Free Prize of My Heart by Lisa Norato Page B

apology.”
    Apologize? To her? Here she thought she owed him the apology. Still, Lorena debated risking a clandestine meeting with this man after what had occurred the first time they’d been alone. She distrusted what she still did not know of the captain, and yet she was beginning to regard him in a more generous light, as not quite the threat he first seemed.
    He was waiting for an answer.
    She couldn’t help but have reservations.
    “Tomorrow at the launching, then,” she agreed, and strangely enough found herself looking forward to the meeting. What had she done?
    He nodded, pleased. And when he smiled, the hard edges and broad planes of his masculine face came aglow with boyish charm.
    Her father huffed in exasperation. “What is so important about the launching, it needs to be discussed during meeting?”
    Eyes still on Lorena, the captain inclined his head to her poor, confused papa and said, “Tomorrow, in honor of the occasion, your daughter has promised to bake me a gingerbread.”
    At that moment the congregation stood to face the choir loft. Rising to her feet, Lorena repressed a giggle. For all his size and arrogance, Captain Brogan Talvis was full of surprises and the mischief of a boy.
    In some respects, he reminded her of Drew.

5
    L orena thought this was possibly one of the loveliest days her father had ever chosen to launch a vessel. By eleven a.m. at high tide, a few scattered clouds had woven a feathery pattern of white against an otherwise azure sky. She watched from the top of a gently sloping hillside as Papa stationed himself beside the Yankee Heart ’s keel along the marshy shore. He prepared to deliver his speech to the waiting crowd.
    Nearly everyone in town was in attendance. Children had been released from school, and hundreds of citizens ventured out—her father’s workers and all those tradesmen whose skills had contributed to the Yankee Heart ’s construction, their families and friends, in addition to neighbors and townsfolk—each one curious to see how the town’s most ambitious craftsmanship to date would maneuver into Duxboro Bay.
    They’d seen launchings before. Many times over. But this one was special, because the Yankee Heart held the record for being the largest vessel ever built in a Duxboro shipyard, the largest merchantman to originate from New England waters.
    Admirers down along the river’s south bank gazed up at the fullness of her towering hull. Some had rowed out in small skiffs on the river. Others stood scattered throughout the shipyard, some as far as the fitting wharf by the forge and blacksmith shops, partaking of the free lemonade and punch.
    “I find no gingerbread among the refreshments, Miss Huntley.”
    A breath stirred the wisp of curls at her nape, and Lorena whirled about to be greeted by a pair of the most hauntingly beautiful, melancholy eyes ever to grace a man’s face. Eyes of intense ocean blue surrounded by thick lashes.
    “Oh, good day, Captain. I did not hear you approach.”
    He assessed her with a narrow stare. “Then it would seem you have great powers of concentration, Miss Huntley, for I have never been one to step lightly. Now, about that gingerbread . . .”
    “There was hardly time.”
    He feigned a frown. “A likely excuse.”
    Like some gypsy pirate, his shaggy hair dusted his shoulders, but today was tied back in a queue. With a gold earring he might complete the look. But then looks were deceiving. By his own admission, Captain Talvis was no pirate, but a true Yankee patriot.
    He grinned playfully, and as they continued to exchange glances, a silence fell between them. At length, he chuckled.
    “I fear the sun may be obscuring your vision, Miss Huntley, else you look as if seeing me for the first time.”
    She realized she’d been staring without saying a word. “Not at all, Captain. Forgive me, I could not help but notice your coat. I find it oddly familiar, though at the moment I cannot place where I might have