The Thawing of Mara

by Janet Dailey

  Holding her breath, Mara shot a quick look at Sin. Cynicism glittered in his eyes. Adam had known it was the last thing in the world she would want to do.

  "It's thoughtful of you to volunteer your daughter," Sin replied. "I'm sure she probably knows a lot about the battlefield since she's assisted you in your research. But I suspect she'll be reluctant to guide me through it."

  "Why?" There was too much innocence in her father's dark eyes when he looked at her. "You showed our cousin from California around the park and a friend of mine from Atlanta."

  Mara wasn't going to explain to Adam that the circumstances were different. Those other people were virtually strangers to her, whereas Sin. No, she wasn't about to explain to her father.

  "I wouldn't have any objections to acting as a guide for Mr. Buchanan," she lied bravely. "But I have too many things to do this weekend that I wasn't able to get done during the week. Also, I want to do some baking to get ready for Thanksgiving. I wouldn't have enough free time to do justice to the area until Monday. I'd want to wait until then anyway to be certain you've fully recovered."

  "Couldn't you postpone a few of those things?" Adam argued.

  "I postponed too many things while you were sick." Mara stood firm.

  "That's all right," Sin offered. A light was dancing in his eyes. "Monday is fine with me. What time?"

  "What time?" Mara repeated, feeling that she had just been swallowed in a trap. She glanced at her father, certain he had been part of the conspiracy, but he looked just as surprised as she was.

  "Will you be here on Monday?" he asked with astonishment.

  "Yes. As a matter of fact, I won't be driving back to Baltimore until the weekend after Thanksgiving," Sin told them.

  "You didn't tell me anything about that at the cottage," Mara accused.

  "You didn't ask me," he countered, a dark brow quirking briefly to mock her. "I intended to mention to you over coffee that you wouldn't need to come Monday to clean, but we got sidetracked with other issues. I would have remembered to tell you sooner or later," he shrugged, and Mara couldn't help wishing it had been sooner. "What time on Monday?" he repeated his earlier question.

  "I don't know." Agitated, Mara couldn't find any way out of the mess. "After lunch, I suppose. That's when Adam usually rests."

  "After lunch on Monday. I'll look forward to the tour." His smile held a wealth of complacency.

  Chapter Six

  A FEW MINUTES after one o'clock on Monday, Sin's silver gray car turned into the driveway. Mara had just finished drying the last of the lunch dishes. She folded the damp towel neatly and hung it on the rack to dry. At the knock on the door, she ran a smoothing hand over her black hair and went to answer it.

  When she opened the door, Sin didn't immediately enter. His gaze raked her, lingering briefly on the slimness of her bare legs beneath her dirndl skirt.

  "Aren't you going to back out?" he challenged.

  "No." Mostly because she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "Excuse me." She turned away from the open door, not caring if he came in or stayed outside in the cold. "I'll tell Adam I'm leaving."

  As she left the kitchen, Mara heard the door close and guessed that Sin was waiting inside. At her father's bedroom door, she knocked once and went in.

  "I heard the car drive in." Adam spoke before she did. "Was it Sin?"

  "Yes. I wanted to let you know I was leaving and double-check to see if there was anything you needed," Mara told him.

  "Not a thing," he assured her. "The telephone is here by the bed. So are my notes and books, and a pitcher of water."

  "Are you positive you're feeling all right?" But he looked so disgustingly healthy that Mara knew there wasn't much hope.

  "I'm fine." A knowing smile curved his mouth. "Sin is waiting for you. Don't you think you should be going?"

  "Yes." Her hands felt moist; the nervousness she was trying so hard to conceal was surfacing. "If you need anything—"

  "I have half a dozen telephone numbers to cover every kind of an emergency," he interrupted. "Have a good time, Mara."

  Sheer perversity made her say, "I sincerely doubt it." She left the bedroom and retraced her steps to the kitchen. Sin was waiting near the back door. His gaze swung lazily to her when she entered. "I'm ready to leave if you are," she said briskly.

