Free Merline Lovelace by The Tiger's Bride Page B

the crew for their loose ways hardened into acute dislike. However strong his call, the man had no business going off and leaving his family to fend for themselves.
    “Please allow me to come with you,” his daughter pleaded, laying a hand on Jamie’s forearm in unconscious appeal. “I’ll stay out of sight in the cabin, I promise, and cause no trouble.”
    He started to point out that she’d already caused trouble enough. His men wouldn’t soon forget that he’d let a pirate sail off in search of other prey. Nor, he realized, could Sarah Abernathy remain a shrouded, unknown entity in his cabin. She’d already exposed herself to the African. The rest of the crew would soon learn of the redoubtable Miss Sarah.
    Jamie didn’t utter the scathing comment, however. The feel of her hand on his arm stilled the words before they were formed. The feel of her hand…and eyes that seemed to melt under his.
    He’d seen that soft, feminine look before. Many times. The admiral’s wife had practiced it with an ease that had made a young, overeager lieutenant almost spill himself in his britches. The women Jamie had taken to his bed in the years since Arabella Cathwright were masters at such wiles.
    The gentleman he’d once considered himself might have yielded to that look. The man he now was demanded more than just a look.
    “Are you sure you thought this business of coming with me all the way through, Sarah?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “If you share my cabin, you’ll also share my bed.”
    He’d wanted to shock her, and he did. Her mouth dropped, then she snatched her hand away and hastily stepped back.
    “I certainly won’t share either,” she replied roundly. “If I must, I’ll sleep on deck.”
    “Oh, aye,” Jamie drawled. “You’ll bed down under the stars, with the rats nibbling at your toes and the crew queuing up to take their turn with you.”
    Flags of color rode high in her cheeks. “Perhaps Mr. Burke or Okunah will stand my protection, since it appears the captain won’t.”
    “Mr. Burke and the African will do what I tell them,” Jamie said flatly.
    “Well, there is one person aboard this ship who will do what I tell him. If I leave the Phoenix, so does Second Harvest, and you, sir, can go…go hang!”
    Jamie didn’t respond any better to threats than his unwanted passenger did, but her sputtered imprecation took the fire from his chest. Was that the best broadside she could aim at a man?
    “Go hang?” A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “No doubt I shall. And if you stay aboard the Phoenix, I warrant you’ll pick up far more colorful ways to curse me than that.”
    “No doubt I shall!”
    His grin widened at the tart way she threw his words back at him, and Sarah’s breath caught somewhere in the middle of her throat.
    Good heavens! If she’d needed convincing that the rumors about Straithe’s scandalous past were true, this sudden, rakish grin would have done the trick. Only a woman with vision clouded by age would remain unmoved by those glinting blue eyes and white teeth.
    Sarah hadn’t reached quite that sorry a condition,and she certainly felt his impact. Heaven help her, she felt it! But she was made of sterner stuff than Straithe’s past conquests. Squaring her shoulders, she bit to the bone of contention between them.
    “So, captain, do I sail with you to find my father?”
    He hesitated for so long that she began casting about in her mind for further arguments.
    “I suspect I’m going to bitterly regret this,” he said at last, “but, yes, you do.”
    “Thank you. And do I take this cabin, or another?”
    With a sardonic smile, Straithe offered her the use of his cabin and his bed and such items as she could find in his sea chest to replace her bloodied clothes. He would sling a hammock in his first mate’s cabin, he informed her…close at hand, should she change her mind and desire his company.
    “I won’t!”
    “Stranger things have happened,” he said