One Wore Blue (11 page)

His lips parted from hers, touched them again, parted, and touched—sweet, open-mouthed, hotter, and hotter. Her mind began to reel. She shouldn’t be here with him. She should be scandalized, horrified.

There was someone else in her life.…

Someone with whom things had never been like this.

Still, she had to draw away, she had to stop.

“Jesse …” His name was barely a whisper on the breeze, yet he heard it. He suddenly emitted a soft oath and drew away from her. To Kiernan’s surprise, he nearly thrust her from him. He walked away, placing a booted foot high on a rock as he leaned upon an elbow to stare out at the valley below them.

Her mouth was still damp from his touch. She could still feel the touch. He seemed to be a knot of fury again.

“Damn you, Kiernan!” he swore, spinning around to stare at her. “If you would just do what you’re told now and then!”

“Jesse, you’ve no right—”

“Your father isn’t here, and your precious beloved Anthony isn’t here either. Where the hell is he?”

She flushed, feeling her temper rise, and dizziness assailed her again. She should never, never allow Jesse to touch her.
He was as volatile as a forest blaze, erupting in passion, erupting in anger.

“You know where Anthony is,” she began as primly as possible.

“Never mind, never mind,” he said suddenly. He strode back to her. “Just listen to me and stay the hell inside, away from the melee out there, will you? Look what you’ve done to us!”

“Me!”

“Kiernan—”

Her eyes narrowed, and she took a wild swing at him. He caught her wrist and their eyes met in a flame, and then he smiled slowly, ruefully.

“I’ll take you back to Lacey’s.”

“I’d prefer to walk!”

“It’s a very long walk.”

“I’d prefer a very long walk.”

He shook his head. “Sorry.” Before she knew it, she was up in his arms and upon the big roan, Pegasus. And he was up behind her, his arms wrapping around her.

He nudged Pegasus, and the roan took them down the face of the mount.

Kiernan’s temper waned with the warmth of his arms around her. By the time he had delivered her to the front of Lacey’s house, she was aware only of a sense of desolation and loss. He dismounted from Pegasus to help her down, and she knew that he was leaving her. She should have been scandalized and horrified that he had kissed her so, touched her so, but she wasn’t. It was simply what came between the two of them. There had been something just and sweet and right about it, and she refused to be ashamed of it.

“Stay in,” he commanded her curtly.

She smiled, allowing her lashes to fall over her eyes. “Captain Cameron, I am my own keeper.”

“Kiernan—”

“But I choose to stay in,” she told him hastily. “Oh, Jesse, people are behaving so horribly!”

“Yes,” he told her simply, “they are.” He mounted Pegasus
once again and looked down at her. “Things might get worse, and it’s getting dark. So please …”

She curtsied to him regally, then turned and fled into the house.

The shattered glass had been swept up, but where the office door pane had been, there was a big hole. She decided to patch up the door with some canvas and spend the evening reassuring Lacey. She needed to stem her own feelings of guilt for having deserted her.

“Who’s there?”

She heard the sharp call as she opened the door. “It’s me, Lacey. I’m back.”

“Oh, and just in time!” Lacey appeared in the doorway, holding a candle high against the darkening shadows of the night. “Thank heaven! I was getting so worried!”

“Everything’s fine, Lacey. Well, not really fine. Let’s go into the parlor, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Lacey nodded, her eyes wide, and preceded Kiernan into the parlor. Kiernan told her about the events in town, but she did so very carefully, softening the violence. Still, Lacey was horrified, and very nervous.

She insisted on serving Kiernan a cup of tea, then on making supper, so Kiernan went into the storage closet and found some canvas and a hammer and nails and set about doing a makeshift job of repairing the door.

The two women ate a quiet supper, all the while aware of the drama down the street.

“Didn’t the captain say that he’d be back?” Lacey asked Kiernan anxiously.

“Well, he may make it. Then again, he may not.”

“He should be looking after you,” Lacey insisted.

Kiernan smiled ruefully. “No, Lacey, remember? Poor Anthony is supposed to be looking after me.”

Lacey had the good grace to blush. “Never mind. Oh, I wish that this night would pass!”

“I don’t think needlework will do it tonight,” Kiernan murmured. In fact, nothing was going to ease the evening for her. She was torn between the horror of the sights she
had seen, and the pulsing magic that returned to her lips when she thought of Jesse.

