Jo Goodman

by My Reckless Heart

  Decker kissed her. Her lips opened under his, and a full minute later when he drew back, they were damp and still sweetly parted. "I wouldn't mind hearing," he said.

  She smiled at that. "I need to argue with you, and I need to laugh with you."

  He did not mind at all that she mentioned arguing first.

  Jonna ignored his amused grin. "And I need to see that wicked grin of yours when I look up from whatever I'm doing and find you watching me."

  "Wicked?"

  It was wicked now, she thought. But not obviously so. Decker was never obvious about it. That was what always sent a shiver through her. She never knew for sure. "I need to see you when I wake up and before I go to sleep."

  "Oh, Jonna." He bent his head and touched his forehead to hers.

  "And that's the very least of it, Decker. More than anything, I need to love you." She cupped his face. His mouth was only a hairbreadth from hers. "Let me comfort you," she whispered. "When the nightmares come, let me in."

  Decker lifted her. He didn't carry her back to bed, but sat instead in the large wing chair. Her arms circled his neck, and her head rested on his shoulder. For several minutes the only sounds in the bedchamber came from the fireplace and the mantel clock.

  "Do you think she loved him?" Jonna asked. "Rachael, I mean. Do you think she loved Grant?"

  "I don't know."

  "I see her face sometimes. Just as it was while she held him in her arms. Her grief was so profound.... I thought perhaps that she might have loved him at one time."

  Decker remembered Rachael's face, too, but he thought about it differently. "If she loved him, then it was for the person he might have been, not the person he was." He stroked Jonna's hair. "She wanted us to kill him. I didn't understand then, but afterward, when it was too late, I realized that's what she had been trying to tell me. It was her plan all along, I think. Sheridan knew about the papers I took from his office. Neither you nor I told him. He could only have known about them from Rachael. She showed them to Grant to get a reaction and took them away for the same reason. She was like a child throwing a stone into a pond. She started the ripple without understanding that she couldn't control or direct it. Events got away from her very quickly after that. When she saw Graham in this house—the man she thought was Falconer—she only knew she needed to act. I don't believe she thought it through any more than that."

  "She never betrayed us," Jonna said. "I don't believe she ever would have."

  Decker's fingers continued to sift through Jonna's silky hair. He watched her lashes lower by slow degrees. There was a sleepy flush on her cheeks. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you," he said quietly.

  "About Rachael?"

  "No, not about Rachael. About you."

  With kitten-like charm, she rubbed her cheek against his chest. "Hmm?"

  "You're married to a very rich man," he said.

  She smiled deeply, but did not raise her eyes. "Because you have me in your arms?" she asked.

  "There's that," he agreed. "But you should know that Colin set aside something for me a few years back."

  One of Jonna's brows lifted. She gave him an arch look. "Something?" she asked. "You mean a trust?"

  "I mean Rosefield."

  She blinked. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She allowed Decker to put a finger under her chin and close her jaw. Jonna's hands slipped from around Decker's neck. "You might have said something," she said after a moment.

  Decker shrugged. "I don't have the title. It hardly seemed worth mentioning without that. Colin's still the earl."

  Jonna knew very well why he had never told her. "I suppose I deserve this little surprise," she said. "Though I'd have thought Colin or Mercedes would have given up your secret."

  "They almost did. I asked them not to. It's not as if I have any interest in living at Rosefield. Colin's managers take care of the estate. I told Colin when he settled it on me that if we ever found Greydon I would cede it to him."

  "And now that you have a rich wife you don't need that extra bit of baggage."

  He grinned. "Precisely."

  "Still," she said under her breath. "You might have hinted."

  Decker's low laughter rumbled in his chest. He touched Jonna's cheek and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

  Jonna settled back in his arms to snuggle against the warm breadth of his chest. "Did Graham know?" she asked.

  "No. It wasn't a secret just from you. I never told anyone."

