by Tinnean
“Probably because every time he turns around, you seem to be holding her.”
Sharps gave him a puzzled look. “But…she needs to be comforted. Doing anything less would be unchristian.”
Frank plucked out a few more handfuls of feathers. “So you don’t have feelings for her?”
“How could I, when I don’t know her? Oh, she’s very pretty, but…” Sharps didn’t want to be ungentlemanly—Colonel Sebring had always insisted on his men being gentlemen.
“What about her children?”
“What about them?”
“Steve mentioned that other than your father, you don’t have any family.”
“Not even Pa. I lost him last winter.” And he’d never had contact with Pa’s side of the family even before the War. He had a feeling they hadn’t been happy that Pa had taken a Cherokee woman as his wife.
“I’m sorry. But with those young ones, you would.”
Sharps shook his head. “Is that why—”
Bert returned before he could finish his question, carrying another armload of sticks and twigs. “Do you reckon this will be enough, Sharps?”
“That should be plenty for how.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Good work.”
Bert grinned at him, his flushed face showing his pride at the praise of what he’d accomplished. It had to be hard, losing his pa at such a young age. God knew, it was hard for Sharps, and he was a man. Sharps looked up and caught Frank watching him.
“What are you going to do?” Frank asked.
The man did have a point. Sharps would have enjoyed having the boy for a son, teaching him some of the things he’d learned, but he accepted he’d never enjoy having a woman—even Mrs. Fox—as a wife.
“I don’t know.”
Frank scowled at him. “Well, don’t take too long in deciding.”
“Deciding what?” Bert asked.
“When we’re going to eat.”
Frank rolled his eyes at Sharps’s white lie but resumed plucking the quail.
“So what do you say we get the rest of these rabbits skewered?”
“Yes!” Bert gave a little hop and clapped his hands.
Sharps handed the boy a slim switch and instructed him on how to get it ready for the rabbits to be roasted on while his thoughts wandered.
He’d have to talk to Steve. He glanced around at the sound of hoofbeats and watched as the captain rode out of camp. But it would have to wait until later.
Chapter 23
Supper was over, and night had fallen. Steve mounted Bella, intending to make a final patrol of the surrounding area. Everyone was bedded down, except for Sharps, who had the early watch. The campfires had been doused, and the camp was in darkness, silent except for the occasional snuffle from one of the animals. Even the Fox wagon was quiet, the widow having apparently—finally—shed all the tears in her.
Steve observed the kid…the young man…make his way to the perimeter of the camp, checking the horses and mules contained in a rope corral Steve had put together with Georgie’s help. Had Sharps always had such a cat-footed walk, so capable and competent and…silent?
What makes Frank think Sharps might prefer to love a man rather than a woman? Steve knew why he’d hoped that might be true. The kid was not only a pleasure to look at, with his copper-toned skin, high cheekbones, aquiline nose, and that full lower lip that seemed to beg to be nibbled on—but he had an easy-going temperament, except on those occasions when Steve himself had been threatened. As for Sharps’s mouth, more often than not it was turned up in a smile as sweet as his temper. Steve had hoped…but were a few longing looks he’d been positive he’d spotted once in a while, those sweet smiles aimed in his direction simply wishful thinking on his part?
Steve turned Bella’s head and rode out at a brisk pace.
* * * *
Steve had made a broad circle, fanning out to scout the area, and now he glanced around a final time. Aside from the hoots of owls and the chirrups of insects, the growls of animals that hunted and the cries of those that were killed, he didn’t hear anything of concern. Still, that didn’t mean he’d allow himself to grow relaxed.
He wanted a cigarette, but he wouldn’t chance it in the dark of night, where it could make him an easy target if anyone so inclined was in the vicinity.
For a moment, he thought of the events at the livery stable, of the way Sharps had sat that big stallion, his leg curled around the saddle horn as he casually built a smoke.
