Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (4 page)

She didn’t bother to follow
his gaze. “You’re going to have to try. You’re not welcome here.”

He’d suspected that the
moment he’d walked through her door, though the words cut. What he’d wanted,
all those things he would have done if circumstances had been different, didn’t
matter. If he was lucky, he’d one day get the chance to explain his long
absence to her. If he wasn’t, then all the reasons in the world wouldn’t make a
bit of difference.

He forced a devil-may-care
grin and tried to cajole her as he’d cajoled her mother all those years ago. In
those days, Jessie had always had his back. “Oh, come now, what would the
ancestors say about that?”

“Don’t mock my ancestors. If
they had any sense, they’d applaud my judgment.”

“That’s no way to talk about
one’s ancestors. I’m sure yours are a sensible lot.” He motioned to the scarred
but sturdy kitchen table, where he’d once sat as a welcomed guest with her
family. “Why don’t you sit down? Breakfast is ready.”

“Is it poisoned?”

For some reason, her question
reminded him of all the times he’d teased her while sitting at this same table.
Remind her of those times. Get her to
trust you
.
She’s just an asset.

But she wasn’t, and never
would be.

He pushed the thought away. “I
suspect if anyone here was gonna be poisoned, it wouldn’t be you. I’m told it’s
bad form to poison my ‘generous benefactor,’ so it wasn’t something I planned.
I suppose if you have some handy, I could oblige. I hear arsenic goes quite
well with eggs, and you once told me it’s plentiful in these parts.”

“Eggs with a side of arsenic.
Sounds divine and it would serve me right for taking you in.”

“I guess it’s too bad I didn’t
think about it,” he said. The laughter he allowed to filter into his words wasn’t
entirely disingenuous. He had always liked her fire. The plate clanked loudly
against the table as he placed it in front of her. He took a seat across from
her and appraised her for a moment. “Eat. You look thin.”

Her eyes shone with wary
irritation, and she made no move to take up the fork he placed in front of her.
“For Christ’s sake.” He leaned over to take some eggs from her plate. “See?” he
asked around a mouthful of food. “Not poisoned.”

As if mocking him with her
slowness, she leaned forward and took an overly cautious bite.

“Nice, Jess.” They ate in
silence for a few moments. “You look pretty.”

Her expression shuttered, the
teasing he’d seen in her eyes disappearing. Her lips tightened, and she pushed
her plate away. “This helps the white folk remember who I am. Has nothing to do
with you.”

He stayed silent for a long
time, waiting for her to go on.

She kept her eyes locked on
the wall behind his head. “People stay away if they think I’m like my
grandfather. After Pop died in that mine collapse—oh, right, you weren’t
here for that—I figured it was best. This way, I know whoever comes to my
door isn’t here for a social call.”

Any light he felt just from
finally being in the same room with her after all these years darkened. “You
got trouble here, Jess?” The gruffness of his voice surprised even him.

She made a movement of her
shoulders that wasn’t quite a shrug. “These are troubled times. Nothing to
concern you.”

Her words left him feeling
strangely helpless, and he shoved the thought away before the desire to act
consumed him. He deserved whatever guilt she decided to lay on him. “What’s
going on here?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. Been
doing things alone for a long time, now. One thing I do know is that you’re not
here just to say hello. So why come all this way? Why now?”

He’d hoped to avoid this
topic for a little while longer, but it was clear that the trust he’d hoped to
earn wasn’t in the cards. Seemed he brought her nothing but pain.

“I brought you Gideon’s
letter.”

She brushed something from
her dress, and he didn’t miss the way her hands shook. “You could have sent it
in the post. That’s what Hiram does, and his letters get here just fine. You
didn’t need to come.”

He shoveled food in his
mouth, trying not to think of the way she’d said
Hiram
with a fondness the man didn’t merit. When he was done, he
gestured to her plate. “You gonna eat that?”

“Be my guest.” She passed the
plate over to him. “What are you doing here, Bradshaw?”

Bradshaw
, she said, as if he didn’t even deserve
to be called by his first name, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe she’d thought him a
ghost when he showed up on her porch last night, that first moment she’d seen
him and whispered his name. Some fool part of him had hoped it meant she still
cared.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Figured as much.” Her voice
was sharp. “I can’t imagine you would come back for me.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes as
he picked up their plates and deposited them in the sink. He’d wondered about
the day when he would come back into her life, but he never thought it would be
like this.

It didn’t matter. She was
different now. Hell,
he
was so
different he didn’t recognize himself anymore.

“Funny you bring up Hiram
Andersen,” he began. “I came here because of him.”

Her dark eyes widened, her
brows drawing together. “You’ve seen him?”

“No. I was wondering if you
had.”

She looked away. “Nope.”

“Have you heard from him?”

“Wouldn’t tell you if I had.”

He’d made a mistake in coming
here first. He should have talked to the sheriff, questioned her friends. Maybe
gone to the paper. Figured out who she’d become in his time away. If he’d been
less concerned about reaching her, and more concerned about the task at hand,
he would have done just that.

Moving a chair next to her,
he sat down, so close his knee brushed against her thigh. He reached for her
hand, but she snatched it away.

She wasn’t the girl he
remembered. He could do what needed to be done. This Jessie and his Jessie were
two different people.

“Jess. If you’ve gotten
yourself mixed up in something, you need to tell me.”

“Just what do you think I’ve
been doing since you’ve left?”

He grinned. “Raising hell, I
imagine.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Bradshaw,”
she chastised.

