Release date: October 3, 2006
Copyright 2006. Please do not distribute or copy without permission of the author.
"Now this," Ian Taylor said with satisfaction, surveying the ship bobbing just outside of the harbor, "is what I call an adventure!" He turned a blinding grin on his wife-to-be as he patted her hand. He had to hunt for it; it only wrapped partly around his well-muscled forearm. "It's going to be amazing. Better than any church wedding, eh?"
She looked up at him, speechless. He stood six feet five inches to her dumpy five foot four, and had the kind of rippling, tanned body usually only seen on stage in gay strip clubs. Silky blonde hair. Impossibly white, even teeth. Big blue eyes. In short, he was just ... perfect. He even had an accent, for heaven's sake. Scottish. Irish. Something like that. And he was -- unbelievably -- a romance novel cover model.
For a woman whose self-image most often involved the words "mousy" and "short," meeting Ian had been like being run down by the speeding Love Train. And it had been -- of course -- a cute, adorable interlude, like something straight out of the movies. She'd been shopping at Wal-Mart, like she did every Thursday, and as she was putting her groceries in her car, WHAM! A shopping cart right in the midsection. Ian's cart, as it turned out, a runaway from the top of the hill. Upon reviving her -- with mouth to mouth -- he'd set about seducing her with ruffled poet shirts and flowery compliments. And kisses. Lots of kisses. He was suspiciously practiced at it.
Their romance -- two months along, yesterday -- had been one big, rose-colored dream, and she kept waiting to wake up. But the dream was starting to take on a surreal edge of panic, like tap-dancing naked in front of the U.N., and all Cecilia could finally sum up in response to Ian's boisterous enthusiasm was a wan smile and a quiet, "It looks great."
She supposed it did, if you were a romance-cover heroine to match Ian's overwhelmingly gorgeous looks. Someone whose hair could be described as "flowing raven tresses" or something. And anyway, when Ian had mentioned the surprise, she'd been thinking with desperate optimism of a cruise ship. Something like a floating city, with beauty shops and bowling alleys and seven ballroom-sized dining rooms. (She'd done considerable last-minute research. Cruise ships didn't look particularly terrifying.)
The huge ship bobbing like a cork was, in true Ian-fashion, not a boring old honeymoon cruise ship. No, this thing was straight out of some sweeping pirate tale, with towering masts and yo-ho-ho on a dead man's chest. It was even flying a pirate flag. Cute.
"When -- " She tried to banish the squeak from her voice. "When do we -- " Drown. Yes, sink and drown, arrrrrr, matey. "Sail?"
"Sail?" Ian echoed, and picked her up to whirl her around in a nauseating spiral. Even though she was hardly a lightweight, he didn't seem to notice. Those manly thews, again. "Within the hour, Cess! Isn't that wonderful?"
It was a measure of how overwhelmed she was that she hadn't complained about that damn nickname. Cess. Ugh. Cecilia, if you please, she imagined herself saying coolly, like those heroines in the novels she didn't resemble, as she pulled her shoulders straight and fixed him with an imperious gaze.
Of course, none of those women would have gotten themselves into a fix like this in the first place, but that was beside the point.
Cecilia squeezed her eyes shut and clung for dear life until Ian, and the world in general, stopped whirling. Well, at least she had thews to which she could cling. Hadn't had those, a couple of months ago. Hadn't had anything at all but herself. Ah, some traitorous part of her heart sighed, hadn't that just had been the life?
With shock, she realized what he'd just said. SAIL? Within the hour?!
She must have made some squeak of protest. Ian looked down at her, hair blowing in cornsilk waves on the wind, poet shirt billowing romantically. "Trust me," he said. "You're going to love this."
###
Somehow, he managed to get her down the boardwalk, mostly by bum's-rushing her with an arm around her shoulders. Terror rendered her effectively mute and manageable. She loved the harbor ... well, she loved strolling the area. She never got too close to the water. Waves made her queasy, even on dry land.
