invited you to join him, how quickly did you depart for Tenerife?”

  “Immediately—as soon as we received the money.”

  “There’s another pastor at the mission church.”

  “Yes, I’ve spoken to him,” she said, “and he was totally uncooperative.”

  “Could there have been a mix-up in the posting? Might your father have been recalled or reassigned?”

  “I suppose.” She was silent for an eternity, then she sighed. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have trusted him. I knew better, but he had a cottage for us, and he painted such a pretty picture of how it would be. After what we’d been through, it sounded like a slice of Heaven.”

  “Would he have lied about the job and all the rest? Is he that despicable?”

  “Not despicable precisely. He might have simply wanted to make me happy and keep me from worrying.”

  If that was true, then Vicar Barnes was a cruel idiot. Why would he encourage his daughters to trek to the foreign island if he didn’t intend to remain to greet them? It was bizarre conduct that was so infuriating. Hayden was seriously thinking, if he ever had the misfortune to meet the defrocked preacher, he’d beat him to a pulp.

  She peered up at him, her green eyes poignant and mesmerizing. “What should I do? I don’t have the funds to tarry on Tenerife, and I don’t have the funds to sail home. What should my solution be?”

  “Have you other family in England? Could someone help you there?”

  “Yes, I have a cousin. She and her husband have a huge house, and she offered me a position as her housekeeper. I nearly agreed, then the letter from my father arrived.”

  He almost inquired as to who her cousin was, where her house was located. If he garnered a few details, he’d be able to check on her occasionally, to pop in and say hello. But that was the road to madness. When she boarded her ship, he would never see her again.

  He refused to pry as to where she’d be living, for then he’d know where she was, and he’d never sever the tie that bound them.

  “Would the position still be available?” he asked.

  “It might be. Or I have an old friend from school when I was a girl. She’s had some financial luck recently, and she owns the facility now. I could contact her about hiring me as a teacher.”

  Again, it was on the tip of his tongue to pester her over the name of the school and its location, but he bit down on the questions. Any facts would lock him in a connection to her when he didn’t wish to be connected.

  “You have some options,” he said.

  “Yes, but how will I get to England?” She was very close to tears.

  “I’m going to pay your fare. For you and your sister, and I won’t argue about it.�
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  “I can’t let you,” she protested.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re practically strangers, you have no relation or duty to me, and I could never pay you back. Not in a thousand years.”

  “You needn’t worry about paying me back. I have more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes. If I can’t use it to aid you, what’s the point of having it?”

  She stared at him forever, waiting for him to add an additional comment, and he was very clear on what it was.

  This was the spot where a normal man would have declared himself and proposed. A normal man would have gallantly escorted her home, would have wed her before they left or maybe had the ship’s captain perform the ceremony once they were underway.

  But he wasn’t a normal man, and he wasn’t about to propose.

  The tormented interval played out, and she released the heavy breath she’d been holding. “I guess you can buy our tickets, but are you sure that’s what should happen?”

  He wasn’t stupid. He understood it was a query about more than his buying her a ticket on a ship. It was about the possibility of their having a future together. It was about a link that would permanently attach them. At the notion, a wave of joy swept through him.

  He allowed it to race on by, then he tamped it down. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve booked your passage.”

  “Oh.” She nodded with resignation, completely deflated by the news. “When do we sail?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Two days. It’s very soon.” Sooner than she’d planned obviously.

  “Can you be ready?”

  “Certainly. I’m happy to go whenever you tell me I should.”

  “I’m sorry for the short notice, but there wasn’t another vessel heading in that direction for several weeks. It was either Tuesday or you might be trapped here for months—or even longer than that.”

  “I see.” She stared at him again, and when he was maddeningly mute, she forced a smile. “I should probably return to camp and inform Becky. She’ll be relieved. She was never anxious to leave London in the first place.”

  She rose and went over to the boulder where she’d removed her shoes and stockings. She sat and tugged them on. He watched her, taking furtive glances as he donned his own boots.