And One Wore Gray Read Free Page A

sacrifice her pride. The war, it seemed, had stripped all mercy from him. She wanted to be as cold as he was.
    She wished that she had betrayed him. With all her heart, at that moment, she wished that she could hate him with the same fury and vengeance he seemed to send her now.
    Angel, he had called her. With venom, with mockery. With loathing. Surely the word had never been spoken with such a tone of malice.
    “Cat got your tongue?” he said, his tone still soft, his Virginia drawl deep and cultured—and taunting. “How very unusual. Weren’t you expecting me?”
    He seemed taller even as he stepped nearer to her, leading his gray horse. Despite his leanness, his shoulders seemed broader than ever, his size even more imposing, his supple grace of movement more menacing.
    Run! Run now! Blind instinct warned her.
    But there was nowhere to run.
    He was a gentleman, she reminded herself. An officer, a horseman. One of the last of the cavaliers, as the Southerners liked to call their cavalry. He had been raised to revere women, to treat them kindly. He had been raised to prize his honor above all else, taught that pride and justice and duty were the codes by which he must live.
    He had been taught mercy …
    But no mercy lingered in his eyes as they fell upon her now. She nearly screamed as he reached toward her, but no sound came.
    He didn’t touch her but merely pulled the dipper from her hand, and sank it into the bucket. He drank deeply of the fresh well water.
    “No poison? Perhaps some shards of glass?” he murmured.
    He stood just inches from her. The world around her was eclipsed.
    For a fleeting moment, she was glad. She had thought him in prison, but she had believed, always, that he lived. No matter what he thought, what he believed, she had desperately desired that he live. Swiftly, sweetly, in a strange shining hour that had passed between them, she had loved him.
    No color of cloth, no label of “enemy,” no choice of flag to follow could change what dwelt so deeply in her heart.
    She had loved him through the long months of war. Loved him even while the belief of her betrayal found root in his heart, nurtured by the vicious months of war. She had loved him, she had feared him, and now he stood before her again. So close that she could feel the wool of his coat. So very close indeed that she could feel the warmth of his body, breathe in the scent of him. He had not changed. Lean and gaunt and ragged in his dress, he was still beautiful. Handsome in his build and stature, noble in his expression.
    He came closer still. Those blue eyes like the razor-sharp point blade of his sword as they touched her. His voice was husky, low and tense and trembling with the heat of his emotion.
    “You look as if you’re welcoming a ghost, Mrs. Michaelson. Ah, but then, perhaps you had wished that I would be a ghost by now, long gone, dust upon the battlefield. No, angel, I am here.” He was still as several seconds ticked slowly past, as the breeze picked up and touched them both. He smiled again. “By God, Callie, but you are still so beautiful. I should throttleyou. I should wind my fingers right around your very beautiful neck, and throttle you. But even if you fell, you would torture me still!”
    He hadn’t really touched her. Not yet. And she couldn’t afford to let him. She squared her shoulders, determined to meet his eyes, praying that she would not falter.
    “Colonel, help yourself to water, and then, if you will, ride on. This is Union territory, and you are not welcome.”
    To her amazement, he remained there, standing still. His brows arched as she pushed him aside and walked past him. Inwardly she trembled, her show of bravado just that—a show. But there was no surrender in this. That had long ago been decided between them. Regally, she walked on. She would not run. Head high, she continued toward the house.
    “Callie!”
    He cried out her name. Cried it out with fury and with anguish.
    The sound of