Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (2 page)

Jessie shoved the business
end of her shotgun into his chest and jerked Smythe’s revolver from his
holster. She aimed the pistol at Jeb’s head. “Throw down your weapons!”

Jeb tossed his weapon into
the snow before Jessie had even finished her sentence.

“Good.” She whooped twice,
loud. She gestured to the third man, who lay on his back after having been
bucked off his horse. “Go join your friend. I want him disarmed, too.” She
paused. “Oh, and Jeb? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“No, ma’am.”

“You’ll pay for this,” Smythe
growled. “Don’t you get it? There’s a war going on. No one cares about any of
this, so long as they get their silver. We’re the ones who give it to them.
What do you have?”

Jessie nodded slowly as she
watched Jeb walk to his compatriot, take the gun from his holster, and throw it
several yards away. She would pay. She always did.

“You can’t win this,” Smythe
said, and his voice took on a jeering edge, despite the fact that her shotgun
was pressed into his chest.

“I’ll take my chances.” She
stood, leaning heavily on the shotgun.

Smythe groaned.

Taba appeared, a ghostly gray
horse materializing out of the snow.

Jessie gestured toward Jeb
and the other man, who was now sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. “You’ll
want to start walking down the mountain. It’ll be dark soon, and the storm’s
getting worse. Wouldn’t want you to get caught outside in this.”

“You can’t think you can take
on men like Mackey and Fitzpatrick and win,” Smythe sneered. “You can’t. You’ll
lose.”

“Not sure I care overmuch.
The reason your Mackeys and Fitzpatricks don’t like me is because I don’t have
a whole lot left to lose.”

“You’d be surprised,” Smythe
said as he limped toward his men. “The sheriff will hear about this.”

“I look forward to it.” She
gestured down the hill with the barrel of her shotgun. “Quick now. Don’t want
you to catch cold.”

She swung herself up onto
Taba’s back, and watched the men as they made their way down the mountain. Once
they had disappeared into a swirl of snow and soot, Jessie nudged Taba toward
home.

* * * *

By the time Jessie got home,
the sun had long set, and the storm showed no sign of letting up. Even the ore
processors had stopped their endless crashing. Maybe the merchants were right.
Maybe this really would be the worst storm since the winter of ‘46.

Her aging wolf-cross, Muha,
lifted her head and thumped her tail when Jessie walked in, but didn’t get up.

Hanging her shotgun up on the
wall, she stoked the fire in the coal-fired stove.

“Weather getting to you, old
girl?”

Jessie bent down and
scratched the dog behind her grizzled ears, and Muha thumped her tail slowly.
She adjusted Muha’s blanket and stroked her long muzzle.

“When the weather lets up, we’ll
go hunting with Taba, right? Find you a nice jackrabbit.”

Muha’s head shot up, and a
growl rumbled up from the depths of her chest.

“Mu?”

The old wolf barked twice,
got up, and growled again.

“Don’t worry, old girl.
Probably just the sheriff.”

Not that he would venture out
in this storm. No one would, unless they wanted to cause trouble. The sheriff
had done plenty of that, but he wouldn’t risk his neck for someone like her.

Someone knocked, and Muha’s
tentative barking turned hysterical.

Taking her revolving shotgun
back down, she crept to the lever that would pull down the shutters and arm the
Gatling gun mounted to the rooftop.

“Go home, sheriff. Not
talking to you today.”

“It’s not the sheriff.”

Her hand froze and the
shotgun clattered to the floor. Gooseflesh dotted her arms and her pulse
quickened, a frantic
rat-a-tat-tat
like a hail of bullets, as her body recognized what her logical mind denied.

The room went quiet. Muha sat
with her ears pricked up, her tail thumping cautiously against the worn pine
floor. The wolf recognized the gravelly voice, too.

The knock became more
insistent, sharper. “Please open the door, Jessie.”

It was a dead man’s voice.

She struggled to fill her
lungs with air as the pine door shook beneath her visitor’s heavy fists. Those
hands would be big and strong and ridged with calluses. Her heart twisted
painfully in her chest, and she tried not to think about them. Or their owner.

She’d gotten over his loss
just like she’d gotten over all the others.

With trembling hands, Jessie
picked up her shotgun and rested it against the wall. Her legs leaden, she
walked to the door and put her hand on the knob, but hesitated.

She’d dreamed of this moment
for years, of this man walking back into her life.

Now she couldn’t bring
herself to let him in.

“Please. It’s freezing out
here.”

She turned the knob, and Luke
Bradshaw stood in her doorway, the brim of his hat heavy with snow, and small
flakes clung to the dark lashes fringing his silver eyes.

He was as tall as she
remembered, towering over her as he stood on her sagging front porch, bringing
with him the scent of smoke and sulfur and snow. A black slouch hat covered his
head and rested low over his eyes, and a black duster swirled around his
bright-spurred boots. The silver six-shooter on his left hip glittered in the
low light, and a large, black satchel was strapped to his broad back.

Muha pushed her head past the
door.

Luke gave her a lopsided
smile and took off his hat. “Hi, Jess.” A scar she didn’t remember ran through
his right eyebrow, another creased his chin. He held his hand out to Muha and
scratched behind her grizzled ears, the way he always used to greet her. He
handed her a piece of jerky, and, despite the long years, a friendship was
immediately rekindled. “There’s a girl.”

“Luke.” Jessie reached out to
touch his cheek. The stubble of his unshaven jaw was rough beneath her palm and
his skin was cold. Her fingers trembled as she traced his lips, his breath warm
against them.

He kissed her fingertips.

