Aiden Payne is a drifter. His only memory of home is a mysterious tattoo. While working as a gold miner, his path crosses with Amelia Rose Wagner, a sheltered girl in love with navigation and the stars. After a fatal mistake, the two find themselves...
Amelia Rose threw her saddlebags into the sand and ran to the shoreline. Her legs burned. She tripped and fell into the dirt. The ocean buffeted her hands. With her cap pressed tightly against her scalp, she pulled herself back onto her feet. The Princess of Aydesreve was already leaving. Once it was gone, her best chance of leaving Aydesreve was gone as well.
She jumped and stomped in the sand. Huge clouds of sand and dirt worked themselves up from the ground and snaked around her. Her clothes became dirtier. She closed her eyes and for a moment, she was lost in her own little dust storm again. But it wasn't the same. She was missing someone.
They still hadn't noticed her. A man was turning the wheel of the ship, twisting the bow farther away from her. She needed to make noise. She lifted her hands and clapped. Her feet worked harder, getting more dust up until she felt like a dancer, clapping to the imaginary beat.
"What the Sam Hill is going on over there?"
Amelia Rose collapsed onto one knee to catch her breath. The leather strip holding her hair was loosening. With one final knot, it was secured. Her breath was slow and ragged. As soon as she looked up, she knew she'd see Aiden. She squeezed the sand in her palms, stamping the outlines of rocks all across her heartline.
As far as she was concerned, Amelia Rose Holden was dead.
"Stop the ship. I know him." A voice. Amelia Rose picked her head up. Rich Haworth hopped onto the gunwales. "You're all going to want to stop for this." Amelia Rose snapped right up. She'd been figured out already. She pulled her handkerchief up and covered her nose so that they wouldn't see her lips tremble.
Haworth splashed into the water, dunking below the glassy waves. A moment later, he bobbed to the surface like a buoy. He swam to the shallows and waded over to her, his pants sodden by the time he reached the coast. Amelia Rose stole a look at the ship. Aiden leaned against the main mast, arms crossed. He watched her charily.
"Look what the stallion dropped by," Haworth nodded as he walked around her. He gestured towards the sky. "Typical, I'll say."
Amelia Rose didn't say anything. She stepped away.
"What? You lose your job?"
She folded in her eyebrows.
"What's going on?" An older man called.
Mr. Haworth turned back to the ship. "Some courier I used to work with." He turned back and scratched his jaw. "What do you want?" She paused. Was he being serious? He really thought she used to work with him?
A deeper voice wasn't easy to shape. She tried to force one out, but every time the sound rose, she squashed it back down. No matter what, she would sound like a girl pretending to be a man. Instead of answering, she handed him Aiden's flier.
Mr. Haworth looked her body over. He shook his head incredulously. "You want to be a cabin boy?"
A nod was all she could give in response.
"What? You mute or something?"
She didn't say anything.
"Well toss me into Hell, I guess you are." Haworth started to unbutton his sopping wet shirt. "What happened to you?"
She widened her eyes. With her fist, she imitated punching herself in the head.
"A horse kicked you?" he stretched his arms dramatically. "Well, I'm great with horses, so I wouldn't know about that." he nodded, widening his stance.
Amelia Rose nodded right back.
"What's your name again?" He asked. "I didn't care to learn it."
She bit her lip, but he couldn't see because her handkerchief was covering her face. In the sand, she started tracing gibberish. She scratched it out. Her story hadn't developed that far. With a deep breath, she traced the first name that came to mind. A pang of guilt stabbed at her for stealing it, but as soon as she thought of changing it, it was written into the sand. It was her new name.
Jim.
Mr. Haworth looked at her dirty stable boy clothes first. "More like Dirty Jim, I think." He picked up her saddlebags. "And I'm still pissed off about the cornhusk incident, but I'm hoping we can move past that." He turned back to the ship without waiting for a response. "Ey, Captain, gotcha a new powder monkey."
Amelia Rose waded into the water as the Jacob's ladder dropped down over the side of the ship. They didn't know who she was. She looked at Aiden as the water hit her thighs. He wasn't even looking at her. Maybe he didn't recognize her either.
Whether the lie was in any measure clever was yet to be determined. All she had to do was focus on hiding in plain sight. She just had to get away from Aydesreve.
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