Reese (28 page)

The events of the past week had only made Reese more certain than ever that he was poison to anyone he cared about. He'd surrounded himself with rough men who had little to lose, or so he'd thought, by being near him. In the end, it didn't matter if he held himself apart, if he refused to allow himself friends. His heart cared, secretly, quietly, without his consent, and the people he loved died.

Or, almost as bad, they discovered what he had done, then looked at him as if they wished he were dead. He could not bear to see that expression in Mary's eyes.

He could not stay here with her. Something bad was waiting just around the corner for Mary, or for him, if he did.

"Thank you for telling me," he said. "It's a concern off my mind."

For a moment he thought she might punch him in the nose. Then she shook her head as if he were the slowest child in her class and pulled the covers over them both. "Maybe if I'm here with you, the dreams won't come." She pressed her lips to his neck.

Reese stiffened and tried to pull away, but she merely smoothed her palm down his chest and cuddled closer against his side.

"What dreams?"

"About your boys and the war."

His belly lurched. She knew. He reached for the pain and met her hand there, awaiting his, almost as if she'd expected it. She grasped his fingers tightly as he realized the truth.

She had known and still she had touched him.

"What did I say when I was out of my head?"

"Hmm?" she murmured sleepily. " 'Bout what?"

"The boys and the war."

Mary disentangled herself from him in a hurry, and his heart fell into his aching stomach. Had she been so enthralled with the passion between them that she'd been able to forget all she knew? Would she leave him now? Or make him leave her?

But Mary shook her head as if to clear the fog of sleep then cupped his cheek. "You spoke about the battle and how they died. I understand why the children upset you, why you can't teach them anymore."

No one but his family knew what he had once been. And they did not know how he had failed since, because they had cast him out and he had never gone back.

He did not want to talk about this, but he couldn't seem to open his mouth and stop her as she rattled blithely on.

"So many men went bad after the war. They went home to nothing. They became angry and bitter. They turned to stealing because they had nothing else, and they knew nothing but killing. I heard some of the soldiers from Missouri—the James boys—have become the biggest outlaws up thataway. It's a shame to take something so right and turn it around all wrong. But you didn't do that."

"I make my living with my gun."

"You don't rob people."

"No? What makes you think that?"

"I know you wouldn't. About Cash, I'm not so sure."

Reese smiled a little. She had Cash figured out—and Reese too. "It would have been easy to turn outlaw. I could have made a lot more money. But I... I couldn't do that. I don't know why."

"Because if you had, the deaths of those boys would have been for nothing. You'd have been turning your back on everything they fought for, everything you'd taught them, and all that they'd died to protect."

"I filled their heads with images of honor, loyalty, and country. Because of that, because of me, they're dead."

"You did what you had to do, and they did too."

"They were children, and I filled their heads with nonsense."

"Honor, loyalty, and country are nonsense? It's a shame, because thousands of people have died for them."

They were silent for a moment. Reese waited for the question he dreaded. If he'd talked about the boys and the war, he must have spoken of—

"Who's Laura?"

Reese rubbed his forehead. "The woman I was going to marry after the war."

"You loved her?"

He dropped his hand. "Yes."

He
had
loved Laura. They had grown up together, shared their dreams, planned a future. She knew him better than anyone. Or so he'd thought.

"Did she die?"

"No. She just wished that I had. At the top of her lungs, in front of my entire hometown."

Because he had loved Laura so much, and trusted her even more, when she spit in his face and wished him dead, Reese had started to wish for it too.

"I don't understand," Mary said.

"After I lost my company, I was in a hospital."

"Which scar?" She touched the bayonet slice over his ribs. "I know how you got this one."

"Rico needs his lips sewn shut."

"Actually, I think Sullivan told me."

That news stumped Reese for a moment. Sullivan never told anyone anything. Sometimes he wondered if the man had worse secrets in his past than Reese did.

"Which scar?" she asked again as she ran her hands over his chest, down his arms, and across his thigh.

His breath hissed in between his teeth. How could he want her again so soon? And while they were talking about the war, no less?

Reese grabbed her wrist. "The one on my thigh. And on my back."

"That looked bad."

"I lived. Unfortunately."

"Don't say that!"

"Do you know what happens to a man whose entire company dies and he's shot in the back?" Her face crinkled, and she shook her head. "You get shot in the back when you're running away."

"You'd never run away. The boys did."

"And they were all dead."

"People actually thought you'd run away from a fight?" Her hands clenched. "And you let them believe it?"

"I certainly wasn't going to tarnish the memory of my boys with the truth."

"Those folks obviously didn't know you."

He gave a short laugh. "They'd known me all my life. After my fiancée spit in my face, she threw my ring on the ground."

Mary sniffed. "She didn't deserve you."

Would she ever stop defending him?

"Laura's brother was one of the boys who followed me to hell and gone."

"She was upset. Grieving. She didn't mean it."

"She did. As did all the other families that had trusted me with their children. I thought I should be the one to explain. I went to every house. Either the door was slammed in my face, the dogs were set after me, or no one bothered to open the door at all."

"That's ridiculous."

"My parents told me I was no longer their son. That I should never come home."

He waited for Mary to see that what he had done—living when everyone else had died—was unforgivable.

"You didn't actually believe them, did you?" He gaped at her. "I mean, you went back later, and they were sorry."

"I've never been back. And they aren't sorry."

