Chapter 18
ALICE
Kodiak’s tall, broad figure blocks the light from the window, where the rumble of city life seeps through the glass. He’s dressed like a gentleman again, though not as formal, in a crisp white shirt, waistcoat, and trousers.
The sheets beside me are rumpled and carry the faint trace of something masculine. Had we…? Surely I’d know if that monstrous thing had been inside me. The only ache I feel is the pounding in my head.
Sitting up slightly, I notice a cart beside the bed with a tray of fruit, pastries, and coffee.
His back is turned, but he glances over his shoulder with a crooked smile. “Mornin’, lamb. How are you on this fine day?”
“You poisoned me.”
When he moves toward a small writing desk, the light from the window blinds me. Lowering himself into the chair, he lets out a low chuckle. “Now, what profit would I have in that?”
The evening is a blur of crystals and pearls. Of music. Of painted nuns whirling like specters. What on earth?
“No,” he drawls. “Nothin’ more than you dancin’ with the green fairy. Absinthe, oysters, and opera—that’s New Orleans in a night, sure as anything.”
I should have known better than to trust this city. French architecture and kind folk lulled me into a false sense of safety.
His pen scratches across the page. “Had breakfast brought up, if you’re hungry.”
He sleeps in the dirt, swims in creeks, gets stabbed half to death in the countryside, and yet, here he is, dressed like a mayor on holiday, working at a desk in a grand hotel with breakfast catered.
“I suppose they brought hot water as well?”
“That they did.”
I fling my legs over the side of the bed, take stock of the room. It’s the same as before, though a large leather suitcase sits near the desk, one I hadn’t noticed yesterday. “Are you leaving?”
“Not yet. Still business to see to in the city.”
“Might you be so kind as to let me in on your plans, or should I expect to ask you moment to moment?”
At that, he turns—his full body this time—tweed straining at his bent knee. A leather suspender peeks out from under his waistcoat, stretched taut across his shoulder. On the desk lie piles of notes, bags of coins he’s been rolling, and a neat stack of paper slips. Checks, perhaps.
“Sugarplum, it’s best you—”
“Where did you get all that money?”
He exhales sharp, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “Best you ask me somethin’ else.”
A weight sinks into my gut.
Stupid woman. Ran off with a criminal, now you feign surprise at his plunder. And yet, as he sits there like a bank clerk with more money than I’ve ever seen in my life laid before him, the thought of holding my tongue is impossible.
“I thought you were a man of your word. That you’d be honest with me.”
The words must strike a match in him, because he lowers his mask, brow furrowed in a flash of concern.
“Alice, if you’re hauled off by the sheriff, your soft hands won’t sweat and your pretty face won’t twitch.
You can tell God’s own truth that you don’t know a thing of what I done without so much as a tremble in your sweet voice. ”
Although he has a point, it turns my stomach all the same. “Did…did anyone die?”
He shakes his head. “No. Made it nice and easy. Now that’s all I’ll say, and you quit askin’.”
I give in with an exhale and cut across the room to the washroom and fill the tub. Perhaps a bath will silence the alarm bells. They first flared the night we escaped and have since grown too loud to ignore. Slipping out of my shift, I sink into the hot water.
What had I done but escape from one life beyond my control into another, chained to the whims of men? I close my fingers around my wrist. There’s no shackle here.
What is holding me?
There’s survival to start. How would I keep from starving?
There are few respectable positions for a woman like me.
No formal education to speak of. Without Joseph, I’d still be a poor farm girl, learning from old almanacs in my father’s collection.
As much as I cursed my husband, if it weren’t for his wealth, I wouldn’t have been comforted by the old stories behind the stars.
I suppose I could return to the inn, the story Gideon promised to tell the others offering me some semblance of protection. Though, I fear the Sherman family might assume the worst even if the law did not. They would abandon me.
No money. Nowhere to go. Nothing but a pistol to my name. Yet here I sit in a porcelain bath, pouting over my imperfect blessings.
What can I do but make Kodiak better? Perhaps I could set him on a truer path, but how? Only God knows what he’s done. But whatever it was, it is over now. One cannot unring a bell.
The ideas turn over in my mind until the water cools and I emerge, wrap myself in a cotton robe, and find Kodiak at the desk logging his fortune.
“For someone who claims he keeps secrets, you’re awful bold with your bounty.”
He doesn’t look up, writing a number down in a ledger. “Don’t usually have company.”
“How much is all that?”
He sighs. “Thought I told you to stop askin’.”
