“What choices are you talking about, Cap’n?” Lucky asked.
“I see three possibilities.” Ben shuffled the deck of cards, then lay the top one, the four of spades, on the table. “One, we accept defeat and leave Lake Bliss.”
“That ain’t never gonna happen,” Gus said with a scowl. “Maggie needs the water. I won’t have her in pain, boys.” Lucky and Snake nodded their heads fiercely in agreement.
“Two,” Ben continued, placing a second card, the jack of clubs, beside the first. “We could tell Mary Margaret the truth.”
“Now what the hell good would that do?” Lucky shoved to his feet. “It’d hurt her heart and in many ways that’s as bad as her joints paining her.”
“It’s what Montgomery wants,” Ben said flatly, thumbing the edges of the card deck. “I know the man, and the note he left made it obvious. Telling her the truth is definitely one way to ensure Mary Margaret’s future access to Lake Bliss water.”
Gus sipped noisily at his ale. “She pestered me for answers all the way home. Even sick like she was.” He set his glass down hard. “I’m not against telling her. You all know I’ve thought for years that we should let her make her own decisions.”
Snake drummed his fingers on the table. “Well, I don’t like it. Not one little bit. The lass doesn’t need to make her own decisions because she has us. She’s always had us. We have been there for her.”
“Wait a minute,” Lucky warned. “Let’s not forget we are not alone here. We shouldn’t be talking about this in front of Malone.”
Ben sighed. “Sit down, Lucky, and give me your attention. I want you all to pay attention. We must speak of it in front of Malone.” He drew a third card from the deck and lay it beside the others.
The ace of diamonds drew Rafe’s gaze like a bloodstain.
Ben made eye contact with each of the pirates in turn. He didn’t look at Rafe. “I believe I mentioned three choices? Well, Malone here is that third option.”
That piece of news got Rafe’s undivided attention. He cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I don’t remember dropping my name into any hat.”
Ben still didn’t spare him a glance. “Andrew left the note to taunt us. He has kept the gold and jewels; we can be certain of it. Malone here could help us get it back.”
Rafe started shaking his head even before Ben had finished his sentence. “I told you from the git-go that I wouldn’t steal anything from anybody inside Texas’s borders. Shoot, I won’t hardly borrow.”
Finally, Ben’s clear blue eyes met Rafe’s. “We won’t require you to commit the actual theft. That is our duty and our pleasure. What we will need from you is a little reconnaissance. I’ll leave the details to you, although I might suggest you use your position as owner of the Lone Star Ranch to gain entry to the plantation.”
Frustration propelled Rafe across the room. He placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Watch what my mouth is getting ready to say, you old sea dogs. I. Won’t. Do. It. Any participation on my part could be termed conspiracy, and that’s enough to get me hanged.”
He shuddered as a memory flashed in his mind. The stench of rotting corpses from the San Jacinto battlefield. The rough scrape of rope around his neck. The blow of the horse beneath him. The hate burning in his brother’s eyes as he barked out the order. The confidence glowing in Luke’s.
“I gave my word. I’m sorry you lost your treasure, but I can’t do anything about it. Besides, it’s time for me to head home and check up on things there. You need to find another way to keep Hotel Bliss. Find someone else to help you.”
His voice seemed to echo in the sudden silence. Then, from behind him came Maggie’s voice. “We will. Don’t doubt it. We don’t need you.”
The woman’s tone could freeze beef still on the hoof. Grimacing, Rafe turned to see Maggie standing in the doorway, her head held high, her eyes flashing. All that time he’d been on the lookout for her, and of course she showed up the minute his back was turned. Contrary female. She returned angry enough to spit, too, by the look of it. He wondered how much of it was Hill and how much of it was what she’d overheard him say. “Look, Maggie—”
“I don’t care to look. Neither do I care to listen. My family and I have private matters to discuss, so if you’ll excuse us, please?”
Now she was making him mad. “Snooty doesn’t become you.”
“Neither does cowardice look good on you, Malone.”
Rafe narrowed his eyes and took an inadvertent step toward her as Ben cautioned, “Mary Margaret…”
She folded her arms and tipped her chin even higher.
“If you were a man I’d take that as a challenge,” Rafe snapped.
“My sex has little—”
“Don’t be using that word in mixed company, young lady.” Snake jumped to his feet. “Malone, get on out of here. Our lass is right. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. So leave us be; we have plans to make.”
