Yes

“Do go on,” Michaels replied, actually looking for a moment as though he might take a sip of his beer, but eventually forgetting all about it again. The grey-haired man in front of him might come across as a little unhinged, but Brenan knew full well that he was not in a position of turning down an experienced man, not unless he was not so much a bit quirky as stark raving mad.

“I’m Brenan Kilgore, captain of a small schooner and in need of a gunnery officer,” Brenan began to explain, “it’s a merchant ship and not a pirate vessel, but there are still two twelve pounders aboard that needs looking after. If you take the job, your pay will be in the form of a cut of the profits we make.”

“Interesting,” Michaels’ nodding was a source of relief for Brenan, who had been somewhat afraid that his reply would come in the form of a crazed girlish giggle, “you said there were two twelve pounders aboard?”

“Yes.”

Michaels had pulled open a few of the buttons on his jacket and retrieved a notebook from its inside chest pocket, apparently deeming the leather-bound book in front of to be unsuitable for the scribbling and sketching that he’d now begun to busy himself with even as their conversation continued. It was an odd way of showing interest in his offer, but Brenan did rather like it. It was better than trying to coax him into buying him a beer to replace the flat one in front of him and then spending a smaller eternity haggling over large his cut ought to be.

“And how big’s the crew?”

“Seven at the moment, minus the gunnery officer,” Brenan replied.

“Well, I’m going to need at least four to handle the guns,” Michaels scribbled some more.

“I could probably spare that.” The two separate sets of brothers would have to go below deck in a fight, Brenan reasoned, leaving him and the women to handle the sails and the rudder.

“And do they know how to handle cannons?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Brenan admitted.

“Good,” Michaels showed no signs of intending to develop his enigmatic comment, “and you will give me full control over the development of the ship’s firepower?”

“To an extent.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Michaels bobbed his head again as Brenan’s answer seemed to provoke an unprecedented flurry of pencil draws across the paper in front of him, “my previous captain refused to hand me almost any control whatsoever. It was really quite taxing.”

“That would be Black Bart?”

“Yes,” Michaels expression soured at the mere mention of the name, “he’s a frightful man, and not one to show an appropriate amount of respect towards women.”

“I know,” Michaels’ disparaging comment about Black Bart put Brenan in a bit of a quandary. As much as he respected the man for refusing to go along with Black Bart’s god-awful way of treating women, it also meant that he now didn’t know if he could bring up Sasha’s current predicament without feeling like he was trying to manipulate him.

“There was that other offer,” Brenan started out carefully, having been quick in reaching the conclusion that he could feel bad about manipulating Michaels into helping him save Sasha once she was no longer in that red-headed bastard’s clutches.

“Ah, yes,” Michaels finally looked up from his sketching, and Brenan concluded that he would probably have to look at them later.

“I can’t tell you too much about it at this point,” Brenan had been carefully considering how much to tell Michaels for quite some time now, not knowing if he could really trust him and not wanting to involve too many people, “but there’s a woman in trouble and someone who knows how to handle explosives would probably come in pretty handy in getting her out of it.”

“A woman in trouble?” Mr. Michaels had now spent several seconds with glancing back down at his notebook, and had even gone so far as to put down his pen. His face was slightly paler too.

“Yes,” Brenan felt a bit bad about what he was doing, but pushed on anyway, “and I’m going to need you help me saving her if you want the job.”