Page 21

Twenty-One

S hrug tightened his hold on my arm as we stood outside the captain’s door. “What are we waiting on?” I asked, hoping to get my “healing” duties over with quickly while procuring information about Marco. I’ll show Caiyan my secret spy abilities are equal to his.

“Hold yer tongue, witch,” Shrug bellowed.

I opened my mouth to remind him I wasn’t a witch, then clamped it shut as Rowan joined us. I expected him to dismiss Shrug, lead me inside his cabin, rip off his pants, and expose me to his sick penis.

Instead, he knocked.

“Aren’t you the captain?” I looked up at his broad shoulders, square jaw, and surly attitude.

He grunted an as if at me, then pushed the door open. I followed him inside. Shrug stayed outside.

I blinked at the summer sun filling the room with light and warmth from the glass windows at the stern of the ship. The room smelled of sweat, damp, and faintly of some kind of balm. Mint. I recognized it from the menthol rubs Eli used when he did muscle work on chiropractic patients.

A thick wooden table sat in front of a wall of shelves stockpiled with books. The table held maps, candles, a spyglass, a compass, and one of those measuring doohickies I’d seen from other trips to this century.

Clothes stuck out of a trunk on the floor, shirts and breeches draped over a chair. Rowan kicked a pair of boots out of my path as I walked inside. The room held a curious disorder, reminding me of my cousin Darryl’s townhouse. He called it “comfortable bachelor.”

A bed hung from the rafters by thick rope. It swayed with the subtle rocking of the ship. A lump lay covered in the bed.

“Captain, I’ve brought the healer.” Rowan stepped aside, allowing me to move forward.

I glanced at Rowan. He made no indication that I mistook him for Captain Hunk, before my gaze moved back to the bed. A hand emerged from the bundle and waved me closer. I walked around the bed until I saw the captain’s face peeking out from the blanket.

My breath caught.

He looked like, well, like, Peter Pan.

A head of sun-kissed auburn curls partially covered a case of mild acne. Cute brown freckles sprinkled across his turned-up nose. The captain was a teenaged boy, maybe younger.

“He’s a boy.” I glanced over at Rowan, who slid a hand across his scruff of beard like he’d made a mistake and should remove me ASAP.

The boy opened wide, pained brown eyes. “Are ye the healer?” His voice was barely a whisper.

I knelt next to his bed. “What’s the matter with him?”

“’Tis his back. He cannae walk.” Rowan cursed under his breath, which I supposed was better than a grunt.

“I fell off the lines.” The boy looked up at me, his eyes hopeful. “During a raid. But I dinnae take a blade to my body.” He tried to sit up, show me his body was intact, but dropped immediately, crying out in pain.

I’d seen Eli treat hundreds of patients with back pain. Some who crawled into the clinic and walked out. I didn’t have therapy machines or know the first thing about fixing a back. I closed my eyes and focused on Eli’s process when examining a patient. History. That was first.

I studied how the boy lay with his knees bent under him. I looked over at Rowan. “Did he hit anything when he fell?”

“Only me.”

I arched a questioning eyebrow.

“He fell on me.” Rowan’s mouth pulled tight. Not in anger. In concern.

“And you are?” If he wasn’t the captain, what position did the giant hold?

“Row’s my quartermaster. My da took him in when he was a wee one.” The boy chuckled, then groaned as another spasm hit his body.

I bent closer to the boy. “Let’s start by trading names. I’m Jennifer.”

“Maximillian, but call me Max.” A half smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

“She’ll address ye as Captain Smith.” Rowan’s growl filled the room like bad breath in an elevator.

I ignored big and grumpy and focused on Max. Examination, that was second.

“OK, Captain Smith, let’s take a look.” I gently pulled back the blanket, revealing a tanned, bare, but youthfully muscled chest. He wore a pair of cotton breeks.

“Can you roll onto your back?” He shook his head. “No, ’tis too painful.”

“Can you feel your feet?”

“Aye.”

“Can you move your legs?”

“It causes much pain.”

That was a good sign. At least his spinal cord wasn’t severed.

I removed the blanket and handed it to Rowan. He hovered over me, wringing the blanket as if he were a worried mother.

“Let me work on your muscles first.” I moved around the bed behind Max and mimicked the way Eli massaged my neck and back. Nothing caused tight muscles more than saving the world.

