Sophia slapped at another mosquito sucking blood from her neck and scowled at the man riding ahead of her. She knew she needed Jack Burrell, or someone qualified to take her into the backwoods of East Florida, but she was convinced he planned this trip to be as insect laden and uncomfortable as possible.
“Stop slapping at them, Sophia, it just riles them up,” he said without turning around.
Sophia gave in to a childish indulgence and stuck out her tongue. She wasn’t used to the gait of this mule and asked again why they could not take horses on this journey.
“Because mules are easier to deal with in the backwoods. Horses are too much trouble. A mule is stubborn and not much to look on, but it gets the job done.”
Sophia almost muttered “like you” just to be childish again, but that would have been a lie. You could say a great deal of negative things about Lucky Jack Burrell, and she’d said most of them in the course of this journey, but you could not say he was “not much to look on.” Seeing him from the back now, his broad shoulders covered by a respectable brown jacket and a blue kerchief tied casually around his neck, she couldn’t help but remember what he looked like the night before, those broad shoulders blocking the light and glistening with sweat as he loomed over her in bed.
She squirmed on her seat on the placid mule, some from soreness and some from memory, and damned if that scoundrel didn’t look over his shoulder and grin at her like he knew exactly what was making her twitch.
There was a third mule laden with rope and camping supplies and Sophia had been surprised by its addition to their train.
“Won’t we travel faster if it is just the two of us?”
“We’ll reach Picolata by midday,” Jack said. “But I don’t know what we’ll find there. It’s good to be prepared. And a sailor always has rope with him,” he said with a smile. “You never know when you’ll need to tie a strong knot.”
Now as they rode along Sophia patted the pocket in her boy’s jacket where her pistol rested along with its accessories. Jack had a rifle and his own pistol, and she knew he kept a sharp eye on the pine woods surrounding the road to the river. This was the route used to transport goods from the river to St. Augustine, and where there was commerce there were those lying in wait for the unwary, river thieves and bandits and displaced Indians seeking vengeance and supplies.
Early in their journey this morning they passed a burnt-out homestead, its brick chimney all that remained of a family’s dreams. Vines were already encroaching and moving in, but there had been a gardenia bush in bloom near what must have once been the front door, and Sophia paused to snip off a bloom. The lush fragrance filled her senses, but it was also a reminder of the dangers lurking in paradise.
When they got to the river there was a fort, a few homes and businesses, including the ferry across the river, and docks out into the water. Jack helped her off the mule and Sophia put her hands at the base of her spine, arching backward, stretching out the kinks from the mule ride. Jack’s eyes twinkled in sympathy.
“Mrs. Reaver inside the store there will show you where you can freshen up, Sophia. We’ll join them for our meal and then figure out where we go from here.”
The Reaver’s shop was a cramped and dark establishment carrying farming supplies, ammunition, some household goods and trade goods for the Indians. The family kept its own quarters upstairs. Martha Reaver was a little bird of a woman, her bright black eyes and tawny skin hinting at her own Indian heritage. She was almost desperately eager for another woman’s conversation as she led Sophia to the detached kitchen behind the store.
“All day long I’m surrounded by young’uns and menfolk, soldiers and river trash,” she said, working around her burgeoning belly while she stirred a pot on the fire. Sophia had freshened up and sat in the kitchen, lending a hand by shelling peas while Jack and Luke Reaver talked in the shop.
“Up!”
There was tug on Sophia’s skirt and she looked down to see a grubby urchin clutching at her, one hand on her skirt, the other attached by the thumb to a rosebud mouth. The child had a mass of sunny hair and her mother’s black eyes.
Sophia froze. She wasn’t used to the company of children and wasn’t sure what one did with them.
“Go ahead and pick Katie up if you want.” Martha chuckled. “That gal doesn’t have a shy bone in her body and I swear, she’ll run off with a traveling drummer some day if I don’t keep her tied to my apron.”
“UP!” Katie removed her thumb from her mouth long enough to demand imperiously.
“But…what if she starts to cry?” Sophia asked with a hint of panic.
“UP!” Katie demanded again, and since her mother was ignoring what Sophia perceived as an incipient crisis she acquiesced, hoisting the toddler under the arms and hauling her into her lap with a grunt. The child was more substantial than she looked. Sophia sat stiffly, wondering what happened next, but apparently Katie knew what she was about, because she squirmed on Sophia’s lap for a moment finding the right spot, and then busied herself babbling while she waved a peapod in the air.
