Jo Goodman

by My Reckless Heart

  Grant had been satisfied by Rachael's answers. Although there were no guarantees, it was likely that she had removed them from Decker's room before even he had had a chance to study them. Much harder for Grant to accept was the fact that Decker had them in the first place. There had been only one opportunity for the man to place his hands on them—the occasion of his visit to Grant's office.

  It was of little satisfaction to Grant that he had been suspicious of Decker's offer to acquaint him with Falconer. Obviously it had been a sham to gain entry to his office. Grant remembered being called out briefly. It was hard to believe Decker had made such a thorough job of rifling the contents of his files.

  Not that everything he had taken was important. Quite the opposite was true. The fact that the documents were so diverse, and in the majority without consequence, supplied Grant with the clearest indication that Decker's search was not for a single specific item. The looting was random, done by a thief who lifted valuables indiscriminately and hoped he would find one or two priceless gems among the glass beads.

  The gems were there, Grant thought. He had seen them for himself last night. He had been careful not to make too much of the documents when Rachael gave them over, but later, when he questioned her, he realized he might have aroused her suspicions. Or perhaps she knew more than she let on from the very beginning. She could read now, he reminded himself. If she had read the headings, then she may have read the content. Was that it? he wondered. Did she understand what she had seen?

  Grant slowly sat down in one of the large armchairs. Rachael had returned the documents to him, but it seemed that she had also taken them back. Had it been her purpose all along? He stared at the glowing embers in the fireplace, his dark eyes vaguely unfocused as his thoughts tumbled and collided.

  "Rachael," he murmured softly. "What dangerous game is this?"

  * * *

  Jonna stood framed in the doorway of the dressing room. She was wrapped in a towel that had been hastily drawn across her middle. The corner tucked between her breasts was already starting to slip its mooring. Her shoulders were damp, and water ran in thin rivulets down her arms and legs. Droplets fell on the hardwood floor with no apparent rhythm. Her hair was haphazardly secured with two tortoiseshell combs. Curling tendrils fanned her forehead and the curve of her neck.

  She looked quite delicious.

  Decker's sleepy-eyed gaze grew a little sharper. He noticed the deeply disapproving dimple at the corner of her mouth at the same time he became aware that she was holding something in her hands.

  Jonna held up the papers so he could see them more clearly. The Sheridan Shipping letterhead was a bold, black beacon. "Are these the papers you were looking for last night?"

  Decker sat up. Dragging a sheet around his hips, he hitched it carelessly and skirted the corner of the bed. "Where did you find them?"

  Jonna pulled them back when he reached for them. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

  He ignored her retort. There was marginally more impatience in his tone when he had to repeat his question. "Where did you find them?"

  She blinked, struck by his irritation. "I found them in the dressing room. They were lying on a chair in there, no doubt precisely where you left them."

  "That's not where I put them." He was certain of that.

  "Then perhaps Rachael moved them when she was tidying up. Does it matter? It begs the question of how they came to be in your possession."

  "I took them from Sheridan's office."

  "Did Grant give them to you?"

  "No." He said it without hesitation and saw the last bit of hope in Jonna's eyes disappear. "I took them without his permission."

  "Then you stole them."

  "Yes."

  Jonna wondered that she wasn't more disappointed in him. Did she love him so much she was willing to excuse behavior that was outside the law? She stared at his extended hand. Perhaps, she thought, it was that she loved him enough to entertain an explanation. After a moment she placed the papers in his open palm. "To what purpose?" she asked. "What did you hope to find?"

  "I'm not sure."

  She looked at him oddly, and her voice softened. "You're not sure? That doesn't sound like you at all."

  He shrugged. "I thought there might be something...." Decker glanced at the papers briefly then back at her. "I'd hoped there'd be something I could use to keep him away from you."

  Jonna's brows shot up. "To keep him away... You intended to blackmail him?"

  He shook his head. "I want him out of your life."

  "He is out of my life."

