Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (42 page)

He stood balanced on a branch with all the coiled ease of a panther, swaying gently with the tree as the breeze ruffled his long black hair and white linen shirt. The half-light hid his eyes and made his face all angles and harsh planes above an unforgiving slash for a mouth, a face that had none of the rascal's charm she'd loved so well, and all of the pirate's menace that he'd shown to the world.

The sleeves of his shirt were shoved over his forearms, and across his chest he'd slung a wide leather belt with two long-barreled pistols tucked into the front. With a scraping whisper of steel, he swept his cutlass from the scabbard at his waist, idly flourishing the blade before him in a deadly arabesque.

She'd never seen him look like this, thought Miriam with a shiver of fear. She'd never even dreamed he
could
. Yet, perversely, the sight of him like this reminded her of those long-ago days on their island. Poised there on the branch, with the cutlass in his hand, he was the flesh-and-blood embodiment of every fantasy and game they'd ever played out, on the beach or in their little shelter of tangled vines, and now, when she shivered again, she realized it wasn't fear but excitement, wicked, sinful, and entirely wrong, that was making her palms turn damp and her heart race.

"God in Heaven have mercy on us," babbled Chilton. "Have mercy, I beg you!"

Gently Miriam put her hand over Chilton's to calm him, and herself, too. She couldn't let Jack and his twirling cutlass make her forget that Chilton was the man she'd promised to marry.

"You don't scare me, Jack," she said as defiantly as she could, which, considering the way her voice was shaking, wasn't particularly defiant at all. "
And
you've no right to be spying on Chilton and me like this, anyway."

Chilton stared at her with fresh horror, his ringers tightening convulsively around hers. "You are acquainted with this outlaw, Miriam? How is it that my innocent bride can know such a scoundrel by name?"

"Of course I know him," she said defensively as she glared up at Jack, If he pounced on that unfortunate 'innocent bride,' the way she dreaded and the way only Jack could, then she'd never, ever be able to explain herself to Chilton. "Everyone in Westham knows Jack, and knows the kind of trouble he is liable to create, too."

"Ah, Miss Rowe, how you shame me!" murmured Jack, his voice a purring caress that had no shame in it at all. "You've never had need to fear me before. I don't see why you should now."

"Then begone with you, sirrah, begone at once," demanded Chilton imperiously, waving the lantern as if shooing away an unruly stray. "Do as I say directly!"

"Impatient little bastard, aren't you?" said Jack mildly as he parried the cutlass at an invisible foe hovering somewhere over Chilton's head. "For your sake, Mirry, I hope this lover of yours knows the pleasures of taking his time, else hell never bring you any pleasure at all."

"Base, impudent rogue!" sputtered Chilton. "I shall report you to the constable the minute we return to Westham, the very minute!"

"As you please." Jack's slow smile was sly and knowing, enough to send Miriam's heart to racing all over again. " It’s your right as an Englishman. But before you do, I must ask you to oblige me first, and turn over to my keeping the one thing you hold dearest."

"My dearest possession?" cried Chilton wildly. "Then you are no better than a thief, and a cowardly one at that! But I won't let you rob me, no, sirrah, I shall not!"

He jerked his hand free of Miriam's and instead pressed it protectively over his own belly, to the right of the buttoned front of his waistcoat.

"Oh, Chilton, please, don't!" said Miriam urgently as she reached out to stop him from standing upright in the wobbling boat. Not only was he going to topple them both into the water, but what was worse, she
knew
he was going to make a total and complete fool of himself before Jack, a disastrous sight she'd no wish to see. "Mind the boat, Chilton, I beg you, please!"

But Chilton only brushed her hand impatiently from his arm, determined to take his stand against the thief, no matter how unsteady—and brief—that stand might be.

"You will never get your greedy fingers on this timepiece," he declared grandly, one hand over his watch and the other still holding the lantern. "I bought it myself from the greatest master horologist in London before I sailed to this savage land, as an especial reminder of a more civilized world, a world that your kind would never recognize.
That
is my dearest possession, and I will not let it become yours!"

"Your watch?" Jack leaned forward from the branch and frowned down at the other man, dearly mystified. "Why the hell would I want your watch?"

"You said my dearest possession," said Chilton doggedly. "You said—"

"I know what I said," growled Jack. "And I know I never meant your damned
watch
."

He plunged the cutlass back into its scabbard, and swiftly, before Miriam quite realized what he was doing, he'd swung himself down from the branch and into the boat. Chilton's eyes rounded with astonishment as Jack's elbow landed squarely in his chest. For a fraction of a second Chilton flailed his arms to keep his balance, then toppled backwards out of the boat and into the water with a spectacular splash that drenched Miriam. The lantern flew from his hands and
kerplunked
into the water, too, dousing the candle with a hiss that left them all in murky near-darkness.

"
Chilton
!" shrieked Miriam, leaning over the side where he'd fallen. "God in heaven, where are you?"

