Renegade (12 page)

So he answered truthfully. “I’m intrigued. I admit that it would be nice to see little seedlings sprout and to watch them grow and to eat the yams and know I helped plant ‘em.”

She smiled then, and he smiled in return. He wasn’t sure if he’d pleased her, or just passed her test. But she didn’t say anything, and they each moved on to a new row.

The sun climbed further into the sky, and the sweat caused his shirt to stick to his back. His thighs ached from bending over all morning, but they’d covered most of the field by that point. The children had passed by them, playing a sort of game to see which one could find the most weeds. Mac enjoyed teasing them when they came down his row, and they laughed with him. Becks had looked at him oddly then, but he hadn’t asked why.

She hadn’t offered him any conversation, but hadn’t balked at answering his questions, either. He’d learned all about Beckett: its size and history and how much it produced each year. He’d learned that the land had belonged to Eugenia’s great-grandfather, who’d divided it between two sons. Eugenia had no brothers, so her father’s house—the one she and Becks had been raised in—went to her and her husband. She’d married a boy from the peninsula, but they hadn’t been happy. Becks’ father died before the war, and when the Yankees arrived in ‘61 Eugenia took her and Pearl into Charleston to live with a cousin. She’d been determined to raise her daughter on her family land, however, and had returned to Edisto five years later to arrange contracts with the freedmen who’d worked her fields as slaves before the war. The house had still been standing, but the marauding Yankees had destroyed much of the furnishings and outbuildings, meaning Eugenia had to start over with her people. The land they now controlled was smaller than the Beckett Plantation of twenty years ago, but it seemed… happy. Functioning. Becks and her mother and sister lived here peacefully with the people their family used to own and seemed to value their contributions to Beckett’s success.

The more he found out about this place, the more he liked it. There were no masters; only partners. People—black and white—who were working together towards the same goal. He had to admire that.

It was almost noon when they’d reached the end of the field. Becks stretched with a groan, and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Mac had long ago rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his collar, and had been thinking longingly of the cool ocean breezes for the last hour. With much waving and teasing, the other women gathered up the kids, and shooed them towards the shade of the pines.

“Is this it, then?”

“Oh, did you want more?” There was a teasing light in Becks’ eyes that he was glad to see.

He smiled and held up his hands, palms out. “No hurry. Just wonderin’.”

“That’s it for the yams, yep. The corn has sprouted, the greens are already coming up—you had some last night—and we’ll wait ‘til next month to plant some of the other stuff.” She stretched backwards, her breath escaping in a little
huff
. When she bent sideways, Mac tried not to watch the way the movement molded the thin shirt to her body. It didn’t work; the sweat made the material stick to her skin, and didn’t leave much to his imagination. At that moment, in that place, he couldn’t think of anything more erotic than a barefooted hoyden sweating after a day toiling in the dirt.

Becks had to be the most… earthy woman he’d ever met. There was certainly something about her that reached for his most basic, primitive instincts, and made him want to have her. Have her under the Edisto sun. Have her in the shade of a magnolia. Have her standing in the marsh, to lick salt water from her breasts. Have her every way he’d never had another woman.

“Mac?”

Had he been staring at her? Had she guessed the impossible direction of his thoughts? He blinked and forced a bland expression. “I’m hungry. How about you?”

They picked up their shoes, and he carried her satchel, and they wearily made their way up the path and then the drive past the stables and towards the main house. The well was behind the kitchens, and Mac pulled up the bucket for Becks to let her drink her fill. After he drank as much as he could of the cool water, he dumped a bucketful over his head, and smiled when she chuckled.

Stretching out in the blanket of fallen leaves under one of the two sentinel magnolias, Mac sighed happily. Life here on Beckett was so simple. This was the kind of place where he could be happy, if he ever had a desire to give up the sea.

Becks pulled apples and a loaf of bread from her satchel. He took one with a nod, although they weren’t his favorite. Especially now, when the fruit had been in a barrel for months, its tartness reminded him of the journey around the horn of Africa and into the Indian ocean, not tasting fresh food for months.

Maybe she saw his expression, because she asked “What’s your favorite fruit?”

“Strawberries.” He didn’t even have to think about it. The fact that they had to be eaten right away was pretty much the opposite of last season’s tart apples.

“Mine, too.” Becks laid back on the leaves then, her legs splayed and one hand stacked behind her head, and took a bite of the apple. Around the mouthful of fruit, she said, “Ours are just about ripe. If you’re still here in a few days, the first crop should be ready.”

“I’d like that.” And not quite to his surprise, he found that he was telling the truth. He
would
like to be here in a few days, to taste her strawberries. He’d only been at Beckett a little over a day, and already he was talking about staying longer? He shook his head slightly, and took another bite. He needed to talk to Robert. He needed to row back out to the
Polaris
, and bring the others back here. He needed to stop thinking impossible thoughts about Becks Middleton’s freckles—and that little spot where her neck met her shoulder that he could see so well from this angle—and focus on this job. This job that might be his last.

Mac pulled his knee up, resting his elbow on it. There were two palmetto bushes under the magnolia, but they’d probably never grow into trees like their parents, not under this shade. Still, their distinctive shape was a comfort to him. He used his left index finger to trace the identical frond pattern tattooed on his right forearm. It wasn’t as extensive a tattoo as the one on his left arm, but it served a similar purpose. To ground him when he wanted to drift away. To remind him that the Lowcountry
was
his home, and he was miserable if he went too long without it.

He caught her following his finger, tracing the palmetto fronds on his arm with her eye. He wondered what it’d be like to have her trace them with her own finger, with her tongue, and he couldn’t help the shiver that passed through him. What
was
it about her that aroused him so much? Was it just her connection to the land, the way she sprawled in the leaves, which made him think such coarse thoughts? Or something about her as a woman?

