by Alisa Adams
Darling shook her head again. “No, but gracias. I will stay here and sit on the beach. I am waiting for mi padre.”
Darling smiled at them as Flain thanked her again, and then he too threw a leg over his pony.
Flain made a clucking noise with his tongue to the little pony. Lightning began trotting along with small, quick steps back down the beach. Darling watched as Flain’s long legs swung loosely on either side of the pony with his toes almost touching the ground.
The little pony trotted behind Sandolf MacKay, trying to keep up with the big man’s large strides.
5
“She gave ye my gold?” a stunned Captain MacLeod asked as he tried to contain his temper. “As a gift for bringing her food?”
Sandolf MacKay tried not to laugh. “She also told us she was proud that we were quitting our evil, pirating ways,” he said with a big grin at his friend Law’s incredulous face.
Flain touched his hat lightly and added, “Nay, I believe she said our unpleasant pirating ways.” He smiled foolishly. “Then she put my hat back on my head so I wouldnae get burned by the sun. She was worried for my face, ye see.”
Sandolf burst out in a deep laugh. “Aye, she said he looks charming in it, Law!”
Oger looked up at Sandof MacKay. “He does look charming in it,” he said bravely. “When he remembers to wear it!”
Flain frowned. “I thought she was vera kind, Captain Law.” He held out his hands to the captain. “She asked if we would prefer a ring or a brooch, or a locket like her mother had. She told us her mother’s locket was taken when she was killed.”
“She seemed to wish she had a locket...” Oger murmured. “Vera kind, indeed. And then she insisted on staying there—to sit on the beach and wait for her da.”
“We dinnae know yet exactly how much gold there is on the ship, and ye realize we have tae give a percentage tae the king,” he said sternly to his men. He took a breath. “How much of the San Gabriel gold does she have?” he asked from between his clenched teeth as he stood there with his fists on his hips, staring at his men.
His chest was bare and wet as were his breeks as he had been swimming crates off the ship and to the beach all morning. He was still out of breath with his efforts at trying to get all the crates to shore. He ran a hand through his wet hair as he eyed his men sternly.
Oger and Flain stared back at their captain, unsure of what to say. They had never seen him like this. He was actually upset at something. He never got upset at anything. The man, until now, had seemed to have no emotions. They stared at him as if he was some rare creature from the sea they had never seen before.
Sandolf, on the other hand, was happy to see some emotion from his friend. He loved to goad him into showing something—anything.
Sandolf clapped his friend on the back. “Who knows, Law? It cannae be much. She had it buried in a hole near a rock at the top of the beach. No harm, my friend,” he said with a broad grin. He put the thick gold chain she had given him around his neck and patted it. “I am quite pleased with her gift tae me. And by the way, maybe ye are a bad sailor. After all, War and I didnae wreck the Lion or the Lioness.” He winked at his friend and strode away before Law could take a swing at him.
“Where dae ye think ye are going, Sandolf?” Lawrence shouted to him.
Sandolf called back, “I am headed back to the harbor to see how the unloading of the Lion and the Lioness is going.” He kept walking as he waved a hand in the air to his friend without looking back. He knew that Law, who had spent his life containing his emotions, seemed to be struggling with his temper for the first time that Sandolf was aware of in all the years he had known him. Vera interesting, Sandolf thought as he chuckled.
Lawrence looked at the ground and shook his head, taking several breaths to calm himself. Put my anger away in a box, he thought.
Sandolf had been a friend since he met him on his first ship when they were both barely out of boyhood. The two of them, along with Warwick Ross, met when they were all mates on that first ship together, defending one another from the older sailors bullying them and the fierce brutality of the captain—until they had become old enough and strong enough to fight back and win, taking the ship for themselves. They had stayed together ever since, in good times and bad.
Lawrence breathed deeply and walked back down the beach and dove without hesitation into the first wave that rolled towards him, coming up on the other side of it with a quick shake of his head to fling the hair off his face. He thought about what Flain had said about Darling mentioning the locket her mother had stolen from her when she was killed. Then he stroked strongly through the water and back to the wreck.
