He frowned and started moving quickly back through the tall corn stalks. Green leaves rippled as he passed through the plants.
“Daniel?”
“Callie?”
He still couldn’t see her. He began to run through the corn.
He heard his name called again, closely. He paused.
“Callie, I’m here!”
She stepped into the path, perhaps twenty feet away from him.
She stared at him, her hair wild and flowing down her back, touched by the sun and radiant. Her eyes were wide, dark in the distance, large and imploring, so beautiful and seductive.
Her breasts heaved with the exertion of her movement, and electricity seemed to sizzle in the air all around her, as if lightning had rent the sky.
“Daniel!” His name was a whisper on her tongue, ardent, soft, and still impassioned.
And then she was running through the corn again, trying to reach him.
He spoke her name again. It was a whisper on the air, as soft as the breeze. He ran, too, until he reached her, the stalks of corn waving just above their heads, the green leaves softly wafting, the smell of the earth and autumn as sweet as an aphrodisiac.
He lifted her into his arms and he spun beneath the sun with her. As he came around she sank slowly down against his body.
“Daniel, don’t go!” she whispered.
“I have to go.”
“Not now.”
“Callie, we’re only making this worse.”
“No! No!”
She rose upon her toes, cupping his neck with her hand, reaching to kiss him. Her lips trembled, her kiss was sweet and ardent and impassioned. He tasted her tension and her hunger and, he thought, even the salt of her tears.
He broke away and stared into her eyes. They were luminescent, silver, wide.
“I have to go,” he repeated.
“When it’s dark. Daniel, when it’s dark. Please, come back with me.”
His heart shuddered and slammed against his chest. He had to move on.
But how much better in the darkness. How much better to leave when their own peace had been found, when he could move through these fields without daylight giving him away.
She lowered herself against him, her eyes upon him. He could feel the sure pressure of her breasts against his chest. And so softly as to be almost imperceptible, he felt the pressure of her hips. He closed his eyes. He wanted her one more time. With her hair spread out across the whiteness of the pillows, a deep dark flame to ignite a blaze between them.
“Callie!” He buried his head against her neck. “Dear Lord, but I should go!”
She pulled away and looked at him. By heaven above, he had never seen such a dark and seductive hue in such a beautiful set of eyes.
“Daniel, don’t leave me. Yet. Come back now. Give me the hours until darkness falls. Daniel, for the love of God, come back with me!”
Her tone was urgent. Her fingers curled around his.
“Until darkness, Callie,” he said. “It’s all that I have.”
She stared him straight in the eyes, her lashes barely flickering. “It is all that I need,” she whispered.
She turned, her fingers still entwined with his. They started walking back toward the house.
They reached the road and the open lawn before Callie’s house. Daniel paused, and Callie released his hand, stepping out into the road. She spun about, looking.
The rays of the sun seemed to touch every highlight in her hair. Her skirt spun about her along with the radiant fire waves of her hair. She seemed to move in slow motion, as though she had been captured here for all time. He would hold tight to this vision for an eternity.
She faced him again, reaching out to him.
“It’s all right. Come.”
He stepped forward. Without question, he stepped forward, trusting her.
They hurried across the lawn and into her house. When they had stepped through the door, he caught hold of her arm and pulled her back into his embrace. He kissed her, holding her close. His fingers ran through her hair. His open lips parted from hers and reclaimed them, his tongue running over that rose circle, his mouth finding the sweetness of hers once again.
She seemed strangely stiff in his arms. He raised his head, looking into her eyes.
“Callie, truly I’m sorry. For all that I said before. For my anger against you. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It—it doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I can taste it in your kiss.”
She shook her head, and she suddenly seemed pained. “No …”
“Then come back here!” he urged her softly. Again, he kissed her, putting into this embrace all of his passion, his need, the sweetness of all the desire that had raged between them. His fingers moved over her cheek, his arms pulled her close.
Suddenly, it seemed that she was stiff again. Confused, he lifted his head and met her eyes. They were more silver than he had ever seen them, filled with her tears.
“Callie, I shouldn’t have come back—”
“No! I needed you back.”
“But—”
“Not here, Daniel. Not by the door. And not—not with your sword between us.”
She was everything soft and feminine. There was a trembling in her voice, and a trembling in her fingers. She was so very beautiful.
“Callie …” he murmured. He kissed her temple, and he kissed the pulse at her throat. His fingers played upon the button at the neckline of her dress. She shied back from him, her cheeks suffused with a soft rose color. Her lashes fell over her eyes, and it was almost as if she feared they had an audience in their intimacy.
He laughed softly. “Callie—”
“Come with me, Daniel,” she whispered. She looked up at him, and her eyes were deep pools of entreaty, of sweet silver seduction.
“Anywhere you wish to lead,” he told her. His arms came around her, sweeping her up and off the floor into his embrace. She laced her fingers around his neck, those soulful pools of silver and gray staying fixed with his. He could not tear his gaze from hers.
They reached her room. She moistened her lips as he moved through the open door with her.
