Chapter 36 Home At Last
It had been an hour since Caleb had sent Desi below to wait for him—an hour she’d spent wandering through his cabin, touching the things that made him…
Caleb. His sister’s ribbon under glass. The sea-worn Bible on his desk.
His maps, weapons, and the chest that smelled faintly of salt and leather.
She lingered over everything, drawn to the essence of him like a compass to true north.
At last, she drew one of his shirts from the trunk and pressed it to her face. His scent—sun, smoke, and sea—filled her lungs and wrapped around her heart.
The Sentinel lay still upon the waves. No sail filled, no sea rushed against the hull. Through the stern windows, the sun dipped low, dragging its molten light across the water like liquid fire.
She was back.
And unless Caleb had other plans for the Ring, she was back for good.
A girl born in the twenty-first century, destined to live out her life in the eighteenth. Smiling, she stroked Patches’s fur. “With God, all things are possible, I suppose.” She glanced up at the verse carved in the wood, finally realizing its meaning all along.
Purring, Patches leapt from her arms and curled upon the bed.
The door creaked open. Even before she turned, she felt him.
Caleb’s presence filled the room like sunlight piercing storm clouds, warm and commanding.
She knew he loved her. But would it be enough?
Was this handsome pirate-preacher willing to tie himself to a woman outside of time, live with her countless idiosyncrasies, quirks that may very well annoy him when familiarity sets in?
She faced him. His wind-tossed hair brushed his broad shoulders.
Stubble shadowed his strong jaw. But his eyes—those steel-gray depths—devoured her as though he’d starved a lifetime.
He closed the door behind him, unbuckled his cutlass, and set his coat aside.
Then he came toward her—slowly, reverently, as if one wrong move might break the fragile spell that bound them.
“Next time I arrive from the future,” she stammered, “it would be kind of you not to be in the middle of a life-and-death battle.”
He said nothing. Only kept advancing, the corners of his mouth curving with wonder.
“I mean—”
Her words vanished beneath his kiss.
It was no gentle brush of affection, but a claiming—fierce, desperate, full of the ache of two worlds colliding.
His mouth moved against hers, stealing all thought, all reason, until she knew nothing but him—his hands in her hair, the rough warmth of his chest, the solid strength that held her like a harbor after a storm.
When he finally drew back, her breath came in shallow waves. He leaned his forehead to hers, voice low and husky. “Forgive me, but I had to make sure you were real.”
Desi smiled against his lips. “Perhaps we should do further testing.”
He chuckled, brushing a thumb over her cheek. “After a kiss like that, best I keep my distance… lest I lose what remains of my restraint.”
Her body still trembled with longing, but she forced herself to step away, drawing a steadying breath. How could she deny this man his honor? Such virtue felt sacred in a world where men had long forgotten the word.
She turned toward the windows, where the sea stretched endless and untamed, much like him. “I feel it, too, Caleb. That bond between us, deeper than passion. As if our souls are tethered across centuries.”
When she looked back, he stood rooted like some immortal carved from faith and fire, his gaze full of awe.
For a long moment, they simply looked at each other, the ship creaking softly beneath them, the air thick with love as deep as the sea, as eternal as the heavens themselves.
Then her eyes fell upon the Bible on his desk, and she remembered.
“God healed my sister,” she whispered.
His brows rose. “You believe now?”
The warmth of God’s Spirit spread through her chest. “I do. I was angry for so long, I couldn’t see His love. But He never left me.”
Patches meowed and leapt onto the desk. Desi gathered her close as Caleb’s smile widened, radiant and boyish.
“I couldn’t be happier, Desi. That is the finest news a man could hear.”
“I felt His presence, Caleb. Heard His voice, just like you said I would.”
He crossed to her in two strides, setting Patches aside and wrapping her in his arms. “Your sister is well, then?”
“Completely. I left her in charge of my business.” She swallowed hard. “Everything and everyone… is as it should be.”
But instead of joy, a shadow crossed his face. He stepped away, his boots thudding softly on the planks.
“Please,” he said at last, voice roughened with emotion, “have pity on me, Desi. Tell me, are you here to stay?”
Tears stung her eyes. “Of course I am, Caleb. If you still want me.”