  "That's not what I witnessed the first night we were back here," Decker said. His expression dared her to contradict him. "I know what I saw, Jonna. Sheridan was pressuring you to accept his embrace. You had your own reasons for not admitting it then, but that doesn't change the fact of it. He still wants you. Our marriage makes no difference to him."

  "You can't know that," she whispered.

  Decker's eyes held hers. "I know it better than anyone," he said. "In his place I would feel the same."

  Jonna shook her head slowly. "No," she said gently. "You wouldn't. You would still love me. That's no part of what Grant feels or what he's ever felt for me. It's the right of ownership that moves him, nothing else. You wouldn't know anything about that. What have you ever wanted that you couldn't carry?"

  The center of Decker's eyes darkened as he stared at her. The look of quiet amusement was absent from his own expression. Without warning, still holding the papers, he lifted her. "Huntress aside?" he asked.

  Jonna's arms circled his neck. Her heart skipped a beat, and her violet eyes gleamed. The ship had been for Falconer's work, not for Decker's pleasure or gain. "Huntress aside," she whispered. "Has there ever been anything else?"

  "Not a damn thing." He took her to bed. Sheridan's stolen documents were discarded and forgotten as passion flared.

  Jonna was water slick and warm from her bath. Her body moved against his without resistance. The towel opened and her legs parted. She took him inside her almost immediately, and she was damp and warm there as well. Experiencing little in the way of conscious thought, Jonna was not embarrassed by her eagerness any more than Decker was ashamed by his arousal.

  She stretched under him, arching her back. Her taut breasts were lifted. His lips closed over one nipple, and the gentle tug of his teeth tore a cry from her throat.

  There was no part of her that wasn't sensitive to his touch. He was joined to her deeply, fully. Her fingers threaded through his hair. Her thighs gripped him as he rocked her back. She contracted around him as he began to withdraw, and then he thrust forward again, harder this time so that she felt his penetration at the tip of her womb.

  "Yes," she said. "Like that... just... like... that."

  His hands pinned her wrists. She reveled in the rough embrace, in the surging hunger that drove him more furiously into her and against her. His lips crushed hers and she parted her mouth under his. Her teeth caught his lower lip and she tugged. A moment later her tongue licked the same spot.

  He raised his head. The muscles in his arms and back bunched. She was watching him. Her violet eyes were luminous and her mouth was parted damply. She simply stared at him and slowly, deliberately, tightened the wet walls that secured him to her. It was his undoing.

  Jonna felt the warm liquid rush of his seed spilling into her. He stretched over her, taut, and pressed into her again, the thrust more shallow this time as the contraction of pleasure controlled him. His hands slipped off her wrists and her arms closed around him. She held him that way until his body was still.

  Decker eased out of her, but he did not move away. His eyes grazed her features. He thought it was the suggestion of a smile that touched her mouth, but he couldn't be sure. He had never known such a driving need to be joined to her. His voice was hushed and husky. "Did I hurt you?"

  Jonna shook her head. "I'm not so very delicate."

  Yes, she was. But he
didn't tell her so. He remembered how sweet, how very small she felt under him. He drew a finger across the fragile line of her collarbone. The light scent of lavender teased his senses. His hands had swallowed the fine bones of her wrists, and her slender body had been rocked by his unyielding strength.

  Decker smiled. He touched the gold chain at her throat and then traced the line of it until his fingertip rested against the scrimshaw. He held it a moment, thinking of the ship, of her elegant lines and proud bearing, and then of this woman, who was not so different a beauty from the one she'd created.

  His hand drifted lower, over her breast, down the length of her flat belly. She sucked in a breath as his fingers dipped between her thighs. "You haven't had your pleasure," he said softly. His hand cupped her mons. "Did you think I'd forgotten?"

  Jonna knew what would happen as soon as he touched her. Her hips moved, and she arched against the heel of his hand. The slight pressure was all she needed to slip over the edge. She clutched his shoulders and shuddered against him, her body flush to his. His fingers did not stop the intimate caress until the last vestige of tense pleasure had been skimmed from her body.

