The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 Read Free

damn about you.’ Well, Travis, I’m the way I am, and I’ll never change, but I do give a damn about you.” She smiled sadly. “I remember something else about that day, after we made love so sweetly and tenderly. Even though there were times you abused me after you rescued me from Luke Tate, times that I hated you and could have killed you with my bare hands—on that afternoon, I loved you with all my heart. And then I slept in your arms, and I awoke later to find you gone. I went to search for you, and I found you with another woman.”
    “Kitty”—he gestured helplessly—“that was planned. As cruel as it sounds, it was all set up on purpose. I had to anger you enough to make you leave our camp. I knew what our orders were. I knew you would want to go along, not only because you wanted to be with your father but because you and I knew at last that we loved each other. Having you see me with that woman was the one way I could send you away from danger.”
    “My father slipped into Goldsboro to tell me these things. He said you set the whole thing up. But I felt like such a fool. I look back now and think of the way Nathan used me, and then you, and I don’t think I can ever trust another man. Poppa was the only man who never deceived me or hurt me.”
    The steel-gray eyes that had gazed at her so warmly turned cold. “Can you say you never deceived me, Kitty? Remember after I rescued you from Luke Tate and you tricked me into believing you could be trusted, made me think you loved me? I let my guard down, and it almost got me killed. In fact, the ball intended for me hit another soldier and sent him to his grave. And you ran away with a Rebel soldier and never looked back.”
    “I did look back,” she cried, her body trembling as the memories took over. “When I thought you were dead, it hurt me terribly. But you did use me, Travis. Remember how you scorned me? You said it was beneath you to force yourself upon any woman. You made me feel like dirt, Travis, remember? I had every reason to hate you. You wouldn’t set me free then or send me back to my own people. You kept me with you, dragging me through the battlefields. You gave me no other choice. I could not stay with you, not with the humiliation you offered me.”
    She turned her face away, unable to meet his angry gaze. “I remember the times in your arms, when you made love to me. No, you never forced me to submit, did you? But you knew a hundred ways to make my body scream, ways to make me tremble with desire, my blood turn to fire. Never had I envisioned such joy, and I thought it had to be love. Later, I felt used.”
    “I never meant to make you feel that way.” He stepped forward and put his arms around her, pulling her to his strong chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart. “You had your painful memories to bear, but so did I. I learned early that a woman can’t be trusted, and every time I came close to giving you my heart, you showed me you were like all the others. I wanted to give you a chance. I want to give you another now. Damn it, Kitty, I’m asking you to give both of us a chance at a future together. Maybe this isn’t the time or the place, with the Union troops marching over your homelands, and your father hardly cold in his grave. But the future is actually the present when you stop and think about it, no matter what the circumstances. This is here and now, and I’m telling you that I love you, that I want you, and that I want us to have a life together.”
    Their eyes met and held, each searching the other for some reason for confidence.
    “I love you, Kitty. I think I loved you from that first moment. And when we made love that first time, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. You were in my blood, and for a long time I hated you for it. I had vowed that never again would a woman possess my heart to trample upon it. Yet, you, who were promised to an enemy soldier, you took my heart and made it your