They were long overdue for a talk, and that was on Steve—he’d been too willing to jump to the conclusion Sharps would want someone who wasn’t Steve, someone who had breasts—but he planned to remedy that. In the morning, he’d ask Frank or Bart to drive the Fox wagon, and he’d get Sharps away from the wagon train so they could have that talk. And if it turned out Frank was wrong and Sharps did care for Mrs. Fox…Well, Steve would be the one riding away from Hummingbird Valley.
He sighed. “What do you say we turn in?” he asked the mare. Not that he expected Bella to respond, but she seemed to nod. He chuckled, patted her neck, and headed her back toward their camp.
The sound of hoofbeats coming toward him had Steve easing one of his Navy Colts out of its holster, just to be on the safe side.
A soft voice called out in the night. “Steve.” It was Sharps.
His heart gave a thump. It had been a while—ten days to be precise—since Sharps had called him by his name. “What are you doing here?” Steve put his gun away. “Is there a problem?”
“No, everything is fine. Well, it is at the camp. Right here, though…I don’t reckon so, but maybe you can tell me.”
He recalled Frank telling him Sharps wouldn’t stay once they reached Georgie’s valley. Was this the beginning of the end? Was Sharps about to tell him goodbye?
“The camp—”
“I asked Frank if he’d swap watches with me.” Sharps had always been responsible. Steve should have known he wouldn’t shirk his duty. “We…we didn’t have much time to talk back at the livery stable in Willow Crick or in these past days.”
“No, we didn’t.” The stallion’s height made it easy for Steve to look directly into Sharps’s eyes. Although Steve knew they were blue, they appeared to be black just then.
“You came looking for me after the war.”
Steve nodded. He’d planned to do that, even if he hadn’t brought Tom Pettigrew’s body home to his family.
“And you brought me Salida.”
“Yes. That was a kind thing you did, returning her to Georgie.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure what I would do with three horses.” He fell silent.
“Sharps…” Steve thought it was best to say what he had to say. Ripping the bandage off, so to speak. “I’m a good deal older than you. Can I give you a word of advice?”
Sharps muttered something that sounded like “You’re not that old,” but before Steve could ask him to repeat it, Sharps said, “Yes?”
“I know when you’re young it can be hard to wait, but…Don’t rush things with Mrs. Fox. She’s just lost her husband, and—”
“Rush what things?”
He ran a hand through his hair, knocking his hat off to hang from its thong down his back. “Well…marrying her.”
“Why would I marry her?”
“She’s a fine-looking woman, and…and she’s here.”
“So are you.”
“What?”
“You’re here.” Sharps drew in a breath and touched his chest above his heart. “And here. Frank said you…you care for me. Do you, Steve? Because if you do, I’d much rather…well, I can’t marry you, but I wouldn’t object to being your partner.”
“But I thought you enjoyed holding Mrs. Fox.”
“I’d hardly push her away when she was so upset.”
All right, but…“You said there were a lot of things you didn’t used to do.”
“When…oh, at the livery stable.”
“Yeah. I…I thought you mea
nt being with women.”
Sharps burst into laughter. “I’ve never been with a woman.”
“What about that time after Spotsylvania in the brothel?”
“That was different.”
“In what way?”
“Y’know, I can’t rightly say. Maybe it was more she made love to me than the other way around, if you take my meaning?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not following you?”
“Jiminy Cricket, Steve. I’d told you she made love to me in the French fashion.”
“Yes.”
“Well, when I offered to reciprocate, she turned me down. It was…it was like she didn’t want me under her skirts.” The boy muttered something Steve couldn’t quite make out.
“I’m sorry, I’m still not following you.”
Sharps shook his head. “Never mind, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Ah.” Steve couldn’t help smiling. So Sharps was as distracted as he was. He just hoped the moonlight didn’t reveal that smile. He didn’t want Sharps to think he was mocking him. “So let me get this straight. You care for me?”
“I do.”
Steve caught his breath. That almost sounded like a marriage vow. “And you’d partner up with me.”
“I would. That is, if you had no objection.”
“Do you even know what goes on between two men?”
“I do,” he said again.
“How?” Steve hated the hint of jealousy in his voice and just hoped Sharps didn’t recognize it for what it was.
“Pa told me about the birds and the bees, years ago. And then so did you.”
“And that’s how you know?”
“Pretty much.” He sent Steve a mischievous glance, and suddenly he looked even younger than his nineteen years.
Steve reached across the space that separated them and gripped Sharp’s hand. “I’d be proud to have you as my partner.”
“I’m glad.” Sharps turned his hand so they were palm to palm, then tightened his grip and gave Steve the same happy grin he’d had in Willow Crick, before they left for camp, before Steve’s head wound up so far up his ass he couldn’t see what was right before him. The kid nudged the stallion closer to Bella, dropped the reins, and stroked his other palm up Steve’s chest and over his throat to cup his cheek.
Steve let Sharps draw him close, close enough to kiss. Sharps still had a smile on his lips as he pressed them to Steve’s mouth. His eyes slid shut, but Steve watched, lost in the wonder of this young man he’d waited so long for.
Just a simple kiss. He’d had others, but somehow none of them had affected him as this kiss did. He closed his eyes, determined to savor the feeling, and deepened the kiss, teasing Sharps’s tongue with his own. He grew hard, harder, when Sharps moaned into his mouth, and he couldn’t suppress a moan of his own.
“I…I love you,” Sharps said shyly.
Steve started to wrap his arm around Sharps’s waist and frowned when he came into contact with the banjo. “Hellfire. Why did you carry this thing with you?” The banjo was once again slung from Sharps’s back. Since Steve had ordered Sharps to drive the Foxes’ wagon, the banjo had been stored in the wagon’s jockey box.
Sharps leaned back and smiled, one of those sweet smiles Steve remembered from their time together during the War. “It’s yours, Cap.” He freed it from around his neck and unfastened the case.
“Are you going to play that thing now?” Steve gave his boy a wry grin. Here he’d hoped for a little more kissing, at least.
“You know I don’t play.” Sharps did something to the banjo that Steve couldn’t quite make out, then handed it to him.
He took it and ran his hand over the neck and the curve of the belly and sucked in a low breath at what felt like a trigger and lever. “Is this a rifle?”
“Yes. Pa made it as a way to say thank you for what you did for me, especially after Bull Run.” He didn’t have to clarify which Bull Run. It wasn’t likely Steve would forget, or forget the flare of fury at finding the men who’d dared to put their hands on the boy Steve had promised to protect. “You can play it, too.”
“This is…I’m speechless.” He knew Mr. Browne was an exceptional gunsmith, but this…as he’d said, he had no words to express his amazement and gratitude. “I’ll have to write and thank him.”
Sharps looked away, but not before Steve saw his eyes sheen with unshed tears. “Pa’s gone. We were going to make the journey west together, to find you, but he passed last winter.”
So that was why a letter hadn’t been waiting for him at General Delivery when he’d arrived in Independence. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man.”
Sharps nodded and cleared his throat. “He liked you. He’d be happy if we got together.”
“He would?”
“My ma’s…family…didn’t see the one they loved as a man or a woman but just as the one they loved. Pa lived with them long enough to believe that as well.”
“So would I.” Steve reached out and took the case from Sharps. He put the banjo back into it and looped the strap around his saddle horn. Then he reached for the younger man and raised a questioning eyebrow. When Sharps realized his intention, he grinned and kicked his feet free of the stirrups, allowing Steve to pull him off the stallion and onto his lap. “I love you,” he whispered, and lowered his head to caress those lips again. The feel of Sharps wrapping him in his arms caused a shiver to run through Steve. “You’re brave, you know, so much braver than I am.” He deepened the kiss, scouring Sharps’s mouth and tasting coffee and cigarettes.
Finally they had to end the kiss, not that he wanted to, but the horses grew restless, and they were supposed to be returning to the wagons.
“I’m not brave,” Sharps said. Sorrow etched his features, and Steve wondered what had happened to put that look on his boy’s face. Because now he could assure himself that Sharps was his.
