Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (39 page)

Jessie frowned. “You’re a
good man. She’s lucky to have you.” She knocked on the door.

Within seconds, the door was
flung open and Elizabeth stood in front of her. The other woman’s eyes were
glassy with tears, and she stared at Jessie for a moment.

“You’re back.” She pulled
Jessie into an embrace so tight she almost squeezed the air right out of her
lungs. She turned and shouted, “Luke!”

Jessie heard him before she
saw him, the shuffling of his feet, the heaviness as he limped toward the door.

“What?” Luke asked. That
single word was slowly spoken and bleak.

Elizabeth stepped to the side
as Luke came around the corner.

Soot and ash clung to his
hair and his clothes. His hands were clenched, his posture straight and stiff,
as if he struggled to stand. In the glow of the gas lamps, his eyes were
glassy, and black trails of soot streaked his cheeks.

“Jess?” His entire body went
still, and a muscle bulged in his jaw.

“Luke.”

He gestured to Emmitt with
his fist. “Give him anything he wants, Duchess,” he said in a voice as jagged
as broken arrows.

“Anything? I think I might
run that by Mordecai when he wakes up first.”

Mordecai?

“Anything.” Luke’s voice was
so low she could barely hear him. When his eyes met hers, she was horrified by
what stood in his eyes.

Tears.

“Luke?” she asked, her heart
trembling and threatening to break. She stepped forward to touch him, but he
flinched and pushed her hands away.

The grip he had on her upper
arms bordered on painful. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” He shook her a
little. “Do you understand me? Never again.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t care about your
sorry. Just promise me.” His eyes bored into Jessie like a pickax into rock.
She would have sworn they left holes in her skin.

“Never again.”

She may have deserved the
violence she saw in his eyes, but what she got was more punishment than even
she deserved.

Luke released his breath in a
whoosh
, and his face crumpled.
Collapsing to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her waist, wrapped his
hands in her skirts and pulled her to him. He pressed his face to her
midsection and held her tight. He inhaled deeply and released it. Took another
breath and held it for a moment before it was released in a gust.

He had mourned her.

Tears gathered in her eyes
and began to fall, and she didn’t bother to stop them. She stroked his head.

“We thought you were in
The Desert Belle
when it went up.”
Elizabeth nodded to Luke. “He’s been there all day, and Jonah only now
convinced him to return. It’s been… it’s been a bad day.”

The floorboards creaked as
Elizabeth showed Emmitt inside. Silence stretched between them.

“Luke.” Her knees shook, and
she wanted to sink to the ground with him, but Luke’s arms around her waist
kept her upright. Emotion tightened her throat. “I’m so sorry.”

He was silent, and that
damned her all the more.

Slowly, he unwound his fists
from her skirt and rose to his feet.

“Come inside.” His voice was
gruff.

She hesitated. “Luke?”

“Don’t fight me. Just...
Please.”

Jessie followed him into the
house and shut the door behind them. She heard Emmitt’s voice coming from the
parlor, and she thought Luke would join them, but instead, he stalked down the
dark hallway.

“Luke?” she asked again.

She deserved his angry words.
She deserved it if he left her, after everything she’d done.

He stopped, but didn’t turn
to face her. “What?”

His back was tight, and his
shoulders shook. For a moment, she simply stood there, unsure what to do for a
man obviously in so much pain.

She rubbed his back. “I’m
sorry.”

“Told you. I don’t need your
apology.”

“Then what do you need?” She
wrapped her arms around him and pressed her chest against his back.

He turned. His eyes were wide
and glassy, and his jaw was clenched. The hand he drew over his mouth trembled.
“You. I need you.”

Desire thrummed through her,
so heady she felt drunk, wild and impulsive.

Only Luke could make her feel
this way.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

“You don’t know what you’re
saying.”

“Maybe I do.” Her hands
itched to touch him, to tear his clothes off and hers and bring them both home.
“Maybe I don’t care.”

She was exhausted and she
hurt, and Luke needed her as much as she needed him. Gentle or fierce, wild or
cautious, she accepted him as he was.

Mine.

The thought brought her back
to the night in the Shaeffer mine, when he’d shouted to her ancestors,
This one is mine.

If only she’d know then how
true that statement was and had always been.

His arm snaked around her
waist. “Jessie,” he whispered.

She threw herself at him.

Luke locked his arms around
her and leaned forward to open the door behind her. Before he’d even kicked it
shut, he’d already begun pulling her skirt up. He fumbled with the laces of her
drawers. Unable to undo the ties, he simply broke them, and they slid down her
body.

He lifted her in his arms and
pulled her close, the heat of her body flush against him. She wrapped her legs
around his waist as he pressed her against the wall.

He was inside her before she
even had the chance to think or react, his invasion swift. He stretched her and
filled her as he pushed inside, deeper than she thought possible. Each thrust
brought him farther from the edge he’d been in danger of going over, and closer
to her, to the Heaven they found in one another’s arms and nowhere else. That
place where they could forget everything standing in their way and just be,
where it was Luke and Jessie and no one else. No violence, no war, no hell and
no ancestors. Just the two of them, going into forever together.

What she had in those few,
precious moments was infinite.

They reached their climaxes
together, his body convulsing in rhythm with hers. He held her for a moment,
his face buried in her neck, and he inhaled deeply. Stepping away, he hitched
up his trousers and buttoned them, and reached out to touch her.

