In His Command (24 page)

The hopelessness that had dragged me under last time we’d parked it here was a thing of the past, a past I’d finally let myself remember—and let go.

I tugged Blondie’s hand. “C’mon, baby. Let’s join the Revolution.”

On a cold, clear December morning, Blondie and I and Liz and Farrow returned to the commune.

The daily hustle and bustle was just beginning. Kids were on their way to the schoolhouse, workers to the munitions or greenhouse gardens, the medic center or the tannery. Weary to our bones, we walked through it all, my arm slung around Blondie’s waist and his about my shoulders, Liz and Farrow taking point.

The whisper of our quiet return spread from boy to woman, from the farmers to the healers, from the mess to the armory. Fences were vaulted, doors flung open, the schoolhouse emptied until it felt like the entire damn village surrounded us with cheers and congrats led by Hills.

I didn’t want to let Blondie go. There were too many people swarming around us. Well-wishers all, but it was overwhelming, and I was worried about him. He’d been through the shit-mill, brave-facing it for the Company, taking on the responsibility of freeing me, locating Liz, organizing the takedown of the Outpost. Not to mention my prissy bitch routine when, instead of putting a bullet in the back of my head, he’d bared his heart and soul to me.

I had to admit loving me wasn’t exactly a vacation.

I had to wonder if my love was enough.

So when we were welcomed back to the Chitamauga Commune, I didn’t know where the hell I fit.

The swag of his eyelashes brushing the gold skin of his cheeks, he clamped his hand on my shoulder when I started moving away. “You got a pressin’ appointment I don’t know about?”

“I just wanted to give you some space with your people.” I bluffed.

His hand sliding down my back, he gripped my hip. “Our people.” That y’all-don’t-wanna-fuck-with-me look fired up on his face.

I took the back slaps and handshakes and returned them tenfold. The feeling of belonging taking flight in my heart soared when a path parted in front of us.

Flyaway hair in a tumbling bun, freckles magnified by drops of tears. Frantic blue eyes searching for us. For him.

As Eden ran at Blondie, the grizzly man with his friendly mutt sidled up. “Y’all done good.”

Mother and son crashed together.

I focused on the dog’s damp muzzle in my palm, scratching until his hind leg hitched up and down.

His white whiskers twitching, the old man pushed me away. “You’re needed.”

Eden was waiting. “Get on over here, son.”

Awed by her embrace, I was held beside Blondie as Eden’s shoulders shook beneath our arms.

“I thought I’d lost both you boys, just like Lincoln.”

“Linc isn’t gone, Momma. We’ll get him back.”

Patting a handkerchief to her eyes, she pushed up into our faces. “Now, that may be, Nathaniel. I wish it so. However”—she swapped the hanky for the hitting hand she used on both our skulls—“y’all ever do anythin’ like that again—servin’ yourselves up to the Company—I’m like to wring both yer necks!”

“Ow, Momma!”

“Quit your complainin’. Go on. Git cleaned up. Caravan’s been waitin’ on ya.”

The Love Hovel had been spiffed up some since the last time we’d left it, fresh candlesticks, another layer of lace I was sure, and that big bed all made up. The toxically overdecorated two rooms still held some of the best memories of my life, but no memory could compare with the present.

As that realization slammed into me, I didn’t shut my eyes or wait for the bottom to drop out of my gut. Hell, I didn’t even worry. Instead, I led my lover to the edge of the bed and watched him stretch onto it. All the coiled grace of a predator, the dark sensuality of a satyr.

“Hey, you okay?” His eyes gleamed, a light grin teasing me with the barest dip of his dimples.

I leaned in and flicked his earring, nuzzling my nose into the soft razor-cut sides of his hair. When I lifted his hand, I kissed each knuckle in turn, loving the hardness of his flesh, the all-man flavor of his skin. “Yeah. I’m just breathing in your goodness, baby.” I remembered the song he’d sung to me during the harvest festival.

“You gonna serenade me next?”

“Don’t push your luck.” Those dimples damn near delighting me, I swooped in to linger over one, then the other, laughter rumbling while he knocked me to my side.

We angled for just the right fit, mouths flitting together, tongues flirting shyly. “Reckon I already did that.” His rich, low drawl sounded against my ear. “Love you, Caspar.”

“I love you, too, Nathaniel.”

