Forever

by Holt, Cheryl

  “In my view, you’re incredibly proud and totally imprudent, but take it anyway.”

  She peered into the small sack, weighing the coins in her palm. “Are you certain you can afford it?”

  “Very certain. I have plenty.”

  Suddenly, she flung herself into his arms and hugged him as tightly as she could. Though he warned himself not to react, his own arms—practically of their own volition—folded around her, and he hugged her back.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she murmured against his chest.

  “You’re welcome, welcome, welcome.”

  “I mean it a thousand times. It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

  Then she drew away, and she had tears in her eyes. The sight of her woe was intoxicating and dangerous. It made him eager to spew all sorts of promises he would never keep.

  “Goodbye, Miss Barnes.”

  “Goodbye. Before you depart, will you tell me your real name?”

  “No.”

  He laid a finger on her pert nose, and he traced it down, across her lips, her chin, her neck, only stopping when his finger reached the collar of her dress. He was a hairsbreadth from dragging her back into his arms, which would be madness in the extreme.

  “Will we ever see each other again?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t think we ever will. You be careful.”

  “I will be.”

  “Good luck in your search for your father.”

  “I’m an optimist. I’m positive I’ll find him on the other side of the island.”

  Hayden had once been an optimist too, but not anymore. Still though, he concurred with her assessment. “I’m positive he’ll be there too.”

  “Goodbye,” she said again.

  “Stay out of the taverns.”

  “I will.”

  She grinned an impish grin, slyly apprising him that she had no intention of heeding his wise advice.

  He could feel himself falling into that grin. He wanted to loaf with her forever. He wanted to laugh and chat and learn every paltry detail about her, but she was saving him from wasting energy, wasting effort. She was rescuing him from any need to fuss with her in the future.

  For an eternity, he studied her, then he spun and marched away. Behind him, he sensed her watching him, and he was desperate to turn and sneak a final glimpse of her. Why would he?

  He stared straight ahead and continued on.

  * * * *

  Helen staggered into her dark, quiet room. She removed her jacket and bonnet and hung them on the hook by the door.

  For once, Becky wasn’t lounging on the bed, and Helen peeked out into the hotel’s courtyard. Becky was there, seated on a blanket in the shade and fanning herself with a branch from a palm tree. Helen went out and plopped down next to her.

  “Where were you?” Becky asked.

  “I was hunting for Father.”

  “I thought we were going later.”

  “We can go later too.”

  “Any news?”

  “No, but look at this.”

  She held out the pouch of coins from Mr. Nine Lives. She dumped them on the blanket. Becky gasped with astonishment, but she was shrewder than Helen. She peered about to be sure no one was spying on them, that no one had seen the windfall.

  She slipped her skirt over the pile to hide it.

  “What did you do? Rob a bank?”

  “I ran into Mr. Nine Lives. He feels sorry for us.”

  Becky was stunned. “He gave you a purse full of money?”

  “Yes.”

  “You should chase him down and beg him to marry you.”

  Helen chuckled. “I doubt he’s the marrying kind.”

  “What kind is he then?”

  “A brigand? A pirate?”

  “Why would you think so?”

  “He’s tall and tough and manly. He struts about armed to the teeth, and he has a…a…gold earring in his ear.”

  “An earring?”

  “Yes.”

  “How absolutely extraordinary. If I can’t goad you into it, perhaps I should marry him.”

  “He’d never be interested in women like us.”

  “What sort would interest him?”

  “Not the sort we should discuss aloud.”

  “Brazen doxies, you mean? Trollops?”

  “Yes, I’m certain that’s the type he prefers. He’s so…so…” She scoffed at her inability to explain. “He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

  She thought of how he’d stepped in to protect her when she’d been tossed out of the tavern. She thought of how he’d guided her away from the squalid spot. He’d been very determined with her, very adamant about having his way.

  Having grown up the daughter of Simon Barnes, who was flamboyant and silly, but never resolute, it had been a heady experience to clash with a man who was obstinate and in charge.

  They’d sat together on that bench over by the bay, and he’d gazed at her with those magnificent blue eyes of his. With the sun shining down on his golden blond hair, he’d looked like a Greek god, like an ancient warrior from an old legend.

  Just from pondering him, her tummy tickled with butterflies. When he was near, there was the strangest force in the air, as if their proximity generated sparks.

  How could two people produce such a strident reaction? It appeared as if the universe was telling her something important about him, that they were destined to cross paths, to be friends, but that couldn’t be right. She was leaving in the morning, and she suspected he would leave Santa Cruz very soon too.

  He didn’t seem like a fellow who stayed in one place for long.

  “I’m so grateful to him,” she said.

  “As you should be.”

  “It’s taken off some of the financial edge.”

  “Yes, it has.” Becky furtively counted the coins. “Is he still coming at eight to fetch you for supper?”

  “We decided he wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, you idiotic ninny. Why would you decide that?”

  “You and I have to get up in the morning.”

  “Yes, but that’s in the morning. This evening, you could have dined with a pirate!”

