Pistons and Pistols (16 page)

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I love to hear you scream my name in pleasure. From now until I face my end, I shall make it my goal to have you scream for me every day.”

Rose smiled at the thought, happy to know that if there were some danger in what she was about to undertake, at least she would face it with this one last memory at hand.

She would face it with his name on her lips and in her heart.

* * * *

Gabriella stared up into the twinkling sky, worried sick for Atom. He had been on his walk for a very long time. She knew that Jax would keep him from danger, but still, why was he brooding so? Did he really believe she was flirting with that huge beast of a man? Good then. Perhaps it would make him think twice about this affection of his for Jayne.

“Miss Upstairs?” a man said from behind her.

Gabriella turned to find Buford standing at the edge of the saloon porch. “Good evening, Mr. Buford. You’re looking well.” Which was the case. Even in the few streams of lamplight from the tavern, she could tell he had made an effort to clean up. His greasy hair was combed to one side, and he had changed into less filthy clothes. A spotty kerchief poked from his breast pocket in an attempt at some sort of decorum.

“Thank you kindly. You…you’re very lovely.”

“Thanks. Aren’t you supposed to be on curfew?”

Caught in his rebellious act, he looked to the floorboards. “Yeah. I heard what your captain was about and wanted to make sure you weren’t planning on going with her.”

“I’m afraid I’m not as brave as she is, but do I appreciate your worry.” Gabriella turned away, unsure how to handle this situation. Did he think she owed him some debt? How she wished she had his hat so she could send him on his way without a guilty thought left to vex her.

The man stood behind her in silence for a bit, then said, “I also came to ask after your friend.”

She turned, looking to Buford with curiosity. “My friend?” Which woman did he mean?

“The tall gentleman in the suit. He is your friend, isn’t he?”

His gist set her back to fretting. “Oh yes, he is my friend.”

“Just a friend?” Buford’s brow furrowed with what might have been hope, desperation, even optimism.

Gabriella didn’t appreciate his forwardness, but couldn’t blame him. Unlike Atom, this man just didn’t know any better. “Are you asking if we are courting?”

The man nodded.

“I’m not sure I can answer that truthfully,” she confessed.

Buford exhaled a long sigh of sure relief.

Gabriella turned her back to him again, hoping a literal cold shoulder would stop his advances.

“I don’t suppose a fine woman like yourself would consider taking a late meal with a man the likes of me. Would she? I got some good lookin’ chops on the grill, and there’s way more than I can manage. Alone.”

Gabriella couldn’t bear to face him with her rejection. “No, I’m afraid not.” She hoped her flat refusal would send him on his way. It didn’t. He was still at her back, breathing in a steady, loud chuff. The porch squeaked as he stepped closer to her.

“I know I ain’t much to look at,” he whispered. “I ain’t got much to offer in the way of worldly goods. But my back is strong, and my heart is true. And…and I know I could make you happy. If you’ll just let me, Miss Upstairs.” He touched her forearm, his calloused fingers ever so gentle on her skin as if he were petting a timid animal. The move was uncalled for and most inappropriate, but she allowed him to caress her for a moment, enjoying it as much as he. Only in her case, she wished it were someone else stroking her.

Her heart ached for Atom.

“Oh, Mr. Buford,” she whispered. Gabriella took his strong hand into hers, turning to face him. “It has nothing to do with you. Please believe that. My relationship with my friend is, well, complicated.”

“Then you are a-courtin’?” His brow knitted into deep valleys of disappointment.

“I can’t say for sure.” She smiled, hoping to end this on a light note. “But I do know it wouldn’t help matters much if he found me taking a late meal with a man as fine as yourself. It has been a long time since I’ve been asked to dinner by a real gentleman.”

Buford’s smile was shy, as if he were embarrassed by her appreciation of his decorum. “You’re set on him?”

“I suppose I am.”

“He’s one lucky man. I hope he realizes that.”

“Me too.”

He pulled her hands to his lips, kissing them once each. “I do appreciate you being honest with me, as well as just being so beautiful.”

“I appreciate the kind words. It will be a lucky woman who snaps up the likes of you.”

“Aw, shucks. Now you’re just being sweet.”

“I assure you I’m speaking true.”

Buford nodded in a half daze, staring at her hands. All at once his eyes shot wide and he looked up to ask, “Hey, you don’t suppose that big blond woman likes chops? Do ya?”

“No,” Jax said from the darkness beyond the porch. “She does not.”

Buford went pale in the moonlight. “Evening, ladies.” Then he was gone.

“For a big man, he moves quickly,” Jax said as she stepped onto the porch. “I’m impressed.”

“Jax, there you are. Is…is Atom with you?”

“No. He went back to the mine to try to talk the captain from her futile plans.”

“Oh.”

“Do not worry. He did not see you speaking with that man.”

“You didn’t have to scare him off like that.” Gabriella frowned. “He was just trying to be nice.”

Jax snorted. “When he has you flat on your back with your skirt pushed up to your ears and you screaming for help, I will remember he was just trying to be nice.”

“Jax!” Gabriella shouted. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

“It never starts off like that.”

