“Is there a name for this, for what I feel now?”
“It’s called afterglow.”
“ ‘Afterglow.’ I like that. I feel as if I’m glowing. Are you glowing too?”
“I went past glowing when you touched me. I’m churning. I’m boiling. I’m just plain hurting, darling.”
“Oh, Rogan, I never want you to hurt. What can I do to help?”
He moved over her again, studying her beautiful eyes in the shadows. They were a deep blue now, clear and trusting. She smiled as her body closed around him, taking him inside her, slowly and without hesitation.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, it hurts wonderfully. I like the thought of us taking away each other’s hurts.” She slid her legs around him, holding him inside her. Her lower body began to vibrate, and he felt the beginning of his own tremors. His mouth found hers, his tongue plunging inside her.
Rogan clutched her shoulders, moaning softly as she arched against him, meeting every thrust with growing tension. He heard her short gasps of pleasure and felt the coil of tension begin to unravel in a shattering heat that caught and built to a crescendo of feeling.
“Oh, Rogan,” she whispered. “I never knew.”
“Now you do, Carolina,” he said as he turned over, pulling her with him so that she was tucked into the space over his heart. “And so do I.”
Outside the ship, the water stilled. The sun slid behind the trees and the marsh came to life with the movement of night creatures.
He watched her sleep, watched and thought about another Carrie who might have loved her captain in that same bed. He thought about other golden hair across the pillow, someone else’s innocent trust, two other people’s growing love. Even the memory was confusing. He didn’t know where it had come from or why.
But he felt pain.
Six
Carolina woke to gentle movement and silence. She lay there, eyes closed, allowing the wonderful memories to settle comfortably around her.
She moved gingerly, expecting to feel different, and she was rewarded with a heavy, satisfied fullness. Her legs felt languid, not with the unfocused emptiness that she’d felt for so long, but as if there was a resonant singing in her veins, resting, waiting to surge back to life.
“Now you’ve done it, Carrie.”
Glorying in the sound of his voice, she didn’t open her eyes. Instead she stretched, twisting wantonly under his gaze as she felt the sheet slide down to her waist.
“Oh, yes, Rogan. I’ve finally done it, and magnificently. I think being bad is just about the closest thing to heaven a body can feel.”
“Or hell.”
“Why don’t you come back to bed, Rogan? I’d like that.”
“Not again, Carrie. I’ll not allow this to happen again.”
“But you brought me here.”
“I know, and I can’t seem to go back and change anything. But it’s wrong. No good can come of this. I learned that lesson well.”
Carolina felt a sudden coldness sweep across her. “Why are you acting this way, Rogan? This was meant to be.”
“Aye, sweet Carrie. It seems so. And I curse the fates that intervened. I made a promise once, a promise I couldn’t keep. Perhaps I’ve been given a second chance.”
Carolina felt a brush of coolness across her lips and a quick little breath of air. The silence that followed was colder than any hospital ward during the hours before dawn.
Carolina sat up. “Rogan?”
But he was gone, along with the afterglow that had cushioned her waking.
She came to her feet. Despite buying all those things the day before, they’d forgotten a robe. Suddenly she felt a great urgency to go topside. Grabbing the sheet from the bed, she tucked it around her and climbed the stairs. The sunlight was so bright that she was blinded for a moment. Then she saw him, swimming in the lake, his strong arms reaching for the water and pulling it behind him in a sleek show of fury.
She sat at the edge of the vessel, swinging her feet over the side, and watched. The sun was warm, the day unfolding like a precious blossom for someone who’d never before seen a flower.
Brilliant blue and black dragonflies hovered just over the water, dancing like the prickles of light behind her lids when she closed her eyes. Rogan was working off his uncertainties in the lake, which was clearly defined now that the water level had dropped. Carolina was content to sit quietly and absorb the wonder of the morning. There were no doubts in her mind, no questions to be faced, and no decisions to be wrestled with.
Watching Rogan slice the water like Poseidon in the Aegean Sea was enough. Rogan was right: Now she’d done it. But in spite of his frantic pace, which clearly spoke of his misgivings, she knew that he’d felt something special too.
Carolina could understand his confusion. He’d alienated himself from the world, and she’d intruded. She understood alienation; she’d had many lonely moments of pain and separation herself. The reasons had been different—he’d chosen and she hadn’t—but the end result was the same. Still, he was wrong about one thing: It would happen again.
And then he turned and was swimming back to the boat. He pulled himself to the dock and stood in the sunlight, totally nude, allowing the water to drip from his body.
“Good morning, Captain.”
Rogan, who was slinging the water from his hair, looked up and stopped. She was wrapped in white, her lovely head and face silhouetted like an angel’s against the sun. She leaned forward, smiling, and he felt all the regrets he’d wrestled with for the last hour melt away.
“Good morning, Carolina.”
“My, how formal. What happened to ‘my darling Carrie,’ or even ‘Goldilocks’?” she teased, but the question in her voice gave away her uncertainty.
Rogan let out a silent groan. Above him, Carolina held out her hand and smiled, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she had some inner serenity that his gruffness didn’t touch.
