Cameron’s gaze met Jackson’s and he cleared his throat. “Taye told me that Marie was here.”
Suddenly afraid, her amber eyes filled with tears. “Do you love her?” The words were whispered.
He shook his head, taking her hand and kissing it. “Cameron, dearest, I love you, and I’m sorry I hurt you. You have to believe me when I tell you that only once did Marie and I—” He cut off his words, gazing into her eyes. “It was two years ago, a lifetime ago, and it was wrong and I’m so damned sorry.”
“Oh, Jackson,” Cameron sobbed. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. “I’m sorry, too, so sorry for everything. Everything I’ve said, everything I’ve done that’s hurt you.” Tears ran down her face as she drew back to gaze into those gray eyes she loved. “I could give you a million excuses, why I’ve done those things, but they would still just be excuses. Please give me another chance. Give us another chance.”
“Cameron,” Jackson groaned, his voice filled with emotion. “You were right about so many of the things you said. I did come home to Baltimore and order you around. Then I was jealous of Lacy, of Elmwood, even of your father’s diary. I’m sorry. And I swear by all that’s holy, my work with the government is done. I’m a civilian once again.”
Cameron was laughing and crying at the same time. “I want to go home,” she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Sweetheart, it will be months before Elmwood is livable.”
She tipped back her head. “No, Jackson. Home. Home to Baltimore. I don’t belong here anymore, I realize that now. Our children don’t belong here.”
“Our children?” He touched her chin with the tip of his finger.
She smiled as she caught his hand and drew it over her belly. “I didn’t want to tell you yet because I didn’t want you to be disappointed. If something happened, I guess I didn’t want you to blame me again.”
“Blame you again?” Jackson’s forehead creased. He moved their joined hands to his chest so that she could feel his heart pounding. “I never blamed you, Cam. I blamed myself.”
“You? How could you have made me miscarry?”
“The way I shouted at you that day at Elmwood. The cruel things I said.”
“Oh, Jackson,” she groaned. “How silly we both are. I thought you blamed me. I thought that was why you wouldn’t come to my bed, why you were gone so long.”
“And I thought you didn’t want me,” he confessed.
She laughed again at her own foolishness as well as his. “Promise me that in the future we will both speak up. Ordinarily, we seem to be rather good at that.”
“I’ll promise if you’ll promise.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. “Do you really want to go back to Baltimore? Because if you don’t—”
She silenced him with a kiss. “You said you bought that plantation on the Chesapeake.” She smiled up at him, nestling her head on his shoulder. “That sounds like a nice place to raise our son.”
“Or maybe our daughter.” He tipped her chin with his fingertips and brushed his mouth against hers.
“I suppose we should rise,” she said against his lips. “We should talk with Taye. They need to go quickly. I’m sure Captain Grey will be here again and will want to talk to all of us.”
“I don’t think they’ll leave until after dark. And Captain Grey is already taken care of. I told him you would be indisposed today, but that we would see him first thing tomorrow morning. He’s got custody of what’s left of those men and that’s what he cares about.”
“Well, then.” Cameron slid over in the bed, making room for Jackson. “Would you care to join me?”
He lifted an eyebrow boyishly. “I’m sure that I’ve need of a nap right now.”
“A nap was not what I had in mind, Captain Logan,” she murmured huskily, reaching out to pull him into her arms. And as their lips touched, as she tasted him, Cameron knew deep in her heart that some fences could be mended, while others could just be left behind.
“When is the train coming?” Lacy asked, bouncing up and down in her new slippers. “I never rid—I have never ridden a train before,” she corrected herself.
Cameron glanced up from the wooden bench in the train station and smiled. Seeing Lacy so excited about their trip north made her feel good inside.
Taye and Falcon had been gone almost a week. They left immediately after Thomas’s private funeral at Elmwood. Taye’s absence had left a soreness in Cameron’s heart. But she knew that her sister was safe and truly happy.
“Is it coming yet?” Lacy asked, bouncing toward Jackson, who stood to the side with their baggage.
Cameron clutched her father’s diary to her chest and smiled as Jackson reached out to tug one of Lacy’s braids. There was still going to be a period of adjustment, but they seemed to finding their way with each other.
Cameron’s gaze shifted to Patsy, sitting on the bench across from her, who appeared as nervous about taking the train as Lacy did excited. The young woman was returning with them to Baltimore to serve Cameron as a personal maid.
Naomi, Noah and Ngosi would remain in Mississippi. Naomi said her bones told her the land needed her. When Jackson had gently asked Cameron what they should do about Elmwood, place it up for sale or simply board it up, Cameron had decided then and there to give the plantation to Naomi and Noah. The house, the stables, every acre. They, in turn, would divide up the land into farming plots to be leased out to freed slaves. Black families would have the opportunity to buy the land at a reasonable price, and they would have Naomi and Noah available to advise them.
Jackson had declared she was insane, but he’d then gone straight into town to begin the necessary legal paperwork.
It was odd, Cameron remembered, how easy it had been to look Naomi in the eye and tell her the land was hers. It seemed small payment for what her brother had done to Naomi, what he had done to all of Elmwood’s slaves.
Smiling to herself, Cameron opened her father’s diary. There were only a few entries left. They were scattered now, and sometimes months passed, even years, before David Campbell wrote again.
