“You can’t shoot at them,” Daniel said flatly. “Neither can Jesse.”
“But—”
“Unless we kill every man in that company, the two of you could be hanged as traitors at a later date, assuming you survived the fighting.”
“Sir—” Jeremy began. He was interrupted as Christa came running down the stairway with a large, lethal-looking revolver in her hands.
“Daniel! There are dozens of them out there!”
“Not dozens,” Jeremy corrected, his eyes raking her length. He looked to Daniel. “I know Dabney; I knew him before the war. He has a company, but no more than twenty. He can’t seem to keep much of a command around him. His men ask to be transferred. And they die. Frequently.”
Daniel nodded. “Thanks,” he told him.
“Wait!” Jeremy said. “This is my fight too!”
“Jeremy, it can’t be your fight. And Christa, have some faith in me! Put that damned gun down until I tell you that I need it.”
“There’s Yankees inside, and Yankees out!” Christa protested. “I wonder what happened to the overseer!” she cried. “He would have warned us if he could; he would have fought them …” She broke off, biting into her hand, misery clear in her features.
Jesse Cameron came hurrying down the stairway, loading a cartridge into his revolver. Daniel stared at his brother and then whispered, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“They’re attacking my home!” Jesse said flatly. “And I know damned well they haven’t been ordered to!”
“You can’t shoot at them! They’re still Yanks! Someone will have you court-martialed if you fight your own kind.”
Jesse Cameron was going to ignore his brother. Callie was glad of it—there was no way that Daniel could take on a company by himself, and she was becoming more and more aware of the furtive intruders herself. She could hear the creaks on the porches, hushed whispers near the windows.
Daniel was striding toward his brother.
“Jesse!” he said suddenly.
Jesse looked up. Daniel caught him in the jaw with a clean right hook.
Jesse Cameron slumped down to the floor.
At the top of the stairway, Kiernan cried out softly. She came running down the steps. “Daniel!”
“Jesu, Kiernan, I had to! He could be shot for what he was intending to do!”
“If we survive this!” Kiernan moaned. “Daniel, they’re preparing to light fires out there. They mean to burn the house down.”
“I know,” Daniel said. “I’m going to take care of it.”
“It’s twenty to one out there!” Callie cried to him. “Don’t be a fool, you can’t—”
“I can’t have my brother hanged, Callie, and I will not have you and Christa and Kiernan endangered. And I’d just as soon not see your brother hanged either. For the love of God, will you all have some faith in me?” he demanded. “Stay here!”
Christa had found herself a position at one of the windows. The revolver was still in her hands. She was as ready to defend the place as her brothers.
“Kiernan, get that damned gun from Christa, will you? If I don’t come back, Dabney will have what he wants, and you won’t need to defend yourselves.”
“Daniel!” Christa protested. “We’re the Rebels! And you can’t knock me out like you did Jesse.”
“I would,” Jeremy muttered.
Daniel cast them both warning stares. “Leave me to this, damn you, both of you! Christa, put the gun down! If I am killed, don’t you go trying to shoot them! Jesse can negotiate something for you.”
“No!” Christa protested.
“Cameron, whatever your plan is, I’m going with you. Damn it, if Dabney is here now, it might well mean that he followed me, and that I brought this on,” Jeremy insisted.
“I brought it on!” Callie said softly.
“If you want to help me, keep an eye on my sister,” Daniel told him.
“What?” Christa demanded, indignant, incredulous, and furious.
But Daniel paid her no heed. He was staring at Callie. Suddenly, he wasn’t there at all anymore. He had slipped through the door.
“What is he doing?” Callie demanded desperately.
Kiernan, holding Jesse’s head in her lap, sighed softly. “He’s gone to war,” she said.
“He can’t fight them alone!” Callie said.
Christa still had her gun. “He isn’t alone,” she murmured.
Callie bit her lip and moved toward Kiernan. She curled her fingers around Jesse’s gun. “I’m going with him!” she whispered.