She pushed against his length, sliding to set her feet upon the floor. She placed her palms against his chest and offered him a quick and breathless kiss, then stepped back.
Puzzled, he reached for her. She smiled, shyly, ruefully.
“The sword, Daniel!” she murmured. She stepped forward, her fingers shaking wildly while she unbuckled his heavy scabbard from about his hips.
The weight of the weapon in the scabbard was more than she had been expecting. He took it from her, holding it while he watched her. She smiled, moistening her lips again. She stepped back, then twirled around and walked toward her bed. The bed with its beautiful white sheets and spread.
She stood by the bed, noting the narrowing of his eyes as he stared at her. She crawled atop it and lay back.
Her hair was spread across that elegant white, a fire, a flame, as endlessly seductive and appealing as he had dared to dream.
Her gaze met his. Radiant, shivering. She touched the rose of her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Daniel, get rid of the sword, please.” She moved her fingers over the spread, invitingly. She leaned up on an elbow. “Please, get rid of the sword. Come to me.”
Circe had never sung so seductively upon the sea.
He was in love with this Circe.
He set his sword down on one of the chairs by the cold hearth, and walked to the foot of the bed. He paused, then unhooked the single button at the throat of his shirt and pulled it over his head.
He smiled at her and mouthed the words, “Angel, I love you.”
He started to stretch down beside her.
He had scarcely begun to move when he heard the quick flurry of footsteps behind him. Instantly on the alert, he tried to swing around.
A fist caught him in the jaw.
Th
e world seemed a blur, but it was a whir of blue he recognized well. Yankee soldiers! The room was crawling with them.
Far more startling than the pain that stung his jaw was the gut-wrenching agony that streaked through him.
Callie.
She had betrayed him. She had brought them here. She had seduced him like any fool, and God damn her to a million hells, he had fallen.
“Bitch!” he snarled. The blue clad arm with the fist attached was swinging again.
“Hell, no!” Daniel raged.
Then a sound filled the room. Callie, leaping from the bed to lean flat and miserable against the wall, nearly screamed with pure terror. She clasped her hands over her ears, aware that the sound had come from Daniel, and that it was the ear-piercing warning known as a Rebel yell.
Every man in the room blanched at the sound of it, just as surely as she did herself.
Shirtless, his naked shoulders and chest shimmering sleekly with his every movement, Daniel almost seemed to dance with an agile ease about the room. Eric’s three subordinates fell atop Daniel one by one, and one by one, he fought them off with his fists. A slug to one man’s jaw, a kick to the next man’s groin. Then his fists flew again, and the sickening sound of those fists against human flesh filled the room.
“Rebel, be damned!” Callie heard Eric growl, stepping into the fray.
She heard a thud again, and Eric came rolling out of the huddle of the fight, clenching his bleeding jaw with his hand.
He drew his pistol.
“No!” Callie shrieked.
But no one was listening to her. Daniel’s opponents at last managed a well-coordinated attack, one of them slamming a pistol on the back of his head just as he turned to face the two others. Gritting his teeth and holding the back of his head, he fell to his knees.
Before he could rise, Eric was behind him, the shining rod of his revolver set against the base of Daniel’s skull.
Everyone in the room heard the cock of the trigger.
“Don’t make a move, Reb,” Eric warned. “Not a move.”
Callie waited, praying.
She saw Daniel’s eyes close, saw his teeth grate down harder. He opened his eyes again.
They were a different blue from any color she had seen before. Suddenly they fixed upon her.
They were the cold blue of hatred.
He was still as one of Eric’s men carefully grasped his wrists and drew them back. Callie winced, trying not to jump as she heard the snap of steel.
They had set slave shackles around his wrists.
Eric caught hold of his shoulder, pulling Daniel to his feet. He was a tall man. Gallic hadn’t realized just how tall until she saw him rising an inch or so over Eric and his Federals.
Eric spoke to him, gloating. “How do you like the feel of them shackles, boy? It’s just what you folks do to your people down there. Kind of puts a crimp on things, eh, boy?”
Daniel suddenly spun, and his feet moved in a flash. Shackled in steel, he was still a dangerous man.
His feet hit Eric dead in his middle. Stumbling backward and turning white, Eric clutched his wounded body and swore.
Freed for the moment, Daniel took the opportunity to stalk Callie. His long strides brought him quickly across the room until he was standing just an inch from her. She could see the sheen of sweat on his chest, feel the exertion of his rapid breathing. Feel the cold ice-fire of his eyes upon her.
She felt the blood drain from her face. A trembling like a palsy swept through her.
“Daniel—” she tried to whisper.
“This steel won’t hold me forever, Callie. No chains and no bars can ever do that. And I’ll be back. I promise you that. I’ll be back for you.”
“Shut up, Reb!” Eric called to him suddenly. “She was just a good Yank, turning you in. It was a damned good job, Callie.”
She wanted to scream. A pulse ticked violently against Daniel’s throat, and she knew that he believed the very worst, that she had planned on turning him in for a long time. It was your fool life I was trying to save! she wanted to scream. But there couldn’t be any explanations, not here, not now. Not with Eric and three of his badly battered Union soldiers looking on.