Martha went back to her stirring and the two women chatted about the doings in St. Augustine and the fashions in England, but Sophia was aware of the armful she held. The child’s curls smelled of fresh air and sunshine, and Sophia’s arm tightened about Katie when a grab after an errant pea almost sent her tumbling off her perch.
Something made Sophia look up at that moment to see Jack in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her with the child. There was an arrested expression on his face and she ducked her head and removed Katie from her lap.
“If you will excuse me, Mrs. Reaver, I will return shortly.”
Sophia stood and turned to go, but there was another tug at her skirt.
“’iss!” Katie demanded, holding her hands up.
“She means ‘kiss,’” Martha said, without turning around from the fire.
Sophia turned away from watching Jack to the waiting child, and leaning down gave her a peck on one sticky cheek. Katie chortled with glee and clapped her hands at having manipulated the big person so smoothly, and Sophia hurried out of the kitchen with Jack following behind.
“Luke says it’s not a good time to be poking around the bluffs,” Jack said without preamble. “Martha’s kin to the Alligator Clan and when they bring in deerskins to trade they tell her they’re unhappy with the settlers stealing their cows and encroaching into their hunting grounds.”
“I am more concerned about our treasure, Captain, and where that key goes. Were you able to find out anything from Mr. Reaver about that?”
Jack sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, smearing the dust that settled there from the trail ride. He took her by the arm and led her under the shade of an oak near the river, the Spanish moss hanging from its broad limbs dancing in the sunlight as the breeze stirred it.
“Sophia, I know there’s a great deal of money at stake here. You do not have to remind me again. But I also know I value keeping my hide intact, and,” he hesitated and looked out at the river, “I value keeping your hide intact also.”
He looked down at her, his eyes serious.
“Seeing you in there with that baby on your lap set me thinking. What if I got you with child, Sophia? Would you want to risk yourself and the babe for a few pieces of gold?”
“I am not with child, Jack. Despite what happened in St. Augustine, you helped ensure that.”
“I didn’t pull out every time,” he said coarsely, “and accidents happen.”
“I am not going to have an accident, Jack,” she said. “And if that is your concern, we can make sure there are no accidents by not repeating our encounters!”
Jack’s lips tightened. “This isn’t the time or place to discuss this.”
“You brought it up. And you have not answered my question. Did you learn anything from Mr. Reaver?”
Jack took off his hat and ran his sleeve over his face, then put his hat back on. It shadowed his eyes and Sophia had a hard time reading his expression.
“Yes. South of here on the western side are the ruins of an old Spanish mission, Santiago de Laca.”
Sophia looked at him quizzically.
“Santiago is St. James in English.”
“So that is ‘St. James Place’!”
“I believe so. Luke can rent us a boat, and we’ll sail upriver to the ruins and see if there’s a lock that fits our key.”
“You would rather do that than take the mules on the ferry?”
“We’ll leave the mules here for now and travel light. I want to scout out the land first, see what’s there. Might be we won’t need the mules if this is just another of Captain Garvey’s stupid clues, and not the location of the treasure.”
Sophia’s excitement over coming closer to the treasure must have shown on her face, for Jack scowled at her.
“I still think this is a fool’s quest, Sophia, and I am only willing to risk so much. If there are consequences to our lovemaking, then this treasure hunt ends. And I can read a calendar, so do not think to deceive me on this.”
Some of the brightness went out of the morning. Jack, like most men, would care a great deal if she were carrying his heir. It wasn’t about her, or what they shared together, but it was about what she was capable of doing for him.
“Of course, Jack. I understand. There will be no consequences.”
* * *
Jack watched Sophia slowly walk away and wanted to kick himself for the poor way he’d handled that. It was the sight of her with that baby on her lap. It terrified him and at the same time roused something in him, made him realize there was more at stake here than just the two of them and the treasure.
But she looked so right with the baby, the two fair heads so close in shade, and the idea of Sophia bearing his baby was something he hadn’t thought about beyond trying to pull out in time to make sure that didn’t happen. A voice in his head whispered that if she was pregnant she couldn’t leave him, the marriage would be more than the temporary diversion she believed it to be. He wasn’t sure of that though. Little cats abandoned their kittens all the time, and he didn’t know how far Sophia would go to stay free and go after her treasure.
The terror part—that was real, too, and it was more than the thought of a child. He was finding himself drawn to her in ways he hadn’t expected, and it was magnified by their passion in bed. Far from getting it out of his system, it only intensified his desire for her, his wish to see how many layers of her secrets he could peel away like peeling away her clothes, the blouse, the skirt, her sheer cotton chemise.
