Chapter 29 The Storms of Time
Desi flung her legs over the edge of her dive boat as Chad throttled back the engine. Black clouds tumbled along the horizon, thunder growling a warning to all upon the sea. A sharp gust tore through her hair, ripping it from its tie.
“I told you we shouldn’t have come out here with the storm rolling in,” Camila complained, wrestling Desi’s BCD and tank from the locker.
“You want me to get the Ring, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to die in the process.”
Chad dropped the anchor and raised the dive flag, muttering. “We supposed to just ride out the storm while you go play mermaid? You don’t pay me enough for that.”
Desi shot him a glare. Why she paid him at all was a mystery. He’d worked two hours yesterday, then stumbled in late this morning, reeking of rum.
“I pay you to captain this boat and do what I say,” she snapped. “Besides, I won’t be long.”
Her gaze swept to the darkening waves, swelling higher by the second. One struck the Sea Starr, rocking it so hard she gripped the railing. The vessel pitched and rolled like a pendulum clock. Tick tock, tick tock. Time had become a formidable adversary, battling against her every move.
The sting of rain swirled in the shifting wind.
Of course there had to be a storm today.
But Desi couldn’t wait. She had to know if the Ring was still there.
She longed to see the Sentinel again, even if she was but a corpse of her former glory.
Just being near her might bring Caleb closer.
It was his ship. His cabin, his men…even his cat.
She could still see him striding across the deck, black hair streaming, cutlass flashing, that easy grin breaking through the shadows.
His gray-blue eyes—stormy as the sea—turning warm and admiring when they found her.
“Why are you so restless today?” she whispered to the waves. Perhaps they mirrored her soul. “Please guide me. Please help me.”
Thunder rumbled in reply. An answer, or a warning?
Forcing back tears, she turned and tugged on her dive booties. “Camila,” she said, glancing up. “I’m not sure this Briar guy is who he says he is.”
Camila planted one hand on her hip. “Oh yeah? Then who is he?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think his intentions are good.”
Camila rolled her eyes. “What are you, my mother now? You’re just jealous.”
Desi would laugh if that wasn’t so ridiculous. “Just trying to warn you, that’s all.”
“Okay,” Camila muttered something sharp in Spanish. “Whatever.”
Desi fitted her fins and hoisted the tank onto her back. The deck pitched beneath her feet. Balancing, she cinched the straps, tested the regulator, and fastened her dive computer. All green. Mask secure.
“If the Ring’s there, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
“You better be!” Chad called, cracking open a can of soda.
Another peal of thunder rolled across the dark water. Omen or echo, she couldn’t tell.
Grabbing tweezers and a collection bottle, Desi clipped them to her belt, then eased onto the railing, inserted her regulator, and plunged backward into the sea.
Cool water wrapped her like silk. The complaints of her crew, slap of waves, and roar of thunder muffled into a tranquil hush as the world’s noise dissolved into a peaceful swish that soothed her tight nerves.
Flipping on her light, she swam deeper. Questions chased her bubbles. If she retrieved the Ring, what then? Would Caleb’s fate still hold? When she’d left, he had the Ring in his possession. What then had caused the Sentinel to sink? Did he drown, or was he saved? So many unanswered questions.
But one blazed above them all. If she could return, could she change his fate?
The reef below loomed gray, its colors leeched by the storm-darkened water.
Over the lip of the drop-off, she descended until the skeletal outline of the Sentinel emerged from the gloom.
Her heart clenched. Ghosts swam here—Caleb’s laughter, Alden’s voice, Liam’s Irish lilt, the creak of rigging in the sun.
Now, only ruin remained. Divots and ditches where timbers fell, masts dissolved.
Cannons pointing at nothing. Rot and Ruin. Caleb’s favorite curse, now fulfilled.
Blinking back tears, she moved toward the spot where she’d found the Ring before. Brushing away sand, she swept her light over the spot.
There. Just like she’d never touched it, never traveled through time, never lived another life, never loved a hero of old.
A sob rose in her throat. That tiny circle of gold bound her to Caleb through time, through death, through eternity.
She swallowed it down. Don’t be a fool, Desi. You need this Ring.
Daria’s life depended on it.
She drew the tweezers and hovered them above the relic. Her pulse thrummed. Would touching it send her back? Would the metal even recognize her touch through steel? She couldn’t risk it. Not now. Not when her sister’s life hung in the balance.