A tin of something sat on the table next to me. I opened it and sniffed. Peppermint and eucalyptus. With my fingers, I scraped a dollop from the tin.

“’Tis for the smell. The balm relaxes him.” Rowan moved closer, leaning over my shoulder, sucking in air through clenched teeth.

“This also helps relax the muscles, if you apply it directly.” I squatted behind Max, rubbing his back with the salve. He moaned a few times, each one followed by a grunt from Rowan, but the taut muscles relaxed under my fingertips.

“Do you mind?” I spoke to the large mass blocking the light from the window as I lifted my chin toward the only chair in the room.

Rowan folded the blanket neatly and placed it on the table. He didn’t sit but leaned against the wall, watching Max like a lion over his cub.

“It feels better.” Max glanced over his shoulder and smiled at me. I continued the massage.

Rowan relaxed and stepped toward the windows. “Will he walk again?”

Rowan had a lilt to his voice. It was different from Caiyan’s Scot. Possibly Irish. But Max’s accent was more a mixture of something I couldn’t place.

I moved in front of the boy captain and pulled his leg forward, trying the old leg over the side of the bed stretch. The hanging bed swayed and banged against my thighs.

Rowan straightened—the lion on high alert.

“I need him…” I looked around the room. “There.” I pointed at a built-in window seat under the bay of glass.

“Max,” I began gently.

Rowan scowled and grumbled a curse.

“I mean, Captain Smith, we’re going to move you, which might hurt. But if you’ll push through the pain, I can try and make it better.”

Max nodded, his eyes big and trusting. The eyes of a little boy who hadn’t had much hands-on attention.

Rowan twisted his mouth skeptically, then lifted Max. He grunted sweetly to the boy and moved him slowly, carefully, with an unexpected gentle touch.

“Lay him on his side like so.” I demonstrated by lying side posture on the wooden window bench.

Rowan put Max on his side as I instructed. I bent Max’s knee and pushed it up with my legs like I had seen Eli do.

Max’s face pinked, but a wave of pain quickly replaced the awkwardness of my proximity.

Placing one hand on Max’s shoulder and the other on his back, I lifted my hip to his hip, closed my eyes, and pushed down hard on his pelvis. Air pockets released in the kid’s spine and discharged in a symphony of popping bang snaps.

Max yelped like a wounded puppy.

Rowan plucked me off the boy as if I weighed nothing. He held me at arm’s length, my feet dangling, while he kept Max from falling off the bench with his other hand.

Max rolled back on the bench, writhing around like a snake caught under a lion’s paw.

“God’s Teeth! What have ye done, witch?” Rowan’s hands closed around my throat, my feet still kicking aimlessly at the air.

I clawed at the paws around my neck. Suddenly, Max sat up, rubbing his back. “It feels better.”

Rowan relaxed his grip, staring wide-eyed at Max.

“Miss Jennifer has healed me.”

No one was more surprised than me, but I gave Rowan a smug look anyhow as I sucked air into my deprived lungs.

“Good,” Rowan grunted, then lowered me to the floor.

Max stretched his body side to side, then grinned wide at his mobility. “Have her things moved into the aft cabin.”

Rowan stepped toward Max. “Captain, the men?—”

Max stood tall. It was an effort on his part because I suspected the pain wasn’t entirely gone. “On my command.”

“Maybe you’d consider the woman for the other matter at hand?” Rowan raised his eyebrows and cocked his head at me. Max’s chin jerked up, and his face reddened.

“How old are ye?” Rowan asked me.

“It’s rude to ask a lady her age.” I snapped my hands to my waist. And why the hell did he want to know?

“A lady, are ye?” He walked around me, studying me like I was the Venus de Milo on exhibit at the Louvre. He stopped and looked down his nose. It had a slight crook to it. The result of too many breaks, I presumed. “I’ll see to the cabin.” Rowan nodded at Max and left the room.

“What the fudge was that all about?” I turned toward Max. The color had faded from his cheeks.

“What’s fudge?” He angled his head, curious.

“It’s a sweet from my home. You should take it easy. Your back may still spasm.” When he looked at me funny, I rephrased, “Cramp.”

“If it does, ye weel rub it again, aye?”

Geesh. He looked entirely too excited about the treatment I’d given him. “Aren’t you a little young to be the captain?”

“I’m six and ten.” His chest puffed out. “’Twas my da’s ship. He bought it. Until someone takes it from me, ’tis mine.”

“You mean like a raid?”

