The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,152

ship, she slept.

Cate woke to the horrifying paralysis of someone standing over her, faceless and breathing heavily. Shrieking, she scrambled for the knife hidden at the mattress’s corner.

“You awake, luv?” The disembodied voice came out of the inky void.

“Nathan?” She gasped, sagging with relief.

“Did I give you a start?” His usual throatiness was thickened. The words slurred, the smell of rum rode each one.

“What in the world are you doing in here?” Heart still pounding, her own breath came in tight wheezes.

Nathan had been drinking, how much being the question. She had seen him in drink before, but only pleasantly so. The basic nature of a man could change unpredictably when drunk. How much would it require for Nathan to cross from friend to assailant? It had already compelled him to a startling invasion.

“Pray, a word, if you please,” he said precisely.

Cate nodded, but then realized the gesture was lost in the darkness. “Yes?”

More at ease, she inched away from the bulkhead and returned the knife to its home. In the darkness, Nathan’s dark form was limned by a lucent green of the prisms. A boot scraped the floor. The mattress dipped when he collided with the bunk and caught himself. Such clumsiness was disconcerting. Never had she seen him put a foot wrong. He was most certainly very drunk.

“Need to know something.” He audibly swallowed like the condemned, and then said determinedly, “I need to know…if you’re coming back.”

“Back?” It took her a moment to realize his meaning, made doubly difficult by having to guess where his face was. “You mean, tomorrow?”

“Aye. Are you…coming…back?”

Cate gaped into the darkness, thinking surely she had misunderstood. “Why wouldn’t I?”

A swishing jingle of silver and creak of leather marked Nathan's movement. By the sound of his breathing, he was very near. She heard the familiar rasp of the stubble of his beard as he passed a hand along his jaw. There was the intake of air in preparation to say something, but then exhaled heavily and gulped in dread.

“It occurred…maybe…perhaps…I mean…you might be thinking to…to escape.”

Nathan’s face was obscured, but his trepidation couldn’t be mistaken. Cate bit her lip, choking back a rising lump in her throat.

“I hadn’t considered myself a captive; of late, at any rate. Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“A captive.”

“Oh,” he said, puzzled.

A hand trailed along the edge of the bed toward the nightstand. With a certain amount of fumbling, the flint box was struck and Cate squinted at the glare. The candlelight flared on profile. Weaving precariously, Nathan blinked, as if noticing where he was for the first time. His sockets blackened pools in the shadows cast by his skull, he struggled to steady unfocused eyes. Swaying once, and then again, he turned to brace his back against the bulkhead. He slid slowly down, a muffled thump and clatter of his sword marking his reaching the floor. Cate inched down in the bed in order to be more on his level and propped her head in her hand.

The candle’s amber haloed Nathan’s head and shoulders, the rest of him lost to the darkness. One arm resting on a bent knee, the other limp in his lap, he gaze fixed somewhere in the vicinity of the toe of his boot.

The dark dashes of his brows drew together. “’Tis why I feared to allow you ashore,” he murmured more to himself.

His eyes pivoted up to hers, with a heart-stalling mixture of yearning and fear. “I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

“I hadn’t realized I was being held against my will,” Cate stammered, playing along, for surely it was another one of Nathan’s ploys. He was drunk. No more need be said.

“You’re free to go, luv.” He gulped again. The near-black orbs searched hers, hoping for the answer he wanted to hear, afraid of what remained.

His mouth worked as his rum-fogged mind searched for words. “Anytime. At your leisure, just say the word.”

“Where do you fancy I might go?” Heart pounding, Cate's breath caught, knowing all the while she didn’t dare believe this to be true.

“Someplace. Any place, but here.” He shook his head, waving his hand toward the beyond. “A ship, the sea’s a rough place, especially for a woman.”

“I’m comfortable.” She nestled deeper under the quilt. “For the first time in years, I have purpose and a place to belong.”

She paused, fondling the blanket as it occurred to her that this might not be a moment of truth, but another one of Nathan’s elaborate evasions, a long-winded way of desiring her to