Chapter Fourteen
Innocence Preserved
I eased the ketch in alongside of the catamaran’s left pontoon and tied it off. I looped the sack over my shoulder and climbed up onto the netted deck, which swayed beneath my weight.
I caught sight of Keturah sitting with her knees drawn up on the forward part of the catamaran as she watched the party on the platform unfold from a distance. I don’t think she’d heard me and there was a good reason for that.
She was crying. A better way of putting it was that she was sobbing her heart out.
I stepped closer to her across the netting and gently said, “They tell me that you like fruit so I brought a selection of it along with me.”
Startled she jerked up to her feet and almost tripped on the netting and fell overboard. Her eyes were puffy and awash with tears and her nose was running. I’d been the one to completely startle her this time.
I stepped closer and set the sack of fruit down. She seemed to be in shock, which abruptly seemed to coalesce into the need to escape from the embarrassment of being caught unawares during an emotional moment.
She started to turn away from me, but I gripped a hold of her upper arm and held her still. I brought a rag up and wiped at her cheeks and then her nose.
Holding the rag to her nose I said, “Blow.”
She looked supremely embarrassed but she obeyed. I tossed the rag overboard, as I eased my grip on her upper arm to a caress of her soft skin.
“You didn’t think I was coming back did you?” I asked already knowing the answer.
“I…… I……” She stuttered to speak and I kissed her cutting off further effort to pronounce anything other than to conform her lips to the heated pressure of mine.
I drew back after a moment to see that her look of shock had only increased at the suddenness of events. Her mouth had fallen open and it was a real temptation not to kiss her again. The kiss despite her shock of it had been sweet. In a way everything about her was sweet.
I pulled a fruit from my pocket that resembled a plum, but tasted much differently and placed it against her open lips. Reflexively her teeth closed down and broke the surface of the sweet fruit. I smiled and let go of her arm and moved away to sit on the netting and then lay back with my hands behind my head.
I stared upwards at the canopy of shifting clouds for a moment as I heard Keturah come closer and sit down beside me as she continued to eat the fruit that I had given her.
Not looking at her I said, “I miss the stars in the night sky, especially out over the ocean where there is no competing light to take away from the effect of their brightness.”
Keturah lay down beside me and I glanced over at her to see her gazing up at the clouds overhead with real fascination.
“What’s it like up there?” She asked softly.
“I’ll tell you.” I then started to explain all the created cosmos above the limits of her sight. I explained about the sun and the moon. The planets in orbit and the stars further out. I talked about a lot of things as I sought to fill the curiosity she had as one who had never seen the common things that I had so often just taken for granted.
At some point during my lengthy discourse her fingers had inched over closer and closer to mine and eventually I took her hand and held it as we talked back and forth for hours. At some point I fell asleep still holding her hand.
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Keturah’s elbow was tired and a little painful from where the netting bit into it, but she continued to ignore both ailments as she leaned on it to gaze down at the sleeping man beside her. Her man.
Her whole personality warmed at that transforming thought and all manner of thoughts occurred to her of how different her lonely existence upon the waves was going to be because of what this man would bring to her life and already had in so many ways.
The best moments of her life had been when he had lain awake for hours as he described the wonders of the world above to her. She’d never had such a companionable moment with an individual before and she loved him for giving her the gift of his time and interest in just her and nobody else.
Her gaze fell onto the curiously indented ring of flesh on his left hand and her eyes got wet again. She’d cried quietly for more than an hour earlier, when she’d seen the absence of the ring on his finger.
She wouldn’t have minded at all if he’d kept it for she knew what it symbolized, but somehow him removing it meant so much more. She’d learned from the one called Matt all about Eli’s family.
It was no intention of hers to ever replace the significance of his dead wife, she had only wanted to share what was left. And that would’ve been enough to be content with. Never in her wildest dreams would she have ever expected a man like Eli to fully commit himself to someone like her, but that was just the kind of man that he was.
