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Hunkered down outside the cave, Maximiliano tried patiently to create a spark. The fish lay beside the pile of wood, skewered on a length of green wood. Hunger made his belly rumble, but his mind wasn’t on the firesteel and flint.
Heidi’s admiring gaze made him feel like a god. It was an odd sensation for a pirate normally looked upon with fear by women. Or lust for his coin by prostitutes.
“Any luck?” Heidi called from inside the cave.
Startled when a spark immediately landed on the wood shavings, he scrambled to his knees and blew on the wisp of smoke, elated when a flame sprang to life. “You’re magic,” he replied, sliding the burning kindling under the woodpile. “Mi hada afortunada.”
She laughed as she came to sit beside him. “I’m too fat to be afairy, and I wasn’tgood luckfor your ship.”
“On the contrary,” he replied, holding the skewered fish over the flames. “Carrying you off was the luckiest day of my life. And you’re not fat. Just voluptuous.”
“You make me feel beautiful,” she whispered.
He turned the makeshift skewer when the fish-skin began to crinkle. “You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met.”
She scoffed. “That can’t be true. You must have known many beauties.”
It seemed important to hide nothing of his past from Heidi. “I was married to one. Her name was Juana.”
“You named your ship after her.”
“Sí,” he chuckled. “She wasn’t happy about that.”
Into the silence that followed, he poured out the whole story of his wife’s murder. “I try not to think of her,” he admitted. “The memories are always tinged with intense anger at the way she’d died.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Heidi said softly.
“She’d still be alive if I hadn’t turned to piracy.”
He expected the question before she asked, “Why did you become a pirate?”
“My island’s fortunes are intertwined with a once-mighty colonial power. As Spain’s influence and power waned in the Caribbean, life became very difficult for us. No trade meant no money, a shortage of food and other luxuries we’d become accustomed to enjoying.
“Juana was horrified when I turned to piracy, though she and her relatives gladly ate the food my thievery provided and wore garments made from the finest materials.”
“You stole to feed your family.”
“And other needy families.” Reluctant to portray himself as the hero he wasn’t, he changed the subject. “Speaking of food, the fish is cooked.” He set the skewer aside and took her hands. “You’ve endured a loveless marriage, so you’ll understand. Juana and I accepted the arrangement. It was the norm among people of our social standing.”
She nodded. “I was promised to Torsten when we were both children, but our parents were farmers.”
He wiggled the tail of the cooked fish and pulled. The skeleton came away cleanly.
“Nicely done,” she said, accepting the morsel he held to her lips.
He decided this was as good a time as any to tell her of his ancestry before he became too absorbed in feeding her. “My father was the son of a nobleman from Aragón. In the sixteenth century, my family received recognition and a coat of arms from King Carlos of Aragón.”
“So, you’re a nobleman who turned to robbery to feed the poor. Sounds like a story I once heard about a crusader knight in medieval England.”
“Robin Hood,” he replied.
“Ja,” she exclaimed.
“But I am not a hero, Heidi. Men have died by my hand. I’ve fornicated with prostitutes, and broken all the Commandments.”
Trust
