Far From Broken

by J. K. Coi

  “I was going to save this for Christmas, but…”

  “It was a gift.”

  “I think you should have it back.” He looked into her face, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Maybe because her own thoughts were too loud.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You told me when you gave it to me on the day of our wedding that it had belonged to the bravest, most honorable man you’d ever known, and that the photograph inside represented the greatest love you’d ever seen. You said you believed I was just as brave and good, and that one day our love would grow to be even greater than what your parents had shared.”

  “But why—”

  “Because you are the bravest person I have ever known, Callie, and I believe that our love will grow to be greater than anything the world has ever seen.” He paused. “Perhaps one day you will decide to give this gift back to me, but for now it belongs to you again.”

  She tried to shrug off his gesture and his words, but couldn’t quite manage it. Instead, she tucked the watch into the pocket of her vest and turned away before he could see the most recent chink he had put in her armor. The glacier of protection that had kept her blessedly frozen was thawing quickly. Since Jasper’s arrival, he had worked unceasingly to undermine her hard-fought detachment and resolutions with boundless understanding, and the promise of his undying love.

  She almost believed him, and that’s what frightened her the most.

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we go for a ride this morning,” he suggested, as if that’s what they did every morning. And in another life they had. But now…

  “I’ve already checked with the stables, and we can have Mrs. Campbell’s sled for the day if there’s anywhere specific you’d like to go. Perhaps out to Phillip’s Park for a turn.”

  At that she glanced back at him. “Does it look like I want to go anywhere? With you?”

  Her denial sounded petulant even to her own ears, and he responded with a grin that reminded her of the way things used to be between them. Once, her life had been full of Jasper’s teasing smiles and playful antics. He had liked to sneak into her studio and watch her dance, but soon enough he would interrupt, taking her into his arms to dance with him, and then it was never long before they ended up naked on the polished floors in front of the long windows with the afternoon sun streaming down on them.

  “That hurts,” he said with mock severity. “Besides, if you come outside with me, just think of all the snowballs you could hurl at my head.”

  She couldn’t trust the affection in his expression. “Why are you doing this?”

  The laughter fell out of his eyes. “What do you want me to do? This is our chance, Callie. This is the only chance we’ll have to pick up the pieces and try again. If we let this break us they will have won, don’t you see that?”

  “You think it’s just that easy? We’ll apologize and throw a couple of snowballs—”

  “Of course not. Good God, nothing has ever been harder than this, but the healing has to start somewhere. I won’t accept failure. I can’t. We’re a family, for better or for worse, remember?”

  “Those vows weren’t meant to encompass such trials as the ones we’ve encountered. They weren’t meant to bind you to…” she looked down at herself, “…this.”

  “Jesus Christ, just stop it. You’re beautiful,” he insisted. “You’ve always been beautiful, and nothing could ever change that.”

  “For a military spy, you’re such a horrible liar.”

  “I’m a natural-born liar, and you know it better than anyone. But not with you.”

  “And why not? It’s obviously worked for you before. Just because you got caught that one time, doesn’t mean I won’t be gullible enough to believe your falsehoods again.”

  “No, I won’t lie to you ever again,” he insisted. She thought he would apologize again, but he only walked to the door. “If you’re not ready in twenty minutes, I’m going to come back up here and carry you outside.”

  She started to laugh. “You can try.”

  “You don’t think I will?”

  “Perhaps.” She glared at him. “But you may require the doctor’s expertise in limb replacement for yourself if you do.”

  “Then be downstairs, ready to spend the day with me.”

  He was gone before she could refuse him again, leaving her feeling pestered and angry, without an outlet.

  Snowballs? A small smile pulled the corners of her mouth up against her will. She shouldn’t even consider it, shouldn’t give him hope.

  In the end, though, Callie met him in the foyer. Thirty-three minutes later.

  She’d donned a pair of leather gloves and a calf-length, silk-lined coat of soft black leather. It had been donated by Mrs. Campbell, who seemed to agree that Callie’s thin, flowing wraps, meant to be worn with the bustled gowns and day dresses from her previous life, didn’t quite fit with the breeches and boots she insisted on wearing now.

  Mrs. Campbell hadn’t mentioned anything about the coat’s previous owner, but Callie assumed a former patient had either forgotten it, or left it behind for…other reasons. Either way, she didn’t care where it came from. In fact, this was the first time she’d worn it. The leather was heavy over her shoulders, the sleeves hanging a little long. Still, she thought she might actually like it. Silly, but it gave her the same feeling of shelter she got from curling up in the partially enclosed window seat in her room.

  She finally looked at Jasper. He had dressed for the weather in a heavy wool greatcoat that she’d never seen before. He slapped thick riding gloves on his thigh and watched her. She knew he’d taken careful note of her hesitant steps down each stair, but he hadn’t rushed over with some ridiculous offer to help. Oddly enough, they seemed to have reached a kind of non-verbal truce, and Callie wasn’t eager to have it destroyed with more arguing just yet.

