She had never felt a reciprocal affection for any of them. This time was different, and her Aunt Emmaline had realized it. Rarely had she arranged to have patients brought to her home for special care. Never had she gone out of her way to receive Yankees under her roof.
And not just any Yankees. These two men were obviously of color. But it would be impolite to ask. Jason’s skin carried the olive tint of the Indian tribes of the region—those that had been able to remain after President Jackson’s Removal Act had seen most of them relocated to Indian Territory. By his handsome facial features—the high cheekbones, straight nose and dark eyes, coupled with his height, she thought perhaps he might carry Cherokee blood.
Her lips compressed. She must get a tight hold on herself.
“You’re my guardian angel, it seems.” His voice was low and husky.
Sabrina envisioned herself with a fiery sword, standing beside Jason’s bed to ward off evil. She’d have to guard her own heart with that same weapon. The danger was not from others, now, but from within. Why had she brought him into her home?
She managed a faint smile. “I’m sure I don’t resemble anything angelic in the least,” she replied crisply. But she took a step toward the bed, rather than away.
He reached out a hand to her. The light in his eyes was replaced by pain that seemed to steal his breath for a moment, and Sabrina quickly seated herself at his side once more in the chair. She took his hand firmly in her own, feeling the unnatural heat of the fever that still held him.
But as she took his fingers in hers, the sharpness of his features eased and he seemed to relax.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered.
She immediately shook her head. “No. I won’t.”
“Sabrina,” he murmured. And this time, it sounded like…like a lover’s caress.
Sabrina didn’t respond. He’d drifted back to a fitful sleep, thankfully unable to see the color she knew flooded her face by the accompanying heat.
She had made a mistake, bringing this particular man into her home. There was real danger of her losing her heart. Something about the way he smiled at her; the look in his eyes—as if he could see right into her very soul with an understanding of her that no one else had ever had. Aunt Emmaline’s outrage had been justified.
Still, she couldn’t help but offer him comfort. She patted his hand, then touched his forehead very gently. “I’m here.”
****
Sabrina was awakened early the next morning by Desiree’s cheerful humming as she opened the door.
“Breakfast. Forgive me for last night, Sabrina, I slept through—” Her chatter stopped abruptly in mid-sentence as the door swung wide. The shock in her emerald eyes made Sabrina sit up. During the long night, she had laid her head on the bedside. Then, somehow, Jason’s arm had pulled her even closer to where her upper body rested gently across his bare chest.
“Oh…my…”
Sabrina inwardly groaned. While Desi might not say anything to Aunt Emmaline, she would hold the possibility over Sabrina’s head and tease her ceaselessly with it. And, of course, it would all be true.
Sabrina’s gaze arrowed back to Jason, who, unfortunately, was awake and watching her horrified reaction with the same delighted fascination Desi was.
“Thank you for keeping me warm,” he said softly, for her ears only. Then, “What’s for breakfast, Miss Desiree? I’m hungry.”
Desi brought the tray into the room and set it on the night table. “Rice.” Her gaze went to where Eli lay, his eyes open, watching. She gave a small cry and hurried to him, the tray and Sabrina’s transgression forgotten.
“You’re awake! How do you feel? Poor thing…” The rest of her prattle was lost as she neared the far bed and pulled up a chair.
Jason smiled at Sabrina. “Looks like she’s forgotten what she saw. Or thought she saw.” Sabrina started to reply, but he continued on smoothly, dismissing the subject entirely. “Is it really rice?”
She could have kissed him for sparing her any further embarrassment. She took the cover off one of the bowls. “It really is. I hope you like it.”
“I’m sure I will. Did your aunt make it?”
“Yes.”
“No slaves left to help out?”
Sabrina didn’t know what to make of the question or the sharpness in his tone.
“Actually,” she began carefully, “we were the poor relations. So we never had slaves, as such. Aunt Emmaline has raised us for the past fifteen years, after Mother and Father were killed in a carriage mishap. I don’t remember them well, since I was only four when it happened. Desi was barely a year old.”