He laughed. “If I want you?” Taking her hands, he lifted them to his lips. “You are my world, Desi Starr. My compass, my harbor, my home.” His voice faltered, low with vulnerability. “Yet I fear you may one day regret it and long for your time.”
“There is nothing for me there. My life is here with you.”
Caleb dropped to one knee.
Her heart nearly stopped.
“Miss Starr,” he said, looking up at her with eyes full of light and storm, “will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
The moment shimmered—ship swaying gently, candlelight flickering, Patches purring from the stern ledge. Desi wanted to etch every heartbeat into eternity.
“Yes,” she breathed, tears spilling freely. “Yes, I will.”
Caleb rose, caught her up in his arms, and spun her around, laughter ringing through the cabin like music. Then he kissed her again—sweet, lingering—but drew back with a grin. “Until the wedding night.”
Heat flamed up her neck, and she laughed, shy and dizzy with joy.
“I have something for you.” He moved behind his desk, rummaging through a drawer.
“A gift?” she asked.
He nodded. “My mother gave me this to write my thoughts, but I never had the heart for it.” He turned and handed her a leather-bound book.
Desi stared, breath catching in her throat.
It was the same journal as the picture inside the one her grandfather had given her, brown leather with a cross imprinted on the cover—the very first book that started it all!
Her knees nearly buckled. All this time… she was the one who had written it.
“You do not like it?” Caleb asked, confused.
She opened it, running her hand over the blank pages. Smiling through tears, she hugged it to her chest. “I love it.”
“’Twill make a fine book for your stories,” he said, pride glowing in his eyes.
If he only knew.
?
Caleb leaned back in his chair and let the warmth spread through him, watching the faces gathered at his table—men and friends he’d bled and laughed with, now brought together for a quiet celebration of a hard-won victory and a far sweeter conquest, his engagement to the most astonishing woman he had ever known.
Desi sat near the head, lit by the glittering candles that set her cheekbones aglow.
When her blue eyes found his across the table, something in him melted as if the sea itself had stilled.
She was telling the crew stories of a future none of them could imagine, painting a world of iron roads and bridged oceans, of strange fashions and impossible machines.
The officers listened as if to a play, shocked, fascinated, unbelieving.
Brandt kept his nose in a thin volume between bouts of glower; every so often he’d grunt and glance back at the book as if it might somehow explain away what he’d heard. Liam snorted, the old Irish humor sharpening his disbelief into ribald commentary.
“’Tis a right fairy tale, that one,” Liam scoffed, rolling the phrase like a coin. “Saints preserve us, ye don’t expect me to swallow that,” he added, half laughing, half incredulous.
Alden, who had never been given to frivolity, grew solemn as Desi spoke of the broken world she’d left and the wickedness to come.
Shorty and Keg, who’d earned their reputations with mischief and cannon fire, took refuge in their cups and noisy mirth, letting the wine crowd out the strangeness of the hour.
Ayida swept into the cabin with a tray of steaming boiled pudding.
The galley’s spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, and the heavy scent of boiled banana followed her, folding into the smoke of candles and the faint tang of the sea.
When her eyes met Caleb’s she inclined her head and smiled.
The hard flare that used to live in her gaze was softened now; the cursed bone jangles now at the bottom of the sea.
Despite warnings from Alden and Liam about her past, Caleb sensed honesty in her bearing, repentance, perhaps, or simply the weariness of a woman who’d paid dearly for her choices.
“And God healed my sister,” Desi said, voice bright as she leaned forward. “She was at death’s door—just days from it—and I prayed over her, just as your captain prayed for his crew. She rose from that bed and came home that very day.”
Brandt’s spectacles slid down his nose; he pushed them back and stared, the book forgotten. The peevish doctor’s mouth opened and closed like a man tasting a new truth.
Liam rubbed his chin, softer now. “After what me eyes have seen with this God of yers, I believe ye, Miss.”
Alden’s face finally cracked into a smile.
Shorty and Keg topped their cups and sang a line of some old sea ditty that had nothing to do with miracles and everything to do with relief.
Brandt set his book aside with a long, reluctant breath. “I believe I shall have to look into this God of yours,” he admitted at last, the scholarly curiosity in him pricking through the sceptic’s skin.