The Gunslinger's Gift

by April Zyon

  Stopping, he looked around. Now, he had one major problem and a minor obstacle, getting Sophia to speak to him again so he could apologize and avoiding being gutted by her sister. He’d seen the looks that Vivian had been shooting his way, and now, he understood them.

  * * * *

  It had been two of the most miserable weeks of her life. Sophia was a consummate idiot and found herself trying to get James to see her as his other half. It took her two weeks to realize that perhaps the feelings she had for him were one sided. It took her two weeks of seeing him calling other women or hearing him prattle on about how he was going out with twins to realize that perhaps she had been wrong.

  She sighed again and looked out over the vistas that the mountaintop offered. She was alone on the small area that currently held a helicopter, as well as bolted down tables for picnics. She couldn’t even paint. She finally embodied the very word she had hated all her life. She finally embodied the word that the kids in the foster homes had teased her with. Sophia was sad. Not just sad, but utterly heartbroken.

  She refused to cry, though. She did enough of that at night, when she was by herself in the darkness. She cried so much that she kept a near constant headache from the waterworks.

  Standing, she walked to the edge of the protective area and gazed across the rugged terrain at the slowly setting sun. She needed to leave. She knew it, Mercury knew it, and now, so did Viv and Jason. She was going to go to Miami. One of the Guardian’s that lived there was willing to put her up for a bit.

  After that, she wasn’t sure where she was going to go, but she knew she couldn’t remain where she was, because seeing James go out and come back many hours later smelling of women was something she couldn’t take any longer.

  Not that she blamed him, not really. After all, she knew now that he didn’t have a clue who she was to him. She knew now that the feelings were all one sided and that she had to get away and stop making an idiot of herself around this man.

  She didn’t want to go, but she had to go. She would become bitter and hateful, otherwise, and she couldn’t do that to her sister and the inhabitants of the Mountain.

  No, it’s best for me to simply get the hell out of Dodge, as the saying goes. Leave her broken heart behind, because that’s where it would remain, with James, even if he didn’t know it.

  A small noise behind her alerted her to the fact she was no longer alone. Not that she turned. Maybe they’d get the hint and leave her be. The heat that scorched along her back from a large, definitely male body, though, told her that whoever it was hadn’t gone away.

  “Can we talk?” James’s voice asked, his breath brushing against her neck and ear, causing the little hairs at her nape to move slightly.

  Why does it have to be him?

  Sophia had to lock her knees to keep from swaying. She had to keep herself from leaning back into the man that had held her close one night to stay warm. “Sure,” she answered instead, without moving, without inflection. “However, I had assumed that you said all that you wanted to the last time we spoke. Something along the lines of you telling me to get the hell away from you and let you live in peace?” In addition to making a date on the phone with a woman for sex within Sophia’s earshot.

  He let out a sigh. “I was an idiot. I admit that freely. I was trying to push you away. I’m sorry. I didn’t understand what was going on. All I knew was, every time you got close, I’d get these brutal headaches trying to tear my skull open, and it put me in a pissy mood. After getting shot in the head, you tend to be a little annoyed about such things.”

  He paused, and she heard him shifting around behind her. “I should mention that I haven’t been with anyone since I met you, Sophia. I may have said I was meeting someone, or someone’s, but I never actually did. I couldn’t. Again, I didn’t understand why, until just a few minutes ago. I know you likely don’t believe me; I wouldn’t blame you, honestly, but it’s the truth.”

  “Why?” she asked, still without turning. She couldn’t let him see the tears trailing down her cheeks. That would be mortifying. “Why haven’t you been with anyone else?” She needed to know. “And I’m sorry you’ve had headaches. Are you blaming those on me, as well?” He had blamed her for a number of things, so the headaches would only be just a bit more that he could lay at her feet.

  He moved closer. She could feel the brush of his clothing to hers, his arms coming around so he could brace his hands on the railing in front of her. Effectively caging her, she noted. “Because they weren’t you, and the mere thought of being with anyone else made me sick to my stomach.

