Beguiled

The Civil War has torn Belle Holloway’s world apart. Left to manage her Georgia plantation with little help, she is exasperated when the Union Army adds to her burden by leaving a wounded soldier behind. But upon closer examination, Belle is shocked to discover the soldier is actually a beguiling woman.

Clad in male attire, stubborn, brash Alice O’Malley awakens a passion in Belle she never knew existed. Alice dominates Belle’s lonely existence with taboo pleasures and erotic escape. Soon Belle realizes she is more than willing to submit her body and her heart to the woman whose strength and compassion she admires -- until those very attributes prove to be the catalyst that could destroy their newfound love.

Chapter One

Pitchfork in hand, I stood on the steps of my ancestral plantation home, glaring at the throng of Yankees bearing torches. I knew good and well they’d looted every other farm along McDonough Road and that nothing would stop the brigands from stealing everything we had. Still, I wasn’t going to let them rifle Rattle and Snap without a fight.

Burning a stare at each pair of eyes trained on me, I gazed over the sea of blue coats interspersed with the less common, colorful Yankee Zouave uniforms. There were too many of them, and though I knew I might tear into one or two of them with my pitchfork, resistance otherwise would be futile.

The screen door croaked, and I glanced back just long enough to see my feeble-minded mother ambling out onto the porch dressed in nothing but her nightgown. She’d suffered from dementia since the birth of my fifteen-year-old little brother, Grayson. “Go back inside, Ma,” I told her, tightening my grip on the pitchfork handle.

A sudden shot rang out from the upstairs window, and one of the Yankees dropped. In that instant, I knew my life had taken an irrevocable turn.

Shots split the air. Glass in one of the upstairs windows shattered. My mother let out a mad screech and, pitchfork or no, two of the New York Yankees seized me, dashing my weapon to the porch, while countless others stormed past my addled mother and into the house. My heart hammered. All I could think was that Grayson had shot one of the soldiers. Our house would be burned for certain now, but worse—what would they do to Grayson?

I struggled, but to no avail. The Yankees who held me reeked of muddy, wet wool and unwashed bodies. I gagged as the stench assailed me. “Take your hands off me, you filth!” I exclaimed, but my protests were met with even tighter, more familiar hands.

Boots resounded on the wide planked floors inside. There was a scuffle, and all of a sudden, instead of Grayson’s dark head emerging from the front door, I saw my father’s weathered face as he was pushed onto the porch by the Yankees.

I gaped, knowing my father hadn’t shot that soldier. He was protecting my little brother. “Pa!” I cried. “No!”

“Hush up, Belle,” he warned, giving me a stern look as they manhandled him into the yard.

But I would not be quiet. “What are you doing with him? Can’t you see he’s an old man? Release him this instant!”

My pleas fell on deaf ears as the soldiers determined the Yankee who’d been shot was dead. I struggled as they talked in hushed voices. And when one of the Yankees threw a rope over the thick branch of my favorite elm tree, my stomach twisted into knots. They intended to hang my pa! This couldn’t be happening.

But it was. I couldn’t tear my gaze from it any more than I could have ripped my gaze from the face of a corpse at a wake. I felt as if I were somehow standing outside my body, watching instead of experiencing, observing as if it were happening to somebody else. Anybody else. Not me. Not here. Not this day.

As they slipped the noose over my father’s head, pitiful screams tore from my throat. Time seemed to move at half speed while I struggled to free myself. With my husband fighting in Virginia, my father was all I had left in the world to guide me. Without him, I would be utterly lost. He was the person I’d always gone to when I needed advice, when I needed a soft place to fall. He’d been the one who made the decisions, who kept this plantation running. And now…

Panic roiled as three of the Yankees pulled the rope. Pa’s heels left the ground. From my vantage point on the porch, I witnessed his last moments. Hands tied, he struggled and kicked. The toes of his boots grappled for solid ground they did not find. Don’t look. Don’t watch this! But I couldn’t tear my gaze from the horrific sight.

I’d never seen a man die before. The reality of it was far different from imagining it or reading about it—or even hearing an account of it.

A dark stain appeared on my father’s breeches. His struggles slowed, then ceased while my heart wrenched with the ignominy of it all. Pa was dead.

