Prize of My Heart Read Free

perhaps his employer would happen by and find him asleep on the job.
    Oh, Lorena, how can you jest? She was a Christian woman, but she wasn’t stupid enough to wait around until he woke and face a possible wrathful confrontation between this colossus and a small boy, who had clobbered him with a well-aimed stone.
    And then it occurred to her that Drew indeed had saved her, for this man’s last words were “But first it is my desire . . .” What had been his desire? she wondered. A kiss?
    She glanced at the unshaven face and blushed to the roots of her heavy cloud of curls.
    “When we get home, Lorena, will you read to me again of David?”
    Lorena smiled down at the precious golden child God had placed in her care to love and protect. She’d deal with Drew’s misconduct later, but right now her heart couldn’t help but fill to bursting at her little misguided hero. She leaned forward, hands on knees, and addressed him sweetly. “If you wish to hear more of King David, we shall read his psalms. You need to learn David’s wisdom before you mimic his actions, or the next thing I know you’ll be trotting off to slay a bear. Tonight we’ll start with—”
    A loud groan erupted from the stranger sprawled on the thick carpet of marsh turf. For a moment they both froze as the man stirred.
    Lorena grabbed Drew’s hand, and they ran like Elisha fleeing the wrath of Queen Jezebel.

2
    I ’ve already told you, Jabez, I don’t know what happened. I was about to inform the girl she could expect to receive me this evening by saying, ‘It is my desire to know what you shall be serving for supper,’ when the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the grass with the worst headache of my life.”
    Brogan angled his face in his handheld traveling mirror as he shaved. “But you can be certain I intend on finding that skinny slip of a scullery maid and discovering whaaa . . . ahhhhhk . . . enough of this contemptible blade!”
    Blood pooled on his chin as he flung the straight-edged razor into a porcelain bowl with such disgust that soapy water splashed over the rim onto the night table and dripped to the floor.
    Then, for no other reason than because the fellow happened to be standing nearby, Brogan directed his aggravation at his chief mate, who was presently leaning against the doorjamb of the room they’d taken at the inn. “Shall I interpret that smirk to mean you’re about to laugh, Mr. Smith? If so, pray, let me caution you. Do not give in to it.”
    Jabez Smith shook off the threat with a shrug of his brawny shoulders while across his densely freckled face stretched a grin that deepened the creases at the corners of his dark blue eyes. “I find it so unlike ye, Cap’n,” he bellowed in a voice deep and resounding enough to be heard over a strong quartering wind. “In all our years together—and they’ve been many—I’ve never known ye to be careless.”
    He uncrossed burly arms from over a thick barrel of a chest and stepped forward into a pool of warm sunlight slanting in from the open window. He smelled of the sea, and in the glaring brightness his coarse head of coppery curls and bushy side whiskers came ablaze with glowing tints of orange and gilt.
    “Carelessness is unthought of in privateering if a man values his life. A privateer has to have skill, courage, and endurance. But most of all, a privateer has to stay alert. And you, sir, were one of the greatest American privateer captains in the War of 1812. And here I see this brave, daring master of the sea seated on the edge of a bed, whining over a sore head and a razor nick on his chin.”
    Brogan curled his lips in a soundless growl.
    “Well, what did ye expect?” the mate raved on. “Why must ye be such an arrogant fellow? Flaunting yerself before a good girl on Nathaniel Huntley’s land? It ain’t polite to go up to some unfamiliar woman and force yer acquaintance without so much as a ‘how d’ye do.’”
    Brogan checked his