“Jesse—”
“You didn’t love him. Why the hell did you marry him?”
“Because he wasn’t a Yankee!” she spat out, suddenly as furious as he.
His hold on her slackened. She slipped from it, rolled quickly, and leaped to her feet. Holding her gown together, she stared at him and repeated, “Anthony was never a Yankee!”
She turned to flee, but Jesse didn’t let her go. In a flash he was up, naked and menacing. He had caught her by both of her arms and dragged her back up against him. “No, he was never a Yankee. But he was never the man for you either. And he’s dead now, Kiernan. I didn’t want him dead, but he is. Hundreds of men are dead. Maybe thousands by now—I don’t really know. But don’t pretend that you were in love with him. Not to me!”
“Maybe you can take over his house,” Kiernan charged him in a heated whisper, “but you cannot take over his widow! I won’t let you—I swear I won’t let you!”
She tried to wrench free, but he held her too tight, and his fingers wound harder about her wrists as she struggled. She went still suddenly and met his mocking gaze.
“I already have,” he reminded her.
“Let me go, Captain Cameron!” she snapped.
“No!” He was suddenly very earnest. “You listen to me, Kiernan. I have feelings for Anthony, that’s one of the reasons why I came here. I know about guilt. I thought that at least I could save his house, his family—something for him. And I’ve done that, Kiernan, at least so far. It might be a long, long war. You’ve done what’s right too. Jacob and Patricia need you, and they have you. You’ve loved them and cared for them, and Anthony would have been pleased and proud.”
“He’d have been damned pleased and proud to walk in and find me in bed with you, right?” she inquired with a sizzling taunt, her dazzling eyes piercing his, her head cast back imperiously.
“You came to me,” he reminded her curtly.
Hot color covered her cheeks. “Jesse, let me pass.”
“No! Not until you admit that you never had with him what you’ve had with me. Guilt can’t change that! And guilt can’t keep me away anymore, Kiernan.”
“Jesse—”
“Tell me!”
“You bluebellied son of a bitch!” she exploded. “No, I never had anything with Anthony like I have with you. I never had anything at all with him! He married me and rode away the same night.”
“What?” he asked incredulously.
“You heard me! Now let me—”
He pulled her close and started to kiss her, a hard, ravishing kiss. She struggled fiercely against him, trying to free her lips, her arms. She didn’t win, but he suddenly drew his head away.
“Tell me that you won’t want me ever again, Kiernan.”
“Will you just let me go!” She tried hard to kick the fine display of naked masculine flesh before her, and she was suddenly very desperate and very determined.
But he dodged all her blows, then spun her around and pulled her hard and flat against his body. “Tell me, Kiernan.” The sound of his voice, the hot whisper of it, bathed her ear and her throat. Even as she hated him, she felt the sweet fire of wanting ignite within her all over again. His fingers just edged over her breasts, and his hand moved downward as he held her taut against him.
“Jesse—” She jerked within his arms, trying to stamp on his feet but managing only to dislodge most of what remained of her torn nightgown.
“Oh, shut up, Kiernan!” he commanded her with throaty laughter. He lifted her by her upper arms, and even as she stared down at him, her eyes wide with alarm, he tossed her into the air and she fell flat upon the bed once again, her nightgown lost completely.
Her eyes narrowed in fury. “Jesse, you—”
He dived down upon her, and his lips were upon hers.
She struggled, but the warmth of his kiss was undeniable. Something languid and sweet swept slowly through her. She touched his hair, feeling the texture of it, only then realizing that her hands were free.
She was free.
But by then, she did not want to go. She did want what he had to give her.
He made love to her a second time that night, and she made love to him in return.
Later, she awoke and felt the probe of his sex at her buttocks as they lay curled with his arms around her. He made love to her so, and when it was over, she drifted to sleep again, content to feel his arms around her.
She was still at war—at war with Jesse.
But she was too tired to fight at the moment.
