Rachel's Choice (20 page)

Chance shrugged and looked around the kitchen. Bear raised his head and uttered a low growl. “My sentiments exactly,” Chance said.

She'd told him to go. If she didn't want him here, then he was free to leave … free to return to Pea Patch and settle old scores.

All he had to do was turn his back on the woman he'd come to think of as his own.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he located the broom and began to sweep up the mess. Why in hell couldn't she understand? What kind of man would he be if he allowed himself to hide out the war in safety while his friends died?

He stooped to retrieve the butter dish from the floor. Bear had licked it clean. “At least you're good for something,” he said to the dog.

It was hard to stay mad at Rachel when memories of their idyll at the creek still made him hard. He knew that if he shut his eyes and concentrated, he could taste Rachel's mouth and feel the silken texture of her skin.

Damn, he didn't have to try. The clean woman-scent of her lingered in his nostrils. Just thinking about her lush, rose-tipped breasts was enough to drive him crazy.

She was impossible. Irrational. Yet, he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and make love to her again.

It shouldn't have been that way. He liked women, always had, but once he'd had one, some of the mystery and excitement was lost.

Not this time.

What he felt for Rachel was more than physical. It was dangerous—she was dangerous. He had the awful sinking feeling that he was about to experience something he'd thought would never happen. He suffered from all the symptoms of falling in love.

And he was long past that human failing.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

The massive black dog blinked and lolled a tongue the size of a man's hand.

“Forget it.” Chance briskly wiped down the table and returned the flour box and salt crock to the cupboard. He
was scrubbing the corn-bread pan when he heard footsteps behind him.

“I can do that,” Rachel said. “The cow hasn't been milked this morning.”

“Yes, she has.” He pumped cold water over the pan.

“Oh.”

He glanced at her. She wore a purplish gingham dress and white apron, and her glorious mane of hair was neatly braided and pinned up on her head. She held the baby in her arms, and her hips swayed slightly as she walked.

It's a trap, Chance thought. Holy Mother of God, I was safer charging a Union line at Manassas than I am in this kitchen.

Davy was wide awake and cooing contentedly. Chance wiped his hands on a striped towel and reached for him. Putting the baby between them was the only thing that would keep him from claiming that saucy mouth of hers here and now. “How about if I hold him and you finish this?” He motioned to the dirty spoons and bowls heaped in the sink.

“All right.” Her features were smooth and expressionless, but she couldn't hide the light in her eyes when she looked at him.

She handed him Davy, and Chance carried the squirming infant over to the rocking chair. She'd put the little boy in a long dress, and it was like trying to hold a goat in a bag. “Why does he need all these clothes in this heat?” Chance asked her. He untied the baby's bonnet and slipped it off so that he could kiss the crown of his head when Rachel wasn't looking.

“Since when did you become an expert on child raising?”

“Rearing. Child rearing,” he corrected. “You raise cabbages, not babies.”

“Damn few cabbages you've ever raised,” Rachel snapped as she began scrubbing a bowl hard enough to take the pattern off.

“No need to get testy on me. I said I'd stay long enough to get your crop in and I will.” Chance bounced Davy on his knee. The baby flashed him a drippy smile. “Hey, he smiled at me.”

“He doesn't know any better.”

“Rachel, use sense. You can't expect me to—”

“I don't expect anything of you but farmwork. This morning was—”

“I won't hear that kind of talk. We both wanted it.”

She put the clean bowl aside and reached for a wooden spoon. “You're right. We've nothing in common out of bed. Nothing.”

“That's not true, and you know it.”

She shook the spoon at him. “As if you or your rich lawyer friends would have noticed me if we'd passed each other on the streets of Richmond before the war.”

“I'd have noticed you anywhere,” he replied mildly as he wiped the baby's chin with a napkin. “And nothing that happened before Sumter means anything now. It's a different world, and none of us will ever be the same, not even you.”

Davy began to fuss, and Chance shifted him to his shoulder and patted his back until the baby gave a loud burp.

