She breathed a heavy sigh. “Dear God, what do we do now?”
Chapter Fifteen
Beth couldn’t believe she had voiced her thoughts out loud. At this moment in time she didn’t want to think about what tomorrow would bring. She only sought to enjoy tonight and the feel of Tanner’s arms around her.
“What made you come to my room?” he asked, ignoring her previous question.
“I heard you having another nightmare and couldn’t stand the thought of you suffering.” She sighed. “I had to wake you. I couldn’t bear to hear you moan.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight against him, her breasts crushed against his chest.
“What do you dream about?” she asked. “Your face is always so tense and frightened that I’m scared for you.”
At first, she didn’t think he was going to respond as he lay there beside her, his body stiffening, his voice silent. Finally, after minutes had passed, he spoke.
“When I was a kid, I had a friend that I went every-where with. He was like a brother to me.” Tanner took a deep breath and sighed as if it were too painful to remember. “When the war broke out, we both wanted to enlist right away, but our families refused to let us go. We were too young, they told us. But we were boys, and we dreamed of being heroes. We didn’t understand the realities of war.”
Tanner rubbed her arm, his absentminded touch some-how soothing as he spoke. “My father and I argued over which side was correct. He said both sides were at fault and that it was a senseless war. I was young and naive, and so damned arrogant. We clashed often and loudly over my wish to join the South. I can still hear Papa saying that the North would prevail, that the North had the factories, the resources, while the South had only its honor.”
He paused, his mouth so close to hers as they lay on their sides, facing one another, their legs entwined. She ran her toe along his muscled calf. “So what did you do?”
“I was already sixteen, so on Carter’s sixteenth birthday we left early one morning, before anyone could stop us. We traveled across country until we reached the Confederate troops. By this time the army would take any able body they could find, and we saw our first action within days. I remember feeling so excited that I was finally going to get to fight the Yankees. God, I was so stupid and naive.”
Tanner took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his body tense, his voice quivering. “That battle was my first lesson in what war is really about.”
She ran her fingers down his arm until she found his trembling hand and grasped it in her own, mesmerized by the story of Tanner as a hopeful young boy going into battle. Quietly, she asked “What happened?”
He laughed, the sound hollow and filled with pain. “Very quickly you learn the rules of survival. You become immune to the blood, the broken bodies of men you care about. You learnit’s better not to be concerned about the people around you because they may not be there tomorrow. You remember the faces of the ones closest to your own age. You die a little inside each time you take a life.”
He shuddered at the memories, and her heart ached for him.
“So what happened?”
She watched as Tanner tensed and shrugged his shoulders, the motion an attempt to make his words less revealing. “Not much. We fought every day; we were constantly on the move. We walked until we wore holes in our boots, and the nights we went to bed without food were too many to count. Our clothing became filthy and our hair, full of lice.”
He shuddered at the memory. “I can still feel those nasty bugs crawling on my body. But the worst was the shortage of guns and ammunition. It’s hard to fight if you don’t have the gunpowder. Soon I realized my father was right. The army was short on supplies. The South didn’t have the factories necessary to win the war, and I could lose my life because of my own stubborn insistence on being a part of the carnage.”
Beth reached up and kissed him on the lips tenderly, a loving reminder that he was here in the present, that he had survived.
She waited for several minutes, but he didn’t say anything more, yet she knew that couldn’t be all.
“So what happened to Carter?” she finally asked, dreading his answer. “Did he come home?”
His body stiffened, and through the moonlight shadows she could see something painful in his expression.
“By July of 1864 we were sick of the war and were in the midst of the battle for Atlanta. It was July, it was hot, and Sherman had been bombarding the city for damn near a month. Dysentery was raging through the troops, we were weak, tired, and all I wanted to do was go home.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked.
“Pride, mostly. Couldn’t go home and face Papa as a loser. Like a fool, I wanted to come home the war hero.”
His hand stroked her naked skin, but his touch wasn’t a caress. His eyes looked hollow, vacant, his touch somehow rigid.
“What happened to Carter?” she asked again.
“The federal army was advancing on Atlanta. That afternoon, we were trying to cut through their flank. Carter had been sick, but we all had been ill. Our division had been combined with William Walker’s, but we were to try to take Bald Hill.” He hung his head and then raised his eyes to gaze into hers and even the darkness could not hide the pain she saw reflected in his eyes.
“We always fought together, looked out for one another. Carter was protecting my back. There was smoke everywhere, and screams kept renting the air. A cry caused me to glance behind me, and Carter was down on his knees, too weak to stand any longer, still trying to defend my back. When I ran to help him, a Yankee charged me.”
Tanner took a deep breath. “I was defending myself when a second soldier charged me. Carter rose from his knees and fought the attacker, but he was weak. I was supposed to be helping him, but I was still fighting off the first soldier boy. I killed the guy, then turned around in time to see Carter step between me and the second soldier’s attack. The man ran him through with his saber, intending to kill me, but Carter took the blow instead.”
Tanner was silent for several minutes as he gathered himself. “He gave his life for mine.”
His voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and by the moonlight streaming through the window, the tears were visibly rolling down his cheeks.
“I held him in my lap, trying to stop the bleeding. But there was nothing I could do. His wounds were fatal, and all I could do was hold him while he died. My best friend died in my arms. I held him, knowing it should have been me lying there instead of him.” Tanner swallowed. “Seventeen years old and one of the best people I had ever known, my friend, and he bled to death in my arms.”
Silence filled the darkened room. Beth wanted to wrap her arms around Tanner and hold him until he was finished; instead, she held his hand in hers.
His voice sounded tight and choked. “The army doc tried to tell me there was nothing I could have done to save him, but I knew I’d turned my back on him for a moment and he’d saved my life. I was alive because he had sacrificed his own life, and I didn’t deserve to live.”
Beth reached up and stroked the side of his face. His cheek was wet with tears. She didn’t say anything; rather, she gathered him in her arms, stroking him, giving him comfort.
After several minutes he cleared his throat. “Eight thousand men lost their lives that day. Me, I threw down my gun and walked away. I couldn’t fight anymore. I couldn’t kill any more innocent men or boys.
“It should have been me, Beth,” he cried. “It should have been me.”
For several minutes she just held him, and then she whispered “Shh. He wanted you to live. He loved you, and if your places had been reversed, you would have done the same for him.”
“No. I’m not a hero like Carter was. He was a good man.”
Beth didn’t know what to say. In her heart she believed Tanner was just as much of a hero, but he didn’t want to hear that now, and she knew it was useless to try to convince him otherwise. She let it go.
“I went to Louisiana. I hid in the swamps and drank until the war was over. I stayed there until I made the decision to get even with the Yankees for what they had done to me and for Carter’s death. That’s when I started my next career. I began robbing Yankee-owned banks.”
Beth felt her heart plunge to her knees. It was true. “Oh, Tanner, that was your face on that Wanted poster. You are a wanted man.”
“That was me. I was uncertain as to whether you recognized me or not,” he said his voice not bragging, just stating a fact. “At first, I enjoyed taking the money. It was a way to get even. I also thought it would be a way to die. I prayed I would get shot during a holdup, but somehow I was always spared.”
Dear God he had been trying to kill himself. She could understand feeling the desire to end it all, the wish to die. Thank God he’d never been successful.
“And then one day, during a robbery, I shot an innocent man. Not intentionally; he came in at the wrong time and startled me. I didn’t kill him, but later I found out that he had a wife and children. Why should he have to pay for my sins with his life?”
He shifted in her arms and rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling.
“So what happened?”
“I decided I wanted to make a clean start. I knew I was wanted so I couldn’t come home. I planned to leave, go to California.” He paused. “But I never made it. A man who had been in my unit of the army caught me in south Texas. He recognized me and knew I was wanted. He turned me in for the reward money.”
“But I don’t understand. If you were wanted, how did you get released?” she asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.
“I didn’t.”
He rolled over and wrapped his arms around her, suddenly pulling her naked body up against him. His lips descended onto hers with fierceness, like the life-and-death struggles he’d experienced, very effectively shutting her up. He pushed her back, rolling her until his body was slanted over hers. His lips consumed hers, and his rough hands stroked her with fevered abandon.
She wanted to stop him; she wanted to push him away. She had so many questions, but his caresses were insistent, and she was caught up in the passion Tanner’s touch created.
Soon she didn’t want to stop him; she wanted only to comfort him, give him the love he had long been denied. She longed to ease his pain and somehow help him, though she had no idea where to begin except to give, during this small moment of time, the only thing she possessed: her body and her heart.
Though Beth wished it were different, she could no longer deny that her heart was involved with Tanner. Somewhere she knew she had fallen for the handsome outlaw and his rough, caring ways. She had probably fallen in love with him back in that hotel room in San Antonio but had just refused to acknowledge her feelings for the man. And now she had traveled all this way to marry his brother, only to realize she loved Tanner.
***
Much later, Tanner pulled Beth spoon fashion into his embrace and lay his head in the curve of her shoulder, breathing in her sweet womanly fragrance. He should have sent her running back to her room, but instead he had allowed himself the luxury of holding her in his arms, of letting his own wicked ways influence her.
And now he’d committed the worst crime of his entire life. When he and Beth had been together in San Antonio, it’d been different. He hadn’t known who Beth was, but this time he’d sunk to his lowest level ever.
He’d slept with his brother’s intended right under his very nose.
For this was Tucker’s home more than Tanner’s, and somehow he’d been unable to resist the chance of being with Beth once again. When she’d come to his room and awakened him from the nightmare, he’d been unable to resist the lure of her arms.
She would always be a temptation to him, be the one woman he’d want above all others. But there was no way for them to be together. He was not worthy of her. Beth needed a husband, and Tanner could not be that man, but his brother could marry her, provide for her and take care of her. At least he would know that in Tucker’s hands Beth was well taken care of. But he could never stand to come back to them, to be around the couple, to watch them together.
