The Girl with the Iron Touch. Kady Cross

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СКАЧАТЬ alone than have to worry about you,” he retorted.

      All thought of unfairness went out the bloody window. “You foolish, ridiculous, backward—” Her tongue seized when he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her close.

      “Seeing you fight that Kraken almost did me in, Em. I can’t go through that again. The thought of losing you…” Sam’s gaze locked with hers. “I can’t live in a world without you in it.”

      Oh. Oh. A few pretty words and her heart melted. Her resolve, however, didn’t waiver. “You’re going to have to accept it, boyo, because I can’t wait here for you to return, wondering if I’ll be able to put you back together again. You’re not going without me.”

      “Stubborn wench.”

      “Thick-skulled jackanapes.”

      “That’s your fault, isn’t it? You put metal in my head, no wonder it’s thick!”

      She stared at him a second, fighting the laughter bubbling up inside her. It was no use; it poured out from her belly until she had to wipe her eyes, and even then it was difficult to stop.

      “This is funny to you, is it?” Sam demanded.

      There had been a time when he would have laughed, as well. Finley and Jasper wouldn’t believe her, but Emily remembered a time when consternation and anger weren’t etched into his handsome face. A time when he didn’t take everything as a personal insult. A time when he hadn’t treated her as though she were made of the thinnest glass.

      She took his hand in his. “Smile a wee bit, Sam. Please? Just for me.”

      “I don’t think your safety is anything to smile over.” He made it sound like something nasty.

      “You don’t find much worth smiling over anymore.” She tried to keep the disappointment from her voice, but he stiffened at the remark, regardless.

      “No, I don’t.” Hesitation turned his expression from anger to uncertainty. “I don’t like being like this, Em. I can’t seem to stop it.”

      Was that her fault? When she put him back together the first time, had it been a mistake? She refused to think of it like that, but there was no denying that he had changed.

      She swallowed. “Do you blame me?”

      He started. “No. You saved me. I wouldn’t be alive if not for you.”

      “You wouldn’t be partially metal, either. You wouldn’t be so unhappy.”

      “Do you regret it? Do you ever wish you’d just let me die?”

      Pain pierced her heart. “No, Sam. Lord, no.” She reached up and took his rugged face in her hands. He was so big, so strong. So vulnerable. “I would give anything for you to be happy again.”

      “I’m happy when I’m with you.”

      Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “Oh, lad.”

      He picked her up as though she weighed no more than a child and set her on the workbench so that they were practically eye to eye. His size and strength should frighten her—men often did frighten her—but with Sam she never felt anything but safe. He treated her with tenderness when she was used to violence.

      He was the first—and the only—male she ever thought it would be nice to have touch her.

      “I have to go,” she explained. “If we run into an automaton that hasn’t learned language I’m the only one who can communicate with it. We’ll have a device that interferes with mechanical armatures. I don’t know if it will affect you or not.” Meaning that this was one time when she was the best person for the job and he was not. “Finley will be with me. You know she won’t let anything hurt me.” Though, if metal went berserk, she was just as capable of bringing it down as Finley, perhaps more so.

      “I can’t tell you what to do,” he said in a soft tone. “I don’t want to boss you around. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

      She brushed a thick lock of hair back from his brow and lightly touched the furrow there. It dissolved almost immediately. There he was. There was her Sam. “Sometimes people get hurt,” she told him. She’d been hurt before, but she was still alive. She was still able to feel love and physical attraction despite what had been done to her.

      “But I can’t put you back together,” he whispered.

      Mary and Joseph, but he broke her heart. “You already have, Sam.” And it was true. “I can’t begin to count the ways you’ve mended me.”

      He kissed her then. Her heart leaped—not in fear but in joy. Butterflies tangled their wings in her stomach. Sam’s kiss and touch made her feel things she thought had been taken away from her by rough, cruel forces.

      Sam cupped her face as he pulled back just enough to look her in the eye. “I don’t want to lose you.”

      “You won’t. You won’t ever lose me, I promise.” And she meant it. “And someday, I’m going to make it so that all you want to do is smile.”

      He kissed her again, and it was a long time before either one of them spoke.

      Emily caught her skulking around outside the blue parlor, the horn of an ornophone against the door as she tried to listen to the conversation taking place on the other side.

      Mr. Isley and Griffin were discussing ghosts, but she was having the devil of a time hearing the full extent of their conversation. Something they were doing created a low-grade noise that partially drowned out their voices. Blast it all. How was she ever to know what was going on?

      “What are you doing?”

      Finley jumped. Fortunately she did so quietly. She could only hope the device made it just as difficult to hear what was going on in the corridor. She tiptoed toward her friend, her finger to her lips so Emily would shush. If Griffin caught her it was going to make it that much more difficult to find out what he was keeping from her.

      The library wasn’t far, so Finley gestured the other girl inside and then closed the door.

      “I was trying to eavesdrop on Griffin’s meeting.”

      “That much was obvious,” Emily replied disapprovingly. “Why?”

      The redhead’s wariness was to be expected. As good friends as the two of them had become, Emily’s loyalty belonged to Griffin first. And Emily favored a more direct approach than Finley did.

      “Because the bloke he’s talking to says he saw Lord Felix’s murder when he touched my hand.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And I want to know if he is what he seems, or if he’s a charlatan.”

      “A male medium? How interesting. Woman tends to be the more sensitive sex when dealing with the spirit realm.”

      Finley shrugged. “He seemed to find Jasper quite attractive.”

      Emily shot her a censorious look. “That doesn’t make him any less male.”

      Not physically СКАЧАТЬ