She awoke as dawn was coming through the windows, and then she was upset. As his arm curled around her, she pleaded, “Jesse, I have to go now. The children.”
Some emotion passed through his eyes. He understood, she knew. He released her.
“Your gown,” he began, his tone almost apologetic.
“I’ve got it. I’ll wear a sheet,” she said quickly, wrapping herself up in one even as she spoke. She prayed that she wouldn’t meet anyone in the hallway as she hurried toward the door.
“Kiernan!”
She turned back. His hair was tousled, his shoulders very bronze against the white of the sheets, his eyes very blue.
She wondered if she would ever stop loving him.
“Jesse, I have to go.”
“Kiernan, I want you to marry me.”
“I can’t marry you, Jesse!”
“Why the hell not?” he demanded irritably.
“You’re a Yankee! I didn’t marry you before because you’re a Yankee. And I won’t marry you now for the same reason. Don’t you understand?” Why was he always able to bring her so dangerously close to tears? “I’ll never marry you, Jesse! Never!”
She spun around and tore out of his room, almost carelessly, desperate not to meet anyone.
There was no one in the hallway. She could hear sounds in the ward—the “hospital” day was beginning.
Shaking, she sat on her own bed, the sheet pulled about her tightly. She looked out at the dawn breaking through her windows. It would be a beautiful day.
No one, no one but herself or Jesse, would be any the wiser about the night that they had passed together.
But how would she survive the days to come? Wanting him, loving him, having him so very near, knowing he was just beyond a doorway.
And that she had to stop seeing him.
She sat in torment for a long, long time. But in the end, her dilemma did not matter. It was taken care of for her.
By nightfall, new orders had come for Jesse. He had been commanded to move out.
Kiernan washed and dressed and began to move about the house with its many rooms of injured soldiers. Corporal O’Malley was very pleased that they hadn’t lost anyone during the night. “’Course, that don’t put any of the men in the clear, but living is a darned good sign, if you’ll pardon my language. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Miller?”
“Oh, I’ve come to pardon quite a bit,” Kiernan assured him.
“Even the Reb who was hurt bad is doing fine. But then again, if they send him to a prison camp—oh, I’m sorry, again. I keep forgetting where your sympathies lie, Mrs. Miller. You’re so good to all of us. A couple of the boys say you spy on us, but I know real compassion when I see it, and that’s what you’ve got, ma’am, that’s what you’ve got.”
Real compassion? But I was spying, she wanted to cry out.
It didn’t matter. Maybe O’Malley needed his few illusions, and maybe she was one of them.
“Thank you, Corporal. But I am a Confederate,” she told him, “and this morning, I think I will see to the Rebs.”
She smiled at him and hurried down the hallway. T.J. was awake, sitting up in his bed. Patricia was already up and about and perched on a stool by T.J.’s side, writing a letter for him. She gave Kiernan a brilliant smile. “Kiernan, they told me yesterday that T.J. might die, but look at him! He’s doing very well!”
T.J.’s gaze met Kiernan’s. They both knew that it was too soon
for the little girl’s hopes to be so raised.
“It’s good to see you doing so well,” she said, and coming to the bed, she soaked a cool cloth in water and set it upon his forehead. He was scarcely warm. That, too, was a good sign, she knew.
T.J. grasped her hand warmly. “You saved my leg.”
“T.J., you can’t be certain. You mustn’t—”
“Look at it!” He was too excited to realize that he shouldn’t be exposing his masculine limbs to a lady and a little girl, even though that lady had been present for far worse. He lifted away the sheet so that she could see his leg, and she was amazed. The stitches were very neat. There was no sign of swelling, and barely any discoloration. She remembered Jesse working on it the day before, and she felt a strange shaking take hold of her. He was very, very good.
“Still,” she warned, “you know that infection may set in during the days to come.”
