Kate Hoffmann - The Pirate

"Why do all your proposals sound like direct orders? What if I don't want to marry you?"

He glared at her, his eyebrow arched. "You willmarry me, of that you can be certain."

"I will decide if I will marry you or not."

He continued to stare at her, waiting, a sardonic smile on his face.

"I can't imagine a more pitiful proposal," she muttered.

Griffin groaned and raked his fingers through his hair. "I do not mean to be dictatorial… or boorish." He knelt in the sand beside her and clasped her left hand between his. "Meredith Abbott, I love you, damn it. Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?"

A smile curled the corners of her mouth and she giggled. "You're forgiven, Griffin Rourke. And yes, I think I will become your wife."

His stern expression cracked and he chuckled, then kissed her palm. "I want to spend my life with you, Merrie."

"And the baby?" she asked. "Do you want our baby?"

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Of course I do. It's just that, I-I want to grow old, with you beside me."

"We can do that," Meredith cried. "Women have had babies for years, Griffin. I'm healthy and our child will be healthy." She paused and studied his tense profile for a moment. "But this isn't about me, is it? This is about Jane."

His head snapped around and he stared at her. "I could not have saved her, even if I had been there. Merrie, you mean more to me than anyone I have ever known. I could not stand to lose you. It would kill me."

She placed her palm on his cheek. "I'm not Jane and I won't die, Griffin. Not until we've spent at least the next fifty years together in this world, and eternity together in the next."

He looked out at the water, refusing to meet her eyes. "Things are different in this time, Merrie," he said, frustration edging his voice. "You know what the medical care is like here. I cannot help thinking that you would have been better off staying in your own time. At least I would have known that you, and the child, were safe."

"But we don't have to live here," she said. Her statement came right out of the blue, but she knew she spoke the truth. She blinked hard, then gazed over at the boat on the beach. Suddenly, it all came back to her. That's where she'd seen the boat, on Blackbeard's ship. And in-side the boat was the book. Meredith laughed out loud, her uncontrolled giggles causing a frown of concern on Griffin's face.

Griffin placed his palm on her forehead to check for fever. "I don't know where the book is, Merrie. I wish I did, for I would not force you to stay here against your will. Would that I could take us both back to your time."

Meredith drew a deep breath and stilled her laughter. "The book is in the boat," she said, pointing to the beach. "It's in the bow, beneath an old canvas."

He looked at her in disbelief. "How do you know this?"

"Because I put it there," she said.

Griffin stared at her for a while as if trying to judge her lucidity. Then he stood and jogged down the beach to the boat. When he returned, a smile curled the corners of his mouth. "We can go back," he said, his voice filled with relief. Suddenly, with a shout, he bent over and grabbed Meredith around the waist and pulled her up against him, lifting her feet off the ground. Just as quickly, he placed her in front of him and cupped her face in his hands, raining kisses over her face.

"We can go back," he repeated. "You'll be safe, the baby will be safe and we will live a long and happy life together."

She looked deeply into his pale eyes. "Is that what you want? To live in my time?"

"Yes," Griffin said. "I should have never left."

"You don't want to stay here?"

He growled at her. "On this, I know my mind. I love you, Merrie-girl, more than life itself. And I have come to realize this in so many ways since we have been apart. If living in your time will mean more time together, for us and our child, then that is where I want to be."

Meredith hugged the book to her chest and gazed at the man who had traveled across time to find her. He was right. They were meant to be together and nothing would ever separate them again. She raised herself on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Then I think it's time for us to go home, Griffin Rourke. We have a long adventure ahead of us and I want it to begin right now."

Meredith sat in the middle of the living room floor in the gray-shingled cottage on Ocracoke Island. A brisk autumn breeze blew in through the screened porch, teasing at her hair. Piles of books surrounded her as she packed the stacks in large cardboard boxes. Beside her, two-year-old Thomas Griffin Rourke, named after his paternal grandfather, played with a large ball and babbled to himself.

"Is there a reason we bring all these books to the island every summer?"

Meredith turned around to see her husband standing in the doorway that overlooked the Sound. He looked much the same as he had that first night, only now he was dressed in twentieth-century clothes. "Yes, there is," she said with a wide smile. "It's so you can carry them back and forth to the car and I can admire your incredible physique."

Griffin chuckled and knelt beside her. He placed his hand on her swollen abdomen. "The last time you admired my incredible body, sweetheart, we made another baby."

"But it was fun, wasn't it?" She covered his fingers with hers.

Griffin nibbled at her neck playfully. "Yes, 'twas fun, Merrie-girl. But I would have been well satisfied with just one child. I would not have risked you again."

Meredith wrapped her arms around her husband's neck and kissed him on the mouth. "When are you going to realize that having your children is the most precious gift I can give you?" she asked, pressing her forehead against his.

"And 'tis the most precious gift I can give you, as well," he murmured.

They both turned to gaze at their son. He now stood beside the boxes, methodically pulling out books and tossing them onto the floor with unabashed glee.

"If your son doesn't stop, we'll never get out of here," Griffin said.

Meredith leaned over and grabbed Thomas around the waist, then pulled him, giggling, into her lap. She kissed his cheek and he screeched in delight. "Why don't you take yourson outside," she said. "I've just got these two boxes to pack up. One goes with us and the other goes to the island library. Trina's going to pick out the books she wants and donate the rest to charity."

Griffin grabbed his son and hoisted him up on his shoulders. "Take your time, sweetheart. We'll be down on the beach."

Meredith watched as the two most important people in her life walked through the door and headed out to the water. "Time," she murmured, distractedly repacking the boxes. "Once I thought we'd never have enough time together. But now, we have all the time in the world, don't we, my love."

She smiled winsomely and picked up an old volume from the floor. As she stared at it, she ran her fingers across the worn leather-bound cover and over the gold inlaid letters.

"Rogues Across Time," Meredith read. Wistfully she recalled the first time she had picked up the book. If the hurricane hadn't driven her into the closet that night so long ago, she may never have found her pirate. The book had changed her life.

She moved to put the book in her keeper box, then at the last moment, she gently placed it inside the other box-the box meant for the library. "Maybe someone else will be lucky enough to find their soul mate somewhere in time," she said softly. "And maybe someday, they'll find the happiness that I have."

Satisfied with her decision, Meredith taped up both boxes and called her husband and son back in from the beach. No, she didn't need the book anymore. All her fantasies had become reality and she was living her dreams every day of her life.