“My apologies—for my tone, and for the death of your parents.”
Sabrina’s thoughts whirled. She heard Georgia in his accent. Yet, he wore the blue of the North. The past years of working in the hospital had afforded her the opportunity to hear every nuance in the language of the southerners and the northern soldiers who had come through the door. Perhaps this was one reason for the treatment Jason and Eli had received—Georgians in blue would not be well received.
“You most certainly are a Georgian,” she said quietly. “I wonder why you chose to wear blue rather than gray? To fight against your state and your brothers.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then a burst of laughter escaped him. “You’re direct—for a southern lass.”
“Lass…that’s an odd word—but one you seem to use commonly.”
“I’ll have to be careful with my words—else I’ll have no secrets from you, will I?” His smile faded in the face of her somber expression. “I have no brothers but one.” His gaze drifted to where Desi and Eli sat talking quietly. “And I know right where he is…and where he stands, as far as I’m concerned. As for this being my state—that choice was taken from me before I was born.”
Sabrina reached for the rice, deftly changing the topic to a safer one. “We’ve learned to eat it plain—no sugar, and no milk—since our cow was confiscated a few months ago. We were lucky to have hung on to her as long as we did.”
Jason was oddly silent, as if he regretted his words. Finally, he looked up at her. “Yet, you offer me and my brother the hospitality of your home.” He took the spoon from her. “I can do this if you hold the bowl.”
Although she wanted to argue badly, she held her tongue as he took the first bite, his hand trembling slightly.
“Eli says he might be able to eat a bit,” Desi said from behind Sabrina. Sabrina turned in her chair to glance at her younger sister. Desi’s face radiated a glow that Sabrina found a trifle unsettling. Eli was a handsome young soldier, but Desi had seen many such men before him. Was he catching her fancy?
“Well, he needs to eat, if he can. I’ll see to him in a moment—”
“Oh, no! By then the rice will have cooled. It’s barely palatable as it is, Sabrina, with no sugar or milk. I’ll help him myself. You just—” her green eyes cut to Jason’s face then back to Sabrina, “—carry on. I’ll see to Eli.”
There was nothing she could say. Nothing she could do. Desi was stubborn and bound to have her way on things. Still, she hoped her sister wasn’t on the verge of losing her heart to Eli McCain. Sabrina forced herself to smile at her. “You’re right. We don’t want it to cool too much.”
Smugly, Desi took the other bowl of rice from the tray and sashayed across the room. For the first time, a warm smile lit Eli’s features. She turned back to face Jason, who seemed to be eyeing them with the same concern she felt.
“So, you were saying? You are from Georgia?”
Jason smiled. “I don’t think I was ‘saying’ at all, Miss Patrick, but that was a very skillful conversational gambit, so I’ll play.” He took another bite, and Sabrina knew he was buying time to think of what and how much to tell her.
“My family was from here, yes.”
“Close by?”
He shook his head. “No. And it doesn’t matter, now.”
“I’m curious as to you
r reasons. Your reasons for turning…and wearing the Union colors.” Sabrina kept her voice calmly neutral.
“My reasons, Miss Patrick, are my own.”
The rebuke was cold and distant, even justified, she thought, but it felt as if he’d plunged a knife to her very core. That surprised her. She should have been expecting some sort of answer like this—after all, he would not want to tell her why he had become a soldier for the other side—not yet. But something inside her said it was not for money, nor glory. Oh, yes. He did have his reasons. But obviously they would remain his own until he was ready to share them with her—if he ever was.
“I understand.” She swallowed hard. She shouldn’t have pressed.
He sighed, putting his fingers to his temple. “No, you don’t.”
“You don’t have to say—”
“I want to. Please—forgive me for being so abrupt.” He glanced over at his brother and Desi, who were engaged in conversation, Desi’s giggle rising breathlessly at Eli’s recounting of a humorous tale.
“My father was Scottish, my mother, Cherokee. They were ‘encouraged’ to leave in the Removal.”
“Oh…I had wondered.” Sabrina shook her head. “That seems so wrong. To uproot people and force them to go. But your father wouldn’t have had to go, would he?”