“You did, but I’ll ask all the same.”
That earns me a cross expression that cracks with an amused smile. Without warning, he seizes my waist and hauls me into his lap. I yelp, steadying myself on his shoulders.
“Mouthy little brat, ain’t you?” he says. “That kind of back talk just makes me want to put that mouth to better use.”
I stiffen like he’d slapped me, clutching my robe shut for dear life. Good Lord above. I’ve never heard anything so vile. For a moment, I can’t speak.
Joseph would make me do that. Said it was a husband’s right. I would weep after, begging the Lord to cleanse me. And yet…for Kodiak, the thought of giving him such pleasure makes me clench around nothing, a sinful ache blooming inside.
“You mustn’t say such things,” I say, my protest weak.
He’s grinning when he nudges the ledger, drawing my attention to it, his handwriting tidy for an outlaw. Bank notes, gold, silver—all laid out in their denominations, added up into a sum he’d underlined twice.
Three-thousand four hundred fifty-one dollars and twenty-two cents.
The staggering figure nearly chokes me. That much would buy a farm and a carriage, perhaps even a lifetime of bread and meat.
For me, it brings to mind the children outside the church selling flowers.
The boy at the market whose mother couldn’t send him to school.
Perhaps we could help. Perhaps that could be our penance.
I swallow, clutching the robe closed at my breast. “Kodiak…” My voice wavers. “What do you intend to do with it all?”
His hand stops at my waist, grin fading into something sharper. “Why are women always thinkin’ there’s a deal to strike?” His thumbs press into my sides, firm enough to remind me I’m held.
I sit up straighter, affronted. “Don’t you dare suggest I’m one of your prostitutes. I thought only of children. The ones with nothing.”
For a long breath, his eyes search mine, suspicion and something wounded flickering there. Then the hardness eases. His mouth curves again. “Only you’d sit in an outlaw’s lap drummin’ up a deal for charity.”
My shoulders sink with relief, but then his grip tightens, drawing me closer.
Kissing my cheek, he mumbles against me.
“Suppose you got the notion that givin’ a cut to save the world’s orphans”—his breathy husk descends to a spot beneath my ear, the bass of each word humming through me, coursing with desire—“will redeem your soul for associating with the likes of me?”
He toys with the sash of my robe, mesmerized by the sliver of skin at my collarbone. Before I can answer, his lips brush that very spot, and I forget what I meant to say.
When hunger grips Kodiak, he becomes altered, unknowable, as if the wild itself had claimed him. His lips hover, exhale drifts along my collarbone as he asks, “Do you remember what you said to me last night?”
My ribs jolt. “What did I say?”
“You called me yours,” he murmurs, mouth grazing higher, skimming the hollow of my neck. “Said the stars themselves sent me.”
I told him?
Aloud?
He must think me mad.
I’d once read of stars imploding, their pull so fierce they devoured even light. Now, with my chest folding inward and my air strangled, I understand it. I press my face into his shoulder, as though I too might vanish into that consuming force.
“I didn’t know I spoke it,” I whisper into the tweed seam.
But he won’t let me hide. His hand anchors beneath my chin, tilting me up.
The kiss strips me of breath, intoxicating, relentless.
When he tears away, it’s only to drag his teeth along my cheek, lower, tracing the line of my jaw until I shiver.
I grip his shoulders, but it only drags me nearer.
With one violent tug, he rips the robe open.
It slides down my shoulders, baring me in the ruthless glare of morning.
I gasp, arms flying to shield myself, but he snatches my wrists. A cry rips loose as his mouth descends upon my breast, scorching, merciless, tongue circling rough and wet. The sensation sends a shiver through me.
He growls, the vibration running through my flesh. Every nerve ignites, my body betraying me in ways no prayer could forgive.
His hand presses between my thighs, parting me.
“My God, you’re wet through. Burnin’ for me, ain’t you, little lamb?” he mutters against my skin, teeth grazing my nipple until it hardens under his tongue. “You knew the stars wouldn’t waste no gentle creature on you, but sent a wild one to ruin you proper.”
His fingers glide through my slick heat, circling my swollen nub with slow, maddening strokes. I arch into him, chasing more, but just as the pleasure coils tight, he withdraws, leaving me gasping and empty.
He hums thoughtfully, eyes dark as he studies where I’m open and aching for him. “You ever seen a man work a lock?”
Gazing down between my thighs, he explores me, toys with each dip and curve of my tender flesh. “Inside is a puzzle of levers and notches, spindles, and bolts.”