She didn’t look away, and he felt her gaze clear down into his stomach.

“Well, Mr. Smuggler? What do you think of life as a farmer?”

He answered truthfully. “I’m intrigued.”

“Really? I figured you’d be scared off by digging in the dirt.”

“No.” He traced the palmetto fronds of his tattoo. “It’s comforting”.

She was staring at him like she didn’t know if she could believe him. Slowly, she pushed herself upright and crossed her legs under her skirt. “Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you surprise me.”

“How?”

“At first, I thought you were a criminal. Then I met you—officially, I mean—and decided that you were an interesting and… well, probably
decent
man. Then…” She turned her attention to the river. “Then I had a talk with my mother and found out that you really
are
a criminal, and not even a nice one.”

Mac bristled slightly. “Why can’t I be a nice smuggler?”

“Because of what you did to my mother.” Her voice was hard now, to match her jawline. There was nothing delicate about this woman, but he still was irritated to know that she thought less of him.

“What
I
did…?”

“What kind of man uses a lady like that? It’s bad enough that you break the law—happily, it seems like—but to drag her—us!—along too? You’re using her.” She turned that blue gaze on him, and he flinched at the accusation in her eyes. “You’re using our land, you’re taking advantage of our people… you’re making Eugenia do your dirty work. All for a little profit.”

Mac couldn’t help it; he smiled at her earnestness, and when the anger flashed across her face, he knew he’d made a mistake. He knew he should apologize, but she was just so intense that he started to chuckle.

“Why is this funny?”

“I’m sorry.” Mac managed to reign in his laughter, but was still smiling at the thought of her reaction when he told her the truth. “See, I’m not taking advantage of your mother at all. This,” he waved the half-eaten apple in the direction of the dock and the dinghy, “was Eugenia’s idea.”

He’d expected shock or disbelief or maybe even more anger. But instead, Becks just cocked her head to one side, her expression carefully blank once more. “Explain, please.”

And so he did. “I met Eugenia years ago. She and my mother were pretty close when they were younger. After my mother’s funeral—March of ’72—she and I got to talkin’. She knew that I’d just restarted Baird Shipping—my grandfather ran it in the ‘50s, but it went under when he died. She asked a bunch of questions, and I was glad to talk to her.” He’d been proud of his hard work, and happy to have someone who was interested enough to ask about it. “We talked for hours, and finally she said something like ‘I’ve always thought that Edisto would be an ideal location to bring smuggled goods into Charleston.’” He saw Becks’ brows dip in. “It wasn’t out of the blue; we’d been talking about tariffs and whatnot. Of course, now I see that she’d been leading me that way the whole time.”

“That’s hardly…”

“Yeah, I didn’t think much of it at the time. We talked specifics—how we’d do it if we were smugglers—but it was all hypothetical. After the funeral I didn’t see her for a year or so. But every time we sailed past the St. Helena Sound, I found myself thinkin’ of her idea. Finally, I wrote her about ‘her hypothetical suggestion,’ and she invited me to stop by on my next trip. And—this is exactly how her letter said it, too—‘she’d be happy to help me move anything I needed moving’.”

Becks stared at him for another few heartbeats, her expression blank. Then she rolled her eyes and took a bite of the apple. Throwing herself backwards, she plopped down on the ground again. “Yep.” She chewed and swallowed. “Yep, that sounds like my mother, all right.”

Mac threw his core into the marsh along the bank, and then reached for the loaf of bread. “So you believe me, that I didn’t lead her astray?”

She didn’t look at him, but her voice was soft when she said, “I believe you.” He watched her eyes narrow at the green canopy above them. It wasn’t hard to imagine her angry. “In fact, I’m pretty sure she set me up, too. That night I met you, she knew where I was going, knew that I’d likely run into you, and happily let it happen.” Her lips pulled down in what looked like disgust, but Mac couldn’t tell if it was directed at herself or her mother.

“All is forgiven, then?”

“I’m not sure.” Her knees were bent to accommodate her feet planted on the ground, and he could see her toes digging into the leaf debris and dirt.
Primal
was the best word he could come up with for her… and he liked it. “You’re still a criminal.”

“But a nice one.” She snorted slightly. “You don’t believe me?”

“You’ve been nice as far as
I
can see. But I don’t like…”

“Don’t like what?”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, and Mac forced himself to chew and swallow the bread, even though he didn’t think he tasted any of it. Why did her opinion matter so much to him? Why was he so concerned that she might say
I don’t like you, Mac
? Why was it so important for her to respect him, and what he’d accomplished?

Maybe it was because—and he stopped chewing abruptly when he realized it—he respected her and what she’d accomplished. He’d known women, and ladies, and appreciated their talents… but he’d never actually respected one before. That’s not true; he’d respected his mother, but that was because of who she was. He respected Becks as an equal, someone who worked hard every day to prove something to someone.

Someone like him.

The crunching of her apple broke through his contemplation. Around the fruit in her mouth, she managed to finally say, “Edisto is a stupid place to land, you know.” She swallowed. “We’re two days from Charleston, and the tides are too strong.”

Mac shrugged. She was right. “The
Polaris
can handle them. And besides, no one else offered.”

“James Island…”

“Is ideal, which is why the army’s been keeping an eye on it. No one thinks to patrol Edisto.”

“Because it’s a stupid place to smuggle things through.”

Mac had to smile at that; she looked away quickly. “You’re right. Creel’s the only one to guess so far.”

“But if you’re serious about being successful, you should move your operation closer to the port.”