I wanted to faint, to retch, something, anything. Instead, all I could do was stare numbly.

“Get your hands off Miss Belle!” my father’s grizzled old butler, Uncle Hewlett, barked in his booming voice at the Yankees.

No one, not even the Yankees, dared cross Uncle Hewlett. I’d never had any idea how old he was, but he’d looked the very same all my life with his freckled cocoa skin, woolly gray hair, and deeply lined face. In spite of his years, he carried his six-feet-three-inch frame like a gladiator marching into the arena. At once, the Yankees released me into his lanky arms.

I fell against him, sobbing. “What’ll I do now?”

“Hush, Miss Belle,” he said, cradling my head close where I heard his own quiet sobs.

But I couldn’t afford to hush or to be weak, as much as I yearned to do just that. I had to be strong. I had to pull up my bootstraps. I couldn’t let them take everything we’d stored for the winter.

I tore myself from Uncle Hewlett’s comforting arms and scrambled to snatch up my pitchfork again. “The least you can do is leave us a place to live,” I called to the Yankee in charge.

He spun on his heel and eyed me. Lifting my chin, I burned a stare into him, daring him to torch my house after killing my father right before my eyes. “My mother is touched in the head. There’s only my servant and me left to run this place. You’ve murdered my father. Leave us the house,” I bargained. I intentionally omitted the fact that my brother doubtless hid upstairs.

“Are you willing to take in our wounded?” the Yankee asked, catching me totally off guard.

I swallowed. I had expected him to deny me. The last thing I wanted was a passel of Yankees I’d have to feed under my roof. I lowered the pitchfork. “How many are there?”

“Only two who can’t be moved farther.” His mouth twisted downward in a grim line. His eyes reflected that he regretted hanging my father, but his remorse did little to lessen my grief. Pa was gone, and no amount of Yankee sympathy was going to bring him back.

I didn’t want to do anything to help this man or his wounded soldiers. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow the lot of them. Realistically, I knew that wouldn’t happen. If it meant keeping the roof over our heads, taking in two injured men couldn’t be so bad. And if they were too frail to be moved, hopefully, they’d both die soon. “Very well,” I told him. “But leave us with something to feed them. We’ve no field hands left, and you Yankees have taken all our livestock.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to manage,” the Yankee said in his clipped northern accent. “I’ll have the orderlies bring them inside.”

With that, he ordered the torchbearers to back down before he spun on his heel and left.

“I’ll go cut down Mr. James,” Uncle Hewlett said softly.

At least temporarily satisfied the Yankees were going to leave us be, I glanced at Uncle Hewlett. A big tear rolled down his dark freckled cheek. I’d never seen him cry before. Despite the difference in their stations, he’d loved my father as if he were his own brother.

I had to be strong for Uncle Hewlett too. “I can’t let you do that by yourself. Come on. There’s no sense in putting off the inevitable.”

It had taken longer to bury Pa than I’d thought. Uncle Hewlett had blubbered like a baby while Ma, mercifully in her own world, had picked wildflowers at the edge of the family cemetery. I had taken one shovel and Grayson the other. We dug the shallow grave ourselves.

The knowledge that Grayson had fired the shot and that Pa had given up his life to save his son hung like a storm cloud in the air, but I didn’t utter a word about it. I suppose I would have done the same as Pa. And poor Grayson had to bear his own guilt. He didn’t need me adding to it.

But rather than crying, Grayson remained fixed on the task at hand. His sunburned face grew more and more mottled with red splotches. Whether it was anger or embarrassment or both, I didn’t know. He shook from head to toe, and as soon as we’d raked the last spade full of dirt over Pa’s grave, Grayson stabbed the point of his shovel in the ground. “I’m going to Jonesborough to join up with the Arkansas troops under Pat Cleburne,” he announced, resolved.

Everything in my world suddenly lurched another notch off-kilter. I ached to slap him. I clenched my fist to keep from doing just that. “Don’t you dare leave!” I flung the shovel to the ground. “If you go, I’ll be left here with nobody but Ma and Uncle Hewlett. I’ll never be able to tend to the goats by myself.” That is, if the Yankees hadn’t found the dozen goats I’d hidden in a dilapidated house in the woods on the back of the property. If they had, we’d be without milk and butter and cheese or any way to trade with the neighbors for what they had to spare. After Pa’s death and Grayson traipsing off to join the army, I couldn’t survive one more tragedy.

