Page 40 of Scourge of the Shores
Her legs ached. She looked the way they’d come. It was a long way back to the village. They were too close to her boulder on the north shore. That was hers. A private place she wasn’t willing to share.
“Should be headin’ back,” she said.
He obliged her answer.
She walked alone until her legs gave way about halfway back to the village, and the sand met her knees. Robert hadn’t tried to catch her, which was fine by her. The sand at least cradled her kneecaps.
“How long?” she asked, sitting back on her heels and peering at him.
“As I told you, your body still thinks it’s healing. You’ll probably need to rest once you return to camp, but I bet you’ll be as good as new by tomorrow evening,” he said.
“I hate askin’ ye,” she said through clenched teeth, knowing she could not return by herself. “Mind helpin’?”
“For a price,” he said with a wink.
“Name it.”
Robert chuckled and shook his head. “I was right. No humor with your lot.” He stooped to help her, but she recoiled.
He sighed. “There’s no price, Danna.”
She scanned him for signs of deception, letting him wrap his arm around her waist and help her up. Then, she wrapped her arm around his neck and studied his profile.
“What are you looking at?” Robert asked with a half-smile.
Danna shook her head. He was quite handsome with his steel-cut jaw and pearly whites, and the draw of his navy eyes was hard to resist. She could get lost in his salt-laced spiced rum scent.
Maybe he was right. Maybe they weren’t all that different. Each was willing to make a great sacrifice to protect the people they cared for. He had risked his life to save her from Cain and then again when he returned to her with the enchantment. She doubted the pirates would find his supposed infatuation with her all that heartwarming, which would explain why he had already told them what he thought she would agree to regarding the tar and pitch. He was probably risking his life right now to be with her, away from his camp, which was working heartily to repair the ships. Maybe he was risking his reputation as a pirate king.
All for her.
Meant she was more than just a wench to him. But a dark thought loomed in the back of her mind. What if it was all a ruse? But to what end?
Robert chuckled at her silence. “Do tell, Danna. What serious thought are you thinkin’?”
“That maybe . . . ” She trailed off, catching herself. He had to prove himself well beyond any doubt before he learned too many of her thoughts.
Robert grabbed her arm around his neck as they started walking. “Teasin’ me now?”
“No,” she said, already walking faster. “Just remindin’ myself of a simple fact.”
He tilted his head. “And what’s that?”
She let her gaze linger, searching his face, letting the air stretch between them.
Then her lips curled in a sorrowed truth. “Pirates lie.”
She took a step forward, unsteady but firm. The air thickened between them. “But ye already knew that, didn’t ye, Jaymes?”
Robert suppressed a grin. “Aye,” he murmured, voice low enough to draw her gaze to his lips. He leaned close. The air between them crackled as he whispered, “But not all lies be lies, and some truths cut bone.”
His thumb swiped the flesh of her forearm around his neck, slow and deep. A tingling heat stirred beneath her ribs—one she had no right to feel. His lips were close, and she wondered if he’d kiss her with lying lips or ones that spoke truths. But before allowing the chance to find out, she ripped her gaze away from the storm in his eyes, locking it on the path ahead.
Then, softer—just enough to stir doubt in her resolve—he added in a murmur, “What matters, Danna, is what ye decide to believe.”
CHAPTER 9
The Needed Trade
