Triumph

by Heather Graham

  It seemed that he stood there forever, wanting to do some violence to her, wanting to stop the rage that warred inside him, wanting just to hold her. And finally, he managed to walk away. The time had finally come when he didn’t dare trust her, himself, or the future.

  Walk away! he told himself. Let your men come and escort her to prison. Get to Cimarron, while there is still a Cimarron to get to!

  But now, she had suddenly found movement, and a voice. She came flying after him, catching him on the stairs. She pushed past him, turning around to face him. He saw the grief in her eyes, heard the pain in her voice. “Taylor, I—I—they said he meant to kill my father.”

  “Step aside, Tia,” he said.

  “Taylor, damn you! I had to come here. I had to do what I could to stop him. Can’t you see that, don’t you understand?”

  He lashed out, sarcastic and cruel, striking her with the anguish that ripped through him.

  “I understand, my love, that you were ready, willing, and able to sleep with another man. But then, Weir is a good Southern soldier, is he not? A proper planter, a fitting beau for the belle of Cimarron, indeed, someone you have loved just a little for a very long time. How convenient.”

  “No, I—”

  “No?” he challenged. How many times had she defended Weir to him?

  “Yes, you know that—once we were friends. But I ... please!” she whispered. His heart constricted, fingers plucked at it, tightened, squeezed. There was so much in that simple word. And the way she looked at him.

  He reached out, lightly stroking her cheek. “Please? Please what? Are you sorry, afraid? Or would you seduce me, too? Perhaps I’m not such easy prey for you, for I am, at least, familiar with the treasure offered, and I have played the game to a great price already. When I saw you tonight ... do you know what I first intended to do? Throttle you, you may be thinking! Beat you black and blue. Well that, yes. Where pride and emotions are involved, men do think of violence. But I thought to do more. Clip your feathers, my love. Cut off those ebony locks and leave you shorn and costumeless, as it were—naked would not be the right word. What if I were to sheer away these lustrous tresses? Would you still be about seducing men—friend and foe—to save your precious family and state? Not again, for until this war of ours is finished, I will have you hobbled—until your fate can be decided.”

  “I—have seduced no one else. I ...” she said. Tears glistened in the darkness of her eyes. “I’m not a harlot, Taylor!” she managed to whisper. There was a wealth of hurt and sorrow and reproach in her words, and he found himself trembling, shaking, glad to find that she was safe, glad that she wanted him to believe her.

  He reached for her, drawing her into his arms. He kissed her too hard, with too much violence in his soul. Felt her hair, her flesh, tasted the sweetness, tempest, and passion in her lips. He was in love with her, did love her so much, had sworn that he would not. He wanted nothing more than to be with her. Hold her, forget. Make love then and there, and let the world crash down around them.

  No, good God, he could not be seduced now, couldn’t forget his anger, didn’t dare. He pulled away from her, speaking hoarsely. “Ah, Tia, what a pity! I’m not at all sure of your motives at the moment, but for once, when you are apparently ready to become a willing wife with no argument to give me, there remains too much at stake for me to take advantage of your remorse. There’s a battle still to be waged.”

  “A battle?” Either she hadn’t known about the pincer movement planned against her father, or she had forgotten. “But you’ve stopped Weir from the war he would wage against my father.”

  “Tia, you little fool! Weir was only a half of it! There’s a Major Hawkins with militia from the panhandle who will bear down upon Cimarron at any moment now. I don’t know if Ian ever received word of this, or if Julian knows somehow. You apparently learned about it. But I may be the only help your father will have.”

  She stared at him, stunned. And terrified, he thought. “Dear God! I’d forgotten there would be more troops. I’ve got to get home!” she cried, and she turned, running frantically down the remaining steps.

  “No! Tia!”

  He wasn’t going to allow it. She was willing to risk far too much. He ran after her, caught her first by the length of her raven dark hair. She cried out; he ignored the sound, winding her back into his arms, meeting her eyes. “You’re going nowhere,” he told her firmly.

