Destiny's Magic by Martha Hix Page B

hello, Miss Phoebe. Fancy meeting ye here.”
    Phoebe clicked her tongue. Her attack of heart could be pegged only on girlish interest in the burly foreigner. He wasn’t much to look at, but nature being kind to aging women, this gal saw a lot to like in his less-than-perfect appearance.
    In fact, he’d been subject of her whimsies in the years since they met. Contemplations of using her third wish for her romance had involved this very fellow. When last Phoebe had seen him, on the ill-fated Delta Star, he’d tweaked her nipple.
    Throck made an attempt at sucking in his gut as he lumbered toward her. “Ain’t I lucky as a duck in water? Two lovely wimmen to look at.” But his eyes were only for Phoebe.
    Her silly heart fluttered again.
    He bent down, his stomach bowing toward his slewed feet. A blue eye winked at Phoebe. Smiling and displaying a quartet of golden teeth, he said, “Blimey, I’d hoped to find m’favorite redhead here. ’Tis four long years I spent thinking of ye.”
    Phoebe’s heart took another extra beat. By gosh, all wasn’t lost. The man of her dreams might want even more than a tweak. Maybe she wouldn’t need a magic lamp to get Throck.
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    â€œDamn the shipfitters who put this vessel together.” Burke scowled at the defective rod that was supposed to ease into the engine’s slide valve. “One-fingered idiots.”
    Feeling one-fingered himself, thanks to his aching palm, Burke mopped his brow with a forearm. “One entire night. And all today, and it’s still not working. We’re lucky we made it upriver and back.”
    Newt Storey, his head glistened with sweat, nodded. “ ’Tis a fact.”
    â€œSee that repairs are finished by bedtime, Storey.”
    â€œI’ve been here for hours. I’m ’ot and tired. Need fresh air.” The crew, used to Storey’s insubordination, ignored his tirade. “ ’Ell’s bells, I haven’t even had a chance to get a look at the lady passengers ever’one is yacking about.”
    â€œWell, pardon me, sir,” Burke came back sarcastically. “My aunt said otherwise. Remember your tip? You brought them aboard.”
    â€œA glance in the night, ’tis all I got.”
    Burke was in no mood for Storey. To the midnight hour of yesterday, the Hornet had made appearance after appearance in the engine room, nagging for a private word. Until he’d lost his temper and had raised the ceiling with bellows. “Say, Storey, why don’t you just sashay on up to a rocking chair? I’ll get a fan, then bathe your tootsies.”
    â€œAsshole.”
    â€œGet to work. We’ve been becalmed long enough.”
    All six of the engine-room crewmen, with Burke and Storey directing the project, had been atoil, each with shirt-sleeves rolled up. They had snatched little sleep, and were tired, hot, and hungry.
    Pippin had been an observer for several of those hours today, until heat and hunger drove him topside. Before leaving, the lad had asked question after question about faulty equipment. The men didn’t mind having a youth around. Burke had enjoyed Pip’s presence too, but found it peculiar that the boy never once addressed a query to the man in charge.
    But Pippin, his enthusiasm a delight, had come in handy to fetch tools or ladles of drinking water. A few months on a riverboat would make a man out of a boy, or at least let him witness good men.
    Burke eyed his good men. The crew was faithful, loyal, and true, outside of the infraction by the officers, Natchez now forgiven. And they were feeling the July heat.
    Plates of drying lunch, delivered earlier by Pip Paget—he was earning his grub, true!—sat uneaten on a ledge near the gas tank that served the lighting system. “That’s enough for now, men,” Burke ordered, finally cognizant that his crew couldn’t work at top efficiency unless their