Free The Pirate's Jewel by Cheryl Howe

the
treasure. Nolan Kenton was her only choice, and she’d do anything in her power
to make him see that.

Chapter Five
     
     
    Nolan followed the gaze of every man on board. Jewel’s appearance
on deck rattled his hard-won self-control. She had taken off her jacket, rolled
up her sleeves and tied her shirt at her waist, exposing slim hips and a
delectable rump in close-fitting men’s breeches. Her arms were spread wide,
with her palms and face turned toward the sun like some pagan worshipper. The
wind caught her hair, creating a dark halo, and he corrected himself. Jewel was the goddess, and all the gawking men on board, himself included, were the
worshippers.
    Before he stomped across the deck and dragged her below—his
first impulse—Nolan tried to slip back into the detached, rational man he’d
been when he left her cabin. The man he’d convinced himself he’d become when he
put aside his orderly life to retrieve his grandfather’s cursed map.
Unfortunately, maintaining a sober countenance didn’t come as easily in Jewel’s
presence as it did in his parents’ household. There, each hour of the day was
scheduled with moral, bland activities. Even dinner—boiled beef, boiled
potatoes and boiled beets—was served with a minimum of aggravating spice. Jewel
presented Nolan a steady diet of volatile, spirit harming emotions—guilt, anger,
and lust. If she had turned to face him in his cabin with her shirt open and
her breasts bared, he would have been eternally lost.
    According to his father, the good Lord had a way of sending
what a person most needed to resist. He certainly was proving that by dumping
Jewel in Nolan’s lap.
    Jewel dragged her fingers through her tousled hair, and
Parker, along with several other men, gaped openly. Not that she was the most
classically beautiful woman any of them had ever seen, but her unconsciously sultry
appeal was impossible to escape. Her hair, a muted dark brown, caught the
midday sun and smoldered with hints of fire. Her angular face was softened by
full lips, which at the moment curled into a secretive smile. The freckles spattering
her nose suddenly seemed exotic rather than innocent. And though Nolan was
spared their effect at this distance, her unusual green eyes were hypnotic.
    Apart from her physical appeal, it was the way she stood,
arms splayed to the heavens and the way she’d confronted the soldiers in the
tavern with unwarranted yet total confidence that chipped away at his resolve.
Jewel Sanderson had a passion for life yet to be tempered by reality. Which was
why she had to be expelled from his ship. Nolan would not be the one to
permanently cloud her bright gaze or strain her easy smiles. If being abandoned
by her father and working in a tavern hadn’t done that, he and his men would
not. Though his crew were all good men, handpicked for their honesty if not their
seamanship, they were still men.
    “Mr. Tyrell,” Nolan finally shouted. Parker took several
moments to respond, and when he finally did, it was with barely disguised
irritation. “Take the new men and find them something to eat. It looks like the
British starved them.”
    Parker nodded, and then returned his gaze to Jewel. Hadn’t
he ever seen a woman before? Not one in men’s clothing, Nolan would wager. “Mr.
Tyrell, you have your orders,” he warned.
    Parker answered without looking at him. “Aye, Captain.” He
rounded up the sailors. As Nolan feared, they ranged from fifteen to sixty,
most being on the extremes. He doubted even a month of good meals would put any
meat on their bones.
    Parker had to pass Jewel on his way to the companionway,
but he didn’t have to veer in her direction and  pause to bow flirtatiously.
Normally, the man had the utmost respect for women, and the fact that he gawked
at Jewel past a point considered polite proved how much of a problem Nolan had
on his hands. Whether she had or had not ventured into bartering of the sexual
kind, it bothered Nolan that