November 29, 1855. Went to town today to see my granddaughter, Cameron read. Her breath caught in her throat. She is a most delightful child. Bright, inquisitive. I only wish that Grant would be willing to take a more active part in her life. He does not understand the joy children can bring. Even children born on the wrong side of the blanket, as my Taye was.
Cameron scanned the words, barely reading them as she skipped forward. Then, at last, there it was. She glanced up.
“Jackson! Lacy! Come here.” She slid over on the bench, making room for them, one on each side of her. “Listen to this.” She read from the diary.
“While my precarious position will not allow me to bring the child home, I continue to provide for her and her mother. Once this political unrest has passed and I can retire, it is my wish to bring her home. It is my wish that Lacy take the name that is rightfully hers—Campbell.”
Cameron looked over at Lacy, tears filling her eyes. A month pregnant and she could do nothing but cry. “You are my niece,” she murmured.
“’Course I am,” Lacy said matter-of-factly. “I told you that before, Aunt Cammy.” Then she got up and walked away.
“So go ahead and say it,” Jackson said from beside her. “Say it in front of everyone.” He gestured good-naturedly.
Cameron closed the heavy diary on her lap and turned to look at him. “Say what?”
“That you told me so.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “I could be persuaded otherwise.”
“How?” He leaned close, gazing down at her, his eyes filled with a love that seemed different to Cameron than before.
“A kiss.”
“One kiss as payment?”
“Just one,” she whispered.
He pressed his mouth to hers. “And I was thinking at least a thousand.”
Epilogue
&
nbsp; Five Years Later
Day’s End Plantation, Maryland
“Jackson, have you gone deaf?” Cameron demanded good-naturedly as she walked through the apple orchard, ducking branches, Taye’s latest letter from California in her hand. The fruit trees were just beginning to blossom, and she could smell the nectar of the tiny white flowers and hear the hum of honeybees.
Jackson looked up from where he sat on a wooden bench nestled among the trees. “We’re coming.”
“Are we? Are we?” Cameron teased, kneeling in front of the bench to put both hands out to tickle her daughters’ bellies.
The twins, seated on each side of their father, burst in wild giggles, kicking their little leather riding boots beneath their matching green riding habits.
“Mama!” red-haired Abby cried with delight.
Katie, sporting tiny red pigtails from beneath her bonnet, reached out to touch Cameron’s cheeks. “Mama! We rode the ponies!”
“You did? Well, my goodness. And I missed it. After supper, you will have to ride them again so that I can see you.”
Cameron tucked the letter beneath her arm and held a small hand in each of hers. For a moment she feared she was too happy to live another hour on this earth. In the last five years, her childhood dreams had not just come true. Her life with Jackson and their girls was better than she could ever have imagined.
Cameron knew now that she’d had no idea what it was to love until Naomi, visiting from Mississippi, had placed her two daughters into her arms the day they were born. Cameron had not truly known what it meant to love a man until she glanced up to see the tears in Jackson’s eyes as he kneeled at her bedside in thanks.
“What have you got there, my dear?” Jackson asked.
“A letter from—” She almost said Taye, but caught herself. “Minette.” Cameron released the girls to flip through the pages. She missed her sister so much, and yet she couldn’t help but be happy for her. Minette and Falcon had carved a life for themselves in the wilds of California, and were doing better than anyone could have hoped. “You can read it later. She and Falcon are well, and—” she looked up, nearly bursting with excitement “—she’s expecting.”
Jackson grinned. “Falcon’s a lucky man.”
She met his gaze and was lost in their gray depths for a moment.
“Mama.” Katie tugged on her mother’s hand. “Is Lacy done with her studies for the day? Can she see us ride the pony, too?”
“She is done, and we must all be on our way. Patsy will fuss with us if we’re late to the table,” Cameron said, rising to her feet.
Jackson got up off the bench, helping each girl down.
“I think we should race,” Katie said. She tugged on Jackson’s sleeve. “Think we should race, Papa?”
“I don’t know.” Jackson shook his head dramatically. “Mama always beats us.”
“On your mark,” Abby said, thrusting one little foot forward, her skirts bunched in her hands, almost up to her waist.
“Go!” Katie squealed.
And the little girls took off across the orchard.
Cameron turned to Jackson; she couldn’t stop smiling. “So how was the riding lesson? Honestly?”
“Honestly?” He slipped his arm around her waist and they followed the girls at a leisurely pace. “Well, only three tumbles between the two of them.” He glanced at her, his eyes dancing. “A good day, I would say.”
Cameron laughed with him, halting to turn and face him. “If your teaching skills are that fine, perhaps I should take some riding lessons from you myself?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. “Oh, I could teach you a few things, Mrs. Logan, but it wasn’t the same riding skills I had in mind.”
Cameron laughed huskily and closed her eyes as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“Mama! Papa!”
“Mama! Papa Bear!”
Suddenly they were surrounded by little red-haired girls tugging on their clothes.
“You said we was going to race!”
Jackson sighed as he let go of Cameron. “Girls, I don’t think your mother wants to—”
Cameron lifted her skirts and took off, running through the orchard. “Last one to supper is an old toad!” she shouted over her shoulder.
The girls squealed with a mixture of horror and delight and trotted after her.
“Wait for me!” Jackson hollered, breaking into a run.
“You have to catch us!” Cameron cried, laughing. And the four of them raced through the orchard, headed for home and the happiness they had made there.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6424-6
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Copyright © 2003 by Rosemary Rogers.
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