“The hell you are!” Jeremy growled behind her. He grabbed the gun from her, and sighed, looking at Jesse. “They can sure punch, huh?”
“Yes,” Kiernan agreed.
Jeremy tried to lift Jesse to something of a sitting position, but it was true, Daniel knew how to knock out a man.
After all, Jesse had taught him just how to do it.
“He’s going to wake up madder than a hornet,” Jeremy said. He pressed a finger to his lip. They could both see a shadow by the window in the dining room.
There was silence, then a big thump.
Daniel was out there, all right. But what was he doing? Callie wondered.
Jeremy’s eyes met hers. He winked.
Then her brother was off to join her husband, and she was left behind.
To worry. To wait. She gazed at Kiernan and Kiernan at her.
“Oh, dear God, please!” she whispered aloud. The tension mounted.
It was not difficult surrounding his own house in a sure, silent movement. Daniel knew the exact placement of every small bush and trellis.
He stayed low on the porch, moving on the balls of his feet to come around to the north wing of the house. Two men were busy by a dining room window, stuffing straw against the base of it. Daniel rose and padded softly to them.
“Hey!” he said.
They turned to look at him. He caught the first with the butt of his gun in the jaw. He brought the second down with the return thud of the barrel.
He paused long enough to look them over well, stripping them of their weapons. One of them was carrying a Spencer repeating rifle. Daniel acquired that as his own.
He began to inch around the house again. In the rear were three men, setting dry twigs. It seemed that Dabney still considered himself safe from sight. Or maybe he thought Daniel was the only male in residence. That couldn’t be true, if Jeremy was right, and Eric Dabney had followed him out. No, Dabney had to think that he had been quiet enough so that the household still slept. That was to Daniel’s advantage.
He dropped down below the porch level to the ground, coming around the back. He waited for one of the men to near the edge, then he jerked him over by a foot. The flailing man cried out. Daniel belted him in the jaw, and he crumpled like a puppet. But he’d been heard.
“Jace, what’s going on down there!” someone hissed. Footsteps came to the edge of the porch. A wary soldier looked over.
Daniel jerked him down too. This fellow fell with a crunch to his arm. Daniel heard the bone snap.
He didn’t have to hit the fellow. The soldier opened his eyes once, stared at Daniel with alarm, and passed out cold.
Daniel looked up. The third Yank was staring at him. He was going to have to pull his gun and shoot. He hadn’t wanted to make that kind of noise and alarm the others.
But he didn’t pull his gun. To his amazement, the soldier’s eyes flew open wide and then closed, and the man toppled over the porch.
He looked at the fallen man, then looked up. Jeremy McCauley was grinning down at him. “Want a hand up?” he mouthed.
It seemed there was no point talking sense to Yankees. Daniel reached for his hand, and Jeremy helped him leap up to the porch.
He tensed as he realized that someone was coming around the corner. He started to cock his Colt, then realized that it was his brother.
Jesse was rubbing his fist, as if he’d just given som
ebody a good knocking with it.
“Can’t talk sense into Yankees, and can’t knock it into them, either!” Daniel complained.
“I’m going to knock some into you, little brother, when this is over,” Jesse warned him.
“Christ among us!” Daniel complained. “I’m trying to keep the two of you from a hanging!”
“Fine,” Jesse said. He hunkered down low, rubbing his sore jaw. “There were two on my side,” he whispered.
“Two on the north side, three back here,” Daniel said.
“Seven,” Jeremy murmured.
“And the rest … ?”
“The barn,” Jesse suggested. “It will burn like a hellhole!”
It would, Daniel thought quickly. He rose. “If you’re with me, come on!” he told his brother and brother-in-law.
They started to move off the porch. It was then they heard a shot fired and then a bloodcurdling scream from the front of the house.
Christa was by the front door, sunk down by the narrow strip of etched glass on the side of it. Kiernan stood on one side of the great hall, watching the dining room windows, and Callie stood on the other side of the hall, looking out through the parlor.
