Corrie had only been gone a moment when Jack O’Riley came to Jess in the ballroom and informed him that she had been asked to fill in for Chef Sashenka. Jess quickly made his apologies to his sisters and mother and sought out the kitchen. The staff scurried past, their expressions frantic and their voices raised in distressed panic.
“Sasha is really drunk?” Jess asked.
“As an Irishman,” Jack quipped and dodged a waitress with a tray of pitiful-looking beef.
“You should know.” Jess winked to take the sting from the insult, and Jack responded with a hearty chuckle.
They pushed through the swinging kitchen doors into a hurricane. Pots clanged and cooks screamed at one another and no one in particular. Completed meals congealed unheeded on the counter.
In the midst of this, Corrie had planted herself, fists on hips and fire in her eyes. A waitress hurried past with clean linens, and Corrie snagged a tablecloth off the top. Tying it around her waist and tucking one end in the neckline of her gown, she yelled, “Quiet! All of you shut up!”
The chaos continued.
Grabbing an empty pot, she banged on it with a ladle and, in a voice that would have done a sergeant major proud, yelled again, “Quiet!”
The staff halted where they were and stared at this madwoman in their midst. As they recognized her, several smiled and nodded greetings. The only sound was a trumpeting snore from the corner—Sasha passed out on the floor.
Corrie trained an exasperated glare on the Russian, then clapped her hands together sharply. “Attention, everyone. Sparrow has asked me to step in for Chef Sashenka. You”—she pointed to a rotund blond man—“oversee the beef and the pork. You”—her finger rotated to a slim dark man—“see to the vegetables.”
Jess crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, for the first time observing Corrie in her element. She had insisted that she was accustomed to managing a large kitchen staff. It appeared she had not exaggerated.
In a matter of minutes, calm was restored. Everyone had an assignment, and plates of food began to exit on the waitresses’ trays in good order. The staff bustled around, obviously busy but with direction and intent.
“Congratulations,” Jess said as Corrie spied him and strolled over. “No general could have done it better.”
“No general has my training,” she retorted with a grin. “I can’t believe I missed this. I must be crazy.”
“You don’t miss it now?” Strange, given her delighted expression.
She glanced around, then tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “No. No, I don’t. The Café of Dreams is so much more rewarding. It’s me cooking there, not this army of people.”
“So you’re content with your café, then?”
“Content?” She gave a sigh and squeezed his arm. “It would take only a little more to make me completely and totally content.”
“Me?” he asked with a lift of one eyebrow as hope swelled. Although she gave herself freely to him physically, she had never articulated her feelings for him. Did she—could she—love him as he loved her?
Her gaze slid to one side and she disengaged her hands. He could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes. But he had no chance to pursue the matter.
Corrie approached the passed-out chef and nudged one of his feet with the toe of her shoe. “Someone get him out of here and sober him up before someone trips over him.”
No one else volunteered, so Jess stepped forward, commandeering a couple of sturdy kitchen boys and removing Sasha from the kitchen. In the hallway, they ran into Miss Sparrow, and she directed them to a vacant room close to the kitchen. Getting him up the stairs to his own quarters would have been impossible.
“I am afraid for him to be alone,” she said. “He is quite despondent.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll stay with him.” Jess thanked the helpers and shut the door behind them after requesting a pot of strong coffee and a couple of sandwiches. Even if the Russian wasn’t hungry when he awoke, Jess was now. No reason for him to go hungry. He relieved Sasha of his shoes and cravat and sat back to await the man’s return to consciousness.
As the coffee and food arrived and the chef continued to snore, Jess untied his own cravat and relaxed in a chair by the window, his feet propped up on a stool. Music from the ballroom drifted into the room, and he ached to twirl Corrie around and around, displaying to the world that she was his.
So what if her frilled and furbelowed gown was a horror? She was the most beautiful woman present. And for the Midsummer Ball in June, he would make certain her gown was as lovely as she was. Perhaps a gossamer silk like the whisper of a butterfly wing. That would suit her.
He must have dozed off dreaming of dancing with Corrie, because he roused abruptly when Sasha gave a sharp yell.
“Katyuska! Katya!” The words seemed wrenched from the man’s soul.
Jess lurched to the bed and shook him. “Sasha, wake up. Wake up, old boy.”
The chef opened bleary eyes and blinked. He whispered, “Katya?” Then tears rolled down his cheeks as he sat up.
