Your Wish Is My Command by Donna Kauffman Page A

and boats, huh?” she asked, then laughed when he looked confused.
    He straightened then. “What are these drawings for, mademoiselle?”
    “It's a hobby of mine. Building model ships.” She shrugged. “Boats aren't just for boys, I guess.”
    “I see.” That teasing light came back into his eyes, making her throat suddenly dry. “And your new project just happens to be a privateer schooner. Interest-ing.
    She should have left well enough alone. The man was a walking Y chromosome. And her X's were all clamoring to get closer.
    She cleared her throat. “Yes, well.” She turned her attention to the plans. “You're wrong about the halyard. I do very careful research, and every source I checked specifies that it looks exactly like that.”
    “Then you have faulty resources. I sailed a ship just like her.” He grinned wickedly. “And I've boarded one or two others in my time.” He pushed several papers around and slid the plan showing the rigging profile on top. “Yours is the original design, but privateers have, shall we say, specific needs. We were quite innovative in rebuilding our ships to suit our own purposes.” He pointed to a scale drawing at the bottom of the plan. “This actually goes here. Connects there. That way the captain can hoist the sails far more swiftly when he has to get underway in haste.” He winked. “Something that came in particularly handy in my former occupation.”
    Right. As a pirate. With Laffite. She hadn't forgotten that part, really. She'd just … tucked it away for a while. Now it was untucked again, and she still didn't know exactly what to think. He sounded absolutely convincing. “I … I'll take it under advisement and do a bit more research.” She took the plan from his hands, stifling a small shiver when her fingertips brushed his warm skin. “Thanks.”
    He turned back to the scatter of plans on her workbench and flipped through them. “There are some other design flaws here.”
    Bristling, she looked past his shoulder at the plans she'd so painstakingly labored over. “These are commercial plans, but after fairly exhaustive research, I fine-tune and alter them to make as exact a replica as I can. I take a great deal of pride in my level of accuracy. I know my ships.”
    He turned and pinned her with his dark, penetrating gaze. “So,
mon amie
, do I.”
    Jamie suddenly decided that maybe this was one argument she didn't really want to have. She might have daydreamed on occasion about Sebastien's piratical claims. Okay, so there had been one or two hot and sweaty night dreams in there as well. But maybe it was best to walk away from all that. Right now.
    He took a step closer. She stepped back. He didn't move closer, but the oxygen was rapidly evaporating anyway. The man consumed space. This was no time to speculate about who he might really be. When he looked at her like that, she had no trouble whatsoever seeing him climbing the rigging of a pirate ship, muscles bulging, cutlass clenched firmly between two sets of white teeth.
    He leaned back against the workbench and folded his arms. “You can hardly be held accountable for faulty historic documentation.”
    She narrowed her eyes but managed to refrain from a retort.
    “Do you have any finished models?”
    “They're still packed. I haven't decided where to display them downstairs. I haven't had much time to get my apartment in order yet.”
    “Yet you have time to work on a hobby.” He bent over the ship again. “Interesting.”
    She made a face at his back, then quickly masked it when he whirled around to face her.
    “I'd like to see them sometime.” He wasn't playing with her now. His interest seemed very sincere.
    She didn't know how she felt about that. Part of her felt suddenly shy at the idea, even though she was very proud of her level of craftsmanship. Another part of her wanted to sit down and go over every model, questioning him endlessly on what he knew. Whether it was from personal