“I hear … something!” Christa whispered.
Both Callie and Kiernan hurried toward her. Callie stared out, searching the frozen scenery, feeling as if her heart had lodged permanently in her throat. Kiernan was beside her, and the three of them searched the front in the morning light that grew ever brighter.
Callie felt something cold and sharp at her spine. She swallowed down a gasp, turning around.
Eric Dabney was there, holding a pistol to her. He had come in from behind them. Instinctively she looked toward the stairway, praying that no one had reached the children.
He saw the way that her eyes moved. He smiled, his eyes bright, amused.
“I haven’t been up there, Callie, not yet. And I won’t go up there. Maybe I won’t even burn the house. Not if you come with me. And not if you help me bring in Daniel Cameron.”
“Help you?” she queried, fighting desperately to remain calm. “There are any number of you here, Eric: Daniel is out there alone. You need my help?”
“He isn’t alone,” a man behind Eric said, and Callie realized that he had entered the house with two of his soldiers. “Why, we got men down—”
“Get away from Callie,” Christa interrupted the man, aiming at him.
“I’ll get her—” Eric’s man began, taking a single step.
“Stop!” Christa warned.
But he didn’t heed her. Christa fired her gun and Callie heard a long horrible scream. No, it was two screams combined, for the wounded man had screamed, and so had she. The second of Eric’s soldiers hurtled himself toward Christa, wrenching the gun from her grasp before she could fire again. Christa swore savagely, something not at all ladylike.
“She’s killed him,” the man said to Dabney. “She’s done killed Bobby Jo.”
“He’s not dead; he’s still breathing,” Dabney said. He stared at Callie, twirling the fine end of his mustache. Heedless of the fallen man at his side, he grinned slowly, having seen Callie about to reach for Christa’s fallen weapon. He took careful aim and a shot exploded by the gun, which forced her to wrench back her hand and stare at him furiously.
“Come here, Callie. And say thank you, will you? I’ve come to bring you home.”
“I am home,” Callie told him. “So you can just get your men—”
“I’m taking Daniel Cameron again, Callie. Dead or alive. Preferably dead. He tore up half my company the last time we met. Cost me good horses.”
“Cost you a promotion again too,” the man holding Christa supplied.
“Shut up, fool!” Dabney hissed. “This time. Callie. that Reb is going to die.”
“You didn’t best him before, and you won’t best him now!” Callie told him heatedly.
He kept his gun trained on her and walked to the window where his man now held Christa in something like a death grip.
“What have we here?” Eric asked softly.
Christa spit at him. He laughed. “Why, Callie, after I finish with you, I just might have a talk with this little lady….”
“Touch my sister-in-law,” Kiernan warned, “and my husband will see to it that you hang.”
“And just who might your husband be?”
“Colonel Jesse Cameron, Army of the Potomac,” Kiernan enunciated sharply.
“Well, Mrs. Cameron, I imagine that he’s far, far away—”
“He’s right outside with his brother,” Kiernan said.
“There’s another Yank with the Reb too,” Eric’s man muttered.
Eric looked at Callie. She smiled grimly. “Jeremy’s out there too, Eric. You’re going to war against him?”
Eric Dabney’s handsome face seemed to darken. “Why, damn you, Callie! You’ve made a traitor of your own brother. You deserve to pay and pay dearly!”
He caught hold of her, swirling her out in front of him. Before she was aware of what he intended to do, she was staggering to her knees, taken unaware by the force of his blow. She swallowed hard, determined not to cry out. But then his fingers entwined in her hair, wrenching her back to her feet, and a cry did escape her lips.
Fury ignited within her. She swirled, despite her pain, kicking him with all of her strength and managing to draw a groan from his lips. But it was to no avail, for too quickly he had her hair again, and she was wrenched so tight against his body that she could scarcely scream.
“You and that damned Rebel! You turned me away to bed down with him! Well, that’s all over now, ma’am. This hellhole of traitors is going to light up the sky, and Daniel Cameron is going to die. I’m going to cut his throat in front of you, Callie. I’m going to let you watch your hero beg for mercy.”