“Beg pardon. It wasn’t meant
to be vulgar.” He leaned back in his chair, allowing them some space. “Be
honest. Have you heard from Hiram? He’s missing, and we really need to find
him.”

Jessie buried her face in her
hands. “How long has he been gone?” Her voice shook.

“A few weeks.” He tried to shut
down the compassion he felt for her. Failed.

“What kind of trouble is he
in?” She asked the question as if she didn’t know.

Luke hoped she didn’t, for
both their sakes. “We’d just really like to find him.”

“You can’t expect me to tell
you anything if you’re going to lie. Who’s
we
?
Who are
you, Luke Bradshaw?”

“I’m the same man I’ve always
been.” He wanted that to be enough for her.

“I’m not sure that’s helping
your case.”

He ran a hand through his
hair. “I didn’t think it would.” He pulled his badge from his pocket and handed
it to her. She held it for a moment without looking down, but when she did, her
eyes widened.

“Special Services Branch?”
She traced over the words engraved on the badge with her thumb, the hint of a
smile curving her lips.

Pride swelled in his chest.

Seconds later, the smile
vanished. “You found the time to do
this
,
but lacked the time to put a stamp on an envelope. Fascinating.”

“I said I was sorry. I can’t
offer you anything more. You’ll either forgive me or you won’t, but I won’t be
begging you to offer me your pardon. Don’t need it that bad.”

“Good thing, because you won’t
be getting it.”

Luke fought to keep his
expression neutral. If he let her get to him now, he’d never get the answers he
needed. “That’s fine. Doesn’t mean I don’t need answers to my questions.” He
let the words hang between them for a moment. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but
we’re worried for Hiram’s safety. There was a lot of blood in his house.”

Her hand flew to her throat. “Who’d
want to hurt poor, defenseless Hiram?”

Defenseless
Hiram, indeed.
If she
only knew. Hell, compared to Hiram, Luke looked like a saint. Hiram was greedy
and clever and as mean a snake when it came to getting what he wanted. As Luke
had dug into his disappearance, one thing had become certain: though Hiram hadn’t
done the dirty work himself, there was blood on his hands. A lot of it.

“That’s part of the reason
why I’m here,” Luke said. “We would like to find out.”

“You came all the way out
here from Chicago to tell me about Hiram?”

“No. I came all the way out
here to find out if you knew what he was doing. I need find out how involved
you are.”

She pushed back from the
table, and her chair teetered and nearly fell over when she stood. “Involved in
what?” When he didn’t answer her, she sighed. “Why would I know anything about
what’s Hiram’s doing? I haven’t heard much from him since Pop died. It’s been
months.” She went to the sink, braced her arms on the counter, and stared out
her window.

Luke looked past her,
following her gaze. Outside, sooty snow covered a landscape dotted by the
stumps of pinion pines the miners had cut to use as supports for their
mineshafts. The air was heavy with a constant onslaught of ash and sulfur from
the smelters. Dirty clouds had settled against the barren mountainsides,
blotting out the sunlight and creating a false sense of twilight.

Nothing lived here anymore.

So why did she?

She stiffened when he came up
behind her. He hesitated for a moment before placing a hand between her
shoulder blades. The warmth of her skin beneath her buckskin dress seared him
as surely as flames would. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.”

He leaned back against the
counter and folded his arms. “You’re wrong if you think I don’t care. Things
are complicated.”

“Complicated,” she echoed. “So
when old Hiram went missing, you thought you’d drop by and ask me about him
yourself? Long trip for nothing. Seems like a lot of effort for a man who
couldn’t be bothered to write, who didn’t come back for Gideon’s
funeral—or Pop’s. You didn’t need to come back for Hiram. You could’ve
had the sheriff ask your questions for you. I see him often enough.”

“I wanted to, Jess. It’s not
as simple as you make it sound.”

Everything was so damn
complicated. He couldn’t offer her anything more than that. She wouldn’t trust
him until he told her the truth, and he couldn’t do that.

Finally, pushing off the
counter, he motioned to the sitting room. “Why don’t we sit down so we can
talk?”

He walked away, certain she
would follow. The Jessie he remembered would let her curiosity get the better
of her.

She pushed past him and took
a seat in her father’s overstuffed chair. The cushions seemed to swallow her
frame as she tucked her feet up underneath her. So small and fragile, and he
fought hard to resist protecting her from the pain his words would surely
bring.

A noise like the booming of
distant cannons filled the air, and Luke flinched. His hand on the weapon at
his hip, he went to the window and moved aside the curtains, scanning the skies
for Confederate shells, fighting the need to pick Jessie up and take her
underground, where she would be safe.

“Been gone a long time if you
don’t remember the sound of the ore crushers,” she said softly. “Wind must be
coming from the east, if they’re this loud all the way out here.”

She was right. He’d been at
war for so long, he’d immediately assumed artillery, and hadn’t remembered the
booming of the ore processors that operated night and day here.

He let the curtain fall, and
sat facing her. “What can you tell me about Hiram’s work?”

She stared at a spot behind
his head. “Not a whole lot. He went to Chicago finish work something they were
working on right before Pop died.”

“He told you he was in
Chicago?”

Her eyes widened, but only
for a second. “That’s where his letters come from.”

“Do you know what the
invention was?”

Please
say no
.
Let me believe you when you do.

“It was in the early stages.”
Her hands were folded primly in her lap, but the knuckles had turned white.

“You didn’t answer my
question.”

“Nope.”

“Nope, you don’t know, or
nope, you didn’t answer my question?”

“Both.”

“Would you tell me if you did
know?”