He smiled at her and looked down, remembering. “No. He didn’t have to go. And he didn’t go. But suddenly, things weren’t so friendly anymore. Suddenly….the people they’d always thought of as neighbors were not as welcoming as they had been before.”
“Yes. That tends to happen,” Sabrina said. “When our parents died, Aunt Emmaline was the only one who stepped in to help. It seems when a person has something bad happen to them, there are so many who are glad to see that misfortune.”
“Yeah.” He was silent a moment. “And there are those who are glad to help you along with it; keep their foot on your neck when you’re down.”
Sabrina put an encouraging hand on his, aware that he was tired and almost at the end of his limited endurance. But there was something he was on the verge of telling her. “What happened?”
He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. As the seconds ticked by, she thought he had decided against telling her any more. Then, he said, “They got what they wanted. Eventually, they murdered my mother. My father went insane…he hunted them all down, one by one. Only he—he didn’t finish the job before they killed him.”
“Oh, Jason—”
“You have taken us under your roof, Sabrina. I owe you an explanation. You see, Eli and I don’t really belong here. Maybe we don’t belong on either side—North or South. Being half Scottish, we aren’t even full-blood Cherokee. So, maybe you can understand, now, why we fought for the North. Those people never killed my mother; never drove my father to do things—such as he did.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Of course, she knew of the Removal. But she’d never known anyone it had affected personally.
“How old were you?”
“My mother was killed when I was ten. Eli was three.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her mouth felt parched.
“We lived with Pa’s brother, Ian, for a time. He was a good man.” Jason smiled ruefully. “He tried not to hold it against us—being half breeds.”
“Don’t say that!” The vehemence that she felt surprised her, and Jason gave her a curious look.
“Why? It’s what we are.”
“The—The way you say it—it’s like it’s something bad.”
He gave a short laugh. “It’s the way the world sees it, lass.”
They were silent a moment, then Sabrina put her hand out to him. Unable to stop herself she touched his cheek very gently. “I don’t, Jason. I don’t see it that way.”
Finally, he reached to take her hand in his. “Sabrina, you are the only person I know who would say that—and truly mean it.”
****
Jason studied Sabrina closely. She was a beautiful creature, and he felt her goodness surrounding him like comforting starlight on a summer night. He’d not spoken of those darkest of times for the past several years. Not to anyone. Not even to Eli. He’d hoped Eli had been young enough to have forgotten that night when their world had been forever changed.
Eli and been his shadow from the moment he was born. He’d often taken his little brother with him as he did chores or errands. They’d been in the field that day, both of them still in despair over the loss of their mother two weeks earlier. Although their father’s erratic, irrational behavior had scared him, Jason had tried to carry on the usual routine.
Smoke had come to him on the wind. Jason immediately looked toward the house. Flames licked from the roof. But even as he scooped Eli up and began to run, something made him cautious. In the blink of an eye, he saw several riders, who, for a moment had been out of his line of vision, ride away from the burning structure. One detail would be etched in his memory forever. They were laughing.
As he approached the house, he cautioned Eli to be very quiet. On the front porch, his father’s body lay, lit by the flames. He had been shot through the head. Jason had saddled up old Blue and with Eli, had ridden to his Uncle Ian’s house thirty miles away.
Those days had been dark. Eli had adjusted well, but Jason had never been able to forget the tragedies that had plagued his childhood. And he’d never forgotten—he and Eli didn’t belong anywhere.
Now, looking into Sabrina Patrick’s soul as she sat so primly across from him, he wondered if there might be a way to move forward with his life, and banish the shadows.
“I say it because it’s true. You know, my father was Irish,” she confessed. “People here have long memories.”
Desi turned slightly in her chair. “Mrs. Reynolds told Aunt Emma that’s why we’ll both be old maids.”
“Desi!” From the horrified look on Sabrina’s face, she could have gladly pinched her sister’s head off.
“Well, it’s true! She said no one will have us with our Irish lineage.” She affected Mrs. Reynolds’ dour expression, and Eli laughed.