“I’m going,” he said. “I should have gone as soon as we heard the Yankees were marching into Atlanta!”

Where I grieved, he raged. If only I were a man with the choice to snatch up a gun so I could avenge my father’s death.

Uncle Hewlett intervened. “Mr. Grayson, Miss Belle needs you around here. Those goats aren’t going to milk themselves, and your ma’s not any help.”

I could see that Grayson would not be dissuaded. He’d begged for years to join the army, and the only reason he hadn’t was because my father threatened to take a buggy whip to him if he even mentioned it.

“See reason, son,” Uncle Hewlett said. “Give yourself a couple of days to grieve and to think about it. You’re needed here even more than you’re needed on the front. Mr. Dalton signed up to do the fighting for this family. Sending one man to the front lines is enough.”

“And where’s Dalton now?” Grayson railed. His gaze locked with mine, and I shuddered at the cold accusation there—as if somehow this were all my fault.

My palm went to my apron pocket as if the wadded-up casualty list might not be there, as if it had all been a nightmare. Missing…

Not captured. Not killed. Not wounded.

Missing.

Uncle Hewlett seized Grayson’s arm, and he gave him a fierce shake. Grayson yanked himself loose. He raked a trembling hand through his black hair. Tears suddenly flooded his dark eyes, and with a sob, he took off, darting back toward the house as fast as his bare feet would carry him.

I hung my head. “He won’t be there when we get back, will he?” I asked.

“‘See first that the design is wise and just; that ascertained, pursue it resolutely,’” Uncle Hewlett mused aloud.

“Don’t quote Shakespeare to me now,” I spat back, exasperated. My brother had run off, probably to be killed, hothead that he was. I’d just buried my father in a grave I feared would be ravaged by wild dogs. Right now, I simply couldn’t tolerate Uncle Hewlett’s eggheaded pontificating.

He clapped his hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll go see to the goats, Miss Belle.”

Numb, I nodded. Milking the goats was too much work for one person, but I just couldn’t face it right now. I dragged in a breath and lifted my face to the tender rain that had begun to fall before I took Ma’s hand and trudged wearily back toward the house. For the first time in my life, I thanked the heavens Ma didn’t have the sense to know her husband had just been murdered.

Dalton could dig Pa a deeper grave when he returned from Virginia, and besides, Uncle Hewlett was right. I couldn’t worry about Grayson. I couldn’t control him any more than I could control anything in this godforsaken world. I felt as if the world were crashing down around me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. When would this war ever end?

All I knew for certain right now was that Grayson would be gone by the time the rest of us returned.

As the big Georgian house situated in the center of the Rattle and Snap plantation loomed into view, I sighed. I’d always loved the shelter of that cavernous house with its half-moon-shaped porch graced with soaring columns. The elegant balconies on each side of the house made it look like a giant decorated cake to me. Now the plaster flaked from the columns. The roof desperately needed repairs. Inside, the stench of dampness and rot pervaded rooms that didn’t have an eastern or western exposure.

Rattle and Snap was weary too.

My heart grew heavier with the load I now shouldered almost by myself. And to add insult to injury, there would be two stinking Yankees in my house when I returned. I wanted to collapse and didn’t know what drove me to put one foot in front of the other. All I knew was that I had to do it. I didn’t have any other choice.

Immediately, Ma darted to the broken mirror in the entry hall and, singing, began inserting the flowers she’d picked into her wild gray hair. As I wearily climbed the stairs, it occurred to me that the sight of her behaving so childishly no longer shocked me as it had when I was younger.

Before I reached the top, I heard the moans. Loud, heart-wrenching moans that left a horrid taste in my mouth. What the hell had those damn Yankees left me?

To make the intolerable situation worse, the bastard lay entrenched in my father’s bed. “The pain!” he cried when he saw me. “Give me something for the pain!”

He clutched the sheets and rolled from side to side in the bed. Realizing that he couldn’t be still, I stared in horror. I’d seen one of the servants carry on like that with labor pains, but it shocked me to see a man writhing in agony. Darkly, I wondered why I couldn’t thrash about like this to fight the hole left in my heart from my father’s death.

