“I’m not broken.”
“Let me finish.” His voice was rough. “If they’d broken you, I would’ve spent the rest of my life putting you back together. Broken was acceptable to me. Death was not. And I’m not sure what’s worse. That I can’t live my life without you, or what I was willing to accept in exchange for your life. If they’d broken you, death would have been a kindness. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
“I’m not broken,” she repeated. She ran her hands along his chest.
“You could have been.” He caught her hands in his and lowered them. “And I am so selfish that I’d prefer a broken woman to a dead one. Because if you’d died, that would have broken me.” His voice faltered and he frowned.
He stepped out of his trousers and moved under the falling water. His silver leg caught the light and sparkled. He closed his eyes as the water sluiced over his body, creating rivers of dark soot that circled the drain in the floor and disappeared.
When he opened his eyes, he extended his hand, and his expression caught her off guard.
My husband loves me.
She took his hand and joined him under the fall of water.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luke fingered the ring in his pocket.
Over the course of the last week, while they made their preparations, he’d gotten to know the woman he’d married. He’d discovered her heart, and heard her laugh, and seen her face shine with real joy. She was everything he remembered, and so much more.
Jessie hadn’t given him more than a bare bones account of what had happened to her, and though Elizabeth argued that he didn’t need to know the details, he’d read her debrief before Elizabeth had grammed it to Chicago.
The fire. The thermite grenade. The jump from the airship. The Duvalls.
Beauregard Fontaine.
If Luke ever had the opportunity to meet the man, he’d kill him where he stood.
Reading her account of what had happened made him feel sick. He’d come so close to losing her. The Rebs wouldn’t have been kind if they’d taken her—he knew what they did to their captives. With that in mind, he’d spent the better part of the week trying to talk her out of coming along, but with both Jameson and Elizabeth backing her, Chicago had approved the idea. He couldn’t change things now if he tried. Even as de facto team leader, orders were orders, and Chicago would yank him from this mission if he pushed it too hard.
And Jessie would kill him if he did.
That didn’t mean he didn’t understand what might need to be done. It just meant he wouldn’t be the one to do it this time.
Luke stepped into the foyer, and stopped cold when he heard Elizabeth’s voice ask, “How’s Luke?”
There was a long pause before Jessie answered. “Keeps trying to talk me out of going with them.”
“You can see his point, can’t you?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t hesitate. Jessie understood, she just wouldn’t listen.
“But it wouldn’t stop you from going, would it?”
“Are you asking for me or for Luke?” Jessie’s voice held no censure, just curiosity.
“I like you well enough, but I’m asking for Luke.” Elizabeth said. She’d always looked out for him, even before she’d joined their team as their photographic analyst and Jameson’ wife. “Tactically, sending you is the most logical thing we could do. Or it would be, if we didn’t have Luke. But we do have Luke, and that makes me nervous. If Mordecai could go in his place, I’d send him.”
Luke stepped into the entry to the sitting room.
Jessie shifted uncomfortably. “Luke won’t let me leave without him.”
Elizabeth smiled up at him. If he didn’t her know as well as he did, he would have sworn the woman had not a care in the world. But he did, and he saw the exhaustion and the worry pulling hard on her features.
“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. Bu
t 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.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
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 affor
d 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.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Make sure you do.” Parker’s bright eyes grazed Luke before settling on Jessie. “I’ll be blowing the entrance to the caves. Make sure you’re not inside. Got it?”
Luke clenched his teeth, but squeezed the other man’s shoulder in a companionable way. “I’m glad it’s you, Solo. I trust you do it right.”
Parker jerked his head in denial. “This isn’t right, Bradshaw, and you know it.”
“I know.” Luke’s eyes met Parker’s, and some sort of understanding passed between the two men.
Whitfield clasped Jessie on the shoulder, a wordless offer of comfort. “Time to get going.”
“Right,” Luke said.
Whitfield turned, mounted his horse and galloped off to the north, toward the other outpost.
Parker removed a set of segmented mirror binocular telescopes from his bag and watched the far outpost while Luke and Jessie sat together side by side, touching one another in the dark.
“His Lordship is in position.”
Luke squeezed her hand and moved beside Parker while Jessie pretended she wasn’t shaking. Pretended her palms weren’t sweating and her pulse wasn’t firing like explosive cannon shells.
“All right. Go.” Parker moved over the cluster of rocks and toward the outpost.
They waited for a few moments, and then Luke took her hand in his. “Time to go.” Still crouched behind the rocks, he took her face in his hands and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “No matter what happens, I love you. Remember that, Jess. No matter what needs to be done, I love you.”
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