Rafe wanted to protest. He wasn’t against them at all. But he couldn’t break his agreement with the rangers; he wouldn’t break his word to Luke.
Fine. Let ‘em think what they wanted. He didn’t care. If Maggie thought so little of him after what the two of them went through in that tunnel from hell, then she wasn’t worth his time or trouble.
But why did that idea make his chest hurt?
“Sure,” he said, ignoring the ache. “I thought I’d give my muscles a soak in the bathhouse, anyway. The mud down there doesn’t sling around like it does up here.” He swaggered toward the doorway where Maggie continued to stand. Upon reaching her, he stopped. Although she held her ground, her eyes grew wary.
Rafe smiled blandly and reached for his hat hanging on a peg behind her. His arm brushed her breast. He heard her quick, indrawn breath and imagined the grinding of her teeth. Placing his hat on his head, he tipped it. “Evening, Miss St. John.”
She gave her head a toss and her braid went flying. “Good-bye, Malone.”
He walked outside and the door slammed behind him. He did not proceed to the bathhouse, however. As he strolled past Maggie, he’d seen something that changed his mind, something that left him seething and made him want to eavesdrop on the pirates’ plans.
Maggie St. John—curse her fickle soul—had returned from her walk with a love bite on her neck.
~~~~~~~~~~
With her hand resting against the door she’d just slammed, Maggie tried to ignore the pressure pushing at the back of her eyes. Exhaustion, she told herself. That’s why she was on the verge of crying. The trip back home had sapped all her energy. To top it off, circumstances had forced her to cap her return with arm-to-arm combat with a buffoon who thought to blackmail her into marriage. That’s what was wrong with her.
Her mood had nothing at all to do with Rafe Malone.
She crossed the room to the table and sank into a chair beside Papa Lucky. He reached over and clasped her hand. At his comforting touch, Maggie’s temper deflated. She silently admitted something she’d long known. The saddest lies were those a person told herself.
“I thought he cared,” she said softly.
Gus dragged his gaze from the direction of the window. “I think he does, Maggins. We all have a private demon or two, and I have the notion we just ran into Rafe Malone’s.”
As Maggie considered that idea, her hurt solidified into a slow, low-burning anger. “Why do you think that, Papa Gus? What did he tell you?”
“It’s just a feeling I have.”
Maggie sniffed. She wasn’t certain she believed Gus. He wasn’t above twisting facts around if he thought it best. Rafe may well have confided in him, and Maggie found she didn’t care for that idea at all. He’d certainly never confided in her. But then, no one ever confided in her.
I’m tired of that
. She was an adult. She deserved to be treated as such. Considering what she’d just gone through with sucker-fish-lips Barlow Hill, she believed she’d earned it.
Taking care to keep her neck hidden—no sense sending her grandfathers off on a tangent—she drew herself up, glared at her grandfathers, and said, “So, Papas, is Andrew Montgomery your private demon? Considering I’m fixing to lose my home due to this feud between you, I think it’s high time I learned what started it. Who wants to tell the tale?”
Gus studied the froth on his ale and didn’t speak. Snake stared up at the ceiling, Lucky at the floor. Ben Scovall contemplated his granddaughter. Abruptly he tossed the entire deck of cards onto the table. “You heard her, boys. What do you think? Choice number two?”
“How about number four?” Snake piped up. “It’s one you forgot to mention. I say we kill Montgomery.”
“Yeah.” Lucky flexed his fist. “My hand is itching to swing my blade at that scoundrel’s gullet.”
Ben slapped the table with both palms. “And would that solve our problem or create a bigger one? The reason why we didn’t kill him years ago still exists.”
All four men looked at Maggie. Her stomach took a dive. “What? Why are you staring at me like that? What is this about numbers two and four? What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s time,” Ben said, squaring his shoulders. “She’s a woman full-grown, boys. She should be part of this decision. We’ve raised her to be strong and sensible and secure in our love. She can handle this. She’s our Mary Margaret.”
Their Mary Margaret didn’t care for the sound of that at all. She watched in wary anticipation as the papas hemmed and hawed, but finally all agreed with a nod. No one appeared too happy.
