Hold Your Breath 03 - My Captain, My Earl

by K. J. Jackson

  Katalin’s eyes were open when he broke free of the water, gasping for air, but she still looked panicked, her breathing hard.

  “You are free, Captain.”

  She closed her eyes, nodding her head. “Just give me a moment—the crew cannot see me like this.”

  It took minutes, and Jason watched as the panic slowly slid off her face and her breathing turned even. It looked like it took intense control to make it so.

  Her eyes opened.

  “Are you unharmed? Calmed?”

  “Yes. Let us go.”

  With a quick breath, she dove under the water and the side of the boat.

  Jason followed, hand still gripping the lip of the boat.

  ~~~

  Chomper’s snort next to her ear sent Katalin upright. On the quarterdeck, she had been flat on her back, a blanket under her with her hands wedged under her head, staring at the night sky until the wet snort tickled her ear.

  Other than to follow her if she moved above deck, Chomper was usually quite content to be sleeping at this time of night. Something was amiss.

  Her eyes first scanned the surrounding waters.

  Vast, empty ocean.

  Chomper nudged her arm, and she put her hand on the goat’s nose, the whiskers scratching Katalin’s palm as she watched the top of the steps from the main deck. Within a second, a head popped up.

  Jase.

  His eyes met hers as his bare feet landed on the deck.

  He didn’t wait for an invitation to join her. Just walked toward her.

  Katalin didn’t care for his presumption.

  Maybe where he came from, saving a life earned one certain rights. But this was a ship. Her ship. Rights were given as she saw fit.

  She stood, muttering a nonsensical blasphemy under her breath. As if saving her life gave him any right.

  Chomper clomped over to him, took a sniff, then came back to Katalin’s side, settling by her blanket. She bit onto a corner of the cloth and started gnawing it. Katalin put her foot on the fabric, effectively blocking the goat’s path. Chomper could have a corner, no more.

  Jase stood a distance from her, watching the scene, slight smirk on his face.

  She spread her legs in wide stance, hands on her hips. “Ye need something, matey?”

  He took a step toward her and she eyed him. Although an improvement from the tattered rags he landed on the ship with, the clothes he had found on the Windrunner fit his tall frame awkwardly—grey slops that were too large with a rope tied at his waist, and a white linen tunic that sat too tight across his wide chest. She had to admit he looked much better without the ragged beard she had first seen him with, and his bare arms were oddly free of the ink that covered most of the skin of her crew.

  She gave herself a mental shake. Wide chest? Since when had she noted how big a man’s chest was, save for the muscle he could contribute to the ship?

  She inhaled a deep breath, hands not moving from her hips.

  Since he had talked to her the other night. Talked to her like a real person. Not a captain. Not her father’s daughter. Talked to her without an agenda.

  No agenda except getting to dry land.

  And then he had gone and saved her from drowning herself.

  That was when she had started seeing his chest. Seeing how his bronzed arms flexed as he hauled heavy wet ropes. Seeing him as something more than an annoyance she had to keep in check for a few weeks. It didn’t help that he did whatever was asked of him, no matter how menial, and that the crew liked him.

  She took another breath.

  No attachments.

  Never any attachments.

  He ventured one more step to her. “What happened to you today?”

  “What?”

  He took another step, his deep voice lower than usual. She could hear the concern in it. “Under the boat. Your fear. You were panicked.”

  “No. I was not.” She dismissed him with a jerk of her head. “I am not sure what you thought you saw under that boat, Jase, but I was fine. I was just trying to free myself.”

  He moved to within an arm’s length of her. “Truly, Captain Kat? Had you been in your right mind, that rope was easily cut through. You had your knife, but you were floundering—incapable of moving down there to free yourself. You were not just panicked, you were in terror.”

  She spun from him, moving to the railing to watch the waters and avoid his eyes. “Ye be mistaken, boy.”

  “I do not believe you, Captain. I saw what I saw.”

  Jason went silent behind her, but only for a moment before he joined her at the railing, staring down at her.

