He tilted his head to get a better look at her. “You don’t believe me?”
“I just think if a fellow were trying to impress a girl, being an airship captain, a glim pirate,
She was trying not to smile but couldn’t help it. He looked so confused.
“I suppose war hero might be true too,” he said, “or not, depending on whose side you believe. But I swear on my sweet mama’s grave. I was a U.S. Marshal long before I took to flying or harvesting glim.”
“Yes,” Rose said, keeping her expression serious. “Of course you were.”
He frowned and blew out air. “It’s”—he gestured with his hands, as if trying to catch a fleeting thought —“true,” he finally managed.
“Then why don’t you wear a badge?”
“I have a badge.”
“Can I see it?” she asked solemnly.
He dug in the inner pocket of his coat, hesitated a moment, then drew his fingers out. In his hand was a tin badge shaped like a star.
“Oh,” Rose said. She really had thought he was teasing her, trying to impress her. “So should I call you Marshal Captain Hink now?”
“I’d rather you not. And it would be Marshal Cage if you did.”
“What about ‘Lee’?”
“That’s one of the names I answer to.”
“How many names do you have, Captain?” Rose asked.
Hink hesitated. “I’d hate to tarnish your opinion of me, Miss Small.”
“Over a name or two?”
“Not that, as such.” He took a breath as if bracing for something, then let it out. “I have one name for each man who might have been my daddy.”
Rose pressed her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Not at all. I had it coming.” He grinned wickedly at her.
“My mother was a woman of some
“Your mother was a…”
He raised one eyebrow and nodded encouragingly, as if daring her to use a word to describe his mother.
“She was alone to raise you?” she asked.
From his look, that was not at all what he had expected out of her. She liked being able to surprise him.
“Some other adults lent a hand now and then, but yes. She raised me alone.”
“And did your father return?”
“No.”
“So how many…names do you have?”
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Lee Cadwaller Hink Cage.”
“That’s an impressive list.”
“It’s done me no harm.”
He stared a little too long, then finally turned his gaze back to the star in his hand.
“Don’t normally have to reveal all my secrets just to get a woman to kiss me. A well-timed smile usually does the trick.”
Rose’s face warmed from that comment, but she tried not to let it show. “I can’t imagine those were all your secrets, Captain—”
“Lee,” he said.
“Lee,” she repeated. “Surely there’s one or two surprises left to you.”
“Might be at that,” he said softly.
Then he repocketed the star, and before she could come up with the next thing to tease out of him, he was shifting sideways to her, one hand firmly at her back so she could lean against it if she needed to, the other gently brushing a strand of her hair from her cheek.
And then, without asking, without a word, without permission, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Rose stopped breathing. Stopped thinking. She’d been cornered by boys and kissed before. It was always rough, not always innocent. But she’d never had a man do this.
Lee held her lips with his own in a sort of embrace, moving slowly, as if showing her the steps to a dance she should follow. She moved with him, and shivered when his tongue dragged delicious warmth along her lower lip.
And then she paid no mind as to what came first and what came next. She opened her mouth to him, wanting that warmth inside her. He tasted like bourbon and something pleasantly richer.
The heat of his mouth sent flames over her skin and she wanted to stretch into that feeling. His lips were soft, but insistent. His stubble scratched along her cheek and only made her want more of his skin, more of his body against hers.
He seemed willing for that too. His hand slid along her thigh, cupping the outer curve of it before he slid his palm over the crest to rest upward on her hip.
That wasn’t where she wanted him touching her. That wasn’t the only place she wanted to be touched.
She couldn’t seem to get near enough with these layers of clothes between them.
Unthinking, she lifted her left hand, her wounded shoulder.
Pain shot white-hot through her, stealing her breath, vision, and body.
When the pain and white pulled away, leaving her aware of her body again, of her own skin and thoughts and breath again, she heard her own screams.
She clamped her teeth together, trying to breathe instead of moan. The pain was getting less. Of course it was getting less. She’d be fine. Just fine. In a minute.
And beyond the rattling of her thoughts, was Lee’s voice.
“You’ll be fine, Rose,” he was saying in a constant string, as if reciting the words of a hymn. “Almost there now, and we’ll get your medicine, nice soft bed, blankets, and sleep. This will all be a dream, a bad dream, but you’re going to wake up, and you’ll be fine, Rose.”
She tried to focus on the world around her. Black. No glittering brass or deep rose-colored wood of the boiler room. And it was cold. They were outside again. He was carrying her back to the cavern.
She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. His words fell around her like a gentle net, holding her close, keeping her there, anchored in her own thoughts, in her own skin, away from the clawing pain.
Distantly, she heard the sounds of other voices. Mr. Hunt’s low growl, Mae being calm as ever. She wanted to tell them not to fuss over her so, but by the time she got the words together, she was lying down on the cot again, and Mae was urging her to drink as much as she could out of the cup she held to her lips.
Rose drank the cup dry. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’m going to repack your shoulder as soon as that starts working,” Mae said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be asleep soon.”
Mae moved to set the cup to one side and she could see Cedar Hunt and Lee Cage both standing at the foot of her bed, facing each other, and neither one of them looking happy with the other.
She didn’t know what they were all worked up about. Yes, she was wounded and the pain had been something awful. But she didn’t plan on giving up breathing anytime soon. There was too much of life she still wanted to see in the time she had left. Too much of it she still wanted to feel.
“Take your discussion outside, please, gentlemen,” Mae was saying. “Rose needs a little rest now.”
Rose didn’t know if they did what Mae said or not, for she was falling down and down into darkness and was asleep before she could hear what either of the men answered.