His hand slipped down to her naked waist, and she sighed with pleasure. How could he ever look at Beth again and not remember the times he’d spent with her? How could he ever think of her in his brother’s embrace? She had to wed Tucker, since Tanner could never marry. Yet he’d coerced her into his bed the first time and hadn’t resisted her tonight. He’d ruined Beth’s life as much as he’d damaged his own.
One more evil deed against his already tarnished soul. She had no money, no place to go. Beth needed a husband; she needed his family to take care of her.
But Tanner knew he could never marry her, never offer her the kind of life Tucker could provide.
Tanner’s past would haunt him for the rest of his days, and his future looked bleak. He could never wed and burden another person with the deeds of his youth and with a future that held no promise.
He would leave before daylight.
“So how do I explain to your brother I can’t marry him?” Beth asked breaking the silence.
Tanner was jerked out of his reverie by Beth’s comment. “Why would you tell him that you couldn’t marry him?”
Beth glanced up at him, an odd expression on her face. “Because of you and me.”
He ran his hand through his hair, wondering how she was going to take it when he said that he would not be marrying her, that Tucker was still the man she needed to marry.
“Beth, this is not going to work,” he said with a sigh. “I’m wanted by the law; I’ve done so many bad things in my life. You deserve a man who’s worthy and good someone you can respect, who can settle down with you and give you a whole passel of kids. I could never be that man.”
“Why don’t you think you’re worthy enough to deserve happiness? Do you think that you’re the only man who found out that war wasn’t about being a hero? You were sixteen years old when you ran away, you’re not the same man anymore,” she said her voice rising.
“You’re just saying these things to make me feel better.
You’re trying to convince me to marry you. I don’t deserve you, Beth.”
“Why? You deserve to be happy just like the rest of us. What makes you so different besides the fact that you did some stupid things when you were young? Do you think you’re the only one who wouldn’t go back and change some of the decisions they made when they were young and naive? Do you really think you’re the only one the war affected?”
“I know the war affected many people, but most people didn’t start robbing banks to get even with the Yankees.” He sighed. “There are too many things I’ve done and seen that could hurt you, Beth, and you don’t deserve that kind of life.”
“Why do you think that my life was so perfect? I’m not a saint by any means. You said it yourself. How did my family keep from losing their plantation? Let me tell you how I saved my family home. How I kept a roof over our heads.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I—I became a general’s mistress. A Yankee general.” He watched as she faced him, her eyes flashing. “You see, I, too, was affected by the war, though I didn’t go off to fight a battle. I fought much closer to my home and to my heart. I struggled to keep my family together with a roof over our heads. And I fear that you will think badly of me once I tell you what happened.”
He took his hand and ran it down her arm, stroking her gently. “I could never think badly of you.”
There was a moment of silence, and then she spoke, her voice shaking. “Jonesboro was not far from Atlanta. Though our family home wasn’t a huge plantation, we had enough land and slaves to live comfortably. Then the war broke out. Since I was an only child and my parents were elderly, the war didn’t really affect us until the battle came to our doorstep.”
She shuddered and took a deep breath. “General Green was
a Yankee officer who ordered that the house be burned. We had no place to go; my father was sick, and my mother was frail. So I begged and pleaded with the general not to burn the house.”
She took a deep breath. “He agreed on two conditions. Pinewood became headquarters for the Yankee officers. They moved in, and we were relegated to the servants’ sleeping quarters. Second, General Green became my— he came to my bed.”
Beth swallowed and took a deep breath, then released it slowly. Tanner could feel the tension radiating from her body.
“I ... I didn’t realize that the decision I made that day, to keep my family together, with a roof over our heads, would affect me for the rest of my life.”
“What do you mean?” Tanner asked, fearing her response.
“The tiny community that we lived in soon found out what I had done. I was no longer accepted, though I had managed to keep my elderly parents in the home they had lived in all their lives. My own reputation was completely and irreversibly damaged. Friends I had known since childhood snubbed me on the street. But worse, even my parents were ostracized.”
She shifted in his arms until her eyes met his. “My father died before the end of the war. I know he knew what I had done, but we never spoke of it. He never acknowledged my shame.”
“I’m sorry,” Tanner said.
She shrugged. “My mother was humiliated. Her only child had saved her from living in a tent, but she only acknowledged the disgrace I had brought upon the family. She would rather have become a beggar than for me to sleep with the enemy. When she died she was a bitter old woman.”
“What happened after the war ended?” Tanner asked knowing she must have lost the plantation if she had come west.
“After the war, the general was transferred. I had no one left to work in the fields. I had no one to help me pay the taxes.”
She sighed and glanced up into his eyes. “Four years after the war ended I lost it all. I sold everything I could and we lived in a little house in town until my mother died six months ago. With her death, I had absolutely nothing left and no reason to stay in a town where acquaintances no longer looked me in the face. A town where no eligible man would take a second glance at me unless he thought there was a chance of getting into my bed. Then I saw your brother’s ad in the Atlanta Gazette, and I sent a reply.”
The Outlaw Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides) Page 21