Smolder on a Slow Burn

by Lynda J. Cox

  She had been just holding the window, staring out in the night while she tried to sort through the enigma of the man. Allison shoved the window up a little more and then tried to drag it down. It wouldn’t budge past its original point.

  “Allow me,” Adams’s deep baritone murmured in her ear.

  Startled, Allison reared away from the window. At the same moment, the train jolted forward, sending her tumbling backwards. Her head slammed into his shoulder. His arms snaked around her, steadying her. The broad chest her back pressed up against was as solid as a stone wall and the strength in the arms circling her waist felt as strong as iron bands. Her heart leapt into her throat.

  “I might begin to think that more than conversation is in your plans if you don’t stop throwing yourself at me. Of course, you can always blame it on your lack of coordination when the train is in motion.” He spoke barely above a whisper and his breath teased along her cheek, ruffling the stray wisps of her hair. Something deep in her stomach clenched, making it difficult to draw a deep breath.

  “I have no motives other than trying to close this window.” Allison didn’t make any attempt to free herself of his hold.

  “Then, as I stated a moment or so ago, allow me to assist you.” His chuckle sank deep into her, filling her with warmth, brushing over her like the richest of velvets.

  This was going to get her into serious trouble. Allison twisted out of his arms and away from the window, and dropped onto the bench.

  Smolder on a Slow Burn

  by

  Lynda J. Cox

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Lynda J. Cox

  Originally published by Wild Rose Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonEncore are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781503987067

  Cover Designer: Debbie Taylor

  This title was previously published by Wild Rose Press; this version has been reproduced from Wild Rose Press archive files.

  Dedication

  When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose.

  ~Chief Seattle (Duwamish)

  It is to the men who served their countries

  —both the United States

  and the Confederate States of America—

  with honor and valor

  during the American Civil War,

  and to the more than 750,000 men

  who gave the “last full measure”

  that I respectfully dedicate this work.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Author’s Notes

  A word about the author...

  Chapter One

  No mask like open truth to cover lies,

  As to go naked is the best disguise.

  ~William Congreve

  Omaha, Nebraska

  October 1878

  Allison Webster ran out of the train station, cursing herself. How had she managed to miss the porter’s call for everyone to board? She had to catch that train. She couldn’t risk staying any longer in Omaha. Someone had followed her to the boarding house last night and even though reason told her she was being foolish, she was certain she recognized the man as Nathan Garrison, from Colton County, Georgia.

  “Wait!” Allison ran as fast as heeled boots would allow. Her small carpetbag banged against her leg as she chased after the train. “Please, wait!”

  She caught up to the caboose, but the train was increasing speed. Black smoke belched from the behemoth’s massive diamond stack. A man poked his head out of a boxcar just in front of the last car. Even running for all she was worth, she noticed his smirk.

  “Toss that bag up here and give me your hand,” he shouted, holding his hand out to her.

  Without thinking of the possible consequences, Allison tossed her little bag into the car and grabbed the offered hand. He caught her wrist, and with one pull, lifted her into the air and swung her into the livestock car. Momentum carried her forward, and she fell to her knees in the straw, presumably bedding for the two cross-tied horses. At least it was clean, she comforted herself, and she hadn’t landed in anything distasteful. She knelt for a few moments to catch her breath and gather her scattered thoughts. Goodness, she never would have thought it possible for someone to pick her up and throw her as if she was little more than a sack of feed.

  After several gulping breaths, she pushed herself to stand and turned to the man who had rescued her. He stood in the open doorway, leaning a shoulder against the frame, his back to the landscape speeding by at a faster and faster pace. He wore a threadbare gray overcoat, the double row of brass buttons tarnished, the elbows patched. Fraying canary yellow overlay bordered the cuffs and stand-up collar. A single gold star graced either side of the collar, the thread in the embroidery faded to almost the same shade as the frayed overlay. Three thin stripes of age-dulled gold braid spiraled up the sleeves from the cuffs in an intricate pattern. A battered, sweat-stained cavalry styled hat covered his head and shaded half his face.

  Even though she couldn’t see his expression, Allison had the most uncomfortable feeling she was being looked over, sized up, and found to be lacking, a reaction she experienced all too often, but usually only in the presence of Alice, her fraternal twin sister. Self-conscious, she ran her hands down the front of her skirt. “Thank you,” she managed.

  He dipped his head. “First time we stop to take on water and wood, you can go on up to the passenger cars.” His rich, silken baritone startled Allison not for the depth of his voice but for the curtness of his words. Beyond a doubt, she had been dismissed.

