Lori Austin

by When Morning Comes

  Ella had proved to be an excellent teacher. The children adored her and did things for her they wouldn’t do for anyone else. As a result, they were making great progress in their studies.

  Seth smiled at the picture they made. He was due to return home in one week. He didn’t want to go. But he’d come to fulfill a duty. He would have to return to Boston for the same reason.

  Afternoon faded to evening. Supper went smoothly. The children thanked him for the candy, though he’d seen none but Delia eating it. Everyone headed for bed without argument. Seth sat on the porch expecting … Lord knew what.

  But nothing happened.

  He heard Ella through the open window upstairs, murmuring to the baby. From the girls’ room he caught traces of a whisper, from the boys’ nothing at all. They must be asleep.

  When all sounds ceased, he climbed the stairs, hesitated in the hall. Tempted to look in on them, he resisted. He didn’t dare start treating them like his or he’d never be able to leave.

  He cast one longing glance at Ella’s room and forced himself to go to bed. If he touched her as he wanted to even once, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

  Sleep came quickly; the dreams followed. Rebs snuck into the perimeter. He heard them whispering from the tall grass, sensed them creeping ever closer, the thud of their muted footsteps a death knell.

  This had happened before—another time, another place. Mayhem. Murder. Too many of his men and theirs lost forever. He hated the war, hated the necessity as well as the horrific waste. Hated the most his presence in the middle of such strife.

  When the first shot sounded, Seth sat up in bed. Darkness surrounded him. He didn’t know where he was; he only knew that they were coming.

  With a roar, he leaped to his feet, reaching for the gun at his hip that was not there.

  Another shot sounded behind him, then another to his left, to his right. He whirled, flinched, put his hands to his ears, but the shots continued. Faster, louder, they confused and terrified him.

  Icy sweat dewed his skin. His belly lurched. He feared he’d disgrace himself right there on the battlefield. Where in hell were his Colts, his rifle?

  A thud in the darkness made his heart pound faster. Light poured from an unknown source, illuminating his pistols. He dived for them.

  Someone shouted his name, grabbed his wrist just as he reached for a gun.

  Another shot was fired, this one so close the scent of gunpowder filled his nose. With a roar of fury, Seth yanked the intruder forward, and together they tumbled to the ground.

  Ella fell on top of Seth. Thankfully the guns remained on the nightstand.

  He struggled beneath her, shouting, “To your posts, soldiers! We’re under attack.”

  “It’s me. Ella.” She tugged at her arm, but he held on too tightly. “Let me go.”

  Instead, he flipped over, pinning her beneath him with the long, hard, heavy length of his body, then yanking her hands over her head. One of his legs slid around hers, aligning them center to center.

  Ella’s eyes widened. “Oh, my,” she murmured.

  “Ella?” Cal’s voice came from down the hall. “You all right?”

  Dear God, the children! She had to keep them from seeing Seth like this. They’d be so frightened.

  “Stay in your rooms,” she ordered. “Don’t come out no matter what you hear.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue, Cal! The major’s ill. I’ll take care of him.”

  Doors closed and she relaxed—at least as much as she could with Seth plastered to her. His breath was labored, as if he’d just run a mile in the heated air, the movement rubbing his chest against hers in the slow, sensuous, rhythmic manner of a forbidden dance.

  Ella shook off the desire to explore such sensations further. Something was wrong with him. Now was not the time to wonder if his lips were as soft as they looked, his kiss as seductive as his chest.

  She peered into Seth’s face. His gaze darted around the room, searching for something. But what?

  The loud pops that had awakened her even before his shouts had sounded like gunfire. But when she’d entered the room, he’d just been reaching for his gun. If someone had shot from outside, they’d be inside by now. So what had happened?

  “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  He was trembling. Sweat beaded his brow. The hands that held hers prisoner were ice cold.

  Ella frowned. He was scared half to death.

  She knew what to do about that. The children had nightmares all the time and woke very much like this.

