Kissing Comfort (19 page)

“No, it's not, is it? You caught it and gave it back to the gentleman.”

“That's right.”

She frowned. “I'm not clear on what happened next. He took it, didn't he?”

“He did. He thanked me on behalf of himself and everyone who was sitting near him.”

Suddenly agitated beyond her ability to remain in her seat, Comfort jumped up. She put out a hand to stop Bode from continuing. “You don't have to say any more.” There was an odd ringing sensation in her ears. Her skin began to crawl. “Actually, I'd prefer if you—”

The stool under Bode thudded to the floor as he leaped to his feet. He was quick, but not quick enough. Comfort's knees folded under her before he crossed half the distance, and she was lying crumpled on her side when he reached her.

Bode bent, scooped her up, and placed her on the bench, knocking the tumbler of whiskey out of the way. He took the shawl from around her shoulders, folded it, and put it under her head. She was already coming around, blinking rapidly against the bright sunlight streaming through the windows. He stood and drew the curtains. The skylight kept the room from being dark.

He removed Comfort's hat and laid the back of his hand lightly over her forehead. Her skin was cool but not clammy. “Perhaps we should think about other things that could have contributed to your fainting spell.”

“What things?” she asked dully. She tapped his wrist to encourage him to remove his hand. When he did, she placed her forearm across her eyes. “I believe I mentioned the crowd, the heat, the stooping and standing. None of those apply here.”

“You did jump to your feet.”

“I don't think that was it.”

“All right. What if it
is
me?”

“It's not.”

He didn't think it was, but he was gratified to hear her say it with so much conviction. What he had to say next was more difficult. “Are you carrying Bram's child?”

Comfort tore her arm away from her eyes so quickly that Bode had no chance to duck out of the way. She hit him in the head with the back of her hand. “Oh, God. I'm sorry. Did I miss your eye at least? Please tell me I missed your eye.”

He'd managed to grab her wrist before she drew it back, and now he held on, surrounding the loose fist she made with his fingers. “You missed both of them,” he said.

The clasp of his fingers was firm and warm. Comfort didn't try to remove her hand from it. She had the odd sensation of complete calm. Given the question he'd just put before her, it was an unreasonable response.

“I'm not carrying your brother's child,” she said. “Or anyone else's.”

“I guessed that when you tried to blind me.”

She started to object and then realized Bode was teasing her. That seemed an equally unreasonable response. “You're different than I expected.”

“Since I imagine most of what you know about me came from Bram, I hope that means I've exceeded your expectations.”

She smiled faintly and nodded.

“Good.”

He held her gaze, and Comfort didn't look away; she didn't want to. His eyes no longer reflected the violet-blue spark of light glancing off steel. What she saw were deep, warm pools that invited her to stir their perfect stillness.

Without quite knowing why, she accepted their invitation. She raised her head. Her lips parted. She waited.

She understood what she hadn't in the moment before he touched her mouth with his.

Bode's eyes had been the calm before the storm.

It began with a spark. Only that. The first inkling of what a kiss might be. The spark skittered lightly across her lips, delicate as dandelion fluff. It teased and tickled, this dance of a sprite over the curve of her mouth. She was smiling at the exact moment the spark became a flame.

Heat licked her lips. Fingers of fire slipped under her skin. She was boneless suddenly, melting like candle wax before the flame, and it was his mouth that shaped her, his hands that gave her form.

One of his palms cradled the back of her head. The other lay flat against her abdomen. Each one of his fingertips was a point of heat. There was no weight, no pressure. It was as if his touch had no substance, and the proof that it existed at all was the raised flesh that it left in its wake.

Her fingers folded around the front of his jacket. She didn't hold it as much as clutch it. It was something substantial, something quite real in the face of everything else that seemed otherworldly.

This kiss,
his
kiss, was far and away exceeding her expectations.

His tongue flicked her upper lip and touched the underside. She slid her tongue forward, touched his. She'd been tentative, but his response made her bold, and she sucked on his tongue, deepening the kiss, opening her mouth and his to the current of liquid fire.

She heard a sound, one she didn't recognize as coming from herself until she felt the vibration deep at the back of her throat. She realized she was purring as contentedly as her cat. Or almost as contentedly, she thought, because what she wanted was something more than being scratched between her ears.

Restless, she arched her back. Her heels dug into the upholstered bench. He pressed her back with the flat of his hand before she could turn on her side. She loosened her fingers where they gripped his jacket so they could climb his chest. She slipped them around his neck, lacing them together. She held his head, held it there, afraid he would end the kiss too soon.

His mouth hummed against hers. Her lips trembled. Her tongue quivered. She tasted a hint of coffee in the kiss. Like his tea, he took it without cream or sugar. She didn't shy from the faint bitterness. It had the opposite effect. She wondered if they could make it sweet.

They did.

He drew in a sharp breath. She moaned. The sounds mingled. Overhead, a gull tapped at the skylight, its tattoo identical to the one that her heart beat against her chest. She felt the thrum of the pulse in his neck. It had the same cadence. The very same.

His hand moved from her abdomen to just below her breast. The heat was almost intolerable, yet she couldn't move away. She stroked his neck and wound dark copper threads of hair around her fingertips. She wished she had not plaited her hair. She wished she had combs and pins and ribbons for him to remove. He would take them out one at a time, as slowly as he liked. She wouldn't shake her head; she'd let him sift her hair between his fingers and tug so gently that her scalp would tingle.

It tingled anyway. And then so did the rest of her. It was like the first shiver in the face of a fever; the one that slipped along every muscle. She seemed to contract all at once, folding in on herself so that her skin was no longer a comfortable fit.

