“Ye have to stop looking at the man like ye are, lass.”
Brianna was pulled out of her daydreams. She was leaning forward on the railing of the deck, watching Nicholas wind up ropes with two other crewmen. He laughed at something one of the men said, and she couldn’t help but smile too. His good mood was infectious.
“I’m not looking at him any different than any other man,” she argued.
“Oh? I dare ye to make a nice face like that at Three-Toed Jim.” Joe pointed at one of the sailors who was sitting in the sunshine on the quarterdeck, resting and wriggling his three remaining toes on his left foot. He’d lost the other two to a cannonball years ago. The scraggly bearded man had no teeth, and his skin was a leathery brown from decades in the sun. He was also about as charming as a barnacle