“Willnae happen. Not with Rowan on board. The others are feared of him.”

“The others?”

“Captain Hornigold, that bloody traitor. And Blackbeard and Captain Vane. They respect Rowan and me.” He puffed again.

“I’m looking for a man.”

Max’s face fell.

“He’s a friend.”

His face brightened.

“I was told he was your cook.”

“You mean Silver?” He moved gingerly to pull on a shirt from his trunk.

“Yes. John Silver.”

“We traded him.” He pulled on breeches.

“You traded him?”

“Rowan had taken the sloop to see—” Max stopped short. His gaze dropped to his hands, and I understood. Whatever business Rowan had was a secret, not to be shared. “Captain Vane boarded us and demanded my ship. He seeks a bigger fleet. I refused, but ta save my mates, I agreed to accompany Vane, even though Rowan insists we’re smugglers.”

“Captain Vane tried to take the Sea Storm ?”

Max nodded, then hesitated as if unsure to continue confiding in me. I gave him a little coax, “And?”

“I had to give him the cook to keep the ship. It was Silver’s idea. He went on that he had a treasure map of the sunken Spanish gold. Rowan thinks it’s an untruth, but I’d like to try for it.”

“With Charles Vane?” My stomach turned, knowing the vile history of the notorious pirate captain.

“Captain Vane’s fighting the English to save our island. I’m joining the cause.” Max’s face beamed, his eyes sparkled, and his voice filled with youthful enthusiasm.

The kid wanted an adventure. My brother had been the same way when we were younger, playing cops and robbers, pirates, outlaws, and a slew of other treasure seekers in the realm of Mamma Bea’s backyard.

“As soon as Vane meets with the captains of his fleet, we’re heading for it.” Max wrapped a waist belt around his midsection and secured it with a strip of leather. “We’re to vote on the new governor.”

“The new governor?”

“Aye, he’s arriving with a pardon for the pirates. Vane is callin’ for a vote, but he willnae take it.”

“Don’t you need to take the pardon?” Surely Rowan wouldn’t allow Vane to persuade this kid to renounce his only hope of freedom.

“I’m no’ a pirate. I’ve never stolen any booty or taken another ship.” He made a swooping motion at the ceiling. “I have one.”

“The Sea Storm .” I chewed the corner of my lip. I had to get off this ship and onto Vane’s ship.

Max hummed a tune adding a few words as he dressed. “ She’s got lectric boots… ” He sang as he scoured the room for his boots. The words were totally wrong, but I recognized the famous Elton John melody from my cell phone playlist.

“Where did you learn that song?” I asked.

“My ma taught it to me. I didnae understand the words, but she liked to sing and did so often to Rowan and myself.”

Alarms went off in my head. Was his mother a time traveler? Was she Sasha and Fredericka’s mother?

“I’d like ye ta have this for the healin’.” He handed me a miniature carving of a dolphin. I noticed several others on the shelves and the desk.

“Thank you. Did you carve this?”

“Aye.” He sat and pulled on the boots. “After Captain Vane takes the vote, weel head out to sea.”

“So, you’ll join Captain Vane at sea?” Plan change. Maybe Max could take the pardon later.

“Aye.” He grinned wide, the impish smile of a man-child excited to be free of pain and ready for his next adventure.

If I could get on Vane’s ship or get word to Marco that I was on the Sea Storm , I could stop the raid, and I could stop Marco’s arrest, and—I swallowed a ball of angsty spit—God forbid, I could stop…the rest.

A knock on the door startled me from my internal plotting.

Max slid his long, sharp sword into his waist-belt with only a mild grimace. “Enter.”

Shrug opened the door. “Cap’n, the cabin ye requested ’tis ready.”

Max adjusted the sword to sit lower on his hip.

“That’s quite a sword,” I said.

“’Tis a saber. Rowan prefers them.” He strutted the room showing off the saber, then grinned. “Shrug, find nourishment for Miss Jennifer. Then stand guard, protect her, until we can be properly acquainted.”

“Protect me from what?”

“Miss, yer the only woman on a ship with a hundred men.”

I rolled my eyes but stopped when I saw the stern set to his jaw. “I can take care of myself, thank you.”

Max belted on a gun, making another small grimace. Peter Pan had transformed into a man right before my eyes, and I didn’t like it. Not. One. Bit.

He walked over to me and eyed me with an alarming resolve. “You’ll take heed, and so weel I.”