Blackwolf's Redemption

Vietnam. Of course. She knew of it, that it had been unpopular, that in her time, not his, the men in suits who had directed it from the safety of their comfortable offices had finally acknowledged it had been fought wrong.

“They died because of me,” Jesse said, his voice so low she could hardly hear it. “Because I was fool enough to order them to do things when I knew it was all wrong, that what we did didn’t really mean a damn, that there was no way to win.”

“No! Jesse, you did what you were ordered to do—”

“Men died because of me. Soldiers. Warriors. Men? Damn it, they were kids! I didn’t stop it, couldn’t stop it—”

Sienna rose in one fluid motion and went to him.

“Jesse. Sweetheart, listen to me—”

“You think it’s okay. But it isn’t. It changed everything. I’ve seen how some people look at me. I’ve heard their whispers.” A long, deep breath. “My wife laid it all out.”

Sienna went rigid. “You have a wife?”

“I had a wife. She left me, we got a divorce. The marriage wouldn’t have lasted, anyway—it was one of those things, a mistake, from the beginning. We’d dated in high school. I came home from college, we went out a couple of times…And I enlisted.”

“You enlisted,” Sienna said softly. She put her hand lightly on his arm, felt the terrible tension in his muscles. “Jesse. Whatever you did in the war… You were a hero.”

He shook his head. “I was a fool,” he said bitterly, “all fired up on nonsense about warriors and honor and fighting for what was right.”

She moved in front of him, rose on her tiptoes and kissed him. “You are a warrior, Jesse, and a man of honor who fought for the men beside you.”

He looked at her then, saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. They were for him, and though he had shoved away Linda’s initial offerings of polite sympathy, he knew Sienna’s tears were more than that. They were tears of compassion, of caring…

Of caring, he thought, and his heart seemed to lift inside him.

“It’s cool out here,” he said softly. He put his arm around her, plucked the duvet from the terrace floor where it had fallen and led her into the bedroom. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s see if this place has the fixings for tea. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay,” she said as she burrowed against him.

In the kitchen again, he found a kettle, tea bags, mugs, spoons… He kept busy, fidgeting with them, arranging them, and then, when there was no arranging left to do, he turned to Sienna, sitting at the counter.

“We got married for all the wrong reasons.” The kettle whistled. He unplugged it, poured the boiling water into the mugs. “She, because she thought I was somebody I’d never wanted to be. Me because, I don’t know, it seemed the right thing to do.” Jesse put a steaming mug in front of Sienna. “It didn’t take long to know we’d screwed up. We tried, for a while. She wanted a bigger house. I tore down the old one and built a new one. It didn’t matter. She said I was a stranger.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Hell, I was. To her, to myself.”

Sienna waited. When he said nothing, she touched his hand. “And?”

“And, my marriage was finished, my folks were gone, everything I’d believed in seemed meaningless. I decided to start over. Numbers had always been my thing. When I was a kid, math was the only subject I bothered with. When I got older, it was poker.” A quick smile tilted his lips. “I’d played cards in Saigon and Tokyo and what seemed like half the army bases in the civilized world, came home with a lot of money, decided stocks were more interesting than poker.” His jaw tightened, his voice went flat. “I made even more money, bought this place. But it didn’t change anything. I was still me, inside.”

“And that’s why you’re going to sell your land,” Sienna said softly.

He nodded. “It’s not a good place anymore. Too many memories, you know? The nonsense my old man fed me about a warrior’s vows, a warrior’s obligations…” Silence. Jesse put down his untouched mug of tea and took Sienna’s hands in his. “Then, one night, I rode out into Blackwolf Canyon. I told myself it was so I could say a mocking goodbye to the past.” He reached for her hands and brought them to his lips. “And,” he said, with a simplicity that brought tears to her eyes, “I found you. A miracle, waiting just for me.”

Sienna wanted to put her arms around him, this brave, wounded hero, this amazing man, this lover who had stolen her heart. But she couldn’t, not until he knew everything.