She wedged the tweezer tips beneath the Ring and pried it loose. The artifact broke free, slowly descending with a glint. Quickly, she guided it toward the open collection bottle. It slipped inside. Relief flooded her—
—until a shadow crossed the light above.
Her head jerked up.
A massive marlin drifted through the gloom only inches away, its spear-like nose cutting the water like a blade. Startled, Desi’s hand faltered. The current caught the Ring and swept it from the bottle.
“No—no!” she mouthed through the regulator.
The Ring spun downward, glimmering faintly, drifting toward the sand. If it vanished into the muck, she might never find it again. She lunged forward, arms slicing the water.
Her fingers closed around it.
And in that instant, everything changed.
?
Thunder boomed so close it rattled her bones. The sea’s lull had vanished, replaced by a tumult of shouts, stamping boots, and the groan of timber under strain. Something solid shuddered beneath her.
She tore the regulator from her mouth, choking as her lungs filled with acrid smoke. Rain lashed her face like a thousand icy needles.
Blinking through the sting, she looked up. And her heart lurched.
The Sentinel. She was back!
Gun crews swarmed like bees around the twelve-pounders lining the deck. “Run out the larboard guns!” bellowed Keg, his voice sharp as cannon fire. “Powder monkeys, fetch the charges! Hands to the braces!”
From above, Liam’s Irish brogue pierced the din. “Haul taut, ye sea dogs! Aloft, ye lubbers. Reef the tops’l ’fore she tears herself apart!”
Alden strode across the main deck, a whip of command in human form, shouting orders through the gale. “Belay that line! Brace up the foreyard. Quickly now!”
He was alive! He’d survived the gunshot.
The ship pitched hard, and Desi clung to the rail. A mighty blast erupted behind her, echoing across the dark, churning sky. Uncinching her tanks, she shimmied out of them, tugged off her fins and twisted around, her breath catching as a ghostly outline of another vessel loomed through the rain.
“All hands down!” The voice…Caleb’s.
Deep. Resonant. Unshakable even against thunder’s roar.
Her gaze found him at the helm, coat flaring, spyglass raised, boots braced wide against the tilting deck. The sight of him flooded her with dizzy elation and aching sorrow all at once. Her sister’s pale face flashed before her mind.
The shot splashed harmlessly into the sea. She sank to her knees, the deck rolling beneath her, and opened her palm. The Ring glowed faintly.
If I cast it away now, will I return?
She closed her fingers around it and looked up at Caleb. Lightning forked across the sky, framing him in silver, a fierce figure of command amid the tempest.
Her heart tore in two. How can I leave him now?
The heavens split open with thunder. Rain came in sheets, blurring the chaos around her. She could barely see the lines of the ship, only the blur of men hauling, shouting, living.
“Ease the mains’l! Strike the royals!” Alden’s voice roared again from the quarterdeck. “The storm hides us, Captain!”
Now or never, Desi.
Forcing back the agony wrenching her heart, she hurled the Ring to the planks and closed her eyes.
Nothing.
No pull of the sea. No swirl of bubbles. Only the thunder of heaven, the groan of rigging, and the wild pitch of the deck.
Confused, she snatched it up again, the gold slick against her skin.
“Aye, God be praised for the storm,” Caleb shouted, lowering his scope. “It cloaks us from their guns.”
Then, he saw her.
For a breath, he stood frozen, as if she were a specter conjured by the lightning. Then his lips parted, and joy broke across his face like dawn through a cloud.
He moved—quickly, powerfully—across the deck. She rose, trembling, heart racing.
And then he was there… arms wrapping around her, drawing her against his chest, his warmth chasing away the storm’s chill. She pressed her face to him, inhaling salt, gunpowder, and that unmistakable scent that was him—salted leather, rain, and memory.
Rain poured over them, mingling with her tears as he nudged her chin up, his eyes alight even through the storm. Water streamed from his lashes, down the hard line of his cheek.
“You came back!”
Desi couldn’t speak. Only smile. Only breathe him in.
Alden appeared beside them, his grin quick but knowing. “Welcome back, Miss Starr,” he said as though her sudden reappearance amid cannon fire were a trifle. “We’ve still a storm to manage, Captain!”
Caleb gave a curt nod, then leaned close to her ear. “Find Ayida. Get yourself dry. I’ll meet you in my cabin.”
Taking her arm, he guided her toward the companionway, his hand firm around hers. She slipped on the rain-slick deck, barefoot, half in disbelief, half in relief.