Now that the moment was upon her, Maggie was half-tempted to run from the kitchen and hide in her bedroom. Obviously, she wasn’t going to like whatever news her grandfathers had for her. Maybe she didn’t want to be an adult after all—not if it meant scenes like this one and the debacle with Barlow Hill.
A pregnant silence filled the kitchen, broken only by the nervous tap of Papa Snake’s boot and the faint but doleful croak of a bullfrog from down by the lake. Maggie glanced toward the window. The frog sounded the way she felt. Maybe they should sing a duet.
“Mary Margaret,” Ben said, his tone solemn but gentle. “How much of your early life do you remember?”
Maggie’s head jerked around. The question surprised her. She’d expected unpleasant news about the hotel, perhaps a connection between Hill and Montgomery. “Do you mean before I came to live with you?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged. “Very little at all. I have vague recollections of a lemon-scented house, but my first clear memory is of when I first met you all on the beach. I remember being so afraid.”
Snake chuckled. “We were pretty scared ourselves.”
Maggie folded her arms, bracing herself for Papa Ben to continue. Instead, Gus spoke up. “Let me tell it, Ben. I was there at the beginning with him.”
“Go ahead.”
Gus took hold of Maggie’s hand and lifted it to his lips for a kiss, then said, “We sailed the waters of the West Indies at the time. Montgomery and I were headed for a grog shop in Charlotte Amalie when we first met up with Lady Abigail Summers. Andrew took one look at the woman and was lost. A right beautiful woman she was, fresh off the boat from England and on the island to visit friends for the winter.”
Lucky slowly shook his head. “Had the prettiest singing voice, too. Remember?”
“What I remember,” Ben replied, “is that she was no more immune to Montgomery than he was to her. They seduced one another by week’s end. We saw little of Andrew that entire summer. He didn’t sail with us once.”
Gus squeezed Maggie’s hand. “He fell in love with her, Maggie. Fell hard. I think he’d have done anything for her—even return to his family in England.”
“Fool boy,” Snake said, shaking his head sadly. “He’d a warrant for piracy on his head by then, but he’d have done it anyway. If she’d so much as wriggled her little finger he’d have gone back and tried to finagle his way out of the charges against him. Andrew always was good at finagling.”
The other papas nodded their heads in agreement as Gus continued the tale. “But as it turned out, Lady Abigail wasn’t prepared to trade her manor life to be a pirate’s woman, and when time came for her to return to England, she broke it off with Andrew and sailed away without looking back. The boy went a little wild then.”
“He went a lot wild,” Lucky interjected.
“He grew mean and bitter—especially toward women—and took up with some unsavory characters. And that’s saying a lot coming from men such as ourselves.” Gus paused in his story and sipped his drink in contemplative silence.
Maggie’s hands curled into fists. She sensed he’d been leading up to something, and she would bet he’d now reached that “something” part of the story. She wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him, telling him to spit it out. She wanted to run from the kitchen before he could speak, but she waited too long.
“Five years later Abigail returned to Charlotte Amalie. She demanded to speak with Andrew, but he refused to have anything to do with her. She tracked him down on Saint John Island. We were there with him that afternoon. I’ll never forget it. A battle royal as violent as any I’d witnessed at sea. He refused to have anything to do with her. Or with…” Gus dragged a hand across his mouth, contorting the scar on his cheek, and tried again. “Or with…”
When Gus didn’t continue, Ben cleared his throat and did the dirty work. “Or with the four-year-old girl she claimed was Andrew’s daughter.”
Maggie gasped as her grandfather pressed on. “It seems that Lady Abigail delayed her return home. She extended her holiday long enough to give birth to a pirate’s child. She hired a caretaker for the infant, then returned to England and soon married. Years later, upon receiving notice that the nanny had died and desperate to keep her daughter’s existence secret from her husband, Abigail decided it was Andrew’s turn to support the child.”
“You told me my parents were dead.” Cold invaded Maggie’s bones as betrayal hit her. “You lied!”
“It wasn’t a total lie. We learned Abigail died within a year of leaving you with us.”
“With him,” Maggie protested, her thoughts a boiling mixture of confusion, anger, and grief. “She left me with him because she didn’t want me. Only, he didn’t want me, either.”
“Not you, darlin’,” Lucky said earnestly. “Abigail. He had closed himself off from her entirely. When she came to him that day it was as if she no longer existed. And because he didn’t see her, he didn’t see her leave. And he refused to see that she left you.”