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Chapter 6

  • Continuing to look at the tiny vessel he answered. “I had two, one to fly when we were doing what we’d been commissioned to do, and one for when we were not.” He longed to touch the small wooden yardarm on the model. “Do you really wish to make it look like my Calico?”
  • Randy nodded. “Yes.”
  • Glancing at her briefly, he looked back to study the ship again. “Her name was painted across the back.”
  • Randy turned the ship to face the wall and looked at it. “I can do that. You’ll just have to tell me how the letters were formed.”
  • Jareth nodded and looked at her small delicate hands holding the miniature likeness of his ship. “I would like that.” He clasped his hands behind his back once more so he wouldn’t reach out to her.
  • She set the ship back in its place before she turned to him again. “I still have so many questions to ask...”
  • He looked down at the floor and then back to her. “I have more than my fair share of time if you want to talk.” He smiled. “As you are the first person I’ve spoken to in all these years, I’m not in a rush to finish our conversation.”
  • “Good.” She turned toward the door. “Come upstairs and you can look through font styles and tell me which one the name of your ship looked most like.”
  • Even though he was not certain he knew what a font was, he was more than willing to follow her. He made a point of looking into the rooms as they passed, rather than at her backside.
  • She had climbed up four steps when she spun around to face him. “Okay, I need to know. Do you have any tattoos? I’ve seen movies and things and the pirates always had tattoos.” She said it quickly as an excited child would.
  • He moved back down a step, so his face was level with hers. “Yes, I do.” She gave him an excited look.
  • “Would it be rude to ask to see them?” She clasped her hands in front of her and gave him a wide-eyed look.
  • “No, I would not find it rude.” He lifted his right arm and began to flip the cuff up. When he’d pulled the sleeve up to his elbow, he turned his arm over to reveal his forearm. From elbow to wrist was a picture etched into his skin: a long, narrow sword blade with a thick, black, jagged line down its length; extending from that line were vines, making it appear as if the sword were attached to his arm.
  • “Does it have a meaning?” she asked quietly.
  • Looking down at the image on his arm. “It did once. When I was doing other than privateering, I was known by another name.”
  • She raised her brows. “Your pirate name?”
  • He inclined his head as he rolled the sleeve back down. “Yes. I was known as the Black Brand.”
  • “How did you get that name?”
  • Securing the cuff in place, he took his time before looking back to her inquisitive eyes. “That is a tale I’d no wish to tell a lady.”
  • She watched him for a time and then sighed. “Okay.” She offered him a soft smile. “I am far from a lady, but I won’t push.” She bit her lip. “Do you have any more tattoos?”
  • The eager pitch in her voice made him smile. “I have been amidst those who are not close to lady like...and you are not one of those.” He watched her closely. “I do have one more.” He stood there waiting for her to speak and then realized she wanted to see that one also. He shook his head and turned on the step, putting his back to her. With slow, jerky movements he pulled his shirt free from his pants and bunched it up to pull it over his head. He stood there with his shirt hanging from his wrists, looking over his shoulder waiting for her to speak.
  • “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “It’s very detailed for something done that long ago.”
  • “It hurt like the devil, too; I was very nearly drunk by the time it was finished,” he rasped.
  • She nodded. “No doubt.” As she looked at the etching done in his skin hundreds of years before, a soft look appeared in her eyes. The tattoo lay from one shoulder to the other and extended down just past his shoulder blades, like wings of a hawk. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered again. “Does it have a meaning?”
  • “The answer again leans toward my boldness in youth. It matched the pattern on the back of my ship, where her name was. I claimed my ship when I was barely twenty-four, something to boast about at that time... I was a bit of a braggart then.”
  • She didn’t comment on that statement. “Can I touch it? Are you even touchable? Will I touch skin or nothing at all?”
  • He sucked in a breath and pulled the shirt back down over his head before he turned. “I tried for years to touch objects, but I was left feeling incomplete when I couldn’t make any contact...” He looked down at his hands.
  • “I didn’t mean...” she dropped her head to hide her face from him.
  • “It will run through your mind until you find out, so let’s get it over with.” He tried to sound carefree, but he wasn’t certain he’d achieved it. He pulled his cuff up in one motion to reveal the markings on his arm again.
  • She looked from his arm to his eyes for a few moments before raising her hand to hover above his arm. “If you don’t want me to...”
  • “It’s all right,” he whispered softly, then looked down at her hand over his arm. If he had breath to hold, he would have been holding it.
  • Randy closed the space between her palm and his skin. As it got closer, she knew her hand was going to pass right through his arm. She couldn’t feel warmth or cold as her hand got closer. She stopped millimetres from his skin and looked up. “Do you feel that? It’s like a mild static charge.” She moved her hand slowly, careful to hold it away enough from passing through him. She moved her hand from his elbow back down to his hand before stopping there.
  • He looked at her hand and then closed his eyes. “It’s like a whisper of the wind touching against me.” He looked back down at her hand. “I’m inclined to try to touch you as well, but just feeling something, however slight after so many years of nothing is overwhelming me.” His eyes rested on hers. “You were going to have me look at something?”
  • Randy swallowed and dropped her hand back to her side. She nodded and turned to head up the stairs. Without turning to see if he was following, she went into her little studio.