Page 15 of Megan's Mate
Pirate or not, she thought with a frown, he had a way with children.
“Ready to cast off, Captain.”
Nathaniel nodded to the mate. “Quarter speed astern.” Still holding Jenny, he walked to the wheel. “Pilot us out of here, sailor,” he said to her, and guided her eager hands.
Curiosity got the better of Megan. She inched closer to study the instruments. Depth sounders, sonar, ship-to-shore radio. Those, and all the other equipment, were as foreign to her as the cockpit of a spaceship. She was a woman of the plains.
As the boat chugged gently away from the docks, her stomach lurched, reminding her why.
She clamped down on the nausea, annoyed with herself. It was in her mind, she insisted. A silly, imaginary weakness that could be overcome through willpower.
Besides, she’d taken seasickness pills, so logically, she couldn’t be seasick.
The children cheered as the boat made its long, slow turn in the bay. Megan’s stomach turned with it.
Alex was generous enough to allow Kevin to blow the horn. Megan stared straight out the bridge window, her eyes focused above the calm blue water of Frenchman Bay.
It was beautiful, wasn’t it? she told herself. And it was hardly tilting at all.
“You’ll see The Towers on the starboard side,” Nathaniel was saying.
“That’s the right,” Jenny announced. “Starboard’s right and port’s left.”
“Stern’s the back and the bow’s in front,” said Alex, not to be outdone. “We know all about boats.”
Megan shifted her eyes to the cliffs, struggling to ignore another twist in her stomach. “There it is, Kevin.” She gripped the brass rail beneath the starboard window for balance. “It looks like it’s growing right out of the rock.”
And it did look like a castle, she mused as she watched it with her son beside her. The turrets spearing up into the blue summer sky, the somber gray rock glistening with tiny flecks of mica. Even the scaffolding and the antlike figures of men working didn’t detract from the fairy-tale aura. A fairy tale, she thought, with a dark side.
And that, she realized, was what made it all the more alluring. It was hardly any wonder that Sloan, with his love of buildings, adored it.
“Like something you’d expect to see on some lonely Irish coast.” Nathaniel spoke from behind her. “Or on some foggy Scottish cliff.”
“Yes. It’s even more impressive from the sea.” Her eyes drifted up to Bianca’s tower. She shivered.
“You may want to put your jacket on,” Nathaniel told her. “It’s going to get chillier when we get out to sea.”
“No, I’m not cold. I was just thinking. When you’ve heard all the stories about Bianca, it’s hard not to imagine what it was like.”
“She’d sit up there and watch the cliffs for him. For Christian. And she’d dream—guiltily, I imagine, being a proper lady. But propriety doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell against love.”
She shivered again. The statement hit much too close to home. She’d been in love once and had tossed propriety aside, along with her innocence.
“She paid for it,” Megan said flatly, and turned away. To distract herself, she wandered over to the charts. Not that she could make heads or tails of them.
“We’re heading north by northeast.” As he had with Alex, Nathaniel took Megan’s hand and guided it along the chart. “We’ve got a clear day, good visibility, but there’s a strong wind. It’ll be a little choppy.”
Terrific, she thought, and swallowed hard. “If you don’t come up with whales, you’re going to have some very disappointed kids.”
“Oh, I think I can provide a few.” She bumped against him as bay gave way to sea. His hands came up to steady her shoulders and remained. The boat might have swayed, but he stood solid as a rock. “You want to brace your feet apart. Distribute the weight. You’ll get your sea legs, Meg.”
She didn’t think so. Already she could feel the light coating of chilly sweat springing to her skin. Nausea rolled in an answering wave in her stomach. She would not, she promised herself, spoil Kevin’s day, or humiliate herself, by being sick.
“It takes about an hour to get out, doesn’t it?” Her voice wasn’t as strong, or as steady, as she’d hoped.
“That’s right.”
She started to move away but ended by leaning dizzily against him.
