Jo Goodman (56 page)

Grant's eyes were open, and for a moment they focused on Rachael, faintly accusing and yet somehow sad, as though she had disappointed him. If she had had the knife in her hand just then, she would have driven it into his heart.

Decker saw a shudder pass through Grant as he drew his next breath. A trickle of blood appeared at one corner of his mouth. Decker's eyes lifted to Jonna, then to Graham. He made a small negative shake of his head.

Rachael saw the movement as did everyone else who was watching. She was the only one who came forward. Her touch was gentle on Decker's shoulder. He hesitated, gauging her intent. What he glimpsed in her eyes caused him to move away. She took his place at Grant's side and, lifting his head, cradled it in her lap. She stroked his hair with her crippled hand and murmured his name softly. From a distance it almost sounded as if she were singing to him. A siren's song. A song of the sea.

Grant Sheridan, dead by her hand, died in her arms.

* * *

For a long time no one moved or spoke. Tears welled in Jonna's eyes, but she couldn't have said for whom she cried. A sob caught in her throat. She held it back, shivering just once. Decker went to her side and took her hand. Without being asked, Graham eased himself away so Jonna could accept her husband's embrace. He fixed his stare on Rachael. She was no longer looking into Grant's sightless eyes, but gazing out to the near endless expanse of water off the starboard side. Jeremy Dodd lowered his weapon slowly, realizing at last that he had no use for it. On board
Huntress
the crew stood at the rail, looking down on the strange tableau, still and silent.

Decker felt Jonna slip something into his hand. His fingers closed around it. The shape was so familiar to him that he didn't have to look at it or ask what it was. "I thought I lost it," he whispered against her forehead. "Where did you—"

She raised her face. "Rachael found it."

Decker slipped it into the pocket of his coat. He looked past the crown of Jonna's hair to where Rachael was kneeling. Her detached, faraway gaze riveted his attention.

He couldn't move Jonna aside fast enough. Rachael was up and running for the rail. It was Graham who stepped in her path and held out his arms to stop her. "Don't—" Breath was driven out of his lungs as Rachael's flailing hands found the center of his wound. He felt her small body climb over his fallen one. She was driven by her single-minded determination to reach the sloop's rail. He grabbed a handful of her petticoats. The material was torn out of his hands as she threw herself overboard.

Jeremy threw out a lifeline.

"It won't work," Decker said. "She has to want to take it." He marked the position of Rachael's body as it slipped beneath the water. Peeling off his coat, he tossed it to Jonna. Then, for the second time in the space of an hour, he was plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.

Epilogue

Decker stood at the bedchamber window. A pale slip of moonlight touched his features. It edged his profile, marking the character in his face with its cool blue color. It touched the strong line of his nose and emphasized the muscle working in his jaw. There was a faint slant to his frame as he leaned toward the window, a yearning that had physical expression. His arms hung loosely at his sides, but only one hand was open. The other was closed around a pearl set in a crown of gold and the smooth golden raindrop that was suspended from it.

Lying on her side in their bed, Jonna watched him. Decker didn't look in her direction. He thought she was still sleeping. She would have been if he hadn't left the bed. The heavy blankets had offered a warm and comfortable shelter when he was sharing space under them. She did not think he had been gone long before she was aware of his absence.

Jonna didn't stir. Her body felt deliciously heavy in the aftermath of their lovemaking. It was not difficult to imagine that she was under him again, his mouth on hers, his fingers in her hair. He had been tender and fierce by turns, kissing her breasts, laving a nipple with the damp edge of his tongue, then drawing the swollen bud into the hot suck of his mouth. His fingers trailed lightly over her skin while he watched her, fascinated, as though he had just discovered how exquisitely sensitive the inner curve of her elbow was or how responsive she could be to the sweeping touch of his thumb on her thigh.

It had not all been done to her. Her need to tease and prolong the sweet torment was as great as Decker's. With her mouth near his ear she had whispered her intentions, then had taken her time honoring that promise. She kissed his jaw, his mouth, the base of his throat; and when he was under her, she pinned back his wrists and straddled him, letting her hair fall forward so only the curling ends caressed his chest.

She had released his wrists then and brought his hands to her breasts. She held them there for a moment, letting him feel the swell of her flesh beneath his palms, watching his eyes darken and the faintly amused line of his mouth disappear. She pushed his hands lower, arching slowly as his palms covered her ribs, her waist, cupped her hips, and finally rested on her thighs.

She was the one who smiled now. A slightly wicked smile. A reminder of a certain promise. She let his hands fall away as she leaned forward. Her teeth caught one of his nipples and worried it gently. His entire body tensed beneath her, and where she cradled him between her thighs she felt him surge powerfully. She was hot and damp and ready for him, but she did not take him inside her. Not yet. Not that way.

She placed teasing, tasting kisses down his chest as she moved lower. The force of his heartbeat vibrated against her lips. Her fingers rested on his hips and then between his thighs. She cupped him with her hands before she took him in her mouth.

Decker expelled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. The next breath he drew was caught in his throat. He raised himself up on his elbows, and the sight of her exquisite mouth engaged in this most intimate caress was almost too much. Flames could not lick at his skin with more soaring intensity than Jonna's tongue. There were no bonds that could hold him more securely than the sweet suck of her mouth.

