She was here now. She would help him. “I’ll stay,” she told him quietly.
He looked at her for a moment. “Good,” he said briefly. “I can use it.” He glanced to Tyne. “She’s good, isn’t she?”
Tyne, who had kept silent during the time they worked together, grinned. “She’s mighty good.” He looked at Kiernan. “We had three men fall flat down on their faces last week, Miz Kiernan. Soldier boys. You outdone them all,” he told her.
The day wasn’t over yet, Kiernan decided. They might yet see her flat on her face.
No, she told herself. She wasn’t going to pass out in front of Jesse.
But as the hours wore on, she survived. She discovered she had an instinct for working with Jesse. She sensed just what he would need, and when. Work between them narrowed down to a very few words, and time passed very quickly.
Yankees came and went. The two other Rebel soldiers were treated. Their wounds were very minor. The last of the patients came into the surgery, then went out.
Tyne left with the bloodstained laundry. Jesse scrubbed his hands, and Kiernan sank into Andrew Miller’s big swivel desk chair, exhausted.
“How are you?” Jesse asked her.
She felt his eyes on her, but she was too tired to care. Yet she felt more than the exhaustion. She felt a strange exhilaration along with it. She had mattered that day, had mattered very much. She had worked until she was bone tired, but the work had been good.
Even if she had been saving Yankees.
She understood something of what Jesse must feel as a doctor. Life—human life—was sacred.
It didn’t matter what color uniform a man wore.
“I’m fine,” she said very softly.
“Are you sure?” he queried, his voice equally quiet, and curious. He walked to where she sat and leaned over her, his hands upon the arms of the chair.
She smiled. “I’m tired. I think that I’m more tired than I’ve been in my whole life.”
Jesse nodded, watching her. She’d never seen his eyes look so blue. “It was a darned rough day. You should never have had to see half of what you saw today.”
No, she shouldn’t have had to see the naked male limbs, and she shouldn’t have had to see the dirt and the blood.
Once upon a time, the lady she had been trained to be would have fainted dead away at the thought.
But time had a way of changing things.
“I’m all right, really,” she told him. She searched out his eyes. “I even feel … good,” she admitted. “Is that very strange?”
He shook his head, smiling. “It is good to save lives, very good. And I’m glad that you feel that way.” He straightened. “But we were lucky today. We didn’t lose anyone.”
“Do you lose men often, Jesse?”
“Often enough. Cannons and rifles and bayonets are made to kill. And often enough, they do.”
She was silent—he was right. She was happy because she had not had to feel life slip away beneath her fingers.
“I’ve got to make rounds and see how our patients are faring,” he told her. “Get yourself a stiff drink, and go to bed. You’ll feel even better.”
He left her. She started to drift off to sleep in the chair, but then she heard a soft and soothing voice—Janey’s. “Chile, you are done worn out. Come on into the kitchen, I’ve a hot bath for you. And chicken soup. It’s been a long day. Lord, yes, a long day.”
Kiernan allowed herself to be led into the kitchen. Once undressed, she sank into the hot bath and found it close to heaven.
Soap had never smelled so sweet. Water had never encompassed her so gently, and heat had never touched her limbs so kindly. She sighed and relaxed. When she emerged, Janey was ready with a towel and chicken soup and a stiff brandy. Kiernan devoured both.
“I really did all right,” she murmured out loud to Janey.
“Yes, you did, Miz Kiernan. Yes, you did. Now, get on up to bed, because you’ll be feelin’ it in the mornin’.”
Kiernan knew that she was right. Drowsy, she thanked Janey and gave her a fierce hug. She was hugged just as tightly in return. She wrapped her flannel robe about herself and left the kitchen.
The men on cots in the great hall were quiet now. The house was quiet. The hour had grown very late. Kiernan moved quietly among them, heading for the stairway.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Miller,” Corporal O’Malley called to her.
She nodded to him and hurried up the stairs.
