Given (5 page)

The instinct to protect his people and kill indiscriminately, shredding throats and ripping out entrails, warred viciously with his common sense instinct. Killing three white men would only bring trouble for the people of his town and for the underground's cause—not to mention that he feared it would do something irreversible to his soul. With flaring nostrils and short, angry breaths, he watched them—watched the three men who he sensed were nothing but masses of evil covered with skin. Their malevolence was palpable, reaching out and touching him as if with a large hand. His big body shuddered in revulsion, his mind automatically rejecting the contact.

The three men had dismounted from their horses and were searching the area just off the side of the road. Jacob recognized none of them, which told him they were new to the area. He deliberately stepped on a branch, making it crack loudly in the stillness. His eyes glowed with satisfaction when all three men spun around, trying to figure out where the sound had come from.

“You hear that?” one of the men asked the other two in an almost fearful whisper. Jacob surmised that he was the one most easily frightened, therefore, probably the one with the least amount of say, if he had any at all.

“Obviously we did, Tom. We're not deaf. The sound came from over there.” This was said with bravado by the man Jacob assumed to be the leader, as he pointed in the general direction of the woods where Jacob was hidden. “Whoever is in there, you come on out. Now!”

Jacob froze, going as still and as silent as the night.

“You hear me, you damned niggers?” the presumed leader demanded. “We know all about your plan to escape, so you just come on out peaceably. If you don't, we'll be forced to come in after you, and you won't like that.”

The third man said nothing. Just cocked his gun and fired.

And he'd be the most dangerous one
. Jacob had all the evidence he needed for that conclusion.
All action, no talk
. The bullet had come nowhere near him, but it was still his signal to leave. He'd gotten what he'd come for, but in preparing to go back to the barn, he couldn't resist enlightening them. Throwing his large head back on his neck, he let out a roar loud enough to reverberate through the woods and to the town. He watched the slave catchers as they, with wide eyes and frantic, clumsy motions, scrambled, hurrying to get to their horses.

Jacob turned to go, then paused as he heard one of the slave catchers say urgently, “No! Don't shoot blindly, you idiot! You'll just make it madder.”

“What does it matter? We can take care of any animal that—”

“Shut up! Now is not the time.”

Jacob was still in the woods as he heard the three gallop away. As he continued on his journey back to the barn, he thought about sharing this particular tale with his father and brother. He wouldn't even object if his sister insisted on sitting in (as she usually did) for this one. He needed to let them all know that they had some new slave catchers in town who were good enough to track him for miles, mostly undetected. The desire to smile quickly returned when he thought about whom he would notify first. A quick dunk in the creek should rid him of the smell, an odor he knew would tempt Mary Katherine to speak aloud the accusation of beast he was sure she'd been calling him in her head. After that, he'd take the short trip to see the lovely lady, Miss Day. She'd be happy to know he hadn't been caught in the trap. Now the question was who had set it.

After everyone left, Mary Katherine took her time tidying the simply furnished hidden room. It held only an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, and a washbasin. The plain, whitewashed walls glowed from the light of the lantern, giving the room a coziness it would otherwise have lacked, though the colorful quilt on the bed did brighten its stark confines somewhat. She changed the linen in a practiced motion and emptied the chamber pot. Finally, realizing that she was shaking like a leaf, she sat down on the edge of the bed.

She didn't probe too deeply as to why she was so worried about a man who did nothing but aggravate her. She'd be equally concerned about any of her brethren of the underground. At least that was what she told herself. After all, she was even worried about Cameron, and she didn't really know the man. She stretched out on the newly made bed, intending only to take a short nap.

* * *

Instead she was awakened near dawn by the sound of someone tapping out the new code on the cellar door. Trembling in her eagerness, she sprang from the bed and rushed over to open the door and found Jacob standing there.

“Well, you told me to let you know if I came out whole,” he drawled when she just stared at him.

Mary Katherine resisted the urge to hug him, but it was a near thing. She gestured for him to enter the room, then secured the door. “What happened? Was it a trap?”

He nodded. “But I was able to get away.”

She barely dared to ask. “And the cargo?”

That grin broke out over his face again. “Safe as can be. So what is my reward for my cleverness in not only escaping a trap but for saving our cargo as well?”

Mary Katherine had been about to say something, but at that moment Jacob simply lowered his head and fastened his mouth on hers. Any other thoughts she might have had went out of her head the moment their lips met. This was not like their first kiss. Then Jacob had been playing, teasing her. Now there was a physical urgency and force to his kiss and the way his arms quivered, even though he wasn't holding her tightly. Oddly enough, his restraint was even more arousing.

From the way his body shuddered against hers, she could tell that his restraint was costing him. This knowledge compelled her to press closer; one arm went around his neck, and the other around his heavily muscled back. Apparently he took this as a signal to pursue his suit, because his right hand slipped down from its place around her waist to her hips. Before she knew it, he was stroking and squeezing her buttocks—and pulling her closer. Even through the layers of her gown and petticoat, she could feel his large hands as though he were touching her bare flesh. His engorged penis pressed against her, and the evidence of his desire heightened hers further.