A soft groan was torn from his throat. He said her name once, then again, as if he couldn't help himself, as if her name were part of a litany and the saying of it would cleanse his soul.

He touched her hair. It slipped through his fingers like a dark waterfall as she slowly raised her head. She held the rigid length of him in her hands and laid her mouth over him just once. The light kiss gave her the warm, salty taste of him on the tip of her tongue.

He drew her up and as she was turned and covered by his body she was keenly aware of her own. She sensed the smooth lines of her legs next to the muscled hardness of his. There was the contrast of his rough fingertips against the silky skin of her inner thigh. Her body had to yield to accommodate his. It was the curve of her breasts that flattened when their bodies came flush together, her thighs that opened when he pressed his entry.

He held himself still inside her and let her know the same delicious torment of restraint that he felt. "You did that to me," he whispered against her mouth.

Perhaps she should not have looked quite so pleased. But then he wouldn't have punished her with the slow, deep kiss the way he had. When it was over he was moving in her and the rhythm was like the kiss they had just shared, slow and deep, but unlike its echo because the intensity and power swelled with each thrust and the sensation radiating outward was just as sweetly hot as it was at the center.

What she felt where they were joined she also felt in her fingertips, along the length of her legs, and at the back of her throat where his name stirred on a soft expulsion of air. A wave of pleasure rolled under her, arching her throat, lifting her breasts and belly, and finally raising her hips as she rode the crest. She shuddered and felt the change in his rhythm almost immediately. Her fingers skimmed his back and pressed whitely into his taut buttocks. She contracted around him and his body went as rigid as the length of him between her thighs.

Afterward he held her. His breath was warm against her cheek, his fingers sifted her hair. They didn't talk. In time, she slept.

Now Jonna sat up slowly. She knew Decker must have sensed her movement, but he didn't turn. Her linen shift fell softly past her thighs and calves as she rose from the bed, and her bare feet were virtually soundless on the hardwood floor. She came up behind him, sliding her arms around his naked chest. She laid her cheek against his back.

He closed his eyes and placed one hand over hers. He stroked the back of her hand. Her nearness settled his heart.

"Was it another dream?" she asked him.

"Yes."

Jonna did not so much hear him as feel the answer. His skin was warm against her cheek. She kissed him. "You could have wakened me," she said quietly.

"I know."

"I wish you would."

He knew that, too. "Perhaps the next time."

Jonna let him go. She stepped around Decker, placing herself between him and the window. "It's been two weeks since the last one. There may not be another."

He touched her check with the back of his hand. Her eyes were wide, luminous. "Maybe not."

"I was there, Decker. I saw what you did."

"What I
tried
to do."

"Yes," she said firmly. "What you
tried
to do. There was no failure in your attempt. She wanted to die. You knew when you dove in the water that Rachael wouldn't thank you for saving her life. I think you have to live with that before you can sleep with it."

Cool, blue moonlight touched his faint smile. He looked at the heirloom earring before he laid it on the windowsill. "Is that right?"

"Yes." She laid her hands on his chest as his arms went around her waist, his fingers threading together at the small of her back. "Decker?"

"Hmmm?" He felt her hesitation and tried to imagine the subject that would give Jonna pause or force her to choose her words carefully. "What is it?"

"These dreams of yours... I think..."

"Yes?"

"Before Rachael there were others. Not dreams, I mean, but real people—flesh and blood—and you couldn't save them either. Your mother and father. You were there when the highwaymen murdered them. And Mere and Jimmy Grooms... you saw them hanged." Her voice trailed away. She stared at his implacable features, the eyes that were as cool as moonshine, the smile that was an enigmatic wonder.

She had found the heart of it, Decker thought. His heart. These last six weeks his dreams had been filled with disturbing images. It was not only Rachael he searched for beneath the icy water, but his mother and Mere, his father and Jimmy. He would come within inches of their outstretched fingers, but never connect. He imagined he could hear them call his name, and the sound of it was clear, as though it traveled over the water rather than through it.

"But you saved Mercedes, Decker. And Colin. And since then, dozens of others whose names you haven't always known." She touched his mouth with her forefinger. "You saved me."

He shook his head. Her finger drifted over his chin, along his jaw, and came to rest at the base of his neck. "You're wrong," he said.

"No, I'm not. You saved me. From Grant and from myself." Jonna raised herself on tiptoe. Her mouth brushed his. "I need you, Captain Thorne. You can't imagine quite how much."

Decker kissed her. Her lips opened under his, and a full minute later when he drew back, they were damp and still sweetly parted. "I wouldn't mind hearing," he said.

She smiled at that. "I need to argue with you, and I need to laugh with you."

He did not mind at all that she mentioned arguing first.

Jonna ignored his amused grin. "And I need to see that wicked grin of yours when I look up from whatever I'm doing and find you watching me."

"Wicked?"

It was wicked now, she thought. But not obviously so. Decker was never obvious about it. That was what always sent a shiver through her. She never knew for sure. "I need to see you when I wake up and before I go to sleep."

"Oh, Jonna." He bent his head and touched his forehead to hers.

"And that's the very least of it, Decker. More than anything, I need to love you." She cupped his face. His mouth was only a hairbreadth from hers. "Let me comfort you," she whispered. "When the nightmares come, let me in."