It had been a forbidden kiss, because of Anthony.

“How about some cards?”

“Hearts?” Kiernan said.

“Good heavens, no! Poker!” Lacey shocked her, and Kiernan burst into laughter. “Lacey! How very decadent. Wouldn’t your husband be shocked?”

Lacey sniffed. “And what about your father, young lady? You know how to play.”

“I grew up in my father’s company,” Kiernan reminded her, grinning broadly. “Get the cards and shuffle, Mrs. Donahue. You’re on. We’ll play for pennies.”

“Done!” Lacey agreed.

Playing did help to pass the time. Something about the taboo aspect of the game for ladies made it exciting. It would always be a secret between them that they had passed the night so.

The hour grew late. Jesse didn’t return.

Finally, Lacey yawned and admitted that she was exhausted. “But how will I sleep?” she demanded.

“Nothing is going to happen,” Kiernan assured her.

But Lacey was still nervous, so Kiernan suggested that they put on their nightgowns and bunk in together. Lacey enjoyed that idea. “We’ll sleep with Jesse’s Mr. Colt right by our bedside,” Kiernan said cheerfully.

“The bed in your room is nice and big. We should both be comfortable in it!” Lacey agreed. But when they were settled, she moaned again.

“I shall never be able to sleep!”

But to Kiernan’s amusement, Lacey closed her eyes as peacefully as a babe soon after they crawled into bed. It was early still, Kiernan thought, and that was why she couldn’t seem to close her own eyes. Or maybe she was frightened. She had come close to being kidnapped that morning, and she very well could have been one of those hostages still being held by John Brown.

John Brown must be desperate by now, she thought, with his few followers holed up in the firehouse. He must realize
that his grand revolution wasn’t coming. The countryside had not been stirred to great revolt.

The United States Army was coming for him, and in the morning, he would have to face the fire. Would he kill the hostages because of his despair?

Or could the bloodshed be kept down? Kiernan fervently hoped that it could.

She wondered what John Brown looked like, and she wondered if he could really rationalize murder into a crusade. But then she remembered
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
and how furious she had been when she read the book.

Then again, she had to admit that some people were cruel and took much better care of their horses and their dogs than their slaves. She tossed about in bed. Then suddenly Lacey inhaled deeply with a shake, and exhaled with a long, low snore.

It was the end of trying to sleep.

She stood up and wandered over to the window. To her amazement, two men were standing below the window. They were both tall and dark in the shadows of the night. For a moment she held her breath.

One of them stepped forward and stooped low, plucking a pebble from the ground. He looked up and tossed it high toward the window. Just before she stepped back, Kiernan released her bent-up breath, smiling. The face that had turned upward toward hers was familiar.

Jesse was back.

The pebble landed with a little crack on the window. Kiernan stared down below.

Now both faces were upturned to hers. Jesse was with his brother Daniel, and both were dressed in the uniforms of the United States cavalry. Both were wearing their handsome plumed hats, and both were grinning broadly at her. They were very much alike. Like Jesse, Daniel had the ebony-dark hair and near cobalt-blue eyes that ran in the Cameron family. His features, too, were similar—handsome, well defined. His mouth was full and sensual. He was several years younger than Jesse, though, and his shoulders were not quite as broad. His manner was lighter—dramatically gallant.
He was Kiernan’s good friend, and she loved him, while Jesse … ah, Jesse!

“Sh!” She brought her finger to her lip and shook her head when she realized that Daniel had a pebble, too, and was about to throw it up to her.

She threw open the window and called down softly, “Stop the rocks!”

“Then come down and let us in!” Daniel called. “There’s a nip in the air.”

“It’s downright cold,” Jesse corrected, casting his brother a wry glance.

Kiernan looked quickly over to Lacey, who was still sleeping soundly.

Kiernan waved to the Cameron brothers—a wave that promised she’d be right down. Daniel grinned and gave her a thumbs-up sign. Jesse’s easy smile curved into his lip.

Kiernan left the room behind, raced down the stairs to the back, and threw open the door.

Daniel was just on the other side of it. He swept her up high into his arms and swung her around as he came into the narrow hallway. “My Lord, Kiernan!” he teased, setting her down at last. “Every time I see you, you get prettier, more grown up, more sophisticated, more elegant. More—”

“Voluptuous?” Jesse suggested.

