Finn gasped with fake offense. “Madam, a man may be many things. Fierce, strong, ferocious, powerful, devastatingly handsome, perhaps. But never adorable.”
“Sorry, you are definitely adorable.”
He narrowed his eyes and growled. Lucy laughed and then sucked in her breath as the movement jarred her healing face. All merriment dropped from Finn and he reached out a gentle finger to trail along her lip and up her bruised cheek.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
“Shh.” Lucy shook her head. “You have nothing to apologize for. Ever.”
He caressed her cheek, his eyes creasing in worry and sorrow. Lucy kissed him, cutting off whatever else he might have said.
“You saved me, Finn. That’s all that matters. You saved me.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath and rested his forehead against hers. They stayed that way for several moments, relishing being in each other’s arms. He finally pulled away to look at her again.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Much better,” she murmured, enjoying the brush of his hand along her skin. “Really,” she said when his eyes narrowed. “I’m still a little sore but I don’t feel as stiff and my face doesn’t ache as much as it did.”
He frowned. “I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I mean no offense by this, but you look like hell.”
Lucy laughed again. “I’m sore. But I’ll survive. I’m sure it looks worse than it feels.”
“I hope so,” Finn murmured.
He leaned forward and gently kissed her temple, then moved down, his lips barely touching the bruised skin of her face. When he reached her lips he carefully kissed her, so lightly his lips barely brushed against hers.
He moved to sit back but Lucy reached up to cup his head in her hand and brought him back to her. She kissed him again, lightly at first, and then more insistently. Finn tried to pull away again.
“Don’t stop,” Lucy begged.
“Lucy, we shouldn’t.”
“Why not? I’ve waited to be with you for nearly a decade. I’m done waiting.”
She pulled him back to meet her lips, taking a long, deep taste of him.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured against her mouth.
She nipped at his bottom lip. “I’ll tell you if it hurts.”
He trailed kisses along her throat, down her neck. “Promise?”
He reached her collarbone, his tongue darting out to taste the hollow of her throat while he untied the ribbon of her neckline.
Lucy dragged in a tremulous breath. “I promise,” she said, knowing she’d gladly suffer in silence before she’d tell him to stop what he was doing.
She leaned into him with a tremulous sigh, enjoying the warmth of his body pressed against hers. They were finally alone.
That notion pushed all thoughts from her mind. She gazed at him, her breath quickening as he leaned down to kiss her. The gentle press of his lips deepened, his tongue lightly flicking at her lips until she opened to him. His hands moved to cup her face, slipping into her hair and grabbing hold as he worshipped her with his lips.
Lucy’s arms wound around Finn’s neck, and she clung to him, her tongue tangling with his as a low moan escaped her throat. The small noise seemed to spur him on and her head swam as his hands massaged their way down her back, gripping her hips to keep them firmly pressed to him. She was very aware that he was every bit as affected as she. The heat building low in her belly flared as Finn covered her body with his own. She threw her head back, dragging in a ragged breath as he pushed her chemise off her shoulders, baring her to his touch. His hands traveled up her rib cage and she gasped, arching into his fingers as he gently caressed her through her thin gown.
Finn paused at the sound, glancing at her to make sure she was still okay. Lucy answered him by wrapping a leg about his hips and covering his lips with hers.
Neither one of them needed to have worried. Finn was extra-careful of her as he explored her body. Lucy felt nothing but sublime happiness. Any discomfort melted away on wave after wave of pleasure. She’d waited so very long for this moment, for this man. The love she felt for him eclipsed everything else. There was nothing but him, nothing but them. All the years of wondering, mourning, were burned away with every searing kiss, every whispered endearment.
And at the final moment, when Lucy gazed up at Finn to see her own tears of joy mirrored in his eyes, she knew they were both healed at last.
The day had waned into night and the morning dawned anew and still they lay tangled together. Lucy stretched out beside Finn and wrapped her arm around his waist, cuddling into him. He drew a finger along her jawline, pressing up on her chin to tilt her face up to his. He kissed her, his lips lingering long enough that the sweet hello began to build into something much more. Lucy brought her hand up to tangle in his hair, trying to press him even closer.
Finn chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “I should probably go. It’ll be morning soon.”
“Not yet,” Lucy said, tightening her grip on him. “We’ve still got time.”
Finn chuckled. “Possibly, though I’m not sure what we could do to fill that time. You’ve exhausted me, lass.”
Lucy buried her smile against his chest, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. “We could talk.”
“Hmm, about what?”
“You never told me how you got these,” Lucy said, tracing the scars that ran over his chest and arms. “Or this.” She ran a finger down a long scar on his leg and Finn shivered and laughed, snagging her hand so she couldn’t do it again.
“Not much to tell. I fought in the war. Sometimes the war got the best of me.”
“About that,” Lucy said, propping herself up on her elbows. “If you work for Philip, who is Southern through and through, how in the world did you end up fighting for the North?”
Finn sighed and tucked a hand behind his head. “Philip thought if he had a man in a prominent position with the other army, it would give the South a leg up.”
“You were a spy?”