  “I guess it’s an adventure I’ll simply have to have missed.”

  “I wish you’d warned me you weren’t going. I’d have gone instead.”

  Helen suffered an amusing rush of jealousy, as if Mr. Nine Lives was hers, as if she had a possessive connection to him.

  “I told you he’d never notice women like us.”

  “I bet he would have noticed me,” Becky glumly stated, then she brightened. “Since we have this money, can we eat supper? He declined to dine with you, but I’m available. And I’m starving.”

  “Yes, let’s do exactly that,” Helen said.

  She scooped the coins into the pouch and stuffed them into her pocket.

  Long after they’d spent it all, she would always keep the bag. It would remind her of Mr. Nine Lives. It would make her smile to recall that there was one kind and generous man in the world.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I’m shocked that you gave up a chance to see her again.”

  Hayden was vaguely paying attention to Robert, and he waved away the comment. “There was no reason to take her to supper.”

  “Must there be a reason to tarry with a pretty girl?”

  They were on the beach at their camp outside Santa Cruz. The sun was hot, but the palm trees provided a bit of shade. They were sitting by the fire, eating their afternoon meal.

  His ship—that he’d stolen and renamed Nine Lives—was anchored off shore. Sailors were on the deck, completing their chores. He hadn’t finished the repairs or assembled a full crew yet, but he would. Then he’d proceed to London.

  “I shouldn’t have asked her to supper in the first place,” he replied to Robert’s question. “What would we have talked about?”
/>   “How about the color of her eyes? Women drool over compliments like that.”

  “You would know, I guess.”

  Hayden certainly didn’t.

  As a young man in England, he hadn’t done much courting. He’d figured there would be plenty of opportunity for wooing potential brides in the future. Instead, he’d let himself be swept into the London demimonde. He’d graduated from university and had moved to town. He’d started to gamble and chase doxies, but the wrong affair with the wrong doxy had brought it all crashing down quickly enough.

  He’d had a brief fling with a married lady whom he hadn’t realized was married. Her husband had been a decorated soldier in the army, and while he’d been away serving his country, she’d been in London, behaving like the trollop she was.

  He’d crawled into her bed exactly once, then friends had warned him off. But a few months later, she’d claimed she was increasing with his child. Hayden had never believed he was the father, but when her husband had come home on furlough, he’d had quite a strident opinion about what had happened.

  He and Hayden had fought a duel, and Hayden had nearly been killed, which had set every imaginable catastrophe in motion.

  His parents had been livid, and to cover up the scandal and to keep him from being arrested, they’d whisked him out of England. He’d passed a fraught, tension-filled year with them in Italy. In the beginning, as he’d convalesced, he’d been horrid to them.

  Slowly, he’d calmed and had remembered the person they’d raised him to be. He’d stopped being an ass, and their relationship had been restored to where it had been before he’d been driven mad by drink, gambling, and frivolity.

  When they’d headed for home, they’d been caught in that terrible storm in the Mediterranean, and his parents had drowned. The crew and the other passengers had drowned too.

  He was the sole survivor, and he greatly regretted that he’d been so awful to his parents during those early months in Italy. Because of his actions in London, he’d been ashamed and ill and perilously wounded, and he’d taken it out on them.

  The good news—if such a tragedy could contain good news—was that the woman with whom he’d dallied had suffered an accident and miscarried the baby. His mother had received a letter from a friend who’d been tracking the situation for them, and the information had been an enormous relief.

  He didn’t have a bastard son wandering around London and confused about where his father had gone.

  The entire episode had altered his view of amour. He only dabbled with whores, and he was very careful to never sire a child.

  For the past decade, his world had been one of men and the sea. If he fraternized with the other gender at all, it was for illicit sexual purposes. He had no idea how to chat with a gently-bred young lady who’d grown up sipping tea in London drawing rooms.

  “You gave her some money,” Robert pointed out.

  “Yes, all the coins in my purse.”

  “You’re a milksop after all. She batted her big green eyes at you, and you jumped to assist her.”

  “You would have too.”

  “No doubt.”

  Robert liked women, and whenever he was in a port, he’d choose a paramour who was far removed from the tarts working at the taverns and brothels. He constantly tried to create some semblance of a normal life, but he never stayed in a place for long. He would flirt with a fetching girl, then leave. Sometimes, he’d visit the same port—and the same girl—again, but more often than not, he never returned.

  Hayden’s conduct had been much more restricted, so he’d never had those sorts of encounters. Even if he’d had them, he would never have led on a female with false promises.

  “Tell me more about her father,” Robert said. “I’m curious about this licentious, drunken vicar.”

  Then he commenced a story about a preacher he’d once met who’d had bad habits, but Hayden wasn’t really listening.

  He was thinking about Helen Barnes, thinking he should have done more to aid her, but thinking too that he’d done enough. He had no duty to her, and he had to cease his obsessing.

  As he ignored Robert and wasted energy pondering her, he noticed a skiff sailing by. There were always boats traveling from one side of the island to the other. It was a mountainous region, so some locations were more easily accessed that way.