  That softened her a bit. "I'm going to miss him," she said. "He was a good friend to us. Did you realize he was going to tell everyone he was Falconer?"

  Decker shook his head. "Not until the words came out of his mouth. I suppose Rachael's mistake gave him the idea. The first time she heard Falconer named was when Graham and I were trying to get her out of Charleston. We walked into the room where she was being held at the same time. Someone said Falconer. Neither Graham nor I acknowledged the name, but Rachael thought they were talking about Graham."

  "A natural mistake," Jonna said. "He cuts a very dashing figure."

  "You think so?"

  Jonna lifted her head and smiled enigmatically. Decker erased it with a thorough kiss. "Oh, my," she said softly.

  Decker went on as if there had been no interruption. "When Rachael made the same mistake on board the sloop, I think Graham saw an opportunity and seized it. It certainly set Sheridan off balance."

  It had, Jonna remembered. "It could have ended there," she said. And it probably should have. Grant's murder and Rachael's suicide meant that no one knew of Graham's claim to the Falconer name. "He didn't have to tell the authorities that he was Falconer. I know some explanation was required for what happened that morning, but I don't know that he had to give that one."

  "It was the most expedient."

  Jonna didn't argue that point. She knew Decker was not speaking for himself as much as he was relating Graham's opinion. "He should have consulted us before he said anything. He took so much on his own shoulders with that admission. All of the responsibility. All of the blame."

  "All of the heroics," Decker said dryly.

  A small smile lifted the corners of Jonna's mouth as she recalled how much Graham had despised that consequence of his deception. The Boston papers, including Garrison's Liberator, had filled columns with Falconer's exploits. Grant Sheridan's murder and the revelation that he was a slaver carried the front pages from Augusta, Maine, to Atlanta, Georgia. The emphasis of the reporting depended on geography. Northern accounts vindicated Rachael. In the South, she was vilified.

  In all the stories Falconer lost his anonymity.

  "Graham gave up so much," Jonna said quietly. "When he linked his name with Falconer he surrendered his family... his home. Do you think he considered all of that when he did it?"

  "I think he considered it," Decker said. "And I think he weighed it against what could be gained if you and I were not implicated with the Underground. We're still free to act, even if he's not. That was what he wanted. Remington Shipping hasn't come under any particular scrutiny and Huntress will be able to move easily in and out of Southern ports. Our involvement with Sheridan was explained away by your long business and personal association with him."

  Jonna's eyes lifted to Decker's. "Didn't you find that strange?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "Well, that no one really questioned me. I said I didn't know Grant was a slaver, and everyone believed me. I said I'd had no dealing with Falconer, and they believed that as well."

  Decker grinned. "It was all in the way you said it," he told her. "I believed you myself."

  "Really?" She considered that. "I never thought of myself as a particularly skillful liar."

  "You're not." Decker touched her lips with his forefinger. "But that morning you were inspired... and convincing."

  Jonna kissed the tip of his finger before she drew his hand away from her lips. She held it in both of hers, caressing the heart of it with her thumb. "
I was frightened," she whispered, looking down at the hand in hers. "But not half so frightened as I would have been if you hadn't been there. When I saw that trunk go over the side, when I saw it start to sink—"

  "I had already cut the ropes," Decker reminded her.

  He knew how much it pained her to think of him trapped in the trunk. She felt her own helplessness and imagined his terror. "I was almost free by then."

  "Yes, but if Graham hadn't been on Huntress, if he hadn't been watching through the eyeglass, if he hadn't seen Grant's men drop the trunk overboard..."A small shudder went through her, and she closed her eyes momentarily. "It could have

  been—"

  "It wasn't," he said gently. "It wasn't. They fished me out. I was wet and bruised and none the worse for it. Escaping a trunk is not so hard as you might believe. Jimmy Grooms had the way of it, and I learned a thing or two from him." He didn't tell Jonna that his part had always been to pick the pockets of the crowd while their attention was riveted on Jimmy making his escape. She wouldn't want to know that Grant Sheridan had provided him with his first opportunity to try Jimmy's techniques.

