Too Great a Temptation by Alexandra Benedict Read Free Book Online Page B

belonged.
    Bah! What was it with the crew of the Bonny Meg ? All seemed to think she lacked a healthy dose of feminine hysteria.
    Mirabelle hammered away for a while, fixing some minor damage amassed during the last spring storm they had weathered.
    She paused in her repairs, looking out to sea, trying to quiet her troubled spirit.
    The glow of the setting sun warmed her skin. She inhaled the fresh tang of salty sea air, listened to the ballooning sails stretch under the pressure of the surging winds.
    She loved being on board, feeling the breeze whipping through her hair. Even staring at the rhythmic swell of the water gave her pleasure. It soothed her soul.
    Resuming repairs, Mirabelle glanced down and spotted a lone figure scaling the ratlines with obvious prowess.
    A sudden giddy unease enveloped her. “What are you doing here, Damian?”
    A head popped up to glare at her. “What are you doing here?”
    “Fixing the yard.”
    Damian straddled the wood beam opposite her. “You shouldn’t be up here. It isn’t safe.”
    She snorted. Life on a pirate ship was never safe. Always being hunted and all. It was the very reason her brothers had set sail for the Americas. Plundering near the English coast had become a hazard. Ever since that incident with an English passenger vessel two years ago, too many scout ships prowled the waters in search of the Bonny Meg . It being time for a change of venue, her brothers had crossed the Atlantic waves to find it. Of course, Damian wasn’t privy to any of that.
    “I told you to stay away from me, Damian.”
    “And I told you to be careful.” Then tersely he said, “It seems neither of us listens to the other.”
    She huffed. “I’m not in any danger.” Though perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. Hell’s fire, but the man had such stunning eyes. She was woozy just looking at him. “My father taught me how to sail—and hammer a nail.”
    The autocratic brute was quiet for a moment. “Was this your father’s ship?”
    She glanced down at the yard, pounding away. “Aye. He was captain for almost twenty years.”
    “So who is Meg?”
    Mirabelle paused, a welter of emotions swimming in her breast. “My mother, Megan. She died in childbirth to Quincy.”
    Mirabelle wished she had known the woman better. She was often told how much she resembled her mother, with her golden hair and eyes, while her brothers distinctly mirrored their father. It was why she liked being aboard the Bonny Meg . She felt close to her mother here. And her father. As though both parents were watching over her, hugging her in their arms.
    She took another nail from the satchel tied at her waist, and positioned it over the splint. “So you see, Damian”—bang!—“I belong here.”
    “Not way up here.”
    “I’ll have you know, Father was a wonderful teacher.” Bang! Bang! “He had faith in me.”
    Memories squeezed at her heart. Memories of her father. It had been a year since the death of Drake Hawkins. The worst year of her life, for with all her brothers at sea, she had been left home alone for the first time in her life. The silence had been agonizing. The ache in her lonely heart consuming. But out here she was close to her brothers—and her parents. Out here she belonged to a crew, a family. She didn’t need anyone else. She certainly didn’t need a husband and children, as James had suggested. Such a family would only bring her grief…as it had her mother so many years ago.
    Oh, the Hawkins clan had been happy for a time, blissfully so. And then tragedy had struck, a great upheaval that had devastated many lives, her mother’s most of all. It’d been more than twenty years since the awful event, but still Mirabelle feared the kind of heartache that had plagued her mother. She would much prefer the life of a seafarer. And there was nothing in the world that could make her give up her dream. Not a stubborn troop of brothers or a pigheaded navigator.
    “You should appreciate that