Dead men didn’t breathe or
kiss a girl’s fingers. Dead men didn’t leave as boys and come back as men. Dead
men didn’t come home with new scars or shiver with cold.

“You’re alive,” she
whispered.

“Yep.”

His sweet, boyish smile
melted her heart, and something inside her, denied for far too long, splintered
and howled in despair.

She slapped him.

The crack echoed in the
empty, snow-lit darkness behind him. Jessie stepped back to slam the door on
this would-be ghost who had the gall to walk back into her life and act as if
he’d never left.

A heavy leather boot blocked
the way, and the door bounced back. Luke rubbed the dark stubble on his jaw. “I
guess I deserved that.”

“You guess?” Her voice rose
and broke. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

She folded her arms. His
cheeks were pale—too pale, she realized, and she fought a silent battle
with herself. He’d lost all rights to her compassion. “I’m not cold,” she lied,
bracing against the door. Blocking out both him and the painful memories he
brought with him.

“C’mon. For old time’s sake.”

“If you cared about old
times, you would’ve come home. Maybe written to say you were alive. You could’ve
had the decency to tell me you weren’t coming back. All this time, I thought
you were dead.” She rubbed at the pain building in her chest.

He didn’t quite meet her
eyes. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You’re sorry?” Her voice was
in danger of cracking under the strain. “You’re gone for eight years and all
you have to say is ‘sorry’? You promised me you would come home. Instead, you
let me believe you were dead. Your ‘sorry’ isn’t enough.”

He reached out to touch her,
but she jerked out of his reach.

He stepped into the space she’d
vacated, though he made no move to enter further or to close the door behind
him. “Look, I came all the way from Chicago and I only got into Fort Clark this
morning. Avalanche closed the tracks in between Silver City and Gold Hill. I
hired this horse, and she’s exhausted. Just let me water and rest her. I need
you, Jessie.” He shivered and folded his arms against his chest. His silver
eyes bored into her, and she fought the urge to shrink back from him, in order
to protect her heart.

“Please. My horse won’t make
it back to town.”

Please,
he’d said, as if he believed she’d let a
horse die just because of her anger. Had he forgotten so much about her in his
time away? One look in her barn, and he’d know she’d never let that happen. Her
mother’s people revered such creatures, and he should damn well know it.

Despite the dark, Jessie
could see how the old nag’s ribs jutted out from her flesh. Luke was right.
This horse wouldn’t make it back into town in this weather.

And Luke wouldn’t make it
into town without a horse.

She squared her shoulders. “Fine.
Just for the night. You leave in the morning. Without that horse. You leave the
horse with me. She’ll be safe in my barn with the others.”

The shadow of a smile ghosted
his lips. “And me, Jess?”

“What about you?”

“You’re not gonna make me bed
down in the barn, are you?”

“Would serve you right if I
did.”

After a long silence, Luke
nodded. “You’re right, it would. But you wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

The night was as cold as any
she could recall. Even she was chilled, despite the warmth of the room behind
her. How cold he must be, having ridden all day in this blizzard. She
remembered the nights when, as a boy, he would show up on her porch, and how
her parents would take him in. He had never failed to make her father and
Gideon laugh, when the five of them would gather around the sitting room and
her father or Luke would tell stories to amuse them. Those were the days when
her family had been whole.

She’d treasured those
memories because, for a long time now, she thought she was the only one left.

Her parents would have taken
him in. Her brother would never turn him away. They would forgive him the long
absence and his silence. They would welcome him home.

But he hadn’t broken their
hearts.

She pressed the heel of her
hand to her forehead. “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Gid and my
parents. Not that they mattered to you any more than I did.”

He rubbed the scar creasing
his eyebrow and closed his eyes as if it hurt. “I cared for them more than you’ll
ever know.”

Careless hands waved away his
words. “Doesn’t matter, since they’re all gone now.”

“Jess—”

“Go take care of your horse.”

“I cared about you, too,” he
said gruffly.

“Take care of your horse!”
She shut the door.

Cared
. Eight years had passed since he’d left,
a long time for a man and a woman to be apart. Somewhere, he probably had a
wife and kids, some nice little white woman who could cook and sew, someone who
didn’t stir up trouble simply by walking in a room. Somewhere, he probably had
a home and a family to go back to.

Resting her head against the
worn, pine door, she fought back tears.

She was tempted to draw the
bolt, but she wouldn’t. If only out of deference to her mother and Gideon, she’d
let him back in. Jessie had enough of her mother in her to not turn away a
guest. Her ancestors had fought hard to survive in this harsh, high desert
landscape. They wouldn’t forgive the breach of hospitality.

Didn’t mean she had to like
it. Didn’t mean she would forgive him for forgetting her the way he had.

She banged the kettle on the
stove and went into the washroom to draw a bath. The water would be lukewarm at
best, if she didn’t light the boilers, and she had no intention of doing that.
Not for him.

Tomorrow she would send him
on his way. That should be enough for her ancestors to smile on her.

It was about time they did.

Luke closed the door behind
him and locked it. He whispered a greeting to Muha, who’d been an overgrown pup
when he and Gideon left. Then he checked the windows, and pushed aside the lace
curtains to stare into the dark.

It had been a long time since
she’d allowed a man in her house.

A long, long time.

It felt odd to not be alone.

Luke walked into the kitchen,
the sound of his footfalls uneven as he came to stand behind her and touched
the beaded, bone choker around her throat. His fingers grazed the sensitive
skin of her neck.

Her heart skipped like a flat
stone across still water. She turned her head to glare at him over her
shoulder.