Jess let him cry it out, occasionally patting his back and assuring him that all would turn out right. Finally, the man seemed to be nearing the end of his outburst, and Jess poured them both a cup of strong coffee.
Shaking, Sasha took his. “You are wrong, my friend. Nothing ever be right again.”
“Why is that?” Jess took a seat and cradled his cup in both hands. “You called out a name. Katya? Does all this have something to do with her?”
“Beautiful czarevna—princess.” Sasha released a liquor-soaked sigh. With only a little prodding from Jess, Sasha related in surprisingly few sentences how, as a young man, he fell in love with a Russian princess and was exiled from the St. Petersburg court.
Jess could only imagine the anguish of forever being separated from the woman he loved. “But what brought you to drinking yourself into a stupor on an important night like this one?”
“Grand Duchess Karakova bring this.” Sasha removed a folded piece of fine stationery from one of his pockets and handed it to Jess. “Read.”
Opening the missive, Jess stifled a chuckle. Strange letters dashed across the page, like nothing he had ever seen before. “Uh, Sasha, I think this is in Russian.”
“Vot?” The chef grabbed the paper and stared at it. “Oh, sorry. I translate.” Squinting, he started to read from it but gave up when he was unable to focus. “Bah, I tell you.” His lips trembled and he exhaled again as he laid down the letter. “Czarevna Katyuska, my little Katya, is married. To Prussian pig.”
“She called her husband a pig?” In spite of himself, Jess was drawn into this sad story, so beyond the realm of his life, but he doubted a royal princess would put such an insult in writing.
“No, I say pig.” Sasha collapsed back onto the bed and mumbled, “All Prussians are pigs.”
He rocked the room with a raucous snore, ending the tale. Jess arranged a blanket over the chef and turned down the light before he left him to sleep off the alcohol, certain Sasha intended himself no harm.
Jess turned toward the kitchen and Corrie. Sasha had lost the woman he loved. Jess didn’t intend to allow the same thing to happen to him.
Corrie wearily accepted Jess’s assistance from the buggy as the town clock struck one. She turned her head toward the sound and flinched—over the treetops, the church steeple loomed in the moonlight. Well, so much for sleeping tonight.
Jess escorted her to the café door and unlocked it with the key she had made him accept as co-owner. Arm in arm, they made their way across the dining room and through the kitchen to the stairs leading to her apartment. If only he would stay. . . .
If only she could. Forever.
Every day that passed dragged her closer to her return to her own time. Though until then, she would savor each minute with him and store up memories.
She turned and burrowed her head into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist and wishing she never had to let him go. “Stay with me. Just for tonight.”
His hand on her cheek was gentle and warm as he whispered, “I can’t. The gossips—”
“The gossips be damned,” she said, firing up, and leaned back in his embrace. “If I don’t care, why should you?”
In the dim light from a low-turned lamp, he studied her, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly. “Stay,” she whispered. “Please.”
He cupped her face with both hands and continued staring into her eyes, as if he read the secrets of her soul there. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll go stable the horse and carriage and be back.”
“Promise?”
He brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I promise.”
As the door closed behind him, she walked up to her apartment and undressed. Opening the door of the armoire to hang up the fluffy green dress, she jumped as her backpack fell out upside down and spilled its entire contents onto the floor.
“Shoot,” she muttered as she knelt and started gathering up the items. Thank goodness she’d thrown out the food weeks ago. She paused as her hand encountered a mound of small, square packets—condoms. She had stashed them there years ago for her last vacation, a camping trip on which they had been the last thing she needed.
Unlike her “vacation” here in 1887. Safe sex had completely slipped her mind with Jess. All she had thought of was being with him—becoming one with him. So much for being a careful, twenty-first-century woman. How would she explain introducing them to Jess now? Corrie stuffed it into the armoire and propped it up with the bottle of wine to keep it from tilting over and falling out again.
By the time she pulled on her nightgown, she heard Jess’s step on the stair and hurried to the door, but he was already there, his dark hair gleaming in the lamplight and his eyes alight with desire.
Her pulse accelerated. “You came back.”
“I promised I would,” he said and opened his arms.
As she walked into his embrace, the sense of coming home overwhelmed her and she clutched his lapels with both hands, afraid to let go. Afraid to let him go.
“What’s the matter, sweeting?”
She shook her head, only mumbling, “Hold me.”
Jess drew her tighter against him and pressed her head to his shoulder. Corrie sighed. This felt right as nothing had felt right in all her memory. If only they could stay this way forever.
If only the future never came.
