Kate Hoffmann: The Pirate

She stood and tossed the leather pouch on the coffee table. "I don't believe this. It can't be possible. These are forgeries and you are a fraud."

"Believe what you will," he said. "I do not care. Now, do you possess a horse?"

Meredith stared up at him distractedly. "We're on Ocracoke Island. What good will a horse do you?"

He opened his mouth to speak, then schooled his expression into blandness. She understood the look. He didn't believe they were on Ocracoke Island, either. "Don't look at me like that!" she cried.

"Like what?"

She rubbed her forehead. "like you don't believe what I'm saying. Just stop this charade and tell me who you really are!"

"I have told you, girl. Would have me say it all again?"

"Stop it!"

He chuckled and shook his head. "All right, Merrie, my girl, I will believe whatever you will have me believe, as long as you find me a good horse and forget you ever met me."

She slowly approached him and sat down on the couch, staring into his eyes. "You aren't lying, are you?"

"No," he replied.

She buried her face in her hands and turned away from him, unable to look at him any longer. "Oh, God, I am going crazy. This hurricane has sent me right over the edge. There's just no way… no way… it just isn't possible. I have to be dreaming, that's the only explanation."

He stepped in front of her and pried her fingers off her eyes. "The horse, Merrie. I need a horse."

Merrie avoided his gaze, logic at war with reality, the battle jangling her nerves and muddling her mind until she could not think straight. She drew a deep breath, then spoke the words, words she didn't really believe, but words that had to be said. "Griffin, I want you to listen to me very carefully and answer truthfully. Do you consider yourself an open-minded man?"

He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand, drawing her gaze up to meet his pale, wary eyes. She felt a flood of warmth rush through her body as their eyes locked and she didn't pull away. His touch didn't frighten her. Instead, it seemed to calm her, to prove that he was a real man and not just a figment of her imagination.

"I do not understand," he said softly, his brow furrowed with concern. "Open-minded?"

"A-a freethinker," she amended. "Do you consider yourself a freethinker?"

"Yes," he said. "I do."

"And what about science? Do you believe there are many things yet to be explained in our world, many things that will become clear to future generations?"

He nodded solemnly. "I would have to agree with that theory," Griffin said.

Meredith drew a steadying breath and pushed ahead. "Then I want you to consider the fact that you might not belong here. That you might have-" She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I can't believe I'm about to say this." She opened her eyes, then reached up and grabbed his hand from her face, squeezing it hard. "That you might have somehow stepped through… I don't know what to call it… a door in time."

He nodded indulgently, drawing away from her before picking up his boots. He winced as he pulled the left boot up to his swollen knee. "Of course, Merrie, I think that may be very likely. A quite proper theory, if I do say so myself. You are a very clever girl."

"I'm not insane, Griffin, so please don't treat me like I am. I am dead serious here."

Griffin chuckled, tugged on his other boot, then retrieved his tattered waistcoat. "Of that I am sure. Now, I must take my leave." He grabbed the pouch from the coffee table and retied the leather thong around the canvas, then tucked it inside his waistcoat.

"You can't go out there," Meredith said, grabbing his hand.

He grasped her shoulders gently, sending another rush of warmth through her limbs. "The storm is nearly over," he murmured. "Do not worry yourself. I will be safe. I have faced much worse and lived to tell the tale."

Meredith stared up into his eyes, eyes that in such a short time had become intimately familiar to her. How could she convince him of what she believed? How could she tell him that he'd been kidnapped from his task and dropped into the twentieth century?

"You saved my life, Merrie. I will not forget ye." He bent down and kissed her gently on the cheek. The touch of his firm lips on her skin sent a frisson of desire straight to her core. She felt her knees wobble slightly and her breath catch in her throat. Hesitantly, she reached up to place her hands on his chest, but then he was gone, heading toward the door.

"Wait!" she cried. "I have to show you something before you leave."

He forced a smile and walked back to the couch. "What is it, Merrie?"

Frantically, she searched the dimly lit room for something, anything that might prove her theory. If the electricity were working, she could show him any number of things-the television, the microwave, the lights. But without electricity…

Her gaze stopped on the can of shaving cream that still sat on the coffee table. "Hold out your hand," she ordered.

He frowned, but did as he was told. She pushed the button on the can and white foam exploded from the nozzle. He snatched his hand away then shook the foam from it. "It's shaving cream," she said. "Watch." She shook the can again and began to build a mound of lime-scented foam in her own hand. "It's an aerosol can. Look at it, Griffin. All this foam out of such a tiny can. Do you have this where you come from? Do you even have tin cans?"

He backed away, his expression leery, but she followed him, wiping the foam from her hand and snatching the flashlight. She flipped it on and shined it in his eyes. "And this? Light with the push of a button. See, there's no flame." Meredith laughed. "You don't even have electricity yet. Benjamin Franklin is just a boy. He hasn't even thought of experimenting with a kite and a key." She pushed the flashlight into his grip and showed him how it worked, but as soon as she let go, he threw it to the floor as if it had burned his hand.

"You are a witch," he said.

She grabbed him by the hands. "Look at me. Look at the way I'm dressed. Do you recognize clothes like these? My name is Meredith Elizabeth Abbott. I was born on March nineteenth, 1968. Nineteen sixty-eight," she repeated more slowly. "Almost three hundred years after you. And outside is a whole new world, a world with cars and planes and computers. We're no longer part of the British Empire, we're a nation that stretches from one coast to another. We've fought a war for our independence and won, and we fought a/war against each other that tore this country in two. Griffin, we landed a man on the moon more than twenty-five years ago."

He disentangled his fingers from hers and slowly backed toward the door. "For your own safety, Merrie, I would not repeat these words to another soul. There are some that might burn you at the stake for such heresy."

"Griffin, please, don't go out there. Not until you understand what's waiting. Not until you believe me."

He grabbed the doorknob and opened the door. The cold, damp wind blew in around him, whipping his long dark hair around his face and making the wide sleeves of his linen shirt flutter.

Their gazes met for a long moment, his blue eyes piercing to the very center of her soul, and she knew he didn't believe her. And then, he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

Meredith stood frozen in place, unable to think of anything more she might say to him. She tipped her head back and sighed. He would have to learn on his own, see the world with his own eyes. He couldn't go far. They were on an island that was only sixteen miles long and a mile wide, and the ferries wouldn't start running again until the seas had calmed.

If he came to believe her, he would be back, and if he didn't…well, if he didn't, there was nothing more she could do for him. Meredith rubbed her eyes, then turned and walked to the bedroom. It was nearly three in the morning and she'd been awake for almost twenty-four hours. The storm had quieted enough for her to sleep now.