“Congratulations on your daughter.”
“And on your son.”
“And we haven’t even seen them,” Jesse murmured.
“Soon enough, we will.”
Jesse held him tight one more time and left him. Daniel returned to the command tent to finish with the business of losing.
His heart should have been heavier. There were still forces in the field. He’d heard that Jeff Davis and the cabinet were in hiding, trying to decide whether to surrender themselves, hide out and fight on with guerilla warfare, or try to escape the country.
Daniel was sorry for all of them, but as Lee had known, to go on was foolish. Lincoln had already been in Richmond. It was over.
And he wanted to go home.
Janey brought the paper with news in it to Kiernan, handing it to her in silence. Kiernan quickly scanned the sheet, then sank into an armchair with it. “We’ve lost,” she said softly. The paper fell from her hands and wafted to the floor. She put her head in her hands, and she began to sob.
Christa walked over to the parlor window and stared out in silence.
Callie thought of the hundreds of thousands of men who lay dead, and she thought of the devastation of the countryside. Kiernan wasn’t sorry that it was over—Callie knew that. It was just that intangible thing, that essence, that something that had been the cause itself, a way of life, of acting, of being, was over. Never to come again. She understood. They both understood.
She walked over to Kiernan and put her arms gently around her sister-iii-law. “Kiernan, it means that they’ll be coming home now!” she told her. “They’ll be coming home.”
Shocking news reached the country by the morning of April 15. Abraham Lincoln, the greatest single force behind the Union victory—and the sanctity of the Union—was dead. He had been assassinated at Ford’s Theater, shot in the back of the head by a man named John Wilkes Booth—an actor, a southern sympathizer, a man who had attended the hanging of John Brown all those years ago at Harpers Ferry. There had been a conspiracy, and officials were in a fury to arrest anyone involved.
Booth had escaped, but he was soon hunted down, and killed.
Daniel, hearing the news, mourned Lincoln’s death as deeply as any northerner could.
Lincoln had been as dedicated to repairing the great schism in his country as he had been to preserving it. The Rebels could always claim that they had produced some of the greatest generals to ever live.
The North could claim one of their country’s greatest men, for the rail-splitting lawyer from Illinois had proven with tenacity, dedication, and wisdom to be just that.
With Lincoln gone, who knew quite what would befall the South?
That all remained to be seen.
Daniel just wanted to go home.
Early on a late April morning, he rode out into a field of mist and he waited. Minutes later, another horseman appeared. Jesse.
They were going home.
Christa was the first to see them. She started screaming from an upstairs window.
Callie heard her and rushed to the porch. She could see them both, the Cameron brothers.
The one in blue.
And the one in gray.
They had dismounted from their horses, and they were walking down the long drive together toward the house, weary, arms linked, leaning upon one another.
Callie cried out.
Daniel lifted his head, and he saw her. A broad grin touched his face. He turned to Jesse, said something, and broke away from him.
And then he was running to Callie.
And she left the porch behind, running to him.
The distance was not far. It seemed forever. Her feet moved so fleetingly over the earth.
Once upon a time she had dreamed of this. Of seeing Daniel before her, so hungry to meet her, to touch her. Once she had dreamed that she could run to him, with all her love naked in her face.
She catapulted into his arms. She felt them surround her. She caught sight of the blazing blue of his eyes. Then his lips were on hers.
His kiss was eternal. So hot, so sweet, so hungry. A touch that tore away, and fell again. Trembling. Deep. Lifting once again so that he could meet her eyes.
“Jesse! Oh, Jesse!” Callie was dimly aware that Kiernan had raced on by her. Farther down the lane, another sweet homecoming was going on.
But now Daniel was before her.
“Oh, Daniel!” she whispered softly. “I am so sorry!”
He pressed his finger to her lips. “Hush. I am not, Callie.” His finger rimmed her lips. “I’ve a son to raise, a daughter to see. Oh, Callie!”
His mouth seared down upon hers once again. Fierce, poignant, giving, seeking. His eyes rose to hers once again.
“I love you, Callie. The war is over, but”—He smiled, a crooked, rueful, tender smile—“my life is just beginning,” he told her.
And arm in arm, they walked back to the house.
And to a new life, together.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than ninety novels, several of which have been featured by the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild. There are more than twenty million copies of her books in print and she has been published in more than fifteen languages. Heather lives with her husband and five children in Miami, Florida.
Published by
Dell Publishing
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Random House, Inc.
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New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 1992 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
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