  “Hush,” she murmured. “You’re safe. Nothing will hurt you now.”

  Her gentle tone must have reached him, for he blinked, then shifted his gaze from the shadows to hers. He still did not seem to know her. His eyes remained cloudy, in another time, another place. But he let go of her wrists, so she touched his face.

  Stubble scraped her fingertips as she caressed his jaw. She ran her hands through his shaggy, soft hair, kneaded the tense cords of his neck, whispered, “You’re all right, you’re all right,” ten times before he kissed her.

  Boys had stolen kisses behind the barn, at a dance. She’d rapped every one with her knuckles or her fan and put a stop to such familiarity in an instant.

  Jamie had always said good night in a chaste and proper manner. They’d had a lifetime for intimate embraces, or so they had thought.

  Of course, if Jamie had ever kissed her as if he were ice cold and she was a flame, if he had ever nibbled her lips, sucked her tongue, explored her mouth with his body pressed to the length of hers, she might have fainted.

  Or begged for more.

  Her fingers tangled in Seth’s hair, holding him close. Her mouth opened; her tongue danced with his. Desperate whimpers clawed at the back of her throat. Her breasts, beneath the light cotton of her nightdress, ached and throbbed, wanting, needing his touch. Where he was pressed against her down low felt too good to abandon, so she arched against him, and bright lights flared behind her closed eyes.

  What was happening to her?

  A moment later he ended the kiss and his forehead dropped to hers. His hair brushed her cheek. She held him as his heart slowed, and his breathing evened out along with hers.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  His hoarse voice startled her. She recalled hating Seth’s voice when he had first come here. Now she missed the strong yet gentle tones, lost to terrors she could not even imagine.

  “Of course not,” she said briskly, though it was hard to be so nonchalant with him still pressed intimately against her. “You would never hurt me.”

  He sighed and rolled away, sitting up with his back against the bed. Feeling foolish, Ella did the same. He inched away from her just a bit, as if afraid she would touch him. That hurt after what they had just shared.

  What hurt even more was the guilt that flared to life as the passion thrumming in her blood dissipated. She had never felt such things for Jamie—the man she had sworn to marry, the man whose children she had promised to bear. How could she feel them for the enemy?

  “I don’t know what I might do when I’m like this,” Seth muttered. “I’d hoped the spells were gone, but I guess not.”

  “This has happened before?”

  “Ever since the war. But usually it’s a loud noise that makes me forget where I am. I must be worse instead of better to have lost my place in the middle of a peaceful night.”

  “No.” Ella shook her head. “There was a loud noise. Several, in fact. They woke me, too.”

  She stood and lit the lamp. Scattered across the floor were the remnants of several firecrackers. Their eyes met.

  “Cal,” they said together.

  Ella sighed. The boy had gone too far.

  “I’ll talk to him,” she muttered. “This is my fault.”

  “Why?” He shoved his fingers through his damp hair, mussing it more than she already had. “Did you declare war? Send me off to fight it? Make me so weak
I couldn’t take the death and the destruction?”

  “You think you’re weak because the war haunts you? If it didn’t, I’d be worried.”

  His lips twitched but he didn’t smile. “Then why is this your fault?”

  “I encouraged Cal to harass you.” Ella looked away. “I wanted you to leave. It wasn’t very adult of me. I’m sorry. But I never suspected he’d do something like this.”

  “Even if you had, how could you know gunfire would make me lose my senses?” He snorted. “Hell, I still can’t believe it.”

  She should say good night, pretend the kiss had never happened, then escape to her room, but she couldn’t. She’d held Seth in her arms as he trembled, touched her mouth to his as he shook. She could not just walk away and leave him alone. So Ella sat on the floor once more, closer this time, and he did not move away.

  “I’m sure these spells will fade with time,” she offered.

  “I thought so, too.”

  “The war’s been over only a few months. You can’t expect to forget four years of horror so quickly.”