  “The headaches are in part because of you, but mostly because I’m an idiot. It’s the medallion telling me to come to you, to be close to you, to claim you as mine. No one else has had this happen to them because no one other than me has taken a fatal wound to the head and successfully been brought back.

  “Mercury told me then that he didn’t know what side effects I’d suffer. For months they watched me, ran tests on me, put me through hours and hours of training, just to ensure there were no lasting effects from the gunshot or the medallion placement.”

  Sophia found herself leaning back against him and then turning. “I’ve dreamed of you for years, since I was a child, and had no idea why. The ’scapes that I paint have been from your past. For some reason, I’ve lived in your memories.” She sighed, putting her head on his chest and her arms around him.

  “You broke my heart, you know.” She whispered her admission to him, hurt in her voice. “How about now? Are you hurting now?” If so, she would have to stay on the course that she had plotted and leave. She couldn’t remain, not if she caused him pain.

  A shudder rippled through him before he pulled her closer. “No,” he said, softly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sophia. I’m so sorry, and I’ll keep saying that each and every day for the rest of my life. I know you were going to leave. Please don’t,” he breathed out, in a choked voice.

  “Okay. Unless I hurt you.” She moved her hands over his back, lightly caressing him. “So, if I hurt you, tell me?” She pulled back and looked up into his face. She knew he could see her tears, but she didn’t mind. “Can you—?” She chewed her lip and felt him tighten his grip. “Can you kiss me?”

  “Absolutely,” he spoke in a rush. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips to her cheeks, first on one side then the other. Slowly, he worked his way to her mouth. Then, he kissed her, really kissed her, teasing the seam open and stroking his tongue over hers as he drew her impossibly closer to his body.

  Sophia had never experienced anything like this before. The kiss had her whole body going tight, and then loose, all at once. She kissed him back with desperation and desire, her arms moving to wrap around his neck instead of his waist and pulling him closer. When he nipped her lower lip with his teeth, she gasped then moaned. She could feel the liquid between her thighs, eager for him to show her so much more.

  When they parted, she was panting. “James. Please don’t let me be dreaming.”

  “You’re not dreaming. If you are, then so am I,” he assured her. He brushed a light kiss over her lips again and drew back a little more. “Sophia, please stay. I don’t think I could survive if you left. Not now. I have so much to make up for with you, and I shouldn’t be asking it of you, but I have to. Stay.” He was practically begging.

  “Okay.” She easily gave in. “But only if we can start fresh. No need to beat yourself up over what can’t be changed. Let’s simply enjoy our time with each other.” She just wanted to forget the last two, horrible weeks. “I’ll stay, but if anything changes and you can’t bear to remain with me, tell me?”

  James cupped her face and held her as he leaned his forehead to hers. “I can’t bear to be without you, Sophia,” he said, quietly. “We can definitely start fresh. I’m willing to let the past go if you are. Why you are, I’m not even going to question. I’m feeling too damn lucky right now. So, one last time, just for my own conscience—I’m s
o, so damn sorry for how I’ve acted and how I’ve made you feel as a result of my own selfishness and stupidity.” Pressing another kiss to her mouth, he pulled her into a tight hug.

  Sophia hugged him back. She licked her lips and looked up at him. “I’ve never done a relationship before, so what happens next? Where do we go from here? I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to let you go.” She was counting on him to show her the way. She trusted him to keep her safe.

  “Now, we get to know one another. I’ve never really had a relationship either, honey. We’re going to have to muddle through it together. We’ll screw it up, we’ll make a mess of it, but that’s okay, because it’s us. As long as we talk to one another and stay open with each other, I think we’ll be okay in the long run,” he told her.

  “I like that idea. I think we’ll work well together. Just no more hurting me, okay? No going to another female instead of me when you should be?”

  “There’s no one I’d rather turn to than you, Sophia.” The wind was picking up enough to make her shiver. Something he noticed. “Come on inside with me, please. We can go somewhere and just talk. Because I really want to get to know you better.”

