by Bella Grace
“They’re pulling out!” Aaron shouted over his shoulder. “What in the hell have we done?”
* * * *
Olivia sank onto her narrow bed in the tiny cabin that adjoined her uncle’s suite and squeezed her trembling hands as the ship’s horn ripped through her nerves. She didn’t even try to stop the hot tears that flowed down her cheeks. There would be plenty of time to bury her emotions and force her head up high. Right now, she needed to cry.
Teardrops clouded her glasses, and she removed them to wipe them dry. As she rubbed her handkerchief over the lens, her mouth dropped open. Jules D. Murdock! She remembered where she had heard the name of the person her uncle was indebted to.
She rose off the bed, fury burning all the way to the tops of her ears. She crossed the room and pounded her fist against the door that separated her cabin from her uncle’s suite. There was no answer. He was probably at the bar or topside, watching the ship pull away from port. She let out a scream of fury. That underhanded devil of a man was smarter than she had given him credit for.
She tugged on the door to his suite, but it was locked. She turned to open the door to her cabin, but it wouldn’t budge. He had locked her in! She turned around quickly. There had to be a way out, and she had to find it. There wasn’t a second to spare.
Olivia worked her laces and the trappings of her clothing quickly. Minutes later, stripped to her drawers, chemise, and corset, she stepped her stocking feet over the heap of clothes in the middle of the floor and slid her trunk over to the small window of her cabin. Perspiration pricked at her armpits. She had been duped, and if she didn’t get off this ship, her uncle’s manipulations would be far worse than she had imagined they might be. He had schemed for Amelia to find the note Constance “dropped” in the lobby. Jules D. Murdock was dead. Constance had received news of her Godfather’s passing when the ship set sail out of New York. She had shed the requisite crocodile tears and bowed beneath the condolences of her shipmates, but Olivia had not missed the gleam of satisfaction in her eyes when she heard the news. That evening, when she thought no one was looking, Constance had spat upon the folded note the ship’s captain had given her and thrown it into the sea. Olivia had watched from the window of her cabin and wondered how horrible a human being must be to elicit such hatred.
It was fitting that Robert Prescott had used Jules D. Murdock in his scheme to coerce the deed and a bride for one of his cronies out of his nieces. If he had taken the deed and one of them by force, he risked prosecution, but if one of them went willingly and handed over the deed with her own thieving hands, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Nausea rose in Olivia’s stomach. She had given him the home her parents had provided for them, the home Lizzie had fought so hard to hold on to, and she had opened the door wide open for Constance to worm her way into Aaron’s heart. She climbed on top of the trunk and gave the window a shove. The glass refused to budge. She looked around quickly, feeling the ship pick up steam across the choppy water. She pulled the chamber pot from beneath her bed, thankful it was made of some utilitarian metal and was not a decorative ceramic piece. She wound her wool skirt around her hand and arm and slammed the pot against the glass. The first swing made a jagged crack. The third knocked large shards of glass free. She cleared the rest as efficiently as she could and used her silver hairbrush to sweep the smaller pieces from around the window before hefting herself through the narrow opening.
For the first time in her adult life, she was grateful for her smallish breasts and slender, curve-less frame. She squeezed through and dangled precariously over the deck below. She held her breath and lowered herself as far as she could before she closed her eyes, murmured a prayer, and dropped the last couple of feet.
The landing was anything but graceful. Standing, she jerked her foot off a piece of glass as bright red drops of blood fell to the deck. Without taking the time to worry with the pain, she hurried to the railing and flung herself into the frigid water of Bachelor Bay. She would rather die than return to Boston and the fate that awaited her there.
* * * *
“Did you see that?” Aaron yelled over the wind that whipped over the open bow of the skiff he and Jack had commandeered. “I think she jumped!”
Jack ran to the front of the boat, leaning to peer through the patchy fog in the direction of Aaron’s outstretched arm.
He had to hold himself back from jumping in after her. As slow as the skiff seemed to be going in the wake of the departing passenger ship, the smaller boat was cutting through the water faster than he could swim. He waved his arms at the captain and motioned for him to steer the boat slightly starboard. “Faster, my friend! Faster!”
The captain nodded. But to Jack, the small boat seemed to be sitting still. He was ready to crawl out of his skin, and next to him, he could feel the tension coiled just as tightly in Aaron.
“We have to get to her in time,” Aaron said in voice so low and serious it sent a chill down Jack’s spine.
“We’ll get her if I have to part this damn bay with my bare hands and run the rest of the way.”
The words had barely left his lips when he caught a glimpse of white linen billowing up on the crest of a wave. Olivia was struggling to keep her head above water and her pale skin was purple with cold.
