Free Oceanswept by Lara Hays Page B

Skidmore and loaded my gun.”
    His eyes finally found mine. The sadness in them was undeniable. “I was too late.” He sank back against the wall, elbows resting on his knees, looking like a broken child. His hands covered his face, his fingers pushing into his hair. “I should never have put you in that brig.”
    “Then why did you?” It was a question I wanted answered since my first moments in that prison.
    “I thought you would be safer.” He sighed and went on. “It is a dangerous time to be on this ship. The crew is ready for mutiny, ready for violence. The way the men talked about you when we fished you out of the water—I knew there would be trouble. The captain called you for his own and demanded everyone else leave you be. There was a time when the captain’s orders would’ve been enough, but not now. I argued that it would be wrong to harass you before you awoke and most of the men agreed. A kind of sanctity for the unconscious,” he scoffed bitterly. “I was so glad it was me who found you the night you awoke. There’s no telling what would’ve happened if…I thought things would be better if the men still thought you were unconscious.”
    “Then I showed myself to everyone,” I said to o quietly, understanding Nicholas’s response on the deck that day.
    “Of course you did. How could I expect you to stay in your room amidst that commotion? You must’ve been terrified. I should’ve gone to you, explained everything.” Nicholas laid his head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. “Never mind that we were in the middle of a raid—something the boys had been wanting for weeks. As soon as they saw you, they wanted you. Forbidden treasure and all that. And when I saw the way Wrack eyed you…” he closed his eyes and shook his head against the thought. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. He exhaled slowly, deliberately uncoiling his hands. “And when you realized that we were nothin’ more than a load of marauders—you were ready to throw yourself overboard. The look in your eyes…I had to act swiftly to keep you safe. Safe from yourself. Safe from the crew. The brig was the only thing I could think of.”
    “But you left me there. For weeks .” My voice faltered. “You never even bothered with an explanation.”
    Nicholas’s grey eyes hardened. “I tried. Remember?”
    “You should have come back,” I argued weakly.
    “You told me not to.” He sighed heavily and lightly pounded his head against the wall behind him and cursed under his breath. “But I should’ve. I did the absolute worst thing possible. I barricaded you in with a shark.”
    He was anguished with guilt. I couldn’t help the sympathy I felt for him. “You did what you thought was best. What more could you have done?”
    “I should’ve kept guard. Stayed with you day and night.”
    “You couldn’t have done that.”
    “Well, I could’ve done more,” he growled.
    My head swam from the pain. My chest ached with every breath and I still quaked from the trauma. I needed to rest, but I was hungry for this conversation. Until now, I had not realized how much I had missed Nicholas during the previous weeks. He was finally here, telling me everything I needed to hear. Ignoring the agony within my body, I pushed to keep the conversation flowing.
    “You sent Skidmore.”
    “Aye,” he nodded, staring at the ceiling.
    “To be my friend.”
    He nodded again. “He’s a good man. I trust him.”
    “And you sent me that crate.” Though the gifts had upset me, I saw now that Nicholas had not meant to mock me with them, but that he honestly wanted to improve my circumstances.
    “I thought of you,” he said simply, still staring at the ceiling. “I couldn’t keep away from you. I came to watch you.”
    “You did?”
    Finally, Nicholas looked at me.
    He nodded. “Not every day, but as often as I could. Sometimes I’d sneak in behind Skidmore. But sometimes I would go down alone and watch