  The vessel was loaded down with too many passengers, mostly women and children, with their trunks, boxes, and crates of chickens. It was too close to the breaking surf to be able to maneuver safely.

  He frowned, worried that the creaky craft might simply tip over. The spot wasn’t that deep, but if it flipped, everyone would get soaked, and some very plump chickens might die.

  Hayden interrupted Robert’s tale. “Look at those idiots.”

  He went into his tent and retrieved his spy glass. He stared out, wondering if he knew the dolt piloting it, wondering if he could find him to scold him later. Yet when he saw who was crammed in the seats, he shook his head in exasperation.

  “You’ll never believe who’s on board,” he said to Robert.

  “Who?”

  “Miss Barnes.”

  There was a young lady next to her with the same dark hair who had to be her sister.

  Just then, a wave crashed over the bow. Passengers shrieked and lurched away, and the shifting of their combined weight left the boat off balance. Another wave crashed, and the whole bloody thing flopped over.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” Hayden muttered.

  He was already running into the calamity as, behind him, Robert was hollering for his two boys, Will and Tom, to help. The other men in the camp dashed into the water too.

  No one was in much danger of drowning, but the waves were smacking into people. Luggage was floating, children crying, and chickens screeching with a noise he’d never heard chickens make before.

  He raced by the drenched group, only having eyes for one person in particular. In her heavy black dress, complete with petticoats, shoes, bonnet, and jacket, she couldn’t stay on her feet. Waves kept slapping into her, knocking her over. She’d come up sputtering, disoriented, then she’d disappear.

  “Miss Barnes!” he shouted. She surfaced for air, and he shouted again. “Helen!”

  She managed to turn toward him, and he swooped in and grabbed her.

  “Mr. Nine Lives!” she said, and she repeated his name over and over.

  She clung to him, snuggled to his chest, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. They were bobbing together, the tide gradually pushing them in.

  “You crazed lunatic,” he chided. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I’ve never been so glad to see someone in my life!”

  “How have you survived this long on your own?”

  “I never had any problem in England, but on Tenerife, I’m constantly landing myself in jams.”

  “And I’m constantly witnessing them. It’s quite exhausting.”

  Frantically, she glanced about. “Where is my sister?”

  “She’s already out.”

  Will and Tom had dragged her in, and Hayden’s men were chucking stragglers up on the sand. People were coughing, weeping, searching to be sure relatives were accounted for.

  As for himself, he wasn’t inclined to rescue anyone else or to arrive on the beach. Once he did, he’d have to release Miss Barnes, and he was in no rush.

  “I was afraid I would drown,” she said.

  “It’s not that deep. The waves are just strong here. You were whacked pretty hard.”

  “I’ve never learned to swim!”

  With that, she burst into tears, and she snuggled herself more tightly to his chest.

  He was charmed by her and how she knew she was safe with him. Her face was nestled at his nape, and he was clutching her bottom, but she was so distraught she didn’t realize how inappropriately he was holding her.

  Her current proximity was gener
ating all sorts of lurid scenarios he shouldn’t be considering with regard to her. She was a vicar’s daughter! He should have been ashamed of himself—but he wasn’t. Instead, he was thinking that a brief amour with her might be the cure for what ailed him.

  Finally, it was shallow enough that he couldn’t continue to pretend they were floating. He stood and carried her the rest of the way, but she didn’t let go.

  Her sister ran over, calling, “Helen! Helen! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, Becky.”

  “I’d like to kill that idiotic captain,” her sister seethed.

  “So would I,” Miss Barnes agreed.

  “You told him the boat was too crowded, but he wouldn’t listen. If I were a man, I’d pound him bloody.”

  Hayden peered down the beach, seeing that Robert and Will would probably do exactly that. They were escorting the captain off into the foliage where they’d have no observers as they inflicted some bruises.

  “I thought I’d perish!” her sister said, and her voice oozed with excess drama. “I thought we were dying!”

  “We weren’t dying,” Miss Barnes firmly replied. She noticed she was cuddled to him. “Put me down, Mr. Nine Lives.”

  They were nose to nose, and he stared at her, reminding himself of how pretty she was. She was drenched, her clothes sticking to her in the most interesting places, and he raised a brow, informing her that his masculine sensibilities were very happy. Then he slid her to the ground, her descent very slow so he felt every inch of her as she glided down.

  “Is this Mr. Nine Lives?” her sister asked.

  “Yes, Becky,” Miss Barnes said. “Mr. Nine Lives—”

  “It’s just Nine Lives,” he explained. “There’s no need for mister.”

  “Becky, this is Nine Lives. He’s very gallant and has saved me on several occasions.”

  Her sister meticulously scrutinized him, then she grinned. “I’ve heard all about you, Nine Lives.”

  “I’ll bet none of it was good.”

  “Oh, it was all very, very good.”

  “Nine Lives,” Miss Barnes said, “this is my sister, Miss Becky Barnes.”

  Miss Becky laid a hand on her forehead and moaned. She actually moaned. “I declare, Nine Lives, I was certain we were done for.”