Surrender (48 page)

He rose slightly, knifing her limbs apart with his knee, and shifting his weight. She felt the extent of his arousal teasing at the lips of her sex before he thrust into her, and the world seemed to burst into little prisms of golden light. She cried out, burrowing against his shoulder, nearly delirious with the feel of him inside her once again, his body sleek, the damp earth beneath them, glorious sky above them, his heat all but unbearable. And the way he moved, drawing more and more from her until she writhed and arched and strained against him … and when she thought that she was dying, he suddenly withdrew. His lips found her breasts, teased the tenderness of her nipples, boldly explored her midsection. She tried to rise against him, touching, caressing, kissing … she was forced back to the ground, and his lips touched her here … there … his most intimate kiss settled between her, and drove her nearly to distraction. When she shrieked his name, he came to her at last, finding her mouth, thrusting into her again with an impetus that left her gasping … clinging to him, rocking down from the sweet and volatile climax that had claimed her. She wrapped her arms around him. Drifted downward. “I love you …”

But even as she whispered the words, he was disengaging himself from her hold, standing, staring toward the southwest.

Instinctively, she rose behind him. “Jerome, what is it?”

He swung around, staring at her.

“My father’s house is on fire!” he grated out, and he grabbed his pants, stepping into them even as they heard the sound of a cannon, exploding into the dusk.

H
e was gone before she could reach her dress. She slipped into it with shaking fingers, and came racing after him. Yet, when she would have followed the trail back to the house, she was stopped. Two Yankee soldiers suddenly stepped from the brush to bar the path, and she came to a dead halt, gasping, staring at them.

“Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“You can’t go to the house, ma’am.”

“You’ll let me by this instant! Now. My—”

“No, ma’am.”

“My child—”

“It’s a Rebel stronghold, and it’s going down.”

“No, you’ll let me by—”

“Risa, no!” came a third voice, causing her to swing around as another man hurried along the path. He was in uniform, wearing a major’s insignias.

“Good!” said one of the men beside her. “Major McCullough will explain.”

Freckled-face, hard-set and dead serious, Finn McCullough had nearly reached her. He smiled at the look on her face, and swept her a deep bow. “I knew I’d surprise you, Risa. Foolish, gullible Finn! Not such a fool, really. I’m with army intelligence, Army of the Potomac. Hooker got us well organized, and we’ve been fairly effective under Pinkerton for some time now. You’ve been incredibly helpful, Risa, giving me everything I needed. I knew that I could get your husband to come for you again if I took you from the Rebel side. God, but I’ve waited for this! You’ve done the Union a great service—as I have.”

“You’ve attacked my husband’s house, you’ve
attacked civilians! My child is in that house. Other children …”

“Shouldn’t sleep with the enemy, Risa!” he chided her, and she saw something strange in his eyes. He shook his head regretfully. “You know, I was in love with you. But you never wanted me. Then a dangerous, half-breed Rebel kidnaps you … and you have his brat.”

Finn McCullough with his sandy hair and freckles. Finn, who couldn’t have cared less about the war, about any which way the wind blew, as long as he could run his business. Salvage diver. Helping out in the hospital, hanging on the fringes of society, North or South. A friend, she had thought. Someone she had once felt so guilty about using, when she had asked him to bring her to Biscayne Bay to find Alaina.

She was the one who had been used. Had he been with Yankee intelligence all along? she wondered. Or had he decided that he would have revenge against Jerome McKenzie once Jerome had taken them prisoner that long-ago night? What a fool she’d been, trusting him! She
had
caused her husband’s capture and that of his ship, even if she’d done so unwittingly. Damn Finn, and damn his men. The house was burning, and her child might be inside, and her husband, and his family, were in danger. She stared at the two soldiers who were apparently under Finn’s command. “You touch me, and I promise you that my father will have you hanged in a Yankee court. The United States does not make war on civilians and babies!”

In a fury she pushed by the soldiers, and went racing toward the house. She was vaguely aware of Finn shouting after her. She didn’t give a damn.

The left wing of the structure was on fire, shooting flames. She could hear gunfire, and she saw that sailors and Seminoles had banned together to fight against the force of Yankees who had come ashore on longboats. The cannon fire came from the ships, she realized; the Yankees had engaged with the
Lady Varina
in her safe harbor—a place where Risa had led the enemy.