  Jonna tried to imagine what it had been like for the men aboard Huntress when the trunk was opened and Decker stepped out. With the exception of Graham and Jack Quincy, she visualized them all as slack-jawed and wide-eyed, whistling in amazement just under the collective breath they released.

  "I regret that we couldn't spend more time with Graham," she said. Of necessity, she and Decker had had to distance themselves from the man that was now called Falconer. They had successfully hid the fact that Graham had ever been a guest in their home and it had not been difficult to make people believe their paths had only crossed with his because of Grant Sheridan—and for very different reasons. In the newspaper accounts it was reasoned out that Falconer's pursuit of the slaver had the timely and fortunate consequence of preventing Jonna's abduction. No one who knew the larger truth was prepared to come forward with it.

  Decker's hand closed over Jonna's. He gave it a small squeeze. "I believe Graham regretted the same. He said as much last night."

  "When you saw him off?"

  Decker nodded. It had been a late departure. Remington Siren, bound for the China Seas, left Boston Harbor after nightfall. She carried a rich cargo and no passengers. The crew, with the exception of one new man, were used to the rigors of a long ocean voyage and knew what to expect. Graham Denison had only said that he was willing to learn. "He thanked you again."

  "Thanked me?" That he should have done so startled Jonna. "For what? Putting him to work aboard Siren?"

  "For helping him disappear."

  Jonna sat up a little straighter. She looked hard at Decker. "Disappear? What do you mean? You never—" She stopped suddenly because she saw the answer revealed in Decker's eyes. He had known all along what it meant when Graham had expressed an interest in Remington Shipping. "I can't believe I was so naive," she said. "I thought Graham meant to learn the business the same way you did and Colin before you. It seemed a logical assumption since he can't return to Beau Rivage."

  "Logical, perhaps. But wrong. He'll stay with Siren for a while. Maybe as far as Panama. Maybe all the way to Shanghai. But he won't be coming back to Boston. Not anytime soon. He had no peace here as Falconer. He had invitations to speak at abolition meetings the entire time he was recovering from his injuries. And once they knew he was healed the requests for his time tripled. He was asked to luncheons and dinners and teas, and he wanted none of it. Garrison wanted him to write about his experiences, a publisher contacted him about a book. Staying in Boston would have meant giving up something of himself that he wasn't prepared to surrender. I don't blame him for wanting to disappear."

  "Neither do I," Jonna said softly. "But it doesn't mean I won't miss him." She burrowed more deeply against Decker. Her toes wriggled between his thigh and the arm of the chair.

  "Cold?" he asked.

  "A little."

  "I can do something about the fire."

  "No," she said. "I like it just like this. Next to you." She delved a little more deeply with her feet, pressing her toes into the warmth between the cushion of the chair and the arm. Her head lay against Decker's chest again. "This is very—"

  Decker looked at Jonna's face. "What is it?"

  Her frown deepened as she wiggled her toes. "Something just bit me." She gave a little yelp as it happened again and jumped off Decker's lap. "Something in that cushion bit me."

  Grinning at her accusatory tone, Decker obligingly let himself be hauled to his feet so she could investigate. How like Jonna, he thought, not to be afraid of the thing that bit her, but to go right after it herself.

  "Ah-ha!" she said triumphantly. She straightened and spun to face him, her fist closed around the object. "You really should be more careful, Decker." Jonna opened her fingers to reveal what she had found. In the heart of her palm she held a pearl stud in a crown setting. Dangling from it was an engraved raindrop of pure gold. "How many times can you expect to lose this and have it found again?"

  Decker's brows drew together. He stared at the earring, but he didn't take it out of her hand. "It was in the cushion?" he asked.

  Watching him, Jonna's smile became a bit uncertain. "You just saw me take it out of there."