  “Avoidance does not make the truth disappear, Captain.”

  She sighed, eyes to the heavens before she looked up at him. “You are correct, Jase. I was in trouble. Thank you for your assistance. Is that why you are up here? Gratitude?”

  “No.” His eyes didn’t leave her. “You saved my life. I saved yours. I am sure we are both grateful. But I could care less about a thank you. What I do care about is when I see a woman terrorized. It is not right.”

  “I am not exactly the type of gentle woman you are accustomed to, Jase. I need no saving.”

  “You did today. Why?”

  He hovered. Silent. Waiting.

  She tried to avoid acknowledging him without moving away. Impossible. She could hear his breathing. Feel his eyes on her face.

  She exhaled, clasping her hands as she set her forearms on the railing, leaning forward. Head down, she kicked at a wood plank with the toe of her boot. “I told you I grew up on my father’s ship.”

  “Yes.”

  “My father did the best he could with a baby on a ship. But he was in the business of raiding vessels, and a baby in the middle of a battle was, in his mind, craziness.”

  “That is crazy, Captain Kat.”

  Her head tilted up to him. She couldn’t meet his eyes and focused on the V of his shirt where the white linen gave way to skin. “Yes, well, crazy begot more crazy. Before battles he used to seal me in a barrel, tie it to the ship, and set me in the ocean. He thought it was the safest place for me—and I imagine it probably was. He did his best. It made sense for a baby. A baby does not know what is going on.”

  Her voice had petered to a whisper, and the lump in her throat threatened to cut off her words. She rushed on, eyes lost in memory. “But then I grew. I knew what was going on. I was so little, four, five, and I would bob in the blackness of the dark barrel, terror in every second. I never knew what was happening. Cannons, gunfire, screaming. I never knew if the rope had been severed—if I was floating lost from the ship in the ocean. If I was going to sink. If I was going to be forgotten. Time and again he would do it. I would fight him, kicking and screaming. He would still shove me in. Seal the top.”

  Her throat choked the words.

  “When did he stop?”

  It took her a long moment to find her voice. “When he taught me to fight. When he thought I could defend myself. But he never stopped wanting to put me in that barrel. It meant safety to him. It meant terror to me.”

  Her eyes went up, meeting his. “So I do not do well in tiny spaces. Especially tiny spaces where I am trapped on the ocean. That is what you saw today.” She pushed herself up to stand straight, sucking in a deep breath. “The crew does not know. Most of them remember those early days, but none know how…damaged I am from it. I would like to keep it that way.”

  Jason nodded. “I will not breathe a word of it.”

  Her head cocked at him. “Are you done with me? You know what you came up here for. I would prefer if you would leave me, now.”

  His eyebrow arched at her snapped words, but he offered a single nod and stepped from the railing.

  He made it past the blanket Chomper was now fully devouring and then stopped, turning to her.

  Katalin braced herself. Was that not enough for him? What now?

  He walked back toward her, stopping just shy of the railing. His hand reached
out, wrapping around the smooth wood, his fingers tracing the grain. He looked to be searching for words.

  She waited, face quirked in impatience.

  “Captain Kat, I will be honest. I have been walking around with a gaping hole in my chest for two years. A gaping hole that grows wider each day I am far from my homeland. I had begun to wonder if England was a long-lost dream, and that I should just accept the brutality that had become my life on the ocean.”

  He watched the back of his hand move up and down, palm gently tapping on the railing. “But talking to you the other night…it was something I thought never to experience again. It felt like a little piece of my home, people I once knew, traveled across the ocean and landed on the ship. Gave me hope. I went to sleep thinking it had been a dream, a cruel trick by you, even though I knew it was not.”

  “So you are homesick?”

  He shrugged, his gaze shifting to the vast water. “Beyond. I never knew how much so until I talked to you. It is a hollowness that is unyielding.” His eyes moved to hers. “I am humble when I ask to just sit, Captain. Sit on those crates and talk with you. On whatever topic you see fit. I just want to listen. Just want to remember that my life before the sea was reality. Reality I can get back to.”

