“I expect you to fulfill your duties and build me my bridge to peace. I expect him to treat you with respect and not force you.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“I will dance him into death.”
Her pulse sputtered before settling into a fast-paced gallop, and she fought panic for a different reason entirely. “I don’t want that.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t either. You have that in common. It’s a place to start.”
“I don’t want a place to start. He’ll break my heart, Grandfather.”
“It’s already broken. Maybe he can heal it. He’s a better man than you think.”
She squared her shoulders and set her jaw. Grandfather didn’t understand, and never would, and Jessie couldn’t explain why she wasn’t strong enough to forgive Luke. Hell, she didn’t even know half the time. Whenever she was in the circle of his arms, she forgot about her grief. Instead, she remembered how it had felt to lay in his arms under a moonlit sky. She remembered the way he’d cupped her face and kissed her in a way that made her soul shiver. She remembered the way his hands had shaken when he touched her, or how a single caress would leave her desperate for more.
She remembered being the only girl in the world, when Luke had filled her heart with such joy she’d never recovered from the loss.
“I can’t,” she whispered. The words weren’t meant for her grandfather.
After a time, he smiled and gave her a gentle push in the direction of the husband she shouldn’t want. “Forgive him, Granddaughter. You may just find your forgiveness will heal both of you.”
“I hate him.”
“No, you don’t.”
Jessie couldn’t counter that. “Please.”
Her grandfather gestured to her husband. “Go, Jessie. Stop looking in the wrong direction and see what’s at your feet.”
“All I see is a whole lot of dirt and rabbit shit.” She kicked at the dirt with the tip of her boot.
Jessie expected anger from him—her own father would have whipped her for such language—but instead he laughed heartily, and amusement shone in his dark eyes.
“Then you’re not looking hard enough.”
Chapter Thirteen
Luke sat by the fire, next to Jessie’s cousin Cheveyo. He looked at the wikiup Ewepu So’wina’ had insisted they use, where his reluctant bride waited. Since their arrival in the village, he’d not had the chance to speak to her but fleetingly—nothing more than a nod, or a hello, or a smile. He’d been kept with Ewepu So’wina’ and Cheveyo, and he was grateful to them for that.
Once he did get her alone, he had no idea what he would say to her.
She’d told him about the letters she’d written after his disappearance. Instead of using her anger as a weapon, she’d shown him her hurt, and that pain, her pain, tore him up more than anything else ever had. More than any wound he’d ever received; more, even, than the loss of his leg had.
Her pain left him feeling raw and exposed.
Cheveyo gestured to their wikiup. “Your wife awaits. You should go to her.”
Luke leaned back on his elbow. More than just buckskin and hides and a few feet of space separated him and Jessie. Maybe more always had. “I think I’ll wait a bit.”
“Wait any longer, white man, and your bride will be asleep.”
Ewepu So’wina’ leaned over and said something to Cheveyo, and the men around him laughed.
Amusement lit Cheveyo’s eyes. “My grandfather wonders if you are nervous about your wedding night. Perhaps you are not… ahem… up to the task?” He leaned in close, so only Luke could hear what followed. “I could clear this up for him, but I suspect you don’t want me to do that.”
“No.” Luke stared at the entrance to the wikiup he was to share with his new wife.
Wife. He never thought he’d have one.
Cheveyo leaned back on his elbow, in a posture mimicking Luke’s. “I suppose I should tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
“You and Jessie were married today.”
“She may have mentioned that in passing.”
Cheveyo laughed again. “You amuse me, Luke Bradshaw. I can see why she likes you.” Luke said nothing, and Cheveyo picked up the flask next to him. He took a long swig, and offered it to Luke. Though Luke accepted the flask, he didn’t drink. “As I was saying, you and my cousin were married today. But only for a year and a day.”
Luke flinched, and his shoulders tightened. “What?”
Cheveyo glanced at his grandfather, who was speaking to the others and ignoring them, but Luke got the sense that the shaman knew everything going on around him—the way he directed his attention to the others seemed too intentional.
“Ewepu So’wina’ is many things, but he would never be so cruel as to tie his only surviving granddaughter to a man she didn’t love for the rest of her life,” Cheveyo said softly. “Not even if he never got his bridge to peace.”
“I still don’t know what that means.”
“Maybe you’re not supposed to. The bridge doesn’t need to understand why it was built—that’s up to the builders, is it not?” He paused and regarded Luke for some time. “Dark times are coming. Jessie will need someone to protect her.”
“Seems to me the dark times are already here.”
A smile ghosted Cheveyo’s lips. “Perhaps they are. Or maybe this is nothing more than twilight, and we have a long way to go until dawn.”
Luke put the flask to his lips, and took a long pull. The whiskey tasted bitter and burned unnaturally all the way down into the pit of his stomach. He’d always hated the stuff, anyway.
He handed the flask back to Cheveyo. “I sure as hell hope not.”
“As do I.”
Beside Cheveyo, Ewepu So’wina’ stood, and Cheveyo followed suit. “That’s our cue. Go to your wife. You have a year and a day.”
