Happily Ever After (14 page)

If
she happened to look down... would she understand what she saw?

Was
she as innocent as she made herself out to be?

He
wanted to know. He willed her to look, wanting to see her reaction to the need
in his eyes and his full erection.

“If
it hurts,” he added, clearing his throat, “I’ll... uh ... pull out at once.” He
studied her expression. She wanted to trust him, he could see that.

Too
bad he couldn’t return that trust.

“Promise?”

“Promise,”
he swore, and winked at her. “I’ll be gentle.”

Her
brows knit. And then she took a deep breath. “Well... all right,” she relented
and offered her palm once more. “But don’t push it in too hard!”

His
body hardened completely and unmistakably.

“You
... uh ... have my word.”

Damn,
he had to stop thinking about this—that—or he was liable to slice
off her hand. He swallowed hard, trying to clear the cobwebs from his suddenly
musty brain.

“Forgive
me,” she said, concern coloring her voice. “I know I’m being a ninny, but it
just seems so ... big!”

Jack
choked on her choice of word.

She
couldn’t possibly know what she was doing to him with no more than a simple
conversation. His hands trembled.

Or
maybe she did?

His
eyes were drawn to her bodice, searching for some evidence that she shared his
bawdy thoughts, but the thickness of her dress completely hid pebbled nipples.

If
he reached out to touch those lovely breasts, would her nipples be hard through
the layers of her gown?

Like
the Princess and the Pea... a man’s fingers knew instinctively what lay beneath.

His
thumb itched to brush her nipple with a lover’s touch, take the supple treat
into his mouth.

He
stuck the handle of his knife into his mouth while he adjusted her hand. It was
a poor substitute.

He
cleared his throat, and tried to change the direction of his thoughts, reminding
himself what he had caught her doing … preparing to burn the proof of her
espionage. The splinters served her right.

He
peered up at her and found her staring at him, deep in thought.

What
was she thinking? Was she wondering where the telegrams were?

She
blinked down at him, her expression vulnerable. “Sophia?”

“Yes?”

He
went back to working at her splinters. “What were you doing in the kitchen?” he
asked outright.

He
must have pricked her a bit too hard. “Ow!” she exclaimed, but didn’t jerk her
hand away.

“Sorry,”
he murmured, glancing up at her, and almost meant it.

“Well...”
She frowned at him. “I... ummm... well, you see... I was...”

She
was searching for an excuse.

He
tried to sound casual, though he was anything but. “Looking for something?”

“I
suppose you might say that,” she replied, sounding a bit uneasy. He glanced up
to gauge her expression and found her eyes narrowed on him.

He
watched her intently.

“What
exactly were you looking for?”

Her
cheeks turned pink again. “Actually,” she told him, averting her gaze, “I was
trying to figure out how to use the oven.” She peered back at him with lifted
brows as though she expected a reaction from him.

“You
were trying to figure out how to use the oven?”

She
nodded once. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well...
you see ... when I was on deck ... I couldn’t help but overhear what they were
saying about the cook—Shorty is it?”

Jack
lifted a brow. “What about him?” Clever little liar.

She
smiled shyly, looking every bit the virtuous little miss, and Jack clenched his
jaw. “Well, when I heard he’d been left behind ... I thought I’d surprise
everyone and cook breakfast in the morning.”

He
didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from his tone. “Oh, really?”

“Yes.”
Her smile brightened, and she seemed oblivious to his skepticism. “You see ...
I truly meant it when I said I wanted to make myself useful.” She batted her
lashes, looking quite pleased with herself.

She
was waiting for him to pat her on the back, he realized, and Jack just wasn’t going
to do it.

He
didn’t believe her.

“How
good of you,” he replied, and dropped her hand. “I think that’s all of ’em,” he
said, and stared up at her in disbelief.

She
was either a very good little actress, or she was telling the deuced truth.

He
just couldn’t tell which.

The
evidence, however, seemed undeniable.

For
an instant, he considered pulling out the telegrams and confronting her with
them, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up his poker hand. There was time
enough to figure out how best to handle this. She wasn’t going anywhere.

In
the meantime, he decided, Mizz Sophia Vanderwahl was fair game—Harlan be
damned. As far as Jack was concerned, with her kiss, she had declared herself
available to him. If she had misrepresented herself, well then ... he sure as
hell wasn’t about to feel the least bit guilty over taking what she willingly
offered.

And
if she was telling the truth... he still felt not one iota of loyalty to Penn.
He had no respect for the man, so why should he honor the man’s engagement?

Either
way, he knew only one thing for certain... Sophia Vanderwahl had the damnable
most beautiful mouth he had ever sampled.

CHAPTER 12

Jack awoke to the smell of bread baking. The tantalizing
scent drifted into his cabin, teasing him out of bed. Like a zombie, he made
his way into the mess hall, and true to her word, he found Sophie fast at work
in the kitchen, and his crew salivating mindlessly at her skirts—and not
entirely over the prospect of food.

He smiled at the sight she presented, adorably
unkempt, skirts mussed and hair escaping pins as she labored diligently despite
the distraction of thirty-five men hounding her heels. He would have stepped
in, but she handled them easily enough, putting them to work—Randall
gathering silverware and Kell delivering plates, Pete in charge of forming a
line for those who had already received their dishes. For their efforts she
gave them a smile that endeared her to one and all.