Never once in all the time she had spent in his presence did Gabriella feel the man meant her any ill will. Granted he was a big man, and a stranger, and he had her in his grasp, could have easily…

Gabriella gasped. “You don’t think he would have hurt me? I mean, not really?”

Jax shrugged. “Him? Probably not. But the next one? Who knows?”

Gabriella was speechless.

“You should be more careful,” Jax warned. “Learn to protect yourself. The depths a man will sink to in order to slake his lust would set your delicate little ears on fire to hear.”

“Can you teach me?” Gabriella asked. “How to protect myself?”

The blonde cocked her head in surprise. “You will listen, and learn?”

“I will try.”

“Then I will teach. But now is not time for that. Come, the captain is ready for her journey.”

No wonder the woman was in a foul mood. Her worry for the captain flared as bright as her blond hair glowing in the moonlight. If Jax was worried, then perhaps Gabriella should worry as well. “The captain will be okay. Won’t she?”

“It is not mine to say. The captain does what she will, but not just because it is safe to do so.”

“You want to go in her stead?”

“Don’t you?”

“I suppose so. A little. But aren’t you afraid?”

“It is not my job to be afraid. It is my job to keep her, and you, safe. I would knock her out cold to keep her from task, if I thought she would not release me from her services for doing so.”

Gabriella followed Jax in awe, once again amazed by the lengths to which the crew would go for one another. As if they were a real family. “Why are you aboard the Widow?”

“You want Jax’s story, little fishy? Well, here it is.” The woman stopped to face Gabriella as she explained, “Jax does what she wants, when she wants, and there is not man nor beast alive who will say different on the matter and live to tell the tale. Is that story enough for you?”

Gabriella nodded. She supposed it would have to be enough, because she wasn’t getting anything else from the woman on the matter. And, all things considered, she supposed she didn’t want anything else from her.

Chapter 12

Into The Belly of Black

In which we face the terrible truth

Dark.

Cold.

Endless.

Rose rolled the words around in her mind as she crept along the tunnel. She couldn’t believe she had gotten herself into this. Of all the crazy things she had said and done in her life, this was perhaps the worst. Wandering around in the pitch-black caverns of a haunted mine in the dead of night. What was she thinking?

She was thinking that her ship needed to get back in the air as soon as possible, because they were being followed. It didn’t take visual conformation to know it. There was a certain feeling a sailor had, a hunch that he was being watched. Rose suspected the Widow had been followed all the way back from the island, and now whoever was on her trail would track her here. That meant the crew needed to flee. Now.

But first they had to have fuel.

Rose sighed as she held the metal box higher. The box, a strange contraption of the professor’s design, provided a weak glow for hours after just a few hand cranks. It was impressive in function, but in the cold darkness of the earth, it did little to light the tunnels ahead. She found herself glad that the men were clever enough to mark the shafts and tunnels as they dug, or she would never find her way about. Her main worry wasn’t that some alleged ghost would find her.

Her main concern was getting lost down here, forever.

Speaking of trouble, to her surprise she had found very little in the last hour or so. No sinister noises. No unusual visions. The only thing out of place that she could see, or rather sense, was the curious warmth. She’d expected the caverns to be cold, but the stale air was as warm as a summer night, and growing warmer the farther she traveled. Rose double checked the crude map, to make sure she had followed the directions to the proper place. Yes, she was in the new pocket, had been for almost ten minutes. Yet there was no sign of what she sought.

A small noise to her left caught her attention.

She swung the lamp in the direction of the noise. “Hello?” Rose felt foolish for calling out to what was sure to be settling sediment.

“My blossom,” someone whispered from the dark.

Jumping at the sound, Rose dropped the lantern at her feet in surprise. Thanking heavens it wasn’t an oil lamp, she gathered the still-glowing box to her, giving it a few extra cranks for good measure. Rose held the box out to the darkness, wondering if her imagination was playing tricks on her or if madness had finally caught up with her.

“My blossom,” came the whisper again.

Only this time she recognized the speaker. Her blood ran to ice at the sound of his voice and his pet name for her. But it couldn’t be him. It was impossible. As if reading her worries, William Madigan stepped into the light. Tall and muscular, with that dashing smile and bedroom eyes, he was everything she remembered. It couldn’t be him, yet there he was, looking as healthy as the day he died. Unless…unless the miners were right. The mine was haunted. Rose backed away from the apparition until she cowered against the tunnel wall in shock.

“Hello, my little blossom,” he said.

Finding her voice, Rose whispered, “You’re not real.”

His laughter echoed in great swells across the empty tunnels. “Not real? Why Rose, is that any way to treat your loving husband?” He hooked his thumbs in his belt, just over his pistols as he always did, and took a step toward her. “I’ve been tracking you all the way from the doctor’s island retreat. You made good time with my ship, but then again you were always good at running away.”

Rose slid sideways along the wall, farther away from him, doing her best to stay steady on her trembling legs. “You’re dead. I saw you die.”

“Did you?” He followed her, step for step, laughing all the while. “I heard about the problems in the mines and supposed it was only a matter of time before you came poking your nose down here looking for trouble. Well, you found it, little missy.”

“You are dead!”