He nodded. His fingers were shaking, and he wound them together in his lap to still them. “I wanted to die,” he told her. “When I realized that I’d been picked up by the Yanks, I was so damned afraid of what a Yankee sawbones might do to me that I wanted to die. But he’s good. Hell, he’s brilliant.”
“Yes, he’s very good.”
“Too bad he’s a Yank.”
“That’s what my brother says about Jesse,” Patricia said airily, studying the pen. “’Course, he really shouldn’t be one at all.”
T.J. looked surprised, and he glanced from Kiernan to Patricia. “Sounds like you’ve known him awhile.”
“We have. We’ve been out to his place a number of times, and before the war, Jesse was welcome here. He didn’t have to take the place over then. I love Jesse,” she said enthusiastically, then reddened. “Oh. I love him as much as you’re allowed to love a Yank.”
T.J. grinned. “Don’t worry, Patricia. You can’t love a word—you can love a person, a man. It’s all right.”
She looked worriedly from T.J. to Kiernan, hoping that it really was all right. “They would have burned my father’s house down if it hadn’t been for him. Jacob didn’t care at first, but even my brother likes him now. We don’t know him half as well as Kiernan does.”
T.J.’s eyes shot to Kiernan’s. In seconds, she was certain T.J. understood everything there was to understand about her relationship with Jesse.
He wasn’t going to say anything, though.
Patricia leaped off her seat when one of the other men turned over and let out a soft croak for water.
Kiernan leaned close to T.J. “War is funny, isn’t it?” she said softly. “I’d been trying to reach you with information about Union troops making a foray into the valley.”
T.J. closed his eyes and spoke wearily. “There’s always someone near the oak,” he said. “The war is over for me now. I imagine I’ll be spending it in a camp.”
“Maybe not.”
The masculine words spoken behind Kiernan sent shivers racing along her spine.
She had absolutely no idea just how long Jesse had been standing there. Was it long enough for him to hear what she had told T.J.?
She spun around. His eyes were fire when they touched hers, but he had come to see T.J. He pulled back the sheets and looked at the leg, then inspected the wound in T.J.’s gut. He seemed pleased. He pulled the sheet back up over his patient.
“I’d have liked more time,” he murmured, “a lot more time. But I’ve been called back to Washington.”
Stunned, Kiernan stared at him. Just that morning she had been praying for a way …
But this wasn’t it. The Yankee patients would be all right. They’d receive careful passage back to Washington. But what would happen to T.J., and these other two?
A prison camp would kill T.J.
And where would Jesse be?
“Jesu, Doc,” T.J. said. “I won’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell!”
Jesse was silent, contemplative. “We’ll see, soldier,” he said at last.
He nodded to Kiernan, then left the room.
During the day she tried to see Jesse alone. She was more than willing to plead for a miracle to save T.J.
But she couldn’t even get close to Jesse. He was a whirlwind of activity. Wagons had come for his patients, and he had to make sure that every one of them was as comfortably prepared for travel as possible, bandaged and bedded down for a journey across the river.
Corporal O’Malley advised her about the sudden hurry.
The area didn’t really belong to anyone at the moment, either the Rebs or the Yanks. Sharpshooters and skirmishes were the rule of the day here. But a rumor had reached Washington through spies working for a man named Pinkerton—who was organizing something called the Secret Service—that Stonewall Jackson was coming in somewhere nearby with a major troop movement.
Jesse was very important to the Union because he had a way of making men live. He was going to be promoted with his new orders to full colonel.
There was no stopping him. Whenever she came near Jesse, he immediately put her to work preparing patients for the trip. She didn’t mind the labor. She had helped him stitch up most of the patients the day before, and she couldn’t help but care about them.
After working late into the night, she still had not managed to speak to Jesse. Not until midnight had the last of the injured Yanks been bedded down in wagons to move back to Washington.
And now, the house seemed empty.
Patricia and Jacob had fallen asleep on the steps of the front porch, and Tyne and Jeremiah had long since carried them up to bed. With the last soldier bedded down, Jeremiah had gone to his quarters to find his own rest. Tyne and Corporal O’Malley were still with the Rebs, and Janey was in the kitchen.