At the top she suddenly remembered T.J. She didn’t know where they had taken him, but she was closest to the ward that had been Anthony’s room, so she hurried in there.
The lights were dim; the men seemed to be sleeping. She heard a soft moan, but when she tiptoed over to the cot from where the sound had come, she found that the occupant was sleeping. She tiptoed away again, ready to leave the room.
“Mrs. Miller!” one of the Yanks called to her softly, a man who had been with them awhile.
“Yes?”
“Are you looking for the Rebs?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“They’re down the hall, in the boy’s room. He’s bunking in with his sister. Doc needed the space, and the boy didn’t mind none. Neither did the little girl.”
“Thank you,” Kiernan told him.
She hurried out and down the hallway. She opened the door to Jacob’s room—then backed away from what she saw.
Jesse was bent over one of the Rebs. She started to turn, but he said softly to her, “Come in, Kiernan.”
He couldn’t have seen her in the dark, but she came in, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, then Jesse beckoned her forward. He was seeing to T.J.
T.J. was still. Eyes closed, he was as still as …
Death.
“Oh, God!” she breathed.
Jesse looked at her, startled, then shook his head, smiling. “Kiernan, he’s doing very well.”
“Oh!” She felt weak, but she couldn’t faint now, she couldn’t possibly, not after the day she had been through.
“He’s sleeping soundly.”
“His leg—?”
“Only time will tell.”
She nodded, and clenched her nails into her palms to fight the dizziness that assailed her. She wanted to tell him that she was grateful, but she was suddenly afraid to talk.
She turned quickly. “Good night, Jesse,” she said quickly.
“Good night,” he responded.
Next, Kiernan looked in on the children. Curled together on Patricia’s bed, they were sleeping sweetly.
She returned to her own room. It seemed like aeons since she had left it, but it had only been that morning.
She stared out at the moonlight for a while then slipped beneath her sheets. She was so exhausted, she should have fallen asleep easily.
But sleep eluded her. All that she could think of was the long day.
And Jesse.
She tried very hard to sleep. She tried to remember Anthony’s face, and that she was his widow, and that this was his house.
All that she could see was Jesse.
She rose and quietly left her room, walked quickly down the few feet of hallway to his room, and before she dared to think about what she was doing, she opened the door, entered the room, and closed the door behind her.
Jesse was in bed.
But he wasn’t asleep, and he hadn’t been asleep. He was sitting up in bed, his shoulders and chest naked. His fingers were laced behind his head and he leaned back against the fine oak frame of the big bed. In the darkness and shadow, his eyes were upon her.
Moonlight danced palely within the room. It touched his shoulders and chest, casting them in a bronzelike light. It did not touch his features and gave away nothing of the emotion in his eyes.
“Well, Mrs. Miller,” he said softly. “What are you doing here?”
She left the doorway and walked across the room to stand beside his bed. “I wanted you to know that I’m gratef
ul, very grateful, for what you did for T.J.”
He stretched his arm out to her, turning his hand palm out, waiting for her to take it. She hesitated, then took it.
And then she found herself pulled down next to him, and before she knew it, his arms were around her and she was rolled down into the depths of the big master bed, lying on the pillow at his side while he braced himself over her, running his fingers gently through her hair.
“I want you to know,” he told her huskily, “that I would have tried to save him whether you asked me to or not.” He watched her expectantly.
Warmth, a sweet searing explosion of it, suddenly seemed to streak through her. She knew why she had come, she knew why she wanted to be here. She stared into the blue eyes that were so very intent upon her own. Those eyes held so much care and so much wisdom. They were the eyes of a man who could not be denied for the simple measure of what he was inside.
“There’s no need for you to be grateful,” he said harshly.
Despite his tone, she smiled. She wound her arms around his neck. “I’m not that grateful,” she murmured. “I mean—well, I am grateful, but I’m not here only because I’m grateful.”
“Then?”
