by Jolene Faye
~*~ ~*~
It couldn't be possible he assured himself as the sun broke the morning haze and he stared at the path in front of him. She had been bundled when the Indian woman rushed her inside the cabin and ordered him to find Sybil, but he had gotten a glance. The darkness of his curls wrapped around the blanket, the warm deep tone of Cecilia's skin showed in the fragile fingers of her small hand. When she'd opened her eyes and called to Sybil, it had been his own eyes staring back at him. He'd been in the town, he'd seen most of the area and while most of the woods held a hint of familiarity nothing else had. It had been so long he couldn't remember passing through any small towns. All he could remember was that damned burrow in the rocks! Every night for a year he dreamed of the path he thought he'd taken and hoped that the day he could take it again he'd find her, somewhere, somehow. Stopping every few yards, Cole scanned the areas to the north of the path. He had prayed that someone would find her. Someone, not something but he hadn't any other choice. He didn't know who was after him. If it had been the law, sure they'd have taken the child and made sure she was taken care of, but if it had been that gambler and his men, they'd have killed her for sure. His memories turning back to the day he'd tracked down Cecilia and found her working in a dance hall, he didn't imagine that day would have changed his life so profoundly. The few letters she'd written to him that he actually received during the battles, she often told him of her moving to different places looking for work. It had been a long time since he'd gotten a letter from her and tracking her down took months, but Cole knew, no matter what her past was, when he found her he would marry her. The last time he'd seen her, they'd made love for the last time and he knew he'd found the love of his life. The war kept him away so much longer than he'd planned. Each letter filled with her desperation tore at his heart as she finally told him she had become a dancehall girl to support herself. She was still so beautiful the day he found her. His memories of their time together and the letters she'd written to him are the things that kept him pushing through the tedious battles of the war. When he'd shown up in Gonzales and checked in with a source he'd used to find her, Cole never expected what he'd find in her small room. Knocking softly on the door, the bruises and scars on her face stopped the beat of his heart as the loving eyes of his first love stared back at him. She confided in him about the gambler who'd taken to beating the girls if they didn't give him a part of their wages. Before he could find the bastard and kill him, she calmed him and placed the small bundle in his arms. "Rose, this is your father," her gentle voice haunted his memories again as he scanned over a gathering of boulders and slid from the saddle. Walking slowly through the slippery melting snow, Cole dropped to his knees in front of the small burrow, pressed his palm against the crude carving of a rose against the flat side of the rock and sobbed.