Full Steam Ahead

  “I won’t stop. I won’t.” He waved his arm in front of him like a blind man searching for an object.

  Not knowing what else to do, Nicole clasped his probing hand. “You found me, Darius. I’m here.”

  His fingers closed around her wrist in an iron vise. “Thank God,” he sighed.

  Then he yanked her. Hard. The force of his movement jerked her from the floor and in a flash had her sprawled across his muscular chest.

  He clutched her to himself so tightly she could barely breathe, let alone move. Then, after a final kick of his legs, his flailing ceased.

  CHAPTER 18

  Darius swam through the nightmare waters, searching. The girl was in the water. Sinking. Drowning. Dying. He had to find her faster this time, had to save her. In the twisted way of dreams, he saw her face through the murky river depths. Pale. Frightened. Accusing. He kicked harder. Reached for her. She floated out of reach. Always out of reach.

  He groaned in anguish, slashing his arms through the dark currents that taunted him with his failure, his guilt. His heart hammered in his chest. He couldn’t fail again. Not again.

  A voice called his name from far away, but he couldn’t afford to listen. He had to reach the girl. Then all at once, the vision changed. The nameless girl with the accusing gaze became a young woman, a woman with sable brown hair and copper eyes. Her hair floated around her face in waves as her lips formed his name. Darius.

  Nicole.

  No! Not Nicole. It couldn’t be her in the water, sinking to her death. But it was. She called out to him again and again, gouging his heart with her cries.

  “Where are you?” he shouted into the depths. He stroked harder, deeper. But the water thickened, became like molasses, holding him back, holding her captive. He fought against the resistance, his muscles straining to the point of pain. He reached for her, but the vision faded. “I won’t stop,” he vowed. “I won’t.” He couldn’t lose her. Not Nicole.

  He swept his hand wide, pleading with God to let him find her in time.

  That’s when the miracle occurred.

  A hand clasped his. Her hand. Firm. Substantial. Not the mist he usually encountered. He held it fast. Nothing would tear her hand from his. Not this time. “Thank God.” He pulled her against his body, reveling in the solid feel of her, gripping her with all his might so there’d be no chance of her slipping away. Then he kicked for the surface, leaving his nightmare world behind.

  “Darius?” The soft voice that had called to him before, called to him again. Urging him to wake. But he didn’t want to wake. Not this time. He’d finally succeeded. He’d saved Nicole from the river. He clutched her closer to his chest, strapping both arms around her, afraid she’d turn again to mist and leave him. She couldn’t leave him. Not now. Not when he’d finally found peace.

  Yet it was her voice calling him. Begging. Pleading.

  “Darius, please. You’re hurting me.”

  He opened his eyes at once. “Nicole?”

  She lay draped across his chest, her face angled up to his, her dark braid curling beneath her chin. A ragged breath escaped him. She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld.

  Until she winced, and he realized he was holding her tight enough to crack her ribs. He released her immediately.

  She wiggled against him as she struggled to sit up, finally bracing a hand upon his chest to lever herself upward. His pulse reacted to her touch, and he had to close his eyes to keep from clutching her to himself again. The haze of sleep was clearing, but his control hadn’t yet been fully restored. A small groan vibrated in his throat.

  Cool fingers stroked his brow, his face, his hair. “Darius, it’s all right. It was just a dream. I’m here, now. Safe. We’re both safe.”

  He opened his eyes and turned his face toward her voice. She had slid from atop him but knelt by the side of the sofa near his head. His gaze roamed her face, her shoulders, the area around her ribs. “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head, and he expelled a heavy breath in relief. Forcing himself to sit up, he lifted away from her soothing touch, dropped his feet to the floor, and braced his elbows on his thighs. He rubbed his trembling hands through his hair, then drew them down over his face as he battled to pull himself together. He didn’t have the luxury of privacy to let the panic subside on its own.

