Bryony discovered a great little hole-in-the-wall kind of restaurant with a decent-sized menu just a block away from the hotel the next morning, and Finn took her recommendation, ordering and trying Huevos Rancheros for the first time.

"This is food of the Gods," he marveled, smacking his lips appreciatively. "I have to thank you, love. I'd forgotten how much I love salsa."

"Salsa's easy to make, too," Bryony offered. "Really, you could do it at home if you have a reasonable garden."

"Not a lot of gardening done on a ship, I'm afraid," he answered her, reaching his fork over to steal a bite of her pancakes. Bryony gave him a dirty look and smacked the back of his hand with her fork.

"Do you mind? Does your mother know you have these manners?"

"My mother is the biggest food thief in the family and that's a fact," he said, smiling. "There isn't a plate that's safe from her at mealtime."

Bryony pushed her pancakes around on her plate, soaking up the little puddles of syrup. "So...what are they like, anyway - your grandparents? Snow White and Prince Charming?"

Finn gave a little chuckle. "It's odd to hear you call them that. 'Prince Charming' is a pet name that only my grandmother uses. The rest of the kingdom knows him as King David now."

"King David?"

"That's his proper name. And he and my Grandmother assumed the throne a few years before I was born, turning him from a Prince into a King."

"Are they anything like the stories?" She asked. "He's supposed to be gallant and noble and perfect and she's supposed to be the fairest of them all."

Finn smiled, taking a drink of his coffee. "You've got my grandfather pegged, I'll give you that. My grandmother is a lovely woman, but it's more than a physical beauty with her. She's just blazingly good. On anyone but her, it would be quite off-putting, really."

"And your father's Captain Hook?"

"He was. Doesn't use that moniker much anymore. He's Sir Killian Jones now, peer of the realm and perfectly respectable man. But don't call him that to his face."

Bryony sat back in her chair, completely stuffed. She pushed her half-finished pile of pancakes away and reached for her coffee. Finn grabbed her plate and immediately maneuvered it to his side of the table.

"You're not going to let these go to waste, are you love?"

"Keep that up and we're going to have to roll you home." Bryony quipped.

"I eat like this all the time," he said, dismissing her with a wave as he stuffed a forkful in his mouth. "We Jones men have ways of working off the excess." He gave her a smile with a devilish gleam in his eye that literally made her stop breathing.

The look he gave her said he knew it, too. He took a swig of his coffee, then looked at her quizzically. "Why are you asking me about my family" he asked. "You've been dreaming about them and writing all their stories down. In some ways, you know them all better than I do."

"Not really," Bryony smiled. "I'm sure the visions lose something in translation. And it's not like I've grown up with them."

He swirled his coffee in his cup. "No, I'm quite serious. Some of the stories in your journals were quite detailed, not just about events that happened, but also their thoughts and their motivations. Whenever we had family story night, a lot of that was edited out of the versions they shared with us."

"Us?"

"My sister and my uncles and aunt. We grew up together."

"Wait - your uncles and aunt are your age?" Bryony asked, confused.

"It's a long story..." he shrugged. "There was a curse that froze my grandparents for nearly thirty years. They're the same age as my parents. Or should I say, they appear to be. Or they appear to be the same age my father appears to be."

Bryony raised her brows, totally lost.

"As I said...long story." He pushed the now empty plate away. "Are you ready to go, love?"

"We need to go back to Philly first," Bryony said. "I have to give Lydia the keys to my house so she can water my plants. And I have to pay a few bills so they don't shut off all my utilities while I'm gone."

She could see Finn didn't care for that idea at all, but he gave her a reluctant nod. "Very well. We'll take a train back, then you take care of your errands and pack a small bag. We leave by nightfall."

She arched a brow. "We leave when I say we're ready to leave."

He gave her an irritated look. "I can throw you over my shoulder and be done with it, you know."

"You'll get your ass kicked if you do."

He tossed his napkin down on the table, along with a few dollars to cover the tip. "Come on." It amazed him how quickly he could go from wanting to kiss her to wanting to strangle her. She was such a little spitfire.

He let her precede him out the door, and a memory floated into his head. You could do worse than to find a woman who gives as good as she gets, Finn. He had been standing at Granny's graveside, barely sixteen, when his father had shared that gem. Wouldn't his father be laughing now if he could see the state Bryony had him in. Come to think of it, his mother had more than once wished a woman on him who'd put him in his place.

Maybe Bryony was the result of some sort of curse his parents had unknowingly laid upon him. Wouldn't that be just his turn of fortune.

The thing was, his parents were, unfortunately, frequently right.

And he had a feeling that was simultaneously sinking and elated, that they were both right in wishing her for him.

###

"I wish I knew how Finn was doing," Emma said, leaning her head on her husband's shoulder as they laid in bed together.

"I wish he'd just come home," Killian added.

"You're the one who's been telling me he'll be back when he's ready," Emma complained.

"And so he will, love." Killian leaned down, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "I just want him to come home because you're going to drive me crazy worrying about him. He's only been gone a matter of days, after all. He's taken sea voyages that were much longer than this."

"Yeah, but they were in our realm." Emma pointed out.

Killian gave a chuckle.

"What?"

"It wasn't that long ago that you were fighting all of us to stay in that other realm, and now you're worried about a grown man - a Jones man, I might add - venturing out into it."

"Okay, okay," she said, poking him in the ribs. "I get the irony." She tilted her head up so she could look at him. "Do you think he's found her?"

"Oh, I'm sure of it. He had the compass to guide him, after all. Plus his own good instincts. He's no doubt located the girl, and he'll be home when the time is right."

"When the time is right? The time is right ten minutes after he gets there." She drummed her fingers against his belly. "What's keeping him?"

Killian had had enough. He pulled her down even as he rolled himself on top of her. Since she was still naked from their exertions earlier in the evening, there wasn't much to stop him from getting a knee between her legs and moving against her, rubbing suggestively.

"I told you, love," he said, digging his fingers into her hips as he positioned her to receive him. "A Jones man is never done until he's good and ready to be done." He slid deeply into her, and Emma sighed, arching her back.

"Now let's get your mind back to where it ought to be..." he murmured, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Emma gave it up, knowing she was still a sucker for the way he changed the subject. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and true to his word, he wasn't done with her until he was good and done with her. And then she slept like the dead, nestled in his arms.

Neither one of them lost a moment of their slumber to the shadow that rippled across the water outside the cabin window, then paused to look in.