  The train jerked as it picked up even more speed and Allison stumbled forward, falling into him, the length of her upper body pressing against the wall of his chest. She grabbed his upper arms to steady herself. It was like grabbing hold of two solid posts of sturdy Georgia pine. She risked a look up into his face. Eyes the color of fine Italian cobalt marble set in a surprisingly youthful face regarded her with a detached expression. Dark beard stubble covered his lean, hollowed cheeks and hard jawline. A thin scar ran the length and slope of his right cheekbone, disappearing into his dark hair. The combination of unnaturally youthful features with a trim body defied a guess at his real age.

  She couldn’t look away from his face and was unable to move. Struggling to form even a single word and aware she was gaping like a fish out of water, Allison snapped her mouth closed. Just the night before, she had seen that face depicted in the little dime novel she was reading and unless she was sorely mistaken, she was face to face with one Major A.J. Adams, rumored liberator of a lot of Confederate gold.<
br />
  A muscle clenched in his jaw while something icy filled the depths of his eyes. His hands closed on her waist, and a small squeak escaped her. Without apparent effort, he lifted her and set her down a foot or so away. “Go sit down over there on that hay bale, before you fall out the door, or worse, knock me through it.”

  Jolted out of her shocked silence and immobility, Allison managed a mumbled “Of course,” and cautiously walked to the hay bale in a corner of the car. She sat, then dropped her head to the wall behind her and shut her eyes, all the while tucking in the strands of hair that had escaped the chignon at the back of her head in an attempt to recreate a semblance of order.

  After subduing her rebellious hair, she brushed the remaining strands of hay from her traveling suit and glanced over to the opened door, pondering her disbelief and shock in coming face to face with the main subject of the novel shoved into the depths of her carpetbag. With a small start, she realized she had looked up into his face earlier and she had never been accused of being short. And, he had lifted her—twice—as if she weighed no more than a feather tick.

  Her brusque rescuer had his back to her. Black hair brushed over the top of his collar, a hard contrast to the canary yellow. He stood with his right shoulder pressed into the door frame, right ankle crossed over left. Short-shanked, blunted spurs were buckled onto his boots. Growing up and living all her adult life in rural Georgia, she knew many men who had fought for the Confederacy. Most of them, if they still wore part of their uniform, did so out of necessity. Reconstruction had brought poverty to the South and abject poverty among the “Sons of the South” was the norm rather than the exception.

  He didn’t seem to wear that overcoat out of necessity. His denims weren’t faded, and even though there was wear from what she could see of the sole of his boots, they didn’t appear to be in poor repair. Rather it appeared that overcoat was worn as a badge of honor and even more so as armor, to keep the world at bay.

  “Do you know how long before we stop to take on more water and fuel?”

  He twisted his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Probably about an hour.”

  “Thank you, again, sir.”

  “Try not to make a habit of missing the train.”

  When the train stopped to take on water at the first jerkwater little town, Allison admitted to herself that it had been the longest hour of her life. Her attempts at any conversation were met with silence at the worst and at the best, noncommittal grunts.

  At least, she comforted herself, she was leaving Nebraska. If she had truly seen Nathan Garrison last night, and if he had been looking for her, the search would have to start all over. She quelled a sigh. She wasn’t going to be talking with the members of the school board in Omaha any time soon about a teaching position.

  She should have kept going, and disappeared somewhere along the rail line, changed her name, even changed her hair color. Supposedly, there were ways to make her dark hair lighter, even red or blonde. And, if she had truly been smart, she would have done those things before she left Georgia. She could hear Alice’s outrage at just the contemplation of changing her hair color to red. Proper ladies did not dye their hair to any shade of red, regardless of the necessity of that action.

  The train shuddered to a halt. He grabbed her bag and set it next to the open doorway and waited for her to leave the boxcar. Allison slid down from the car, took the strategically placed bag and before she could offer her thanks, he stepped back into the shadows and slid the heavy door shut. For a long moment she stared at the wooden barrier. If he was an example of what the defenders of chivalry and honor had been reduced to, Allison wanted to tell him she much preferred the carpet-bagging Yankees. And, yet, she knew that wasn’t true. She had no use for the carpet-baggers. They had invaded much as a horde of locusts of Biblical proportions and with the attitude common to all conquerors. “You, sir,” she said, not caring if he could hear her, “are no gentleman.”

  ****

  A.J. watched through the slats of the livestock car as she made her way with as much dignity as it appeared she could muster. The memory of her tiny waist in his hands and the slightness of her build had startled him. The obstruction of that shapeless dark green sedge skirt vanished the moment his hands closed around her waist, and he could envision long, lithe limbs. He didn’t make it a habit to imagine any woman undressed, but this one knocked every bit of his equilibrium out from under him and he didn’t have the slightest idea why she did.