“And what happens then? It’s just... over?” He didn’t really want the answer to that question. He already knew.
“Looking to get out so soon, Bradshaw?” Cheveyo’s voice was light. Teasing. “At the end of year, if she doesn’t carry your child, you may go your separate ways, unless you both wish to remain together. If that’s the case, the two of you come back, and she’ll dance, and it will be official.”
“I suspect there’s little chance of that happening.” Luke stood up.
Cheveyo clapped him on the shoulder. “I think she might surprise you. Go.”
Hoots and raucous male laughter floated down on a cold wind as Luke ducked into their wikiup. Immediately, the impression of her assailed him. Her body. Her scent. Her presence.
Her fear.
He wanted to ignore it.
She’s an asset, he reminded himself.
She’s Jessie, his conscience whispered.
Kneeling, he took off his duster and wadded it up into a ball. He unbuckled his holster, unstrapped the knife he wore on his thigh and placed them just above the bundle where he would lay his head, keeping his weapons within easy reach should he need them.
Her eyes were wide, and her hands, folded primly in her lap, trembled.
He swallowed against the irritation rising at the back of his throat and unhooked his black braces.
“It’s all right, Jess. No need to look at me like that.”
“Like what?” She gasped as he took off the braces and his shirt.
“Like you’re scared to death. I’m not gonna try anything.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
Bullshit.
He shifted his weight uncomfortably and sat beside her. “I don’t expect anything tonight.”
There. He’d offered her an out. Nothing more could be expected of him. He was a man, after all.
And she was Jessie.
“What?” she whispered, her brow furrowing. Caution, and a deep, almost tangible sadness were etched in her features.
He waited until she met his eyes. “I don’t ex
pect you to treat me as a woman would treat her husband.”
The briefest of smiles graced her features before she looked away. “Good thing, too, since most of my cooking tastes like boiled shoe leather.”
He’d missed her humor, her teasing, and he laughed. “So you’re saying I’ll be doing the cooking in our household?”
“If you want to eat, you will.” Her voice wavered only a little.
Tell her.
If only he could find the words.
“You’ll want to get some sleep,” he said quietly. “We’re leaving for Fort Clark in the morning, and it’s a hard day’s ride from here.”
Her fist covered her lips. “What will we do when we get there?”
He considered all the things he should tell her about what they faced. “Catch a military transport to Fort Bastion. Get into Deseret. I guess we’ll have to see after that.”
Fort Bastion was on the far eastern border between Union-held territory and Deseret, the territory still known as Utah back East, but widely acknowledged as a separate entity out West, subject to its own laws. Fort Bastion was the northeastern most point inside Nevada where they would be able to catch an airship. After that first attack on Virginia City, no airships were allowed within Nevada, since it was impossible to tell the difference between a Union airship and one commanded by the Confederacy. All transportation within the state was done by rail, with forts strategically placed to scan the skies for evidence of airships as well as to watch the trains transporting the most important asset the Union had.
The blue silver alloy Jessie’s father had invented. Once electrified with the right charge, it caused the airship’s envelope to become lighter than air, and allowed it to fly. Ounce for ounce, it was the most coveted metal in the world.
Men all over the world would die to understand its secrets. But only one person really did.
He studied Jessie for a moment. Maybe two.
“Is that safe?” she asked.
He nodded.
No.
“A military transport should be safe enough, and I don’t see how we have much choice.” He pillowed his head on his arm and stared up at the roof of the wikiup. “Right now, it’s the only option open to us. We’ll keep you hidden as much as we can and try to disguise you when we can’t.” His gaze met hers. “I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
She leaned her head forward and rubbed her shoulder. “I know you will.”
She trusts me.
Tell her, his conscience bade him.
Instead, he sat up and moved behind her.
She cast a quizzical look over her shoulder, and he gave her a small smile as he laid his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs rubbing out the knots.
When he found a large knot and began massaging it away, she groaned, and the charge in her voice set his blood ablaze. His hands on her body fired an inferno in his chest, until he could think of little else but kissing her until he erased any other man from her memory. Until he erased the pain of his.
He wanted to relive those moments when he’d touched her before, when they’d been kids, and he briefly entertained the fantasy of running his hands over her golden skin and caressing her breasts. Of plunging into the haven of her body and bringing them both home.
“You’re good at that,” she whispered.
Brushing her braid over her shoulder, he slid his hands down her arms. He leaned in, his lips feathering over the skin of her neck, as lust screamed through his veins like the wail of air raid sirens. “Yeah, well, I’ve always been good with my hands.”
And then he kissed her.
It was just a simple kiss, placed where her shoulders met her neck. His tongue snaked out to taste the heat of her skin, the smallest of tastes.
She exploded on his tongue, and he realized that if he didn’t pull away, and put some distance between them, he wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t be able to stop.
She wasn’t ready for that. Maybe she never would be.
The thought sobered him, cooling the lust raging just below the surface of his skin. He dropped his hands, and lay back down among the blankets. Rolled to his side, his back to her, and covered himself with his duster and a blanket.
“Go to sleep, Jess.” He felt her eyes on his back for a long time.