  Jonna closed her eyes. All sense of weightlessness had left her, and now a lethargy stole over her limbs, a satisfying weakness invaded her muscles. She considered that she might never move again and would find it quite agreeable not to do so.

  Decker kissed her temple. Her pulse beat gently against his lips. "I love you, Jonna Thorne."

  She smiled sleepily. Perhaps she would not go to work at all today, she thought.

  * * *

  "How are you feeling?" Decker waved Graham's attendant out of the room as he spoke to his guest. Amanda bobbed once and hurried away, taking a breakfast tray with her. "You look marginally less close to death this morning than you did last night."

  It was an exaggeration but not much of one. Graham found he had it in him to smile, albeit weakly. "If you say so."

  Decker grunted softly. "I do." He took up the chair abandoned by Amanda and stretched out his legs toward the bed, regarding his friend consideringly. "The doctor was optimistic about your recovery."

  "Would you tell me otherwise?"

  Decker thought about it a moment. "Yes, I probably would. You'd want to know, wouldn't you?"

  Graham nodded. His eyes darted toward the door, almost as if he were expecting an intrusion.

  "Jonna's still sleeping," Decker said. "Otherwise you'd be right to look for her on my heels. I told her about Falconer last night. And a little bit about you." His blue eyes filled with quiet humor. "She's accepted the truth about me, but she's reserving judgment on your account."

  Graham did not smile. In light of Jonna's kindness, he felt churlish for raising the question, but it had to be asked and answered. "Are you certain you can trust her, Decker?"

  "With my life," he said. "And yours."

  Graham shifted his position slightly. The small movement brought a searing pain up his side, starting at the point of his wound. "It may come to that." He caught his breath and then forced himself to relax. "I've been betrayed once," he said. "So have many others on the Underground. I don't like to think it can happen again."

  Decker understood what Graham hadn't shared last night—the real purpose of his visit north. "You came to warn me."

  Graham nodded once. "I was shot helping the slave Seth and six others move across the Georgia line into South Carolina. One man was killed. I was the only other one hit. Seth stayed with me and the rest scattered. God knows he would have been better to take his chances running alone. They were on our trail for three miles before we lost them at Sidling Creek."

  "They?"

  Graham shrugged and immediately regretted the movement. He grimaced. He allowed Decker to fix the pillows at his back and make him more comfortable against the headboard. "I assume there was more than one. A small band of bounty hunters is usually formed to bring back runaways. I know there were two or three hounds following us."

  "I'm surprised you got away at all. How did you run with that gunshot wound?"

  "I was riding, posing as a bounty hunter taking slaves back to Carolina. If we had been approached I would have told them that story and gotten away with it." His grin was rueful. "No one asked though. Just fired off a few shots from a distance and let all hell break loose."

  "Were you set up?"

  "I've given it a lot of thought," Graham said. "I believe it was no more than a chance encounter. But what happened later, at Michele's, that was not by chance. She was visited by the authorities because they expected to find runaways there. There were other stations on the same line of the Underground similarly visited this past month. Almost as if someone has been following one of the Railroad lines north."

  "But how could anyone learn every station along a line? It's impossible. No one knows. Not you. Not me." He stopped as a thought occurred to him. "Only the people who use it know... the runaways."

  Before he'd even said the words, Graham saw that Decker understood. "I know," Graham said. "It's hard to believe. I've tried to think of another explanation that would account for the arrests and captures, but it defies me."

  "Betrayal by the people we're trying to help?" asked Decker. "It defies logic."

  "Not really," Graham said. "Michele told me what they did to Seth to get him to talk. He held out and chose to tell lies over the truth. There may be others who experienced worse. It's always been a risk."

  "But you think Falconer has been compromised."

  "Yes... perhaps. There's no way to be certain. It's just that an entire route of the Underground collapsed like a row of dominoes. When the raid at Michele's occurred I realized I could be witnessing the end of another line. You're the primary connection to Michele's station, Decker. Most of the runaways she's kept leave by a Remington ship... always the one you're on."

