A Pirate's Heart (St. John Series) (6 page)

“Good. Give the orders.”

“Weigh anchor!” Max bellowed, his deep voice carrying to the crew.

A resounding “Aye, aye, sir” could be heard echoing throughout the ship as
The Abyss
lurched forward leaving Tortuga. Once clear of the busy docking area, the remaining gray sails were dropped and the ship moved quickly into the warm waters of the Caribbean.

Max remained topside helping the crew for the remainder of the day. He took the helm so Alex could go to his quarters to work on the shipping documents for Emerald Shipping. Turning his face skyward, he soaked in the sun’s warm rays for several minutes enjoying the feel and smell of the sea.

Smitty approached Max as the sun began its downward decline. “I’ll take her now.”

Max nodded his head at the gunner. “Keep our current heading. We’re making good time. At this rate we’ll be in Nassau before the end of the week.”

Smitty nodded his acknowledgement as Max took his leave.

Max made a quick stop at the galley. He wrapped several cold mini biscuits and a wedge of cheese in a cloth and headed to his quarters. Once at the door to his room, he took one of the biscuits, popped it in his mouth, and opened the door.

Max’s quarters were dark. The lamp’s fuse had burned itself short hours ago, which extinguished the flame. He left the door open as he placed his meal down on the small table at the door. Turning the knob on the lantern, he extended the wick. He quickly lit the lamp and closed the door. He had removed his coat earlier in the day so he was wearing only his dark trousers, black shirt and a wide belt with his weapons. Taking off his belt, he tossed it onto the bed. He didn’t notice the unusually large lump. He never made his bed, so the lump in the middle he put off as being just the bunched up quilts he used for occasional warmth.

Picking up his supper, he walked to the dresser. He laid the mini biscuits on the dresser and took off his shirt and tossed it in the corner. He poured some water out of the pitcher, left from this morning, into the washbasin and splashed the cool water onto his beard. He looked up in the mirror at his reflection. Rubbing the whiskers on the side of his face, he let out a sigh. His brows drew together when he noticed the quilt move.

* * * *

Kristina awoke and began to wonder what time it was. The lamp had gone out long ago, but she could tell they were far out to sea by the sway of the ship. She gave a small stretch and sighed. It had been ages since she had slept that well. She figured it was the sway of the ship combined with the stress of the past few weeks that made her sleep so long.

As she lay there, she heard the doorknob rattle. She quickly grabbed the covers and pulled them on top of her head. As she peered from under the covers, she could see the light from the hall entering the room. The door remained open for several minutes, giving her hope that whoever opened the door, did so by accident. A soft creak was heard. She could smell the faint scent of sulfur from a match and hear the door as it closed. Holding her breath, she hoped the person had left. But as she lay there, her heart sank. She could hear someone walking around the room. Panic began to set in as she felt something land on top of her. The footsteps crossed the room. She could hear water being poured.

Lay very still,
she mentally told herself as she attempted to lay motionless under the heavy quilts. The more she willed herself to keep still, the more her body screamed to move and then her leg began to itch. She fought the desire to scratch, but suddenly her leg gave a small jerk as the itch intensified. The movement of her leg caused the objects on top of her to slide off her, and she could see the hilt of a sword.

Kristina could hear the footsteps approaching the bed and she panicked. She grabbed the the sword and quickly stood up in the bed, pointing its tip towards the occupant of the room. As she stood, the bottom of her borrowed shirt caught under her foot and brought the side of it down to her left elbow. She gained her bearing quickly and pointed the tip of the sword at the occupant’s chest once again. Her brown eyes widened as she realized she was pointing the sword at the man she intended to marry.

Max viewed the defensive beauty before him. Never in his life had he seen a more desirable sight. She stood there proudly, defiantly. Her oval face was surrounded by soft wavy black hair. Her long raven locks were down her back in soft waves. She was breathing rapidly causing her nostrils to flare. Her mouth parted bringing his attention to her full red lips. He noticed she was wearing one of his shirts. It engulfed her like she was a small child, but he could see from the curve of her breast protruding from the neckline of his shirt that she was anything but. This feisty creature in front of him was all woman. His eyes traveled back up her body and locked with hers. He could see the passion she possessed in her chocolate eyes. A wolfish-grin crossed his face.

“Well, well. What do we have here? Did Alex decide to make up for all his teasing about the monkey? He shouldn’t have really.” His eyes hungrily traveled the length of her body. “But I will not refuse this lovely little peace offering he has bestowed upon me. That would be rude you know.”