For the first time I had the best of both worlds—a mission to live for and a man to love.

T
hat sweet first taste of rebirth continued as I grew into my place as part of the Freelander commune. When I wasn’t in a tête-à-tête in the town hall, fielding questions about Corps makeup and the demands on the Revolutionaries and Freelanders as far ranging as all the InterNation Territories, I took every work detail thrown at me. I spent most of the time in the barn with the animals. I had an affinity with the big furry bastards. They couldn’t talk. I liked to shovel shit. It was a win-win.

I wasn’t strategizing in top-level talks or manhandling manure the late-December evening Blondie caught me hopping on one foot. Some damn thing Micah’s daughter Callie—one of the marble-playing kids in the mess hall my first morning in Chitamauga—roped me into called
hopscotch.
She twisted a light red lock of hair around her fingers, her eyes fastened on my feet while Dauphine, Callie’s sister and the bolder of the twins, squatted beside me.

“Cain’t clear the square, can ya, Caspar?” Dauphine teased.

Tossing the pebble over the hard-packed earth behind the schoolhouse, I felt Blondie’s stare at my back. He was the only man who made my prick perk up with nothing but his presence.

I dropped both feet to the ground, shaking my head when Dauphine shouted, “I win!”

I pivoted around. Blondie’s hands were loose on his hips, a smile wide on his lips. “Not as easy as it looks, so you can wipe that grin off your mouth.”

“You learnin’ new games on me?” He winked, letting me back him against the rough boards of the building.

I slipped my fingers into his waistband, pushing the hair from his neck to make space for my mouth on the soft stubble that became denser under his jaw.

“Best not get up to anything naughty, big man. The kids are watchin’.”

On cue, the girls butted into our legs, worse than the billy goats I tended. Blondie swung Dauphine across his shoulders, and after I pulled her sister onto mine, I leaned over for a quick peck to his cheek, unable to resist.

He rubbed his hand over the spot. “That was sweet.”

I just smiled foolishly at him until Callie twisted my hair into painful knots, shouting, “Race, race, Uncle Caspar!”

A shot pierced right through my gut. She’d taken to calling me Uncle Caspar, not Mr. Cannon. A lot of the kids had. My big bad rep was getting a bad rap. Instead of racing through a storm of whizzing bullets, I was playing chicken at sundown, the tips of my ears and nose going cold and the smile on my face huge. That December evening we ran the length of the schoolhouse and back again, the girls giggling so hard I almost lost my grip on Calliope.

On our next circuit, Kamber straddled the raceway. “Girls, y’all behavin’ out here?”

“Yes, ma’am.” They nodded furiously.

“Hmmph.”
Her fierce maternal expression softened. “Looks like you have a way with the littl’uns.”

Blondie shuffled his feet and sputtered, “Thank ya kindly, Kamber.”

She set him straight in record time. “I was talkin’ ’bout your Cannon there.”

Barking a laugh, I knocked him on the shoulder, which made Callie giggle and wriggle more on her precarious perch, earning them another stern address.

“Dinnertime, and don’t be forgettin’ y’all’s manners none.”

When the girls gained firm footing on the ground, they peered up at us with the same solemn brown eyes. It was with very serious expressions that they said, “Thank you, Uncle Caspar, Uncle Nathaniel, for playin’ with us.”

I coughed behind my hand to cover the brusqueness of my voice. “No problem.”

Blondie ruffled their hair and sent them packing. Skipping away, they bent their heads together in whispers, stopping once or twice to wave.

Later that night, after we’d taken our meal in the mess and messed around in the big bathtub, we cuddled under the blankets. Candlelight cast shadows across his face, his damp hair making wet blots on the pillows. “Linc and I used to switch places, tryin’ to trick Momma up. She got so steamin’ mad when she couldn’t tell us apart. I had to brush my hair just so, make sure my tie was straight and my shirt tucked in. Linc razzed me about my sloppy appearance, but he made the switch just the same. We placed bets on how long we could get away with it. One time we made it two days, foolin’ Momma, Father, our instructors. Hell, even Farrow couldn’t tell us apart.”

“You miss him.”

“Half the time we didn’t get along, and then he went on over to Father’s side, believing all those goddamn lies. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll never be rid of that missin’ part of myself.” Rolling to his back, he ran his fingertips up and down my thigh in an unconscious caress. “Those sisters, Callie and Dauphine, made me think of it.”

