Free SNOWFIRES by Caroline Clemmons Page A

Bligh?"
    "No, just a deck hand, same as me. John
Swenson was our captain. A good man.” He raked his hand through his
hair. “This was about fifteen years ago. A couple of crew had been
recommended by Ollie."
    He shifted and looked past her as if
remembering. "Crew quarters are close. I overheard Ollie and his
friends plotting to smuggle paintings into the U.S. for a private
collector. They’d stolen them from a museum."
    She gasped. "What a terrible position to be
in. What did you do?"
    He shrugged. "Stole the paintings back and
alerted the port authorities. Stored them in Swenson’s
quarters."
    Shaking her finger at him, she said, "I think
you left out a lot. What did the men do when they discovered their
paintings missing?"
    "They suspected me at once. If not for
Swenson's quick action, I'd be at the bottom of the ocean."
    He sighed and raked his fingers through his
hair again, which had dislodged his perfect cut and made him look
like an owl. "To put it mildly, they weren't happy. The insurance
company was, though. They split the reward money between the
Captain and me. I don’t know what he did with his share, but I
invested mine."
    "What does that have to do with being a
pirate?"
    "Nothing. Some eager reporter played up the
fact that I stole the stolen paintings back. Sort of piracy at high
sea. Those guys are always looking for some clever way to slant a
story. You should have seen the news photo taken before I could
clean away the results of the battle with Peterson and his
partners."
    He chuckled. "Damned if I didn't look like a
pirate, but with a black eye instead of a patch. It must have been
a slow news day, because I made headlines. The name stuck."
    "You're still leaving things out. How could
the name stick for so long unless there's more to it?"
    He leaned back in his chair and met her gaze.
"Damn. You won't leave it alone, will you? There was that other
time a few years later."
    "Trent?" She slapped a hand against the
table.
    He held up his hands, palm toward her. "Okay.
With his share of the insurance money, Captain Swenson traded his
old tub in on a bigger ship. Of course, that meant more crew. We
were hauling a load of the finest vanilla beans as part of our
cargo. Even sealed in packaging, the smell filled the hold."
    "Mmm. That must have been lovely. I often
burn vanilla candles at home. My perfume even has vanilla in
it."
    "Yeah, I know.” His comment surprised her but
apparently he didn’t notice. “A couple of the new crew members
decided they could use the cargo to hide their own contraband."
    "Drugs." She spoke the word as a statement
rather than a question.
    He nodded. "Right. They thought the vanilla
would fool drug-sniffing dogs."
    She tilted her head and grinned at him. "But
they couldn't fool Pirate Macleod?"
    He answered her smile and it sent heat
surging through her. “They almost made it. If not for a storm that
shifted some of the cargo, they probably would have. We re-stacked
the crates, and three of them seemed different, heavier in weight."
He looked down at his book.
    She nudged the book with her finger. "Go
on."
    "Well, to cut it short, when the men were
arrested, a crew member mentioned that old tag to a reporter and
started the hype all over again."
    "So, did you get another reward?" His tale
impressed her. He’d had an interesting life.
    "In a way. The Captain gave me part interest
in the ship. Then, because he never married and had no family, he
made me his sole heir. Unfortunately, he died last year."
    "I’m sorry such a kind man died, but how
wonderful you inherited what you’d defended." She should have known
he wasn’t really a pirate, in spite of her dreams and that short
article in an industry magazine. "You saved him twice, you deserved
special treatment."
    "No, I did no more than he’d trained me to
do. He took me on when I was sixteen, forced discipline into a
wild, reckless boy. I thought him harsh until I understood he
wanted to make a man of me."
    He closed