He also wondered when she was going to tell him about her meeting with Lord Whitfield.
Maybe he was just supposed to walk blithely into whatever trap the two laid for him. Sophia thought she had it all figured out, but she forgot he had contacts in Florida going far and deep, including people who for a few coins were eager to keep him apprised of the Englishman’s movements once he’d revealed his hand in Fernandina.
He sighed and turned back to the store. He still had to check out the boat and make sure it was ready for a trip up river. They’d be alone for the next few days, and it might be an opportunity for them to find out if there was more to what was between them than lust for a pirate’s treasure. If he could figure out whether she meant to betray and kill him, that would be a bonus, too.
* * *
Dinner with the Reavers was simple food, but there was plenty of it. Ham cooked with corn and beans, swamp cabbage boiled up and served with melting butter, corn bread and milk from the cows. The other “young’uns” had been off fishing when Sophia and Jack arrived, but two tow-headed boys who looked like they’d grow to be the image of their lanky father showed up with a string of catfish. They promised their mama they’d clean the fish and she looked content, if harried with all that was going on.
Sophia leant a hand with the cleaning up, apologizing for not being able to help with the cooking.
“In England I never had to learn.” she said. “There were cooks when I was growing up, and then later it was just easier to purchase food at the cookshop next door to our bookstore.”
“You can’t cook?” Jack said in surprise.
“Too late.” Luke Reaver chuckled, dandling Katie on his knee. “That’s the kinda valuable information you want to find out before you marry a gal, Jack!”
“Don’t you go teasing them now, Mr. Reaver,” his wife said as Sophia juggled plates and pitchers for the trip out to the kitchen. “A couple on their honeymoon trip has more important things to worry about than who’s doing the cooking.”
“That’s as may be, Mrs. Reaver,” Jack said, “but a man’s got to eat! Good thing one of us does know how to cook, otherwise we’d starve.”
“I look forward to eating the evidence of that statement, Captain Burrell,” Sophia called out from the kitchen.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with Jack helping Sophia learn how to handle the Reaver’s skiff. She’d changed into her boy’s clothes for this effort, which got guffaws from the Reaver boys and a smile from Luke, who asked Jack just who was wearing the pants in that new family of his?
The boys cleaned the fish and Martha kept her promise, breading them and fried them up in lard with some corn fritters Sophia swore were the best she’d ever had.
“I can fry fish and fritters, too,” Jack interjected. “I think you got the better end of this marriage deal, Mrs. Burrell.”
“Your value to me as a husband just keeps increasing,” Sophia said and Jack smiled at her, a smile that made her swallow and feel off balance again. He was like a summer day, starting out with clear skies and sunlight, but darkening into a storm by mid-afternoon, changing as you watched, and then clearing back to a sweet evening.
She was learning how to read him like a book, her gambler’s skills coming to the fore as she studied him. It was no wonder Whitfield had cleaned Jack out at that gambling party. He practically had “fleece me!” written on his forehead! Leaving him high and dry after she nabbed the treasure was going to be almost too easy.
What would his so-open face look like when he learned the truth about her?
That disturbing thought was interrupted by young Tom Reaver coming out from the kitchen with slices of fruit, pink and green and oozing juice.
“Watermelon!” Jack said. “I don’t believe I have had any yet this season.”
“What is it?” Sophia said, and the Reavers and Jack stared at her.
“You ain’t never had watermelon?” Tom piped up.
“No. It is a melon? But how do you eat it?” she said, eyeing the large chunks of fruit.
“Show the lady, Tom.” Martha laughed.
Tom grabbed a chunk off the middle of the plate and dived in headfirst, snapping off a sizable piece, chewing it with delight, and then spitting the seeds out the door.
“You are joking,” Sophia said to Jack.
“No, that’s how you eat watermelon. You learn this and soon you will be a real Floridian.”
He was grinning at her and reached for his own slice of melon, and never one to resist a challenge, Sophia wiped her hand on her table linen and picked up her own slice. The juice ran down her fingers but she managed to bring it up to her lips without too much trickling down her sleeve. She took a bite and there was an explosion of sugar in her mouth, and a cooling sensation from the juicy fruit.
“Oooh,” she moaned when she caught her breath, “this is wonderful!”
The Reavers laughed at her response, but Jack seemed entranced by the trickle of juice that escaped her lips to wend its way down her chin. Before she could reach for her own linen, he was leaning over and dabbing at it with his finger.
