Chapter 10

Pirates

It was evident a storm landed on Isla Leche y Miel and by the condition of the rotting debris it quite possibly was the one that almost cost Jordan her life on the Bullet. That was weeks ago! A few rudimentary repairs on the outbuildings had been done, a path cleared to the dock, but what wasn't done was unacceptable. Hers, and the livelihood of everyone on the island, depended on the stores and machinery housed inside those buildings. She didn't even what to think about the worker's quarters.

"Jordan! Jordan! You're alive! Thank God!"

She had barely had time to make a mental list of her father's "good people" to disembowel when Lily waddled from the direction of the main house.

"Lily."

"Oh my," Lily exclaimed, nearly tripping over a downed branch.

Woody rushed to the side of the obviously pregnant woman and caught her by the elbow to help her safely pick her way over to visibly flummoxed brunette. Lily thanked him with a light blush before enveloping Jordan in her embrace.

"We've been so worried…." The hug could be described as slightly awkward. Jordan wasn't prepared to see how fast Lil's figure… blossomed.

Lily came to live on Isla Leche y Miel in the late spring...just after she left her affianced husband at the alter. It was soon become apparent that Lily didn't leave all of him behind. Facing certain ridicule, Lily asked Jordan if she could stay on indefinitely, to which Jordan readily agreed. A dead husband could be created and after a respectable period of mourning, Lily could choose where she and her child wanted to be.

"What happened here?"

"Jordan," Lily sighed, "We've missed you."

"Where's Ivers?"

"Ivers?!" Woody groaned. "First Stiles, now him? Have mercy on my ego, Jordan."

"We need someone to blame for the obvious mismanagement of Isla Leche y Miel."

"Oh. That changes everything. Can we kill him?" he smirked.

"Woody…"she warned.

"Come on, it's just a bedtime story. It's not like we'd really hurt him."

"Mmmm."

"Let's stake him in the middle of the cane field during the harvest fires."

"Too ritualistic." Jordan mused, tapping her fingernail against the binding of the book they had spun their story around.

"Okay, how about stuffing him in the distillery's sugarcane grinder?"

"Too messy."

"Feed him to the sharks?"

"Too …predicable."

"I've got it!"

"What?"

"The perfect way to get rid of an overbearing prick like William Ivers."

"How?"

"Let me take over for awhile," Woody grinned plucking the tome from her fingers, "and you'll find out…"

Jordan tried to distract Woody with the offer of refreshments but he stuck to her like a barnacle. She had no choice but to let him follow her to the plantation's office and where Ivers could undoubtedly be found.

She viewed Ivers as a necessary evil. Max left assuming Jordan's husband would handle the day to day operations.

Not that Jordan couldn't do it herself. But it didn't take Jordan long to realize that nobody would conduct business with a female. How could he know JD's restless soul would lead to his death?

Williams Ivers was the personification of efficiency. His methods may not always be popular, but he kept the books in the black, barely, which hadn't always been the case since Max left.

She stormed in finding him hunched over his desk with quill in hand.

"Madam," he said with nary a glance at his employer's entrance. "I trust your little retreat was refreshing. If you would just leave any account dues in my inbox, I'll make sure they are tended to straight away.

"We need to talk."

"Of course," he drawled finally looking up.

William's eyebrows frowned at seeing Woody standing close to his meal ticket.

Protectively close. A bad feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He quickly wrestled on his jacket and he unfolded himself from his seat.

"You have me at a slight disadvantage, Mrs. Pollack…" he said never taking his eyes off the other man.

"Cavanaugh," Jordan interjected.

"Hoyt," Woody said, overlapping.

Jordan ground her heal into Woody's instep. "Mr. Ivers," she said with a flat smile. "This is Mr. Woodrow Hoyt, my…. husband."

Woody cleared his throat, covering his grin with an open fist. The word 'husband' came out of Jordan's mouth sounding more like a curse than an endearing title. He slipped his arm around her waist hoping to give her declaration some validity, only to have her shrug out of it. Woody didn't bat an eye. Didn't they say possession was nine-tenths of the law? At least that's the way they viewed it on a pirate's ship.

Woody wasn't the only one who seemed oblivious to Jordan's impulse. Other than the deep crease on his forehead, Ivers stood silent.

Jordan continued. "Mr. Hoyt will only be with us temporarily…"

"Us? You're beginning to sound like you've sent too much time with Townsend, Jo," Woody teased.