  He didn't say anything. Turning on his heel, he strode to the window. On the sill was the earring he had set there just before he took Jonna in his arms. He stared at it.

  "Decker?" Jonna hesitated, wondering what kept him so still. When he didn't respond, she approached him slowly and laid a hand on his arm. "What is it?" Her eyes shifted from his sharply engraved features and the muscle working faintly in his jaw. She followed the line of his gaze. "That's not possible," she whispered. But she was seeing the earring on the sill and she was feeling the one clutched in her hand, so it had to be possible. But it couldn't be.

  Decker reached for the earring on the windowsill at the same time Jonna's fingers opened. He put his open palm beside hers, and they stared at the exquisite, perfectly identical pair. "This is the one you gave me on board Grant's sloop," he said. "The one you're holding is the one I thought I lost."

  "How can you know that?"

  "Because when you found it in the cushion I remembered how it came to be there. I was standing beside the chair, in the act of putting it in my pocket, when Rachael came into the room to change the linens. I must have missed the pocket and dropped it onto the chair instead."

  Jonna was staring hard at the earring in his hand. "But Mrs. Davis gave me that one. She said Rachael found it in the laundry."

  "She may have," Decker said. "But not in my clothes."

  "Then whose? It's not as if there's been anyone else—" A tremor seized Jonna's hand as the answer was borne home to her. Her fingers tightened spasmodically around the earring. She looked at Decker and knew she was seeing a mirror of her own awed expression. "The night he came here," she said softy. "His clothes... they were bloody and... and I gave them to Rachael to take away. She must have found it later and—"

  "We can't know she got it that way."

  "There's no other explanation. How else could Rachael have come by it?"

  Decker didn't want to think it, let alone say it. "Sheridan."

  "No. You don't believe that. You can't. Grant was older than you, Decker. He couldn't have been your brother."

  "Graham might not be either. Possession of the earring isn't proof by itself. It might have been stolen. Graham has a family, remember? Grandparents, parents, a younger brother. He never mentioned that he was missing this, did he?"

  "No, but—"

  "Surely he would have valued it. Rachael must have come by it some other way."

  Jonna shook her head firmly. "No. She gave it to Mrs. Davis because it didn't belong to her. It was Graham's, Decker. You allowed yourself to believe it for a moment. I saw it in your face. Now you're trying to talk yourself out of it. Why don't you want to believe again?"

  Decker lo
oked down at the earring in his palm for a long moment, then back at Jonna. "Because twelve hours ago I let him leave Boston Harbor," he said quietly. "I let him go, knowing that he wants to disappear."

  Jonna's own smile was gentle. She placed one hand flat on his chest and lifted her face to his. "Huntress was built for the chase," she said. Her violet eyes were bright now. She knew what could be done. "And you command her. What she can outrun, she can also capture. Twelve hours is nothing, Decker. You're Falconer. You can catch the Siren."

  He had never held anything so dear as Jonna's absolute belief in him. Decker's arms circled her waist. He bent his head. "I already have," he whispered against her mouth. "I already have."

  The End

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  WITH ALL MY HEART

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  "A winner! I didn't want the story to end."

  ~Stella Cameron

  He came awake with a start. Sitting up reminded him how much pain he was in. He lay down again and closed one eye. Someone had already managed to close the other one for him. He explored the swelling gingerly. Even the lightest pressure from his fingertips made him groan.

  He let his hand fall back to his side and flexed his fingers. They didn't feel bruised or broken. Hadn't he put up a fight at all? Then he wondered who he would have fought. Names and faces eluded him now.

  Taking inventory of other body parts revealed a rather extensive list of injuries. In addition to the swollen right eye there was a lump on his forehead, dried blood under a possibly broken nose, a split lower lip, and ringing in his ears. And he had found all that before he got as far as his neck. Below his Adam's apple he discovered he had two ribs that were bruised or cracked, a dislocated collarbone, and swollen testicles.