  "You mean your father hasn't suffered an unexpected relapse?" He reached forward to open the door for her.

  "Adam is feeling very fit." Taking her full-length winter coat, Mara draped it over her shoulders and swept past him. Angry, she was determined to remain cool in the face of his taunts.

  "We'll take my car." Sin followed her outdoors.

  "Since I'll be doing the driving, I would prefer mine," Mara insisted.

  "Mine is already warm. I've left the motor running to keep it that way," he said. "Besides, it's more comfortable than yours to ride in. And I'm sure you're a perfect driver no matter what car you're in."

  Mara didn't want to waste her energy arguing over which car they were going to take; she would rather conserve it in case it was needed later. And she didn't want to admit she was nervous at the prospect of driving Sin's luxury model.

  The car's heater had kept the interior comfortably warm. Not needing the coat, Mara stowed it in the backseat before sliding onto the plushly upholstered seat behind the wheel. She quickly studied the dashboard while Sin walked around the car to sit on the passenger side. When he was safely in and the door was shut, she backed out of the driveway onto the road. The car seemed to practically drive itself, so smoothly did it handle.

  "I owe you an apology," he said after they had gone almost a mile.

  "An apology?" she repeated coolly. "What for?"

  "I honestly expected you to come up with some feeble excuse not to take me on this tour," he admitted, sliding her a curious glance.

  "Were you hoping I'd back out because you were already growing bored with the idea of touring the battlefield?" Mara questioned, sparing a glance from the road. "Because if you've changed your mind—"

  "I haven't changed my mind." Sin killed that hope.

  "It was possible that you only mentioned you wanted to go out of deference to Adam," Mara defended her previous suggestion.

  "It was partly out of deference to him, and partly out of my own curiosity to see it with a knowledgeable person to explain it to me. Of course, at the time I expected that person to be Adam. It never occurred to me that you would be the one who would act as my guide," he told her.

  Mara flexed her grip of the steering wheel, feeling a surge of anger rush through her. "You tricked me into this!" she accused.

  "You volunteered," Sin reminded her.

  "And you know precisely why I volunteered," she snapped. "Because I thought you wouldn't be here today—a vital piece of knowledge that you didn't see fit to give me."

  "How was I to know it would matter?" His voice was smooth. "You sounded so sincere when you said you would be willing to show me around today." Sin paused to glance at her, but Mara continued to watch the road. "Do you want to call off the tour and go back?"

  "Oh, no," she refused in a chilling tone. "You're going to have a full and complete tour of the battlefield." She was going to see that was all the satisfaction he got out of this untenable situation. "How much do you know about the events leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg?"

  "Some, but why don't you refresh my memory?" he suggested dryly.

  "The war between the states was in its third year. The North had not won a majority victory although General Grant had Vicksburg surrounded and under siege," Mara began. "The morale in the North was very low. The people were getting weary of war. A consensus was growing among the citizenry of the North that the South should be allowed to secede from the Union—they wanted to end the war and all the bloody fighting and killing. Aware that the North had lost heart, General Robert E. Lee turned his war-hardened veteran army north. He felt a victory on northern soil would win the Confederacy the ne
eded support of the European countries, and perhaps even force a peace with the North, so he directed his army of seventy-five thousand here to southern Pennsylvania."

  "And no one opposed him along the way?" Sin questioned.

  Mara slowed the car as they entered the town of Gettysburg. "No one. The Union knew Lee was moving, but their patrols couldn't locate his army, which sounds unbelievable when you realize his supply train of wagons was forty-two miles long. Both armies knew they would have to meet, but they didn't know where. They first encountered each other west of Gettysburg, so that's where we'll start our tour."

  Turning west on Chambersburg Pike, Mara stole a glance at Sin's jutting profile. It seemed sculpted in bronze, the strong, male lines emphasized. The skies outside were overcast, a gray background for the burned silver of his hair. He seemed distant, his thoughts elsewhere. Yet his vitality was a forceful thing. Even now it permeated the air surrounding her to the point where she felt it entering her with each breath she took.