Kiernan quickly cast him a glance. As he leaned in the doorway, there was definite amusement in his suggestion. His eyes flickered over her, and his glance instantly warmed her.

His eyes could do things to her that actually seemed indecent.

Yes, he had always liked to tease her. This afternoon, though, he hadn’t teased. He had gotten caught in his own fire, she realized, and that was why he had grown so very angry with her.

They both realized it, she knew, as their eyes met and held.

“Yes, voluptuous,” Daniel said. He laughed. “Forgive us, Miss Mackay,” he said, stepping back and sweeping off his
hat to hold it to his heart. “We army men do have our failings. Days on the trail, and all that.”

Kiernan tore her eyes from Jesse’s at last. “Days on the trail, indeed! Jesse came straight from a bar in Washington. What about you?”

“I was at a party at a friend’s house when a messenger came from Jeb Stuart.” Stuart was a dashing young cavalry commander and a good friend of both Camerons. “He knew that Jesse had already been sent in, and that Jesse was concerned about you when he heard about the ruckus here.”

“That’s what I imagined,” Kiernan said, looking from one to the other. “You’re both going to be with the troops challenging John Brown in the morning? Christa will be worried sick.” Christa was their sister, a year younger than Kiernan, the last of the immediate Cameron clan. Like Kiernan, she had trailed after Daniel as a child, and the three of them had always been very close.

And a bit in awe of Jesse, although Daniel denied it. Now the brothers were thick as thieves, and no brothers could offer each other greater loyalty or friendship.

“You wouldn’t have some apple pie here somewhere, would you? And some hot coffee for a frozen soul?”

“We do happen to have apple pie,” Kiernan admitted to Daniel. “And I’ll make coffee. But don’t try to side-step the situation, Daniel Cameron.” She swirled around and headed for the kitchen, the brothers following behind her. They both took seats at the kitchen table and spread their long legs beneath it, as she started the coffee and placed the pie and plates and Lacey’s embroidered napkins before them.

“What’s going to happen in the morning?” she asked stubbornly.

“They’ll ask John Brown to surrender,” Jesse answered flatly.

“And if he doesn’t?”

Jesse shrugged, cutting pieces of pie as she stood over him. “We’ll storm the firehouse, I imagine.”

“And there’s no danger in that? The both of you? You’ve really no right to risk both your lives that way. I’m telling you—”

“And I told you not to leave the house today,” Jesse interrupted suddenly, waving the pie spade before her nose.

“The whole town was out on the streets, Jesse,” she told him.

“The whole town,” Daniel laughed, “including Doc Whalen. He told me that you were out on the street, and he’d heard tell Jesse had already gotten his hands on you.”

Kiernan quickly lowered her eyes. “Indeed, he had,” she said sweetly.

“Whalen’s suggestion, so I heard,” Jesse murmured, “was that you should be trussed like a turkey over a shoulder and taken to a woodshed. I wasn’t nearly as crude.”

“You were barely short of it!” Kiernan responded quickly.

Jesse raised a brow to her, and she felt a hot flush rise over her body.

“Do I detect a note of tension here?” Daniel asked.

“No!” Jesse and Kiernan snapped simultaneously.

“Oh, excuse me!” Daniel said, and grinned.

“I wasn’t at all crude,” Jesse said.

Kiernan leaped up to see how the coffee was doing, but she suddenly felt a clamp of steel upon her arm.

“This time,” he told her softly.

“This time?” She arched a brow. Storms were brewing between them, she could feel it. She felt tension hot and sweet on the air. She wanted to do battle with him. She wanted to argue and fight—

And touch him.

“Hey! The coffee is boiling over!” Daniel cried out. Jesse’s eyes still burned into hers. He released her wrist slowly, and she tore her gaze from his at last and hurried to salvage the coffee.

Daniel started talking and he kept talking, eating his pie with relish.

Kiernan and Jesse drank their coffee, listened, and watched each other warily. Thankfully, Daniel didn’t seem to need much help with the conversation.

Jesse stood up suddenly. “We’ve got to get back,” he said.

Daniel nodded regretfully. “Yes.” He stood up and pulled Kiernan to her feet and kissed her cheek then hugged her
tightly again. “Tomorrow, Kiernan, please stay in until it’s all over!” he begged her.