“Jessie,” he began
uncertainly.

She noticed his hands as they
touched her, and she gasped. They were black with soot, so maybe that was why
she hadn’t noticed angry red blisters across his hands and his arms.

Jessie took his hands in hers
and turned them over. “Luke, your hands.”

He pulled away, and again, distance
crept into the short space between them. “They’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t shut me out. It is
important.”

“I thought you were dead.” He
closed his eyes and stayed that way for a long time. “What happened to you?”

The pain in his voice made
her ache. She put her hands on his chest and felt the beating of his heart
through his shirt. “Are you sure you want to know?”

The answering kick of his
heart was her answer.

She undid the first few
buttons, exposing his undershirt. Trailed her fingers down his neck.

He leaned into her touch. “Did
they… did he…”

The despair in his voice hurt
Jessie’s heart.

“I’m fine and I’m here. That’s
what matters.”

“Did they hurt you?” His
voice sounded strangled, as if he struggled just to force the words out.

She understood the question
beneath the question. “No. Just bumps and bruises.”

He nodded, but she wasn’t
entirely sure if he believed her. Leaning past her, he turned a knob, and water
began pumping from a faucet attached to the ceiling.

She’d heard these
contraptions existed, but she’d never seen one for herself.

Luke took off his shirt and
his undershirt. Rubbed his chest as if it hurt. “I couldn’t stop thinking about
it. The whole time you were gone, it was all I thought about. I couldn’t stand
the thought of you alive, because I know what they’ll do to you to break you. I
couldn’t stand the thought of you dead because I can’t… I can’t imagine a world
without you in it.”

He paused for a long time,
staring at a place behind her head.

He leaned forward and began
unbuttoning her blouse. Careful hands pushed it from her shoulders, removed her
skirt and petticoat. He unhooked her corset and pulled her chemise over her
head, and tenderly, he removed the pins from her hair and unwound the bun she’d
constructed before leaving Emmitt’s house.

“If they’d broken you…” He
toyed with her hair, and wound it around his fist.

Jessie stepped in closer to
him and pressed her breasts against his chest, offering him comfort in the only
was she knew how.

“I’m not broken.”

“Let me finish.” His voice
was rough. “If they’d broken you, I would’ve spent the rest of my life putting
you back together. Broken was acceptable to me. Death was not. And I’m not sure
what’s worse. That I can’t live my life without you, or what I was willing to
accept in exchange for your life. If they’d broken you, death would have been a
kindness. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“I’m not broken,” she
repeated. She ran her hands along his chest.

“You could have been.” He
caught her hands in his and lowered them. “And I am so selfish that I’d prefer
a broken woman to a dead one. Because if you’d died,
that
would have broken
me
.”
His voice faltered and he frowned.

He stepped out of his
trousers and moved under the falling water. His silver leg caught the light and
sparkled. He closed his eyes as the water sluiced over his body, creating
rivers of dark soot that circled the drain in the floor and disappeared.

When he opened his eyes, he
extended his hand, and his expression caught her off guard.

My
husband loves me
.

She took his hand and joined
him under the fall of water.

Luke fingered the ring in his
pocket.

Over the course of the last
week, while they made their preparations, he’d gotten to know the woman he’d
married. He’d discovered her heart, and heard her laugh, and seen her face
shine with real joy. She was everything he remembered, and so much more.

Jessie hadn’t given him more
than a bare bones account of what had happened to her, and though Elizabeth
argued that he didn’t need to know the details, he’d read her debrief before
Elizabeth had grammed it to Chicago.

The fire. The thermite
grenade. The jump from the airship. The Duvalls.

Beauregard Fontaine.

If Luke ever had the
opportunity to meet the man, he’d kill him where he stood.

Reading her account of what
had happened made him feel sick. He’d come so close to losing her. The Rebs
wouldn’t have been kind if they’d taken her—he knew what they did to
their captives. With that in mind, he’d spent the better part of the week
trying to talk her out of coming along, but with both Jameson and Elizabeth
backing her, Chicago had approved the idea. He couldn’t change things now if he
tried. Even as de facto team leader, orders were orders, and Chicago would yank
him from this mission if he pushed it too hard.

And Jessie would kill him if
he did.

That didn’t mean he didn’t
understand what might need to be done. It just meant he wouldn’t be the one to
do it this time.

Luke stepped into the foyer,
and stopped cold when he heard Elizabeth’s voice ask, “How’s Luke?”

There was a long pause before
Jessie answered. “Keeps trying to talk me out of going with them.”

“You can see his point, can’t
you?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t hesitate.
Jessie understood, she just wouldn’t listen.

“But it wouldn’t stop you
from going, would it?”

“Are you asking for me or for
Luke?” Jessie’s voice held no censure, just curiosity.

“I like you well enough, but
I’m asking for Luke.” Elizabeth said. She’d always looked out for him, even
before she’d joined their team as their photographic analyst and Jameson’ wife.
“Tactically, sending you is the most logical thing we could do. Or it would be,
if we didn’t have Luke. But we do have Luke, and that makes me nervous. If
Mordecai could go in his place, I’d send him.”

Luke stepped into the entry
to the sitting room.

Jessie shifted uncomfortably.
“Luke won’t let me leave without him.”

Elizabeth smiled up at him.
If he didn’t her know as well as he did, he would have sworn the woman had not
a care in the world. But he did, and he saw the exhaustion and the worry
pulling hard on her features.