“You are my closest friend. The love I have for you is like the love brothers have for one another. I don’t think it could be more.”
He grabbed his chest. “Could you thrust the knife deeper into my heart?” Morty asked. “You do not know what you feel yet. You’ve never allowed yourself to think of me in any other manner. I haven’t had a moment to woo you, to banter flirtatiously with you.”
“Nor shall you, Morty,” she cut in. “Nothing has changed aboard this vessel. I am still second mate. You are still a member of my watch. My father will not allow us to fraternize. The only thing changed is that I will be constantly on my guard that you will reveal my secret.”
“Charlie….”
“I do not pretend to be male to amuse myself,” she continued. “It was never my choice. My father and Dr. Kirk made this decision when I was too little to know the difference. They were trying to protect me.”
Morty slammed his fist into the wall. “Damn it, Charlie. You’re not giving me a chance. Didn’t you hear me when I said I love you? If you need protecting, I’ll do it. But who’s going to find out?”
“You need to lower your voice, Mordecai Horatio Ness, or everyone will know everything before you leave this cabin!” Charlie’s voice may have been low, but there could be no doubt she was shouting as well. “You think a romance will go unnoticed on the ship? I bet ten people know you are here right now.”
“We-we’ll tell them you’re teaching me to play chess.”
“No, we won’t because it’s not going to happen. You wear your heart on your sleeve—you can’t help it. This moodiness had been going on for months now and then suddenly you’re on cloud nine. You don’t think people will notice?”
“Well at least I have a heart.”
Charlie had a heart and it was nearly breaking for him. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t give him hope when there could be none.
Awkwardly, she took his hands in hers. Things like that did not come naturally to her, as any kind of gesture that might appear feminine had always been avoided.
“Believe me when I say I’m sorry.” Her head was bowed and she saw the blood drying on his knuckles. She dropped his uninjured hand and began palpating the swelling, bleeding one. Why did men feel the need to hit the walls and doors when they were mad? Morty flinched a couple of times as she dug her thumbs into his swelling, bruised flesh to feel the bone.
“Big baby,” she said under her breath. She could feel his eyes examining her face as she tended his hand.
“You really are an exceptionally beautiful woman.”
No one had ever complimented her before. She wasn’t sure what to say. “I could be in the freak tent at the fair. I could be the boy-faced girl.”
“Never that,” he said softly. “You were a sweet-faced lad when I came on this ship nine years ago. A fairer face youth there’s never been. But at some point, when the baby-face never became more masculine something deep in my brain knew—Jesus, I thought I’d been out at sea too long when someone I thought of as a kid brother looked good to me.”
Under other circumstances, she might have teased him over such an admission, but she had seen how tortured he had been over the last months.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.”
She rinsed the blood out the cloth then handed it to him. “The cool cloth will help it feel better.”
He tossed the rag at the basin. “Do I look like a woman to you? Unlock the door, my hammock is waiting.”
She produced the key from her pocket, but put herself between Morty and the door after unlocking it. “I’ll have your word.”
“You don’t trust me?” A look of hurt was written across his face. “Of course you don’t. We’ve been best mates for nine years and not once did you even hint at your little secret.”
He reached out to shove her out of his way, but with lightning fast reflexes she grabbed his hand, twisted it behind his back and pinned him to the door. It was a move he had seen in many of her tavern brawls. She pressed her thumb into his bruised knuckle just to drive her point home.
“I’ll have your word, Morty.”
He pushed away from the door until it felt like his shoulder would come out of its socket. “Damn it, Charlie, let go. I’m not going to fight you.”
She already regretted using the move on him. It was only going to add insult to injury. “Go.”
5
Charlie stood outside the first mate’s quarters reluctant to knock. He had been with the ship three years and Lionel Byron made no secret, he would move on to any other ship if the opportunity presented itself. Fifteen years her senior, he knew if Captain Sinclair ever vacated his post as captain, he would undoubtedly be passed over and the post given to Charlie if she was remotely ready for the position. And it was unlikely that Captain Sinclair would vacate before then. Since John Sinclair and the ship’s doctor co-owned the vessel, for all intents and purposes, he was just keeping the first mate’s cabin warm until Charlie was ready to move in.