Page 8 of Transporting a Ruthless Highlander
“Much, much harder,” she replied grimly. “A woman has tae dae her job twice as well as a man just tae be equal.”
“And I suppose if you make one tiny mistake, you shoulder twice as much blame,” he observed, studying her reaction.
“Ye are a very clever man, four-five-two,” she remarked, surprised.
“There are not too many of us about,” he replied, and they had laughed together for a while.
It had felt good to talk to someone like Struan, Gavina mused. If only he were not a convict!
That night she lay down in her narrow, solitary bunk, and for the first time ever, wished there was someone warm and solid beside her. What would it feel like to have Struan’s strong arms around her and that full, sensuous mouth pressed against hers? She had never been kissed by a man before, but she had never really felt that she had missed anything, so why now? She turned over restlessly again and again until her bedcovers were in a tangle. Damn! This man was driving her insane.
She closed her eyes and let herself be lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of waves underneath the ship, but when she turned over again, Struan was in the small bed with her, his dark eyes gazing into hers. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his warm hard body. She sighed, never having felt so safe, and burrowed into the hard warmth of his chest. Then his lips touched hers, gently at first…
“CAPTAIN!”
She recognized the voice of one of the ensigns, then realized that the ship was rearing and bucking violently. She lay immobile for a moment, steadying herself before venturing outside her bunk, but as soon as she set her feet on the floor, she was flung sideways and landed, sprawling on the floor, which was tilted at an angle. For a few seconds she rested, then she was able, with the strength of her arms and sheer force of will, to unlock the door and open it. It flapped backward toward her, and she had to hold on to the doorframe to avoid being flung back into the cabin.
“Ow!” she groaned, rubbing her head and grimacing at the pain. “Donny! I’m coming!” Once more, she tried to stand, and once more, the floor tilted and threw her down. She lay there for a moment listening to the screeching wind, feeling frustrated and utterly helpless while her body was thrown this way and that.
The waves were so fierce, tossing the ship from side to side, up and down, that at times the floor was almost vertical, but Gavina knew that she had to find a way to get to her feet. She reached out to grip the leg of her bunk, which was affixed to the floor, and managed to pull herself up, even though it took all her strength, but then the ship threw itself sideways in the opposite direction, and she skidded toward the door.
Donny had been doggedly holding on to one of the lines of posts that ran down the middle of the passage, swaying from side to side as the floor bucked underneath him. He looked relieved to see her, but before he could speak, the ship jolted again, and he slid sideways before managing to right himself with great difficulty.
Gavina just managed to hear the screams of the prisoners above the roar of the waves and the screaming and howling of the wind, and she felt a momentary stab of guilt, but she banished it quickly. She had to save the ship first, then take care of them. They would all die if theWeeping Willowwent down.
“How are we holdin’ up?” Gavina asked, shouting to make herself heard over the howling of the wind.
“It is a very bad yin, Captain!” Donny yelled back. “We might have tae abandon ship!”
“We have been in storms as bad as this before!” she replied grimly. “But just in case, get ready tae release the prisoners an’ let down the lifeboats on my orders!” Gavina opened the door to the upper deck and was almost flattened by the force of the wind that slammed into her. She was grasping a rope that ran along the edge of the deck to keep herself upright, but the bucking and rolling of the ship were so bad that she skidded and fell several times. Seawater stung her face, almost blinding her, and she was obliged to crawl along the wooden deck to reach the wheelhouse. Callum was standing at the wheel, wrestling with it to keep it under control, but it was taking all his strength.
“Try tae steer intae the wave!” she shouted. “We are no’ finished yet, not by a long chalk!” She had to keep the morale of the crew up at all costs; now was not the time to lose heart. She only wished she felt as confident as she sounded.
She could see nothing through the storm, but due to her familiarity with the route, she knew exactly where they were. They had been driven inshore by the wind and waves onto a part of the coastline that was notorious for sandbanks and jagged rocks that were hidden just under the surface of the sea.
Gavina was nowhere near desperation; she had endured similar storms and survived to tell the tale, but she knew that this one was going to test her crew’s seamanship to its limits. Fortunately, they were experienced and had managed to turn the vessel into the waves so that it no longer rocked from side to side, and the sails had all been lowered and furled. Everything movable on the deck had either been stowed away or washed overboard, never to be seen again, but fortunately, her crew was still complete, and everyone had been accounted for. For the moment there was nothing more to be done except try to keep the ship stable and ride out the storm. Gavina said a prayer of thanks as theWeeping Willowrighted herself.
The bow of the boat plunged into the trough before each wave, then climbed to the peak and stood there for a heart-stopping second before nose-diving downward again. This was terrifying, but at least it was what the ship had endured many times before, and it was the kind of motion that was expected in a storm.
For a few moments, it appeared that all was going well. The dipping and climbing were unsettling, but they were making progress, albeit very slowly.
Then disaster struck. A huge rogue wave slammed into the starboard side of the ship, sweeping away all before it. This time, there was absolutely nothing Gavina could do except watch as her crew disappeared over the side of the boat. To go after them would not only be fruitless but suicidal.
She and Callum were relatively sheltered in the wheelhouse, however, and both of them clung to the wheel for dear life until the wave had subsided and theWeeping Willowwas stable, if only for a few seconds.
Then she heard it. She had thought, for a few glorious seconds, that the boat had escaped unscathed, but now she heard the grating, ear-splitting sound of wood splintering, and she looked to the port side of theWeeping Willowto see that she was literally being torn apart. Gavina had thought that they had a few moments to launch the lifeboats—a few moments in which to save some of the crew, if not the prisoners—but now she could see that their situation was hopeless. The ship was doomed.
Oh, God, if ye are there, please save us. Please send an angel. Please dae somethin’!she begged, hoping that someone would hear her. She had not prayed since she was a child, but now she was utterly desperate.
She heard a piercing scream and turned to see Callum being wrenched away from the wheel, then being sucked overboard. The last thing he ever said was his wife’s name. “Mary!” he cried, then he was gone.
Gavina had no time to feel sorry for him. Every primitive instinct now told her to save herself. She must survive. She would survive, she resolved, even as she was tugged into the heaving surf. Her mouth and eyes filled with seawater, and she felt the jagged edges of the planks ripping her clothes, then her skin as the merciless waves pulled her underwater.
Her hair tangled and caught on the splintered wood, stopping her from raising her head above the waves. She desperately tried to free it, and at last, she succeeded, then she swam upward and broke the surface of the water to gulp in great lungfuls of life-giving air. Her eyes and her skin were stinging, she had swallowed pints of seawater, but she was alive.
However, she was not yet out of danger, as she saw another huge wave coming her way.
Gavina was a fair swimmer but by no means an expert, and as she watched the huge mass of water advancing inexorably towards her, her heart sank. She had heard that when people were about to die, they saw pictures of their life flash in front of their eyes.