Finn laughed again. “Not a very good one. I passed along enough information to keep Halford happy, but I made sure it was outdated. Headquarter locations that had been moved, plans that had been changed. A few times I even managed to feed them information that helped the North.”
“Sounds like a fine line to balance.”
“You have no idea,” he said, leaning down to nuzzle at her neck.
“Hmm,” she purred, the sensation of his breath on her neck toe-curlingly divine. “A butler, a double spy, a bodyguard, a priest. Is there anything you can’t do?”
Finn snorted. “A priest?”
Lucy grinned. “You married Brynne and Jake, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. But I’m hardly a priest. Don’t have the temperament for it,” he said, swooping in for another kiss. “They were the only couple I ever married and it was really more of a mishmash of the few words I remembered from a handfasting I’d seen once in Ireland and the Mohave ceremonies I’d seen. And I only did it because Jake begged me to.”
“I don’t see why he even asked. He knew it wouldn’t be legal.”
Finn shrugged. “I suspect they just wanted something to make it more official in their eyes. A way to pledge themselves to each other until they could get a real pastor to do the job. I was the only somewhat religious man available at the time.”
“A religious man, huh? Is that how you got these?” she asked, tracing the T-shaped tattoos just below Finn’s cheekbones.
He took her hand and kissed her fingers, one by one, before laying her hand on his chest beneath his. The gesture was sweet, but Lucy knew he’d done it to stop her from touching the marks. She curled onto her side, her head propped on her arm.
“Is it a painful memory?”
“Yes.”
Lucy’s brow furrowed. She didn’t understand. The marks were supposedly only given to very important members of
the tribe. Gaining such marks, especially for one who was adopted into the tribe, should have been a wonderful memory. One to be proud of. Curiosity ate at her, but Lucy didn’t want to pry further.
Finn sighed and wrapped his arm about her, drawing her into his chest. She loved being close to him, even though he’d effectively made it impossible for her to continue staring at him. The man had talent.
“Do you remember when you asked if I’d ever loved anyone before?”
Lucy held perfectly still, not sure where this was going, but not wanting to interrupt the first mention he’d made of his life before Boston.
“Yes,” she answered quietly.
Finn’s arms tightened around her and Lucy stroked his chest, trying to ease whatever turmoil was making his heart slam against her fingers.
“I called her Rachel. I couldn’t pronounce her name when we first met.” He smiled sadly. “She was the first one to smile at me when my mother and I first came to the village. The only one to smile at me. My mother and I…not everyone accepted our presence right away. Couldn’t blame them, really. Two scraggly castoffs without another soul in the world to claim them. Except my stepfather, for a time at least.
“He’d found us half-starved outside one of the mining camps. My father had gotten sick on the crossing over from Ireland to America and the long journey to California hadn’t improved his health. He died soon after we arrived in California. My mother was afraid to venture too far into the mining camp. Women were very scarce in those parts. She’d likely have had a hundred marriage proposals after her first afternoon, but she was convinced she’d be raped and left for dead if she set foot in the camp. She might have been right. So, whenever we needed supplies, I’d go in and barter or buy what I could, steal what I had to. We panned our little stream and kept to ourselves.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
“So young,” Lucy said, burrowing closer into Finn’s chest. Her heart broke for the little boy he’d been.
“And how young were you when you started running raids with your sisters?”
Lucy laughed a little. “Okay, touché. So, how did you end up with the Mohave? They are much farther south than the mining camps.”
“Yes. My stepfather was a trapper and a bit of a wanderer. He’d spend fall and winter trapping in the north and then would travel south, selling his furs and whatever else he’d scrounged up. He was a tinker of sorts, I suppose. Had a great cart full of all sorts of things. He came across my mother one afternoon when I was away. But he was kind to her, fed her, and me when I returned. He was a good man, took care of us. I liked him well enough. I think my mother was just relieved to have someone take over the job of provider. She was a kind, sweet woman but didn’t have a tenth of your strength or gumption.”
Lucy pressed a kiss against Finn’s chest and let her fingers trail through the hair scattered across his skin. “He took you to the tribe?”
“Yes. We’d been planning to make our way back north, but my mother discovered she was pregnant. My stepfather thought it would be safer to stay put for a while. He often traded with the tribes and he brought us to one of the villages. They agreed to take us in until my mother’s child was born.”
Finn’s voice had grown sad again and Lucy knew what he’d say before he uttered the words.
“My mother wasn’t strong to begin with and all the traveling…well, it was just too much I guess. She died trying to give birth. The baby died with her.”
“Oh, Finn. I’m so sorry.”
His arms tightened for a moment, but he didn’t stop, as though he wanted to get through the rest of the story as quickly as possible. “My stepfather stuck around for a few weeks, but he wasn’t the type to stay in one place long. And without my mother there…well. He did make sure I would be accepted into the village before he left. One of the women in the tribe who’d lost a son adopted me. After a time, they gave me these,” he said, pointing to the lines beneath his lip. “I was glad to have them. They made me feel like I belonged.
“I was happy there. I had friends. And Rachel. She and I were always together. She could speak English better than most of the others. She helped me learn Mohave. We were best friends. And then…we were more than that.”