Mary Katherine couldn't hold back her groans as excitement coursed through her. She began to grind against him, instinctively trying to press his erection against the center of her arousal. But he was too tall, and despite her frenzied efforts, she couldn't get close enough to the ecstasy his thick penis offered. It seemed then that Jacob was sexually experienced enough to know what she needed, for he slipped his thigh between her legs. She clung tighter to him, grinding her throbbing cleft against his thigh. Harder and harder, she pressed herself against his thigh, desperate for something.

Pleasure surged through her, winding her nerves tighter and tighter, until she thought she'd die if she didn't stop—and knew for certain that she'd die if she did. The muscles of her stomach clenched as she rode him. Closer and closer, the feeling came, until suddenly it broke free. Ecstasy swept through her body in waves so intense that Mary Katherine thought she would lose consciousness, and she screamed out her pleasure in shock and fear.

She stood in his embrace for long moments afterward, her head resting against his chest, too embarrassed to look up at him. She felt the laughter rumbling up through his massive chest before she heard it.

“Mary Katherine, you've nothing to be embarrassed about, but you do realize you have to marry me now.”

She raised her head abruptly from his chest and moved out of his arms. She couldn't look at him as she hurriedly straightened her clothes. “I-I know no such thing, Mr. Adams. Thank you for letting me know that you're safe. Now I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. Good night.”

He stared at her for a long moment, as though he meant to argue. Then he shook his head and walked over to the cellar door. “You are going to marry me,” he told her resolutely. He turned and walked out the door before she had a chance to rebut his comment.

This was a good thing, because she didn't have a clue as to what she would say. She had behaved scandalously, and she was frankly surprised that he was still asking her to marry him. Maybe it was just out of habit—after all, he'd been doing it for months. Mary Katherine yawned, feeling a pleasant lassitude of a sort that she'd never felt before.

She'd sleep well for what little remained of the night, and she was not going to spend another second of it thinking about Jacob Adams.

* * *

Jacob sat, his elbows resting on the well-worn maple table that was in the middle of their kitchen. The coffee he sipped from an enamelware mug was strong and bitter, just as he liked it. He hoped his sister had some milk in the icebox. She always complained that his coffee was undrinkable without it. The kitchen was the only family living space on the first floor of the building that housed their carpentry shop. The bedrooms and living room were on the second floor. He traced one finger along the grain of the tabletop. They'd had the table for as long as he could remember, and his father had talked about replacing it for nearly as long. Jacob looked up as his father entered the kitchen. “Good morning, Papa,” he said as he took another sip of coffee.

His father, Caleb, stared at him for a moment and then walked over to the stove to pour a cup of coffee. He raised the pot to offer more to Jacob, who nodded his acceptance.

“You're up early this morning, Son. How did it go last night?” Caleb asked as he poured coffee into Jacob's cup.

Jacob rubbed his forehead wearily. “Actually I haven't been to bed yet.”

Caleb took a seat at the heavily worn table. “Did something go wrong? You left here fairly early. That run shouldn't have taken all night.”

“Well, you know we thought it might be a trap.” Jacob waited for Caleb to nod. “We were right.”

Caleb leaned forward, frowning his concern. “What happened?”

Jacob related the early events of the previous evening.

Caleb chuckled. “I'd almost forgotten about that trapdoor. I haven't used it in years.” Then his frown returned. “So if you got away from them, what is the problem?”

A loud scraping noise pierced the morning stillness as Jacob pushed his chair back across the hardwood floor. He began to pace the small kitchen, trying to figure out a way to tell his father about the disturbing encounter. It was so early that Matthew and Grace hadn't gotten up yet. Which was unusual, as Grace was typically the first one down to start breakfast. Jacob looked out the window without really seeing the gradually lightening sky. Their neighbor, the town baker, had been up well before sunrise. The air was redolent with the delectable aroma of bread baking.

He turned to face his father. “Those men, Papa; there was something about them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They managed to follow me, and I couldn't detect it, not for a while, anyway. Sometimes I'd know without a doubt that they were there, and then other times I would sense only a trace of them.”

Caleb shrugged and took another sip of his coffee. “Even the best of us get caught out sometimes, Son. We're Eshu. Not God.”

Jacob didn't take the bait. His father frequently called him arrogant about his abilities as a conductor, but he had more important things on his mind at the moment. He continued as though he'd not been interrupted. “You don't understand, Papa. I wanted to rip their throats out.”

“Well, they
are
slave catchers,” Caleb said.

“I've encountered them before, even killed a few, but the desire to do so has never been so strong before. I have never wanted to tear them to shreds. It's as if I knew they were evil. Their smell…” He left the sentence hanging, wondering if his father would think he'd gone insane.