Callie bit her lip. “You’re sick!” she told him.
“Maybe I am.” He turned around, suddenly taking careful aim at Kiernan. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t let out a sound. “I’ll shoot her, Callie. I’ll shoot her right now unless you start being a little helpful.”
“If Daniel doesn’t kill you, you’re going to hang,” Callie promised him softly.
“Maybe. Let’s go. You come with me now, and these two ladies will have a chance to save your brats before the flames become an inferno.”
“Light the fires!” He bellowed out the order.
Nothing happened.
Callie smiled, hating him, and wondering what could have gone so wrong with his mind that he could hate her so.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he ordered her. He jerked her close against him. “It’s you, Callie, always you! From the beginning. You wouldn’t look at me because you had to have Michaelson! Well, lady, place that at your feet too. No battle killed him.”
She stared at Eric and gasped with horror. “You killed him! You murdered your best friend! Dear God, you bastard—”
“Just so long as you know there is nothing I won’t do, Callie,” he interrupted softly. His voice rang out again.
“Light the goddamn fires!” Eric exploded. He jerked on her hair again. “In a moment, Callie, you’ll smell the smoke.”
But there was no smoke. No sound, no fire.
“Let’s go out and get your husband, shall we, Mrs. Cameron?” Eric said to her.
Callie felt ill. She could scarcely stand. All these years she thought that she had been fighting the South.
But during all these years, it had been Eric who had declared war on her. He had killed her husband.
And now he wanted Daniel.
“Eric!” she cried suddenly. “Forget this! Forget the house, forget Daniel. Let’s forget the whole war. I’ll go with you. I’ll ride with you—”
“Too late, Callie,” he said softly. “It’s too late now. I’ve got to kill him.”
Eric dragged Callie to the doorway. He stroked her cheek with his gun.
“Keep quiet, and I may let you live. Jensen,
you stay here, and keep your gun on these two.” He indicated Kiernan and Christa. “The others will be out in the barn. I’ll get help once I’ve gotten Cameron.”
Dragging Callie tightly along with him, he threw open the front door.
“Call your husband. Tell him that you need him.”
His fingers were tight on her upper arm. In a moment he would force her to do something.
To betray Daniel again….
No, Daniel would understand this time.
If he lived.
Callie couldn’t risk his life. She closed her eyes for a moment. It might not just be his life. It might be Kiernan’s and Jesse’s and Christa’s and her brother’s and John Daniel’s and …
Jared.
She twisted her head, sinking her teeth hard into Eric’s hand. She didn’t care about the rifle in his hands—she just bit down. As hard as she could.
Eric screamed out. But he didn’t release her.
She cried out, “Daniel, don’t come! It’s just what he wants you to do. Daniel, stay away—”
She saw Daniel. He had moved around the house, sneaking up on Dabney’s men, one by one. They littered the area around the house, some slumped over, either unconscious or dead, and several of them tied up like hogs.
Now he stood just below the porch in plain view. His gun was trained on Eric.
“Let her go. Now,” Daniel commanded, his tone deathly quiet.
“I’ll kill her first,” Eric said. “You drop the gun. Then she lives.”
“No!”
Callie kicked him hard, and he lost his grasp.
“Callie, no!” Daniel shrieked to her.
But she had to reach him.
She ran.
She heard simultaneous explosions of gunfire. There was a sting, high up on her temple, just like that of a bee.
She reached for her face, and her fingers came away red. She tried to turn. She didn’t need to run anymore. Eric was dead. Daniel had taken him down even as she had burst away from him. Sightless now, Eric Dabney stared up at the sky.
Callie stumbled. She looked before her.
Daniel was running to her. His blue eyes were suddenly naked. Brilliant with color. She wanted to smile; she wanted to touch him.
She had never seen such concern. Such love. In all of her dreams, she had never imagined him looking at her as he was looking at her now.