Page 47 of Hooked By a Hero
“Hunt survived?” Dick asked with a snarl. “Who else? How many of you?”
Elias didn’t answer. Instead, he sent Caspian a wary look. They had been so close to enjoying a beautiful moment together, but once again, all of that would have to wait until the business of others was settled. Perhaps he would need to allow Caspian to transform him so that they could swim off to some other island if they were to have a moment’s peace to make love.
“Come on,” Caspian said, pushing Dick to one side so that he could dress and he and Elias could gather their things back into their packs to prepare for the journey home. “I do not trust this man as far as I can see him. Hunt and the others can help us decide what should be his fate.”
Elias nodded and hoisted his pack over one shoulder. He was certain Hunt would have something to say, but all the same, he had a bad feeling about Dick’s reappearance.
Sixteen
Something was not right. It was difficult for Caspian to say what exactly that something wrong was as he and Elias walked Dick back to the survivors’ camp, however. It was more than the fact that Dick was a horrible person in a desperate state. Caspian could not puzzle out why that seemed false when Dick was clearly hungry and dirty. The man was in a state, but at the same time, Caspian felt as if he were being lied to.
Worse still, he could not share any of his thoughts on the matter with Elias. Not with Dick marching between the two of them as they made their way back over the beaches and rocky bits jutting into the water. They had no chains or shackles and no one else to march Dick ahead of them so that they could take a moment to discuss the matter.
It was more than Dick’s appearance that had Caspian feeling as though he were dangling from a line. Elias knew the truth now. The full truth. They’d swum together, and they’d shared a kiss that had enabled Elias to experience everything their love could do to keep them together. They’d almost consummated their love, at long last, but once again had been blocked. That alone was beginning to annoy Caspian, but he could not say a single thing about it with Dick between them.
“How did you escape theFortuneon the night of the storm?” Elias asked after they’d been walking in silence for nearly an hour.
Caspian was so relieved by the question that he blew out a breath and let the tension drop from his shoulders.
“I scrambled for one of the lifeboats, of course,” Dick answered with protective swagger, still clutching the water flask to his chest. He’d drunk the thing dry within fifteen minutes of walking, but continued to cradle the leather flask as if his life depended on it. In many ways it did.
“By yourself?” Caspian asked.
Dick glared at him. “I wasn’t going to wait for any of you lot to pile in and drag me down.”
“But what about Tumbrill and the others?” Elias asked as they rounded a jetty of rocks and caught sight of the beach with their signal fire.
“How should I know?” Dick snarled. “That lot were as drunk as skunks when the storm hit. For all I know, their corpses are rotting on the bottom of the sea.”
There were no corpses. At least not any that belonged to Tumbrill and the other mutineers. Caspian had found the remains of two of the passengers on the ocean floor near the shoal in the days right after the wreck, when he’d been helping with the salvage efforts, and though several others were still missing, he had not seen their remains. He would have noticed any other bodies during those searches.
“You took an entire lifeboat for yourself when you could have saved at least a dozen men or more in the vessel?” Elias asked incredulously.
“That was my lifeboat,” Dick snapped, hugging his flask tighter.
Caspian sent Elias a wary look that both said everything he felt about Dick and warned his lover to be careful not toantagonize the man. He wanted answers as much as Elias, but that prickling, dangerous element that surrounded Dick was as powerful now as it was on the ship, when he was hale and hearty.
“How did you maneuver an entire lifeboat by yourself?” Elias asked more gently. At least he was trying to temper his feelings about Dick.
“Maneuver? What kind of fancy word is that?” Dick snorted. “I didn’tmaneuveranything. The ship was rocking and sinking due to that broken mast and the bloody storm. Someone cut the lifeboat free and shoved it in the water. I found myself tumbling overboard into the drink, and next I knew, I’d climbed over the side of the boat and huddled there, cursing the name of every fool who ever crossed me and landed me in that water.”
Caspian frowned. The story made sense. Dick hadn’t so much saved himself as he had been extraordinarily lucky.
His story did not account for the other lifeboat, however.
“And you’re certain you do not know what became of the others?” he asked, glancing ahead of them to where there return had garnered attention from the crew that were fishing with nets a little way out into the water on one of the remaining boats. He waved back to them, then watched as the men gave up their fishing efforts to row the boat back to the beach.
“Are your ears filled with sand? I told you, I don’t know and I don’t care,” Dick said with a snort, then spit on the sand.
“You did not see Tumbrill or any of those who joined your mutinous efforts the night of the storm or after?” Elias asked.
“No,” Dick growled. “And damn their hides for not lifting a single finger to help me. Damn you lot, too, for thinking you’re so much better than me.”
Everything about Dick’s story seemed logical and reasonable, given who the man was and what the circumstances had been that night. At the same time, none of it sat well with Caspian, like a briny bit of fish he could not swallow.
Neither he nor Elias said another word as they walked Dick along the beach toward the point where the path leading to their settlement met the sand. They’d been noticed by more than just the fishermen and two of the ladies, Miss Winters and Emily, who, as always, were vigilantly feeding the signal fire. Someone must have run to inform the others, because a few more people, one of them Hunt, raced out from the mouth of the path.
“Blimey!” Dick puffed as they approached the signal fire. “The chits weren’t all drowned after all.”