She moistened her lips. She saw the mocking sneer that curled his mouth.
“Daniel, I didn’t—” she began at last.
“Poor Yank!” Eric said. “She’s a pretty piece, isn’t she, southern boy? We have our weapons here in the North too. And she’s a deadly one, isn’t she, boy?”
He didn’t turn. “It’s Colonel Cameron, Captain, not boy,” he said flatly. He smiled at Callie. A smile so cold that chills began to sweep furiously through her once again.
“I’ll be back, Callie. And when I come for you, there won’t be anywhere for you to hide. Believe me. I’ll be back. It’s a promise.”
“That’s enough!” Eric cried out sharply. “Take him, Corporal Smithers.”
Smithers didn’t move quickly enough. Daniel turned around, still smiling. They were all still afraid of his booted feet.
Callie flattened herself against the wall because Daniel was turning back to her. She could breathe in the scent of him, feel the slow, sure pounding of his heart.
And feel his eyes once again.
Eric brought the butt of his revolver down hard upon Daniel’s head. Without a whimper, without a sigh, her passionate Rebel fell at last, black lashes closing over the blue hatred in his eyes.
2
Captive Hearts
———— Eleven ————
October, 1862
It was still daylight when the wagon carrying Daniel to Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., stopped before the building.
Daniel was able to see it clearly. There were no shadows of darkness to take away any of the squalor of the sight before him.
Dark, dank, decaying walls greeted him. A miasma hung over the place. High plank walls surrounded it, and iron bars covered the windows.
It was a building he knew well enough, as any frequent visitor to the capital would have. Before the war, Daniel had certainly been in Washington often enough.
He had always loved the city. It had been planned and built with the purpose of being the capitol of a country. The vistas down the long mall were exquisite, the government buildings were handsome, and the wide streets and rich boulevards were inviting. In spring the river kept the scent of flowers fresh and clean, and in the fall, no place could be more beautiful.
But even here, a man could find the results of ill treatment and abandonment. At no place could that be seen more clearly than at Old Capitol Prison.
When the Capitol had been destroyed during the War of 1812, a brick building had been constructed for the temporary use of the government on 1st Street. Then the Congress had moved back to their permanent quarters, and the building, simply called “Old Capitol” the last time that Daniel had seen it, had begun to deteriorate.
It had been deteriorating ever since, Daniel thought wearily.
Someone prodded him in the back. “We’re here, Colonel. Your new home in the North,” his Yankee driver said with a snigger. “Get on up and out of there, now.”
It wasn’t easy for Daniel to do. His feet and wrists were still shackled. In fact, he’d lain on his side in the jouncing wagon so long that all of his body felt bruised and knotted and stiff, and trying to arise at all was difficult.
It had seemed like an endless journey from the Yankee encampment where he had first awakened to find himself so trussed. He’d been in pain from the first, aware that he’d been kicked and beaten by his captors even after he’d lost consciousness. His ribs were sore, his old wound was oozing a trickle of blood.
He hadn’t been bothered by much at the encampment. He’d seen enough soldiers, though, all coming around to peek in the tent where he’d been taken as if he were some kind of circus animal. They all wanted to see Danny Cameron, the horse soldier with the rapier sword, brought down at last. Some of them jeered. So
me of them asked how it felt to be trussed up like a pig for gutting. Some of them just stared gravely. One soldier said that it just wasn’t any way to treat a man, any man.
A Union major had agreed, and before Daniel knew it, the onlookers were driven away, and he had been brought a chair to sit on and a blanket. None of it really mattered to him at the time because he was still living in a haze of pain. But the major seemed a fine enough fellow, determined that Daniel be given good, clean water and a decent meal. His own troops were eating well enough, it seemed.
Not even the major seemed to feel safe enough around him to see that his shackles were removed. It wasn’t until Daniel told the young private assigned to look after him that he couldn’t possibly eat the meal—or take care of any other human necessities—with his hands shackled that they were undone. The nervous private faced him with a rifle aimed at him all the while he ate and attended to other necessities. Then the irons were put back on him.
The major also demanded that his prisoner be treated with respect. They’d all been brothers once, and God willing, they’d all be brothers again. It seemed that this major knew Jesse, and was appalled that any West Point graduate should be treated so shabbily.
“Beauty himself chose to ride for his homeland,” the major said wearily. “I’d not even have you cuffed so, sir, were I certain that you could not escape.”
“Sir, it would be my duty to Beauty himself to escape at any possible opening,” Daniel told him honestly.
He wondered about his damned honesty because the stinking irons remained. Night had come and he’d been left to sleep in his shackles, but had spent most of the night awake, cramped, bruised, and in pain.
He hadn’t minded the pain, he’d rather welcomed it. It had kept him from thinking.
Thinking was dangerous. Every time he dared to think, a blind red fury settled over him.
He’d been such a fool. Half the Yank army hadn’t been able to drag him down, but that little flame haired witch with the silver eyes had only to crook her finger to do so.
And One Wore Gray Page 17