"Your fault?"
"He never would have gone if—" She broke off, staring at her hands.
"If what?"
"If I hadn't ruined things between him and Karina. His fiancée."
Reese stared at her, waiting.
"You see," she continued haltingly, "I discovered, quite by accident, that Karina was being unfaithful to him while he was away. She was very discreet about it. But I stumbled upon the whole awful thing. I agonized about telling him, but in the end, I thought it best that he know the truth."
"So you told him?"
"Yes." She paused for a long moment. "It was the end of their relationship—and ours. We had a terrible fight and Luke went back to Washington, furious with me for interfering. The next thing we heard, he'd left for Mexico. No one could tell us why, but I'm certain it was on some diplomatic mission."
"That's hardly your fault," Reese argued. "He's a grown man with a mind of his own."
"He wouldn't have gone if things hadn't fallen apart with Karina. I'm sure of it. At any rate, it all apparently went badly somehow and he wound up imprisoned by the French. Somehow, he smuggled a letter out of the prison. Once we learned about his capture, Brew and I tried everything to get the U.S. government to intervene. But they denied he was even there on official business. They gave us all sorts of political rhetoric to keep us off balance, but in the end, it was clear they meant to let Luke rot in Mexico rather than help him."
"Why?"
She took a deep shaky breath. "I don't know. I can only assume that he was doing something there the United States didn't want the world to know about. And when it went wrong, they washed their hands of it rather than let the truth come out."
"Sounds about right." He gritted his teeth against what he really wanted to say.
She steepled her hands over her mouth, emotion pooling in her eyes. "What if they've killed him already, Reese? What if we're too late?"
He couldn't help himself. He drew her up against his chest, enfolding her in his arms. She fit against him as if she'd been made to do it, with her damp cheek cradled neatly in the curve of his shoulder and her hips flush against his thighs. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and for a moment he forgot that he didn't care about her brother, or the revolution that had brought her into his life. For a moment, he shared her pain, remembered his own when the men he'd trusted had turned their backs on him as well, and left him hanging in the wind to dry.
Grace's arms slipped around his back and she pulled him closer. Her fingers splayed against him there. A tantalizing heat spread from each point of contact and gathered at the center of his being like a ball of flame. Barely aware of what he was doing, he let his own hands drift past her shoulders, gliding down her spine in a gentle, comforting massage. She was so small, fragile, so unlike all the roughness he was used to in his life. And when he held her like this he could almost believe that they could belong together, that she could see past what he did to who he was.
Lifting her head, Grace searched his face with a look so tender Reese almost pulled away. With a hand to his cheek, she stopped him.
"Kiss me, Reese," she implored. "Kiss me like you mean it."
"Ah, Grace." His breath was a shaky thing inside him.
"Please. I won't ever ask you again."
With a need stronger than the current that was pulling them toward disaster, he took her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. He meant it to be gentle, but it wasn't. Not even close. Not when he felt her melt against him as if the only things holding her up were his two hands. Not when he felt her fingers spread across his chest like the lick of flame. Or when her tongue sought his with wanton heat, the very way he'd taught her that night on the docks.
Since that first kiss, he'd wanted this; he'd needed to be sure that he'd imagined the feeling of her in his arms or exaggerated in his memory the wholeness he felt when she kissed him. He'd told himself it couldn't have been this good.
He'd been wrong.
His palms slid along her smooth jawline, cupping the back of her head, drawing her sweetness closer. She swayed against him, circling his neck with her arms. Their breaths came in hungry gasps, mouths slanting against one another with an urgency that belied reason and coherent thought. Turning her in his arms and pressing her back against the rail with his weight, Reese's mouth left hers and skimmed down the slender column of her throat.
Grace threw her head back with a shuddering sigh, clutching his shoulders with both hands. Flooded by sensations, she couldn't think or speak. All she could do was hold on as he bent her back over the railing, and pray that he didn't stop kissing her. His mouth seared an erotic trail of heat down her neck, and she felt her knees give. He didn't let her fall. One strong arm curled around her waist while the other slid up her rib cage past the stiff stays of her corset, until his palm cupped her breast, kneading and lifting it.