  At Stone Avenue she turned and slowed the car to a crawl. "Here on McPherson's Ridge is where it all started. There's a story that a group of rebel soldiers intended to make a foray into Gettysburg because they'd heard there was a shoe factory here, and after three years of war many of the Confederate soldiers were without shoes or decent clothes. They encountered a Union patrol before they entered the town, and the alarm was sounded. The location of Lee's army was discovered and the battle began."

  "For want of a shoe," Sin absently quoted the first line of an old verse, "a horse was lost."

  As he gazed at the monuments and statues within the fenced enclosure, Mara moistened her dry lips and struggled to keep her nervousness under control.

  "There are hundreds of plaques and monuments scattered over the park," she said. "Whenever you see a statue of a general mounted on a horse, take note of the position of the horse's feet. If all four are on the ground, the general survived the battle unharmed. If one foot is raised, that general was wounded. He was killed in battle if two feet are raised. It's purely by coincidence since the statues were done by various sculptors at various times. None of them consulted each other—it merely happened. It's a little piece of trivia that I thought might interest you," she concluded.

  "Curious," was his murmured comment.

  With a turn of his head, Sin was looking directly at her. His gaze seemed to lock with hers. Despite the spaciousness of the luxury car, Mara was vibrantly aware of his close proximity. His arm was stretched along the back of the seat, his fingers inches from her shoulder. The broad expanse of his chest seemed to offer its use as a hard pillow for her head. A feeling of intimacy threatened to swamp her.

  She wrenched her gaze from his to stare at the road, her lips tightening in anger. "Stop looking at me that way," she demanded.

  "What way?" Sin questioned blandly.

  She couldn't answer that, so she changed the subject. "In the afternoon, the rebels attacked the right flank of the Union army north of Gettysburg. They succeeded in routing the North and driving them through the streets of Gettysburg. But instead of keeping the Union soldiers on the run or taking the high ground of Cemetery Ridge, the Confederates withdrew and regrouped to wait for Lee, who was several miles away when the battle started."

  Following the route of the Union's retreat, Mara drove back through town, pointing out the buildings that still showed the battle scars from that time. She told Sin of how General Hancock had rallied the northern troops and of the arrival of General Meade and his army after a record-breaking forced march.

  From Culp's Hill to Little Round Top, she explained the uncoordinated attacks by the South the following day on the firmly entrenched Union forces on the high ground. Possession of strategic locations seesawed, changing hands several times. The failure of the Confederate battle plan to encircle the Union army ended the day in a stalemate.

  As she drove slowly along Confederate Avenue, it seemed fitting that the trees were stark and bare of leaves and the grass brown and yellowed with autumn. A wide, open field stretched before them to Seminary Ridge.

  "Since Lee's plan to outflank the Union army failed the day before, he decided to send his army straight up the middle of their defenses, split them in two," Mara recounted. "That is the field Pickett's men had to cross—no trees, no cover. The rebel soldiers were lined up in rows, shoulder to shoulder, for a mile and a half, facing Seminary Ridge. You've heard the story of the Charge of the Light Brigade? It couldn't match Pickett's charge. They marched across this field with Northern soldiers blowing holes in them, but they didn't stop. The creeks around Gettysburg ran red with blood. Less than an hour later, ten thousand of Pickett's fifteen thousand men were casualties and they'd failed to take the ridge."

  "Stop here," Sin ordered, and Mara turned off the highway to park alongside the road. "Let's get out and walk."

  A cold wind whipped at her as she stepped from the car. She reached into the back for her coat and slipped it on. She didn't bother to button it, holding the front closed with her hands thrust into the pockets. Sin was standing a short distance from the car, overlooking the field Pickett's men crossed. Mara walked forward to join him.

  "Lee was here waiting when the survivors came back," Mara continued her narrative in a low voice. "Some said there were tears in his eyes when he met them. He didn't blame them for falling. He told them it was his fault because he had believed they were 'invincible.' The next day, Lee led the remnants of his Confederate army and retreated south. It was July 4, 1863."

