When she realized she was falling deeply in love with him, Maeve's independent spirit fought against it.
But when she finally accepted the inevitable, she gave in to her feelings completely. She continually found herself studying his every move, his every expression as he jotted down their position on Rodney York's chart of the southern sea.
She touched him on the arm. "Where are we?" she asked softly.
"At first light I'll mark our course and figure the distance separating us from Gladiator Island."
"Why don't you give it a rest? You haven't slept more than two hours since we left the Miseries."
"I promise I'll take a nice long siesta when we're on the last leg of the voyage," he said, peering through gloom at the compass.
"Al never sleeps 'either," she said, pointing at Giordino, who never ceased examining the condition of the outriggers and the rigging holding the boat together.
"If the following wind holds and my navigating is anywhere near the mark, we should sight your island sometime early morning on the day after tomorrow."
She looked up at the great field of stars. "The heavens are lovely tonight."
"Like a woman I know," he said, eyes going from compass to the sails to Maeve. "A radiant creature with guileless blue eyes and hair like a shower of golden coins. She's innocent and intelligent and was made for love and life."
"She sounds quite appealing."
"That's only for starters. Her father happens to be one of the richest men in the solar system."
She arched her back and snuggled against his body, feeling its hardness. She brushed her lips against the mirth lines around his eyes and his strong chin. "You must be very smitten with her."
"Smitten, and why not?" he said slowly. "She is the only girl in this part of the Pacific Ocean who makes me mad with passionate desire."
"But. I'm the only girl in this part of the Pacific Ocean."
He kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Then it's your solemn duty to fulfill my most intimate fantasies."
"I'd take you up on that if we were alone," she said in a sultry voice. "But for now, you'll just have to suffer."
"I could tell Al to take a hike," he said with a grin.
She pulled back and laughed. "He wouldn't get far." Maeve secretly sensed a flow of happiness at knowing no flesh-and-blood woman stood between them. "You're a special kind of man," she whispered. "The kind every woman longs to meet."
He laughed easily. "Not so. I've seldom swept the fair sex off their feet."
"Maybe it's because they see that you're unreachable."
"I can be had if they play their cards right," he said jokingly.
"Not what I mean," she said seriously. "The sea is your mistress. I could read it in your face through the storm. It was not as if you were fighting the sea as much as you were seducing it. No woman can compete with a love so vast."
"You have a deep affection for the sea too," he said tenderly, "and the life that lives in it."
Maeve breathed in the night. "Yes, I can't deny devoting my life to it."
Giordino broke the moment by emerging from the deckhouse and announcing that one of the buoyancy tubes was losing air. "Pass the pump," he ordered. "If I can find the leak, I'll try and patch it."
"How is Marvelous Maeve holding up?" Pitt asked.
"Like a lady in a dance contest," Giordino replied. "Limber and lithe, with all her body joints working in rhythm."
"She hangs together until we reach the island and I'll donate her to the Smithsonian to be displayed as the boat most unlikely to succeed."
"We strike another storm," said Giordino warily, "and all bets are off." He paused and casually glanced around the black horizon where the stars melted into the sea. Suddenly, he stiffened. "I see a light off to port."
Pitt and Maeve stood and stared in the direction Giordino indicated with his hand. They could see a green light, indicating a ship's starboard side, and white range masthead lights. It looked to be passing far in their wake toward the northeast.
"A ship," Pitt confirmed. "About five kilometers away."
"She'll never see us," said Maeve anxiously. "We have no lights of our own."
Giordino disappeared in the deckhouse and quickly reappeared. "Rodney York's last flare," he said, holding it up.
Pitt gazed at Maeve. "Do you want to be rescued?"
She looked down at the black sea rolling under the boat and slowly shook her head. "It's not my decision to make."
"Al, how say you? A hearty meal and a clean bed strike you as tempting?"