She gave him another tentative smile, stood, and spun away, clasping her sheet like a sarong. “Are you feeling strong enough to give my cooking a second try? If not, we could eat peaches.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said, and began to climb again. “I have to go into town and consult a practicing attorney. I’ll just get something there.”
“May I come too?”
“No!” he snapped, and knew he was overreacting. Her puzzled expression was erased from her face, leaving a protective mask in its place.
“Rogan, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But ever since that first night you brought me here, I’ve known this had to be, that we had to be. Why do you insist on fighting it?”
“Carolina, I didn’t bring you here. I don’t know why you keep talking like that.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any experience in how I’m supposed to act the morning after, but somehow I thought it was the woman who had second thoughts, not the man.”
Rogan walked up the ramp and reached for a towel that was hanging on the rail. With little bashfulness, he dried himself thoroughly before wrapping the towel around his lean hips in such deliberate motions that she realized he was delaying his response.
“Carolina, I apologize for what happened. I was angry that anybody had made you feel inferior, that your own father had suggested that you were less than a woman. What I did was simply to show you that you are desirable, that any man would be proud to have you.”
She flinched. “Any man but you?”
“It isn’t that. I just don’t make commitments anymore.” But he had, he thought as quickly as he’d said it. He’d promised to take care of her.
Carolina’s tongue rimmed dry lips. Her heart was hammering so loudly that she knew Rogan must surely hear it. “But you have,” she whispered, recalling a different promise. “You promised to teach me to cook, and in return I would paint the Scarlet Butterfly.”
He felt a deep pain in his chest, a hurt that rose up and almost choked hi
m. With every stride he’d made in the water, he’d told himself that what he’d done was wrong. Carolina was vulnerable. She’d expect more than he could give. She’d expect magic, and all he had to give was the illusion. One night of awakening in his arms wouldn’t last a lifetime, and he’d been wrong to promise her more.
Still, as he glared at her, and saw her lips quivering and her proud chin jutting out in defiance, he felt his resolve crumble.
“Besides, Rogan,” she went on, “you told my father that you’d take care of me. I don’t think I could be so wrong about what happened between us last night. It was special to you too. I’m not asking for forever—just this, for now.”
As moisture gathered in her eyes, he gathered her in his arms, burying her face against his chest. The trembling left her body as she leaned against him. And Rogan knew that he’d never had a choice.
“Please, make love to me again, my knight in shining armor. We don’t know,” she added impishly, “there may be demons in the woods who will try to take my Sir Galahad prisoner, and I may never see him again.”
There were demons, all right, but they weren’t in the woods—they were in Rogan’s mind. There was no fighting them; the temptation being offered was too strong. Involuntarily he slid one arm around her back and the other beneath her thighs and laid her on the deck. “Why are you doing this? How can you be sure?”
“I’m very sure. I want you to make love to your lady, here on deck in the sunlight, so that she can remember you in the long years of your imprisonment.”
“This isn’t ‘Once upon a time,’ Carolina, some fairy tale in a book.”
“For me it is, Rogan. Don’t spoil the fantasy.”
He released his towel and flung it away, leaving nothing to hide his desire. And then he kissed her, hard, with urgency, his hand holding her nakedness to the rough thrust of his body.
This time he wasn’t gentle, but this time she didn’t want gentleness. She accepted and welcomed his desire as he branded her body with playful nips, reveling in the knowledge that she could bring this taciturn man to such a loss of control. When she was finally writhing in agony, he lifted himself and plunged inside.
She vaguely understood that he was responding with his emotion, allowing his need to carry him past reason, past control. He was loving her, but he would not give in to the admission. She understood. And if she could make him see how right they were together, his fear would change with time. She had found her way out of despair, and so would he.
But in a moment all thoughts were erased, as she was caught up in the force of passion, swept into a release of such intensity that she was left sated and limp before she came back to reality.
“Damn!” Rogan came to his knees and swore again, not angrily, but in resignation. He marched across the deck and went below. She could hear him grumbling, and Bully’s echoing response. There was another noise that filtered through, a different kind of curse—a thump at the far end of the boat that might have been the ship hitting the dock, or a fist planted against the mast.
Carolina lay on the deck, in the sun, and let its heat sink into every pore. Rogan was slamming around below with such violence that she wondered if the cabin would survive his getting dressed. She smiled. If he weren’t emotionally involved in their budding relationship, she thought, he wouldn’t react so violently. So each curse, each bump, widened her smile.
Then she heard him returning. Risking his wrath, she opened her eyes and took in the sight of him. He’d left his hair free. It was making dark wet spots on the blue chambray shirt he was wearing. From where she was lying on the deck, her gaze could move leisurely up long legs encased in worn jeans.
His rough, strong face was lined with discord as he spoke. “Carolina, this is wrong. I know it, but I don’t seem to be able to resist you.”
“You haven’t done anything that I haven’t welcomed.”
There was a guttural sound of despair as Rogan shook his head. “I’ll be back this afternoon. Don’t stay out here too long or you’ll blister.”
And then he was gone.
But long afterward she was still experiencing the incredible satisfaction he’d given her. She didn’t know yet where she was going. She only knew that she’d begun a journey and she couldn’t turn back. She wondered what he was feeling now.