A breath sighed from her lips as his fingers worked the buttons at her throat. One by one, he flicked them open until he'd managed all seven. She didn't think to stop him, though somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind she thought she should. Logic, modesty—all of it vanished in the heat of the moment. As he pushed the fabric aside and dropped his mouth to the tender skin just above her breast, drawing moist circles with his tongue, she arched mindlessly toward him, wanting more. It was impossible, this feeling, she told herself. Only birds could fly, but her heart felt so light she thought it might take flight right over the swells of the ocean.
I love him. Love him. Reese Donovan—gunslinger, ne'er-do-well—the dangerous man with eyes of a wounded bird of prey.
I love him.
Never, not with Edgar or any other man, had she been so sure of her feelings. There was no logic to it, no rhyme or reason. Only the pure truth. That they were all wrong for each other mattered not at all. That she hardly dared hope he could ever share her feelings made no difference. For now, there were no rules that could take this moment from her. In her heart, it would live forever.
Through the thin cotton of her camisole, Reese kissed her nipple, dampening the fabric as his tongue drew maddening circles around the hardened bud. The strange, exotic feel of it made her shiver and spread a burning ache through her. Moonlight shimmered in his black hair as she buried her fingers in it and pressed her lips to the top of his head.
A sound issued from Reese's throat as he cupped her bottom and pulled her hard against him. The hard length of his arousal dug into her abdomen, startling her with its power. She could feel the driving beat of his heart against her chest, keeping time with her own.
Then, his breath rasping against his throat, he abruptly ended the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers.
"Grace," he said, panting.
"What?"
"Do you know what you do to me?"
She shook her head silently.
"You make me forget who I am. What I am. I should never have done that. I'm sorry."
"I'm not," she whispered, holding him with her fingers behind his neck. "Not at all. Reese, I—"
He grabbed her upper arms and held her away from him. His eyes were clouded and angry. "Don't you understand? Another minute and I would have thrown you down on this deck and taken what I wanted from you. Are you so naive you don't know that?"
She shook her head. "You'd never hurt me."
"Do you really believe that?" He grabbed her hand and pressed it coarsely against the hard length of him. "Feel that? Do you, Grace?"
She started to shake. "Y-yes."
"That's how much I want you. It's physical. That's all this is, do you understand?"
"I—"
"That's all it can ever be from me. I can't give you any more. And you deserve so much more than that." He released her hand and gripped the rail beside him, staring out at the dark water.
She took a faltering step back. Fumbling with the buttons on her bodice, she didn't take her eyes off him. "You're wrong, you know."
A humorless smile lifted one cor
ner of his mouth. "Which part?"
"The part about me deserving someone better. Someone, somewhere convinced you you were no good. Who was it? Your wife? Did she hurt you so much?"
He shot a look at her that sent her back another step. "Who told you about her?"
"That doesn't matter."
"Leave her out of this," he snapped.
"Can you?" Grace asked, touching his sleeve. He jerked away. "Can you forget her and put her behind you? Or will you carry her around in your heart like a wound for the rest of your life?"
"You don't know what you're talking about. Adriana's long dead. I never even think about her."
"When you were ill, you called her name. You thought I was her." She could tell that shocked him.
"What's your point?"
"Do you still love her, Reese?"
"Look," he said turning on her. "What happened then has nothing to do with now, or us. There is no us. Understand? I'm the sort of man your mother should have warned you about. I am who I am and there's no changing that, Grace. I don't care about anything but myself. I'm a selfish bastard, and if you give me the chance, I'll take from you the one thing you consider most precious. And when you look up, I'll be gone. That's who I am. So don't go playin' with fire anymore, little girl. 'Cause you might just get burned."
He whirled away, heading for the stairway to below decks.
"Reese—"
He froze, waiting, without turning around.
"Just now," she said, "and before, a dozen times, you could have hurt me, but you didn't."