  “I’d like that.” She grinned. “We could go to my room or to yours. I know you won’t ask me to do anything I don’t already want to do. Yours might be best, since mine is very close to Vivian’s, and she’ll come check on me early in the morning.”

  “All right,” he said. Keeping an arm around her, he walked with her back inside the compound. He led her through the many corridors and down to his suite. Letting her in, he followed, turning on the lights. “Did you want something to drink?” He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it up.

  “A bottle of water, if you wouldn’t mind.” She looked around. The room fit him, perfectly. “This room is so you. It’s masculine, yet soft. I like it a great deal more than my own.” Turning, she gazed at him and asked, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

  He paused mid-step for a moment before continuing toward her. He held one of the bottles of water out to her. “If you want to, sure,” he answered, in a cautious tone. “Sophia, you do know I won’t push you into anything, right? You’re always welcome here, close to me, as close as you want to be, really. But it all has to be up to you. So, if you wish to be here tonight, tomorrow, and every day after…absolutely. As long as it’s what you want, honey.”

  “I want to stay with you. I want a life with you, James.”

  “All right, then.” He grinned. “Grab a seat.” He walked with her to the sofa and sat down once she was sitting. He gave her a bit of space, but not too much. Letting her choose if she wanted to be closer or to keep the distance, she figured.

  When he was settled, Sophia curled up against his side, adjusting his arm so that it was wrapped around her. With her head on his shoulder, she smiled. “There, this is much better,” she told him happily. “When we’re together, please never hold back from touching me?” God only knew that when she had first met him, she had touched him a great deal. Granted, it had wigged him out.

  “I can do that.” Pulling her a little closer, he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Tell me about yourself, Sophia. I want to know everything and anything you care to share with me.”

  “My mother died giving birth to me,” she began bluntly. “I guess that life was just not meant to be for her, not with two daughters and the monster that was my dad.” She shivered.

  “I clearly recall the first time he beat me. I was two, and Viv was five. She was able to shield herself pretty much from moment one.” Sophia rubbed her cheek to James’ chest, taking comfort from him. “Because he couldn’t get to Viv, he grabbed me and smacked me. Told me that unless she dropped the shield and came to him, he would be forced to beat me. Said he didn’t want to, because I wasn’t the one he wanted to hurt.”

  Which was only the start of her coming in second place. It was always someone else that everyone wanted, not her. Instead, they would use her to get to whomever it was they really wanted.

  “I used to have really curly black hair. I guess I looked just like our mother.” She touched her too-sensitive scalp. “He set it on fire when I was five. That’s when we were taken from him. They realized as I was in ICU just how abused I’d been.” She shrugged.

  “I was always second best. I had a guy date me once, not because he liked me or wanted to be with me, but because he wanted to get close to Vivian. Not that I blame him. She’s beautiful and outgoing and doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, and I’m not any of those things.” Even to James, she had been second place, and she knew it.

  “Damn,” he breathed out. He set his bottle of water aside and moved her into his lap, his arms wrapping around her. “Then I go and be a complete asshole, reinforcing it all again for you. No, don’t even pretend to deny it. I hear it in your voice. Shit, Sophia. I’m amazed you didn’t kick me to the curb from the word go. You should have, honey. Why you stuck it out as long as you did, I’ll never know.

  “I’m eternally glad you gave me half a chance to get my head out of my ass, but I’ll never understand it. You’re gorgeous, smart, talented, and the sweetest person I’ve ever met. And don’t you dare say you don’t have a backbone. You were giving me grief that night just fine, so I know you’ve got some serious iron running down that spine of yours.”

  Fia blushed and pressed her face into the curve of James’s shoulder. “How could I not stick it out?” she asked finally and pulled back to look at him. “You’re the only reason I survived childhood. When I was being beaten, I would have flashes of your life, the things you were doing, and I would feel your loneliness even though you were surrounded by others. I knew I had to live, had to survive for you. You saved me and didn’t even know it.