What Rogan was feeling as he sat at a table in Ida’s house was anger, masked by a brooding silence.
“So where’s Beauty this morning?” Ida finally prompted as she poured Rogan a second cup of coffee.
“On the Butterfly.”
“How is she feeling?”
“Frisky!”
“Uh-huh. And how are you?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Where’s Harry?”
“Fishing, probably. Why?”
“Where’d he get peaches?”
“Harry brought you peaches? I don’t think so. When he left here he had fried pies from Miss Lucy and a couple of fish, but no peaches.”
“There were peaches in the galley. Fresh sweet yellow peaches.”
“Beats me. Sounds like one of the local variety. There used to be some late producers around, but I thought they were all gone.”
So Harry hadn’t brought them. He’d hoped Ida would say she’d sent them, but she hadn’t. Bully’s phrase, “Peaches for Carrie,” kept swirling around in his head. Rogan stood and stalked to the window, glaring out at the river, now calm in the sunlight.
“Rogan, what’s really on your mind? I can’t see you getting excited about peaches. What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? I have a woman, a mythical creature on my boat. It’s as if she has some kind of magical powers. Every time I come near her I turn into Samson—a bald, powerless Samson.”
“I’ve heard that happens to men when they fall in love,” Ida said quietly.
“I am not in love. I will never fall in love, and furthermore, I don’t believe in fate or ghosts or shadow figures! Do you understand that?”
He swore and whirled around to reinforce his point. Ida looked stunned at Rogan’s outburst. He grimaced, let out a deep breath of apprehension, and shook his head.
“Sorry, Ida. I have no right to bark at you because I’ve run into a situation I can’t get a handle on. It’s just that Carolina doesn’t see me as I really am. She’s trusting and beautiful and much too gentle for a renegade like me.”
“Yep, Beauty and the Beast. Believe me, I’ve met the Beast. I’ll admit that you two put a different twist on the story: Beauty wants to stay and the Beast is trying to get rid of her. Ah, well, you’ll work it out, Rogan. In the meantime, try not to growl. You’ll frighten her.”
“Her?” Frighten Carolina? No, it was Rogan who was scared silly, and he knew it.
He still had a half hour before it was time for his appointment with the attorney he was to consult about his court fight over the Scarlet Butterfly. On impulse, he stopped at the local bookstore and bought a copy of Cooking Made Easy. Carrie ought to be able to follow these recipes, he thought, then went back and exchanged it for a gourmet cookbook. No point in making it too easy on her. On the way to the checkout counter he picked up a copy of a new novel rich with history of Georgia’s sea islands and its people. Carrie would like that too.
Carrie. There was something nice about shortening her name, something intimate, he decided as he flung his parcel through the open window of the truck. He climbed in, slammed the door, and leaned his head against the steering wheel. What was he doing, buying paints and books? He was just prolonging the inevitable—her leaving.
The attorney told Rogan about what he’d expected, that the laws were absolute. Any waterway that had ever been navigated by raft, dugout, or boat was state property to which the salvage law applied. Any historical object found in state waters belonged to the state. Even with proof of ownership, Rogan’s claim to the Butterfly was questionable. Without proof, the state had every right to claim it and would undoubtedly win any court case. And he had less than ten days before he�
�d meet the state representatives and learn the schooner’s fate.
Rogan was hungry and out of sorts as he drove back to the Butterfly. He hadn’t expected any resolutions. He’d read up on the law and knew he was fighting a losing battle. Even if there were references to the ship and Captain Rogan in Carolina’s journal, the journal was gone.
• • •
Carolina never intended to fall asleep on deck, but the sun was warm and she felt so tired—good, but tired. Still, this chronic tiredness seemed to fall away a little more each time Rogan touched her. She closed her eyes and lay there, enjoying the afterglow.
When she finally woke, it was with a start, as if she’d been nudged. Struggling, she tried to open her eyes, feeling a definite shake of her shoulder.
She was alone and in such pain that she couldn’t believe it. Her skin was on fire. Every inch of her was bright pink. The midday sun had kissed her delicate skin and left it red and throbbing.
Forcing herself to her feet, she took one agonizing step after another until she reached the shower. With an audible prayer she pulled the string, hoping that the cistern was still filled with rainwater. It was.
The warm water sluiced across her body, but gave only temporary relief to the heat that was increasing with every moment. At least she was clean. Rogan had called her a puny, bony little thing. Now she was cooked too. “Ohhhh!” she groaned as she made her way to the cabin and fell backward on the bed.
“Ohhhh!” she repeated, trying desperately to marshal some of the strength she’d garnered from her captain. Yes, she was in pain, but it wasn’t the excruciating kind of pain she’d once felt inside her head. This was intense, but it would pass. She could concentrate. She would lie there and not move.
Taking shallow, quick breaths, she finally slept again. By late afternoon she roused briefly, feeling the cooling touch of liquid being applied to her skin. There was an allusive scent to the lotion and a gentleness to the application.
“Rogan?” she whispered, and started to open her eyes. But they wouldn’t open. They were swollen shut.
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