I gestured vaguely at his dusty shirt. “That you’re smart enough to be a Negro doctor. Or know enough law to sit behind a desk, not chase fugitives through the brush. Why?”
Major considered me, the corner of his mouth twitching. That damn straw moved with it, lazily wicked.
“Same reason you’re not some rich man’s wife, living soft in Nawlins,” he said.
I hadn’t thought of Toussaint D’Arcy in so long. The face passed through me like water through a sieve. No residue.
“Poor decision-making?” I guessed.
“Insufferably good at everything,” he countered, and damn it all, the man smiled.
I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me, twitching upward.
“Well,” I said, standing and dusting off my skirts, “if you plan to keep up this infuriating habit of being good at things, you may as well make yourself useful. I’ll need someone to steal some proper medical supplies next time we stop.”
Major raised a brow. “Steal, is it?”
I arched a delicate brow in return. “They won’t sell them to Negros.” I looked at his amused face, then said, more softly, “Oh, please. Don’t act scandalized. We were sandwich thieves once.”
His grin, crooked at the corner, was lazy and private. I had this feeling of great anticipation like when the preacher is climbing to the high point in the sermon, and the organs start going. He stepped forward, just slightly, barely a shift of boots on dirt but suddenly I could feel it in the space just above my skin.
“And there’s honor ’tween thieves?” he said, soft.
I let the question hang, but I suddenly needed a whole pitcher of tea.
Our eyes locked. Every nerve of mine was alive and listening.
He stepped a hair closer. “What else, I wonder,” he said slowly, “might be between thieves?”
The world tipped.
He leaned in slow. His fingers brushed my waist, the edge of my glove, nothing that could be called scandal but everything that would’ve kept me up at night. The straw in his mouth was gone, and his nose grazed against the racing pulse at my neck.
My eyes closed.
And then—
Some first officer (where had he been when we needed supplies?) popped right out of hell to holler, “Wagon coming up fast from the south!”
The moment cracked like porcelain.
Major stepped back with military precision, hands retreating to his pockets. Behind us, Lessie swore under her breath as Freddie stirred. She may have been watching us because she turned her eyes when I looked toward her.
I said nothing. Just briskly began to pack our things.
I was taking something that didn’t belong to me. Something I had no rightful claim to.
I had once believed my dreams were stolen from me, that Eliza had swept in and taken the future I’d built piece by careful piece.
And now here I was, standing in her shoes.
It surprised me, how easy it was. No twirling mustaches, no evil laughter. Just hot looks in a moving train with a man who could guide a baby’s shoulders through labor like he was shelling peas.
Could I do that to someone else?
Apparently, yes.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about running up a tab with God—it’s that the bill always comes due.