She did not expect him to swear, but somehow it was appropriate, more reverent than blasphemous, and when he broke off the kiss and laid his forehead against hers, she knew she was right.

Bode was still on his knees. Raising his head, he sat back slowly, slipping one hand out from under Comfort's head, and the other, the one that rested near her breast, he let fall to the edge of the bench. She had to surrender her hold on his neck, and her fingers trailed over his shoulders as he moved away. Her eyes remained closed a moment longer, and when they opened, their focus was the ceiling.

“Comfort?”

She held up one finger, cautioning him to be quiet.

He didn't mind. He stayed where he was and watched her breathing ease. There was a like response in him, a settling in his chest that made him aware of his slowing pulse.

Comfort turned her head to the side and studied his face. None of his features had shifted from their symmetrical plane. There was no eyebrow arched with inquiry, no lift to one corner of his mouth. His jaw was relaxed so no muscle could jump in his cheek. He looked neither happy nor unhappy, nor any other emotion she could name. She thought she must be staring into a face of extraordinary tranquility, the face of a man at ease with himself, a man without regrets or misgivings.

She smiled then, because she knew he wasn't sorry.

Sitting up, she inched her way down the bench until she could put her legs over the side. She smoothed her dress over her lap. She could still feel the warmth of his hand where it had come so close to cupping her breast. Her skin smoldered with the lingering heat until it ignited in a flush that spread from her chest to her face. She pressed her palms to her cheeks and was grateful when Bode didn't comment.

Bode swept up the fallen tumbler of whiskey in his hand and stood. “Careful that you don't drag your skirt through what spilled. Give me a moment.” His mouth twitched. “I'll swab the deck.”

Comfort relaxed. It really would be all right. They would have a conversation that embraced what was usual, even mundane, and they would go on from there. There would be no regrets and no recriminations. Likewise, there would be no discussion.

“Well, it
is
very much like a ship,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder on his way to the broom closet and asked, “Have you ever been on a ship?”

“No.” Her eyebrows knit, forming a neat vertical crease between them. “That is, not on one that was bound for anywhere.”

Bode retrieved a mop. “One at berth in the harbor, then.”

“Mmm, not precisely berthed.”

“Ah,” he said, understanding. “You were on one of the ships abandoned during the early days of the rush. My father said that until the hulks burned and sank, it was possible to walk across the bay and never touch water. Was that true?”

“I don't know. I never tried. But it seems as if it might have been true. There was more wood on the water than there was on land. Men fled the ships as soon as they arrived—even the men who sailed them.”

“I know. My father and the other masters lost entire crews to gold fever. They had to pay exorbitant wages in excess of fifty or even a hundred dollars a month to keep enough men to make the return voyage.” He finished wiping the spill and set the mop in front of him, holding it in a two-fisted grip that turned his elbows out. “So if you weren't using the hulks like lily pads to traverse the bay, did you live on one?”

“No. Some people did, of course, but not us. Newt and Tuck like terra firma, they would say.” She saw Bode's ironic smile and appreciated it. “I know. They have long since recognized the contrariness of making San Francisco home, but they're settled now, and will tell you they still prefer shifting land to shifting seas.”

“Then I don't have another guess,” he said. “Why were you on one of the ships?”

She didn't answer right away, considering whether this was something she wanted to tell. In the end, she decided it hardly mattered. The deed had been done so long ago that no one was in danger of being punished for it. At the time, no one thought of it as a crime.

“Uncle Newton heard there was a safe on one of the ships that could be had if it could be taken off. He told Uncle Tuck about it, and they decided it was worth looking into. They were preparing to open a lending store and had enough business that they needed a safe.”

“But not so much business they could buy one.”

She shook her head. “No, they were just being thrifty.”

Bode started to chuckle and then swallowed it whole when he realized she was serious.

“It also would have taken too long to order anything like it and have it transported west. Enterprising men looked closer at hand for the solutions to their problems. The most successful found them.”

“They always do,” he said. “You accompanied them, obviously.”

“I accompanied one or both of them almost everywhere. It wasn't safe for me to be left alone, or at least they didn't think so.”

“They were right.” He paused. “They still are.”

Comfort ignored him. “Uncle Tuck rigged some kind of contraption that enabled them to hoist the safe out of the hold. They came close to sinking the rowboat
and
the safe because that part of their plan was not well thought out, but eventually they managed to get it on board without drowning themselves. There was an old mule and a travois waiting for us onshore, and the poor animal earned its feed that night for pulling that safe through Sydney Town.”

“That's a good story.”

“It's true.”

“That's what makes it good.” He let the handle of the mop sway back and forth. “What kind of safe was it?”

“A Hildesheim.”

“No, I meant what kind of locking device did it have? Padlock? A combination?”

“It had a pin and tumbler mechanism.”

“How was it opened?”

She smiled. “I did the job on the box.” Surprise made Bode lose his grip on the mop handle, but he caught it before it hit Comfort on the head. He was too stunned by what she'd told him to offer an apology. “You were only a child.”

Comfort clapped her hands together once, delighted with his reaction. “I made it a better story, didn't I?”

He realized he'd been taken in. “All right,” he said. “I believed you. And yes, it made for a better story, but tell me what really happened. How did you get the safe open?”

“It was already open. The ship's captain emptied it before he left his command. Tuck worked on it for a long time—weeks, not hours—before he was able to reset the pins and tumblers so they operated on a new combination of numbers. He and Newton got stumbling drunk the night he finally figured it out.”

“I imagine they did. What did you do?”

“Filled and refilled their glasses.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Really?”