Blackwolf's Redemption

He crooned soft words to her. Stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back. He gentled her as he would have a filly in desperate need of a tender touch, and after a while, her sobs eased.

Her grip on him did not.

Carefully, he lifted her from the stool, carried her into the sitting room, settled into a big chair with her safely in his lap.

“What is it?” he said. “Sienna, sweetheart, talk to me.”

She shook her head, kept it buried against his chest. He cupped her cheek, urged her face to his. Her hair was wild and tangled, her eyes were violet pools of sorrow, her nose was pink and running. She was beautiful beyond belief, and with stunning suddenness, he knew that finding her had changed his life forever, that what he felt for her went beyond passion and desire.

It scared him almost as much as it filled him with joy, he thought, and he gathered her even closer.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “Baby, please. Tell me what it is. I’ll make it better. Just tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Whatever it is, sweetheart, I promise, I’ll make it better.”

She gave a sad little laugh. “But you can’t. No one can make it better. If I were to tell you—if I were to tell you about me…”

Hell. She was talking about why she’d come to the canyon. The sacred stone, the ledge, all that nonsense that didn’t mean a damn to him anymore, that could never, even when he’d bought into it, mean half as much as she did.

“Sienna. There’s nothing you could tell me that would change how I feel about you.”

“I know you believe that, Jesse. But it’s not true.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “There are things—there are things about me that would—would change everything.”

“No,” he said emphatically. “I don’t believe that.”

“Jesse.” Gently, she put her fingers over his lips. “Either you wouldn’t believe me or you’d—you’d see me differently, see me as someone else, someone you thought you knew but didn’t, and—and—”

He kissed her. Kissed her until her mouth softened under his, until she was clinging to him. Then he rose to his feet with her still in his arms, carried her back to the bedroom, pulled the duvet from the bed and wrapped them both in its voluminous folds. French doors opened onto a terrace. He opened the doors, carried her outside, sat in a wicker chair with her in his arms.

“Warm enough?”

She nodded. How could she not be warm in Jesse’s arms? The cold would come soon enough, when she told him what she should have told him much, much sooner. That she wasn’t of this time, of his time. That somehow she had stumbled backward more than three decades.

And delaying things wouldn’t make the telling any easier.

Sienna looked at her lover’s face, so strong and proud and beautiful in the moonlight.

“All right.” Her voice was low. She took his hand, clasped it tightly in hers. “Here’s what you need to know about me. And—and it really will change what you think you feel about—”

He kissed her to silence. When he lifted his head, he looked deep into her eyes.

“I know what I feel about you,” he said softly. “And nothing can change it.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m not—I’m not who, I’m not what you think I am.”

“I don’t give a damn about that,” he said, almost angrily. “Whatever you’ve done, why you were in the canyon…” He brought her hand to his lips. “It’s history.”

She laughed, even as she wept. “No. It isn’t history. It’s just the opposite. But you have to know the truth, and—and the truth can change things.”

“Yes. You’re right.” He took a long breath, slowly expelled it. “And that’s why you need to know the truth about me.”

“No. Jesse—”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. He lifted her from his lap, carefully tucked the duvet around her, got to his feet and walked to the terrace railing, his strong, half-naked body outlined by the lights of the city far below.

“I told you that I was in Special Forces. You know what that means?”

She nodded. Of course she knew. Even in her world, people spoke with awe of the Green Berets, soldiers who fought clandestine battles. They were the bravest of the brave.

“And you know about this war.” His mouth twisted as he turned toward her. “This goddamned war that’s finally come to an end.”

Bewildered, she stared at him. The wars in the desert kingdoms? He couldn’t be talking about—

“Vietnam,” he said, almost spitting out the word. “A politicians’ war—paid for with the blood of men like the ones with whom I served.”