Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (40 page)

“There is that.” She jerked
her chin at Luke. “Speak of the devil.”

Jessie peeked over her
shoulder and grinned.

He returned it, and he saw
the question in her eyes, the first signs of worry in the furrow between her
brows. He put his hand in his pocket and fingered the ring again.

“May I have a word
with—” He was about to say
my wife
but stopped himself. “Jessie?”

“Sure,” Jessie said, rising
to her feet.

“No, no.” Elizabeth motioned
for Jessie to sit. “You stay. I’ll be running along.” She gave him a friendly
pat on the arm and grinned at she passed.

Joining Jessie on the sofa,
he took her hand in his and toyed with her fingers. The effect these small
intimacies had on him still shocked him. He wondered how he had survived
without them, because now that he had experienced them, he was fair certain he
couldn’t function without her touch.

Jessie reached out and
touched his face. “What is it?”

Anxiety kicked him hard, and
he almost laughed at himself. “I’ve got something for you, and a question.”

She smiled, but her eyes were
anxious. “You make it sound so ominous,” she said. “I do hope you’re not
planning on asking me to stay behind. Again.”

“No,” he said gravely. “Well,
I would if I thought it would do any good.”

“But it won’t.”

“But it won’t,” he agreed.
His chest tightened. “No, actually, I brought you something.” He placed the
ring in the palm of her hand.

It was intricately carved in
a diamond pattern, a design she’d liked once, and made of two different metals
braided together. One was white gold, sparkling in the morning sun, and the
other was blue silver, the most sought after metal in the world.

He’d never been able to look
at anything made of blue silver and not think of her, and it seemed a fitting
tribute.

She turned the ring over in
her hand, and traced the inside of the band, where he’d had the initials L
& J engraved.

“Oh, Luke.” She started to
slip the ring onto her finger.

He stopped her from putting
it on. “The question first.”

Her brows knit, but she
nodded. “All right.”

He slipped from the sofa and
knelt down in front of her. Took her hand in his. “Marry me, Jessie.”

Her lips curled into an
amused smile. “I already did.”

Her words kicked him in the
stomach, but he ignored it. She deserved the truth this time. After all, he
planned to do it
right
.

“No, let’s have a proper
wedding,” he said. “Where I ask you father’s permission and we both understand
what we’re doing, and we both agree to it. Where we take a trip afterward, just
you and me, and we buy a house with a little land and have kids. I want
you
to marry
me
, not for your ancestors to decide we’re handfasted. Let’s go
back to your grandfather and do it right this time.”

“We don’t need a
proper—” She cut herself off and her eyes widened. “Wait, did you just
say we’re
handfasted
?”

He nodded solemnly. Wanted to
look away and didn’t. Forced himself to meet her eyes. “That’s how your
grandfather described it.”

She toyed with the ring,
sliding it onto her thumb and off again. “And you didn’t think to tell me this?”

“For all intents and
purposes, we were married that day. We
are
married.”

She frowned down at the ring
in her hand. “But just for a year and a day, unless I get pregnant. A handfast
and a wedding aren’t the same. A handfast doesn’t mean forever.”

He took her hand and closed
her fingers around his ring. “The differences don’t matter to me. I want to be
your man and the father of your children. I want you to be my wife. Not for a
year and a day, but forever. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She opened her hand and
pushed the ring onto her finger. Admired it for a moment. “I wish you would
have told me.”

Luke watched her do it.
Was that acceptance
? “And give you a way
out? Tell you all you had to do was wait and you’d be free of me? Not a chance.
You would’ve held on to that, found all kinds of reasons to push me away, and I
would have deserved it. But if you thought we were married, if you thought this
was permanent, I thought maybe you’d let your guard down. Maybe you’d let me
in. And I wanted in, Jessie. More than I’ve wanted anything in my whole life.”

She framed his face in her
hands and kissed him. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

He kissed her back. “I should
have told you, but don’t you get it? I needed
this. You were so upset when you thought we were married, and I
don’t blame you. Because even though I hated how upset you were at the prospect
of a lifetime with me, if your grandfather had offered me the choice between
the world on a silver platter or marriage to you in that moment, I would have
picked you. Nothing changed for me.”

Luke thumped his chest with
his fist. “I’ve been married to you for as long as I can remember. I knew you
were the one for me when I was eight years old. It’s always been you.”

Jessie’s eyes misted with
tears. “You don’t get it, do you? You didn’t need to keep this from me, because
there’s never been anyone but you.”

He closed his eyes as joy
burned in his heart. He’d never get over the feel of Jessie’s fingers against
his skin, never tire of having her touch him. For too long, all he’d had were
memories of her touch to sustain him. The real thing was better than anything
he’d remembered, or imagined later.

“Handfasted or married, I
guess it doesn’t change anything. I’d still be here with you, like this. I’ve
loved you for my whole life, and nothing will ever change that.” She smiled,
but her voice broke.

Her tears were for him. She’d
just told him that time, distance, and even his presumed death hadn’t changed
that. She’d always loved him.

She could tell him a thousand
ways that she loved him, but nothing would mean more to him than this moment.

He pressed his lips to hers. “I
don’t know what I did to deserve you.” The smile she gave him lit spaces in his
heart long lost. “I love you, Jessica Bradshaw.”

“I love you, too.” She took
his hand in hers. “Come with me.”

He allowed her to lead him
from the room. “Where are you taking me?”

“To bed.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Hm.” The devilish grin she
gave him made his blood pulse. “Fancy that, neither am I. I guess we’ll have to
find something else to do with our time.”