'Jo…?' Jordan let it slide. She had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

"Mr. Ivers. Would you care to tell me why my island is in shambles?"

"I would think that would be quite obvious Mrs…Hoyt, is it?"

Woody gave a single nod and Jordan flashed him a look that would only confirm the dread Captain Townsend's opinion on females in general.

"There was a storm. We did what was necessary to keep the operation running, but unfortunately since your…excursion…we've lost seven more employees."

"Seven! Who?"

Ivers listed off the handful of people who left Isla Leche y Miel. Some of which had been there before Jordan was born. How? Why? The question was written in her eyes.

"We can't compete with the other traders, madam. The Cavanaugh label needs to change its business practices…"

Jordan childishly put her hands over her ears. She'd heard this speech of his a number of times.

Slaves. The answer to shrinking profits and rising overhead would be through bartering souls. Jordan had steadfastly refused and she wasn't going to stop now.

"No! We'll hire more hands," Jordan said, beginning to pace. "We'll have Elaine put the word out when she sails on the tide. "

Ivers had no idea what this Elaine was and could care less. He erased the point with limp wave of the hand. "And pay them with what, madam? There is scarcely enough on the books to pay next quarters wages."

"How is that possible? The fields have been ample. Production is up. Trade's been brisk."

It was that reason alone Jordan felt confident enough to go searching for Garret in the first place. They were having a vintage year.

" Overhead. The costs incurred with your employees are bleeding the accounts dry, Mrs. Hoyt."

Overhead. Whenever Jordan talked to Ivers about business it was overhead. Had the cost of everything raised that high?

"Just how much are you paying yourself, Mr. Ivers?" Woody questioned. He always prided himself at his ability to read people and Ivers was making the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention.

It was Ivers turn to clear his throat and Woody doubted it had anything to do with hiding a smirk.

"Mrs, er, Hoyt trusts me with handling her finances, sir," Ivers announced, looking down his nose at the slightly taller man. "I take offence if you are insinuating that I've mishandled them in anyway…"

"That's enough," Jordan said putting her hands between the two of them. She was getting a headache. Something she always did when she thought about money. "I'd like to review the books later this week. Right now, I'd like to finish assessing the damages and formulate a plan on how to handle the clean up."

"Very well, madam," Ivers said with a patronizing tilt of the head.

He may have won this battle, but Woody would make sure he didn't win the war.

With a gentle hand in the small of her back, Woody led his wife out the door and back into the Caribbean sunshine.

"Right now, you are going up to the house and getting some rest. I'll take a look around."

"Nonsense," Jordan snorted. "You don't know anything about Isla Leche y Miel…"

"Then it's a perfect time to acquaint myself."

"But…."

"I haven't always been a pirate, Jo" he smiled kissing the tip of her up turned nose. "I know my way around a sugar plantation."

There was that nickname again. Jordan tongue almost forgot how to work. A real bath with fresh water sounded too good to be true. She could talk to Lily. She'd know what was going on.

"Don't bother my people and remember you are just a guest here. You have no rights to my property no matter what the law says about marriage."

"So, you are admitting we're actually husband and wife?"

That smile. It was like the second half of a one-two punch. Maybe she did need to rest. Jordan pinched the bridge of her nose remembering she had a headache.

"You're changing the subject. Just…stay away from Leo. He's damn near blind and he's liable to take you for a pirate then shoot your leg off. "

"As long as it's not my third leg," Woody leered in his best pirate brogue. "Ay, but question is; how will you nurse me back to health, my love?

Jordan rolled her eyes. "Is that the best he's got?"

"Wha'd'ya mean?"

"Nursing his third leg?"

"He's trying to make her smile. Ivers is running her island into the ground…so to speak," Woody sighed.

Jordan's frown was as firmly in place as she could only picture her alter-ego's would be after a crack like that. "Berman used a better line on me the last time I went out on a call with him…"

"I'll keep that in mind."

Woody wisely used the rest of the day to tour the island and like any good "guest" visit the operations. Jordan's Isla Leche y Miel had a strong back bone and good people. By all accounts, the financial problems only came to light after Ivers showed up. Woody would have likes to take a look at those books himself.

But as the time past the books weren't meant to be.

Seven days into his stay and Woody barely had time alone with Jordan let alone Ivers or the books. From sun-up to sun-down both Woody and Jordan labored side-by-side with her employees to ready the facilities for the next harvest. He was introduced as her husband and Jordan appropriated his last name. But even as she was making the introductions she made sure that everyone knew he would be leaving soon to live on his own land. If anyone questioned the odd arrangement they kept their comments to themselves.