"There she is, Cess. Isn't she beautiful?"
She supposed, in a scary piratical way. The ship was anchored out in the harbor, riding the waves, its skeletal spires draped with ropes like cobwebs in the mist. The day was clouding over, and fog boiling in from the ocean. Perfect. Well, maybe she could use it to slip away.
She'd just taken the first sidle that direction when Ian pulled her into a smothering embrace. She tried for that square-shouldered dignity she'd been imagining earlier. "Ian, we can't do this. It's impossible."
"Can't? What do you mean? You said you'd marry me, didn't you?"
Well ... yes. She had. But it had been one of those yes, of course, someday things, not yes, God, drag me to the docks and throw me on a pirate ship things.
"Ian, listen to me," she said. "I really can't -- "
She paused, because Ian had been walking her toward the edge of the wooden pier, and suddenly there was nothing between her and the greasy, slippery water except his arm and about an inch of foothold. Her voice locked tight in her throat.
Out in the growing mist, she heard the rhythmic splash of oars.
Tell him. Tell him you can't marry him. TELL HIM!
She opened her mouth to do it, and a boat glided out of the gray fog. A black, glossy boat with six men at the oars, and another standing straight as a pike with his arms folded. Clearly the man in charge. Pirate in charge. Whatever.
Well, Cecilia thought numbly, you couldn't say Ian didn't go in for authenticity. She'd never in her life seen a more likely brigand. Sun-browned skin. A mass of coiling dark hair shot with gray, the lot barely contained by some braids to either side, and a battered tricorn hat. He wasn't tall -- not as tall as Ian, certainly -- and he wore a heavy, antique-style coat with corroded brass buttons and fraying bullion on the sleeves. Faded and sea-stained.
His eyes were fierce and dark, and under a bristle of mustache and goatee she couldn't see any expression at all. For all she could tell, he was about to draw that frightening-looking cutlass at his belt and demand that she stand and deliver.
"Ah," Ian said. "Captain Lockhart. May I present my wife to be, Cecilia Welles?"
Captain Lockhart flicked that impenetrable glance from her, to Ian, and then back. "If you must," he said, in the most dismissive tone she'd ever heard.
She'd been about to turn around and bolt, but that did it. It came to her in a blinding, angry rush exactly why she was doing this. She'd found the perfect man, and there was no reason, no reason at all, not to see this for the incredible lucky break it was. She'd be stupid to turn away. Some other woman would be all over Ian like spray-on tan the second she did.
Cecilia squared her shoulders and fixed the ragged pirate with the glare she wasn't capable of aiming at Ian. "Yes," she said. "He must. Is this our ride?"
Captain Lockhart clasped his hands behind his back and easily rocked with the waves that battered the small boat. His face remained bland. "No horses," he said.
"What?"
"Not a ride, love. No horses."
She felt an obscure sense of satisfaction at having provoked even that much reaction. "Our ... conveyance." That was a good romance-novel word. Conveyance. She saw a sudden, startling flash of teeth.
"Aye," he said. "It's a conveyance, if you're not too particular about your terms. Get in, if you're getting. Tide's about to turn."
Ian jumped into the boat with a solid thump, and swung Cecilia in before she could suck in breath to protest.
Too late. She sat and clung to the side convulsively as it lurched in the waves. The left-side oarsmen pushed off from the pier, and the boat began a hideous rocking motion. "Ian, wait! Isn't -- isn't anybody else coming? Your family? My friends? We should have witnesses ..."
Ian patted her shoulder. "Captain Lockhart and his men will sign all of the necessary papers, Cess." She shivered, damp and miserable in her thin t-shirt and blue jeans. "See? I told you it'd be a surprise."
Captain Lockhart cast her a look, raised an expressive eyebrow, and turned to watch the unseen horizon as they rowed into the mist.
- continued in MY BIG FAT SUPERNATURAL WEDDING: "Dead Man's Chest" -