  Decker swore softly. He stood up and strode to the window. The rolling, loose-limbed walk was gone. Tension pulled his body into a single angular line. He couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding. Quite without realizing what he was about, he opened his jacket to reach for his good-luck piece.

  The earring was gone.

  Only by its absence did Decker become consciously aware of his search for it. Stillness settled over him. Outside the window a cold breeze lifted the branches of a pine tree. A small, brown swallow fluttered upward from the boughs before diving for the deeper shelter of a neighbor's porch. A carriage rolled along the street, and someone hurried down the sidewalk. Beyond this room life was proceeding at its determined pace. Decker's senses were heightened to it because for the briefest moment he knew his own heart had stopped.

  He drew a breath slowly, forcing a calm he didn't feel. When he turned toward the bed he saw that Graham was watching him.

  "What is it?" Graham asked.

  Decker's smile was wry, but he said nothing. It was not often that he felt foolish, yet that was precisely the reaction that washed over him now. He would find the earring in one of his other jackets. Or it would appear in the laundry, and some maid, fearing for her position, would return it quickly to Mrs. Davis, just as Tess had done before. Belatedly he realized that Graham was still expecting a response from him.

  Decker couldn't talk about his lost talisman. It was a petty, selfish consideration in light of Graham's news. He spoke instead of the thing that had driven him to his feet in the first place. "It's my wife," he said quietly. "She's a conductor on the Underground."

  A spark briefly lightened Graham's flinty stare. "You're not serious."

  "I wish I weren't. I only found out recently. Apparently she's had this station open for three years."

  "For as long as you've been Falconer. There's an irony."

  Decker acknowledged the truth of that. "We never suspected each other."

  "But she knows about you now?"

  "The important things. She knows I've used her ships to hide runaways and transport them to New York and Boston. She knows it's why I wanted Hun
tress." Decker sat on the arm of the chair. "You'll find this incredible, Graham, but she had that clipper built for the purpose of running slaves north. There will be no faster ship on the water until she designs and builds it. I hadn't thought anything could stop her... until now. Your news is not welcome."

  "At least you don't have to worry that she'll be arrested and face a trial. The conductors below the Mason-Dixon don't have that assurance. Some of them will be hanged for their part in the Underground. If your identity as Falconer is revealed, you'll never be able to take a ship into any Southern port."

  "No ship on the Remington line will be able to enter them either. Not without risk of being burned or looted." Decker laid an arm across the back of the chair. His fingers beat a light tattoo as he considered the full consequences. "It doesn't matter whether it's Jonna or me who's found out. The result is potentially the same. Remington Shipping will have no trade in the South."

  "Would it bankrupt the line?" Graham asked.

  Decker almost smiled. Graham was thinking like a Yankee trader now. "It could. Jonna worries about it, but she's seen Sheridan face the same problem and survive it financially. Without Southern trade, though, there's no access to the runaways and no way for Remington ships to carry them. No matter what noises Jonna makes about finances, I believe that ultimately her concern is for those she helps. She knows she can't do it if the line goes under." Decker was seized by an unfamiliar restlessness. He stood and moved to the fireplace.

  Graham watched his friend cross the room. His stride was deliberate, his destination, aimless. It was like watching a wild animal pace the length of its cage. "Double jeopardy," Graham said quietly.

  Decker had been staring at the floor. He looked up. "What's that?"

  "Double jeopardy," Graham repeated. "Two times the danger. An accusation leveled at either one of you has the same effect on the Remington Line. If you weren't married..." He stopped because he had no right to say what he was thinking. He had already overstepped himself.

  "If we weren't married," Decker continued for him, "Jonna could plead ignorance of my use of her ships. God knows, until last night, she was. The only thing she knew about Falconer was what Sheridan told her. And his information came from what he read in Garrison's Liberator."