  A brief shiver quaked her shoulders, but it wasn't caused by the cold wind blowing around her ears. It was a sober understanding of why the Union soldiers felt no glory in their victory that long-ago day. It had cost too many lives on both sides.

  Her sideways glance encountered Sin's gaze. The look in his eyes seemed to hold a half-formed question, and she was curious to find out what it was.

  "Was there something you wanted to ask?" she inquired, keeping her tone distantly impersonal.

  Sin glanced toward the battlefield as if he wasn't going to answer. He stood quietly, the collar of his coat turned up against the wind.

  "I was just wondering," he spoke at last, "whether you were beginning to believe you were invincible because you've repulsed so many assaults in the past."

  The surroundings and all the talk about the battle had lulled Mara's senses, but now they came to full alertness. Annoyed with herself for permitting Sin to make a personal comment, she turned toward the car.

  "From here we'll drive to the national cemetery where Lincoln made his address," she told him.

  The restraining touch of his hand on her arm halted Mara and her gaze lifted in cold challenge from his hand on her arm to his face. One side of his mouth curved upward in amusement. She silently cursed him for being so damned impregnable.

  "You remind me of a turtle." Sin eyed her steadily. "The minute anyone approaches, you withdraw inside your armored shell." Something flickered in his look that tripped up the even rhythm of her heartbeat. "But beneath its hard exterior a turtle is very vulnerable."

  Entrapped by the light in his eye, she wasn't aware of his hand moving to slide inside her coat and across her stomach. She drew a sharp breath of unwilling enjoyment as his other hand pushed its way inside her coat to spread his fingers over her skin.

  Before the cold air could penetrate the opened front of her coat she was drawn against the warmth of his solid frame. Her hands came out of her pockets to grip the bulging muscles of his arms in a halfhearted attempt at resistance. His mouth covered hers with sensual perfection.

  The subtle pressure of his kiss sent all repressions fleeing. At his invitation Mara responded freely, her lips parting under the provocative insistence of his. His experience was devastating to her previously unbreached defenses.

  An exploding desire flamed through her nerves, her body quivering in the pleasurable after shock. The intimate caress of his hands over her soft flesh was igniting new sensations that
fevered her racing pulse. Under his touch, her breasts seemed to swell to fit the cup of his hand.

  When his mouth moved slowly across her cheek, the warmth of his breath fanned her already hot skin. Sin paused near her ear to nip sensually at the lobe, then explored the pulsing vein in her neck all the way to the sensitive hollow of her throat. The quivering weakness he evoked was delightful.

  A car went by. Had there been more? In her shattered condition, Mara wasn't sure. It gradually penetrated her dazzled mind that they were standing out in the open, in plain view of anyone who drove past.

  Her sense of propriety struggled with her new, wildly sweet emotions and won. Twisting her head toward her shoulder, she blocked his stirring exploration of her neck and throat. She didn't have the strength nor the will to slip out of his arms, but she was able to elude the attempt of his compelling mouth to retake possession of her lips.

  "Stop!" Her husky voice betrayed the disturbed state of her senses, a condition that didn't improve as she felt his lips moving against her silky hair. "Sin, people can see us!"

  After an instant's hesitation he slowly lifted his head, his hands sliding to her waist. Mara felt the tenseness of his muscles, his reluctance communicated to her along with the sheer power of his control. She kept her face averted from his much too observant slate-blue eyes, not wanting him to see how thoroughly he had conquered her.

  The awareness of his gaze and the touch of his hands were too unnerving. She pushed at his arms, wanting to be released, but lacking the will to achieve freedom on her own. As his hold loosened, she turned away and put distance between them with a hurried step. She pulled the front of her coat together as if by doing so she could erase the invasion of his hands.

  But nothing could erase the way he had aroused emotions she had intended to remain forever dormant. A spurious glance in his direction caught his calculating look. Sin was aware of it: she could read the knowledge in the provocative depths of his eyes. Never had she felt so transparent and never had she loathed the sensation more.