Page 62 of Storm over the Caribbean
For a while, that mental mantra took up quite a bit of my concentration. And by the time the urge to chew poisonous critters faded, I had other problems. Like the growing ache in my legs. And the fiendishly humid air that was more easily to swimin than to breathe. And the bloody heavy bump I was lugging around with me!
Note to self: trekking through the jungle is a lot easier when you aren’t pregnant!
Not that I was going to say that out loud, of course. Ha! Not in a million years! Mr Rikkard Ambrose already had enough delusions about the superiority of the male gender. No need to indulge him.
Especially in cases where he might be partially right. God, I wish I was a man right now! Blasted pregnancy!
Ruthlessly squashing down that deplorably unfeminist inner voice, I soldiered on, fighting to ignore the ache in my back and the spasms in my legs.
Ignore it!I told myself over and over again.Ignore it, ignore it, ignore i—
I managed just about two minutes.
“Mrs Ambrose!”
I blinked at the sudden shout behind me. Why did he suddenly sound so panicked? It wasn’t like…oh? Strange. Why was I suddenly kneeling on the ground? I didn’t remember sitting down. I…
“Mrs Ambrose!”
Thud!
***
The crews of escort ships numbers one and two werenothaving a good day.
“Where. Are. They?”
“Ehem, well…you see…” The captain took a step backward, away from the bristle-bearded, heavily armed maniac in front of him—until his back bumped against the railing. Briefly, he wondered whether he shouldn’t take another step back in spite of this. Surely, the krakens would be preferable company, considering his current conversational partner.
“No,” growled the wall of muscle and beard. Was there actually a face behind that? The captain couldn’t be sure. “No, Ido notsee. Which is the problem. I do not see a trace of AmbroseSahibor his wifeanywhere.”
The bearded bugger reached down and…holy crap, was he caressing the hilt of abloody sabre? He was! Suddenly, the captain very much wished for the company of krakens. Who the heck let this man on board?
On the other hand, who would try and stop him?
“They’re not here,” the captain tried to explain slowly and carefully, just in case it was too difficult of a concept to grasp, “because we haven’t found them yet.”
“I know.” The growl that came from the oversized man he definitely shouldn’t have let on his ship made his knees wobble. “What I want to know iswhy!”
Because omnipresence is a bit above my pay grade?
The captain decided to not say that out loud, however. Despite working for Mr Rikkard Ambrose for quite a while, he wasn’t suicidal. Yet.
“We already docked in Santo Domingo once and sent word to Mr Ambrose’s local agent,” the captain tried to justify himself. “Reinforcements should arrive in a week or two, and they’ll surely find—”
“I do not want to know what will happen in a week or two. I do not want to know what the reinforcements will do. I want to know whatyouare going to do, right here, right now!”
The captain took a deep breath. Was there any reasoning with this blockheaded oaf? (Who probably was a really, really nice guy, who surely wouldn’t use his sabre on an innocent seafarer, right?)
“You might not have noticed, but we only have two ships available, and it’s a pretty big ocean. They could be anywhere! That is, if they haven’t drowned alread—”
The look in the bearded bodyguard’s eyes quickly made him clamp his mouth shut.
“Whatdid you say?”
“I, um…was saying they’re surely alive! Yes, definitely! But, err…with only two vessels, it’s simply going to take a while to find them.”
“A while? You had better rethink your approach then, unless—” Suddenly, the big bodyguard broke off. His eyes seemed to go out of focus. It took the captain a moment to realize the mountainous man was staring past him. Slowly, he turned around. With rising dread, the captain’s eyes fell on one of the lifeboats hanging behind him.
