Page 79 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

Bash stared at them a moment, beautifully round and freckled, before she turned her back to him, stripped off her trousers and skipped out into the rain wearing nothing but her smalls.

“What are you doing?” he laughed.

“Washing. In freedom, if this is my last night to be free!”

She danced and splashed, turning her face up to the rain like a wildflower before scrubbing the mud from her legs. After a moment, Bash joined her, though his hardness would be immediately evident, since he was not wearing any smalls.

“You’re the wildest woman I ever saw,” he confessed, scraping the mud from his leg hair with his fingernails.

Maggie laughed again. “You’ve spent your whole life on a ship. You haven’t had the luxury of meeting many women.”

He caught her wrist, pausing her frolic. “Not one of them could have measured up to you.”

Her lips parted, quirking up to the side in wonder more than laughter as the rain grew heavier until they ran hand in hand back into the cave, breathless and giggling.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed with a hand to her throat, realizing the gifted necklace had been soaked.

Bashed waved it away. “It’s survived worse,” he said, but she took it off and nestled it, as well as her smalls, to dry by the fire.

“Was it your mother’s?”

“Aye. But I want you to have it now.”

She turned back to him, suddenly shy about her nudity.

“Don’t be ashamed,” he whispered, gazing at her in rapture. “You’re so beautiful.”

She studied him, the full length of him, lit by the jumping shadows of firelight, and he swallowed. Christ but her very glance seemed to singe his leathered skin.

“You should lie down and get some rest.” Useless words to fill the moment. After all, what would he do? Stand all night, a naked sentinel, prick at attention, until his breeches were dry enough to try and subdue his arousal?

Maggie took his hand and led him back to the tartan, the one which had been his grandfather’s back on Lewis. They lay down together, facing each other, and she pressed her head into his chest in a way that could almost crack it open.

“Tomorrow I must sail away,” she whispered.

“Aye,” he agreed, his voice breaking a little. “Aye, you must.”

“And you must stay to seek your fortune.”

“Aye. ’Tis the only way. When I do, I shall come and find you, be you in Orkney or Inverness, or any other place in all the world. I’ll find you.”

“Then I shall wait,” she said, kissing his throat, and he swallowed again but the lump lodged there wouldn’t budge.

“No.” He closed his eyes to everything he wanted and forced himself to say, “You mustn’t wait. If you find a good man—a kind man who loves you and knows how to let you fly free—you must marry him for me, with no regrets, and have eleven children.” He kissed her forehead.

“Eleven!” she gasped.

“Aye, and name one of them for me.”

“My bravest, most favorite child,” she agreed. “To remind me of my love for the sea,” she added, and his heart began to splinter.

She nudged him onto his back and climbed up to straddle him, kissing him fiercely, urgently, as tears ran down her cheeks which this time neither of them could pretend was only rain, but he wiped them away under the guise of pushing back her hair all the same.

I love you, his heart screamed to hers, but he swallowed it down and kissed her harder, because if he let those words out, he knew she’d never leave. And more than likely, before the week was out, he’d swing.

“You have to go back,” he whispered. “So somebody remembers me.”

She swiped his hair out of his eyes as she’d done so many times while nursing his ear, studying him hard like she was trying to memorize every detail.