Chapter nineteen
Nassau, Bahamas“Anything wrong, skipper?” Matthew Balsinger asked, downing a brandy, a barmaid in his lap.
“I’m fine,” Denning answered, his reply clipped.
“You say so.”
For Joshua Denning everything was not fine. He couldn’t concentrate the way he used to. Outside of sitting at the tavern table with his first mate, who was becoming more intoxicated by the minute, Denning had been keeping to himself for days. Everything once familiar to him was now strange and distant. Food and liquor were tasteless. He couldn’t sleep at night. The last few days his mind kept wandering back to Wilmington... and Marie. He thought for the hundredth time of how he had held her. He had been thrilled by the magic of her soft touch, the feel of her tumbling long hair in his hands. He hadn’t