Kristina’s eyes grew wide as she realized what this handsome man was insinuating. He thought she was a prostitute! Bought for his pleasure! How dare he? This was the man she thought she wanted to marry!

“Why you no good, lowlife, whoring, bastard!” She shouted at him, not realizing he did not understand a word of her Spanish insults. “If you think for one minute that—”

Her rampage was interrupted by the door being pushed open. She glared out of the corner of her eyes at the blond-haired man. He was with this man at the tavern yesterday. She should have known they were shipmates.

A deep, throaty chuckle came from the blond-haired man. He was laughing so hard he had to hold onto the doorframe to keep from doubling over.

“What the hell are you laughing at, Alex?” she heard the black-haired man snap.

“This is rich!” Alex hooted again. “Never in all my days would I have dreamed that you, of all people, would bring a woman on board
my
ship, especially without asking first.”

“You mean you didn’t put her in here?”

“Now why in the hell would I do something as foolhardy as bring a woman on board a pirate ship?” Alex replied as he observed Max. “And put your hands down, Max, you look ridiculous standing there like you’re surrendering.”

A sheepish look came across Max’s face. “Yeah, I know,” he replied as he lowered his arms. “Thought I’d give her a little hope. Make her think that she was in control.”

“What in the hell did you do to make her so angry?”

“How do you know I made her mad?”

“Well, since neither of us speak a word of Spanish, I am assuming you’ve had a thorough tongue lashing. And now it looks like she’s planning on skewering you and having you for dinner. So, yeah . . . I’d say she’s mad.”

“Thanks for your insightful observation, Alex. It’s helpful as always,” Max replied drily.

“What did you do? Not bed her or bed her too much?”

“I just got here!”

“Ahh,” Alex replied as he raised his chin up with acknowledgement. “So not enough.”

She eyed both men strangely. They bickered back and forth like brothers, but looked absolutely nothing alike. They were night and day from each other. Both tall, broad chested and muscular but that was where their similarities ended. The blond-haired man had a calmer aristocratic presence to him. His articulation was superb as though he had many tutors. He carried himself with the grace of nobility. But the black-haired man had a rough presence to him. A worldly presence. He had a presence that would make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. His articulation was not as refined as his companion, but he was not uneducated.

They were acting like she wasn’t even there. That she was unarmed. Well, she was there and she was armed! Their conversation began to sink in. Bed her? Not bed her? Pirates! No! She pointed her swords back and forth between the two men.

In poor English she said, “Pie-rat!” in an attempt to sound like she didn’t understand what they were saying.

“It seems we have a problem,” Max stated matter-of-factly as he watched the beautiful Spanish lady standing in his bed.

“We?
We?
Hell, there ain’t no
we
to it.
You
have a problem, my friend, not me. I will leave you to do whatever it is with your newly found trophy . . . pie-rat,” Alex said mocking her, as he quickly shut the door.

“You’re a real friend, you know that, you bastard!” Max yelled at the closed door.

“And you’re a pie-rat!” he heard Alex reply.

Chapter
Six

Max turned his attention back to the feisty raven-haired beauty in front of him. He watched her for several minutes and realized she was daring him to disarm her. He could do that easily enough, but he didn’t want to risk hurting her. What was he going to do with her? She didn’t have the feel to her of being the unsavory sort. Her features were too soft, too pristine to be of the sordid kind.

Kristina could feel his eyes traveling up and down her as he watched her. Pirate! Of all the things! She had hoped she had had the last of dealing with pirates after she had gotten off that blasted ship. Furrowing her brow a thought crossed her mind, what was she going to do now? Her kind-of-sort-of-well-thought-out-plan was not working out. If she hadn’t taken that damned nap!

A small chuckle came from his direction. Max, she remembered him being called. He didn’t look like a pirate. His hair was well groomed and he was not wearing an earring. So an earring was not a requirement to be a pirate. Not that she had had many run-ins with pirates until recently.

The Spanish stowaway was deep in thought about her current situation. Taking advantage of her distraction, Max quickly took the sword from her hands. She attempted to wrestle it back, but it was pointless. Never had she seen a man made so . . . so . . . so . . . hard. That was the word that came to mind. Her tiny fists didn’t even make him flinch. He wrestled the weapon so easily from her grasp. And before she knew what was happening, he had her hands pinned behind her back, her body pressed to his, her face even with his broad chest. Oh and what a nice chest it was! Tan, muscular and just begging to be touched. Startled by her thoughts, she attempted to look into his eyes. She had to look up and up and up until she could see his black eyes. He easily towered over her five-foot two-inch frame.