  “My father—my home—”

  Yes, they were everything to her. And once, she had probably thought that Weir would be the one to fight for them. “Your enemy will save them for you,” he said.

  “No, please, you have to let me ride with you. I beg of you, Taylor, in this, I swear, I—”

  “Make me no more promises, Tia, for I am weary of you breaking them.”

  “But I swear—”

  “This fight will be deadly, and I’ll not have you seized by either side as a pawn in the battles to be waged.”

  “Please!” she begged.

  No, no ... no. He could not let her be there. She would die to save her family, or Cimarron. He almost explained that to her, but he heard footsteps at the landing. His men had come for her.

  “Gentlemen, take my wife to the ship, please. They’ll not be surprised to find another McKenzie prisoner at Old Capitol.”

  One of the soldiers cleared his throat politely. “Mrs. Douglas, if you will ...”

  She lowered her head, stepping away from Taylor’s hold.

  Now she really hated him, he thought. And again, the longing was there to pull her to him, to forget everything else.

  No!

  He released her.

  She stared at him again. “No!” she said softly. Then she cried out, “No!”

  He had forgotten who she was, how fast, sleek, supple, and determined. She spun around with such a swift fury that she tore past him, and the soldiers who would have taken her.

  She raced down those steps. As she did so, he swore, thinking that Blaze was probably out there; he hadn’t thought to seize her horse when they’d arrived.

  “Colonel, sir, sorry! We’ll catch her!” one of the men swore quickly.

  “No, you will not. I barely have a chance myself,” he said without rancor. “Tell Riley to leave all the prisoners with the captain, and to ride hard for Cimarron behind me.”

  He burst outside just as Tia leapt up on Blaze. Her eyes met his.

  “Home, girl, home!” she told Blaze, nudging the animal.

  Taylor whistled for Friar, mounted him in a flying leap. Tia had already filled the air with her dust.

  The pounding of the earth beneath him seemed to fill him. He rode hard a good ten minutes before nearly catching her. He shouted; she didn’t hear him, or wouldn’t stop. He rode abreast from her and leapt from Friar to Blaze, catching her in his embrace. She resisted him, twisting in the saddle and bringing them both flying down from the horse. He pinned her. She fought him like a wildcat. “Please, Taylor, please, for the love of God ... Please, please!” she whispered. “Bring me home! Let me be there. Bring me home tonight. I’ll stay by your side, obey your every command! I’ll surrender, I’ll cease to ride, I’ll turn myself in to Old Capitol, I’ll put a noose around my own neck, I swear it, Taylor, please, I’ll—”

  Her eyes were, for once, so honest. She loved her family. If only she felt half that for him. “Love, honor, and obey?” he asked wryly. And it wasn’t even that he had chosen to forgive her; it was that they were closer to Cimarron than they were to going back.

  He stood, drawing her along with him. “You’ll ride with me!” he told her harshly. “And go where I command, stay away from all fire! Blaze can follow on her own—she knows the way.”

  “Yes!” she promised.

  He whistled again. Friar, good old warhorse that he was, had stopped his flight with Taylor gone from his back. He returned. Taylor set Tia upon his horse, mounted swiftly behind her. He kneed Friar. The horse began a hard flight once again.r />
  The night sky remained bathed in blood. Indeed, when they neared Cimarron, coming from the south below the river that would be one line of defense, the white plantation house itself was steeped in the blood.

  Before they reached the property, he could hear shouts. Commands being given, responses, men moving quickly. Defenses had been erected against the river, and men were already busy at the work of battle, taking places behind newly erected earthworks.

  Ian had arrived with troops; they were positioned behind the earthworks.

  But there were Rebels on Cimarron’s side as well. And he saw Julian in the midst of them, calling out, giving orders, receiving responses.

  They might not have known, might not have made it. But they had. Now that Taylor was there, they had the superior numbers. And for once in the war, the color of the uniform meant nothing.

  He was accosted by a guard at the rear of the property. “Halt, or be shot!”

  “It’s Colonel Douglas, here to defend with the McKenzies!” Taylor shouted, sliding down from Friar.