Darling watched Lawrence dive into the waves down by the caves for what had to be the tenth time. There were several crates and boxes and even a large trunk on the beach. A few men were slowly carrying them into the caves. Her hands clenched her horse’s mane. She would like to look in those crates for her mother's locket unless it was on the man when he drowned, and her mother’s secret was safely lost to the dark depths of the ocean. She would not know for sure until she looked, however.
She sat upon Tommy, watching from the far end of the beach. She had come riding around a cliff face to this beach to thank Lawrence for the food when she saw the crates and thought of her mother’s stolen locket and her last words that Darling needed to look inside. Her mind had gone blank, however, at the sight of the shirtless man as he came out of the water. She could not tear her eyes away. His deeply tanned skin was wet and glistening as the water sluiced off him as he rose out of the waves and strode up the sand. He reached up with both hands and tipped his head to the sky, shaking his hair back off his face and running his hands through it. His wet breeks clung to his strong thighs and taut, round, muscular buttocks.
Darling found it hard to swallow.
Or look away.
His breeks were thin and faded by the sun and did not hide much from her eyes. She blushed and moved her eyes up to his chest and the lines of muscles there. He looked like one of those marble statues she had seen in the church. This man, however, was not made of white, cold, lifeless marble. This was a manmade the way God had intended, gifted with everything a woman would wish for.
Dios mios, he is beautiful.
She sighed and then frowned as she watched him reach into the water and tiredly shove another box to shore. He spoke to one of his men and then turned to slowly dive into the waves once again. He took long, slow strokes as he swam back to the shipwreck.
Each time he had swum slower and slower, she realized.
Darling bit her lip.
The man was exhausted. She could see this from where she sat on her horse.
She kept her eyes on him as he climbed up into the ship and pulled another crate out of the wreck, throwing it into the sea and diving in after it. Then he began swimming towards shore, pushing it along, just as he had the others.
But something went wrong. The crate started sinking.
She watched as he dove down after it.
Darling kept her eyes trained on the spot in the water where he went under. She kept her breath held, waiting for him to come back to the surface.
She waited and waited. Her eyes quickly flicked to the beach. Had none of his men been watching? But no one was about. They had each carried a crate back to the caves and not yet returned for the others.
She glanced quickly back at the water as her heart thudded fearfully in her chest. She bit her lip as she made a decision.
“Tommy! Go!” she yelled as she put her heels into her mare's sides. The mare instantly spurted into a gallop as Darling tore down the beach and straight into the water’s edge where she knew the captain had gone in. She dove off of Tommy’s back, swimming quickly, fighting against her gown’s skirts to where she thought the captain was. Then she took a big breath and dove under the water, going deep as she looked around in the salty water, ignoring the stinging of her eyes.
She saw him, strugglin
g with the box. It had become wedged under one of the ship's masts that had sunk to the bottom with one end resting on a low rock ledge. It must have settled further when he had tried to get the crate out and rolled onto his arm, for his arm was wedged under the mast as well. He was struggling, pushing with his other hand and his feet against the wooden mast.
She swam quickly to him, ignoring his look of shock as she put both hands against the mast and added her strength to free his stuck arm. Between the two of them, they managed to lift the mast just enough to free his arm before it fell back onto the crate. He went to reach for the crate, but she grabbed his arm and shook her head vehemently at him in the water as she pointed up to the surface. She pushed off of the bottom, holding his arm in her hands and dragging him up towards the light.
Her face broke the surface, and she gasped for air just as his head and shoulders shot up. He took a huge gulp of air and stared at her, angrily swiping his hair off his face.
“What dae ye think ye are doing?” Law demanded angrily.
Darling was breathing heavily but she turned her flashing eyes on him with a gasp. “I was saving you, Macleod!” Darling shouted at him.
