And One Wore Gray (56 page)

Callie nodded. “Yes, of course we can.”

“Then get some sleep.”

He sat down before the wagon, and loaded his guns. He had two Colts, and a Spencer repeating rifle that he had taken from the ground at the Wilderness.

The gun hadn’t saved its previous Yank owner from the fires of hell, but Daniel prayed that now it could keep them all safe.

Callie didn’t go to sleep right away. He was startled to find her by his side, offering him a cup of water and some bread and dried beef.

Rations had been more than slim since their last campaign had begun. He didn’t hesitate, but took the water and the food from her.

While he ate, he watched her. She seemed to have acquired a composure and a serenity since he had seen her last. Her eyes met his, then fell, rich sweeping lashes creating shadows on her cheek. She sat close to him, nearly touching him. The sweet feminine scent of her was nearly more than he could bear.

He touched her cheek. Her eyes, gray and silver and luminous, came to his once again. “How have you been, Callie? Tending to the sick and wounded, how have you been yourself?”

“Well,” she told him. She poured more water into his cup. “Except when we read the death notices. I always knew that I would not find your name on the list. I felt certain that I would hear if you had been injured, if you had been …”

“Killed?”

“Yes,” she said flatly.

He caught hold of her wrist. “I’m not going to die, Callie. I’m good, I’m careful.”

“No. You’re a colonel. I know you’re probably reckless! I …”

Her voice trailed away, for his eyes were so hot upon her.

He watched her mouth, and suddenly, he could bear it no longer. He leaned forward, pulling her into his embrace, and kissed her. He touched her lips with his own, ground down upon them. He parted her lips with his tongue, and he felt her give to him. He filled her mouth with his kiss, tasting, savoring, needing. She gave fully to him. Their tongues met, wet, hot, touching, dancing, needing more.

Then out of the near darkness, he heard a warning cry.

“Daniel! There’s someone on the road,” Kiernan cried from the wagon.

He pressed Callie from him, leaping to his feet. Kiernan was right and he should have heard it. There was a horseman coming nearer and nearer. He backed behind the tree that blocked the wagon and tried to look around it. Darkness had come, and there was very little moon. What there was seemed to be behind a cloud.

The cloud moved and he saw a Yankee horseman coming.

Daniel strode quickly down the road, keeping to the shadows. He shimmied up the trunk of a tree just in time to see the shadowed rider pause.

The rider had heard him. The rider had sensed danger.

He urged his horse forward, closer.

Daniel leapt from the tree and onto the horseman. He swept the rider from his horse, and together they rolled and rolled on the dark ground, both grunting, both breathing hard. An elbow caught Daniel in the
ribs. He nearly cried out. He shoved a fist into a muscled gut.

He briefly obtained the upper hand, straddling over his enemy.

The cloud moved completely.

“Jesse!”

“Daniel, Jesu, you scared the damn hell out of me!” Jesse swore.

“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you!” Daniel stood quickly, stretching down a hand to his brother. Jesse stood. For a moment they stared at one another in the moonlight. Then they stepped forward and embraced. “How the hell did you come to be here?” Daniel demanded.

“Mutual friends,” Jesse said dryly. “I heard that my wife had passed by Cold Harbor, and that my brother was taking her home.”

“And you got leave?”

Jesse shrugged. “There weren’t many wounded left alive after Cold Harbor,” he said bitterly,

The two went no further in their conversation, for they were suddenly interrupted by a shrill, glad cry. They started and turned, and Kiernan came leaping out of the darkness, running like a bat out of hell to reach Jesse.

She catapulted into his arms. Daniel stepped aside as the two of them greeted each other with one of the most tender and passionate kisses he’d ever witnessed. A throat cleared softly, and he realized that Callie was on the other side of the entwined pair, a child in either arm.

Jesse and Kiernan split apart, Daniel could hear his brother inhale sharply. “John Daniel and Jared, is it?” He took his son from Callie, staring at the little boy. “John Daniel … you’ve gotten so big! Do you know who I am?”

John Daniel surveyed him studiously. “He’s Uncle Daniel. You’re my father.”

“That’s right,” Jesse said. He hugged the boy, and he glanced at Callie again, grinning. “Welcome to the family,” he told her.