  Ignoring the awkwardness of the silence, Katalin took a long moment to assess his face in the moonlight. She only saw true, raw honesty in his eyes.

  “Hell, Jase.” She shook her head in slight exasperation. “You request that of me, and I am the devil to deny you.”

  “So you will sit?”

  She sighed, motioning to the row of crates that lined the back edge of the deck. “I am on watch, so up here regardless. Let us sit. I am yours until dawn.”

  { Chapter 4 }

  Katalin wasn’t sure how Jason knew when she was up there—she was usually random in taking the night watch depending on how tired she was—but every one of the five nights in the past week that she was on deck, he showed up.

  It was something she had begun to look forward to as much as he said he did. As to why she so enjoyed those nights with him under the dark sky, she had figured it out pretty quickly. He had become a friend, and she had never had a friend before.

  The crew was always the crew, whether her father was in charge or she was. Her father was her father. Even on her father’s island, staff was staff. She had never had anyone to talk to without a gamut of unspoken expectations weighing on her.

  But with Jason, there were no expectations. He was not truly part of the crew—just a passenger that was laboring on the ship for passage. The only expectation he had of her was to hear her voice—and that she chuckle at his odd observations of ship life.

  Jason was a novelty, she acknowledged that.

  But it was starting to play with her mind. Wayward thoughts had begun to seep into her consciousness. Wayward thoughts that she couldn’t afford. Not as captain.

  She couldn’t afford for her eyes to specifically seek him out on the deck during the day. Couldn’t afford thinking it was beneath him to have to carry another slop bucket or to swab the decks one more time. Couldn’t afford thinking that she needed to search the ship for some boots for him. Couldn’t afford watching the sweat that dripped from his brow in the hot sun.

  She couldn’t afford any of it, and she needed to stop.

  No attachments.

  Jason was going to be off the ship within a week.

  But then the winds died.

  Not a breeze. Not a whisper of air that would puff the sails.

  Five days passed and the ship only drifted with the waters. Drifted nowhere near land and Katalin found herself counting on those middle-of-the-night hours with Jason to keep her mind even. Her optimism alive. He did that for her—his deep voice soft in the night, steady, easing the constant worry that ate away her days.

  On the sixth day, the last morsel of food had been eaten. And they had caught no fish in four days.

  And still they sat.

  Becalmed in a dead man’s sea. No wind. No fish. They should have been in port by now.

  Their only saving grace was that their fresh water supplies and—more importantly—the supplies of rum were holding.

  The night of the eighth day, Katalin overrode what her good sense was telling her, and came above deck to relieve Fin of the helm. She had been avoiding the night watch the last two nights, truthfully, avoiding Jason. She was now beyond worried, and she hadn’t wanted that weakness to surface in front of him. Not as captain.

  But she couldn’t sleep, no matter how long she lay on her back staring at the moonlight flickering across the dark wood ceiling. The winds had never been so unkind to the Windrunner. Hating to admit it to herself, she had come above deck hoping that Jason would show up. Show up and just talk to her. Take her thoughts off the mind-numbing worry for just a few hours. Calm her, even if he didn’t know he would be doing just that.

  For the first half hour, she sat on a crate by the starboard railing, foot tapping as she kept her eyes on the white sails, searching the air for the slightest breeze. Eventually, Chomper started to gnaw on the edge of the crate by her nervous foot.

  Her mostly whitish coat reflected in the moonlight. Katalin scratched her one black ear. “I know, girl. Is it good? I may just join you and take a nibble myself, I am so hungry.”

  She patted Chomper’s side, her fingers landing on the bones of the goat’s protruding ribcage.

  Damn, they needed to get to land.

  “You need to sleep, Captain Kat.”

  Katalin looked up to see Jason approaching, his bare feet silent on the planks of wood. He was good at that, moving about silently, not drawing attention to himself. Impressive for his large frame.