“Ye may not think I am a good sailor, Lion, but I am a good swimmer! I can hold my breath for a vera long time. I was fine!” he shouted back at her.
Darling looked at him as her hair swirled in the water around her. “You are not a fish! You could not possibly have lasted mucho longer,” she said rapidly as her accent thickened. “Besides, your arm is bleeding! You will become food for the fish very soon!”
Lawrence looked down at his upper arm and saw the gash there and the blood, turning the sea red around his arm.
“Mhac na galla!” he said through gritted teeth as he looked at his arm and then at her. “Ye pushed that mast further onto my arm. I was almost free of it.”
“I pushed the mast off of your arm, you ungrateful pirate! And do not swear at me, MacLeod, for I know those words you just said were bad words!” she shouted. She had already noticed that his Scottish burr became even thicker when he was angry.
She watched as he started to swim for the shore. Seeing that his efforts were feeble, she swam up to him and put his injured arm around her shoulder. He was either too tired or too surprised to resist as she kicked her legs strongly through the water. As they neared the shore, she was tiring, for her efforts of kicking when her skirts were hampering her while pulling this big man along was exhausting.
“Tommy!” she yelled to where her mare stood near the water's edge.
Tommy neighed to her and trotted forward into the water. The big mare met the waves and then paddled through the water. Darling reached out and put her other arm around her mare's neck.
“Back to shore, Tommy!” she said to the mare with her breath waning from trying to kick and tread water.
“Yer horse is named Tommy?” Lawrence managed to say as he fleetingly thought of that first day on the beach when he had nudged her to wake her up. She had laughed softly in her sleep and said that name.
“Si, Tommy is my horse. She obeys only me,” Darling said on a quick breath as she held on to her mare and the captain.
Tommy took them through the breaking waves until Darling and the captain could get their feet under them. The mare trotted up the beach as the man and woman fell to their knees in the sand, breathing heavily, both their heads hanging in exhaustion.
Lawrence looked up at her as he gasped for breath. “I suppose I owe ye my thanks…” he said slowly as he sucked in great gulps of air. “Even though I dinnae need saving from a woman and what ye did was incredibly foolish!”
Darling looked back at him as she tried to catch her breath. “I suppose I will never save you again if this is the way you thank me, MacLeod,” she said heatedly.
“I suppose ye should have minded yer own self and stayed on the beach waiting for yer father!” Law said in an exasperated voice.
Darling started to say something more, but her eyes strayed to his upper arm, and the blood flowing freely down from it to cover his hand and drip onto the sand. “Dios mios!” she uttered as she went over to him.
Darling reached down to her soaked underskirt and tore off a long swath of the wet fabric. She grabbed his thick bicep and started cleaning the blood away as tears began rolling down her face. “Dios mios,” she murmured over and over. “Dios mios, dios mios!” She tried to staunch the blood and ripped another piece of her skirt. “Forgive me!”
A large group of his men came running up the beach towards them, led by Flain and Oger bouncing along in a jarring fashion on their trotting ponies.
“Captain Law!” Flain shouted as he came to a halt and stepped off Lightning. “What has happened tae ye?”
Lawrence looked up at his men and waved them away. “I am fine,” he said in an even voice.
“You are not fine, MacLeod!” Darling insisted hotly as she swiped a tear away. “You are hurt terribly and have lost quite a bit of blood. You will probably faint soon, I fear, from blood loss.” She kept her head down as she wound her skirt fabric around and around his upper arm in between petting him. She missed the look of chagrin that the captain gave his men.
Flain squatted down and saw the small bit of blood dripping down from his fingers. “Doesnae look like much blood tae me, Miss Lion,” he said with a quick look at his captain’s bemused face.
Oger knelt down next to him. He leaned way over to peer at his captain’s arm and the blood that was dripping from his fingers. He shook his head and looked up at Flain and then back to the captain.
“’Tis nothing, aye Oger?” Flain declared as Oger shrugged.