"Where he should be," said Jack, raising his voice over the sound of Chilton gasping and swearing in a thoroughly uncivilized manner as he thrashed in the water. "Though to my mind he deserves someplace much hotter, the river will do for now."

"But Jack, wait—
wait
!" cried Miriam as she felt the boat begin to glide forward through the water. Unlike Chilton, Jack knew exactly how to row a boat, and fast, too. "We cannot leave him here to drown!"

Jack snorted with disgust. "He won't drown, Miriam. If he'd stop behaving like such a panicky jackass, he'd realize the water scarce comes to his waist. If he follows the path along the north bank, he'll reach Westham by daybreak."

"I will take this to the royal governor himself!" sputtered Chilton. "I will see you hanged and gibbeted for the thief that you are!"

"Ah, but I left you your watch, didn't I?" called Jack over his shoulder. "And when you speak to the governor, be sure to tell him that all I took from you was Miriam."

Miriam gasped. He'd found his rhythm with the oars, and now that they were free of the overhanging branches and into the deeper channel of the river, they were moving so rapidly that she had to hold on tightly to each side of the boat to keep from falling overboard herself. Part of her was aware that she should be frightened, that Jack was dangerous, reckless, and armed to the teeth. But the other, less cautious part of her argued that Jack had always been reckless and dangerous, and as for the pistols and the cutlass—well, those were far from the worst weapons that Jack could employ with her.

She lifted her chin, determined to look outraged even if she had to peer from beneath the drooping, sodden brim of her hat to do so. "You haven't taken me anywhere."

"Not yet, no," he said, and in the darkness she was certain he was grinning. "But I mean to."

"Then you've added kidnapping to robbery!"

"Kidnapping?" He chuckled. "Your schoolmaster's going to have a hell of a time making that stick when everyone in town knows how fond we were of each other."

"Not any longer, Jack, not when—"

"Not nothing, Miriam," he countered. "Consider how sweetly you came clear to Hickey's to see me this morning. And here tonight you greeted me by name, you didn't fuss when I joined you in this boat, and I didn't have to use one lick of force to make you come along with me. Even now you're not exactly leaping into the water to rejoin your pitiful, piss-poor intended. I didn't kidnap you any more than I stole than infernal watch of his."

She hated it when Jack became logical like this, hated it all the more because he used that logic so sparingly, to catch her by surprise the way he had just now.
She
was supposed to be the sensible one, not him. Now that the river had widened around them and they were in the open moonlight, she could see the white teeth of his smile in the shadowy outlines of his face, an infuriating smile at her expense. She felt the splashed river water trickling from the brim of her hat down the back of her neck, and suddenly, at this moment, it all seemed more than she could bear. With a muttered oath of her own, she ripped the wet straw hat from her head and slapped it furiously across Jack's arm as he leaned toward her at the oars.

"Chilton
loves
that watch!" She smacked the hat across his other arm, the straw flopping in limp, damp protest "That watch is his most treasured possession, just as he said, or at least it was until you ruined it in the river!"

"Falling overboard is scarcely a capital offense," said Jack as he dodged to avoid the hat "Even in Massachusetts."

"Then perhaps you should try Purgatory, which is where you belong! She slapped the hat across his arm again and heard the oar scrape in its lock as his stroke went awry, making the boat lurch clumsily to one side.

"Damn it, Mirry," he growled. "Stop that before I heave your hat over the side next!"

But instead of stopping, she smacked him again, hard enough to dislodge one of the pistols tucked into the belt across his chest. The gun clattered into the bottom of the boat, and with a squeal of concern Miriam jerked her feet and petticoats to one side.

"For God's sake, it's not loaded," said Jack in exasperation. "I'm not so great a fool as that."

"
So you
say." Miriam plucked the pistol from the bottom of the boat and hurled it out into the river, where it landed with a thoroughly satisfying splash. "There. Now you and Chilton are even. You ruined his watch, and I have ruined your gun."

Stunned, Jack stilled his oars, staring out at the radiating ripples on the water, all that remained of the pistol. It wasn't the loss of the gun that bothered him—the pistol had been an old, battered relic that he'd chosen for the ominous length of its barrel rather than for shooting accuracy—but the way things were going with Miriam. He'd planned on her being relieved, even grateful, to be rescued from her swinish ninny of a lover, especially after the cowardly, self-serving performance the man had put on in the water. What woman could have any use for him after witnessing
that
?

But to Jack's amazement, Miriam was still determined to defend Chuff. What was worse, she didn't seem at all interested in entering into the spirit and adventure of her abduction, the way Jack remembered she would have as a girl, the way he'd expected her to now. He'd wanted to be dashing in her eyes again, daring, even dangerous. He'd wanted to make her eyes shine with excitement and hear her laughter bubble merrily across the river.

Instead, he was failing. Again. Hell, could he never do anything right in his life?