  “What if—” He stopped.

  “What?”

  “What if I never forget? What if I’m always like this?”

  “What if you are? There are worse things, Seth. Much worse.”

  It was the first time she’d called him by his given name out loud. She discovered that she liked the sound of it on her lips nearly as much as she liked his lips. Would she ever stop thinking about that kiss? Not likely.

  “Do you know where I get all my money?”

  She blinked at the sudden change of subject. “What?”

  “My money. My family is the proud owner of Torrance Munitions. We’re very well off. But then, there’s always a need for instruments of destruction.”

  Ella didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t wanted the largesse he’d brought to them because it was Yankee charity. Now, knowing the charity had been bought with money made from killing her countrymen, she wanted it even less.

  However, seeing Seth in the throes of his pain had shown her a new and disturbing truth. He had suffered the same as any Confederate soldier. Death and destruction did not pick and choose. Nightmares came to them all.

  “You can’t help what your family does for a living. But you don’t have to keep doing it.”

  He shook his head. “All my life it’s been understood that I’d take over. I went to West Point. That’s what men in my family do. The only thing I’ve been trained for is killing and building things made to kill. I hate it.”

  She didn’t know what to tell him. But now that he’d begun to talk, he didn’t seem to need any encouragement from her to continue.

  “I was at Saylor’s Creek.”

  Ella glanced at him. “So were a lot of people.”

  “For all I know, I might have been the one to kill Henry.”

  “And you might not have been.”

  He glanced at her in surprise, and she made a sound of derision.

  “Did you think I was going to pick up a stone, or maybe that gun? Seems to me you’re a doing a fine job of flaying yourself alive over something you couldn’t stop.” Ella spread her hands. “You think if you hadn’t picked up a gun they wouldn’t have fought? You think if your family wasn’t making munitions they’d have all laid down their weapons and shaken hands?”

  “No.” He sighed. “Of course not. But—” He rubbed his face. His palm scraped over the stubble on his chin. “What shall I tell the children?”

  “Nothing. What possible good would it do to tell them? Henry was … well, I’m sure you know. If it weren’t Saylor’s Creek, it would have been another battle. If not the war, then something else. Henry was like a falling star—bright, brilliant, and set to burn out very young.”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t argue, either. Ella wasn’t sure why she felt the need to comfort him. Perhaps because, as she’d said, he was doing such a good job of torturing himself.

  “I want to make sure everything will be all right here before I go,” he said quietly. “But you don’t have to worry. I will go.”

  Suddenly his leaving held very little appeal. Unable to stop herself, Ella reached for Seth’s hand and laced her fingers with his. “But not yet,” she whispered.

  He hesitated an instant. Then his hand tightened on hers. “No, not yet.”

  Eight

  When Seth arose with the dawn, he felt good. Remarkable, in fact, in the face of what had happened last night. But if he’d come out of every other spell with Ella in his arms, he would never have needed to drown his fears with a bottle. He hadn’t touched whiskey since he’d arrived in Winchester, and he hadn’t missed it.

  As Seth dressed, his mind went back to the previous night. He couldn’t believe that he’d kissed Ella, or that she’d let him. In times past, his behavior would have earned him a shotgun wedding. The prospect wasn’t as unappealing as it should have been.

  From the front porch, he enjoyed the sight of a cool mist hovering over the fields. Soon the heat of the sun would wash the fog away, but right now it appeared as if heaven had come to Virginia.

  Seth took a deep breath of the damp morning air. What if he stayed? Married Ella, raised these children, and had a few more?

  They’d all starve, that’s what. The only way to keep them alive was for him to return to Boston and an existence he loathed.

  The door opened, and Cal stepped out. The boy looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Good. He needed to learn that actions had consequences. Always.

  Cal joined him at the porch rail, and together they watched the mist disappear.

  “Where did you get them?” Seth asked.

  “I didn’t buy candy yesterday—’cept for Delia.”