“Sweet mercy,” he gasped. “Help me!”

“Did they leave you anything? Any laudanum?” If they had, I thought about taking it myself and letting the Yankee rot.

Although I wanted to close the door and blot out his screams, I trudged into the room and prowled through his knapsack. Nothing. They’d left him with nothing.

I went to my father’s chifferobe where I knew he’d kept his stash of whiskey. I stared at the amber liquid and took a deep breath before knocking back a draught of it myself. The acrid flavor curled the edges of my tongue and warmed as it slid down my throat. I’d never tasted anything so awful in my life, but the instant calm it offered overrode the foul taste. I carried it to the bed and held the bottle to the soldier’s lips. “Not too much,” I warned him. It wouldn’t do for him to drink it all up. As far as I knew, this might be the last.

His screams faded into a pitiful sort of whimpering. The dirty bandages around his belly indicated he’d been shot in the guts. I didn’t know much about wounds, but instinct told me this man was going to die and that he would take his sweet time about it.

Even if he was a Yankee, I couldn’t just leave him to suffer. I unfolded a quilt and threw it over him to keep him warm.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he mumbled before he fell into a feverish doze.

I inhaled and immediately wished I hadn’t. The soldier reeked of rot and blood. Grimacing against the rancid stench, I left the room. I couldn’t face the other one. Not now. I longed for the days when Mammy would heat a bath for me, and I’d soak until my fingers and toes were pruned. But those days were long gone, and Mammy was long dead. I no longer had the luxury of relying on anyone but myself.

It was as if I had been ripped into tiny pieces and spread as thin as the butter we strove to procure. I couldn’t rest. There was another damn fetid Yankee to see after. I said a silent prayer that I’d find this one already dead.

Trying not to think about the man sleeping on the same sheets on which my father had awakened this morning, I closed the door to his bedroom. My heart sank when I realized they’d put the other Yankee in my bed.

The door was slightly ajar, and when I pushed it open, I heard the unmistakable click of a pistol cocking. Anger flared that someone would hold a gun on me in my own home, but at this point, I didn’t care if the bastard shot me. I flung the door open so hard it bounced against the wall.

“See here, I don’t want you in my house any more than you want to—” My voice stopped short. I had expected a burly, bearded cretin like the one in my father’s bed. Instead, a mere slip of an auburn-haired boy lay in my four-poster bed—aiming a pistol at me. In my mind’s eye, I saw Grayson in such a state, and even though this boy was the enemy, my heart went out to him. Somewhere he had a worried mother, maybe even a sweetheart.

“Put that gun down,” I snapped.

He eyed me warily before he lowered his weapon.

“What happened to you?” I inquired.

“Got shot to pieces by Cleburne’s boys,” he said. His voice hadn’t changed yet, and as I neared him, I guess he was only fourteen at best. His creamy freckled face looked as soft as my own.

“You’re not old enough to be fighting,” I scolded. Although I didn’t have children of my own, something about him brought out a mothering instinct in me I couldn’t explain. I leaned over him and pressed my palm to his forehead. As I feared, it was hot.

“I’m twenty-two,” he said, the Irish ire evident in his faint brogue. He watched me with wide grayish blue eyes.

I was twenty-three and found it difficult to believe he was nearly as old as I was. He didn’t have the look of the local boys my age I’d seen go off to war. I stared, wanting to hate him as I loathed the burly Yankee in the other room, but I couldn’t.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Alice.”

My shocked gaze collided with his. “Alice? That’s an unusual name for a boy.”

“I’m not a boy,” she said softly. “And you can save your pity for someone else.”

Stunned, I gaped. “You’re a woman?” Even as the words left my lips, I realized my mistake. Cropped as short as any man’s and looking direly in need of a trim, her hair framed a bone structure that appeared far less than feminine. Angular cheekbones accentuated narrow eyes. Rather than delicately arched eyebrows, hers brooded straight but not overly full. Her lips, however, were all woman, plush and pink and pouting. If her auburn hair had been longer, I might have ventured to refer to her as pretty in a common sort of way. As it stood, I was…intrigued.

“My company left me here to die in this hellhole,” she said dismally.

