“What if he refused to let you know where he was going to be?”
She grinned. “Oh, he’d tell me. I could persuade him.”
“Yes, I believe you could. Then when he was shot at, you’d be there too, is that right?”
“You take the bad with the good.”
“Jess, I’m glad you didn’t marry the Raider.”
Jessica didn’t answer.
* * *
Three days after the Montgomery wedding, nearly everyone in town was standing on the wharf, their eyes turned up toward the admiral and his soldiers, who were standing on the bow of a ship.
For a full minute after the announcement, no one could speak. Everyone just stood there, mouth open, and blinked in disbelief. The admiral had announced that three of Warbrooke’s young men would be taken away to serve in His Majesty’s honor. All three of the men were big, strapping, healthy young men, all three were intelligent and had an air of independence about them.
One of the young men was Ethan Ledbetter.
“He thinks he’s sending the Raider away,” Jessica said under her breath.
The next moment the air was split with Abigail’s screams. Everyone turned to see Ethan put his strong arms around Abby and lead her away.
Jessica started to follow them, but Alex caught her arm.
“Leave them,” Alex said, pulling her away.
She struggled to free herself, but Alex held her fast as he forcibly guided her away from the crowd and toward the forest.
“Alex, will you stop mothering me? I want to go to Abigail.”
“For what reason? Jess, you’re to keep your nose out of this. The admiral thinks he has the Raider or he’s sure the Raider will try to rescue the men.”
She jerked out of Alex’s grip. “And the Raider will rescue the men. Everyone in town knows that.”
Alex rolled his eyes, his hands in fists at his sides. “Jess, the admiral will have twenty soldiers guarding those three. Not even your Raider can attack against odds like that.”
Jess smiled at him in a patronizing way. “Alex, cowardly men don’t know what it’s like to not be cowardly. The Raider will be bound by honor to save those three.”
“Honor? What about blood? The red kind that gets spilled when a man’s shot or stabbed.”
Jess turned on her heel. “I have no time to talk to you. You’d never understand.”
He grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. “I understand more than you do. You’re so overwhelmed by the romance of the Raider that you can’t see the consequences. And as for being a coward, let me point out that I have repeatedly saved your hide.”
Jessica leaned forward until she was nose to nose with Alex. He was actually several inches taller than she but he slouched so badly that they were usually about the same height. “The Raider will be there. I know he will. He could never allow such an injustice to be carried out. Twenty men, a hundred men, a thousand—they’re all the same to him. He doesn’t think about his own safety. He puts others before himself. He can dance before the enemy because he knows he has right on his side. Alex! Are you all right? Sit down here. You look a little pale.”
Alex sat down on a tree stump, and Jess, worried about him, touched his cheek. He pulled her to him and placed his head on her breast. “Does he mean so much to you?”
“He means so much to the town. Without him we’d have no hope. Someday maybe all of us will have the courage to stand up against the English, but today there’s just a select few of us.” She was holding him to her, stroking his back as if he were a child.
“Us?” Alex asked. “I thought only your Raider was standing up for America, that he was the only one braving the English bullets.”
“Alex, don’t start getting jealous again.”
“Jealous?” He moved his head so he could look at her but he kept her upper arms pinned down. “My wife rhapsodizes about another man, a man who is bigger than life, a man who makes the gods on Mount Olympus seem like cowards and you tell me not to be jealous.”
“Alex, you’re hurting me.”