Slowly, they walked into the bedroom and crawled into bed, too tired to make love. Jess cradled Corrie next to him and studied her profile. A pressure welled up in his heart, demanding release. Never in his thirty years had the urge to profess his devotion taken such hold. But this was the time.
And this was the woman.
He feathered a kiss across her temple and whispered, “I love you.”
Her breath caught, so he knew she had heard. As she kept her eyes closed, doubt burrowed into him. Had he misread her affections? Did she not love him as he loved her?
Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes when she opened them and turned her gaze toward him. Pain clouded them—a pain from deep within her soul, deep within her past. Her lips quivered and she drew in a trembling breath as she whispered almost too softly to hear, “God forgive me, but I love you, too.” She rolled to a sitting position, clasped her arms around her knees, and buried her head against them, shoulders shaking in silent torment.
Jess rose and pulled on his trousers with an abrupt economy of motion. Why would loving him engender such despair? With another woman, he would have left. With another woman, it wouldn’t have mattered. But this was Corrie, the woman of his heart.
He wetted a cloth in the bathroom, then took a seat facing Corrie and wiped her drawn face, the freckles stark against her pallor in the lamplight. And he waited.
At last, a shuddering breath racked her body and she laid her head on his shoulder. “Sorry I’m such a watering pot,” she said in a strained little voice.
“I didn’t realize that loving me would cause you such distress.”
“Oh, Jess, it’s not that,” she answered in a rush. “Loving you is wonderful.”
But her lips quivered again.
“Then why the tears, sweeting?” He looped an arm around her and drew her closer with a tender kiss in her hair.
“I . . . it’s . . . I don’t . . .”
“If you’re worried about your reputation, you needn’t.” With one finger, he forced her head up until she met his eyes. “Marry me. Today, tomorrow, whenever you say.”
Happiness flickered across her face, too soon replaced by an expression of despair as she shook her head. “I can’t.”
Doubt gnawed at him. “Don’t tell me you’re already wed?”
“No way.”
“Then why not?” He pressed a kiss to her lips. Her instant response garnered hope. “I love you, Corrine Webb, and I want you to be my wife. I want us to be a family.”
“I don’t know how to be a family.” She shifted her gaze to one side. “I don’t know how to love—really love.”
A chill ran down his soul. How could she not know? “It’s easy, sweeting.”
“Not if you’ve never—” She broke off and abruptly stood and strode to the window.
“Never . . . ?” Jess prompted.
Keeping her back to him, she reached out a tentative hand and fingered the lace curtain. “I’ve never been part of a family, Jess. Not one that I can remember, anyway. Or not one that I can claim as my own.”
“I know you’re an orphan. But being an orphan shouldn’t keep you from loving me or anyone else.”
“But being a reject who doesn’t know how to love anyone does.” Her hand fisted in the lace, and she seemed to stay upright only by that tenuous hold.
“You’re not a reject, Corrie.” Every impulse cried out for him to drag her into his embrace and kiss sense into her, but with her strange mood, he feared rejection himself.
“What do you call a kid no one wants?”
A pang of sorrow speared his soul. He touched her shoulder with the lightest of hands and she sagged against him. Encouraged, he said, “I want you.”
She barked a bitter laugh. “I’ll grant you I’m a good lay.”
He spun her around, grabbed her by both shoulders, and shook her. “Never say that. Never. I love you, you stupid girl. Yes, I love making love with you, but that’s not where it ends. I love you.”
Dropping her head to one side, she stroked her cheek against his knuckles. “I love you.”
“And I want to marry you and make an honest woman of you, damn it.” Being a gentleman no longer mattered. Loving Corrie did.
“No.” Just that, a flat statement.
“Why?” Give me a reason before I go mad.
Her breath shuddered out. “Because I don’t have a choice. I have to go b—” She stopped.
“Go where, Corrie?” Taking another step, he was close enough to feel her breath, smell the scent that was hers alone. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll go with you.”
She stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes. “You can’t.”
“Then stay here and marry me.” He shifted his hold and pulled her against him, tucking her head under his chin. “Say you’ll marry me, Corrie.”
“Jess, I—I can’t. Not now.”
“At least promise me you won’t go away.”
She tensed within his arms.
“Corrie, promise you won’t leave.”
Against his shoulder, she hitched in a breath. “Ask me”—again that shuddering breath, but this time she returned his embrace—“ask me after the Midsummer Ball.”
Hope surged in him. “Is something special about that date, sweeting?”
She lifted her hands and cupped his face. “Very special.” She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and stepped away. “Now, not another word about marriage until then, understood?”