  What had she seen? Heard? How had she ended up draped across his chest? Well, he supposed he knew how that had happened. She’d simply gotten too close while he’d been in the throes of his nightmare. It had been so vivid this time. And different. Nicole had been the one in the water, not the girl from the Louisiana. Her presence had heightened his fear. And my relief, Darius thought, remembering the peace that had settled over him when he’d successfully captured her in his embrace. Surely, if she hadn’t awakened him, he would have slept soundly the rest of the night with her pressed to his chest. It would have been the first decent night’s rest he’d had since the accident. Yet as much as he hated to let her leave, he couldn’t in good conscience stay alone in her presence.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He dropped his hands from his face at her soft question, finally trusting himself to meet her gaze without revealing the extent of his neediness.

  She was kneeling, hands folded in her lap, wearing some kind of robe, the neckline and sleeve edges embroidered with tiny yellow flowers and green leaves. The robe gaped a bit at the knees, exposing the white cotton of what had to be her nightgown. Swallowing hard, Darius turned his head and pretended to contemplate the shelves of books to his left.

  “I’m a good listener,” she cajoled. “It might help.”

  Darius clenched his jaw. He’d never told anyone the details of that day. Not even his father when he’d come to visit him in New Orleans after the accident. Saul Thornton must have sensed some of his torment, for he’d probed Darius for an explanation of why he refused to return home with him, but the pain had been too raw for Darius to put into words. Too fresh. So he’d begged his father to let him deal with the accident in his own way, to give him some time alone to come to grips with what had happened. And his father, being the insightful, loving man he was, had agreed.

  That had been a year and a half ago. Time had certainly not healed his wounds, but they’d scarred over pretty well. The rawness had eased, only emerging at night in his dreams. Was it time to speak of that day, of his failure? Would it drain some of the poison from his soul? Recalling the utter contentment that had flooded him when he felt Nicole pressed safely to his chest, he thought perhaps it would.

  “I’ll make it easy on you,” she said, a hint of a smile touching her lips, a smile free of judgment or censure. “I’ll tell you what bits I’ve already pieced together. That way you’ll only have to fill in the gaps instead of telling the entire tale.” Her eyes warmed as he watched, aglow with compassion, and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to unburden himself and tell her all.

  Nicole rose from the floor in a graceful motion, then pivoted in order to join him on the sofa. As soon as he recognized her intent, Darius slid over to make more room for her, yet not so far that there would be a gulf between them. He craved her closeness.

  “Mrs. Wellborn mentioned something about an accident that occurred some time ago,” Nicole began, arranging her wrapper over her knees to completely conceal her nightclothes. “I assume that this accident happened on board a steamboat, prompting your passionate devotion to boiler safety.” That subtle, almost teasing smile appeared again only to retreat beneath the swelling sympathy in her eyes. “You are driven, Darius. I’ve recognized that from the first time we met, and I couldn’t help wondering at the source of your obsession. What would drive a man of wealth and breeding to leave his family and hide away on a small plantation in Texas to conduct explosive scientific experiments?”

  She laid her hand across his forearm, the coolness of her fingers seeping into his overheated skin. His muscle twitched, and something more than comfort tra
veled up his arm and into his chest.

  “You lost someone, didn’t you?” she queried, the softness in her eyes taking some of the sting from the words. “Someone you tried to save? Was it your brother? Sister? Is that why you isolate yourself from your family and work day and night to try to fix what went wrong?”

  He glanced away, choosing the safety of staring at the floor instead of her lovely face as he shook his head.

  “She was a child,” he murmured, somewhat amazed he could actually give voice to the awful truth. “About a year or two older than Jacob, I’d guess. I didn’t even know her name.”

  Nicole’s thumb stroked the sensitive underside of his forearm. How could she continue to offer him comfort when he’d just admitted to letting a child die? He didn’t deserve her kindness, her support. Yet he didn’t have the willpower to pull away. Her ready acceptance felt too good.