He tightened his jaw, silent, waiting, feeling his world rocking with the ebb and flow of the tide.
"Has it been so long since someone believed in you that you've forgotten how to believe in yourself?" she whispered over the rush of the water. "I believe in you, Reese."
"Then you're a fool."
With a curse, he stalked off into the darkness, leaving Grace and all her misguided faith behind him.
Chapter 14
Tampico was exactly as the sailors aboard the Defiance had described it, Grace thought, as they docked at the rustic port on the Panuco River—quaintly beautiful, quiet, and most of all, tropical. Surrounded by pristine sandy beaches and bordered on all sides by verdant lagoons, the city looked as welcoming as a cool drink of water after traversing a desert. The air held the distinct scent of fish—or, to be more precise, crabs. The docks were lined with fishing vessels of all shapes and sizes with wooden crab cages stacked on their decks. It was this mainstay of the Tampico economy that Tom Newcastle had said was the reason the locals here were commonly refered to as jaibas, or crabs.
Her heart thudded as Tom and his men linked the ship to the docks with the heavy hemp ropes coiled on the deck.
Mexico, at last.
They were close to Luke now. So close she could almost imagine him there, waiting for them on the docks, looking as he had the last time she saw him. Well, not exactly that way. He would be smiling, not frowning. And there would be forgiveness in his eyes, not accusation. He'd be dressed in military blue, his too-long brown hair lifting in the heated breeze that blew off the Gulf. He'd be waiting to lecture her on the foolhardiness of coming down here, when he hadn't really needed rescuing at all. He'd make her laugh as he always did at her worries.
Still, he'd never made her feel unimportant or silly about her dreams to write books. For that alone, she loved him. But there were a thousand other reasons as well, all of which seemed so far away just now.
Absently, she searched the faces waiting there on the wooden docks, as if she really believed he'd be there. Of course, he wasn't. He was languishing in some awful place three hundred-odd miles away. At least, she prayed he was still there.
Her gaze fell instead on the flesh-and-blood man who'd occupied the remainder of her thoughts for days now: Reese Donovan. He stood rigid as the ship's rail he held, watching the men tether the boat. He could well have been one of them, for he looked like a pirate with his black hair brushing his shoulders and his face set in a scowl worthy of the most fearsome buccaneer. His white shirt clung to his chest in the sultry heat, sleeves rolled to the elbows to expose thick, tanned forearms dusted with dark hair.
It made her dizzy to watch the sinewy muscle flex as he gripped the rail. In that moment, he reminded her of a caged cat who, tired of pacing, had resigned himself to watching, waiting for his moment of freedom.
They hadn't spoken since he'd left her standing alone last night. In fact, he'd done everything in his power to avoid her altogether. She'd swallowed the lump of hurt that caused. As she lay alone in the captain's small, private cabin last night—which Tom Newcastle had gallantly given over to her during the trip—she could think of little else but the kiss she and Reese had shared on deck. When she managed to sleep, he haunted her dreams.
There, he was a hero who wore black, a fallen angel with the hope of redemption in his eyes, contradiction and simplicity—that was Reese Donovan. In reality, he was a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out in her mind. But in her dreams, she never doubted that he was the champion she'd been looking for.
"Miss Turner?"
A voice beside her brought Grace from her troubled thoughts. It was Timothy Kelly, a young sailor who'd been kind to her on this trip. Worry creased his smooth brow.
"Hello, Mr. Kelly. Is something wrong?"
"It's Mr. McDodd, ma'am."
"Brew?"
"Yes'm. He, uh, sent me to tell you he was gonna be a few more minutes. He's packin' up his things."
Grace frowned. She'd seen little of Brew the last few days. Claiming fatigue, he'd taken to eating his meals in the hold below, which he shared with several of the crew members. She hadn't argued, knowing the trip from Pair-a-Dice had been a terrible strain on him.
"Is he all right?" she asked. "It's almost time to disembark."