“Thank you,” Callie replied. She glanced nervously at Daniel. “If Jesse came upon us so easily …”

“Then we need to be very careful, because anybody could. I’ll take the first watch, and Jesse can take the second,” Daniel said.

“Who are we watching out for now?” Callie asked softly. “The Yanks or the Rebs?”

“Either,” Jesse and Daniel answered together.

“All of you, go and get some sleep,” Daniel said. He glanced at Callie. He could still taste her kiss. It had been sweet, so much so that if Kiernan hadn’t been on guard, he wouldn’t have heard Jesse coming.

“Everyone, go to sleep,” he persisted. “I’m best on guard by myself.”

Callie turned away, hugging Jared to her.

Kiernan’s eyes still shimmered as she looked at Jesse. The two of them, with John Daniel between them, walked away.

Stiff as a poker, Daniel sat down to keep guard.

There were no other interruptions. He sat awake and alert for hours, but nothing moved but the breeze through the trees. At about three, Jesse came and tapped him on the shoulder. “Go get some rest. I’ll take it from here.”

Daniel nodded. He rose, stretched, and yawned, and started for a tree. “Over there,” Jesse directed him.

Daniel looked where Jesse pointed. Callie was there. She was sound asleep, but she had stretched out a blanket that was plenty large for them both and Jared.

Jared was in his mother’s arms. Daniel stretched out at her back and held her tenderly. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted. Not when the scent of her was so
intoxicating. It was good to hold her. To hear her sigh softly and curve against him, even as she slept.

When Callie awoke, she felt his hand on her upper arm. She started and turned, and found his enigmatic blue gaze upon her. “We’ve got to go,” was all that he said. He had slept with her, she thought. He had held her through the night, given her his warmth.

Pretend that you love me.

He was quickly on his feet and reaching a hand down to her. She accepted his help to rise, then turned for Jared, who was still sleeping. Daniel leaned past her, picking up their sleeping son. He nodded toward the wagon. Jesse and Kiernan and Janey were there, waiting for them.

“I’ll ride on ahead and scout the road,” Daniel said.

“I can do it—” Jesse said.

“It’s still supposed to be Rebel territory,” Daniel reminded him. “I’ll go.” He handed Jared to Callie, then untied his horse from the back of the wagon and mounted up. Callie watched him ride ahead.

There was a difference in the brothers now, she thought sadly. Jesse’s uniform was in sound shape. Daniel was in near rags again.

Yet no matter how tattered his uniform became, there was still something majestic in his appearance. The plume remained high in his hat, his shoulders were broad. He still seemed a part of some sweet chivalry gone past. She wanted to reach out and hold on to that chivalry.

“Let me help you up,” Jesse told her. “Kiernan, ride with me up front?”

“Of course,” Kiernan said softly.

Callie was still tired, and Janey seemed weary herself. Callie lay in the back of the wagon with Jared, closed her eyes, and dreamed.

It had been something to see Kiernan and Jesse as they had spotted one another. Something to watch
their every step as they moved toward one another. Something to watch their kiss.

She wanted Daniel to love her that way. Wholeheartedly, with no reservations. Without the terrible mistrust that always stood between them.

She must have dozed, for she could see the long, long drive to Cameron Hall. Daniel was coming down that walk, her tattered cavalier. She saw him, and he saw her. His eyes lit up as his brother’s had done for Kiernan. Her hand flew to her throat, her heart quickened. Suddenly she was running, running …

He was running, too, to greet her. He reached her, and she was in his arms, and then his lips were on hers, and he was spinning with her, spinning beneath a beautiful, red setting sun.

She awoke with a start. Janey was sitting up in the back of the wagon. She looked at Callie and smiled. “Home, child. We’re home.”

Christa came running out to the steps. Daniel was dismounting, and she threw herself at him, hugging him first. She went on to Jesse, and then to Kiernan, and then she came to the rear of the wagon. “Oh, you came! You all came, every one of you. Give me the boys, Callie, one by one. There we go, you scamps. Janey—”

But Daniel was there, lifting Janey out, then reaching for his wife. She slipped into his arms, watching his eyes as he slid her down to the ground, his movement slow, his touch warm.

“Let’s get in,” Christa said. “We don’t want any of the neighbors to notice Jesse.”