  There was a gunboat out on the river. Men were loading rifles, manning the single cannon.

  Behind him, he suddenly heard Tia leap down from Friar. “Mother!” she shrieked, and she was gone, racing across the lawn.

  “Tia!” He thundered in warning, just as he saw Tara McKenzie hurrying across the lawn to her husband’s side, ready to duck beneath the earthworks. But the Rebel soldiers had learned to use their Enfields swiftly in this war. The fire could come too fast.

  “Tia!” He shouted her name again. She had reached her mother. Throwing herself against her, Tia meant to bring them both down to the ground.

  Taylor heard the volley of fire.

  And they were both down.

  He raced to her like the wind. The Rebs on the river were getting ready for a second volley of fire.

  He drew his guns, sliding to his knees beside his wife and her mother. He started to fire rapidly, buying time to move the women. He felt her eyes. She was looking at him. He bent over her, trying to assess the damage. She reached up, touching his cheek. Her eyes closed. “Tia!”

  There was blood on her shoulder. He didn’t know where the bullet had ripped through her, only that at least it hadn’t struck too close to her heart. Tara groaned, trying to rise.

  “Down!” he warned. By then, Jarrett McKenzie, his face a mask of fury and concern, was down beside him. And Julian followed.

  Jarrett was lifting Tara. “We’ve got to get them back to the house,” he said gruffly.

  Taylor started to lift Tia. Julian reached for his sister; he met Taylor’s eyes. “Taylor, let me take her. You might know something about bullet wounds, but not as much as I do. And I’m a damned good shot, but you’re better. You can cover us.”

  He wanted to be with her; more than anything he had ever wanted in his life, he wanted to be with her. But Julian was right. Julian was a doctor. He was not. He was a crack shot.

  If she died, he didn’t want to live!

  The thought passed through him. No, he wasn’t going out there to kill himself. He was going out there to end this thing.

  So that he could go back to her.

  He heard his men arriving behind him. Reinforcements. This could be over quickly; they even had Rebel forces on their side. Sometimes, even in the middle of war, men knew the difference between right and wrong. “Taylor!” Julian gave him a shake. “Keep those bloody bastards out of my house so I can tend to my mother and sister!”

  He nodded to Julian, rose, and running along the earthworks, started to fire. The cannon suddenly exploded, shattering the dock. Dirt and dust blew everywhere. Running along the dirt, he found Ian’s position. Ian didn’t know what had happened to his mother and sister. Taylor decided it wasn’t the time to tell them.

  “Barrage them!” Taylor exclaimed. “I’m going for the cannon!”

  Despite the earth and powder that filled the air around them, Ian saw his intent. If he could get to the gunboat and disable the one cannon, the main threat was over. He nodded. He called out orders to his men. “You’ll have to watch out for friendly fire.”

  Guns fired in a continual fury from the shore line, striking the gunners in the boats and the foot soldiers in the fields beyond. Taylor shed his boots and jacket and slipped down by the ruined dock. He dived into the water, keeping low. He could hear the spitting, soaring sounds as bullets whipped by him in the river. He dived more deeply. When he came up behind the gunboat, he saw that the defenders had done their work well.

  The boat held numerous corpses. He walked low and silently across the deck to the single gun. When the Rebel cannoneer went to load the weapon, he drew his fist back and caught the man with a deadly right hook. The man fell. A second gunner was drawing a pistol to shoot him. Taylor caught the man’s arm, twisted it, and the gun fired into the fellow’s gut. Another man flew across the deck at him, bearing a naval cutlass. Taylor dodged the flight, allowing the man to pin himself into the wooden body of the vessel. Then he threw the man overboard, still using the impetus of the man’s flight. He heard something behind him and turned. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He would have been run through by a man with a rapier, but the Rebel merely stared at him, then fell, shot from the shoreline.

