Page 20 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

But he was older now, and wise to the fact that there was no great mystery unfolding beyond the horizon. A pirate’s life would be ended by gangrene or the gallows. He’d long since made peace with the inevitability of his doom.

Before leaving to join the Ranger as quartermaster, Calico Jack had been part of Mad’s crew, back when Bash was first brought aboard. Most of the men either ignored the pirate captain’s boy completely or delighted in kicking him out of their way, but Jack had been kind, slipping Bash the occasional sorghum drop.

He’d been sorry to see Jack leave the Revenge, and even more sorry to learn of his execution. Standing there in the shadows of Port Royal’s Gallows Point, Bash had realized at the age of twelve what fate lay in store for him and more or less accepted it, because what else was there to do?

But now?

Now a pale face with sun-pinked cheeks and luminous blue eyes left him unable to sleep, clinging to a shard of hope like a splinter of wrecked timber that maybe—just maybe—there was a way out besides the noose. He couldn’t see it yet, but he was skilled at charting courses, even through uncertain waters when visibility was next to impossible. If there was a way, he’d find it, if only to put Maggie on another ship and see her returned safely home.

Chapter Six

It took Maggie the better part of a week to finish mending all the torn sails, and between filling her belly, drinking too much rum, and sleeping so deeply in a nest of tangled tartan that she habitually missed breakfast, one day pretty well bled into the next. But she relished the productive, useful work almost as much as the warm sun shining on her shoulders.

Though she felt his eyes on her constantly, Bash had said little over the past week, so it was a surprise when he roused her one morning by shoving a bowl of gruel across the floor. It wasn’t homemade parritch, but it looked and smelled almost edible, and was that⁠—?

“Is there milk in this?” she asked, her eyes flying to his and then flitting away from their intensity.

“Just a dash,” he growled. “It’s not much, but you’ve had enough hardtack for a lifetime, I’ll warrant. Loblolly’s about the only thing’ll keep you regularish.” He punctuated his statement by setting a tankard of the ever-present bumbo down as well.

“Never too early for rum,” she muttered, trying not to let her distaste for the drink dampen her spirits.

“Sure you’d prefer tea, but if you saw the state of the water, you’d not wish for anything but this.”

She wrinkled her nose, which he seemed to find incredibly amusing, but at least his laughter broke whatever dark cloud hung over him.

He leaned back against the bulkhead, crossing his arms. “You did a good job on the sails. Stick close this morning. May need you to run messages to the captain.”

Bash rifled a hand idly through his long, dark locks, a bit wild and curly, but thick and not matted like the few other sailors who hadn’t shaved their heads all together.

When he caught her looking, she fully intended to drop her gaze, but she didn’t, and it sizzled between them until his lips curved into a small, sheepish smile.

She wanted to tell him that a handsome smile wasn’t an apology for a week of grumpiness, but it did funny things to her stomach, so she tried to suppress her own tiny smile and look deeply intrigued by the bowl of gruel.

“Why—” She cut herself off, but Bash looked askance so she tried again. “In the hold Roo called the captain… Mad?”

Bash shrugged. “Well, a fella’d have to be a bit mad to keep choosing this life year after year, wouldn’t he?”

Being the youngest of the Mackintosh girls, Maggie knew when she was being given the brushoff, and she’d also perfected the art of the disbelieving glare.

He looked away, rubbing up and down on the back of his neck in a way that made the tiny hairs on her own neck stand up.

“When he first became a captain, he lost a bit of gold.”

“Lost?” Maggie asked.

“Aye. Some say he exaggerated the haul and drank it all in the tavern the same night. Others say he gambled it away. Dutch reckons he buried it and forgot where.”

“How careless,” Maggie said. She’d have thought pirates were a bit more scrupulous than that. If she had any amount of gold, she certainly wouldn’t lose it.

“Aye. The frustration of it has eaten away at his mind year after year, making him more than a little mad. That, and being hunted by the naval officer entrusted with guarding the gold—or so he says.”

“What do you say?”

He turned thoughtful for a moment. “The sea’s been my home more years than it hasn’t, but men were made to live near water, not on it. It can do funny things to a fella’s mind.”

“Has it done funny things to yours?” she asked without meaning to but desperate to know, though she couldn’t say why.

“I’m sure it has,” he said, brushing her off again, but still smiling. “S’pose I wouldn’t know the difference though, would I? Best eat up and get on deck.”