Timothy glanced at the deck, seemingly battling with his conscience. "No, ma'am," he said at last, reaching a decision. "No, ma'am, he ain't. He's sick. Real sick. He made me swear not to tell you. He didn't want to upset you, but I don't reckon that's right."
Real fear swept through her like a cold wind. "Swear not to tell me what, Mr. Kelly? Is it his cough?" She started toward the stairwell, but Kelly caught her by the arm. Grace gave him a wide-eyed look of panic. "I know he's been feeling poorly since we left Bagdad, well, actually since we left Virginia, but he swore it was just a cold he couldn't shake—at least that's what he told me—but once we got aboard, he claimed it was the salty air that—"
"Ma'am, I ain't no sawbones," Kelly said, "but I never seen no salty air that could make a man cough up blood."
Blood. She was past Kelly and running to the wooden stairway leading down to the lower deck before he could even reply. Terror clutched at her throat and stole her breath. Oh, Brew. Brew! How could you have tried to hide this from me?
The handle seemed to freeze in her hand as she swung open the door leading to the crew's quarters. There, sprawled unconscious on the floor of the cutter, with a bloodstained handkerchief in his limp hand, lay Brew.
Grace swayed against the door frame, then did the only thing she could think of.
She screamed for Reese.
* * *
"Pare aqui señor, por favor," Tom Newcastle told the driver of the carreta as they approached the small, run-down house at the edge of the river. Brew stirred as the wagoner pulled up, and Grace lay a calming hand on the older man's arm. From a distance, the dwelling had looked innocuous enough. Paint peeled from the porch railing, and shutters—locked tight against the incessant sun—appeared like gap-toothed smiles with several slats missing.
It wasn't that, however, that caught Grace's eye and sent a ripple of unease through her. It was the bleached chicken feathers and odd-shaped stones tied to strings that dangled from a piece of driftwood there beneath the porch rafters. The constant breeze rattled through them with a hollow sound, but it wasn't until the wagon was directly in front of the house that she saw the so
und came not from stones, but from the bones of, no doubt, that very same chicken that had donated its feathers to the cause.
A woman appeared at the doorway. Grace didn't know what she expected—perhaps an old crone with skin the color of walnuts and more wrinkles than Grace's travel-weary gown. But the handsome figure in the doorway held herself with an almost regal bearing. Her smoke-colored eyes matched the thick mane of once-black hair that still brushed the back of her skirts. A colorful woven shawl was draped around the shoulders of her white, gathered blouse. On her wrists, dozens of silver bangles tinkled musically as she moved. Oddest of all was the small monkey curled on her shoulder, who eyed the occupants of the wagon with head-tilting curiosity, then curled up under the woman's shawl and peeked at them.
From her place beside Brew and Reese, Grace cast an uncertain look at Tom, who sat beside the driver on the narrow bench seat. From behind his black eye-patch, he smiled reassuringly back at her, winking his good eye. She frowned, wondering if he meant that as a comforting gesture, because it did little to appease her apprehension. Tom had told them he knew of a doctor who would help Brew—a woman.
They called her a curandera—a healer. Her methods were unorthodox, he admitted, but he'd seen them work. To Grace the woman looked more gypsy than doctor, but there seemed to be no choice. Consumption was the word Reese used: an ugly, final word, but one she could hardly deny any longer. Where Brew's life was concerned, she was willing to try anything. Squeezing Brew's hand, she looked down at him. He suddenly looked old. Tired. Please, God, she prayed, I'm not ready to lose him. Not Brew, too.
Tom hopped out of the wagon and embraced the old woman familiarly. The monkey leaped onto Tom's shoulder and he scratched its neck as he turned back to the wagon.
"Señora Maria Elena Vasquez de Adregon, mis amigos, Reese Donovan, Señorita Grace Turner, y Brewster McDodd, el enfermo—the sick one."
"It's a pleasure to—" Grace began.
The older woman's gaze darted to the wagon and the man lying within. She went pale as she moved closer. "Que le paso?"
The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) Page 18
