“Then, Michael, you have no right to tell me what to do. I’m a woman grown and I will make my own decisions. I want to stay in San Francisco. And if you don’t want me, I’ll just have to—”
“Wilkes would have you within twenty-four hours.”
Her chin went up. “I’ll buy a gun and shoot him.”
He looked at her as if he wanted to throttle her. “You’ve become quite a talker in the past five years, haven’t you?”
“I’ve always been a talker, and you know it. And don’t think you got away with throwing in a cormorant to distract me. I wasn’t distracted and you don’t know anything about cormorants.”
“Jules, the subject is closed. You will do as
I say.”
“But—”
He placed his fingertips over her lips. “No. Trust me, please.”
He was implacable and she knew she’d lost.
Lahaina
Lahaina didn’t have a natural harbor, only an open roadstead. Ships could always approach or leave it with any wind that blew. No pilot was needed. The Carolina approached through the channel between Maui and Molokai, then let the trade winds carry it close to Lanai and in toward Lahaina. Saint and Jules stood on deck watching the harbormaster climb aboard to give Captain Rafer a copy of port regulations. Chase boats and tenders waited to take the few passengers and sailors into the town and to sell goods to those who remained aboard.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful it is here,” Saint said, gazing at the lush green hills that rose behind the town of Lahaina. Jules said nothing, but now he didn’t expect her to. “And there’s the taro patch. Is it true, Jules, that Kamehameha worked there to show his subjects the dignity of labor?”
“ ‘Not that I ever heard,” she said, her voice clipped, “but I suppose it’s a nice story. Makes him sound noble and all that, which, I suppose, he was.”
He fell silent. He’d tried every ploy he could think of to make her less resentful of coming home, but nothing worked. His laughing, bright girl had withdrawn into herself.
He felt the now familiar surge of impatience with her. It was as if she’d built a very firm, impenetrable wall between them. During their voyage, she’d been firmly polite, and a stranger.
And she’d said not a word about the two weeks she’d spent with Wilkes, even when he’d asked her three evenings before, following the only storm they’d experienced during the two-week voyage. He hadn’t seen her for nearly twenty-four hours, his services as a doctor in demand from the moment the storm hit. “I’m tired as hell,” he’d said, joining her at the railing.
“You look it,” she said, not turning.
“Thanks for your concern,” he said dryly.
Jules turned to face him, and shrugged. “I hope all those green-faced, vomiting passengers paid you well. Will you be able to buy yourself a prostitute when we reach Lahaina?”
He stared at her, and automatically shook his head.
“But it’s just one night, doctor. Nothing expensive or demanding, like having a mistress.”
“Do you always turn sarcastic and nasty when you don’t get your way?”
She saw the weariness in his hazel eyes, but bit down on the tug of concern she felt. “Yes,” she said, “I do, particularly if the man making the decision is a blind ass.”
He smiled, just a bit, and forced himself to look away from her, out at the endless expanse of ocean. “I think the last woman to truly enjoy insulting me was my mother. Of course, she did it with humor.”
“I’ll just bet she was laughing after she birthed you. That’s why she called you Ulysses—revenge.”
“Can’t say I blame her,” Saint said easily. “I weighed eleven pounds. Poor woman used to tell me that the real Ulysses—from what she’d read—searched and searched for nigh onto twenty years before he came home, and that’s how she felt after nine months hauling me around inside her.”
“As I said, revenge.”
“Ah, but she tempered it with ‘Michael’—that’s innocuous enough, surely.”
It wasn’t innocuous, it was the most beautiful name she’d ever heard. She said, “Lydia told me that she could make a fortune in blackmail if only she could find out what your real name was and where you got the nickname Saint.”