“If that’s what’s stopping them, every man in this county is a fool,” Jason said quietly. He didn’t imagine that was much consolation to either of the young women old Mrs. Reynolds had so cavalierly relegated to spinsterhood.
Sabrina’s eyes softened, and Jason resisted the urge to reach for her, to touch a strand of her glorious blonde hair that seemed to want to escape the confinement of the loose knot she’d put it in.
The look in her eyes when she’d so earnestly defended his Cherokee heritage haunted him. She was such an innocent. But she also seemed to have a pure, true sense of right and wrong. A pang of regret sliced through him. She had to perceive that earlier bit of accidental intimacy they’d shared as humiliating; not because of his Indian blood—but because she would not see her actions as proper behavior with any man.
“I…suppose they are all fools then,” she murmured softly. She looked away after a moment.
“Yes.”
And then Jason did something he’d wanted to do since the moment he’d first become aware of her, six days ago at that godforsaken hospital. Although it was not the least bit proper, and she’d be within her rights to throw him out on his ear, he kissed her.
****
It was only a brief touch of their lips, Sabrina told herself, and should not have caused the waves of trembling heat to rush over her. His lips were firm and strong. And she kissed him back. He’d reached up and gently pulled her to him. As if he’d sensed her concern over Desi being in the room, he’d glanced to where she sat talking to Eli, once more engrossed in conversation, and when Sabrina had started to protest, he’d squeezed her shoulder in silent reassurance. And she had kissed him back. He’d been so gentle and—oh Lord, had Eli seen that kiss? She had responded heartily to his brother. She had not pushed Jason away or protested in the least. She had welcomed it. There was no doubt for either of them. She had definitely kissed him back.
As she pulled away, she opened her lids to find him watching her. His dark eyes smoldered with desire. But it didn’t scare her. It excited her.
Good Lord. She stood quickly, her head spinning so that she almost missed her first step toward the door. When had she last eaten? That had to be the cause of her unsteadiness. But why was her heart pounding so frantically? It was only a kiss. One kiss.
But she had kissed him back.
****
The next week brought steady improvement for Jason and Eli. While Desi found every excuse to be with Eli, Sabrina went about her own care of Jason with perfunctory politeness, her attitude not lost on Aunt Emmaline. Sabrina could tell her aunt had questions, but she didn’t ask. Though Sabrina longed to talk to the older woman, she couldn’t find a way to bring up what had happened between Jason and her.
One day as she started up the stairs with the lunch tray, Aunt Emmaline laid a hand on her wrist.
“I’m thinking we can make those young men a bed down here. Save you and Desi from going up and down these stairs so much. In the next few days, they should be able to walk—take care of their…other needs—if they’re here on the first floor.” She cleared her throat.
Sabrina nodded. “Is there something else, Aunt Emma?”
“You’ve been acting mighty peculiar, Sabrina. Did something happen between you and Jason?” The kindness and assurance of understanding, no matter what, in her aunt’s tone undid what little resolve Sabrina had left. She had been on pins and needles since Jason had kissed her. And she’d thought of nothing else. But she’d been careful to avoid being in a similar position again since that day, and when she’d brought up his meals there had been only polite conversation between them. Once, she’d thought she’d caught a glint of a deviling reminder in his eyes, but he’d looked past her after a moment and she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t even tell Desi. Desi would have gotten the greatest bit of fun from that knowledge—and she was unpredictable. For all Sabrina knew, had she confided in Desi, her younger sister might have decided to take matters into her own hands and tell Jason that Sabrina liked it. Which she had. Or that Sabrina wished with all her heart he would kiss her again. Which she did. She might even tell him of that indescribable rush of wind and heat and wonder that moved over her entire body when their lips had met—a feeling that she was still trying to figure out how to put into words herself. But Desiree would certainly have no trouble telling Jason what Sabrina had felt like—she was never at a loss for words. And that’s why Sabrina could never tell her—not until she grew up a little. How wonderful it would be to unburden herself to Aunt Emmaline. And how utterly shameful.
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