But Caleb’s grip never loosened. His presence was an anchor, a harbor, and home.
And as thunder cracked overhead and the men shouted, “Heave to! Secure the guns!”
Desi knew. She was truly home.
?
The storm’s fury waned, though the Sentinel still groaned beneath his boots like a weary beast. Caleb’s knuckles ached from gripping the rail through wind and wave, his voice raw from barking orders—“Ease the main brace! Keep her head to wind!”—yet through it all, one thought burned bright and steady.
The lady in his cabin.
When the last streak of lightning faded, and no sails haunted the horizon, he leapt down the companionway with the giddiness of a schoolboy. His boots clattered on the ladder, the air below deck thick with the mingled scents of oak, tar, and lingering smoke.
He found her pacing, Patches curled in her arms, her hair still damp and glimmering like spun gold beneath the cabin’s wavering lamplight, her cheeks flushed rose against sun-kissed skin. She wore one of his sister’s gowns, the pale blue muslin one, delicate as seafoam.
Their eyes met. An unspoken recognition crossed the space between them, bridging centuries. For an instant, the ship, the sea, the world itself disappeared.
He started toward her, longing to hold her close and make certain she was no dream.
The door banged open.
Alden burst in, rain still dripping from his hair. “I know you wish to be alone, but we must form a plan against Montverre, Captain.”
At that cursed name, Desi flinched and set Patches on the desk.
“Was he the one firing at us?” she asked.
“Aye.” Caleb stripped off his sodden coat and slung it across the chair as the cabin swayed with the sea’s long aftershocks. A bar of sunlight pierced through the stern windows, wavering with each roll, and Patches bounded onto the beam, playing a game of catch.
Ayida slipped in next, shawl in hand. “Brought dis for de lady. She was tremblin’.” She avoided Caleb’s gaze, reminding him he’d not yet punished her for her betrayal.
Desi accepted the wrap with a faint smile, pulling it close about her shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Never saw such a fierce squall leave as fast as it came,” Alden muttered, wringing water from his sleeve.
Ayida gathered plates and cups from the desk, her bangles clinking softly.
But Caleb could not tear his gaze from Desi. She was here. Flesh and breath and miracle. He half-feared she’d vanish again as the storm had. “Indeed,” he said. “A clear sky one moment, a tempest the next… wait. The gale rose when you appeared.”
Desi’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “There was a storm—back in my time—just as I left.” The ship rolled over a swell, and she staggered.
“Sit, Desi.” Taking her arm, he led her to a chair, his voice gentle but firm.
Ayida’s eyes flicked toward him. “Was de woman who brought de ragin’ seas, Capitaine. Time been altered somehow. Dings not as dey should be.”
A chill crept over him, despite the warmth of the cabin.
Water dripped from Alden’s waistcoat, pattering to the deck. “Whatever the cause, the storm spared us a fight we’d not have won.”
Desi leaned back, brushing damp curls from her cheek. “So Montverre followed you?”
Caleb nodded. “We sighted his ship yestereve. Did not realize another lay hidden astern.”
“Two frigates against our brig,” Alden said grimly. “We’d have been crushed between them.”
Caleb scrubbed his jaw, the weight of exhaustion settling on him. “And with only a quarter crew… save for a miracle, our bones would line the seafloor.”
Ayida straightened, her dark eyes knowing. “And den de storm come. Time’s been warped. Somedin’s not right, Capitaine.”
Desi opened her hand. The Ring gleamed there—gold, alive with sunlight, the crimson stone pulsing like a captured flame. “He wants this.”
Caleb exhaled through his nose, refusing to look in the hidden compartment where it should have lain. He didn’t need to. He already knew it would be gone.
Alden’s gaze darted between them. “Orders, Captain?”
“Keep to our course. We make for the Devil’s Mouth.” Caleb leaned back against his desk, eyes fixed on the Ring. “By God’s grace, we lost Montverre’s ships. For now.” He grasped the silver cross at his throat, its edge cool against his skin. “Alden, take the helm. I’ll join you anon.”
Alden’s grin tilted roguish. “Aye, Captain. Take your time.”
With a knowing look, he turned and strode out. Ayida followed, her voice low and musical as she muttered something in Creole, half prayer, half warning.
The door closed.
The ship’s timbers sighed.
And for the first time since the storm, Caleb and Desi were alone.