Read Online B000XUBEHA EBOK by Maggie Osborne - Free Book Online Page A

ankles. She was a fine figure of a woman. If she’d lived in a town where she had no history, he figured every man within a hundred miles would have come courting.
    “Good night, Mrs. Ward.”
    “Good night, Mr. Cameron.”
    They looked at each other for a moment, as if there were more to say, then Cameron nodded and walked down the porch steps into darkness.
    At the barn, he checked all the animals, then sat outside on a tree stump and lit one of the short, thin cigars he’d purchased in town.
    Damn his hide. He had to tell her. He had to stop playing with the notion that he could ride out of here and leave things as they were. Honor demanded the truth. She had a right to know who she’d been feeding and opening her heart to. She had a right to hate him.
    And he couldn’t delay much longer. Della hadn’t asked how long he planned to stay, but she had to be wondering. He’d already stayed long past anything reasonable. He could have—should have told her everything that first night. That’s what he had intended. But a weakness in him had wanted to know the woman whose photograph he had carried for ten years. Who had she been, who was she now? He’d discovered that she was so much more than he’d imagined.
    Smoking, gazing up at the canopy of stars, he briefly wondered what it would be like to be loved by a woman like Della Ward. Clarence had been a lucky man. Had he known it?
    After a time, he ground his boot heel on the cigar, then stood and stretched, glancing toward the house. She’d carried the lantern into her bedroom, and he saw her silhouette pass the curtains. Did she braid her hair for sleeping, or did she wear it loose?
    Turning, he slammed his fist against the side of the barn. He was being a damned fool, and it was time he left.
    But first, there was one more question he needed to ask. Since she hadn’t volunteered the information, he knew the subject would pain her.

Chapter 5
     
    Artillery fire shook the ground and showered clods of earth and ragged leaves on the Reb who appeared at the top of the embankment. The man ducked his head, then jerked when he saw Cameron crouched in the gully. A lifetime passed during the second they stared at each other, before each of them fired. Cameron rolled to the side and shot his rifle from the hip. A burning sensation sliced through the fleshy part of his forearm but he hardly noticed, his attention intent on the red blossom unfurling on the Reb’s uniform jacket.
    The Reb dropped his weapon and clasped his chest as he sank to his knees. He stared at Cameron until his eyes closed and he toppled down the embankment, rolling to a stop a few feet from Cameron’s boots.
    Cameron held the rifle on him until he was certain the man was dead, then he cocked his head and listened to the explosions cracking trees and throwing up dirt around him.
    Damn all. He was pinned in the gully with a dead Rebel. And there might be more Rebs in the forest. Scanning the top of the embankment, searching for movement, he removed his jacket and peeled back his bloody shirt to examine his wound. The ball had passed through without hitting bone. His luck had held.
    After tearing a strip off his shirt, he bound the wound as best he could, then considered his options. Make a run for it? Instinct told him that he’d exhausted his luck for the day. Trying to dodge the hail of artillery would end in death. Which gave him no choice but to stay in the gully with the dead Reb until the bombardment ended.
    Pressing his back into the mossy ferns, he gripped his weapon and stared at the opposing bank.
    He’d seen the Reb’s face.
    Throughout the whole miserable war, he’d deliberately avoided looking at the face of the enemy. He’d fought in close combat, but the enemy’s faces had blurred, and that’s how he’d preferred it. The enemy was a single monstrous entity, different and alien, to be feared and hated.
    But he saw the Reb in his mind standing at the top of the embankment, shoulders