But despite Sophia Vanderwahl’s killer smile, they
should have all stayed in bed.

The bread turned out as black as the oven itself
and the smoked meat as ashy as carbonized paper.

Peeling away the charred layers of his breakfast,
Jack took a glance around the room. It was like looking into a mirror with
thirty-some faces—every expression the same. No one wanted to hurt
Sophie’s feelings, but the question was the same in every gaze.

How could anyone screw up something so simple?

Sophie stood over them, looking as uncertain as a
newlywed bride with honeymoon jitters. When no one spoke up, she finally took
her own plate and sat in the only empty seat remaining in the mess hall...
right in front of Jack, next to Kell.

“I think it is a little burnt,” she told Kell as
she sat.

Kell smiled uncomfortably and nodded, pushing a
rock-hard piece of loaf into his mouth. “It’s fine,” he told her, his words
muffled by the ungodly crunch.

As they watched, he crunched down on his food, and
Jack thought maybe it hurt him to chew, because he winced with every bite.

Sophia looked at him then, apologizing with those
honey-colored eyes that left him dazed every time he stopped to look into them.

“The fire burned a little too high,” she
explained, and shrugged nervously. “I didn’t realize ... until they were
already quite ... done.”

Jack coughed.

Overdone, he wanted to say.

He lifted up a piece of incinerated ham and put it
into his mouth. It tasted like ash, and he resisted the urge to spit it back
out. She was watching him much too intently, and the look in her eyes told him
that she really had tried, that it seemed to matter how he responded.

Unsure why it was important to him that her
feelings weren’t hurt, he swallowed, wincing as a jagged piece of ham tried to
make its way down his parched throat. He attempted a smile for her, and closed
his mouth when he looked at Kell’s ash-blackened teeth.

“It’s quite ... good,” Kell offered politely,
nodding just a little too enthusiastically.

Jack stifled his laughter.

Kell was a poor liar, he decided, but a better man
than Jack was, because Jack couldn’t seem to muster the words to give her the
assurances she seemed to need.

Sophie’s brows lifted when she saw Kell’s teeth
... and the black inside his lips... and thank God she broke the ice with a
horrified little squeal.

“Oh my!” she exclaimed, dropping her own bread and
slapping a hand over her mouth. “Tell me you aren’t missing teeth because of
me!”

It sure as hell looked like it, and it sounded
that way as well.

Kell looked panicked for an instant, his eyes
going wide as he shoved a finger into his mouth to feel for missing or broken
teeth. There were none, and his relief at finding them intact was evident in
his gasp of relief.

“Damn!” he said, casting an uneasy glance at Jack.
“Scared me for a sec.”

Sophie turned to Jack then, pursing her lips and
trying not to laugh.

Jack grinned at her, knowing his smile would be as
flattering as Kell’s, and was rewarded with her sparkling laughter. The sound
of it sent a shudder of desire through him.

Christ, she wasn’t merely lovely when she laughed,
she was dazzling. Her laughter glistened even in her eyes. He wasn’t quite
prepared for the way it affected him and he found himself completely disarmed.

Even Kell seemed to hold his breath until the
spell of laughter subsided, and then he turned to meet Jack’s gaze, and Jack
groaned inwardly, recognizing the instant infatuation in his friend’s eyes.

Damn, but she was going to be trouble ... in more
ways than one.

And Jack was in trouble too, if she could win over
his motley crew with a lousy as hell breakfast like that!

Judging by the expressions on all of their faces,
she’d somehow done exactly that.

God bless the irksome wench.

Sophie didn’t try to fool herself. She knew her
first attempt at cooking had been a complete disaster, but it obviously had not
gone unappreciated. The crew either felt terribly sorry for her, or they had
taken her gesture for what it was ... a hand in friendship.

In either case, they seemed to have adopted her as
one of their own—Kell in particular.

Sophie rather liked him.

The tall, dark-haired giant was a Bohemian of
sorts. His shoulder-length hair was bound at the nape like some old-time
pirate’s, and his dress, as well, was reminiscent of another age. His mirth
never faded from his bright blue eyes, and his patience was remarkable. For
that Sophie was indebted to him.

Without having been asked, he had taken the time
to show her how the stove worked so that she might do better with her next
effort. And then he’d given her a tour of the ship. She had only to ask about
the cannons, and he determined to show her how they worked.

“Are you certain it’s no trouble?” she asked,
afraid to become an inconvenience. He had spent practically all afternoon
amusing her, and she was beginning to feel guilty about monopolizing his
attention. She knew he had work to attend to.

“No trouble at all,” he assured, and winked, then
drew her aside to watch from a safe distance as he properly packed the cannon.

Sophie clutched her hands together as she watched him
work. The prospect of actually seeing the gun go off left her with a strange
sense of anticipation—like a child waiting for a display of fireworks.

“You say this was a vessel used for exploration?”

“Yep,” he told her. “Primarily by topographers.”

Sophie’s brows knit. “Why would a topographer need
cannons, I wonder.”

He stopped what he was doing to answer her
question. “It’s an old ship, Miss Vanderwahl. The canons were their sole means
of protection on highly ungovernable seas.”

“Please call me Sophie!”

He nodded. “All right, Sophie,” he replied warmly.

The crew on deck began to gather around them,
watching as well, curiosity snatching their attention.