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seemed to think so,” Nate answered.
    “A minute ago you were worried about her reputation,” Blake growled, not quite sure why he was getting so agitated.
    “I am. But she’s pretty and she’s virginal. That makes her doubly tempting.”
    Something slippery twisted in Blake’s stomach. “Are you speaking for the crew or for yourself?”
    Nate smiled lazily. “Either. Why? Are we going to have to duel over her?”
    Blake moved to the helm, not because the ship needed steering but because he needed something to do with his hands. Something besides wanting to use his fist to erase the sure smile off his best friend’s face. The fact that he even considered hitting Nate had his stomach in a knot. Nate was his friend—what the hell was the matter with him?
    “I’m not dueling with you over a girl.”
    “Girl? Hell, Blake, she’s a woman, and if you can’t see it, I sure can.”
    “She’s too young,” he said between his teeth.
    “A lot of women younger than her are married and having children of their own.” Nate angled his head to the side. “Are you telling me you haven’t noticed the temptation you’ve agreed to keep locked away in your cabin?”
    Blake thumped the wheel. “She’s not a temptation. She’s green with seasickness, she smells like something you’d find lying in a street in Tortuga, and she dresses like a boy. Where’s the temptation in that?”
    “The
woman
I saw in the galley was clean, she smelled of soap, and even wearing a man’s clothes, there was no doubt she wasn’t one.”
    Blood pounding, Blake abandoned the wheel and stomped to the gunwale. The ship wasn’t making much of a wake and the silence was irritating. Where was a good storm when he needed one? Hell, he’d even take a pirate attack. Anything to keep his mind off Alicia and the fact that his best friend was interested in her.
    “Stay away from her,” Blake warned.
    “I thought you didn’t like her.”
    “I don’t.”
    Nate leaned forward. “Why are you willing to help her if you clearly hate her so much?”
    “We were heading in that direction anyway.”
    “We were going to St. Lucia, not St. Kitts.”
    “It’s not that—”
    They were interrupted when Vincent climbed on deck. He shuffled toward them, then grabbed his box and slid it beside Nate.
    “What have I missed?” he asked, pulling himself onto the box. Even standing on it, his head didn’t reach Blake’s shoulders.
    “Blake was about to tell us why we’re taking a
woman
he despises to St. Kitts.”
    “Ah, the rest of the story. I knew there was more.” Vincent rubbed his little hands together eagerly.
    “I told you both earlier, I knew her family when I lived in Port Royal.”
    Vincent turned to Nate. “Do I look daft? Because I never thought I did.”
    Nate grinned. “Nope. You don’t. And don’t be commenting on her beauty either, it makes Blake twitch.”
    The dwarf turned to Blake. “Well, this just keeps getting better. Get on with it, then. Who is she really?”
    Blake assessed his friends and sighed heavily. They deserved more than he’d given them earlier.
    “Her father left her a letter. She found it after he died. In it he told her to look for me, said she could trust me to take her to wherever she needed to go, which happens to be St. Kitts.”
    “Where this Samantha woman is?” Nate asked.
    “Yes.”
    “And who is Samantha to her?”
    “Her sister. She didn’t know she had one until she read his letter.”
    “How was that possible?” Vincent asked.
    “Because she lost her memory when she was twelve. The man she called father isn’t her real father and apparently he hadn’t troubled himself to tell Alicia she had a sister either.”
    Both men’s jaws slackened. Nate recovered first. He whistled.
    “That’s a nasty blow. How is it she came to be with him then?”
    Because Blake had already left Port Royal before Alicia arrived, he couldn’t say. The fact that Jacob Davidson had taken a stranger in so