Read Online Under the Moon Gate by Marilyn Baron - Free Book Online Page B

until you’ve seen it from the water.”
    Patience watched him maneuver the boat expertly away from the dock, out of the bay, and into the open ocean. He was wearing khaki shorts and a white polo shirt, and she could see fresh scrapes and blood on his knees.
    “Ouch. You’re hurt. How did that happen?”
    “I had a close encounter of the worst kind with a brick wall,” he said, embarrassed.
    “The walls are made of limestone, not brick,” Patience corrected, “and that’s about the worst case of road rash I’ve seen in a long time.”
    “Why do they put those damn walls in the middle of the roadway? I can ride a bike. But you people drive on the wrong side of the road.”
    “No, actually, it’s the left-hand side,” she joked. “The hospital is swelling with snowbirds who can’t follow the rules of the road. And pale tourists who baste themselves and bake and broil in the Bermuda sun. The sun can often be deceptive. When we drop anchor, I’ll tend to it, if you have supplies. Otherwise the salt spray will kill you.”
    “Will you kiss it and make it better?” He looked directly at her mouth.
    Patience blushed.
    “No, I’ll use peroxide or something equally painful, that stings terribly.”
    “No, thanks, sister. I’ll live with it.”
    “I thought I was your cousin,” she teased, surprising herself. It wasn’t in her nature to tease with a man. She was awkward around most men. And perhaps that was why she had never formed a long-term relationship with one. Flirting came easily to Cecilia. But never to Patience. She was what people called an odd duck.
    She tired of the constant parade of proper suitors, bankers, politicians, businessmen, all “the right kind of people,” from the right families, that her grandmother had trotted out before her, like she was Prince Charming, waiting to see if the slipper fit. Well, they were all her grandmother’s kind of people. And instinctively she knew they were all wrong for her.
    Her grandmother and Cecilia would have been surprised, shocked, if they knew what was in her heart. She yearned to be spirited away by a dark and dangerous swashbuckler, longed to be swept entirely off her feet, wanted to feel her heart race uncontrollably and be thrown off balance by the wrong kind of man. On the surface, a man like that would appear alien to her nature, but that would not be true. In fact, the man of her dreams was beginning to look a lot like Nathaniel. She stared at him as they got under way.
    “So, you’re American,” Patience began.
    “As American as they come. I’m from Virginia.”
    “Ah,” she said reverently, and her eyes held a faraway look. “Virginia.”
    “Have you been there?” he asked, intrigued.
    “No,” she said, not wanting to admit that she’d never even been off the island. “But my family had many ties to the state. The two places are intertwined.” Patience linked her hands to illustrate as she spoke.
    ****
    Intertwined . What a strange word. From a strange woman. Patience . Even her name was old-fashioned. But somehow it seemed to suit her and her surroundings. She was so prim and proper, and preachy, a real know-it-all, but so animated when she talked about her island. That was certainly her hot button, and maybe it was also the key to his quest. She spoke of the place as if it were Camelot. It was strangely arousing. He imagined what it would feel like to break through that reserve to the simmering woman he was sure he’d find inside. To peel that veneer back layer by layer. It would take a lot of patience on his part.
    Patience would be surprised to know how much he had already learned about her. For instance, he knew she was named after the Patience, one of the two rebuilt shipsthat set sail from Bermuda to Virginia the year after the wreck of the Sea Venture. One of his ancestors had been aboard that vessel , which had foundered in a hurricane off St. George’s Island in 1609 while on its way to resupply the starving colony