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However much time they might have left, however much time Esta might steal for them—days or years or eternities—it would never be enough. There would never be anyone else for him but Esta. Not ever again.
The train lurched around a curve, and Esta lost her balance, falling onto him, her bare body like a brand against his. Somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind, Harte knew that it was too much, too fast. But he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. He shifted so they were side by side, equals as they’d ever been, hands roaming, mouths ravenous. An ecstatic fumbling need drove them onward toward some conclusion that they did not quite understand until it crashed over them, turning them both to ash.
When Harte finally came back to himself, his arms and legs were so tangled with Esta’s that he could no longer tell where his body ended and where hers began. All he could do was lie there feeling slightly apart from everything. Finally, the sound of Esta’s soft laughter brought Harte back to himself. He felt something dangerously close to happiness, and his mouth began to curve in answer. Then, all at once, he remembered everything that had happened. Sammie was dead. His brother was dead, and this was how he mourned him?
The memory of Sammie’s body, bloodied and broken, rose in Harte’s mind, and the shame of feeling anything close to happiness flooded through him. It was followed swiftly by a bolt of sheer panic as he realized what had just happened. What he’d allowed to happen.
He pulled away then, untangling himself from the warmth of Esta’s arms so he could lie as far from her as possible in the narrow bunk. If she touched him now, he wouldn’t be able to help himself.
“What is it?” Esta’s eyes were soft and sleepy as she smiled at him. She looked utterly open, utterly vulnerable. Because she was vulnerable. Harte had allowed his control to slip, and his selfishness had put her in danger.
“I don’t know what that was,” he said, staring up at the ceiling of the berth. His voice sounded stiff and stilted, even to him. “But it can’t happen again.”
He could practically feel the smile slide from her lips as Esta propped herself up on her side to look down at him. “You don’t know what that was?” she asked, her voice filled with humor, but it was tinged with wariness as well.
“Of course I know what that was,” Harte said, feeling his cheeks burn. Her brows were drawn together and the emotion in her eyes was quickly giving way to something more alert. “We shouldn’t have…” But Harte couldn’t finish, because he was enough of a bastard to not want to take any of it back. Even though he knew he should.
Esta’s voice was still soft, but there was a prickliness to her tone when she spoke again. “You said that you wanted—”
“I did,” he admitted. Maybe he shouldn’t have wanted her, and he definitely shouldn’t have allowed himself to have her, but he wouldn’t lie about the truth of the matter now.
“Then what’s the problem?” Esta’s words were clipped as she pulled away from him and sat up completely. She pulled the thin cotton sheet up along with her, as though she suddenly realized how bare she was and felt too exposed.
Harte couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Even with the sheet covering her, he now knew every inch of the body hidden beneath. He wanted to know it better—wanted to trace his thumb over the scar on her shoulder that he hadn’t noticed before. He wanted to press his lips there and take away the memory of whatever had caused it. He wanted to trace the silvery line at the base of her throat where Nibsy had cut her, until there was nothing in the world but the two of them again.
But it all felt too intimate… too dangerous. It was safer to let her establish this distance. Safer, too, if they were honest with each other about what this had been—what it could ever be. He thought of the nurse back at the hospital, the way the woman had called Esta his wife and how that had made him feel: terrified and awed and desperate all at once. With his body still warm and his mind still buzzing with pleasure, Harte wanted… He wasn’t sure what he wanted other than Esta. But he was still a man without a future, without anything to offer her. He’d forgotten that for a moment, and he’d let himself take too much.
“It was a mistake.”
“Excuse me?” Esta’s voice had turned into a blade every bit as dangerous as Viola’s.
Harte winced inwardly at the sharpness of her tone—the hurt in it as well—but there was something he had to say. He was going about this all wrong, but he was still so light-headed and overwhelmed, and he had to make her understand. “I never should have allowed it to happen.”
“Allowed?” Esta’s full mouth parted slightly.
Harte braced himself for her to finish, but where he’d prepared for fire, Esta gave him only ice. There was a long beat of silence, with the train car rocking and swaying beneath them, as though it were trying to convince them to return to the minutes before, when there had been only the rhythm of their bodies and mouths.
“You know, Darrigan, you are a complete and absolute ass.” Esta’s voice was devoid of all feeling or warmth.
Harte had the sudden and unpleasant premonition that he’d made a terrible mistake.
A sliver of moonlight cut through the space where the curtains had slid open, casting its glow over Esta’s face—the soft mouth that had just been on his body, the sharp nose that he’d once thought made her striking more than classically pretty.
How had he ever thought that? Now he saw her, all of her. Not only her body, but the woman she was. He saw her strength and her vulnerability, her bravery and her fear. And when he saw her golden eyes glassy with unshed tears, he realized his utter stupidity. He’d spoken poorly, and because of that, she’d misunderstood.
But it was too late for him to take back his words or to repair the rift he’d created between them. A second later Esta slid out of his bunk without another word, leaving him with only the steady sound of the train beneath them and the empty comfort of his pride.
COMPLICATIONS
1920—A Train Heading East
Esta lay awake for the rest of the night. She could not silence the memory of Harte’s words. They ran through her mind again and again, steady and constant as the train consuming the tracks beneath her.
It was a mistake.
I never should have allowed it to happen.
She could hear Harte’s faint breathing above her, the soft not-quite snores he made as he slept the sleep of the righteous. She had thought he’d understood. When he’d laid his mouth on hers, when he’d pulled them both under, breaking through the casual stoicism they each wore like armor, she’d thought he was in agreement. Apparently, she’d been wrong.