“Hellhole? Rattle and Snap is hardly a hellhole. There are worse places to die,” I retorted, fighting the lump that rose in my throat when I was reminded of my father. The woman—Alice—sparked something in me I didn’t like, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps I admired the fact that she’d clawed her way into a man’s world or that she’d at least tried to make a way for herself. I didn’t know. Still, I didn’t like her attitude or the fact that she’d held a gun on me in my own house. I could see why they’d left her behind. And yet I asked, “Why’d they leave you? Were you too wounded to travel? Did you ask to remain behind?”

Her thick lashes dropped as she averted her gaze. “Hell no! They left me because I’m a woman.”

I’d never heard a woman with such coarse speech before. She fascinated me, and I couldn’t resist asking, “What possessed you to don a uniform and invade a country?”

“Invade?” she inquired haughtily, her eyes clashing with mine once more. “Tell me, Miss Priss, do you own slaves?”

I swallowed thickly and crossed my arms over my chest. “I see. You’re an abolitionist.”

“Damn right.” She tried to sit up higher in the bed but winced when she moved.

She looked to be in pain. Casting our differences aside, I moved to help her. She swatted my hands away. “Don’t touch me,” she ranted as if being southern were contagious.

“What happened to you?” I hardly believed a woman had been shot masquerading in a man’s uniform on a battlefield.

“I don’t need your compassion,” she said, pursing those girlish lips at me. Her narrowed eyes flashed.

My hands found my hips. I dragged my gaze from her mouth and held her stare, wanting to tell her if she didn’t want or need my help, then she could move her ungrateful self out of my bed. Instead, I exhaled sharply. I was too tired to fight her now. Too tired and too heartbroken.

Grayson’s bed remained empty. I’d sleep there, if I could get any sleep at all with that other Yankee wailing like a teat-starved baby.

“Very well.” I whirled and left the room, slamming the door behind me.

Sometime during the night, I awakened. The haze of sleep faded, and I realized I was in Grayson’s bed and that I’d been dreaming fitfully. It took me several moments to remember why. And then a wrenching hollowness permeated my gut.

My father had been murdered. My brother had run off to join the already bedraggled Confederates. Two strange Yankees occupied in my house, one of which was the most hateful woman I’d ever met.

The male Yankee’s moans drifted through the closed door and in through the open window, hanging in the air like a fetid stench. He kept calling for his mother, and I knew if he kept it up, he would upset Ma. I wanted to pull the pillow over my head to shut out the sounds, but I couldn’t. My inborn sense of compassion wouldn’t allow it. Sighing, I threw back the covers, intent on going to see if I could offer him some comfort, but just as my toes touched the braided rug, a loud thump came from somewhere in the house.

My heart hammered. I jumped up and groped frantically for my robe. Where had I put it?

Heavy, uneven footsteps echoed just outside my door. Someone was in the house! More Yankees? Had Ma gotten out of bed, or had Grayson come to his senses and returned? Intuition that it was neither overrode hope—and then I heard the shot that resounded through the entire house.

Chapter Two

Forgetting all about any sort of covering, I crept to my door and pressed my ear against it. The footsteps, the moans—all of it had stopped. A chill swept up my spine. Now only grim, terrifying silence came from the other side of the door. My hand shook as I reached for the knob. I twisted it slowly and pulled open the door, wincing when the hinges groaned. After easing through the narrow opening, I stole down the hall.

“For the great war is nigh, and we will win or die, chanting our battle cry, ‘Freedom or death’—” Ma’s raucous singing voice startled me so much that I fell back against the wall. I covered my flying heart with my hand as if I could prevent it from drumming its way out of my chest. Apparently oblivious to the blast, Ma wandered the downstairs, singing as she often did when she awakened at night.

My gaze riveted to the two rooms across the wide upstairs hall. Both bedroom doors gaped open. Mine and Pa’s. I squinted. A tall figure stood out against the darkness in Pa’s room. I froze, staring as the shadow turned and took one lumbering step toward me.

Moonlight cast its eerie bluish glow on Alice’s haunted face. I gasped. Dressed in nothing but a long white shirt and a dirty bandage around her thigh, she wearily leaned on the doorjamb, her pistol resting against her good leg. She heavily favored the wounded one.