  Silence stretched between them. However, silence wouldn’t protect him from the tale. He lived with it every day. He had nothing to lose by giving it voice. Except Nicole’s good opinion. A shudder passed through him at the thought, but her touch on his arm lulled him. It promised understanding—an understanding he couldn’t resist trying to attain.

  “Did you ever hear accounts of the Louisiana’s sinking in New Orleans?” His heart thudded so hard in his chest, he almost couldn’t hear his own voice. Inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose, he attempted to calm his raging pulse. “Her boilers blew while pulling away from the levee in the fall of 1849.”

  Nicole shook her head. “I was away at school. And to be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to the newspapers. Too wrapped up in my studies.” Her thumb stopped its stroking then, but her hand remained in place on his arm. “Did many lose their lives?”

  “Over one hundred fifty.”

  Nicole sucked in an audible breath. “Dear God in heaven. So many.”

  “Countless more were wounded. Some bodies were never recovered.” Suddenly no longer able to stomach her comforting hold, Darius shoved up from the sofa and paced a few steps away. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t accept her sympathy. He needed to insert space between them, between the ugliness of what he remembered and the innocence that radiated from her. He wanted to shield her from the truth, to protect her.

  But when he peered over his shoulder, the determination lining her face stopped him from sending her away. It was the same determination that likely had sent her off alone through the wilds of Texas to help her ailing father. The same determination that took out a rattler with one throw of her knife. Nicole might be young and innocent, but she was strong, too.

  “Tell me, Darius,” she insisted, a thread of steel in her tone. That steel cut through the last of his resistance.

  “I didn’t want to be there that day,” he admitted, crossing to the bookshelves and idly fingering the cloth and leather spines. “I remember grumbling about how my brother should have been the one meeting with my father’s investors. He was the diplomat of the company, after all, and was used to such affairs. My job entailed balancing the ledgers and keeping the company solvent, not parties and business meetings where I would be expected to hobnob with men who cared more about the cut of their waistcoat than dirtying their hands with actual work. But David’s wife was pregnant with their first child, and she wanted him close at hand.”

  Darius rested his right arm along the edge of a shelf and tapped his fisted hand against the wood. “I was so selfish, Nicole, so wrapped up in my own petty disappointments that I couldn’t see past the end of my nose. Did I celebrate with David over his impending fatherhood? No. I crabbed at him about letting his wife dictate his actions and tried to make him feel guilty enough to change his mind about the trip.”

  His hand trembled as he opened his fingers, and the sting of tears pricked at the back of his eyes. “I thank God every day that David didn’t give in to my demands.” His voice broke. “If he had died, and his child had been born fatherless . . .” Darius couldn’t continue, the thought too horrible to contemplate.

  Suddenly she was there, behind him. He hadn’t heard her move, but he felt her lean against his back, press her cheek into the divot between his shoulder blades, and wrap her arms about his waist. He shuddered at the contact and nearly wept at the comfort and acceptance she offered.

  The words came easier then. He told her of the horrific explosions that concussed with such force that large hunks of shrapnel flew hundreds of yards, crushing anything that stood in their path. Surrounding ships, trees, horses, carriages . . . people. All fell beneath the onslaught. He recounted how the hull shattered and water rushed over his shoes. How people were trapped in the inner cabins. How they screamed.

  He spared her the grisliest details. The mutilated bodies. The smell of scalded flesh. The cries of the wounded, who’d not been blessed with a quick death. She already gripped his middle like an iron band, and warm tears soaked the back of his shirt. She didn’t need the details for her to picture the destruction of that day.

  “The ship was going down,” he said, covering her arms with his. “I knew I could swim to shore, but I couldn’t abandon the women and children. I tried to reach the upper deck, but debris blocked the stairway. I ran back outside and started to climb the railing when a woman from above saw me and dangled her child over the edge, pleading with me to save him. He couldn’t swim.

  “I grabbed the boy and handed him off to another man who was helping with the evacuation. A second child followed the first. Then another. And another. The chain seemed never to end. But then it did. Only one girl remained, older than the rest. No parent in sight. She clung to the upper railing, too far away for me to reach.”

