Hijacking an Englishman from a brothel is all in a day's work for Captain Mattie St. Armand. She needs protective coloration, and a naïve (and expendable) white man will keep the eyes of the authorities off her as she smuggles slaves from the Florida Territory to freedom in the Bahamas. Oliver Woodruff wanted a spot of travel in the Caribbean before he settled down, but he never expected "Marauding Mattie." He'll help her, but he knows there's no place in his world for the bastard daughter of a pirate and a freedwoman. As Mattie trains him for their ruse, she comes to realize he's a man she can turn to for support and companionship, and Oliver grows to love the commanding and daring woman who refuses to fit society's mold... but both are sure their relationship is doomed by society's taboos. It will take danger and adventure (and Roscoe the parrot) to convince them that the passion between them is more than an island fantasy.