Darling’s head flew up. “Mr. Flain! You did not see the wound. It was terrible! Horrible!” She sniffed and angrily wiped her tears away and went back to see after the captain's arm.
“I can do that for him, miss,” a big man said politely as he knelt down on one knee beside Darling.
Flain and Oger respectfully stood up and quickly moved out of the large man’s way.
She looked up into kind silver-grey eyes in a strong, handsome face, surrounded by shoulder-length, curly, dark hair. He looked familiar. She stared at him, ignoring Lawrence’s impatient growl.
The man smiled gently. “I am Warwick Ross,” he said in a soft, deep voice. “I hear I have ye tae thank for saving my sister, Cristianna. She said she was struggling in the storm waves, and ye helped get her tae shore. Else, she said, she surely would have drowned. I am in yer debt.”
Darling was at a loss for words as she looked at him. A large shadow suddenly blocked out the sun as Sandolf MacKay knelt down on a knee beside Warwick Ross.
“What dae ye think, War?” Sandolf said as he nudged his friend's shoulder. “Looks like Law may faint from blood loss, as Lady Lion said, eh?”
Warwick turned his bright smile from his friend Sandolf to Law. “Are ye going tae faint, Law? ’Tis but a wee scratch, fer ye anyway.”
“I have never fainted, and ye well know this,” Law growled curtly, his eyes warning his friend that he would repay him for that comment as he tried to remain still for Darling’s ministrations.
“Did ye cut yerself on a wee seashell, Brother?” Sandolf asked with a grin as he stroked his trim beard and mustache.
Warwick chuckled at Law’s scowl. “Nay, ’twas a wee crab that got him, I am thinking,” he said with a crooked grin.
“Just ye wait,” Law said with a scowl. “I can catch some crabs around the waters of Brough Castle off of Dunnett's Head that are sae large that they will take off yer toes.”
Darling looked at the two big men smiling at each other. She saw the scowl on Lawrence’s face. “Stop that teasing. The capitan is an emotional man! I will have you know that he almost drowned!”
Sandolf hid his choked laughter in his hand when she said that his friend Law was an emotional man until she said that his friend had almost drowned.
Law looked incredulous and furious all at once as he stared at the woman mini
stering to him.
“Is this true, Law?” Warwick Ross asked in a quiet voice, with a quick, stern glance at Sandolf.
Lawrence's eyes narrowed, and his jaw tightened as he started to speak.
Darling did not give him a chance to answer. “He has been bringing all the crates and boxes to shore from the wreck, one by one, exhausting himself.” Darling shook her head in annoyance. “Why has he not tied them all together? I do not know! He could take a rope from the tied together crates to shore and have all the men help him pull the boxes to shore all at once, instead of going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth! Dios mios! Hombre tonto—foolish man!”
The three men looked at one another, trying to hide their astonishment at her sound idea.
Darling continued without looking at them. She had resumed cleaning the blood from the rest of his arm in a gentle and soothing motion. Her face was very near to the captain. She did not know that he was staring intently at her, watching with complete and utter stillness every emotion that crossed her face, for she hid nothing in her eyes or her lips or on her pink-tinged cheeks.
“I saw the crate that he was pulling sink under the water,” Darling continued. “He dove down to retrieve it and did not come up.” She bit her lip and continued. “I waited and waited, holding my own breath.” Her eyes glistened with tears of worry as she clumsily continued to clean his arm. “He did not come back up,” she said in a whisper. “What could I do? I went in after him, and it was a miracle that I did. His arm was caught under one of the ship's masts that had settled onto the bottom on top of the sunken crate.”
Lawrence growled and shook his head as he looked at War and Sandolf, breaking the spell of watching all her tender feelings show on her face. “I was about tae push it off my arm and take hold of the crate when Darling came swimming down tae me.” He looked from his arm to his friends. “I have been in far worse situations and suffered injuries much, much worse than this as ye well know.”