I blew out the breath I’d been holding. “Alice?”

Her eyes met mine, and the look she leveled on me eliminated any doubt that something terrible had just happened in that room.

“What are you doing out of bed?” My voice sounded tremulous.

“When it’s my turn, will you do the same for me?” she asked evenly.

Confused, I blinked. What on earth did she mean? Clarity struck me with sickening force. I darted across the hall, past her, and into the room where I stopped short.

The Yankee lay on the floor. Dead. A black mirror of blood pooled around his head. I tried to move, to speak, to turn, but all I could do was gape, immobilized.

“Will you?” Alice asked again, her voice shaking me into action.

I whirled away from the grisly sight. “Did you…did you kill him?”

Even though she slumped against the door frame, I could tell she towered nearly half a foot taller than me. With her long, lanky limbs, I saw easily how she could have passed herself off as a boy. Her carriage, her demeanor—everything about her—appeared more masculine than feminine.

Her shoulders shifted. She shouldn’t be out of bed. Still, she had not answered my question. “Did you kill that man?” I demanded, pointing backward at the heap on the floor.

“He begged me to do it,” she seethed. “He was dying anyway, and he was in pain. It was the least I could do for him. Now, I ask you once more. Will you do the same for me when it’s my…”

Her voice dwindled, and she wilted down the doorjamb until her bottom plopped onto the floorboards.

“Alice!” I darted to her to keep her from falling over. Her head hung lifelessly. I patted her cheeks. “Alice?” No response. I fumbled for a pulse and found a weak one.

Cradling her head in my hands, I gently lowered her the rest of the way to the floor. I couldn’t get her back into bed by myself. Gaining my feet, I stepped over her and rushed down the stairs to get Uncle Hewlett. I’d need his help to drag the dead Yankee out of Pa’s room anyway.

My head spun. I couldn’t believe Alice had shot that man, but I knew she’d had little other choice. He’d been in tremendous pain, and I too had waited for his moans to stop so I’d know he was free from his earthly suffering. No one deserved to die, but Alice had courageously done what I could not—would not—have. I shuddered to think she could easily develop gangrene or blood poisoning. And die.

I couldn’t tolerate a woman’s pain. Not even from a woman like Alice.

After rifling the Yankee’s pockets, Uncle Hewlett buried him in an unmarked grave at the edge of the cotton field. While the cotton rotted on the stalks, Alice languished in my bed, hovering in the twilight between life and death.

My days consisted of milking and tending the herd, cleaning the mourning clothes I’d brought down from the attic, and nursing Alice.

Her fever raged, and I sponged off her dangerously thin body several times a day. She never resisted. She was too delirious to resist.

Fearing she might die, I decided to fetch Granny Page.

Granny Page held the distinction of being the oldest resident in our community. For years, everyone had gone to Granny when the doctor was unavailable—and then even when he was. Granny’s years gave her wisdom and experience no young doctor could match. She had reluctantly agreed to bring her medicine chest of poultices and concoctions, muttering the entire walk back to Rattle and Snap that Yankees didn’t deserve her special brand of doctoring.

The sweltering September sun baked my back through the black dress while the strong scent of cedar seemed to waft out of every stitch, gagging me in its intensity.

“After what they did to your pa,” Granny ranted, “I wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire.”

I didn’t need reminding of that, but I bit my tongue as I opened the front door for Ma and Granny. Ma shuffled inside and disappeared into the parlor as Granny hobbled across the threshold. Pa was gone. He’d made the decision to protect Grayson, even knowing what the Yankees would do. Right now, I couldn’t fault Alice for Pa’s choices. Besides, I feared hating somebody that much.

Holding Granny’s arm, I let her lean on me as she heaved her gnarled body up the steep staircase one grueling step at a time. She mumbled curse words that shocked me and carried on about how the Yankees had brought Armageddon down on us all.

Not daring to dispute her, I nodded and agreed, knowing Granny’s peevishness would fade once she saw how truly pitiful Alice looked.

Uncle Hewlett sat in a wing chair I’d moved into the bedroom with his long legs crossed at the ankles. He looked up over the top of his spectacles at us from a well-thumbed copy of Don Quixote. “Good morning, Granny.” He greeted her with a nod of his head as he closed his book and stood.