  “Are you ready, then?” He wasn’t smiling, but she could see in his eyes that he was pleased with her, and that only made her more nervous. Like the first performance of a new show, she was venturing onstage for the first time. Everyone would be watching, waiting for her to fall, and she could already see their pitying faces when it happened. It made her want to turn and retreat back to her room.

  She took an involuntary step backward, but he rushed forward and reached for her. She froze and looked down at their clasped hands, wondering why she didn’t just tear free of him.

  “You can do this,” he said in a low voice.

  She jerked her head up, her vulnerability doubling at the reminder that he’d always been able to read her too easily. She glanced over his shoulder, to the butler/guard standing quietly by the front door, and wondered what he thought of the crazy lady who was afraid to go outside. “Am I so transparent?”

  “Only to me. Only because I know you so well.”

  She lifted a brow. “You think so?”

  “Yes.” He said it as a promise and tugged her hand, forcing her to come closer. She could have resisted but she didn’t. Instead, she found herself looking into his deep blue eyes, searching for the truth. But those eyes seemed different, the man behind them was different. The way he saw her had to be different too.

  Despite Jasper’s efforts to appear calm and genial, he looked worn and thin. A light spattering of gray had appeared in his dark hair, just at his temples, and there were fine lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before either. He looked as if he’d spent every moment of the last four months on the road.

  No one had told her flat out where he’d been, but Callie suddenly knew that what she’d suspected was true. He had hunted down those men. He’d killed them for what they’d done to her. The realization should have shocked her, sickened her.

  It didn’t.

  Did such indifference for the sanctity of human life make her well suited to her new profession, she wondered? She hadn’t told Jasper yet, but he would learn sooner or later that her new limbs and superior strength were to be p
ut to work for the War Office, for General Black himself.

  Chapter Six

  Callie was the first to look away. She abruptly pulled her hand from his and took a step back, but hope lifted Jasper’s heart at the confusion he saw in her face, believing it meant she was finally softening toward him.

  He turned and indicated that she should precede him, gently placing his hand at her back. Mrs. Campbell’s footman was waiting for them and Jasper frowned. He’d forgotten all about the man’s presence at the front door.

  “The carriage has been readied, Lord and Lady Carlisle. Samuel will be your driver. You have only to tell him where you’d like to go.”

  He bowed and opened the door just as Mrs. Campbell herself exited the drawing room to greet them. “Lady Carlisle,” she said in a bright voice. “How lovely it is to see you getting out for some fresh air. It seems as if the colonel’s presence is having a much better effect on you this time than the last—” She broke off suddenly, as if realizing what she’d said.

  Callie’s back went ramrod straight against his palm, but no one else would have noticed. Jasper noticed, but he wondered if her reaction was more a result of the open door. She was fixed on it as if a torture chamber lay beyond it.

  He grabbed hold of her hand again and squeezed. “Good morning, Mrs. Campbell. I think we’ll take a short ride through the park. Thank you for allowing us to make use of your fantastic ski carriage once again.” He was trying to give Callie a chance to muster her nerves.

  Mrs. Campbell smiled. “Not at all, Colonel. I’m only glad the storm has passed and the sun finally decided to make an appearance so that you and Lady Carlisle can enjoy it.”

  “We will. Thank you again.” He turned back to Callie, whose jaw was clenched tight.

  The footman suddenly stepped away from the door and left the room without a word. Mrs. Campbell nodded with understanding before she also returned to the drawing room so that they could be alone.

  Grateful for the grande dame’s insight, Jasper let go of Callie’s hand and stepped between her and the open door. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She blinked as if his movement had broken her trance. “Ready?”

  He waited patiently.

  Finally, she lifted her chin and came forward. There was no more hesitation until she stopped at his side and looked past him to the frost-covered morning. “Callie?”

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  Callie understood that her fear was unreasonable. But what if she slipped on the ice and fell? Going out in public meant someone was sure to notice her eye, or her legs. She didn’t want to see disgust or pity in the faces of strangers.

  Worse, what if she was recognized? They would say how awful it was that someone who had once been so graceful and had danced so beautifully was now little more than a mechanical marionette, her every step gauche and bumbling.

  And just because she’d been dragged from her home into the outdoors, and carried through the woods to a hunting cabin by strangers who had brutalized her until she’d begged them to kill her… That wasn’t where these irrational feelings came from.

  It wasn’t.

  “You know those men will never be able to hurt you—or anyone—ever again,” Jasper whispered in her ear. He so easily saw right through her. “I made sure of it, Callie.”

  She nodded and stepped through the door. When he moved to assist her she shrugged him off, making her way down the flagstone steps to the carriage on her own.

  Before she knew it, she was sitting inside the box with a warm wool blanket tucked to her waist. The carriage swayed on its frame as Jasper climbed in and nestled beside her. He leaned forward to rap on the closed panel separating them from the driver, and after a brief moment, they started moving.

  Callie refused to look out the window, instead focusing on the seamless slide of the carriage’s smooth blades in the fairly deep snow. She found it hard to believe that the contraption was powered by nothing more than hot steam. In fact, the small stove which converted the odd shovelful of coal to usable energy kept the entire carriage warm as well.