  When she met his gaze, he’d been taken back. Slender, feathered brows lifted and eyes the color of melted chocolate widened—widened enough he was sure she saw all the way into the black abyss that was once his soul. Bright color flooded her cheeks when he told her to have a seat on the hay bale. Her slight Georgia drawl, hidden under layers of what sounded to be years of formal education, knifed into his chest.

  He had watched her discreetly tuck several strands of walnut hair under that ridiculous hat perched on her head. Realizing he had been staring, A.J. turned his back, letting the rapidly moving landscape occupy his gaze. She was lovely, he had to admit. Walnut hair kissed with warm gold, high cheekbones that curved just enough to give her an elfin cast, a pert little nose, and the darkest chocolate eyes he’d ever seen combined into a rather alluring image. It had been a very long time since he had looked at a woman and not compared her to Cathy. He had sworn, as he knelt at Cathy’s grave, that there would never be another. Now, a little slip of a thing had gotten in past his carefully constructed battlements and stirred something he could have sworn on oath to be long dead and buried beneath a live oak in Kentucky.

  She was right, he was no gentleman. Sliding the door shut in her face hadn’t been the most gentlemanly thing he could have done, but he had long ago given up being anything that might even resemble a gentleman. He’d given that up sometime during his tenure in a veritable hell on earth called Camp Infernum.

  The gray horse in the boxcar snorted and shuffled his feet, breaking A.J.’s train of thought. He pulled the door open. Much as he liked the horse, he had no intention of riding all the way to the Wyoming Territory in the same boxcar. After grabbing his saddlebags, he slipped out and climbed into the last of the three passenger cars pulled by the massive locomotive. He tossed the bags under the last row of benches. After settling into the corner of the bench seat he stretched his legs out. If his luck held, he might even have the whole car to himself for several hours.

  He dropped his chin to his chest, pulled his hat down low and folded his arms, trying to get as comfortable as he could on the unforgiving wooden bench. The first hiss of steam into the pistons nearly drowned out the porter’s call of “All aboard!” The car rocked on its iron wheels and the behemoth lumbered forward.

  The rustling of fabric alerted him that someone had taken a seat on the bench opposite. Without lifting his head, he pried one eye partially open. A carpetbag as faded and frayed in places as his overcoat sat next to his outstretched legs. Black patent leather shoes primly rested on the floor, only the toes visible under the hem of a dark forest green skirt. He recognized that damn carpetbag and the color of that fabric.

  A.J. stopped himself from rolling his eyes in frustration. What the blazes did she want now? Hadn’t he made it more than clear he did not want company and he sure as hell wasn’t about to engage in any banal, trivial small talk that passed for “conversation” in polite society. If he ignored her, hopefully she would find somewhere else to sit.

  By the time the train had reached its maximum speed, she still hadn’t left. With a silent snarl, A.J. lifted his head and pushed his hat back. She was sitting as if she were being observed by a pack of matrons and biddies just waiting for the slightest deviance from that oh-so-proper posture. She had a book on her lap, but he never heard the pages rustle, so she wasn’t reading a damn thing.

  “What do you want?”

  She lifted her head. “I beg your pardon?”

  He forced himself to look away from the d
epths of her chocolate eyes and scanned the passenger car. “Look, you’ve got the whole car to yourself. Hell, I think you’ve got the whole damn train. Why sit there? What do you want?”

  “As we are the only two people in this car, I thought perhaps we might shorten the journey with con—”

  “You thought wrong.” He no longer knew how to deal with any human emotion directed at him—aside from revulsion or hatred—and her seeming need for simple companionship had him reeling. Hoping she would find another seat, A.J. tugged his hat down and settled into the corner, again. The train jolted over an uneven section of track, jarring deep into his spine. He grit his teeth and bit back a resounding curse as pain flared in his lower back, shooting white hot down his left leg. “Go sit somewhere else.”

  “I don’t think I can do that.” Her voice sounded small.

  Oh, for the love of God, if she thought the wounded female voice was going to change anything, she had another think coming. “Yes, you can.” Even he heard the hard snap in his voice. “I do not want, nor do I need, companionship on this journey.”

  “Forgive me, but I honestly don’t think I can take another seat. I’ve already proven that I am none too steady on my feet when the train is in motion.” A self-deprecating note colored her words.

  Her ability to see humor at her own expense doused his temper. A.J. dipped his head, using the bill of the hat to hide his losing battle with a smile. She did have a point there.

  “And, as I asked the porter how often the train stops to take on water and fuel, you will either be forced to endure my company for an hour, or if you simply cannot abide my presence, you may take another seat.”

  Of all the temerity…He didn’t know whether to re-fan his pain-borne anger or give in to curiosity about this contradiction sitting across from him. He settled on curiosity. A.J. nudged his hat back ever so slightly, not enough to un-shroud his face but enough to see hers. “Are you always this audacious?”