  Taylor quickly overstuffed the cannon and lit the wick. With only seconds, he dived into the water and swam as hard as he could. He was still beneath the water when he heard the explosion. It rocked him toward the shoreline with a massive catapulting action, then sucked him back. For a minute, he thought that, after all this, he was going to drown. Then he found the surface, broke it, and stumbled on to the embankment.

  He lay there in the night, feeling the damp earth beneath him. He gasped for breath. He opened his eyes and looked up. An unknown Rebel soldier stood above him. The man grinned, reaching a hand down to him.

  “Colonel, sir, that was one of the most remarkable acts I’ve ever seen! And they say that we’re better soldiers and better strategists!”

  Taylor just stared at him for a moment. Then he grinned with relief as well. “Unfortunately, sir, most of the time you are. If you weren’t so damned good, this wretched war could have been over long ago.”

  “Let me help you to the house, sir,” the soldier said. Taylor saw that he had one good leg and one wooden leg. “Name’s Liam, sir. At your service.”

  He was up, facing the man. The boat on the river continued to burn, adding to the red haze of the night. Men were racing around, stopping by the injured, assessing the damage and the situation.

  “It’s over?” Taylor queried.

  “It’s over.”

  Taylor nodded, and turned instantly for the house. He ran across the lawn, up the porch steps, and into the entry. Still dripping and muddied, he burst into the parlor.

  He saw Tia first. Pale as a ghost, laid out on the Victorian sofa. Sheets covered her; she didn’t move. A black woman was at her side.

  He walked across the room, his heart in his throat. He looked at the black woman, and sat down by his wife.

  “Tia ...”

  Her eyes opened. “Taylor?” she whispered.

  “I’m here.” He took her hand. “It’s over Tia, it’s over. Your father is safe. Cimarron is safe.”

  She squeezed his hand back. “You’re safe!” she whispered.

  Her eyes closed again.

  “Tia!”

  “She’s all right!” he heard from the doorway. Julian was back. “Flesh wound, Taylor. She caught it in the upper arm. If she hadn’t deflected the bullet, though, my mother might have died. Tia will probably have a nasty scar, but then, when this is all over, we’re all going to have some nasty scars, inside and out.”

  “But she’s unconscious,” Taylor said.

  “A touch of laudanum. It must have hurt like a bitch when I was sewing her up. And she was making me crazy, insisting she had to see Mother. You know your wife.”

  Yes, he knew his wife.

  And she would make him
insane forever with her spirit and courage and determination.

  But then, that was partly why he loved her so very much.

  Chapter 26

  THREE DAYS LATER, TAYLOR walked down to the spring pool that was just through the woods on the McKenzie property. Julian had told him that Tia had gone there. It was the family reflecting pond, he said, glancing toward his older brother. “In fact, Ian looked in the water there once, and found Alaina.”

  “Very amusing, little brother,” Ian said.

  “Little! I think I have half an inch on you, Ian!” Julian told him.

  Taylor grinned, leaving the two on the porch. The bullet that had grazed Tia’s arm had lost its impetus and had stopped short of doing any serious damage to Tara, breaking her skin and lodging in the flesh just below her collarbone. Julian had dug it out quickly and easily. Tara had lost a lot of blood, but today, for the first time, she was feeling strong. She knew she couldn’t hold her family at home much longer, so she wanted to be with her sons while she could. Most of the Union soldiers had already returned to their posts, Ian’s men traveling back across the peninsula, Taylor’s recruits taking the prisoners who had survived the attack at Cimarron on the ship north. Julian’s band of orderlies and injured remained, while Ian had added men to his own operations, just in case the war should come home again. Taylor doubted that it would; only a personal vendetta had brought Weir’s troops here. The South didn’t have enough men left anymore to waste on a private war.

  He still had days left himself, days given to him by President Lincoln.

  He had wasted a few of those precious days dealing with military matters, cleaning up the dead at Cimarron, sending men and prisoners on. And though he had sat with Tia, he hadn’t gone to her room at night yet, and they hadn’t really talked. Once she was up herself, she spent her time with her mother. And he hadn’t dared get too close to her until Julian had assured him that her arm was healing very nicely.