“Let me go!” she shouted at him, forgetting to keep up the pretense of not knowing English.

“So you do speak English?” Max questioned with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

“Let me go, you asinine dolt!” she chided in a disparaging tone. She struggled to break free. “Or do you have cotton in your ears!”

Her insult made the humor leave his eyes. He looked at her coldly, causing a shiver to run down her spine. “I think you’re in no position to be making demands. May I remind you
whose
ship you’re on?”

“Well, it’s obviously not yours!” she countered.

Her acuteness surprised Max. He hadn’t realized how intently she had observed Alex’s conversation. His thoughts became distracted as he felt the heat from her body penetrating through the thin red shirt she was wearing.

“And this shirt you’re wearing is obviously not yours. Do you know what happens to thieves on pirate ships?”

Anger filled her expression. “You are all
thieves
!” she retaliated.

“
Touché
,” Max replied dryly. “But nonetheless, I believe you have my shirt and I would like it—”

Before he could finish his sentence, she raised her knee and attempted to hit him in the groin. His towering height was a disadvantage to her, causing her to miss her mark. But it was close enough. He let out a faint curse and let go of her. She darted towards the dresser, spun around and found him recovering from her attempt to cause him pain. She grabbed the closest thing to her, which happened to be the biscuits Max had carried in earlier, and threw one at him. One hit his head with a small thud.

“Ow,” Max replied with mock pain, as he rubbed the side of his temple.

Knowing she had managed to cause a small amount of pain to her new captor, a small smirk crossed her face. She grabbed another biscuit and hurled it at him. He ducked this time and her missile landed with a small noise on the floor behind him. She grabbed another one.

His menacing expression changed to a humorous one. “Well, at least I know if we ever run out of cannonballs we could use James’s biscuits instead.” He rubbed his temple again. His eyes settled back onto her and a new expression came over him as he viewed her current state of dress. In her hurry to get away from him, the left side of the shirt had dropped low, exposing her breast, and her dark nipple had pebbled from the coolness of the room. “Well, this is an unexpected invitation,” he said huskily, his eyes never leaving her breast.

Her eyes traveled to what he was viewing. “Oooooo!” she screeched as she yanked the oversized shirt back up to her shoulder. “Is that all you
ever
think of. Firs,t at the tavern—”

“At the tavern?” he interrupted.

“—then when you first saw me, and now . . . now!” she kept saying, not allowing his interruption to distract her from her tirade.

“I knew it! You
were
the one following me.” A look of shock and surprise crossed Kristina’s face. Her expression was the answer that Max needed. “So you followed me in hopes of what? Stealing from me?” His voice was menacing.

Upon seeing his expression, Kristina’s heart raced as panic set in. Never in her entire life had she seen such an intimidating look from someone. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. How dare he accuse her of being a thief when that’s exactly what he was!

“If I
had
wanted to steal from you, I would have, without you even knowing it,” she lied. “No, I wasn’t planning on stealing from you. I was looking for a way off that Godforsaken island! A way to get back home! I overheard your conversation with that blond fellow and thought that you might help me! But
nooooo 
. . . you had to be pirates!”

Max studied her, confusion entering his expression. “Help you? How?”

“Never mind.” She held up her hand in disgust. Twisting her head sassily, she continued, “You can just drop me off at the next island, inhabited or not. I’ll take my chances there rather than with
pirates!”
She infused the word “pirate” with as much contempt as she could muster.

This was escalating beyond control. Max usually never lost his temper with the fairer sex. He found their company too appealing, too entertaining to argue. But this wasn’t his usual situation in dealing with women. He normally only dealt with tavern wenches, who were willing to please if the price was right. But she was different. He took a long deep breath and ran his fingers through his thick black hair. Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked at her. She was putting on a brave front, but he could sense her fear. He could hear her mumble about pirates needing to meet a horrible demise and wondered what other encounters she had had with pirates.

“Look,” he began. “We have gotten off on the wrong foot. Let’s start again.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Oh, no! You started off on a
marvelous
foot. Insinuating I was a . . . a . . . a
puta
!”

“A what?” he asked, drawing his brows together with confusion.

“Whore!”

“Well, yes? What was I supposed to suspect? A woman on board this ship, in my bed, wearing
my
shirt, and only my shirt, I assume?”

“Well, you know what they say when you
assume
something?” she piqued. Why on earth had she decided before even meeting this man that she wanted to marry him?

“My name’s Max. What’s yours?” She didn’t answer, just kept staring at him wondering what he was up to. He took a deep calming breath and softened his tone. “Oh, come on. You surely have a name?” She still didn’t answer. “No? Well, then, I’ll just have to call you . . . Attila.”