Man, seeing him with the kids, the idea of him as a father supplanted the hundreds of other fantasies in my head. “I want children,” I blurted.

“I want yours.”

“How?” It didn’t take a damn doctor to know neither one of us had the right receptacle for growing babies.

“Well, no one’s sayin’ we can’t, for starters.”

“Yeah, but—”

Rising above me, he kissed me into silence. “There’s adoption, surrogacy.”

“Out here?”

“
Mmm-hmm
. Even here. Not everyone’s cut out to be parents, ya know.”

I spread my hands over the muscles fanning his back, lifting my lips to his ear. “You are.”

“Think we could get married first?” He encircled the ring shining on my finger.

“I’m ready now.” I growled against his throat, throwing him onto his back.

His guttural laugh coiled a hot ball of need in my groin. “Soon, big man, soon.”

“You know the drill,
beb?
”

“Roger that.” I hauled up my pants, trading my fatigues for sleek new leathers Liz had picked up for me along the way, adding them to a stash of ammo, C4, and other fun treats. I shot a look at Leon and caught him checking out my ass. I couldn’t wait to tell Blondie about that. “No, actually. Not sure I do.”

The only drills I knew came with shouted orders and moving targets. This handfasting malarkey was something else entirely. When I got no response from Leon, I cut around to him again. He lounged against the Love Hovel’s narrow doorway, his gaze fixed on my shirtless torso. “Boy, you better stick those eyes back in their sockets. Blondie won’t take kindly to you ogling me, you know?” I smacked him on the back of the head, trying to pop his peepers back in and the lust out. “Besides, what’s this I hear about you and Darke?”

Darke’s battle-weary warriors had returned to the commune a few weeks after us. The winning combo of Freelanders and insurgents had worked its magic in campaign after campaign, coming up goddamn golden when Alpha finally fell. But triumph in war was cold comfort against the haunting of their dead brothers and sisters who’d been ambushed by the Corps recon soldiers, not to mention the casualties of later combat.

Breaking from the disquiet around me, I’d stepped beside Darke as he hung back from the villagers’ subdued welcome. “I’m sorry.”

The movement of his mouth was the grimace of a cadaver. “You’re not responsible.”

“I’m Corps. I’m responsible.”

“Then you understand this is how they would’ve wanted to die. My Tammerick, my Wilde.” He’d grabbed my shoulders, wide brown eyes sketched in sad acceptance. “Weapons in hand. Righteous of heart. Together.”

Flushing a swarthy shade of pink, Leon curved his lanky frame from the door and pulled his fingers over his lips. “Ain’t nothin’.” Poised with one boot tip over the other, his sharp chin ducked to his chest. “I’m not sure he’s ever gonna get over Wilde and Tammerick. Just wanna be there for him. Plus, you can’t blame me for looking. I’d sure like to have all that dark meat.”

“Fuck, boy. You sure know how to pick ’em.”

“What I’m gon’ do?” Tonguing the corner of his mouth, he surveyed me again. “Like dem big and hard.”

I had to hand it to the kid. He still thought with his dick, but he’d manned up while I was having my whirlwind vacation at the Outpost. The word in the village was he’d pulled every shift he could pick up. On the blackest nights, when they weren’t sure if the fight was headed their way, he’d entertained the children, cared for the elders, and kept the hand-me-down Colt on his hip at all times. A babysitter with a handgun.

“What am I supposed to do now?” After I pulled on a blazing white shirt, I inspected my appearance in the mirror as much as I could. The frigging thing was framed in curlicues and plastered in flower cutouts. I reached for my tie. I didn’t really like anything around my neck anymore, but I’d wear it for Blondie.

“
Gawd
, Caspar. Just tell ’im you love him. And if dat don’t work, get on your knees. Does it for me.” Leon handed me a shot of liquor and set to work on the throat-choker. “Wearin’ cologne?”

“Shut it.”

“You talk to your man like dat?” He tied the knot, yanked the ends together, and knocked a glass to mine.

“No. It’s all romance and flowers.”

The strong woodsy flavor burning him, he choked out a laugh. “Your hands are shakin’.”

“I got the DTs.” I sank my shot and took more time than usual putting the glass down on one of the gaudy little tables.

Leon held the black leather blazer open. “Jacket.”