Although it had been illegal to teach blacks, especially slaves, to read and write, my family had valued education for all. My grandfather had freed Uncle Hewlett years ago, but he’d learned to read long before he’d garnered his freedom.

“Mornin’,” Granny greeted in return before she eyed the Yankee girl in my bed.

Granny gawked as if she’d never seen such a creature in her life.

Alice lay motionless, her long, lean form outlined under the sheet and quilts. Granny’s gaze darted from Alice to the tatters of her Zouave uniform, which lay across the rocking chair beside the bed. “She ran around the countryside dressed in those ridiculous red bloomers?” Granny asked.

I shrugged. There’d only been one soldier from our area who’d gone off to fight dressed like that—a Frenchman named Guy Boliere, who’d fought in some Algerian unit before coming to Georgia. And while the red blousing breeches and blue jacket boasting braiding did indeed look ridiculous, I’d much rather be wearing those clothes than a skirt and a corset.

I glanced at Alice, wanting to know more about her, fascinated by her—attracted in some inexplicable way. Silently, I said a prayer that she wouldn’t die.

Granny ventured cautiously toward the bed as if Alice might jolt awake and devour her like some medieval dragon. I set the medicine chest on the trunk at the foot of the bed. Walking past Granny, I raked my fingers into Alice’s short auburn hair to check her forehead for fever. Alice didn’t so much as utter a moan.

“The fever has been on her since they left her here,” I told Granny.

“Let me have a look at that leg.” Assured that Alice wasn’t going to bite, Granny doddered to the side of the bed.

Uncle Hewlett cleared his throat and eased out of the room as I lifted the covers to expose Alice’s leg. She shuddered but never opened her eyes. Carefully, I removed the bloodstained bandage. “I’ve changed these bandages twice a day,” I explained to Granny as I bundled the bloody fabric into a wad and dropped it on the floor.

Despite Alice’s otherwise unladylike appearance—and with the exception of her sun-burnished face—her creamy skin gleamed flawless.

No stink wafted from the wound, and no dark lines indicated blood poisoning.

“Is she able to walk on it at all?” Granny asked, prodding the leg with her fingertips.

“With extreme difficulty,” I replied. “But only once. She’s been in a fever since the day they left her here.” A tremor crawled up my spine at the memory of Alice shooting that wounded Yankee. “I’ve tried to keep her bandages clean, but she’s lost a great deal of blood.”

Granny shot me a look, and I intuitively knew she wondered why I cared, why I hadn’t let this woman die. I couldn’t answer that question other than I would have done the same for any other human being. Besides, a woman who possessed the grit to dress up as a man and live among them as one of them intrigued me.

I wanted to know why she’d done it. Had she followed a sweetheart or husband into the army? And if she had, what happened to make the Yankees leave her here without adequate medical attention?

Some part of me pitied her with that whacked-off hair and those mannish features, which I found curiously fascinating. Another darker part of me admired her.

“I’ll mix up a poultice for that wound,” Granny muttered, turning to her medicine chest. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty to keep you busy. I won’t need any help.”

I dragged in a rough breath, realizing I’d been so busy I hadn’t had time to mourn my father. Maybe that was for the best.

As I started to leave, Granny wrapped her crooked fingers around my arm. “This girl needs nourishment.”

“I’ll bring up some grits and goat’s milk,” I said.

Granny shook her head, and cold horror seeped through my skin as I realized why she had a hold on my arm. Before she spoke, I shook my head no.

“She needs meat, a stew. She’s lost a lot of blood, Belle. She won’t get any better without something with some meat in it. These Yankees aren’t used to eating turnips and dried peas.” One of Granny’s thin gray eyebrows arched.

“We…we don’t have any meat,” I told her resolutely. “We haven’t had any since Pa gave the shoats I tried to hide under the house to the Confederates.” He’d given away every last one of my piglets to those starving scarecrows. He’d said they needed full bellies to whip the Yankees. Great lot of good that had done. All I had left was my goats, and I’d never dreamed of slaughtering one.

I stared at the Yankee girl in my bed, finally mustering hatred for her.

Granny loosened her hold on my arm, and I pulled away and stormed out of the room.

