Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [95]
“Simon, could I ask a favor of you?” Jane asked impulsively.
“Anything,” he promised lightly, adding, with a grin on his pleasant bronze face, “as long as it's not planting one of your ‘accidental’ bombs.”
“I don't have any clothes,” Jane said earnestly. “Do you have any old shirts or sweaters that I might use until I can get my roommate to send me some of my own?”
He looked doubtfully at her tiny figure and then at his own large frame. “You'd be lost in any of my clothes,” he told her, shaking his head. “But I'll ask some of the other men and see what we can come up with.”
“Thank you, Simon.” Jane smiled radiantly. “I could see myself in these same jeans and sweater for the next two months.” She gestured distastefully at her soiled jeans and the black sweater, which was now much the worse for wear.
“Well, you'll need something cooler than that sweater where we're going.”
“Really? Where are we going?” she asked casually. Then, her eyes dancing: “For that matter, where are we now? I'm afraid I've been too preoccupied to even wonder.”
“We're in the Gulf of Mexico,” Simon replied. “We'll be cruising along the eastern coast of Mexico to the Yucatan and then possibly around Central America to Venezuela.”
“I've never been to Mexico,” Jane said dreamily. She grimaced as she came abruptly back to earth. “I'll probably not even get off the ship if Benjamin has anything to say about it.”
“Oh, I don't know,” Simon said optimistically. “Evidently he's lifted his nonfraternization rule, or he wouldn't have let me take you to lunch. Perhaps the old man is softening.”
“Perhaps,” Jane echoed skeptically.
At sundown that day she was no longer skeptical. She was sure that Benjamin had a will of iron and a heart to match. Every muscle and bone in her body ached. Her knees in particular were affected; they were swollen and bruised to a point of agonizing sensitivity. The sun had caught her face, and her nose was red and tender.
Jane gritted her teeth as she leaned over once again to soap the wooden deck. Benjamin had told her to continue scrubbing until he told her to stop, and she'd be damned if she'd quit before that time, even if she had to work through the night. She flinched as she put pressure on the wooden back of the brush and it rubbed against a blister on the palm of her hand. At least it was cooler, now that the sun was going down, she thought tiredly, as a vagrant breeze ruffled her hair, darkened with perspiration to nearly auburn.
For the past two hours she'd been in a haze of exhaustion and pain. Only sheer stubbornness had prevented the tears from flowing. She would rather fall flat on her face than admit defeat to that heartless monster of a captain.
A large shadow fell across the wet deck, but Jane didn't look up until Marcus Benjamin spoke.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” he growled impatiently. “Do you realize that it's almost eight o'clock?”
She clenched her teeth and continued to move her brush, albeit a trifle slower. “I'm following orders, sir,” she replied caustically. “I'm scrubbing the bloody deck, sir,” She dipped the brush in the bucket and then brought it down hard on the deck, noting with satisfaction that a drop or two of the dirty water splashed on Benjamin's highly polished shoes. “If you'll kindly move, I'll finish my work, sir.”
“Damn it, what do you think this is, a slave labor camp? You'll work a regular eight-hour day just like the rest of the crew,” he said grimly.
Jane threw her brush in the bucket. “I thought I was the exception, sir,” she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. “I believe I was told to continue my work until I was told to stop, Captain.”
“I have other duties besides acting as a warden to you, Miss Smith,” he said shortly. “I assumed you'd have the intelligence to stop at the end of a normal work day.”
“Are you saying that I may stop for the day?” she demanded. “I want it quite clear, sir.”
“Yes, you may stop working,” he said between his teeth. She struggled to her feet, staggering as her knees abruptly