Hart's Reward (Pirates & Petticoats #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pig Tavern still our Charleston contact point?” Landon needed to know how much things had changed over the past five years. It seemed that, other than dates of landfall and the value of cargo, much had remained the same with the exception of the battle that cost Fynn his life.
    And a relationship with a woman named Keelan Grey, according to Ronnie.  
    “Aye,” Gus said, packing his pipe and lighting it. “If any runaways made it there, the Mr. Schoen will have them hid away beneath the tavern for us, or up in the attic.”
    “That makes things easier.” It was with a sense of relief that he remembered the friendly German tavern keeper and his wife. This situation was damned annoying, not recognizing a face when he should. Thankfully, Gus spent the day at his shoulder, whispering names in his ear so the crew would not guess his recent affliction.
    Five years.  
    It had been five years since he’d sailed from Baracoa, a widower. He’d been a fool then, to take a wife, he knew that now. She’d been both beautiful and the daughter of a ship’s captain. She knew a sailor’s life and accepted him just the same. He’d been convinced he’d found a wife who understood the call of the sea.
    When he made port after nearly a year and came home to a cold hearth and tight-lipped townsfolk…he sought out the priest of Baracoa to inquire the location of his wife. The priest led him to a gravesite where she rested. He’d fallen to his knees in grief and shock. It was many minutes before he read the markings on the stone. Both his wife and her child had died of fever a week after the child was born.  
    The date on the headstone was last month.  
    He’d been gone a year.  
    Even an idiot would be able to deduce that she’d gotten pregnant after he went to sea. The grief of loss coupled with the pain of her betrayal had been almost too much for him to bear. He’d made a vow that day.
    Never again.
    Never again would he give away his heart.  
    Never again would he marry.
    Gus gestured to the stern then pulled on his pipe. He blew the smoke out in a long thin stream. “Well, at least ye still know the difference between the bow of a ship and the stern. ’Tis a start.” He chuckled good-naturedly at his own joke.  
    Landon glowered at his first mate before turning his gaze back to the wake swirling and gurgling behind the ship. “If my head didn’t still pound harder than a smithy at an anvil, I’d box your ears just for thinking that thought.” He sipped from his tankard then stared into its depths. “I usually know every man hired to serve on my ship. Now, at least a quarter of the men I don’t even recognize.”
    His mind drifted to Fynn’s son, Ronnie. “In my last memory of Ronnie, he was six inches shorter and had a voice like a nun.”  
    “And knobby legs and a penchant for disaster,” Gus added with a laugh.
      “Remember when he raced McAllister to the tip of the topgallant brace and back?” Landon chuckled.
    Gus slapped his knee and stretched out his thick legs before crossing his ankles. “Aye, I do! Like a scrawny monkey, he was.” He puffed on his pipe. “McAllister gave up halfway through. He knew he’d lost.”
    “Seeing Ronnie, now as a growing young man, is what finally forced me to accept that my memories from the past five years had been taken.” Landon mumbled, almost to himself.
    “Has anything come back to ye?” Gus blew a ring of smoke and watched it drift away.
    “Not yet,” Landon said. “Not entirely. You seem unconcerned with it. I have to admit, it vexes me beyond my patience.” Damned inconvenient was what it was, and unnerving. He felt weak and helpless, and he hated it.
    Gus struck a match and relit his pipe. “Well, lad, I’ve seen me share of carnage and mystery all involving men’s lives and deaths. Things happen sometimes ye can’t explain away.” He stared up at the sky for a moment, then continued. “Once, I chatted with a man in a pub in Cadiz. He