  “Hmm.” Seth had paid for his own torture. He couldn’t fault the boy’s cleverness. “You lied to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I understand that you want me off your place. I’d feel the same way.”

  Cal glanced at Seth quickly from beneath his overgrown bangs. “You would?”

  “Sure. You were handling things just fine without me. Then a stranger, and a Yankee to boot, shows up and starts taking over. Hard for a man to just sit back and let that go.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw Cal straighten, throw his shoulders back, nod. He stifled a smile.

  “So while I can understand what you did, even applaud it, I can’t let the lying pass. When I leave, you’ll be the man here again, and you have to set a good example. Honorable men don’t lie or cheat.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I think a day digging holes in the field behind the apple tree ought to make you think twice about lying again, don’t you?”

  “Sure will.”

  Seth let his smile break free. “Have breakfast and get started, then.”

  Cal paused at the door. “I didn’t mean to scare you with the firecrackers.”

  Seth’s smile faded. “You heard?”

  Cal hung his head, nodded. “When you came I only saw you as the enemy. You were alive and my father was dead. It made me mad.”

  “Me, too.”

  The boy shot him another quick glance. “I’ve seen our soldiers come back all pale and jumpy. But I never thought about Yanks havin’ the same troubles.”

  “We do.”

  “I guess that would follow. Anyway, I’m sorry I did what I did.”

  Cal disappeared into the house. Seth felt as if he’d turned a corner, though he wasn’t sure to where.

  ***

  The weeks that followed were the happiest Ella could recall. Seth and Cal had come to an understanding. Not that they’d suddenly become pals and gone fishing, but Cal no longer plotted tricks and Seth no longer avoided him.

  With the lessening of tension between the two “men” of the house, the other children relaxed, as well. Joshua followed Seth around like a newborn fawn after its mother, the girls climbed into his lap whenever he sat down, and Gaby continued to adore
him. The baby had known from the beginning that Seth was someone special.

  Ella found herself humming as she worked, dreaming simple dreams of a prosperous farm and children of her own. Several times while she watched Seth repairing the barn or the corral fence, she slipped into delicious fantasies of clandestine meetings and midnight kisses.

  Seth had been with them for over five weeks, and Ella could barely recall what it had been like when he was not. She didn’t want to contemplate what it would be like when he left.

  “Let’s all go on a picnic,” Seth announced one heated Saturday afternoon.

  The children jumped up and down, clamoring their agreement. Seth swept Delia, then Elizabeth into his arms, put one on each hip and twirled them round and round in a circle of sunshine. Their giggles punctuated his laughter, and Ella’s heart filled with love. She turned away as tears sparked in her eyes.

  He was no longer the enemy. He’d become something much more dangerous indeed.

  “All right,” she said briskly to hide her softer emotions. “I’ll pack a basket. We’ll eat by the creek. The children can go wading afterward.”

  Within the hour, all seven of them lounged beneath the shade of an ancient dogwood tree. Water gurgled over smooth stones and a lukewarm breeze stirred the branches above them. Contentment flowed through Ella’s soul.

  “I love it here,” she murmured, watching the children stick their toes into the creek, then shriek with laughter.

  “Me, too,” Seth whispered as he rubbed Gaby’s back. The baby was nearly asleep on the blanket between them.

  Their eyes met. Ella leaned forward. So did he.

  “Ella!” Cal shouted. “Delia fell in.”

  They pulled back with a guilty gasp. Ella glanced at the children. Cal had his hand on a dripping Delia’s shoulder as he marched her toward them. No one stared at Ella in reproach. No one had seen anything amiss.

  She looked at Seth. His eyes promised a repeat of their one-time embrace. Her body tingled in anticipation.

  The next several minutes were spent undressing the little girl and hanging her clothes up to dry. Then she fell asleep beside her sister, wearing nothing but a damp shimmy. Elizabeth soon joined them. The boys chased tiny flitting fish through the shallows.