Hot and Steamy (11 page)

Rosa laughed bitterly. “My dear sir, you have seen how few gentlemen I attract. Anyone who would brave my clockwork companion, not to mention my chaperone, is worth my interest. I thought that you were not interested in me.”

Mr. Greenberg kissed her hand. “You should see more value in yourself, my dear Miss Lind. I hope that you will allow me to continue to call upon you, even though it seems that this last machine of mine does indeed do the job that your previous mechanical servant did.”

“What?” Rosa asked. She looked down. The ruddy-colored, heart-shaped device was on a ribbon around her neck. It probably weighed a pound, but compared with the gigantic regulator, now silent at her side, it was lighter than air. She touched its gleaming surface, and ran a finger around the keyhole in its small clock face. “It works?”

“It works,” Mr. Greenberg said simply. Aunt Jean beamed at her over his shoulder. “I thought that it would. It only has to be wound every eight days. I admit I have stretched the task out so I could spend time close to you.” He placed the golden key in her palm and stood up. “But now you are free of both of us, if you choose to be.” He crossed to the door. “I will take my leave now. Send for me if you wish me to come back.”

Rosa stood up. The soft ticking was so different than the wheezing and groaning of the old regulator. She was filled with gratitude and relief, as well as amazement that this kind, brilliant man had worked in secret for her. That spoke of a passion that she never dreamed she could elicit in a man. Boldly, she went to him. With a smile, she folded the key into his hands and held them tightly.

“I think, dear Martin, that as you have won it, you should keep the key to my heart. You must come to see me at least once every eight days to wind it up.”

The kind blue eyes twinkled behind the spectacles, and he enfolded her in his arms. The clock-regulator ticked triumphantly between them as she reached up to kiss him. She poured all the pent-up emotion of her lonely, tethered days into the kiss. Rosa was delighted when he returned the embrace with ardor. She nestled her head against his chest and listened to the soft ticking and his pounding heart. His hands ran softly up and down her back. She closed her eyes, feeling she could never have enough of that sensation.

“Well, it's about time!” Aunt Jean said.

D
usky didn't hear the Union soldier until he tumbled out of the bushes near the main house on the plantation that she'd never left her entire life. She'd never seen one of the boys in blue up till that point, but from the way the style of his clothing matched that of the Confederate soldiers regularly trooping in and out of Dr. Tucker's barn she recognized right away that he had to be part of the Union invaders that were charging through Georgia on their way to the sea. Gunshots had been cracking in the distance for days, getting closer all the time, but the thought that they were here, on the plantation's doorstep, still stunned her.

Dusky dropped the bucket of mop water she'd been carrying and put a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. The water slopped over her bare feet, but she ignored it as she stared at the bloody mess a bullet had made of the man's neck. Other than the crimson splashing his face, his complexion was paler than that of anyone she'd ever seen—even Dr. Tucker—especially when contrasted with her coffee-colored skin.

“Ma'am.” The solder staggered toward her and collapsed to his knees. “I've been—could you help me, please?”

With that, he toppled over backward at an awkward angle and bled into the dirt.

Dusky knelt next to the man. She hadn't seen someone hurt so bad since her daddy had gotten his arm caught in the cotton gin last spring, and he hadn't survived the night. She hadn't been able to help her daddy then, and she had no idea what to do now.

Dusky jumped back up and started toward the house. After a few steps, she caught herself, spun around, and headed back in the other direction, back toward the shack that she and the other slaves called home. She didn't know who she expected to find there, but anyone in the shack would have to be more help than Dr. Tucker and his friends.

She burst into the shack, out of breath, and found it empty. Of course, she realized, the men—the ones who hadn't run off yet or been shot trying—would be out in the fields right now, picking cotton right up until dark—or until the Union soldiers arrived. She turned to leave again and ran straight into Obadiah's bare chest. As she bounced off of him, he reached out to steady her with his hands. Dressed only in tattered pants, his dark brown skin dripped with sweat in the steamy July heat.

She looked up into the young man's inquisitive brown eyes, and her tongue froze in her mouth. For months, she'd been watching him watch her, wondering about him with strange, wonderful new thoughts roaming through her head. While they'd grown up on the plantation together, Dusky and most of the other women lived in the house with Dr. Tucker, leaving the men alone down here in the shack. There were damned few of them left at all anymore.

Dr. Tucker frowned on any interaction between the sexes, and he limited contact of any sort to the absolute minimum. Because of that, Dusky and Obadiah had barely spoken a score of words to each other over the past year. Still, her interest in the strong, handsome man he'd transformed into during that time had grown, and as she looked up at him her breath caught in her chest.

“What is it?” Obadiah grabbed her by the shoulders, and Dusky realized she'd been about to swoon. He stared into her eyes for some hint of what might be wrong.

Dusky could only point out the door and back up toward the main house. “Soldier,” she stammered out.

That one word sent Obadiah sprinting toward the two-story, white-pillared house, leaving Dusky behind. A moment later, she chased after him. By the time she reached him, he was already kneeling next to the wounded soldier.

“He's hurt bad,” Obadiah said. “Real bad.”

“We got to help him,” Dusky said. “He'll die if we don't.”

Obadiah looked up at her, his jaw set and determined. Without a word, he picked up the soldier in his bare arms and cradled him like a baby. “Go get Mamma Esther,” he said. “Run!”

Dusky charged toward the house, but before she got a hundred feet from Obadiah, she heard a shot ring out. She froze in her tracks and turned toward the barn. What she saw there made her scream.

