Read Online Looking for a Hero by Patti Berg - Free Book Online Page A

Kate .”
    â€œYou’re wasting your flattery on me. I’m not interested in men like you.”
    He grinned. “That is not the truth, madam. Your eyes betray you.”
    Kate laughed. “You’ll soon know just how honest I am, Mr. Farrell. We’ll be in the harbor in a few minutes, and then Casey and I will turn our backs on you and walk away. It will be quite easy to leave you, and even easier to forget you.”
    The grin touched his face again. “Mark my words, madam. You will find I am not an easy man to forget.”

Chapter 5
    He stood a stranger in this breathing world ,
    An erring spirit from another hurl’d…
    L ORD B YRON , L ARA: C ANTO I
    W hat the bloody hell? This was not St. Augustine! The woman, in spite of her obvious skill at sailing, must know nothing of navigation, for surely she’d set her course in the wrong direction.
    The curve of the shoreline and the breadth of the inlet to the bay looked just as they had the last time he’d entered the city. But the church spires were new, as were the masses of houses and buildings littering the waterfront. And who the bloody hell had constructed the monstrous round lighthouse, circled with black and white stripes, that jutted into the sky like some vainglorious god’s tribute to his manhood? Was not a simple gray stone structure enough?
    Nay, this was not St. Augustine, nor any other city he’d traveled to.
    Yet…he shoved his fingers through his hair, confused by the familiar sight of Castillo de San Marcos standing guard at the edge of the city. The high stone walls, the parapets and towers had the same line and curve as he remembered, but they appeared older now. Worn. Battered, not unlike his own fortress.
    How could this possibly be St. Augustine?
    What had happened in the short year he’d been gone?
    Morgan’s head snapped to the left when a strange, exotic vessel breezed across the water, followed shortly by many others that looked nearly identical. They were small boats like the one he stood on now, and their orange, yellow, blue, and green sails turned the bay into a rainbow of colors.
    God forbid! He had never seen sights like these, and he felt he must surely look the fool, the way Kate stared at his obvious puzzlement.
    He could not let her know that he found the city odd, that he almost believed a mighty magician must have cast a spell over the town. She would surely call the authorities and have him carted off to an asylum for the mad.
    Nay, he must remain calm. He must appear strong, in control of his wits, even though he was beginning to believe he’d lost his mind.
    Another vessel screamed past him, its sound almost deafening, its speed quaking the water and leaving behind a wake nearly as high and strongas a storm-tossed wave. The boat had no sails, there were no men bearing oars, and he wondered how it could move so swiftly across the water. Surely this was something his tired mind had conjured.
    He hadn’t conjured the strange objects inside Kate’s vessel, though, like the one she’d held to her mouth many a time during their voyage. The woman’s mannerisms had been quite odd, the way she’d attempted to talk to the thing. Naturally, no one had answered, and then she’d sworn. “Damn it!” seemed to be her favorite choice of words.
    He’d like to swear, too, but he could not let her see his frustration. She stared at him as if he were an odd creature from a foreign land, when he was the one who should be staring with mouth agape. But he stayed calm, even though the world about him appeared to be spinning out of control.
    It was a blessing that the dark blue waters of the bay hadn’t changed, but he longed to see galleons laden with riches from ports around the world, and heavily armed warships, teeming with men, whose masts reached high into the heavens. Where had they gone?
    Where the gleaming white sands had once run directly into