She was a lucky woman. The Creator had smiled down on her for some reason unknown to her.
Being the woman of such a man gave her significance in life. She was significant now, at least in her own eyes. It was an odd concept to realize about herself.
Maybe she’d always been significant and it had just taken this further blessing by the Creator to make known to her the truth of the matter. She’d dreamed about this man for years and now he was finally here on her boat. It was almost too good to be true.
He’d kissed her and then talked for hours and while he hadn’t said in so many words that he was committed to her his actions had. She glanced around speculatively. For the most part everyone on the village platform was still asleep. Even then the two of them were almost invisible as it was from those on the platform anyway.
She glanced back to Eli. Perhaps they could take things a little deeper than just a kiss?
Her fingers went to the laces at her shoulders that held her dress-up, but she stopped and let her fingers fall away. He should be the one to instigate something deeper and not her.
She stared at him in frustrated yearning. She so wanted him!
She wanted his lips on hers again so badly she could taste it.
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“I’m not going to bite.” I said with humor.
Keturah’s startled eyes jerked up to mine and I smiled warmly at her as she squeaked out, “What?”
“You look like you’re in desperate need of a kiss. If you want one go ahead.”
Slowly her lips lowered to mine and our lips touched softly for a moment.
When she pulled back nervously I smiled at her and asked, “You’ve never kissed anyone before me have you?”
She got an even more embarrassed look on her face, “Is it that painfully obvious?”
I pulled her chin up, “Innocence is not a bad thing. It’s a very good thing. A precious thing.”
Her embarrassment died down and we stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. There was something I had to ask as my consciousness was killing me.
“How old are you Keturah?”
“Twenty-three.” She responded a little defensively.
“Keturah I’m almost twice your age. It’s not too late to call this off. Are you sure you want to be the wife of an older man?”
The look in her eyes was intense, “I want to be your woman and not any other man’s or I wouldn’t have waited! As for age what does it matter! You are not old, and even if you were I would still want to be yours! In a way I have an assurance that other women do not have.”
“What’s that?” I asked in surprise.
Her eyes got teary and she touched my finger absent of a ring, “You loved your wife very much didn’t you?”
I nodded emotionally.
“And yet you gave up your bond to her in order to be fully committed to me did you not?”
My voice was thick with emotion as I responded truthfully, “You don’t deserve to only have half a man.”
Keturah’s tears landed to splash on my hand as she smiled tremulously and said, “See, how many women can know the proven quality of a man’s commitment to them like I do with you?”
I reached my hand up and brushed the wetness of her tears off her cheek with my thumb.
“You are very special Keturah.”
With passion she said even as she pressed into the stroking caress of my thumb, “I’m yours whenever you want me!”
I tamped down the allure of her passioned offer to instead grasp her face with both of my hands tenderly, “Patience.” I said softly.
I saw frustration in her eyes at my statement of a virtue ever hard to master and so I explained to her the reason for why patience was needed.
“I have a rescue to plan and a war to win. When those two things are accomplished I promise you that I will make you mine. Deal?”
Reluctantly she nodded her head in acceptance of my wishes.
I pushed her over to her back and rolled over on top of her imprisoning her hands with mine beside her head as I did so. I watched her eyes get big even as I captured her lips with mine.
“How about we kiss for an hour or two before everyone starts getting up?” I asked teasingly.
“Do you have to ask?” She breathed out on a shaky breath.
I smiled, as I glanced at her hands that I held imprisoned against the netting even as her body lay beneath me captive, “No, I don’t suppose I do.”
I kissed her enjoying the innocence of her lips that still didn’t know quite what to do. There was another reason that I was holding off from consummating our union together.
In the coming struggle there was very much a real possibility that I might die. If that happened I wanted Keturah innocent virgin that she was to still have a gift to give to the man I prayed that God would bless her with if I wasn’t to be around.