Twelfth Sun. Mae Clair

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      “Which is?”

      Reagan picked up her fork and prodded the fruit in her bowl. “What do you mean?”

      “Your separate way. Home. Where do you live?”

      “Oh.” She saw no reason to tell him it was Baltimore. “It doesn’t matter. I’m more interested in how you met my uncle.”

      “He attended a lecture I gave last summer. A mutual acquaintance introduced us and we’ve been friends ever since. He talks about you a lot.” He grinned extravagantly and reached for his coffee. “But he never mentioned your fondness for pink.”

      She bit her tongue. Friend of her uncle or not, he deserved to be skewered and roasted over an open pit. Slowly. Keeping her voice cool, she sent him what she hoped was a frosty glare. “I’m sure you find it humorous to keep dwelling on what happened last night, but any mature adult would have moved on by now. Then again, you are only twenty-five.”

      “Ouch!” His lips curled upward in a crooked grin. “And I suppose you’re ancient? Fossil material.”

      The man had no concept of tact. “Dr. Cross.”

      “Elijah. And I should probably mention I have a tendency to be immature.”

      “That’s obvious.” Reagan made a show of looking at her watch, relaying her impatience. “Maybe we could discuss the Twelfth Sun, since we’ll be meeting Eric Sothern in a few hours.”

      “Fair enough.” Elijah reached for a bottle of maple syrup. He drenched his plate in a sea of liquid sugar, then used his fork to break off a chunk of soggy pancakes. “What did your uncle tell you about the ship?”

      Reagan watched as he made short work of the pancakes, his appetite as extensive as his cache of irritating remarks. At least he was focused, ready to discuss business rather than continuing his game of innuendo. How could anyone so cavalier be so gifted? He’d obviously held his doctorate degree for more than a few years, which placed his intelligence on a genius level. Yet here he sat, downing pancakes and tossing around veiled remarks like a high school adolescent.

      Geek.

      Reagan cleared her throat. “Uncle Gavin didn’t tell me much.” That wasn’t entirely true. Her uncle had rambled on about the Twelfth Sun, but she hadn’t paid attention. She’d simply agreed to drive to Connecticut and retrieve the logbook from Eric Sothern. She’d been more concerned with completing the task, so she could return to the roster of customers she’d put on hold. “I don’t know much about the ship other than it was a frigate.”

      “A schooner. A frigate was a warship. And when you’re referring to a vessel, you should use the gender-specific ‘she.’ Sailors and seamen are particular about that mode of address.”

      Reagan pressed her lips together but didn’t reply. She had the feeling he enjoyed correcting her.

      Swallowing a mouthful of coffee, he craned his neck to glance at her plate. Half of the fruit she’d ordered remained untouched. “Are you going to eat that?”

      “Yes.” Deliberately, Reagan speared a chunk of pineapple and popped it into her mouth.

      “Nice.” Elijah mimicked a salute. “Next time try to do it without the fire-breathing dragon stare.”

      “Dr. Cross.”

      “Getting back to the Twelfth Sun,” he continued as if her interruption were of no consequence. “She was built in the 1790’s when Baltimore led the nation in shipbuilding, and came out of Fells Point like most clippers.”

      “I thought you said she was a schooner?”

      “Pretty much an interchangeable term. The Twelfth Sun was owned by the Wheeler Shipping Company and captained under Samuel Storm. During the war of 1812 she turned privateer and was responsible for single-handedly sinking or capturing ten British vessels. When the war ended, she floundered. The clipper era was on the wane. Changing maritime conditions and economic trends combined to make it almost obsolete.”

      Reagan tilted her head. She vaguely recalled her uncle saying something along the same lines. She’d always viewed old sailing ships as poetic, romantic images, but had never taken the time to learn their history.

      “Wheeler Shipping fell on hard times and sold to a pair of brothers out of Massachusetts,” Elijah continued. “The Rooks were wealthy, but inexperienced. Samuel Storm stayed on as captain of the Twelfth Sun and continued making cargo runs. In 1836, Chester Rook sent his younger brother Jeremiah along as the shipping company’s onboard representative.”

      “The Twelfth Sun sank in 1836.” That much she did know.

      Elijah nodded. He eyed her fruit again. “Are you really going to eat that?”

      Exasperated, she pushed the plate across the table to him. He grinned broadly and attacked the pieces of cantaloupe, honeydew and pineapple with relish. Munching contentedly, he continued his tale.

      “The voyage was doomed from the start. Chester Rook ordered the ship to launch on a Friday in direct opposition to Samuel Storm’s wishes.”

      Reagan waited, expecting to learn there’d been a horrible gale or unstable weather conditions.

      Elijah simply let the sentence hang.

      “So?” she prompted, annoyed by the lapse.

      “Friday, Reagan. Anyone familiar with sailing lore knows you never begin a voyage on a Friday. It’s bad luck.”

      She bristled. “Ms. Cassidy, please.”

      “A little too proper for first names?”

      “Just tell me what happened.”

      He finished the last of the fruit and drained his coffee. Slumping back in his chair, he folded his arms over his chest and stared at her across the table. The thick black line of his lashes made his eyes intensely blue, as vibrant as cut glass caught in the sun. Dark brown hair curled in long, riotous waves against his collar.

      For one unsettling minute, Reagan had the insane desire to lace her fingers through it. Disturbed, she sat straighter and lowered her eyes. She’d always had a weakness for men with tousled, unkempt hair, but so what? Elijah Cross might be good-looking, but he was also a royal pain in the posterior.

      She pretended interest in her tea. “I know the Twelfth Sun sank when it struck the wreck of a submerged frigate off Horsehead Island. I also know the only one to survive was Jeremiah Rook, who escaped in a lifeboat.”

      “With a personal journal.” Seeing the waitress across the room, Elijah waved her to the table. “Could we have the check, please?” Once she had gathered their plates and left, he turned back to Reagan.

      “Samuel Storm’s log was never found, so there’s no account leading up to the wreck. It’s not the captain’s logbook we’re after, but Rook’s journal. He survived at sea for forty-five days before he was picked up by a cutter out of Gloucester. Rumors–credited rumors,” he corrected, “indicate Rook had a personal journal with a detailed account of the СКАЧАТЬ