Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny. Marion Lennox
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much what she’d been thinking that she laughed. She sat back on her heels, put her face up to the sun and soaked it in. The Marquita was on autopilot, safe enough in weather like this. There was a light breeze—enough to make Marquita slip gracefully through the water like a skier on a downhill run. On land it would be hot, but out here on the ocean it was just plain fabulous. Jenny was wearing shorts and T-shirt and nothing else. Her feet were bare, her hair was scrunched up in a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, her nose was white with sunscreen—and she was perfectly, gloriously happy.
‘You’re supposed to complain,’ Ramón said, watching her. ‘Any deckie I’ve ever employed would be complaining by now.’
‘What on earth would I be complaining about?’
‘Scrubbing, maybe?’
‘I’d scrub from here to China if I could stay on this boat,’ she said happily and then saw his expression and hastily changed her mind. ‘No. I didn’t mean that. You keep right on thinking I’m working hard for my money. But, honestly, you have the best job in the world, Ramón Cavellero, and I have the second best.’
‘I do, don’t I?’ he said, but his smile faded, and something about him said he had shadows too. Did she want to ask?
Maybe not.
She’d known Ramón for over a week now, and she’d learned a lot in that time. She’d learned he was a wonderful sailor, intuitive, clever and careful. He took no unnecessary risks, yet on the second night out there’d been a storm. A nervous sailor might have reefed in everything and sat it out. Ramón, however, had looked at the charts, altered his course and let the jib stay at full stretch. The Marquita had flown across the water with a speed Jenny found unbelievable, and when the dawn came and the storm abated they were maybe three hundred miles further towards New Zealand than they’d otherwise have been.
She’d taken a turn at the wheel that night but she knew Ramón hadn’t slept. She’d been conscious of his shadowy presence below, aware of what the boat was doing, aware of how she was handling her. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but she was new crew and to sleep in such a storm while she had such responsibility might have been dangerous.
His competence pleased her, as did the fact that he hadn’t told her he was checking on her. Lots of things about him pleased her, she admitted—but Ramón kept himself to himself. Any thoughts she may have had of being an addition to his harem were quickly squashed. Once they were at sea, he was reserved to the point of being aloof.
‘How long have you skippered this boat?’ she asked suddenly, getting back to scrubbing, not looking up. She was learning that he responded better that way, talking easily as they worked together. Once work stopped he retreated again into silence.
‘Ten years,’ he said.
‘Wow. You must have been at kindergarten when you were first employed.’
‘I got lucky,’ he said brusquely, and she thought, don’t go there. She’d asked a couple of things about the owner, and she’d learned quickly that was the way to stop a conversation dead.
‘So how many crews would you have employed in that time?’ she asked. And then she frowned down at what she was scrubbing. How on earth had the birds managed to soil under the rim of the forward hatch? She tried to imagine, and couldn’t.
‘How long’s a piece of string?’ Ramón said. ‘I get new people at every port.’
‘But you have me for a year.’
‘That’s right, I have,’ he said and she glanced up and caught a flash of something that might be satisfaction. She smiled and went back to scrubbing, unaccountably pleased.
‘That sounds like you liked my lunch time paella.’
‘I loved your lunch time paella. Where did you learn to cook something so magnificently Spanish?’
‘I’m part Spanish,’ she said and he stopped scrubbing and stared.
‘Spanish?’
‘Well, truthfully, I’m all Australian,’ she said, ‘but my father was Spanish. He moved to Australia when he met my mother. My mother’s mother was Spanish as well. Papà came as an adventuring young man. He contacted my grandmother as a family friend and the rest is history.
‘So,’ Ramón said slowly, sounding dazed. ‘Habla usted español? Can you speak Spanish?’
‘Sí,’ she said, and tried not to sound smug.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘There’s no end to my talents,’ she agreed and grinned, and then peered under the hatch. ‘Speaking of talent…How did these birds do this? They must have lain on their sides and aimed.’
‘It’s a competition between them and me,’ Ramón said darkly. ‘They don’t like my boat looking beautiful. All I can do is sail so far out to sea they can’t reach me. But…you have a Spanish background? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You never asked,’ she said, and then she hesitated. ‘There’s lots you didn’t ask, and your offer seemed so amazing I saw no reason to mess it with detail. I could have told you I play a mean game of netball, I can climb trees, I have my bronze surf lifesaving certificate and I can play Waltzing Matilda on a gum leaf. You didn’t ask and how could I tell you? You might have thought I was skiting.’
‘Skiting?’
‘Making myself out to be Miss Wonderful.’
‘I seem to have employed Miss Wonderful regardless,’ he said. And then…‘Jenny?’
‘Mmm?’
‘No, I mean, what sort of Spanish parents call their daughter Jenny?’
‘It’s Gianetta.’
‘Gianetta.’ He said it with slow, lilting pleasure, and he said it the way it was supposed to sound. The way her parents had said it. She blinked and then she thought no. Actually, the way Ramón said it wasn’t the way her parents had said it. He had the pronunciation right but it was much, much better. He rolled it, he almost growled it, and it sounded so sexy her toes started to curl.
‘I would have found out when you signed your contract,’ Ramón was saying while she attempted a bit of toe uncurling. Then he smiled. ‘Speaking of which, maybe it’s time you did sign up. I don’t want to let anyone who can play Waltzing Matilda on a gum leaf get away.’
‘It’s a dying art,’ she said, relieved to be on safer ground. In fact she’d been astounded that he hadn’t yet got round to making her sign any agreement.
The day before they’d sailed he’d handed Charlie a cheque. ‘How do you know you can trust me to fill my part of the bargain?’ she’d asked him, stunned by what he was doing, and Ramón had looked down at her for a long moment, his face impassive, and he’d given a small decisive nod.
‘I can,’ he’d said, and that was that.
‘Playing a gum leaf’s a dying art?’ he asked now, cautiously.
‘It’s something I need to teach my grandchildren,’ she told him. And then she heard what she’d said. Grandchildren. The void, always threatening, was suddenly right under her. She hauled herself back with an effort.
‘What is it?’ Ramón said and he was looking at her with concern. The void disappeared. There went her toes again, curling, curling. Did he have any idea of what those eyes did to her? They helped, though. She was back again now, safe. She could move on. If she could focus on something other than those eyes.
‘So I’m assuming you’re Spanish, too?’ she managed.
‘No!’
‘You’re not Spanish?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘You