Before the Dawn

by Denise A. Agnew

  “Darlin’?” Elijah crouched over her, his hand slipping under neck. “Open your eyes.” His voice grew urgent and low. “Mary Jane, open your eyes.”

  Her eyes snapped open as tears rolled down her face. Her throat ached. “I am fine.”

  Worry etched his features, but he took her word for it and helped her to her feet. He cupped her face again. “Just a little farther.”

  A little farther? To what?

  She stumbled along in his wake, no energy to ask why they pushed onward into the woods where no one from the train could help them. Thinking that far ahead caused more trepidation, so she concentrated on planting one shoe in front of the other. After what seemed an endless time, a rocky outcropping and massive hill rose in front of them.

  “Thank the saints.” He tugged her forward. “Here.” He released her hand long enough to shove aside shrubbery and reveal a tall opening. She saw his throat work as he swallowed hard. “Damnation. I don’t want to go in here, but we must. I’ll go first, you follow.”

  His voice snapped like a general, and she flinched. His eyes went hard, unyielding.

  The darkness beyond the crevice appeared to be a wide mouth without teeth. What horrors lay inside? Unreasoning fear stilled her courage. She sucked in a quick breath. If Elijah could conquer his apprehension, so could she.

  He crawled in, headfirst. When he disappeared into the maw, all went quiet. Even the wind didn’t stir, and the rain stopped. Her entire body quaked. Nightmares of deep, unknown places from childhood tormented her from the edges. They beckoned, dared her to stay brave and to remain sane.

  Elijah’s hand came out and then his head. “It’s larger than I thought. It’s a deep rock shelter.”

  She clasped his hand and leaned down. He released her once she started inside. She crawled on hands and knees and discovered enough headroom to stand and several feet on both sides. Light penetrated from a large crack in the ceiling.

  He inched around in front of her and made certain the hole stayed thoroughly covered by the foliage. Turning back, he stopped. He put one finger to his lips in a gesture of silence. He pulled his weapon from the inner waistcoat pocket and held it, prepared for use. They stayed that way for several minutes. Time stretched in front of her, an eternity of waiting, of anxiety ridden breaths and heart pounding apprehension. Safety still felt far removed. Now that they had stopped running, she heard her own breath rasping, her heart pounding in her ears as her body slowed. Reaction came without remorse. Tears flowed and fell to her cheeks. She regulated her breath by slow turns, and yet her body remained tense. After what seemed an eternity, he made his way past her and sat against one wall. He gestured for her to come closer.

  She eased towards him on her hands and knees, her crinoline bunching up in the way. Frustrated, she frowned. She never hated fashion more than this moment.

  “Take off the crinoline. We’re leaving it and the corset behind,” he said.

  She hesitated and then realized the wisdom in his request. Mary Jane rose to her feet. “Help me. I have to remove the dress first.”

  He nodded, his face etched with a harsh determination. She turned away from him. Methodically he unbuttoned the back of the dress while she pulled the hatpins out of her hat and hair. As his fingers moved, a fleeting thought raced by. Even in these desperate moments of flight, his fingers brushing with heat through dress, corset and chemise somehow made her incredibly aware of him as a man. Then the thought fled.

  She tossed the pins in a corner and flung the hat aside. She was surprised the thing had not fallen off before now. Her dress stuck to her, sodden with rain and made the buttons more difficult to undo. She would have to dress in it again once she removed the corset and crinoline, but what choice did she have? Before she knew it the shoulders and the tight sleeves eased away from her skin. Eager, she pulled the garment off her arms until she peeled it all the way down and it fell around her waist. She wriggled to shove it off her hips. She stepped out of the dress and worked on the ties that held the crinoline in place. As they remained quiet, a sense of urgency filled the air. They must hurry in case his brother found them and they must fight. She shoved the horsehair padding downward, and he came around to the front and knelt in front of her.

  “Here,” he whispered. “Lift your legs one at a time, and I’ll pull it off.”

  She complied, and quicker than she expected, Elijah crumpled the nuisance and shoved it into a corner. Without speaking he returned to stand behind her and made short work of the corset laces. When it loosened around her ribs, she sucked in a breath. That felt so much better. Though she never worn her corset particularly tight, removing the garment was liberating. She took one deep breath after another. When he loosened it completely, he pulled it over her head. It, too, went into the corner.

  Now that she stood in nothing but chemise, pantalets, stockings and boots, she trembled with cold. His hands rested on her shoulders for a second, and then he turned her around.

  His eyes had lost their harshness, but they held no awareness of her as a woman. He had shut down for the fight, all efficiency in the face of danger. “I know the dress is cold and wet, but you have to put it back on. If they find us here…”

  She put her fingers over his lips. For a few unguarded seconds, his eyes flared. She’d never imagined green eyes could burn this bright and hot with emotion. Quickly he shut it off, like a flame doused under a rush of water. He helped her back into the dress, which went much faster.

  Once done, he sat, propped his back against the wall and stared at her. He drew up one leg and propped his forearm on his knee. With his disheveled hair, sweat beading on his forehead, and a harsh look in his eyes, he looked every inch the dastardly criminal. Part of her wanted to run from him too. After all, she was in this predicament because his brother had a vendetta with Elijah. His rumpled waistcoat hung open, dirt and something red smeared over one side. Worry speared her.

  She sank to her knees in the damp earth in front of him. She grabbed the lapels of his waistcoat and parted them. “You are bleeding.”

  “No. I’m not. That’s the blood of the man I killed.”

  Her lips parted but nothing came out at first. She struggled with her words. “We both… I hit that man with a rock, Elijah. I killed him.”

  “I know, darlin’.” His voice softened, the rough understanding lowering his husky voice. “I know.”

  More tears came, and as they rained down, her face crumpled.

  “Shhh…” He reached for her and pulled her into his lap.

  He cuddled her close, his powerful arms providing shelter she desperately craved. She wept quietly, holding back the rage screaming fear. She shuddered and quaked. She saw a misery in his gaze, a genuine sorrow. She touched his face and felt the bristle of beard growing there. In those quiet moments, Mary Jane heard nothing more than gentle breaths, felt nothing more than his heat beneath her, cradling and comforting.

  Understanding, like that she had witnessed before, warmed his eyes and softened his visage. His lips parted. She stared at that handsome mouth and wanted it on hers with undeniable desperation.

  Closer, closer still, he tilted towards her until…his mouth touched hers with exquisite gentleness. When her lips parted under pressure, his tongue pushed inside. Retreated. Caressed. Owned her mouth with sweet, deep thrusts. She arched into that kiss, breath puffing into him, mouth moving in response, tongue tangling in carnal dance.

  Elijah broke away with a gasp, eyes still blazing.

  He leaned closer until he whispered in her ear. “If we were anywhere else and completely safe, you would be beneath me. Naked.”

  Blunt as his words were, they excited Mary Jane and made her forget their harrowing flight.

  “But we can’t.” His burning gaze lingered on her mouth, then recaptured her eyes. “I would put you in danger, and that’s the last thing I want. Promise me something.”

  “Anything.” The word, so definitive and complete, left her throat without a pa
use.

  “If they find us here and anything happens to me, you fight with everything in you. You fight to live. You understand?”

  “No—I— you are not going to die.” Her voice broke. “That will not happen.”

  “If there’s one thing I learned incarcerated in Eastern State, it was that bad things happen and you cannot always stop them. If that bad thing happens, and I cannot keep you safe…you do what you need in order to live.” His gaze was fierce and demanding. “You understand me?”

  “Yes.” The excruciating thought twisted a hot knife in her breast. “Yes.”

  He kissed her forehead and then her nose. “Pray it won’t come to that, darlin’. I’ll do everything I can to keep us alive.”

  “Why? Why would you sacrifice so much for me?”

  He went silent, those thickly lashed eyes now devoid of passion but hard with truth. “I failed to keep one woman safe. That won’t happen again.”

  “Maureen.”

  He nodded and closed his eyes.

  “Tell me more about her.” She lifted her left hand. “She must have been special if you honored her with this ring.”

  His eyes clouded with pain beyond bearing, then dissolved into resolute anger. He clasped her left hand and held it for inspection. “I would have left it on her hand because she was my betrothed, but my mother and Zeke told me to keep it as a memento.”

  As the truth penetrated, he gently shifted her off his lap. He had told her more about his life in one moment of vulnerability.

  Elijah spread his legs open and bent his knees. “Lean back against me.”

  Still processing his revelation about his betrothed and his brother, she turned until her back pressed against his chest and his arms wrapped around her. At least this way she could escape his encompassing gaze. Since the first day she’d met him, which seemed such a long time ago, he’d laid siege to her thoughts, her world with an extraordinary power. Two warring feelings battled within her. Trepidation and acceptance. If they did die here… If Amos found them, she would have known an extraordinary time with Elijah. One she could not have found in any other time or place.

  Like a big, protective animal, he surrounded her in security. For the first time in what felt like hours, she could loosen the tightness in her muscles.

  He leaned down until his lips touched her left ear. She twitched in reaction.

  “Easy.” His breath puffed hot in her ear. “We’re stuck like this until I’m sure they didn’t see us come in here.”

  She shuddered against him, and when his lips touched her ear this time, it was with a gentle kiss. This time Mary Jane’s quiver felt different. As it had when they shared a kiss in the hotel, as when he touched her body so intimately, this felt like caring…like affection. She eased her head back until it rested along his right cheek. His breath puffed gently against her left ear with each exhalation.

  Mary Jane relaxed point-by-point, minute-by-minute. Elijah’s grip around her waist loosened until his palms slid outward and cupped her ribcage. His strong thighs pressed along her hips, and now that she no longer had the barrier of corset and crinoline, her senses absorbed so much more. Her nipples beaded against the fabric from the cold, and they almost ached. Warmth spilled low in her belly, arching out from the point where his hands held her. As she calmed, an uneasy silence invaded.

  “When do we leave here?” she asked.

  “In the morning.”

  Elijah heard Mary Jane sigh, and he held her tighter. Soon, she fell asleep. As the storm blanketed the forest, he was certain his brother had stopped searching for now. If he’d been alone and the moon had shown high and full this evening, he would have stolen into the night. With the precious cargo in his arms, he couldn’t risk it.

  Precious. Damn her, she had become too important. As she sighed again and her breath deepened, he didn’t have the heart to rustle her awake.

  Besides, if she slept maybe he could ignore the way she felt against him, nestled with such trust. He drew in a deep breath and caught her scent—pure woman and a hint of the escape they had endured. Damn, but she’d proved brave. More courageous than many men he’d known. His admiration increased.

  Yeah, keep telling yourself that’s all this is. Admiration.

  No. It was something else he couldn’t think too much about. His thoughts bounced from recognizing stomach-clenching danger to pounding lust. He closed his eyes and allowed a moment’s luxury in letting go. Her body curved into Elijah’s, warmth pressed against his erection. Her head nestled back against his right shoulder. When he watched her undress, he’d almost lost it. Almost gave into the soul-stealing lust that had slammed into him without warning. He’d heard other men speak of how danger heightened the senses, and when said peril vanished, desire replaced battle-lust. They claimed a man often required proof of life in sex. Slipping into a warm woman’s body could satisfy his urges and bring release from the blood churning emotions still coursing inside him. Yet the thought of just any woman under him, accepting his thrusts…no, he didn’t want it. Only one woman could satiate him.

  His hands slid up her ribs and paused just under her breasts. Sweet Jesus, he longed to cup her, to squeeze and plump those round breasts. Without the enhancement of a corset, her breasts still would fill his hands. He licked his lips imagining his mouth encircling a delicious nipple and sucking. He bit back a groan as his cock throbbed.

  He took long, slow breaths and strived to push away his lust. All that mattered was staying alive and finding a way out of their predicament. With that sobering thought, he opened his eyes and stared into their darkening, small shelter and waited for dawn.

  How many hours passed, he couldn’t say for certain. He drifted in and out of sleep, nerves still primed for action and danger. When night closed in, he found the darkness both comforting and disquieting. Sometime during that quiet, she shifted in his arms and moaned. Her head lolled to one side, and he realized she dreamed. Her movements became more pronounced. She started to writhe in his grip.

  “No, please. I did not mean to kill you.” Her voice whimpered, not loud but filled with horrific self-reprisal and fear. “It was— I had to escape from you.” Her voice became louder. “No. Please no.”

  Aware that she could alert Amos to their presence, he gently shook her awake. “Darlin’. Darlin’, wake up. It’s only a dream.”

  Immediately she jerked to alertness. “Elijah?”

  He smoothed his hands up and down her arms and kissed her ear. “You’re safe. It was only a nightmare. I’m here.”

  She sighed. “I never imagined killing anyone…in my dream he was in my face again.” Her body shuddered. “He was going to…”

  “I know.” He kissed the side of her neck. “He can never harm you again, Mary Jane. He can never harm anyone again.”

  Sobs shook her, and the agony spiking through Elijah took him off guard. He thought the pain might banish when he’d found her unharmed in the woods, but this grief pierced him like a sword. He rubbed her arms, soothed her with his touch and body heat.

  “Softly, darlin’. We must stay quiet.”

  But as he admonished her to remain as silent as possible, he held her into the night.

  Chapter Eleven

  Elijah felt the cold bunk under his back once more.

  Fear choked his breath as he pushed back the blanket. He bolted upright, a cry on his lips. Back in prison. He was back in prison with this feckin’ smelly blanket and the cold moonlight streaming in the skylight above. As he left the bunk and ran for the door that prevented escape from this living hell, Elijah realized he couldn’t take another minute, another day of silence, a day where his throat ached to speak, to utter a solitary word.

  Before he reached the door, he yelled. “Let me out of here, you bastards. Let me out.”

  He stopped dead as his hands hit the metal and wood that made up his door. Then the door rattled, and he heard Amos talking.

  “You in there, Elijah? ’Cause if you are, I’m m
aking sure that Varney keeps you in there forever. No one is coming to get you out, you hear? You’re going to rot forever in there little brother. Rot!”

  “Elijah?”

  He jerked, startled by Mary Jane’s feminine tones. “What? Where—”

  She eased around to look at him, breaking his grip on her arms. Light spilled between the foliage at the rock shelter entrance and filtered the dawn. Dust floated in the light. “You were having a nightmare again.”

  “Damn it.” His mouth felt pasty, his heart banging against his ribs.

  “I was afraid you would cry out and alert our pursuers.”

  He took a ragged breath and shook off the dream. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes held sympathy and understanding. “It is all right. Someday you will have to tell me about the dreams in more detail.”

  That made him uncomfortable. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…”

  He trailed off. The small cave pressed down around him, his breath threatening to strangle in his throat.

  “Elijah?”

  He gasped. “I’m all right.”

  “Is it the cave? Does it remind you of your cell?”

  He closed his eyes and took two deep breaths. “When we first crawled in here, I didn’t even think about it. Now…”

  “It is all right. We are going to be fine.”

  He didn’t have to force a smile. Somehow his heartbeat began to return to normal with Mary Jane’s sweet, comforting voice wrapping around him.

  Morning came, and with it, fresh challenges. Tough, damn near insurmountable challenges with a woman at his side. On the other hand, she was far tougher than he believed when he first met her. His confessions to her, though perhaps ill advised, had taken him by surprise. He’d spoken of things he had never told another person, not even his Ma. The last thing he expected was to feel relief he’d confessed so much. The anvil he carried around his neck remained, but now it felt lighter.

  They had frittered away precious time sleeping. The earth waited for no one. Birds chirped outside. The scent of rain and earth permeated their hiding place. Wishing for fog cover seemed a futile venture with sun rays drawing bright bands along the rock and dirt shelter floor.