  “I have to admit to you, however, I don’t like being second best. I hate it,” she whispered.

  “You’re number one in my life,” he assured her, softly. “You’re the only reason I won’t fall to the dark. Sophia, you’re everything. The light that will keep me from the darkness, the hope that will keep me going, and the goodness to counteract my less-than-pure tendencies. You hold everything inside of you that is pure, right, and good. Hell, you’re damn well too good for the likes of me, but I’m never, ever letting you go. The Fates, Gods, whoever, chose you as mine, and I’m keeping you. Period.”

  Fia was perfectly fine with that. She smiled and moved to touch her fingers to his cheeks. “Good. Whoever put me with you knew what they were doing, and I’m very happy that they did.” She leaned in and brushed her lips to his very lightly. “And when my paintings come here, you’ll see just how much of your life I’ve lived.

  “They’re scenes from your memories or past or whatever it is. I did them to keep myself sane and not give in to the pain and the desire to just slip away forever.”

  “Now, I’m really not sure I want to see them.” James made a face. “I didn’t exactly have a pillar-of-the-earth sort of life. Hell, I didn’t even have a good one until I came to the Guardians. Even then, it was a little sketchy for a time. Wait…” He lifted his head and sent her a narrow-eyed look. “Are there any of me naked?”

  She shook her head. “I painted what I saw through your eyes. The horses, the towns, your guns, fields of flowers. Things like that.” She had refused to paint the numerous naked women that had invaded her psyche until she had learned how to tune them out. “And you lived in a pure time, a time before Mother Earth began being abused and stripped of her beauty.”

  “So, there are none of me personally?” he asked, his tone curious. “I’m trying to think of when you might have seen me, and beyond looking in a mirror after a shave for a few moments, I can’t think of any other times.”

  “There are many portraits of you,” she admitted, with a blush staining her cheeks. “Charcoals, pencils, every medium I could think of. You fascinated me. Everything about you always has. That’s why I knew who you were the second I saw you. Only, to me, you were Billy, not James.
”

  “I rarely used my given name,” he said. “After I was brought into the Guardians, I distanced myself from my Wild Bill days as much as I could. Thankfully, they had me in training for a number of years, so the so-called legend died off on its own. Except for those damn dime novels.” Huffing out a breath, he watched her and shrugged. “You can call me whatever you want to, though I warn you, I’ve been untrained to answer to Billy for a while now, so it’s going to take me a bit to get used to it again.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve grown used to calling you James.” She would miss Billy, but that was the past and James, her James, was the future. “I might slip and call you Billy from time to time, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “I don’t mind hearing it from your lips. You may need to smack me if I’m ignoring you when you use it, though,” he said, with a grin. Leaning in, he kissed her cheek and hugged her close. Sighing, he drew back slightly and looked at the clock. “Don’t know about you, but I think I’m ready for some sleep. I haven’t been sleeping well since we got back. The friction between us has been messing me up. If you want to watch TV or a movie, go right ahead. After growing up in a time when gunfire was commonplace, not a hell of a lot can wake me up.”

  “No, thank you. I’d like sleep, as well. I haven’t slept well in far too long.” She moved so that she was standing before him. “Do you have a shirt you can loan me? I’d like to get cleaned up, but I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Definitely.” Getting up, he put a hand on her back and guided her down the wide hallway to a door. Pushing it open, he urged her inside then hit a light so she could see the bedroom. He moved around her to a dresser where he pulled out a long, button up shirt. “Bathroom is right through there. Towels are on the shelf and anything else should be in the vanity. I’ll just turn the lights off in the outer room then come back to wait on you.”

  “Okay.” She held the shirt in her hand and chewed her lower lip. Then, she stared up at him and grinned. “Are you going to take your weapons and put them outside of the bed? I would like to sleep with you without a gun in bed with us.” She hoped that wasn’t asking for too much.