"Grief makes people rash. You should go home, let them make it up to you."

"Why do you always defend me?"

She put her nose in the air. "Someone has to. I don't understand how a man who can lead others like you do, a man who can inspire such loyalty, can allow people who weren't even there to dictate what you believe about yourself."

"You let old women who spent their lives in a convent convince you that you weren't pretty."

"I can see in a mirror."

"You're looking through their eyes. Look through mine."

"Silly," she muttered, but she smiled and cuddled against him.

"Why did you let me touch you?" he whispered. "You knew."

"Knew that you'd had something horrible happen to you? That you'd blamed yourself for years for something that wasn't your fault? You didn't die. Shame on you! Why don't we just crucify you now? Would that make you feel better?"

"It wasn't just once, Mary. The same thing is happening all over again. I brought those men here, my men, though I tried to deny that, and now they're dead."

"You don't know that."

"I know them. They'd be back by now."

"If you know them, then you know that they're grown men and pretty frightening when they choose to be. They can take care of themselves."

"I've fought beside them for years, and I thought they were too mean to die. That's why I stayed with them. Figured those five would outlive me for certain. But because they were loyal to me, they're dead."

"And that's your fault? They had a choice. They chose to go. Quit being everyone's schoolmaster. You can't save the world."

He blinked. Was that what he was trying to do? Atone for his past? Save as many folks as he could and maybe it would make up for the ones he hadn't been able to? That might explain why he was so miserable. Such a task was impossible. Even he knew that.

"You wanted to know why I let you touch me?" she asked. "I meant what I said to Jo. I'd do anything for you."

He closed his eyes. "I'm not worth it."

"You must be, because everyone who meets you feels the same way."

"Everyone who feels that way ends up dead."

She pressed her lips to his neck then whispered in his ear, just as she had once before. "I'll take my chances."

She drifted off to sleep while Reese remained awake a while longer. Mary might think she could tempt fate, but he knew better. Once he found his men, he wasn't coming back here.

No matter how much he might want to.

* * *

Mary awoke to the sun shining so brightly across her face, her eyes burned. Her body ached but pleasantly. When she glanced at the pillow and found only the indentation of Reese's head but no Reese, her heart hurt. Not so pleasantly.

"Reese!" She bounded out of bed, stark naked but she didn't care.

She yanked open the bedroom door and ran right into him. He hissed in pain as she bounced off his black-clad chest. She scowled. "Where do you think you're going?"

"After my men."

"This morning? Are you crazy? A few days ago we thought you were a dead man."

"I'm not. Where did you put my gun?"

Since his question was accompanied by a slow perusal of her naked body, she turned her back, scrambling through discarded sheets in search of—

"Looking for this?"

Reese held her chemise in one hand while observing her backside with both eyes. She yanked the wrinkled garment from his fingers. Seconds later, moderately, if not adequately, clothed, she faced him. "Please, wait a few days. If they're all right, they'll come home."

"And if they aren't?"

She swallowed. "There's nothing you can do. You'll only hurt yourself."

"I've got to find them. I can't leave them out there all alone."

Panic threatened. If he left now, he might not survive. She'd tried everything. Love and kisses, hand-holding and support; maybe she should make him as angry as she was.

"You're doing this because of those boys. You think that if you kill yourself, it'll make up for them. But it won't. You're alive, and they're dead, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"I knew that a long time ago." His voice was as calm as his eyes. He turned away, methodically searching every drawer in her dresser for his gun.

"Here." She yanked his gun belt from under the bed.

A nod was her only thanks. He had become again the man she had bought in Dallas. The man who had shared her bed, his past, his tears, and his body with her had disappeared. Mary feared he would never return.

"Did you ever consider that maybe you lived for a reason?"

He paused in the act of buckling on his guns and glared at her. At least there was heat in his eyes again. "If I lived for a reason, that would mean those boys died for one. I can't accept that."

"Obviously, Colonel Mosby didn't think you were a coward or he wouldn't have included you in his secret spy ring. So why do you continue to punish yourself when a man like that believed in you?"

"Some big mouths have been moving." Mary merely raised her eyebrows and stared at him. "Mosby wanted competent people who had no one and nothing left to lose. That was me. Still is."

A shaft of hurt shot through Mary as e dismissed her as no one and what they had shared as nothing. "The only reason you had nothing left to lose was because you gave up. Maybe you
are
the coward everyone said you were. If you can fight for loyalty and honor and a doomed country, then why can't you fight for love?"

"Mary, don't say something you'll regret."

"I regret nothing. But it seems you regret everything. And that's a hell of a way to live, Reese."

She'd finally reached him. His lips tightened, his face too. "If they're dead, I have nothing to live for. I'm poison to everyone who cares about me. Can't you see that?"

"No. What I see is a man who cares too much, who takes on the weight of the world and lets every bad thing that happens rest on his shoulders. I see the man I love."

He flinched as if she'd struck him and headed for the door. Mary followed. She had never been one to give up easily.

"We can make a life if you'd just let the past go."

He stopped, turned. "I told you I couldn't stay. I never lied to you, Mary."

"No. At least you didn't lie."

"You said you understood."

"I guess
I
lied then."

He tilted her face so he could brush his lips across hers. "You deserve better than me."

Before she could answer, he slipped out. Mary's hand reached for the doorknob then fell back to her side.

She knew good-bye when she tasted it.

Chapter 18