“Be easy with him,” she said. “He's not a sack of corn.”

“Is he crying? If he didn't like it, he'd be screaming, wouldn't he?” Chance replied.

Davy began to gurgle happily.

“There, what did I tell you?” Chance said. “You don't know anything about my life, my family, my friends. You judge them out of ignorance.”

“So now I'm ignorant?”

He scoffed. “There's no class war between us, Rachel. You're as fine a lady as it's ever been my honor to meet.”

“Exactly the kind of woman you'd bring home to your mother.”

“Hardly. You're the wrong religion to suit Mother, and your blood isn't blue enough.” He shrugged. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

She flushed. “I suppose so.”

“You wouldn't like Mother very much, Rachel, and I suppose the feeling would be mutual. In all honesty, I'd have to admit that Mother is somewhat of a snob.”

She sank into a chair. “There's no need to talk of your mother. I didn't—”

“She's probably much what you'd expect and more. My mother is a beautiful woman, but very cool in nature, even to her children. Appearances are of the utmost importance, not whether an action is right or wrong, but how it looks to the people who matter.”

“But you said that she was against slavery. That doesn't sound like a cold person to me.”

“Slavery was one of Mother's charities. She was always kind to her black servants and her dogs. Mother was very fond of dogs, more so than she was of her children.”

“But surely she loved you. You're her son.”

“In her way. Aunt Milly was my nursemaid when I was small. She was born in the islands, and her skin was the color of coffee and cream. She used to sing to me in
Spanish, and she was never too busy to listen to Travis and me when we came home from school. We adored Aunt Milly, but when I was ten, my little sister made the mistake of calling her Mama. My mother discharged her that day. She had my father put her on a boat headed south to the Caribbean. I never saw her again.”

“You must have missed her terribly,” Rachel answered softly. “But I don't understand. What does that have to do with us?”

“You think that I don't want to stay here because of who you are and who you think I am. But that's not what's important. I'm just a man, Rachel, a man who might have been happier if he'd grown up here on the banks of Indian Creek with grandparents who loved him than born a Chancellor. You're richer than you know. You've always been. You'll be fine here. You and Davy will live through this war, and you'll go on to have a good life.”

Rachel laid her hand on his arm. “But not with you?”

“It's not our differences that keep us apart, it's what I have—”

“The noble soldier,” she said. “The battle to keep people like your Aunt Milly in chains.”

“Haven't we gone over this same argument before? The fight between the North and South isn't about slavery. It's over the price of cotton. Slavery would have withered under its own weight. Another generation and we would have seen the end of it without a bloodbath that will haunt America for a hundred years to come.”

Rachel shook her head. “I can't win against you and your fancy lawyer's arguments. Like I said, Chance, we're too different to understand each other. Farmers
have better sense than to breed plow horses with blooded stock.”

“You compare yourself with a mare?” he teased. “It's not our differences that keep us apart, Rach; it's this damned war. Another time, another place …”

He broke off before he said something that would tie him even more to this place, and this woman. Why did a man find what he'd spent a lifetime searching for and then be unable to reach out and seize it?

God, but he liked the feel of this child in his arms. Davy was soft and warm, and he smelled like a fluffy baby chick. James will never know what he's missed in this boy, he thought.

Chance tried not to let the notion that he could make Davy his own son settle in his mind. It was hard refusing the life that Rachel held out with both hands. But he had other obligations that came before his own happiness.

He had to kill a man, he reminded himself. Even if Travis was already dead, he had to put Daniel Coblentz in his grave.

“You like the killing?” she demanded.

Rachel's sudden change of tactics startled him and made him wonder if she could read his mind.

“You like putting a bullet through a man?” She twisted around to glare at him, oblivious to her dishcloth dripping soapy water onto the floor.

Damn woman's intuition. His mother had been the same way. She'd had the uncanny knack of knowing what mischief he was going to get into before he did. He wondered what she would think of Rachel Irons, and he had a suspicion that despite their differences, they would have gotten along just fine.

