And One Wore Gray Read Free

beat—then picked up a pulse that thundered at a frantic pace. He didn’t seem to realize that she hadceased to breathe and then begun to gulp in air, as if she would never have enough of it again.
    Daniel was free. He had been free for a long, long time. He had been in the South. He had been fighting the war, just as a soldier should be fighting the war.
    Perhaps he had forgotten. Perhaps he had forgiven.
    No. Never.
    “I’ve got to move on,” the cavalryman told her. “I thank you, ma’am. You’ve been an angel of mercy within a sea of pain. I thank you.”
    He set the dipper on the well. Bowed down and weary, he walked on, leading his horse.
    Callie felt the night air on her face, felt the breeze caress her cheeks.
    And then she heard his voice. Deep, low, rich. And taunting in both timbre and words.
    “Angel of mercy indeed. Is there, perhaps, a large quantity of arsenic in that well?”
    Once again, her heart slammed hard against her chest. Then she could not feel it at all.
    He was alive, and he was well. And he was free.
    He had been there a while, just past the fence, beyond the range of her sight. He had dismounted, leading his horse, a gray Thoroughbred that had once been a very fine mount but now resembled all the other creatures of the Confederacy—too gaunt, with great big haunted brown eyes.
    Why was she looking at the horse?
    Daniel was there.
    He hadn’t changed. He still towered over her, clad in a gray frock coat with a pale yellow sash looped around his waist, his sword at his side, buckled on by his scabbard. He wore dun trousers and high black cavalry boots, muddy and dusty boots that were indeed the worse for wear.
    He wore a cavalry hat. It was rolled at the brim, pulled low over his eye, with a jaunty plume wavingarrogantly from the top, laced to the hat at the narrow gold band around it.
    She no longer gazed at his clothing, but met his eyes.
    Those blue eyes she had never been able to forget. A blue framed by ebony dark lashes and high arched brows. A startling, searing, blue. A blue that penetrated her flesh with its fire, a blue that pierced into her, that raked her from head to toe. A blue that assessed, that judged, that condemned. That burned and smoldered with a fury that promised to explode.
    They stared out at her from a face made lean by war, a handsome face made even more so by the lines of character now etched within it. His flesh was bronzed from his days in the saddle. His nose was dead straight, his cheekbones broad and well set. His lips were generous, sensual, and curled now in a crooked, mocking smile that nowhere touched his eyes.
    “Hello, angel,” he said softly. His voice was a drawl, a sound she had never forgotten.
    She mustn’t falter, she musn’t fail. She wasn’t guilty, though he would never believe her. It didn’t matter. She simply could never surrender to him, because he did not understand surrender himself.
    Breathe! she commanded herself, breathe! Give no quarter, for it will not be given you. Show no fear, for he will but leap upon it. He is a horse soldier, and so very adept at battle.
    But still her fingers trembled upon the ladle. Lightning seemed to rake along her spine, and at first, it was not courage that held her so very still and seemingly defiant before him. She was simply frozen there by fear.
    She had always known that she would see him again. There had been nights when she had lain awake, praying that when that time came, all that had gone so very wrong between them might be erased. Many a night she had dreamed of him, and in those dreams she hadsavored again the taste of the sweet splendor and ecstasy that had been theirs so briefly, once upon a time.
    She would never be able to convince him of the truth. So very little had been left to her in this war. But she still had her pride, and it was something that she must cling to. She’d never beg.
    Or perhaps she would, if it could do her any good! But it would not, and so she would not