He pulled her back against
him and buried his face in her neck, her scent washing over him: juniper and
sage, summer rain and woman. The smell of home.

He brushed her hair back and
ran his lips down the back of her neck. “Seems I’ve turned you into a right
harlot.”

Jessie turned in his arms and
grabbed him by the waistband of his trousers.

He put up a token resistance
just to make her laugh.

“Seems you have.” She arched
a dark brow at him suggestively. “Why don’t we go lie down and see what happens
between us?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Luke kicked the door shut
behind them.

* * * *

Later, Jessie dressed for their journey north. She wore the
buckskin dress and trousers, the golden feather around her neck, and wove a
leather cord into each of her two braids and tied them off with the strip of
leather wound around the end. Around her wrist, she tied the braided belt
identifying her as Ewepu Tunekwuhudu.

If they were to run into the Shoshone, there would be no
mistaking where she came from, or whom she belonged to.

Just as Jessie was finishing her hair, she caught Luke
studying her. “What?”

He lay on his side in their bed, his head propped up on his
hand. The muscles in his arm and chest bunched, and she tried not to be
distracted by it—just the thought of him in their bed was enough to make
her want to strip off her clothes and join him.

She wanted to forget their mission, and to get into bed and
make love to Luke until they were both senseless. Dread had found a place in
her heart and nested there like a great black bird whose enormous talons locked
onto her heart and shredded it to pieces. She was afraid of what they’d find
when the arrived at their destination. She was afraid of what they wouldn’t
find.

She was just afraid.

“You look nervous,” he said softly.

She tried to force a jovial smile. “No reason to be nervous,
right?”

Perched on the edge of their bed, gloriously naked, he took
her hand. His face clouded. “You don’t have to go.”

Jessie stroked his dark hair, scraping his scalp with her
fingernails, and fought the temptation to lay him back and ride him until
tomorrow’s dawn broke. He closed his eyes and groaned, and she had to fight
harder.

“And let you have all the fun?” she asked. “I don’t think
so.”

He reached up and touched her. “You’d be safe here.”

“He’s my father.”

Luke gently squeezed her shoulders. “I know.” He ran his
hands down the supple fabric of her buckskin dress. “I can’t even tell you what
this dress does to me.” He stood up and kissed her cheek.

She half expected him to deepen the kiss and lay her down to
make love to her again. More than a small part of her wished he would.

Instead, he stepped aside and pulled on his short clothes
and trousers, and it was Jessie’s turn to sit on the bed and watch him dress.
As he strapped on the last of his weapons, he extended his hand to her. “Are
you ready to go?”

She looked at him for a moment and her pulse skipped. Taking
his hand, she had the inexplicable but distinct impression of cool stillness
where she’d never felt anything but heat, and her heart ricocheted beneath her
skin. She tried to pass it off as nerves, but no matter how much she tried to
reassure herself, a sense of dread had settled upon her shoulders.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

He smiled, and her heart squeezed in on itself. “Right. Then
let’s go get your pop.”

Several hours later, the team
had reached their destination.

The airship had dropped them
a good two-hour ride outside the camp where they suspected Jessie’s father was
being held. Night had long since descended, and the airship wasn’t expected
back on this route until nearly dawn, by which time they needed to be back at
the meeting point or risk being left behind.

The plan didn’t leave much
time to actually rescue her father, and though Luke assured her they didn’t
need much, Jessie continued to have her reservations.

They crested a rise, and Luke
motioned for them to stop. He dismounted and tethered his horse and Jessie’s, and
raised his hands to her to help her down.

He held her for a moment too
long and kissed her hair. “I love you, Jess.”

“I love you, too.”

Luke took her hand and led
her to a cluster of rocks where Whitfield and Parker were already crouched,
looking over the valley below. Parker pointed to the squat, limestone brick
building, so much larger than it had looked in the artist’s drawing. “There’s
the barracks, and the barn with the horses. Between eight and ten men, we
think.” He pointed to a small outpost nearby and another on the opposite end of
the valley. “The men inside should be armed with heliographs to warn the
others. Duchess’s analysis suggests there’s at least fifteen men here
altogether.”

Whitfield handed a pack to
Luke. “Your explosives.”

Luke opened the flap, checked
it, and buckled the pack. “Thanks.”

“Explosives?” Jessie asked.

“Have to,” Luke answered
quietly, his eyes meeting hers and holding. “We can’t leave any information
inside for the Rebs. We can’t leave this place standing.”

Jessie’s heart drummed a
little faster, but she gave him a clipped nod to show him she understood.

Parker turned his attention
back to the barracks stretched out in front of them. “You’ll have a limited
amount of time to get in and get back out before the guards are alerted in the
barracks. If His Lordship and I can keep things quiet, we’ll do that, but we
can’t afford a prolonged gun battle outside. Nor can we afford attracting the
Shoshone’s attention, either. It’s a miracle we haven’t already.”

Their trip had been oddly
quiet, and the darkness stretched behind her. She felt eyes upon her, and heard
the hush of movement like the whisper of wind. Once, she thought she heard a
war cry, abruptly cut off, and then a cacophony of sound had erupted as a
murder of crows had abruptly taken to wing, shrieking their cries to the
heavens.

They were here, and they
waited.

Whitfield’s dark eyes met
Jessie’s. “What Solo’s saying is that this needs to be fast. The Rebs will send
reinforcements the moment they find out there’s a problem. We leave in three
hours, with or without your father.”