“In your trunk, boy! Aren’t T.C.’s research books in your trunk?” He was frowning at her, his handsome forehead creased deeply.
“I haven’t looked inside, sir, but it’s heavy enough to hold Mr. Jefferson’s library,” she shot back.
Eli laughed but then rubbed his hand over his mouth to cover it.
Mr. Grady’s frown didn’t change. “I’m sure your mother finds your disrespect amusing, but I don’t. Look over there at that pouch and you’ll see some plants that I picked because I’ve never seen them before. Am I right in assuming that since you don’t know what the birds are that you don’t know what the plants are either?”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, that’s right. I don’t know anything but the roses in my mother’s garden. Oh! Sorry, sir, I wasn’t trying to make a joke. I’ll get the books out and look up what the plants and birds are.”
It was Alex’s time to hide his laughter. He exchanged looks with Eli, and they both shook their heads. If Grady and Cay were going to spend the weeks ahead arguing, it was going to be a very interesting trip. Alex thought that if Grady got so angry he sent Cay packing, he, Alex, would, of course, have to go with her.
As they started down the river, Alex felt that a weight was being lifted off his body, and as he glanced down at Cay, seated on the floorboards, her sketchpad in front of her, a dozen plants on her lap and beside her, he smiled. He was glad he’d not left her behind. If he had, he knew he’d be worried about her now. He knew he didn’t trust even the supposedly glorious Adam to look after her properly.
“Want me to hold those for you?” She was struggling to keep a plant still in the breeze so she could see exactly how the leaves attached to the stem. T.C.’s drawings were as much science as they were art. She knew that in the best nature drawings, a person could see the fuzz on the leaves, count the nettles, and, most importantly, identify it by its Latin name—or see that it hadn’t yet been given one.
Cay grimaced. “If you help, he’ll probably say that I’m not working.” She motioned her head toward Mr. Grady, who stood at the helm, looking out at the placid water. The St. Johns was well known to be a “lazy” river. It was wide, sometimes even three miles across, and its flow was very slow, and in what had been seen of it by explorers, its elevation varied little.
Alex looked back at Cay. “It’s my job to get dinner, so that means birds and fish. How about if I let you draw whatever I shoot or catch before Eli skins it for the pot?”
“That’s a wonderful idea.”
The gratitude in her eyes made Alex shake his head. She was looking up at him through her thick eyelashes, from under the brim of her straw hat, and he’d never seen a prettier girl—or one more kissable. How could the others not see she was female?
“Mind if I help my little brother with the plants and animals?” Alex called across the deck to Grady.
“Whatever you need to do, do it, but don’t neglect your own duties.” He was studying his charts and didn’t look up at Alex.
“There, now, I told you things would be all right.”
“You usually make them so,” she said as she looked back at her drawing paper.
Her words made him feel good.
Six hours later, he was beginning to wish he’d never volunteered for the job. At Cay’s insistence, but much to Eli’s disgust, each bird he shot had been different, and he’d turned them over to her to draw.
At first, she couldn’t figure out how to pose them. She’d leaned the first one against a tied-down crate and, as she’d been taught, she drew exactly what she saw. When she finished, she had a picture of a dead bird against an old board. It wasn’t pretty.
Mr. Grady glanced at the drawing and asked her if she meant to paint the cooking pot next to it. Eli looked at her as though asking how she’d take this rough criticism, but Mr. Johns’s never-ending complaining had prepared her for anything Mr. Grady said.
“Imagination!” Cay muttered under her breath and quickly sketched the bird as though it were alive and feeding. That she had no idea what the bird ate hindered her. Should she include an insect with the bird or a fish or a plant seed? “What does this bird eat?” she called to Alex.
“The curlew or the snipe?” he asked.
After a moment of staring at his back in disbelief, she used the strongest Scottish accent she could muster and told him in detail what she thought of him for concealing the fact that he knew one exotic Florida creature from another.
“A man must have a few secrets,” he said as he brought down another bird for her to draw.
An hour later, she hissed at him, “Just hold it still. How can I draw it if you don’t keep it from flapping about?”
“If I could wring the bloody thing’s neck, it would stop trying to get away,” he said under his breath. On his lap was one of half a dozen birds he’d shot that morning, but he’d only winged this one, and it was very much alive. Who could believe that a bird could be so strong? When it first woke up in Alex’s arms and immediately began trying to free itself, taking skin off Alex’s hands and arms in the process, he’d started to sil
ence it, but Cay had stopped him.
“It’s too beautiful to kill and certainly too lovely to eat. Just let me draw it, then you can release it.”
“You wouldn’t think it was beautiful if you—Ow! Here, you hold it and I’ll draw it.”
“I won the contest, remember?” She had to keep her head down to hide her smile.