Jerome was surely engaged in the fighting. But what of his family? Oh, God, she had brought this down on
his family. And her child and her in-laws might well be perishing within the burning house.

Surely, they had escaped it! But she had to make sure. She stood on the porch, shouting, but there was no reply other than the snap and crackling of the fire. The heat was immense. She could be killed if she rushed in, but she had to do so. What if someone had been injured, what if someone lay shot and bleeding, what if they were all hurt, what if they had fled, and somehow forgotten Jamie, what if …

She ignored the soldiers and sailors battling by the water and rushed into the house, quickly searching the ground floor, avoiding the dining room, where the blaze was centered. She raced up the stairs, heedless of the smoke and flames. “Teela, James! Anyone! I’m here, please, where are you?”

There was no reply. She ran into Jerome’s bedroom, looking for Jamie, who had been sleeping in his crib when she left. Minea never would have left her child; neither James nor Teela McKenzie would have ever deserted the sleeping babe, she assured herself. They had all gotten out. And still, she was so afraid. As smoke continued to fill the room, she cried out again. “Jamie! Anyone! Help, is anyone in here? Please, please, please, someone, where’s my child?”

“Risa!”

She spun around. It was Finn McCullough, managing to look more military every minute. Now he was holding a Sharps issue revolver. She stared at him, knowing that she was nearly backed against a wall.

“Risa, the house is on fire.”

“So it is. But my baby—”

“Don’t be a fool, they’ve gotten the children out. Come on. Risa, damn you, I’ve got a gun on you! Move!”

“Move! Why? Are you going to shoot me in cold blood?”

He stepped forward then, and she wasn’t prepared for the blow he dealt her in the jaw. Head spinning, she fell back against the wall. “You’re coming with me, Risa!” he insisted.

“You’re not going to ignore me anymore. Poor,
pathetic Finn, easily twirled around your finger. But I was good, Risa. I nearly captured his sister. He would have known what it was like to be afraid for a woman he loved. A woman in danger. You should have seen his face the night we took him from your house in St. Augustine. You see, I watched you. I watched you all the time. I spied on your conversation with the good young Dr. Julian McKenzie, and I knew when you’d board Jerome McKenzie’s ship, and when it could be taken. And I knew that Jerome would come across the river for you, and that I could follow you both here. The fire will die out, Risa. We weren’t after the McKenzie house. Just Jerome McKenzie and his ship.”

“You know, you could have a dozen guns, and I’d still never go with you,
anywhere
. I love my husband, Finn. This is our home, and my child is here!”

“Risa, you’re being foolish! The South will lose the war. He will lose everything!”

“He may lose the war, but he’ll have his heart, his soul, his pride, his life, and his love. He’ll have me. Always.”

“You’re coming with me! I haven’t the patience for this!” Finn snapped, and he wrenched her to him, placing the muzzle of the gun directly against her head.

“Now!”

He was unbalanced, she thought. Maybe the war had driven them all a little crazy. Maybe he had played his furtive, secretive game so long that he had fantasized the ending, and would let it happen no other way.

She heard a sound and looked to the doorway. Jerome stood there, straight, silhouetted by a burst of angry gold flames behind him in the hall. He stepped into the room, unarmed other than the sword in his hand, held to his side. “Let her go, Finn.”

“You get out of the way, McKenzie. Or I’ll put a bullet in her brain, I swear it. I’m taking your wife.”

Jerome moved out of the way of the door, staring at Risa. “We all have to get out of the house. Quickly.”

She nodded. Her lips were too dry to speak.

“Move, McKenzie, get out of the way. Risa, tell him to get out of my way. If he doesn’t move …”

Jerome walked into the room, setting his sword down,
circling around Finn and Risa. Finn watched him uneasily.

“Risa,” Jerome said, “you should know, that night I was taken by the Yanks at St. Augustine was beautiful. It was worth the months in prison.”

“Shut up, McKenzie,” Finn said. “You’re a dead man, and she’s coming with me. I’ll have her out of here faster than you can utter an Indian war cry or a Rebel yell!”

Jerome ignored him. “I love you, too, Risa. War or no war.”

