Scarlet Butterfly Read Online Free PDF Page A

except for the loss of some weight and a lot of hair, which was only now beginning to grow back, she’d survived.
    A glance around the cabin didn’t reveal her clothes. The only garment available was Rogan’s shirt, crumpled in a wrinkled mass on the floor. She slid her arms into the sleeves and pulled the front together. The tail of the shirt fell to her knees, and there was enough room inside the buttoned garment for two women her size. In the tiny bathroom she used Rogan’s comb to straighten her hair, thought about borrowing his toothbrush, and settled for a bit of paste on her finger instead.
    She was down on her knees in the cabin looking under the bed for her shoes when she realized that he’d returned. Even then she had the crazy thought that she might be dreaming, for he suddenly seemed different. Standing in the shadows of the companionway, just out of full view, he held a pipe in his hand as he watched her.
    “I guess you don’t know where my shoes are, either?”
    “In the chest. But you won’t need them. My ship is quite comfortable. Are you all right?”
    “If you mean the state of my health, yes. If you’re referring to your assault on my body, I’m not sure. Perhaps we ought to talk about that.”
    She opened the chest and found her clothes. Why hadn’t he said where he’d put them in the beginning? With a sigh of relief, Carolina turned a questioning face back to the companionway.
    He was gone.
    But he was right about the shoes; the floor was polished and smooth. And her clothes looked hotand out of place. If she removed her slip, Rogan’s shirt would cover her like a short dress, except for the deep vee above the top button. Formality suddenly seemed a bit foolish as she remembered what they’d shared. She took off the slip and buttoned the shirt.
    Carolina tucked the slip under the pillow and pulled up the covers before starting for the galley and the smell of coffee. A steady patter of rain fell on the deck overhead. She had to dash across an open area to the on-deck portion of the living quarters that made up the galley.
    “Awwwk? Hot damn, she’s a beauty!”
    Carolina came to an abrupt stop.
    “Looky, looky, looky, here’s nooky!”
    “Shut up, you bald, beaked buzzard,” Rogan snapped, “or I’ll pluck you and eat you for dinner!”
    “Awwwk! Try it, scabby!”
    Carolina looked from the man drinking coffee at the table to the cage swinging from the ceiling.
    “A parrot?”
    “He claims to be a nightingale. But then, he lies a lot.”
    “Oh, ho ho, and a bottle of beer.”
    Of course there’d be a parrot. “Beer?” she asked with a smile. “I thought it was a bottle of rum. May I have a cup?”
    “Not a drop of rum on board, Goldilocks. What happened to your hair?”
    “I meant coffee,” she corrected, and glanced out the open door at the water. “I shaved my head. It’s just growing back.”
    “Why, are you some kind of rebel?”
    She smiled. A rebel? Her? Not until now. “In away, I suppose,” she said, with a certain amount of pride. “It looks like the river is moving awfully fast.”
    “It isn’t the river, it’s a lake. Well, actually, I suppose it’s both now. Technically, I guess you’d call this a flood. We caught the edge of a hurricane.”
    “Will we be all right?”
    “Sure. The dock is underwater, and I don’t even want to think about your rental car, but the
Butterfly
can handle almost anything.”
    Sean poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Carolina, who was wearing his shirt as if it belonged to her. Their hands touched and he felt her jerk back, then cry out as the coffee sloshed over the rim and across her fingers.
    Quickly, he took the cup and set it on the table. He wet a cloth, sat, and pulled her between his thighs while he cleaned the coffee from her hand. He fought the urge to kiss away the pain and tried not to notice the electricity that arced between them.
    “It’s okay,” she whispered.
    But it wasn’t. And he didn’t