He studied her as she tucked her hair behind her ears. While he wanted to believe they had reached an agreement, the odd reserve in her eyes belied that and twisted his gut with misgiving.
“There’s something else we need to discuss, and now’s as good a time as any.” Corrie led the way into the parlor and he followed. After she emptied the open bottle of wine from the liquor cabinet into two glasses, she took hers and dropped onto the settee with a wave of her hand to indicate that he was to join her.
“What is it?” Infected by her restlessness, yet puzzled by her serious expression, he perched on one end and sipped his wine.
Her gaze pinned him like a bug on velvet. “You never got around to explaining your jaunt into the mountains.”
His gut clenched, and he placed his wineglass on the table with care. “An old family disagreement. Nothing to be concerned about.”
“I put up with mule spit for that ‘nothing.’ You owe me an explanation.” Her eyes gleamed fiercely in the lamplight. “It had something to do with your sisters’ husbands not coming with them. What gives with that?”
“What gives . . . ?” Sometimes she used the strangest phrasing.
“Why did that upset you?”
He picked up his wine and drank deeply, avoiding her gaze.
“Give, Chief. Family’s important—without a family, you can’t know who you are. Believe me, I know.” She swallowed the remainder of her wine and leaned forward. “Yours let you down and I want to know why. Heaven knows, your sisters and mother weren’t exactly wikis of information.”
Trying to stall her, he shrugged. “A minor disagreement. Nothing—”
She rolled onto her knees and captured his face in her hands. “Don’t tell me it’s minor, Jess. God knows I’d give everything I own to have a family who loves me as much as yours loves you. Abby told me something happened out west to change you. What was it?”
How could he tell her that he still awoke some nights with the screams of dying innocents stabbing his ears and heart? How could he tell her what he had done? What he could never forget? Why he could never forgive himself?
Those probing brown eyes gazed into his, then drifted away for a second. Suddenly, she gasped. “The gun in the orchard—that was part of it. Then there’s that episode at the bank. You didn’t draw your gun.” She released him and paced around the room. “What sort of lawman doesn’t draw his gun during a bank robbery?”
Ah, she had reached the periphery of the problem. Jess exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he held. “A lawman whose family considers him a disgrace to the profession.”
“That’s it? You won’t use your gun, so the men in your family won’t talk to you?” She whirled to a stop in front of him. “Hell, I know that’s stupid, and I don’t even have a family.”
If only it was as simple as that, Jess thought, his chest tight with remembered insults and accusations.
“Chief?”
Who would have guessed she would be so tenacious? Jess dropped his gaze to his clenched fists. If she was going to be his wife, she deserved at least some explanation of his rift with his family. “Years ago, I vowed never to shoot another man. When I told my father of my decision, he took great exception and called a family meeting.”
“All the lawmen in the family.”
He grimaced. Abby’s been busy.
Jess reminded himself that Corrie would soon be his wife—or so he hoped. She should know the reason for the estrangement. Or the part of it he was willing to share. He motioned her to be quiet and continued. “When they arrived, I informed them of my decision to never draw my gun on another man. They thought I had gone mad.”
And maybe he had, in a way.
“Can’t say but what I don’t agree with them, Chief. After all, a policeman who won’t use his gun . . .”
“Put that way, you’re right. It sounded insane, but remember, I wasn’t out west or in the big city. I was back in small-town West Virginia—near where I’d grown up. Not a hotbed of violent crime.”
Corrie plunked herself beside him on the settee and drew her knees beneath the hem of her nightgown. “You’re not telling me everything. Give.”
Stomach knotted, he said, “To a man, they told me that if I refused to draw my gun in the line of duty, I was writing my own death warrant. And rather than wait for me to be killed, they would consider me dead from that day forward.”
“Men!” She threw up her hands. “You mean you haven’t spoken with them since because of that?”
He nodded. That and much more.
“Of all the stupid, pigheaded, testosterone-poisoned”—she slapped the cushions with both hands and glared at him—male things to do.”
Although he did not understand all the insults, he bridled anyway. “It was a point of honor on both sides.”
“Well, I give up.” She flounced up and retrieved a bottle of wine from somewhere in the bedroom. As she opened it and refilled their glasses, she muttered under her breath. Then she resumed her seat. “I can’t believe they would break off contact with you for something as lame as that.”
Not so lame after he added that when they killed a man in the act of apprehending him for a crime, they were no better than murderers. Just like the army.
Just like him.