“I’m here because …”
“Because?”
“Because I want you to hold me.”
He returned her smile, slowly. The moonlight played upon his rugged features, and his smile was crooked and sensual.
“Gladly,” he whispered.
His arms encompassed her, he kissed her.
Nineteen
If the taste of his kiss was bittersweet, it was made up for by the simple ecstasy of feeling his arms around her again. So many nights she had lain awake, tortured by memory. So many times she had remembered him when he had been far away from her.
War still raged, and it would go on tomorrow.
But for Kiernan, it would stop this night.
His lips upon hers were ardent, fevered. She felt a trembling deep within him as he fought to leash the passion that ignited swiftly between them. The wanting within him touched her as no aphrodisiac could, sending erotic tongues and laps of fire to dance and sweep over her flesh and through her limbs.
She returned his kiss, eager for it, met the fever of his tongue, gasped and sought him again and again when he broke away to circle her lips erotically, slowly, with the bare rim of his tongue, taking her mouth with the fullness of his own, pulling away again.
His tongue moved over her throat, slowly sliding along the length of it.
She gasped, her eyes closed, as she heard the rending of fabric. He ripped her gown cleanly so that it fell open, baring all her flesh to him.
But she did not open her eyes, for she felt that slow burning touch of his kiss, of his tongue, again. Centering upon her collarbone, it moved again, drawing a hot wet pattern between her breasts, moving sensually over that valley. Her breasts ached to be touched so, to be licked and caressed by the force of his mouth. But he did not touch them.
Rather, he continued the hot slide of his tongue onward over her abdomen. She shivered slightly, for when his mouth did not touch her, she was cold. But she could not move—she could only lie still in the greatest, sweetest fascination.
His kiss moved over her belly, and his tongue entered the cavity of her navel, played there, danced there. Suddenly, she was aware of his whisper against her flesh, a whisper that told her how sweetly she smelled, how wonderfully she tasted. The scent of the lilac from her bath still haunted her flesh, haunted his senses.
Then he was silent, and the searing-hot, wet slide of the tip of his tongue traveled ever more downward. Downward, until she thought she would scream. Her entire body awakened, and both cold and steaming, it was near agony in the tempest, sweet and hungry, that seized her—the wanting, the knowing, the needing.
That searing hot dampness was suddenly within her, deep within her, pervading her. An invasion so sweet, it brought a shattering sensation to burst throughout her. A cry welled within her, touched her lips, but never escaped her.
For he was suddenly atop her, his arms around her, and his lips were hot and hungry and molded over hers, smothering any sounds of ecstasy that might have escaped her. The bare bronze sleekness of his body was pressed taut to hers, seeming to meld with it.
His eyes upon her, he held himself above her and watched her eyes as he began his body’s own riveting invasion of hers, coming deeper, deeper, deeper.
A soft whisper of desperation tore from her lips, and she buried her face against his throat, pulling tighter and tighter against him, arching, twisting, feeling him with all her length, inside and out. He was slow, torturously slow, pressing her back and watching her eyes again as he moved against her, seeming to burn inside her until he touched her womb, her heart, her very soul.
Then slowness was wickedly abandoned. Even in the darkness his eyes were startlingly blue upon her, and his smile was as wicked as the storm that he promised. He was suddenly a tempest, a whirlwind. He moved like lightning and swept her into his rhythm. Night breezes moved about, but the heat seemed consuming. Slick and warm, she clung to him, tasting him, kissing his lips, his shoulders, his lips again. She reached for things that, even now, she barely understood. Things intangible, elusive, as raw as the bare earth, as mystical as the clouds in a night sky. Things that made her hunger, and wonder. For it was splendor to be held so, and it was an even greater splendor for which she reached.
And then he was nearly still, rigid and taut. He moved slowly, slowly, then with startling speed, touched all of her inside again. He withdrew and filled her once again, hard.