I punched my arms through and inhaled. Exhaled. I checked the time like an addict waiting for his next hit. Ten more minutes. We’d been kept apart all damn day, and I needed to see Blondie so badly I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than my heart thumping along with the minutes, trying to rush them along.

Satisfied I didn’t look like a total schmuck, I quelled my stomach and pushed Leon out the door. “Let’s go.”

At the gate to the meadow, I stopped and stared, a smile curling up my lips. It was a damn pretty sight, festooned with ribbons in red, fat bows and bells of all sizes clanging together when we entered. A trail of red berries scattered over the wintry walkway showed us the way to the altar.

“You’re shivering. You scared?”

It was January and cold as a CO heart. Not the Beltane ceremony Hills and Eden had pushed for—a time of rebirth for the natural world—but Blondie and I had agreed. Two months of courtship was time aplenty, and I was so eager to become his husband my heart was ready to leap out of my chest.

The shivers were from excitement, pure undiluted emotion.

“No, I’m cold,” I lied.

When we crested the small hill, there was no stopping the chills coursing up and down my spine.
Nope
. This sure as hell wasn’t a Joining Ceremony, a cold affair specializing in the commerce of two people, or even a Validation of Union, the same deal for CO higher-ups. This was a gathering of people invested in our love. Arranged in circles, their hands joined, I estimated about five hundred villagers to be looking up at me.

“Just don’t let me cry, Leon.”

“
Mais,
cryin’s good.”

“I’m not into public displays of weepies.” I started down the far side of the hillock, knowing I was gonna get hit by a heavy case of blubbering pretty damn soon.

“You seen your man yet?”

Holy shit.

Tendrils of dark green ivy worked their way between white blooms on the bower arching above Nathaniel’s handsome head.
Nathaniel.

I might know jack shit about handfasting or tying the knot, but when I wove down the aisle toward him, I was tongue-tied. And even though there was a crowd of people around us, it felt like we were the only two men in the world.

All my bluster faded, just like that.

His suede jacket hugged his shoulders, the flaps flipped up over his ass in a dovetailas he leaned toward little Calliope. She held on to his hand, listening with the all-consuming attention of a four-year-old.

I knew exactly how she felt. Nathaniel was worth the attention. He’d commanded mine from day one, and his hold over me had only ramped up since we’d returned to Chitamauga.

On the verge of getting hitched, I thought back to my squat with its bare cot and the plant I’d let die. The robo-fish that’d gone belly-up before I named it, the dog I’d never had. I had more now than I could ever quantify, starting with a family made up of so many more relatives than I ever thought possible. They were all waiting in this snowy meadow, watching me get closer and closer to Nathaniel.

When he straightened from bending Callie’s ear, he saw me. His throat flushed up to his ears, pink captured inside the open collar of his white shirt. No tie.

Narrowing my eyes, I loosened mine.

I never thought myself one for commitment. Hell, I was never even given the chance to consider it before, let alone dream about it. Now I wanted to punch the air, sprint to him, make out with him for hours on end. I held it all together by a tight wire, winding through the throng of Freelanders. In muted wool and multicolored layers of lace or satin or velvet, they’d come out in their best finery. Old, rich leather, collars and cuffs in fur, hats and delicate woven, woody crowns.

The Rivers and the Fieldings.

Fischer and Forrest and Hatch.

Darke clapped my back when I passed by, and Leon stayed behind with him.

Traitor.

The inner ring held Liz and Farrow, their linked hands not nearly as noticeable as their standout Territory garb. Tall and lean as a hairpin trigger, Liz was dressed head to toe in motorcycle black, holstered and booted. Tiny and blonde, Farrow wore a fine lady’s gown.

Micah and Kamber were right there with Calliope and Dauphine.

All but buried in petals, the altar held a simple wooden table bearing the sacred tools for our ritual. I hated to crush those delicate petals on the ground where Nathaniel stood, but they were in my way. Barely noting Hills and Eden behind Nathaniel, I walked to him, his look sending shock waves all the way to my toes.

“Goddamn.” Grasping his neck, I fingered through the loose strands of his hair until I had a good hold. Too impatient to wait until the
I do’s
, I crushed him to me as his mouth parted for my tongue. Our kiss was hungry; it heated me from within.

Hoots and hollers of the best kind swirled around, followed by Liz’s throaty call. “Doncha think you should exchange rings before spit?”