“I hate the killing,” he replied. “I never much cared for shooting anything, not even game.”

Rachel dropped the cloth into the wash pan and came toward him. “I'd shoot you again if I thought it would keep you here.”

“That's a comforting thought.” He rose and laid Davy on the daybed. Then he pulled her against him as she sobbed softly. “Didn't you just tell me to leave?” he whispered into her hair.

“I didn't mean it,” she answered raggedly. “You know I didn't mean it.”

“Oh, Rachel, Rachel. What's to become of us?” He hugged her even tighter.

If he could have Rachel and Davy for a little while, he'd accept that blessing as a gift from the Almighty. With luck, he could store up enough happiness to last him for the rest of his life.

“Oh, Chance, haven't I given enough to this war?” she pleaded, clinging to him. “I loved James since I was four years old, and he never lived to see his son's face. If you go, I know I'll lose you as well.”

He couldn't answer. His own gut feeling was that he couldn't murder a sergeant and come off Pea Patch alive. And even if he did survive the island, the war might stretch on for years. So he just held her, and after a few minutes she straightened and stepped away.

“I'm sorry to make such a fool of myself,” she said.

He brushed a tear from her cheek. “It was special for you—when we made love—wasn't it?”

Her eyes widened and a faint blush tinted her high cheekbones. “Yes,” she answered. “It was.” Then she averted her eyes. “The best.”

He grinned. “Me, too.”

“Reb's honor?” A sparkle of mischief danced in her eyes.

“Absolutely.”

She swallowed, and her voice took on a rich, whiskey timbre. “You never told me what unit you served with.”

He tried to ignore the knotting in his gut. “Fourth Virginia, Powhatan Guards.”

She exhaled slowly. “I thought from the first you must be cavalry. You have a horseman's hands.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Since you're not a farmer, they'll have to do.” She glanced around the kitchen. “Thank you for cleaning this. I was dreading it.”

“You did your share to make it that way,” he said.

“I did, didn't I?”

She smiled at him, and he felt a flush of warmth under his skin. The knots in his belly tightened to an aching. He yearned to lay her back against the kitchen table and find out how easily those little pearl buttons at her throat came undone.

“I don't want you to go, Chance,” she continued. “Not now, not in the fall.”

“But you understand why I have to.” When he'd suckled at her breasts in the creek, he'd tasted her sweet mother's milk. Now he wanted to taste it again.

“I understand why you think you have to.”

“You're a rare woman, Rachel, but you're as stubborn and illogical as every other woman.” His heart was racing. Surely she could see how much he wanted her. She'd have to be blind to miss the bulge in his trousers.

“There'd be fewer wars if
illogical
women had their way.”

“You may be right,” he agreed. “But I still think you'd
make a hell of a lawyer.” He opened his arms, and she came into them. And for the better part of an hour, neither thought of war, or danger, or tomorrow.

“Miss Rachel! Miss Rachel!” Pharaoh's shout dragged Rachel from Chance's arms. They lay entwined on the daybed with Davy tucked between them. As she struggled to rise, the baby started to cry.

Bear barked and pushed open the kitchen door with his head.

“Get upstairs,” Rachel said urgently. “Hide and don't come out, no matter what happens. That's Pharaoh. He'll kill you if he finds you here.”

Putting a pillow between the baby and the edge of the bed so that he wouldn't fall off, she struggled to close the front of her dress and pull down her rumpled skirts. She shoved the wooden kitchen door nearly shut and peered out, hoping her disarray wouldn't show. “Pharaoh! I'll be right out.”

“You all right, Miss Rachel?”

“I'm fine. Just a minute,” she called as she tried to pin up her hair.

The big black man slid down from a stocky gray horse and strode toward the house. Cradled in one arm, Pharaoh held a .50 caliber Hawken rifle, and thrust through his belt was a wicked-looking corn knife.