“You were leaking,” he said huskily, then cleared his throat.
“Watemelon’s mighty refreshing in the summer,” Mr. Reaver said, reaching for a second piece. “I’m sure glad we could introduce you to this treat.”
“I can see how you would treasure it. I appreciate the opportunity to try something new.”
After the supper dishes were done Jack brought out his banjo, which had shared space on the mule with their supplies, and played some songs that had the children clapping and Mr. and Mrs. Reaver dancing together.
Martha’s cheeks were sunken from care and lost teeth, and Luke’s sallow complexion testified to his ongoing fight with malaria, but the two looked at each other like there was no one else in the room, and Sophia felt something in her throat catch. She looked over at Jack Burrell, his hair catching gold streaks in the candlelight and she wondered what it would be like to have a life where money didn’t matter as much as having someone beside you to talk to at the end of the day, someone to share your cares and sorrows, someone to share your joys.
When the stars were high in the clear sky and the sounds of frogs and crickets filled the night air, the Reavers climbed the narrow staircase to the upper level with Sophia following behind and Jack bringing up the rear with a candle.
It was one large room, with a bed big enough for two, and three small beds arranged against the opposite wall, a curtain separating them. There were two pallets arranged near the children’s beds.
“Martha and me will sleep with the young’uns and give you two honeymooners the bed.”
“Absolutely not! Mrs. Reaver is not going to sleep on the floor in her condition!”
“Sophia’s right, Luke,” Jack said. “We can bed down over here with the children, but I appreciate your offer. Your hospitality is a byword on the river, and I know the offer is genuine.”
Luke Reaver frowned, but saw his wife’s fatigued face and gave in, allowing as how maybe the guests wouldn’t be too put out just for this one night. They rehung the curtain to divide a small sleeping space for Sophia and Jack, keeping all the Reavers on the other side.
Tom Reaver did offer Sophia his bed, seeing as how she was small enough she might fit in it, but she declined the offer and settled down next to Jack, the children rustling and making noises behind them on the other side of the cloth. Katie demanded one more “’iss” from everyone before she’d drop off to sleep, and eventually there were only the sounds of the night and the breathing and soft snores of the Reaver family.
Sophia was having a hard time dropping off herself. It wasn’t just the floor was hard beneath her pallet, or because she was sleeping in her clothes, or that she wasn’t used to sleeping among an entire family, but it was also the feel of Jack curled behind her, his body wrapped up against hers while his arm anchored her against him.
His breath ruffled the curls atop her head, and his long fingers were splayed across her belly. It wasn’t easy, at first, but now she was used to having him sleep next to her, used to the sound of his breathing in the night. If she woke up, he was there, and she’d move closer to him, his large body shielding her, protecting her. Sleeping next to someone was a new thing in her life, and she worried that sleeping next to Jack Burrell, and the other things she did with Jack Burrell, would be a hard habit to break.
She put her hand on her own belly, just above Jack’s hand, wondering if there was a new life growing in there. It would complicate everything, but she couldn’t help wondering, too, what it would be like…
The curtain separating the Burrells from the Reavers rustled and Sophia saw an undersized shadow, and heard a high pitched giggle, and then the next thing she knew there was a warm little body curling up against hers. Katie patted her on the cheek and said, “Lady!”, and then rolled over, stuck her thumb in her mouth and fell asleep atop Sophia’s arm.
Sophia was petrified. What was this child doing here? How could she trust her not to do something awful like roll over on her during the night?
“Jack!” she whispered.
He was asleep, and no help at all. What was she supposed to do? Why had she been singled out for this abuse?
Sophia craned her neck at an uncomfortable angle and looked down at the top of the child’s downy head. Katie looked so small compared to her, and that wasn’t a comparison she often got to make. Maybe that’s why the child liked her. She wasn’t a huge lumbering hairy beast.
A soft snore in her ear brought to mind exactly which beast she’d been envisioning. He was no help at all. Here she was, trapped with an infant, and Jack Burrell slept blissfully on.
Sophia toyed with the idea of jumping up and waking the Reavers to retrieve their wandering child, but then Katie snuggled her little bottom against her. Jack’s hand shifted to cover hers and he sighed in his sleep as he snuggled himself against her bottom, and it was just too much trouble as the exhaustion of the mule ride in the sun caught up with her, and Sophia drifted off to sleep, warm and cocooned and feeling oddly cherished.