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tobacco.
    John held up a lantern, and the master gave the wrecking license a cursory glance. Procedure dictated Rourke ask what services the master required. He scanned the horizon for any sign of other wrecking vessels. It wouldn’t take long before the first arrived.
    “Do you want us to haul your vessel off the reef?”
    “Name your terms,” Captain Cross said briskly.
    “Flat fee if we can float her. Salvage rights if not.” Standard procedure.
    “She’s fast aground and taking on water.” Cross rubbed his whiskered jaw. “Try floating her first.”
    That was no surprise. Masters hated turning over their vessels to salvagers. “The cargo?”
    “Mostly rice and raw muslin bound for Havana.”
    Rourke fought disappointment. If the vessel was bilged like he suspected, he didn’t stand to make much of an award. This cargo and its destination pointed to goods intended for slave consumption. That meant poor quality. Even though the cloth could be salvaged, salt water would ruin the rice. He would make almost nothing off salvage.
    “If you can’t float her,” the captain added, “we’ll need passage for our crew and passengers.”
    “Passengers?” That snapped Rourke from his calculations. “How many?”
    “Two. Both women.”
    Women! That would make the rescue more difficult, for women usually did not handle adversity well. Some swooned. Some succumbed to hysterics. Others appeared calm but slippedclimbing into or out of the ship’s boat. Women often had offspring with them. “Any children?”
    Poppinclerk, who’d stood near during the negotiations, absently polished a gilt button with his handkerchief. “Not unless you count the darkie wench.”
    Rourke held his tongue at the derogatory term. A tongue-lashing would be lost on Poppinclerk. Instead, he focused on the master. “Then there are three passengers.”
    “Two ladies and a Negro,” Cross confirmed.
    “From Charleston?”
    Cross nodded.
    John’s eyes widened.
    Rourke shook his head. A city the size of Charleston boasted thousands of women, any of whom might book passage on a schooner. Moreover, Miss Benjamin would not be bound for Havana, and Cross had not indicated a planned stop in Key West.
    John would not let it go. “Dis Negro, what her name?”
    The master shrugged. “How would I know? She belongs to Miss Benjamin.”
    Rourke choked.
    They both knew what that meant.
    John looked ready to leap over the side of the Windsprite regardless of the heaving seas. Rourke grabbed his arm, even though the same desire thundered in his ears.
    Elizabeth was on that ship. He’d expected her to return after her mother’s death, but when the months passed without so much as a rumor of her return, he’d given up hope. “Miss Elizabeth Benjamin?” He held his breath.
    Cross looked surprised. “You know her?”
    Rourke more than knew Elizabeth Benjamin. He’d spent the last four years dreaming of her soft skin, sun-kissed hair, anddeep blue eyes. Whenever he smelled jasmine, he looked for her and was always disappointed. He painfully recalled the day she’d left Key West without a word. But most of all he remembered with absolute clarity the moment when he’d realized that the girl he’d teased for years had grown into a woman he would never forget.



3

    H e’d appeared out of the mists, like a specter, but Elizabeth knew at once that it was Rourke. The breadth of his shoulders, the cut of his waist, the commanding presence. He’d come for her—for them.
    She lifted her arm into the howling winds and called his name.
    That moment of incaution cost her. The tempest ripped her from the fragment of roof. She reached for the jagged corner. Missed. Tried again. Her fingertips grazed the edge before the surging water pulled her away from her brother.
    “Charlie!” Her cry flew away on the gale.
    She clawed at the earth bumping along beneath her and grasped only gravel.
    The water was coming up too quickly. Soon it would cover Charlie. Rourke