“Attila! That’s a horrid name! My name is Kris—” She stopped not wanting to give him her name.

“Your name is Chris? You have a boy’s name?” he asked in a gentle manner.

“No, not Chris. Kristina,” she admitted reluctantly, his soft tone making her guard slowly come down.

“Well, Kristina, Alex was right. A pirate ship is no place for a woman, even if we did just leave Tortuga. You would be too much temptation for anyone.” He studied her. She was stunning, sensual, exotically breathtaking. Max shook the thoughts from his head. “About a third of our crew are newly acquired from our last stop at George Town and Tortuga. It would be difficult to protect you from twenty or so randy men, if you get my meaning.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” she questioned, with sarcasm in her voice. “Cut my hair and grow a beard? Not likely.”

“Your gender will be easy enough to hide. It will just be what you are
doing
here, that will be the hard part. Do you have any skills?” he asked as his eyes traveled the length of her body. He was going to have to cover her up with something. She was too tempting by half. Even though he had had several good romps in Tortuga, she made him want her without even trying.

“I’m
not
doing that!” she replied heatedly as she watched his expression.

“I wasn’t suggesting it, now was I?” he shot back. “Not that it wouldn’t be a good idea, but no. What did you do before you took up becoming a stowaway?”

What was she thinking? Why did she ever get a harebrained notion that he would make a suitable husband? Her fingers tightened around the hard biscuit in her hand. An idea sprang into her mind. “Cook,” she blurted out.

“Cook?” Max repeated in surprise. Never in a million years did he think this beauty before him knew how to cook. A pensive look crossed Max’s face. “Now, that’s not a bad idea. I know James would be thrilled to be out of the galley, as would the rest of us. He’s been trying to kill us with his cooking for weeks now, since our last cook died.”

“So what does this mean?” she asked suspiciously.

A grin crossed Max’s face. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a disguise as a cook on board
The Abyss
,” he replied smugly. Max motioned his head towards the bed. “You can sleep there. I’ll take the floor.”

She really wasn’t sleepy after her nap. “You’re giving me your bed?”

“Unless you want to share?” She hurled another hard biscuit at his head, hitting his chest instead. He crossed the distance to her in a quick stride and took the remaining biscuits from the table beside her. “Hey, those horrid things are my supper. They’re not much, but better than nothing.” She watched him gather the hardly edible mini biscuits in his large hands.

Her growling stomach broke the tension in the room. With a reluctant sigh, he looked at the remaining biscuits, then her. He divided his meal in half and handed it to her. She graciously accepted the food. It had been several days since she had last eaten. As she took a bite, she made a disgusted face. She heard him laugh at her expression.

“You’re right. These things are horrible. How long have you had to suffer these awful meals?”

“Too long. But rest assured, even if you don’t know the first thing about cooking, it would be better than James’s. He’s a hell of a bos’n, but a piss poor cook.”

“Trust me. I know a thing or two about preparing meals.”

“Good to know. Just know you need to prepare mass quantities. There are over seventy crewmembers on board. Ration what you can, but don’t be stingy.” She nodded her head at the understanding.

They ate in silence after that. She was still leery about the current situation. Pirates could not be trusted. As she watched the handsome devil, she wondered if he might be the exception. He had not tried to harm her, but they had just met. How was she to know that the second she was in bed he would not try to hurt her? As she watched him, she realized that there would be no way in this world that she could defend herself from this strong man in front of her. When her body was pressed to his, she could feel every muscle as they rippled across his body. There was no doubt in her mind that he knew how to handle himself in any situation, regardless if he had a weapon or not.

Her thoughts were interrupted by his deep voice. “Better get some sleep. You’ll rise early.”

She nodded and squeezed past him, trying not to touch him; the heat from his last touch was still too disturbing to her. She crawled back into his bed, bent down towards his fallen gear and quickly picked up his pistol.

He watched her with curiosity. “If that makes you feel safe, by all means sleep with it. Just don’t shoot your fool self.”

She glared at him and laid down, clutching the pistol in her hand. She could hear the chair creak as he sat down. Lying there, the tension left her body as she realized he wasn’t going to touch her, and she began to get drowsy. Funny, but she didn’t think she would be sleepy after sleeping the entire day.

As she began to drift off to sleep, she heard him reply, “For someone who hates pirates, you’ve just become one. Good night, pie-rat.”

His last response ended up with him being hit with one of the pillows. She lay back down followed by his laughter.