Sapphire Dream by Pamela Montgomerie Read Free Book Online Page B

to see the woman streak onto his deck, red brown hair glistening like silk in the patchy sunshine, his shirt a white billow around her.
    Bloody hell. He was barely free of one disaster. The last thing he needed was a woman topside. Not with this crew.
    As he started toward her, she glanced his way. Their gazes caught and in that instant, he understood. She meant to jump. He saw in her eyes the utter determination to escape him, even if it meant her death.
    “Nay!”
    But even as the word left his mouth, she leaped atop the rail. She stood there, poised for one fleeting moment like a finely carved masthead, her exquisitely sculpted face lifted to the sky. Then with a powerful, graceful arc, she dove into the frigid waters of the North Sea.

FOUR
     

    “Man overboard!”
    Rourke lunged for the rail, tearing off his weapons. God’s blood. He’d not risked life and sanity to skirt the coast of Scotland only to have the woman extinguish her own life the moment Hegarty found her.
    But as his sword clattered to the deck, she surfaced and started toward the fog-shrouded shore with long, clean strokes. The woman could swim. But for how long? The coast appeared much closer than it was. She would drown before she was a quarter of the distance.
    “Daft wench.” He should turn and walk away. Let her drown. She was naught but a tribulation he’d be well rid of.
    Even as the thought went through his head, his hands tore the boots from his feet.
    Aye, he should let her drown.
    Instead, he hoisted himself onto the rail and dove into the sea to save her.
    The cold slammed into him like a twenty-stone seaman, knocking the air from his lungs, stealing the strength from his limbs. He had to reach her before her strength gave out.
    Over the rolling, cresting waves, he spotted her and set out. But as he raced toward her, the distance between them did not close as quickly as he’d expected. It didn’t close at all. He knew himself to be a fine swimmer, yet the lass was keeping apace. Amazing, considering she’d nearly bled to death less than a day before.
    Rourke pushed himself to his limit, ignoring the briny sea spray in his mouth and nose, the icy water numbing his limbs. Not until they neared the shore did he finally begin to gain on her. But not soon enough.
    Rocks jutted menacingly from the surf between them and the shore. If a wave dashed her against one, she’d sink like a stone. She’d be dead before he could reach her.
    “Wildcat!”
    She turned her head, meeting his gaze for one fleeting moment. Then she pushed forward as if unaware of her looming death. Or uncaring.
     
     
    Cold. So cold.
    Brenna forced her arms to stroke and prayed her legs were still kicking, because she couldn’t feel them. And she knew the pirate was behind her. The salt water stung her eyes. The taste of it strafed her lips and tongue with each painful breath. But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let him drag her back to that hell ship.
    In front of her lay an obstacle course of jagged rocks she was going to have to maneuver between if she hoped to survive. Just a fun day at the beach, boys and girls.
    “Wildcat!”
    Her heart skipped a pounding beat at the closeness of the pirate’s call. A surge of adrenaline born of pure fear set her arms to stroking at twice her previous speed until she felt herself lifted on a wave. With a burst of panic she knew the next moments would spell the difference between her death . . . and escape.
    Using the bodysurfing technique she’d learned at the beach at home, she steered her frozen form around first one rock, then another, until at last she was in the surf. Her toes stubbed loose rocks along the bottom and she nearly wept with relief.
    As she stumbled on stiff, numb legs through the shallow water, Brenna looked back in time to see the pirate pass between the rocks, swimming with the wave that would carry him right to her feet.
    Terror lent strength to her freezing, exhausted body, and she pushed forward.