  “I have been sleeping, Jase.”

  He pointed to the crate next to her and she nodded. She had told him time and again that permission to sit with her was unnecessary, but he continued to hold onto the small gesture of respect.

  He sat, leaning back on the railing and stretching his long legs out in front of him, bare feet flexing.

  “I do not wish to start out being contrary, but I am going to do so.” Jason looked at her, not a hint of his usual smile on his face. “You have not been sleeping. You have been pacing. I could hear your footsteps all through the past two nights.”

  “You could? I did not think one could hear sounds from my quarters.”

  “There is one hammock that affords the proper acoustics. It is also the one under several drips, so it is usually free.”

  So that was how he knew her nightly whereabouts. Sneaky. She eyed him. “Which means you have not been sleeping either.”

  He shrugged. “The wind will or will not come no matter if you are asleep or awake, Captain Kat. You cannot make it appear by sheer will.”

  “True. I cannot. But this is my ship. My crew. Pacing is the one thing that is under my control. So I do it. It is better than sleeping through the slow starvation of the Windrunner.”

  “Is that where we are headed?”

  “As long as the sails are starved for wind, then we are starved for food.”

  She stood, gripping the railing as she looked at the smooth inky waters. “I have always loved the sea. It is my home. I have never wished to be off it. But now. Right now. This is the first time I have ever longed to be on dry land.” She turned, leaning on the railing and staring at the sails again. “My father’s island, the Snake Horn, is beautiful, but I have never felt completely comfortable there, even though we have spent more and more time there in recent years.”

  “Your father owns an island?”

  “Yes, as do some of the crew. Do not let their manners or their dress fool you. Not only is my father wealthy, but each of the crew is as well. The years with my father gave them all riches. Although a few have had trouble with coins slipping through their fingers.”

  “Wine and women?”

  She smiled, nodding. “I am sure you can take a guess as to which ones those are. But we all take care of eac
h other—there is plenty to go around. And we only set sail now when it is specifically requested of us. Loyalty to the past. Loyalty to my father. But each of them belongs on the sea, and they know it. It is where they are happiest.”

  Chomper nudged Jason’s knee, and he bent over to scratch under the goat’s chin. “But the happiness is waning.”

  “Yes. Waning fast. We have never experienced this before. A few days of slack sails, but never anything dire.” She shook her head. “It is my fault. We should have been further south. I lost the wind.”

  “Are the winds more sure to the south?”

  Katalin shrugged.

  “Then you cannot blame yourself, Katalin.”

  “I am the Captain, Jase. The winds are my responsibility.” She sat on the crate. “But I do not wish to talk of the blasted winds. They are all that is in my mind. You. How about you—what will you do once you touch land again?

  Jason leaned back, face to the night sky. “Land. It is hard to imagine after all this time. Two feet on solid ground. I will first probably smell the dirt, and then, as much as it distresses me, I will probably get on a ship, as awful as that sounds. I need to get back to England. I have…unfinished business there that needs attention as soon as possible.”

  “You have told me of your parents, of your sisters and growing up, but what does it look like, England?”

  His eyes came down to her, crinkling with the smile that spread his face. “I have seen the islands in these waters from afar, been to the corners of the continent—but England…England holds a green like no other place on earth. A green that is blanketed in the winter with a layer of snow, which only brings forth spry new green in the spring that shocks one into seeing color again. Hills roll gently. Forests where I grew up are thick, full of wonder and mystery. It is home. A home that were I to never get back to, I would die broken, incomplete.”

  She smiled in odd wonderment at the sheer joy on Jason’s face when he talked of his country. “I have never met someone so loyal to a land—to an ideal, a way of life—as you, Jase. You love your home.”

  “You have no loyalty?”

  “My loyalty is to people. My father. The crew. Not to a place.”