Again she almost cried out. But his lips were there, and he kissed her, his tongue ravishing her mouth to steal sound away while the pulsing shaft of his body moved as hard and hot as molten steel deep, deep into her, one long, slow, last time, sinking, staying there.
All that she had reached for came cascading down upon her. Great waves of sensation rushed over her, swirled around her, settled into her. Warmth, dampness, and the sweet liquid heat of his fulfillment entered into her and brought with it a new sensation of ecstasy, a shuddering that seized hold of her.
The trembling remained for long, long moments.
She felt his swift movement as he withdrew from her at last, felt the hot slick wetness of their passion trail across her belly and thighs as he fell to her side, enveloping her in his arms.
She felt the breeze in the room, so cold against her naked flesh. She shivered violently, and he pulled her closer against him, bringing the covers over them both.
Little objects in the room suddenly seemed to stand out in the shadows and moonlight. Andrew Miller’s desk, his bed frame, the windows that looked out onto his lawn. Andrew Miller’s. One day they would have been Anthony’s.
And hers.
But she was lying here tonight with Jesse. “Oh, God,” she breathed suddenly.
“What is it?” Jesse asked.
“I’ve got to go.”
She tried to leap up, but his arms suddenly wound more tightly around her. “Why?”
She was pinned down. His knee lay over her thighs, and his arm braced her. He didn’t intend to let her go.
“Jesse—”
“Why? How can you say that now, after everything that we’ve just shared?” Fury riddled his question. His features were taut, his jaw nearly locked.
“We have to forget it—” she tried to begin.
They were the wrong words. He pounced on her, and his hand moved over her. “Mrs. Miller, I promise you, I will never forget it. I will never forget the feel of your flesh, the taste of it. Nor the taste or texture of the bud of your breast in my mouth, the feel of your tongue against my own, the scent of your soap, the scent of you as a woman. I promise you that I will not forget the way you move against me.” He ran his fingers lightly over the sheen of her shoulder. “I won’t forget anything at all, Mrs. Miller. I won’t forget your eyes, I won’t forget lying between your thighs, I
won’t forget tasting—”
“Stop it, Jesse!” she nearly shrieked.
“What? It’s all right to do it, but not to talk about it?” he demanded. “Or does it go deeper than that?”
“Jesse, I’m a widow!” she reminded him desperately.
His hold upon her eased, then tightened again. “Fine, Mrs. Miller. You are a widow. But he couldn’t have given you what I give you. Damn you, Kiernan, you came to me! Don’t be a hypocrite. Quit denying me!”
“I’m not denying you!” He had to let go of her because she was shaking in fury. “How could I ever deny you? You had me when I should have been his! You had me first, on his property, when I should have been his fiancée. And now when I’m his widow—Jesse, this is his house!”
He released her. “My Lord. I’m in worse shape with him dead. I’m battling a ghost!”
“It’s his house, Jesse!”
“So it’s all right if we find a bale of hay in a barn?”
“No, it’s his barn, his family—”
“You were never in love with him!” he suddenly thundered.
“Sh!” She pressed her fingers frantically against his lips. He was rigid in his fury. “Please, Jesse?”
He was still, but his jaw remained twisted, his limbs hard, the tension of his body radiating through her like the heat of the sun.
“Jesse, I have to go!” She tried to draw the remnants of her nightgown around her, but his hand was upon her arm again, drawing her back.
“Look at me,” he told her.
She met the searing blue of his stare.
“Admit to me that you were never in love with Anthony.”
“Jesse—”
“Admit it!”
“You’re hurting me!”
“I’m going to hurt you worse!”
“Damn you!” Tears stung her eyes. “All right, all right. You know that I was never in love with him. Why do you have to hear me say it?”
“Why do you have to pretend that there was something between you?” he pressed on furiously. “Did you lie here with him in this bed? Is that what brought on your sudden fit of guilt?”
“It’s none of your business, Jesse.”
“It is! I’m making it my business!”