  Darius closed his eyes, the vision that had haunted his dreams for the last year and a half rising in his mind. Her thrashing legs. Her panicked eyes. Her slipping hands.

  “I climbed up to get her,” he recounted, “promising her I wouldn’t let her fall. She was scared out of her mind, but when her gaze met mine, she gave a little nod. She trusted me, Nicole. She trusted me, and I let her fall.”

  Darius hung his head, grabbing on to Nicole’s arms with both hands, like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. “The boat had taken on too much water. It pitched sideways, and the jerking motion shook the girl off. I tried to catch her but only brushed her skirt with my arm before she splashed into the river. I dove in after her. The water was too murky to see anything, but I submerged again and again until my lungs nearly burst, searching with my arms, my feet, begging God to let me find her.

  “When I did, it was too late. I finally caught hold of her and pulled her to the surface, then onto shore. I tried to pump the water out of her lungs. I begged her to breathe. But she never did.” A broken sob erupted from his throat before he could catch it back.

  The tears fueled his rage. He lashed out, slamming his fist so hard against the shelf nearest him, it cracked. “Why, Nicole?” he demanded. “Why would God spare a self-absorbed, embittered man like me and take the life of an innocent? It’s not right! I should have died that day. Not her.” His throat closed up then, and his knees grew weak. He curled in on himself and slowly sank to the floor. “Never her.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Nicole followed Darius to the floor, curving her body farther over his back as she glided her arms upward to wrap about his shoulders. His agony shredded her heart.

  “The girl’s death was not your fault,” she whispered near his ear. “The accident was to blame. You did everything you could. More than most people would have done.”

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  And that was the issue, wasn’t it? Darius blamed himself for not rescuing a girl who was most likely dead moments after hitting the water. He held so tightly to his guilt that his wounds were torn open day after day, never getting the chance to heal. Why wouldn’t he forgive himself? Or was it God he couldn’t forgive?

  “I should have died. Not her.”

  Nicole stiffened against him. There it was a
gain, that woeful statement belittling his value, his worth. When he’d first uttered the words, she’d heard only his grief over the girl’s death. Yet this time she detected hints of bitterness and suppressed anger—corrosive elements that had no place in healing. She would gladly comfort Darius in his pain, but she would do him no favors by fueling his self-pity.

  “So, you think God made a mistake.” She leaned away from him, her voice hardening just enough to get his attention.

  He twisted to face her. “Why should an innocent die while a reprobate lives?”

  “I see,” she said. “Only sinful people should have died in that accident if God were indeed just. Of course, all have sinned, so I suppose only the tiniest of babes should have survived according to your reasoning.”

  Darius turned fully toward her, his features tightening in anger. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

  “Am I? Well, you’re being deliberately arrogant, thinking you know better than God.”

  “I am not! I—”

  “Yes. You are.” Nicole crossed her arms beneath her breasts and glared at him. “What happened was an accident. A horrible, tragic accident. But accidents happen in this fallen world we live in. Innocence is no guarantee of protection. Rain falls on both the just and the unjust.”

  He scowled at her, and Nicole nearly lost her nerve to continue. But a still, small voice inside her urged her on.

  “God sees things in a scope so broad our narrow-focused minds can’t even comprehend. If you had died that day instead of that young girl, what would have become of me? Have you asked yourself that, Darius? I was out of money and out of options when you took me in and offered me a job. And what of Jacob? He’d still be running about on his own, sneaking into people’s houses to pilfer food. Without you to offer him work, food, and a place to sleep, the boy might have been shot by an irate homeowner by now. I thank God he spared you that day.”

  Nicole steeled herself as Darius’s piercing blue gaze bored into her. Some of the anger seemed to have left him, but the intensity of his scrutiny made her squirm. She’d not back down, though. If she could say something to help him heal, somehow give him the strength to let go of his guilt, perhaps leaving him later wouldn’t be so hard.