  Then again, she only had to look down at herself to know that whether she wanted to believe it or not… “The world rushes headlong into the future,” she murmured. “Heedless of whether we wish it to or not.”

  He glanced aside at her in surprise. “I believe I said something similar to Mrs. Campbell and she chastised me for it,” he said. “She was right to do so. Whether we are prepared or not, the future must come. We can decry the advancements it will bring and shut ourselves away from it out of fear…or we can accept them and make them work to our benefit.”

  He made it sound so simple, and maybe it was. Maybe he was right to say she should rejoice in the fact that she’d been given a second chance at life, even if it wasn’t the life she’d planned for herself.

  Callie tried to relax. At least within the confines of the cozy carriage, nobody was able to see her. After a few minutes she chanced a peek out at the bustling city. The heavy snowfall hadn’t seemed to slow anyone down. Horse-drawn rigs as well as quite a few ski carriages like the one they rode in claimed the streets, while people went in and out of shops and called holiday greetings to one another.

  As she watched, they passed an old man sitting on the ground at the mouth of a dark alley. He wore a grimy uniform jacket, torn at the shoulder, and held out his misshapen hat to passersby and begged for spare change, but he was mostly ignored by the busy pedestrians. She gasped as she realized he only had one leg, and quickly dropped her gaze back into her lap. Guilt over her shameful reaction made her look up again, but the carriage had already moved on and she couldn’t see the man anymore.

  Caught up in morose thoughts, she was startled when the door swung open and the driver stepped aside to let them out. She hadn’t even felt the carriage stop.

  She carefully stepped down. Jasper followed. “Shall we walk?” he asked.

  Did she dare?

  She’d reached up to clasp the turn of his elbow before she even thought about it, but before she could pull away, he’d already clamped his hand over hers and started forward so that she had no choice but to walk with him.

  The public park was fairly busy, considering it was still early for the fashionable set to be out and cold for almost everyone else, despite the sunshine. Jasper led them along a path veering away from the crowd and they were soon almost alone.

  Callie realized she hadn’t stumbled once. The control that had slowly come more and more under her command was now almost instinctive. She didn’t have to think about every step. Although she still watched where she placed her feet, she felt sturdy, balanced and strong.

  “I should walk by myself.”

  “Why? We would have walked together just like this back at home. If I take your hand, or put my palm to your back, it has nothing to do with whether or not you can walk alone. I know you can. But I don’t want you to walk alone, and I don’t want to walk alone either. I want to walk with my wife. I want to hold her close to me.” To reinforce his words, he stopped and faced her. They stood next to a trio of large spruce trees with long sweeping limbs that hung low, heavy with snow. His arms wrapped around her waist and she found herself pulled flush against him.

  She remembered the watch resting in her pocket. Jasper loved that timepiece. Callie understood what he’d meant by the gesture of returning it and a soft spark fluttered in her belly as she looked up at him. Yes, she was softening, and part of her was afraid of what the emotions could do to her. It had taken so little for Jasper to burrow back into her life, under her skin. To force himself into her heart again and prove that she couldn’t lock him out completely, no matter how desperate she’d been to do it. She was vulnerable to him when she couldn’t afford to be vulnerable ever again.

  Even as she thought it, another part of her bloomed with hope like a daffodil coming to life after a long, cold winter. “Jasper.”

  “I’m going to kiss you now. Don’t hit me, all right?”
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  She frowned. “Why would you—?”

  “—want to kiss my own wife?” He smiled. At first she thought he was being cruel, but she couldn’t possibly misunderstand for long. It was in the set of his jaw, the arms holding her tight and the solid body pressing against her through the layers of clothing between them. “God, Callie. I’ve wanted nothing else than to have you in my arms once again, whole and safe.”

  She didn’t argue his idea of “whole.” Not now when his words and voice made her want to lean into him and the fingers of her good hand curled into the fabric covering his arm. In all the time she’d been consumed by pain and horror—not to mention anger—she’d never once thought there would ever be anything for her beyond that. She hadn’t thought about laughing again. Or kissing. Or sex. She hadn’t thought there might still be a life for her to lead. Not until this moment when that life suddenly seemed possible again, real again.

  Now she couldn’t take her gaze from his mouth, couldn’t stop thinking about Jasper’s kiss. She sucked the corner of her upper lip and worried it between her teeth.

  He groaned. “I love when you do that.”

  That surprised her. It was something she did involuntarily and hadn’t really noticed before. Jasper had certainly never brought it up in the past, at least not that she could remember. “Why?”

  “Because it always means you’re thinking about me,” he said with the ghost of a grin that raised memories of playful afternoons in bed. “About kissing me, and how it will make you feel.”

  “During the harsh light of day, right here in public where anybody could be watching?”

  A crisp breeze had picked up, slapping the hem of her coat against her legs, which she couldn’t feel. She could, however, feel the chill teasing the back of her neck where her short hair failed to protect exposed skin. And she could see the pink settling into Jasper’s cheeks, beneath the stubble coating his face because he still hadn’t shaved. She could feel the quickening of her blood as she looked at his mouth, the moisture on her lips as she pressed them together in anticipation.