“You rode out here to tell me how you feel about me.”
“That was Frank’s doing.”
“Oh?”
“He’d told me you thought I was in love with Mrs. Fox, but I didn’t do anything about it, not when you came back to camp, not after supper. Frank came to me while I was standing watch and told me flat out to stop being such a dunce. That they could all see I loved you and that you loved me, and if I wanted you, I’d better act before I lost you. I already thought I had.” He leaned against Steve. “I couldn’t understand what I’d done to make you so angry with me.”
“I was the one being a dunce. I wanted you so badly I was afraid something would keep it from happening. I thought you’d taken one look at Mrs. Fox and fallen in love with her—”
“Never.”
“—and I was certain I’d lost you.”
“No. She’ll be grieving her husband for a long time, and I have the feeling even if she recovers from his loss, he’ll always be in her heart. I…I want someone who’ll only see me.”
“I see you, Zachary.”
The young man tipped his head back and smiled into Steve’s eyes. “I know that now. Étienne.”
Steve’s heart rolled over to hear his birth name on his love’s lips. “Say my name again,” he murmured.
“Ét—”
Steve kissed the rest of his name from Sharps’s lips. “I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life,” he murmured. “Moonlight shining through your hair, and kisses on your mouth.”
“So poetical.” His boy gave a soft hum of pleasure and nuzzled the space below his ear, and Steve couldn’t help shivering, it felt so good. “But the moon’s behind the clouds right now.”
“You’re splitting hairs. There were other times.”
Sharps tipped his head back, gazed into Steve’s eyes, and gave him another of the sweet smiles Steve hadn’t seen since they’d mustered out of the 14th. He rubbed his cheek against Sharps’s, then sighed. “You planned to leave, didn’t you? Before Frank spoke to you.”
“Yes.”
; “I was going to talk to you as soon as your watch was over. You’re smarter than me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“I was going to wait, but you had Frank take your watch rather than waiting. I won’t let you leave.”
“I won’t leave.” Sharps took Steve’s hand and brought it to his groin. “Can you do something about this?”
“Such a nice handful.” Although he’d seen Sharps in his drawers on the day those damned Wilson brothers had thought to get away with assaulting him, he’d never once considered letting his gaze rest on the boy’s lower body. Not when they took the opportunity to bathe in convenient creeks or streams, not while they marched together, and certainly never permitting himself to do so in the past ten days, when he’d been certain the boy was lost to him—why would he torment himself in that manner? But now…now he could not only look, he could touch, and at this moment, he was impressed by the feel of how thick and hard Sharps’s prick was through his pants.
“Please.” Sharps sounded breathless.
“Stay put.” Steve eased out from under Sharps and swung off the mare. From where he stood, the height was perfect. He caught up the horses’ reins and led them to the shadows thrown by a sweeping burr oak. Then he dropped the reins, positioned Sharps the way Steve wanted him, and unbuttoned the front of his canvas trousers.
“What…?”
“Hush.” Steve pulled out the prick he’d explored with his fingertips just moments earlier. He rubbed the rough pad of his thumb over the tip, which had emerged from its foreskin, slick with moisture. Steve gathered the drops on his thumb and brought it to Sharps’s mouth.
Sharps’s blue eyes were huge; his lips parted, and Steve first ran his thumb over those lips, then slid that thumb into his own mouth, keeping his gaze on his lover’s. He smiled as Sharps’s tongue flicked out to sweep over his lips.
“Steve?”
Steve dipped his head and dragged his tongue over the tip of Sharps’s prick. From that simple action, Sharps shivered and moaned. Steve wrapped the fingers of his left hand around his boy’s prick and pumped lightly while he fondled and cradled Sharps’s testicles with his other hand. Steve swallowed the mouthful down—it was like a bar of hot metal weighing heavily on his tongue—and began to work it in earnest, losing himself in the heady pleasure of fellating the young man who was now his lover—his love.