“I’ll admit, I like hearing you say it better than Mr. Archer.”
I open my mouth, but the words catch. The air feels changed somehow. Dense, expectant. Like a great star straining at theedge of its life, ready to burst and scatter fire into the heavens. The way his presence narrows toward me dims the rest of the world until only this room exists.
He reaches down slowly. His fingers brush an errant lock of hair from my forehead, careful, tentative. “I don’t know what your husband’s got planned,” he says, brushing knuckles down my cheek.
I let him. I do not for a moment intend to protest, even as he lifts my chin, holding my jaw with two rough fingers and the pad of his thumb.
“But I figure the reason he’s kept me breathing this long is ’cause I’m worth more alive than dead.”
“What do you mean?”
He pauses, then his hand slides lower, settling at my waist; his palm, firm and broad, anchors me. I should shove him away. Slap his hand. But his touch is so gentle my wits are useless.
“I mean there’s a price on me. Big one. Thousand, last I heard.”
He doesn’t say it with pride, just fact. And with the ease of a man explaining something plain—practical and somehow sweet, with a touch of warmth beneath the grit—like a farmer chatting about planting season and not crimes worth hanging for.
“Ain’t just for robbin’ trains, though that’s part of it. Some folks got real upset when I stopped their freight from making it where it was supposed to go. Truth is, I’ve caused trouble for men who don’t like bein’ embarrassed. Real high-up men. Railroad men.”
His palm rests against my hip, the smallest motion of his thumb stroking lazy circles there.
“I ain’t innocent, Alice. I’ve done bad things. But this ain’t about right or wrong. It’s about makin’ a show. Somebody’s payin’ good money to see me hang.”
“Why?”
“’Cause they can. Joseph and that other son of a bitch who ambushed me, they knew that. You said this is the biggest event of the year, which means once this big shindig of yours is done and the stargazers ride home, I’ll be headed to a rope.”
My chest aches with all I cannot give. All I have are words that taste like defeat. “I don’t have the key.”
His other palm moves to my nape, warm and steady, a quiet claim. The weight of his focus roots me to the spot. “Don’t you fret, darlin’. I’ve got an idea.”
He leans close, voice a hush meant for me and no one else. “Your husband thinks he took everything. He didn’t. There’s more than what he lifted off me.” A pause, the faintest smile. “Men like him climb stairs for gold. Put that thought in his ear and he’ll come to me—alone.”
The sheer audacity makes me go still. To bait Joseph with treasure. To make him walk willingly into a trap. It’s madness—and delightfully clever. I can already see the gleam that would kindle in Joseph’s eyes. I press my lips together, heat rushing through me—not fear, but the thrill of strategy.
“And if he comes?”
His eyes fix on me, steady as stone, yet soft. “Then I’ll make sure he sees sense. He gets his gold, I get my freedom.” His thumb strokes my jaw, coaxing. “That’s all, little lamb.”
The name sweeps through me, tender and possessive at once. He draws me in with a single, confident motion. My front collides with his bare chest, his heat seeping through my corset. The rosemary soap lingers, mixed with his faint masculine musk. It’s intoxicating, and I find myself swaying closer to breathe him in.
He leans forward—slow enough I could move away, but I don’t. I cannot. His lips brush mine, a ghost of a kiss, faint as smoke, and it rushes through me like the first light of springspilling across frozen ground. He lets out a long, slow exhale; the low growl of an animal warning others away.
When he draws back, his hand lingers at my cheek, thumb rough against my skin. I feel branded. Marked. My body betrays me, pulsing with a desperate, slick ache that makes my most secret flesh quiver.
The steady beat under his skin thrums against my hand when I touch his chest and wander upward, curling in the dark hair at his nape. It’s soft as it tangles around my fingers.
“When I get out of these chains,” he rasps, “I’m takin’ you with me.”
The words nearly buckle my knees. My mouth opens, but no protest comes. Only the silence, thick and charged, pressing in around us like the hush before the stars themselves break apart.
I raisemy fingers to my lips; the surge of heat remains there. A longing. Then shame, heavy and unwelcome, threatens to flatten me.
Lord forgive me.
I want to believe God knows my heart, that a merciful God understands a marriage born of debt and fear and obligation is not a sacred thing.
I was only a child during the famine, the winter that took nearly everything. Our farm withered beneath the frost, and the Shermans stepped in with a loan that kept my brothers and sisters fed. When my father couldn’t repay, there were only two choices: give me up or watch our land burn.