Their evenings started with a light dinner with Lily and then an exhausted Jordan would disappear into her chambers for the night. The deadbolt slammed shut.

Woody would spend his solitary nights watching the iridescent waves roll onto shore from the balcony off the bedrooms. He'd sip the fine Cavanaugh rum and contemplate how long it when take him to talk his way through that locked bedroom door at the other end of the porch.

Seven days, one hundred sixty-eight hours, ten thousand….

Locked away in her nocturnal seclusion, Jordan paused with her hairbrush in mid stroke. "He needs to go…soon…tomorrow, if it can be arranged," she muttered to herself. "…Or after the next harvest. We're still shorthanded…"

…Or never at all….

He has to be anxious to get on with his own life. Didn't he mention a brother somewhere? And of course his sugar fed babies and…and…

Jordan tossed the forgotten brush on her bureau with a little more force than absolutely necessary.

What did she care what he did after he left her island? Their so-called wedding was a sham anyway. It was bore under coercion and witnessed only by a handful of thieving pirates. There wasn't a legal and religious court the entire world that would up hold it.

Then why did she look forward to working side-by-side with him each and every morning?

What he lacked in skills at being a pirate, he made up in with knowing how to deal with calamity that was a limping rum manufacturer. Even Leo Gelber sang his praises. "You made a good match," he told her. "This is the type of man your father would be proud to call son. Now you can get rid of that putz, Ivers."

She argued back. "I'm not ready to replace a man who thinks my business practices are counterproductive, with one who will simply rob me blind…"

…and break my heart…

The room was suddenly too stifling. Weeks of sleeping on the deck of ship had had an affect. In need of fresh air, Jordan threw open the doors to the balcony.

She didn't see him standing outside the guestroom door until she heard him set the glass he'd been drinking from on the railing.

"I'm sorry," Jordan jumped. "I didn't realize you were still awake…."

"I wasn't ready to turn in yet."

"You had a long day. You should get some sleep."

"As wonderfully therapeutic as your rum is Jordan, it's a poor substitute to finding a good night's rest in the arms of a beautiful woman."

"I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding someone to help you with that problem after you leave."

"It sounds like you asking me to leave now…"

"I'm thankful for all your help since we landed. Honestly, I am..."

"…but?" He came closer until he was practically standing on her toes. He leaned over her, invading her space…breathing her air.

"I'm sure you want to get on with your life…."

He traced his fingertip lightly over the line of her jaw and her skin erupted in gooseflesh. "How do you know what I want, Jordan, when you won't let me show you?"

His eyes looked black in the soft moonlight, but his lips looked full and as promising as they did when he kissed her in broad daylight on the bow of The Bullet. Suddenly, she was there again, the wind pressing against her wet clothes making her lean in to the heat of his body just to stay warm.

And maybe searching for something more.

She could taste the sweet heat of her father's choice reserve as his tongue swept over the crease of her lips. With a moan, she opened up to him, pin-pointing that ache that had been there for weeks, drawing it to the surface by threading her fingers through the hair at the base of his skull, and fanning it in intensity by yielding to his embrace.

"Jordan," he whispered hoarsely against her lips. "I need you…please, don't lock me out tonight."

Light filled his face making those dark eyes glow that beautiful blue. She arched into him, preparing to give him an answer that would at least make that itch go away for one night, when she realized the unexpected light was coming from the flames of a dozen torches in the courtyard bellow them.

"What the…" Woody complained putting himself instinctively between Jordan and whatever was beyond the railing.

One look and Woody closed his eyes alternating between cursing and praying for the sight to go away.

"Mis-ter Hoyt. Madam. We must say, Missus Hoyt, wedlock agrees with you. You're looking most ravishing this evening. Didn't you agree?"

Jordan gaped around Woody's drooping shoulders. Three quarters of the crew of The Bloody Bullet was standing one more then ten feet away. "Pirates!" she hissed.

"Of course," Nigel beamed, sweeping his that preposterous hat of his off in a courtly bow. "We trust your honeymoon was everything a blushing bride could dream of.,,"

A few snickers and crude comments trickled from the motley crew.

"Mister Vijay suggested that since you owed your happiness to yours truly, that a visit to the eternally thankful couple was in order. We whole heartedly agreed!" He opened his arms wide and flashed a wily smile. "Here we are!! Ready to be showered in the rewards of your domesticated hospitality!"