“I’m not leaving here without you, Jerome!” Risa protested, shrieking as Finn brutally tightened his hold. “As soon as he’s safely out the door, he’ll start shooting—”

“McKenzie!” Finn raged, “I can’t kill you both, but if you don’t stay away, I’ll shoot you, or I’ll shoot her. One of you will die.”

Jerome still appeared calm. “You won’t kill her; I’d rip you in half no matter how many bullets you put into me. Your men are retreating,” he told Finn. “They can’t take this place; they never could. The last thing the United States wants right now is another expensive, time-consuming, full-scale war with the last of the Florida Seminoles.”

“Damn you, shut up, McKenzie!” Finn shouted, and drew the gun from Risa’s head and started firing. Risa screamed, wrenching at his arm, but too late. Jerome had fallen to the floor.

“Bastard!” Risa shrieked, striking out at Finn, but he slammed the butt of his gun against her head. She staggered, and he pulled her over his shoulder, then turned and fled down the stairs, past the formal dining room, now an inferno.

She struggled not to lose consciousness, determined she would fight to the end, yet dazed and alternating between hope and despair, knowing that if she had lost husband and child, she no longer wanted to live.

At first she had no strength. Everything was spinning, her head pounded ferociously. Tears stung her eyes, and bathed her cheeks. Then she tried to rise up against Finn, to distract him as he ran across the front of the estate. He was hurrying to the docks, where the small boats waited. A few of his men still exchanged gunfire
with those fighting from the outbuildings and copses that surrounded the house. But struggling was useless; he threw her into one of the boats, and when she would have risen, he hopped down beside her, pushing off from the dock despite the cry of a soldier who meant to jump in as well.

“Major, wait, I can’t swim, they’re taking the other boats—”

But Finn had cast off, and was rowing hard, oblivious to all else. Risa managed to sit up, but when she did so, he hit her with an oar, and the world began to waver anew. She swallowed down a rise of nausea.

“Damn you, I’m trying to save your life!” Finn told her.

“Damn
you
, you bastard! You’ve stolen my life!”

“Past life, Risa, your past life is over! You’ll no longer follow the enemy’s drummer.”

“You shot him, for God’s sake! If you’ve murdered my husband in cold blood, if he is dead or dies in those flames, I will spend every single day of the rest of my life working to see that you are hanged.”

“You be careful, Risa—or you’ll spend every day of the rest of your life locked away.”

“You can’t do that. You forget, I’m not a Rebel. I’m a known Unionist, and the daughter of a celebrated, decorated general. The government—”

“The government would never know,” he warned, then smiled. She felt a deep chill, and realized that he had been waging his own vendetta. He didn’t intend to return her to a Northern port. She was to come with him, his personal prisoner, and God knew where he would take her, or what he would do with her.

She gritted her teeth. She could outswim Finn McCullough—or drown. One or the other. He had learned how to abuse power and rank and might do anything. She had to get off the boat. She had to get back to the house and pray that she could find her husband and that he wasn’t—

Dead. Shot down in cold blood. Because she had led the enemy directly to him.

“Tell me—were you working for army intelligence the first time you brought me down here?”

He smiled. “Not exactly. I was trying to get in at that time. I knew the right people, and I’d been told that the naval officers would pay a pretty price for the Mocassin. Then, after I rotted on an island waiting to be picked up after McKenzie seized me … well, if I was going to risk such dangers, I wanted fame and fortune as well. Of course, there was also the matter of vengeance. If I had taken Miss Sydney McKenzie, I’d have seen to it that she was returned to the loving arms of her family with far less arrogance! The right company of men can easily improve a woman’s disposition.”

“Finn, I grant you this—you were good. I believed in your honesty and gentle character. I’d never envisioned that you could be such a monster.”

He smiled. “You’ll come to like me again, Risa. In time.”

“Never. I’ll despise you until the day I die.”

“We can change the way you feel. We’re nearing
my
ship. We’ll change the way you feel before tonight’s over, I promise.”

Never.

She started to make a move to dive from the ship. He lifted the oar to strike her again, but he never managed to do so. Risa saw a pair of hands grip the rim of the small boat. Then she saw Jerome leap out of the bay, like an enraged Neptune. Water sluiced from his body as he caught Finn’s hand holding the oar. As Risa started to rise, her hand at her throat, Jerome dragged Finn overboard. They disappeared beneath the surface of the water together.