Their nearest neighbor was acres away, but it seemed they all believed that Christa had a point. Callie found herself back in the house, greeting Jigger once again, and Patricia and Jacob Miller. It seemed that they all talked forever, avoiding the war, and then
Daniel rose, saying that he was going to go and find their new overseer.

Callie watched him rise and impulsively asked Patricia to take Jared, and she followed her husband out.

He wasn’t in any great hurry to find the overseer. He had headed straight for the old family burial ground, and was standing broodingly by the fence. He heard her coming, and his back was still to her when he spoke. “What is it, Callie?”

She paused, then kept coming. “You tell me, Daniel,” she said softly. “What is it?”

He turned and stared at her hard. “What do you mean?”

She lifted her hands, tears making her eyes glisten silver. “I came here, I married you. I lived here, among all my enemies. I waited for months. I served the enemy. I mourned for you, Daniel. For Joe, for Beauty. Jesu, Daniel, what more do you want from me? Why can’t you—”

“Why can’t I do what, Callie?”

“I love you, Daniel. I’ve tried to show you that in every way that I know how. Why can’t you love me?” she said softly.

It seemed he stared at her the longest time, his gaze nearly cobalt.

“I do love you,” he said, the words so quiet they might have been a rustling in the trees overhead. His voice was deep when he continued, “I love you more each day this wretched war keeps me from you.”

Stunned, she heard the words tumbling from her. “But you hold me at arm’s length! You don’t really believe—”

“Callie, I was hurt. It takes time to heal. To believe.”

“I swear, Daniel, I only ever wanted to save your life. I love you. I loved you then. I never stopped.”

“You denied it well!” he whispered. “Pride,” she admitted ruefully.

“Come here,” he murmured. She couldn’t move. He caught her arm, and he pulled her close against him. He gazed down deeply into her eyes, and his fingers threaded into her hair. His lips touched hers, softly. Yet they spoke of a deeper passion, of a hunger. They stirred and stoked and kindled sweet fires and hungers deep within her. She parted her lips to his kiss. Tasted it. Savored it.

Callie thought she would die with the sweetness of his kiss. Then suddenly, he broke it. He stared off around the corner of the house.

“Daniel, what is it?”

His eyes focused on her. “You don’t know?” he said sharply.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, confused.

He shoved her forward. “You love me, yes! And the damn Yanks are heading straight for the house!”

“What?” she said incredulously.

“There was a man in a Yank uniform who just stepped onto the front porch.”

“Daniel, damn you, it’s probably Jesse.”

“I don’t think so.”

He was staring at her, hard. She trembled. Could he doubt her still? “You said that you loved me,” she reminded him harshly.

He nodded, still watching her. “I do. But, Jesu, Callie, why is it that every time you whisper words of love, I am plagued by blue uniforms?”

“I’m telling you—”

“I do love you, Callie.”

“Daniel—”

“Get to the house!” he thundered, shoving her forward. She tried to swing around, to protest. It was too late, Daniel was gone. She didn’t know which way he had disappeared, but he had slunk into the forest, and she was very afraid.

Jesse. She had to reach Jesse. Maybe he could make some sense of this. Her feeling of danger was acute.

She went racing full speed back to the house. Maybe the man in the uniform was Jesse. Maybe he had gone back outside for some reason.

She burst through the back doors and stared around the hallway. Christa was just walking back toward the den and she stopped, startled by Callie’s appearance.

“There’s a Yank in the front. Is it Jesse?”

“What?” Christa said.

Callie shook her head, racing down the length of the hallway, throwing open the doors.

There was a Yankee soldier there. A cavalry officer. He was bent over, dusting the dirt from his boots, “A Yank!” Christa whispered. “You’re right! My Lord, I’ll get my gun.”

“It could be Jesse—”

“I know my own brother!” Christa cried.

Callie gasped suddenly. “No, no! You can’t get your gun.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not my brother!”

“But it
is
mine!” Callie told her. She cried out, “Jeremy!”

The soldier stood and smiled and came hurrying toward her.

Within seconds she was in his arms, laughing as he swung her around the porch.

Then her laughter was suddenly caught short as Jeremy’s circle brought her around to face Daniel as he stepped from behind a pillar, his hands on his hips, his
eyes
as sharp as razors.