Eventually, she lay down next to him and covered herself, and after a time, her ragged respirations evened out. And though he intended to keep watch over her through the night, not long after, he drifted off to sleep.
Snow, heavy with soot, drifted on a soft wind, its gentleness incongruous with the brutality around him.
He lay on his stomach in the snow, his head aching and his body bruised. Laughter and angry taunts surrounded him, and he fought against the lethargy of his limbs, the oppressive weight of…. something… in his chest. Wanted to stand up and fight, and wasn’t able to.
His body felt wrong, like it wasn’t his to control.
His back hurt, and a splash of crimson stained the nearby earth. A blood-covered rock lay not far away. His clothes were torn, his coat was gone. Exposed and beaten, he could scarcely breathe from the weight of soot in his lungs, from the pain in his chest that acted like an anchor, weighing him down.
He reached up to touch his scalp, and his fingers came away sticky. Crimson blood stained them, and he struggled against the apathy strangling him as surely as a noose.
Then he flinched, for the bloodstained fingers were not his own.
Delicate fingers despite the calluses, with long, graceful nails. Golden skin. A small, silver ring on the fourth finger, worn like a wedding band.
His ring. Her fingers.
Jessie. He was inside her.
The men surrounding him—her? Them?—laughed. They jeered and they kicked her in the ribs, and Luke willed her to fight, wrestled with the weight of her limbs to make her rise. And she wouldn’t. Instead, he was encased in darkness as she closed her eyes and waited.
Fight, Jessie. Open your eyes and fight, dammit!
Someone grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and flipped him over, his fingers digging into Jessie’s flesh. She opened a single eye, and Luke saw a man he had once thought of as his friend bring out a writhing bag.
Amidst the jeers, the contents of the bag were dumped onto his chest.
Rattlers.
His bellow of rage came out as little more than a desperate, feminine whimper.
Beneath the sound of Jessie’s cries and the taunts, the low music of a chant reached his ears. A chill settled over his bones, as memories of the Shaeffer mine flooded him. He only saw what she did—dead winter grass, sagebrush, angry, hate-filled sneers—but something moved in the periphery, and Luke sensed that something was infinitely more dangerous than snakes.
Luke wanted to focus on that, but couldn’t.
The vipers writhed on his chest, and he fought to remain still. The song built inside of him, outside of him, and he even heard drums as Jessie’s ancestors sang her home.
Fight, Jessie. Fight them. Stay.
Impotent rage spiraled through him.
She had known her ancestors had come to take her to the other side with them. They were everywhere: in the brush of wind against her cheek, in the shadow of the falling snow.
She welcomed their peace, willing herself to be quiet and still. Willed herself to become one with them and with the snakes writhing on her chest. The chants and the rattles mixed together, the song steadily building until he heard nothing else.
A shot rang out, and she flinched as he never would have. The song’s hold on the snake broke, and the rattler moved to strike.
He opened his mouth to shout, and what came out was a single note from a song he’d never heard. It terrified him.
Yet Jessie relaxed.
Mouth open, the rattler dropped mid strike, its lifeless jaws open and dripping with venom. The other vipers lay dead on his chest. Scrambling into a sitting position, trembling hands flung them away, and the men surrounding him backed away fr
om the corpses. One dropped to his knees as Jessie gained her feet, dizzy and unsteady. Without mercy, she opened her mouth to begin again.
That’s right, fight them, Jess.
“The song of death is not for you,” her grandfather’s voice whispered, and his vision tunneled to little more than a pinpoint of light in the middle of a sea of infinite darkness.
Another gunshot rang out, and all went dark.
Luke startled awake, and it took him several beats to realize where he was, and with whom. Anger and fear mingled beneath his ribs, his heart hammering.
Beside him, Jessie cried out and sat up, her unseeing eyes wild and terrorized.
She trembled as he gathered her into his arms.
“Hey.” He whispered into her hair. “Shh. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
Her tears stung his skin as she buried her face in his chest. She wrapped her hands around his midsection, her palms pressed flat against his back, and a different pain pierced his chest. Not grief. Not the hopelessness he’d grown accustomed to. Something… else.
“What was it, sweet?” he whispered.
Her cheek was warm against his chest. “Bear Creek,” she choked out.
Damn sheriff. If he ever got the chance, he’d kill every man there that day. They deserved to die for what they’d done to her. And now, he knew exactly who they were.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No,” she whispered.
He could have pressed her, but he didn’t.
“You’re okay. Bad dream, is all.” Her skin burned like ice where it touched him. “You’re shaking.”
She burrowed into his arms and nodded into his chest. “I’m cold.”
He rubbed tiny circles against the small of her back and held her until the tremors subsided. It felt so right to hold her in his arms. He couldn’t take away her pain. He wished the comfort he did offer would be enough, and suspected it wouldn’t.
For a long time he held her, for it was the only thing he could offer her. “Better?” he asked finally.
She squeezed him for just a moment before she nodded.
He stroked her back once more, and released her. Immediately, he wanted her back. “We should get some sleep.”
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