Alone in the great hall, Kiernan stared about at the emptiness and felt the sound of silence.
She heard a slight noise and turned. Jesse, in his full blue uniform, leaned against the doorway to what had been his surgery, watching her.
“You must be very happy.”
She shrugged. She wasn’t happy at all.
“I don’t suppose I can get you to leave the area?”
She shook her head. “The Rebs won’t hurt me,” she murmured.
“Personally, I don’t think the Rebs are coming right now. They’ve got other things to do,” he said flatly. “It’s deserters and stragglers I’m thinking about.”
She smiled. “We’ve had them before, and we handled them. Well”—she paused—“T.J. handled them for me, actually. But I’m prepared now. I’m a good shot, and Jacob is a great shot.”
“I’ve left word with General Banks that I might need the house again. He’ll see that none of his troops threaten it again.”
“Thank you,” she murmured awkwardly.
“I’ve only one thing left to attend to,” he murmured. He started across the empty hallway, his booted heels clicking harshly on the floor.
He headed upstairs to the Rebels. There was a wagon waiting outside to take them away.
Kiernan tore after him and caught him halfway up the stairs, her skirts sweeping wildly around as she tried to stop him.
“Jesse, you can’t let T.J. be taken to a camp! You just can’t! He’ll die there, and you know it.”
He paused, a curious smile curving his lip. “Kiernan, you are so damned beautiful, and you plead so elegantly with me. But it’s always over some other man!”
“Jesse, please!”
“Kiernan, get out of my way. Please.”
“Jesse, I won’t—”
“Kiernan, you fool! You’re the one who gave that boy information he could use against the Union troops!”
“But I didn’t!”
“You might have jeopardized everything.”
“Jesse—”
“Kiernan, move!” He picked her up by the waist, and for a moment he held her above him. The air crackled between them, and when she met his eyes, the sweetest memories of the night came flooding back to her.
She felt the tension
and the passion in his touch.
He set her down, very gently.
“Excuse me.”
He walked past her, reached the room where T.J. was lying, and entered it. He leaned over T.J., checking the texture and temperature of his skin, looking into his eyes.
“How’re you feeling, Reb?”
“Good as can be expected, Yank.”
“Jesse!” Kiernan started into the room.
“Corporal O’Malley, stop her! That’s an order!” Jesse said.
O’Malley caught her just before she could fling herself at Jesse.
“If she can’t shut up, remove her from the room!”
“Yes, sir!” O’Malley said unhappily.
Held back by O’Malley, Kiernan bit hard on her lower lip and held still.
“Soldier, you know that this war is over for you now, right?” Jesse demanded.
“Yes, sir, I reckon it is.”
“You’re a Virginian, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A man of your word?”
“Always, Doc.”
Jesse nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’ve drawn up papers for you and these boys.”
“I can’t be a Yank, sir.”
“You don’t have to be a Yank, soldier. The document just promises that you won’t take up arms against the Union again. Can you live with that?”
T.J. smiled slowly and exhaled a long breath. “Yes, sir, I can live with that. So can the boys.”
“One more thing. Anything Mrs. Miller told you dies in this room. Is that understood?”
He turned and looked at Kiernan, then spoke to T.J. again. “Have I your word?”
“Yes, sir, you have my word.”
“Kiernan?”
His blue eyes blazed into her like blades of fire, demanding, always demanding.
She was trembling. Jesse meant to leave T.J. and the two other Rebs here with her, free to go home as soon as they could.
“You—you have my word,” she breathed.
“Good. Damn, it was nice not to have to argue with you for once! O’Malley, I guess it’s safe to let this Reb go. Get signatures from these other soldiers, and I guess we’ll be out of here. Gentlemen, good luck to you,” he said, doffing his hat to T.J. and the two other men. Then he strode out of the room.