Jack and Aaron both jumped, cutting through the freezing water with long strokes fueled by a strength Jack knew came from pure will. He would not lose her. They had waited their entire lives to find a woman they could both love. She was everything he had hoped for and more, and he knew Aaron felt precisely the same.
Jack reached her first, throwing an arm around her waist just as she began to sink below the swell of a wave. Aaron hooked one arm beneath her shoulder. Jack did the same on her other side and together they hauled her back to the skiff. The captain hung over the side, ready to pull her aboard. It ripped a hole in Jack’s heart to feel her pulled from his grip even long enough to be put aboard the boat.
He and Aaron quickly followed. The captain shouted for the crew to head for shore and bring up blankets from his cabin. Jack and Aaron didn’t wait for the blankets. They lay on the deck, holding Olivia between them, warming her with their own cold bodies, rubbing the chill from her skin, whispering words of love and relief, and begging her to respond.
Jack stared down at her blue lips, barely able to hold back the flood of emotion that threatened to rip every shred of masculine strength from him. He glanced at Aaron and had to turn away from the gleam of tears he saw in his oldest friend’s eyes. They couldn’t lose her, not now, not now that they had her back in their arms.
Jack didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Olivia coughed water from her lungs and her body began to tremor. His chest heaved, dragging cold, wet air into his burning lungs.
“Liv,” Aaron said close to her ear, his chest pressed into her back, his hand rubbing hard along her hip to warm the skin beneath her thin undergarments. “Don’t ever leave us again. How do you expect your husbands to live without you?”
Olivia’s eyes fluttered. Her lips trembled with cold, but her forehead creased in confusion. She looked up at Jack, her blue eyes filled with questions. “Did he say husbands?”
Jack nodded. “Our love, did you honestly think either of us would walk away from you? Have we not made our intent and our love for you clear enough?”
She shook her head. “You said I had to choose. I heard you.”
Two of the crewmen hurried toward them, thick wool blankets in their outstretched hands. Jack helped Olivia to her feet while Aaron held a blanket around her, hiding her from the eyes of the crewmen while Jack worked the wet clothing from her body. He wrapped her in the blanket Aaron held and took her shoulders in his own trembling hands.
He lowered his voice so that only she and Aaron could hear. “You do have to choose. You have to choose which of us will have the honor of giving you our name, and which of us will be your legally wed husband. But if you will ha
ve us, you will be wed to the both of us, until death do us part.” He shook as the last words left his mouth, and he realized how close they had come to being parted before they could even exchange vows.
Aaron handed Jack a blanket and leaned close to Olivia’s ear. “Marry us, Olivia. Both of us. Don’t make us wait another day to wake up with you in our arms.”
Tears flowed down Olivia’s pale face. Jack rubbed them away with the pads of his thumbs and kissed her trembling lips.
She drew back, nodding and laughing. “We can do this? We can really do this? Please say yes because I could never choose one of you over the other in my heart.”
Jack felt his smile stretch across his face. “We can really do this. Your sister Lizzie has a similar arrangement with Logan and Gage. Her marriage to Logan is only half of the husband contract she agreed to.”
Olivia’s mouth popped open, and then the light of understanding sparked in her eyes. “Well, a lot of things make more sense now. How could I have not realized…”
She leaned back against Aaron’s chest and reached to pull Jack to her. “I think for the rest of this boat ride you two better do everything you can to keep me warm. I’ve read of hypothermia, and it’s a dreadful condition. And when we get home…”
The way she said “home” filled Jack’s chest with pride. Home. Finally, he and Aaron had a home. He leaned close again, guarding their secret from the ears of the concerned crewmen that hovered nearby. “When we get you home, we’ll make certain there’s not an inch of skin on your beautiful body that isn’t burning brighter than the Caribbean sun. And then we’re going to march you over to the Justice of the Peace, and you can tell him which of your husbands’ names to write in his record books.”
She fainted, her body falling limp against Aaron. Jack jumped to catch her until he saw her lips move against Aaron’s neck and heard the sigh of relief and desire shoot from his mouth. The faint was for show. She wanted to kiss Aaron, too, but the crewmen had already seen Jack kiss her.
Jack grinned. “You, my clever little dear, are going to handle your husband contract quite well.”
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bella Grace is an author you’ve probably read before. She’s changed her name to keep you guessing and to bring you stories you would never expect from her. Someday she will write from a sunlit cottage that has been overtaken by the woody vines and lavender blossoms of wisteria. She’ll take her laptop out to the worn brick courtyard at the back of the house and listen to waves crash on the nearby beach. If they’re in season she’ll nibble fresh kumquats off the potted bush next to her overgrown herb garden. If she’s really lucky, the birds will sing to her while her imagination takes flight. And when you curl up with one of her books, she’ll take you on naughty journeys that will warm your blood, make your breath come in heated pants, and leave you completely satisfied… but still wanting more.
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