Finn stopped. The silence stretched long enough that Lucy didn’t think he’d go on. But she didn’t want to prompt him. Reliving his past was obviously painful for him and Lucy wasn’t going to push. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear the rest. So much pain in his young life. And yet, whatever happened to his first love, whatever memory was connected with the marks on his cheeks, was enough to make her stalwart warrior hesitate. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to hear it.
When he began to speak again, his voice was so low Lucy had to strain to hear it.
“I wasn’t the only one in the village who loved her. There was another. One more worthy, in everyone’s eyes but hers. The tribe’s greatest warrior. But she loved me. Her family didn’t approve. Who was I? I’d been made part of the tribe, yes. But I was different. I didn’t really belong. So, we decided to run away.
“We snuck off one night. He followed us. Caught up with us. I fought him.”
He stopped and cleared his throat, his grip on Lucy so tight it was almost painful, but she wouldn’t have asked him to let go in a million years.
“I lost.”
He was quiet again, but this time Lucy had to ask. Had to know. “What happened?”
“Rachel tried to defend me, tried to help. A blow meant for me struck her. She fell on a rock. When he saw what he’d done, he went wild. I went numb. I don’t remember much of what happened after that. I just kept seeing her, lying there in her own blood. I didn’t fight him. I barely felt the blows. I wanted to die. Wanted to join her. But he wasn’t that merciful. I was injured. Badly enough that I drifted in and out of consciousness for days. He was always there when I woke. I didn’t understand why until I’d recovered enough to know what he’d done.
“He gave me these,” Finn said, tracing his own finger over the marks this time. “He was returning to the village, to tell them what I’d done. Tell them that her death was on my head. I didn’t even argue with him. He was right.”
“Oh, Finn, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was. I’d taken her away from the safety of the village. I’d thought I could protect her. That I would be enough. We didn’t make it two days.”
Lucy wanted to argue, insist that he was wrong. But she knew he wouldn’t listen. Not yet. “What did you do?”
“I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t have anyway, but with the marks on my cheeks, the marks that only the most important members of the tribe carried. No. I couldn’t face them. It would be as if I’d been trying to set myself up above my place in the tribe. Mocking their sacred traditions. And I had Rachel’s blood on my hands. At least they would believe so. No. I couldn’t go back.”
“How old were you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Oh, Finn.”
“I couldn’t go back to them. But I couldn’t go to any of the towns either. The marks made me an outcast among the townsfolk, though for an entirely different reason. I tried to find work where I could. But most took one look at my face and chased me off. Some took pity. I suppose if I had pretended that I’d been a captive that had escaped, things would have gone easier. I would have been pitied, not reviled. But I couldn’t do that. They had been my family.
“So, I wandered. Did what I had to in order to survive. Begged and stole. Got into trouble. One day, got into too much trouble and ended up with a bounty on my head.”
“And then you met Jake,” Lucy said with a sad smile.
“Yes. Jake saved my life. I’ll never know why he didn’t turn me in. I remember him standing there, staring down at me. He asked if I knew why he was there. I said I sure did and held out my hands, waiting for him to tie me up and drag me in. But he didn’t. He cleaned me up, fed me, clothed me. Got me back on my
feet and helped me find work, vouched for me and put his own name on the line when folks balked at hiring me. He made me care about living again.”
“Jake was a good man,” Lucy said, smiling at the memory of Brynne’s first husband.
“Yes, he was. And I failed him, too.”
Lucy sat up so she could look into Finn’s eyes. “No, Finn. You didn’t fail him. What happened to Jake was not your fault. You weren’t even in the country when he died. You couldn’t have saved him. You’d probably have been killed along with him.”
Finn stared sadly at her, brought his hand up to cup her face. “You’re a good woman, Lucy. You deserve better than me. I bring only misery and destruction to anyone I care about. Now you see why you should leave, get away from me?”
Lucy was already shaking her head. “No. You’re wrong, Finn. You are the best man I know. You are loyal, and brave, and strong. You have a kind heart and a warrior’s spirit. I’m not a little girl who knows nothing of the world. I’ve seen the evil that is out there. And I’ve seen the good. You, my love, are the best of them all. Sweet heaven, to have gone through all you’ve been through and to still have your capacity for love and kindness is a testament to just how amazing a man you are. If it takes me the rest of my life, I’m going to convince you of that.”
Finn started to shake his head, but Lucy grasped his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “I’m a Richardson. We don’t back down and we never give up. You aren’t ever getting rid of me, Finnegan Taggart. Get used to it.”
A small grin broke through the frozen lines of his face and Finn crushed Lucy to him, wrapping his whole body around her. Lucy untangled herself enough to reach his lips, trying to put every ounce of love she felt into her kiss. She breathed him in, let her hands explore the planes of his body, ingraining every inch into her memory. She tried to put into words all the love she felt for him and when that failed her, she showed him with her body how much he meant to her.
Finn pulled her beneath him, brushed her hair out of her face. “I don’t deserve you.”
Lucy just smiled. “You’re right. You deserve someone far better than me.”
Blood Blade Sisters Series (Entangled Scandalous) Page 54