Dr. Tucker stood there on his one good leg and his prosthetic one, dressed in his grime-streaked work clothes, which he'd had shortened on one side to prevent the fabric from catching in his fake limb. He had pushed his tinted goggles—the ones he always wore when welding his contraptions together—back on his head, toward his mane of graying hair, and he blinked out at the world with ice-cold eyes unused to being so exposed to the evening sun. He held a smoking gun in his hand, and it pointed toward Obadiah. He ignored Dusky, not sparing her a first glance much less a second.

“Put that filthy Yankee down, boy.” Dr. Tucker strode toward Obadiah, who had not moved a single one of his bulging muscles. As he walked, the servomotors in the brassy replacement Dr. Tucker had built for his left leg whirred and clicked in sequence.

Whirr-click. Whirr-click. Whirr-click.

“I said, put him down.” Dr. Tucker never raised his voice. He let his gun do all his shouting for him.

Obadiah let the Union soldier's legs down and stood the man up on his wobbly feet, leaving the soldier's arm over his shoulders.

The tubby doctor ambled closer to Obadiah and the soldier. “Where'd you find this one, boy?”

Obadiah pointed over to where the soldier's pooling blood had darkened the dirt. He knew better than to answer Dr. Tucker directly. He bore livid scars on his back from the first and last time he'd made such a mistake.

“And just what did you plan to do with him?”

Obadiah shook his head and shrugged.

“Step aside, boy.” Dr. Tucker waved Obadiah off with his gun, and Obadiah took three steps to the side.

Dr. Tucker stepped up to the Union soldier. Whirr-click. Whirr-click. Whirr-click.

Even from as far away as she stood, Dusky could see the soldier's legs trembling. He licked his bone-dry lips before he spoke.

“I surrender to you, sir.”

“You're a Union scout,” Dr. Tucker said. It wasn't a question, but the soldier nodded to affirm it.

“How far?” Dr. Tucker asked. The soldier shook his head and teetered back on his heels before righting himself.

Dr. Tucker took another step forward. Whirr-click. “Sherman,” he said. “How far away is he?”

The soldier shrugged. Dusky couldn't tell if the man had refused to answer or couldn't. Dr. Tucker cocked his revolver and pointed it at the dying man's face.

“A day's march,” the soldier said. “No more.” He struggled to take a new breath. “I throw myself on your mercy.”

Dr. Tucker shot the man between the eyes, knocking him to the ground.

Dusky let out a little scream, then stifled it by clapping her hands over her face.

Dr. Tucker looked at her then with a cold eye. “He's the first Yankee to die on my land,” he said. “He won't be the last.”

Dr. Tucker pivoted on his good heel, swung his machine leg around, and headed back into the barn.

Whirr-click. Whirr-click. Whirr-click.

Dr. Tucker closed the door behind him. Obadiah rushed over to Dusky, who still stood watching the dead soldier, her hands clamped over her mouth.

“It's all right,” he said to her. “Come with me.”

He put a strong arm around her and walked her down to the shack. As they neared the door, she began to shake. “But the doctor,” she started.

Obadiah shushed her. “Don't worry none about that,” he said as he guided her in through the door. “Come this time tomorrow, we all going to be past worrying about that.” She shut the door to the shack. “What do you mean?”

Obadiah swallowed. “You know the machine the doctor been working on so long?”

Dusky nodded. She had never seen it, but she had heard the men talking about it: a massive machine of battle that the doctor claimed would bring about the end of the war and deliver the South from the Union's aggression. She hadn't believed Dr. Tucker's wild claims, figuring them to be the rantings of a madman still in grief over losing his leg at Sharpsburg.

“It can't be real,” she said.

Obadiah frowned. “It's real, all right. I seen it.”

Dusky shuddered. “But—but ”

She sat on one of the beds and held herself, rubbing her hands over her shoulders. She'd been foolish enough to let hope take root in her heart. Hope that the Union might somehow win the war. Hope that she might someday put this plantation far behind.

Obadiah sat next to her and put his arms around her. She turned toward him and buried her face in his shoulder and wept. When she finished, he reached under her chin and tilted her face up so that he could look into it.

She saw that he had tears glittering his eyes too, although none of them had spilled down onto his face.

“It's gonna be all right,” he said. And she believed him.

He brought his face closer to hers, and their lips brushed together in a tender kiss. She drew back.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

A smile broke through as she wiped away her tears. “I—I just never kissed a man before.”

He smiled, showing all his teeth. “You think I'm a man?”

She felt a hunger leap up inside of her. She leaned upward and kissed him again. “Do you think I'm a woman?”

His eyes shone at her, the tears that had welled there gone, replaced with a warmth that Dusky now realized she'd longed to see. He brought his face down to hers again. “For sure.”

Dusky felt her body arch toward Obadiah's, pressing his chest against her breasts. Their tongues came together, and she discovered that he tasted sweeter than any berry. She felt herself being carried away, body and soul.

Then a sound came outside the door.

“Obadiah!” a voice came. “You in there?”

The heat between Dusky and Obadiah evaporated. She recognized the voice. It belonged to Emmanuel, the man who'd taken over as the head of the men after her daddy died.

Obadiah looked at Dusky and froze, unable to open his mouth. Dusky stood and headed for the back door. If Emmanuel caught her in here, the best she could expect was a whipping. She stopped to give Obadiah one last kiss, though, and that's when the door burst open.

“Obadiah!”

Emmanuel stood silhouetted in the doorway, his bulk occupying the entire frame from edge to edge. Without a moment's thought, Dusky fled, her feet carrying her out the back door and up the low hill toward the main house. She was halfway home before she regained control.

She stopped and looked back at the shack and its empty front door. Emmanuel was shouting something at Obadiah, but Dusky couldn't quite make out his words. When his form appeared in the doorway again, she turned back toward the main house and sprinted away, not stopping until she was safe in the room she shared with the other girls.