Normally, I had too much to do trying to maintain the massive rooms in the house to visit the herd when it wasn’t milking time. Today was different.

Snatching my straw hat and clapping it on my head, I shirked my inside duties and fled out the back door. Fists knotted at my sides, I walked at a brisk pace while our old orange tomcat loped along beside me.

My chest felt as if it would burst with pent-up energy. I wanted to scream, to hit something. I wanted to thrash about on the ground and wail like that damned wounded Yankee had done. Briefly, I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to be put mercifully out of my misery. Why couldn’t I have that same luxury?

Pulling up the hem of my skirt, I ran across the muddy red clay, flying past the burned shell of a barn, the rotting cotton field, and the empty cabins where the field hands had lived. Usually, walking this trek to where we kept the herd calmed me. Before today, I had always taken the time to breathe in the sweetness of the honeysuckles and the earthy fragrance of the red southern clay, to feel the sun warming me through my clothes, to listen to the sound of the creek rushing over the rocks. I’d loved the songs chanted by the field hands and the sight of the crisp, white cotton against the eggshell blue sky.

Today I found no such solace in Georgia’s bounty.

When the goats saw me, they immediately greeted me with raucous bleats. The eldest doe, Cinnamon, was the first to trot toward me. I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around her scruffy russet neck and cried against her sturdy body while she nibbled at my straw hat. I sobbed and sobbed, clinging to that goat as the others gathered to investigate. Velvety muzzles nudged my arms and back while I grieved for my father and worried for my brother and husband. Delicate hooves picked curiously at my back while I shook from the lifetime of horror I’d witnessed in the past few days. A wet nose sniffed at my ear, and I reached out to pet Brownie, the mongrel dog who guarded the herd like they were her own pups.

Even Jeff Davis, the ornery old billy, came to see what the matter was. I wiped my tears on the back of my sleeve and gave Jeff a scratch between the horns before I gave his beard an affectionate tug. The look he gave me was one of approval, of understanding.

I’d never realized how much comfort I garnered from my four-legged friends until now. These goats were a working part of the Rattle and Snap family. We’d had a herd as long as I’d been alive, and when the soldiers had come in—from both armies—demanding livestock, I’d brought the goats into the woods and had fashioned an old slave cabin into a serviceable barn.

Each goat had his or her own personality. In addition to Cinnamon and Jeff Davis, there were the white twins, Isis and Osiris, the chocolate doe Hewlett had named Ophelia, the four spring kids, a buckling I called Prince Henry, and three other does.

The goats provided milk from which I churned butter and made cheese. I traded the three commodities to my neighbors for their vegetables and what little meat they could spare.

“She needs meat, a stew.” Granny’s words haunted me.

Inhaling the musky fragrance of my beloved goats, I gazed around at their faces. Several pairs of expressive, almost human eyes peered back at me. I fingered one of Isis’s floppy ears. How could I part with any of them? How could I betray their trust?

Sniffing, I grabbed one of Jeff Davis’s horns and used his stalwart leverage to pull myself to my feet. He rubbed his head against my thigh, and I gave him another scratch between the horns. The old billy loved me as much as he hated Uncle Hewlett.

Of course, Uncle Hewlett had been a domestic servant until all the field hands left to dig trenches north of Atlanta. Before that, Cuff and I had shared the milking duties. But he’d died shortly after the others left.

Eggheaded Uncle Hewlett hadn’t cottoned to the goats, although he carried out the chores without ever complaining, even when Jeff Davis butted him, urinated on him, hooked his leg, trampled him, and bleated hatefully at him as only randy buck goats can do.

I gazed at the herd and sighed. I couldn’t let Alice starve to death…but which one? Which of my precious goats could I slaughter to make a stew for a woman I loathed?

Reluctantly and with a heavy heart, I carried one of the spring kids back to the house and handed her over to Uncle Hewlett, crying the entire way back.

Uncle Hewlett hadn’t said a word. He’d merely taken the goat from me and disappeared behind the old barn. I went into the house, but even through the thick brick walls, the high-pitched sound of the kid’s bleats filled my ears. When the distressed noise stopped, I barely made it onto the back porch before I retched up my breakfast.

Granny’s hand smoothed over my loosely done-up hair. “Go upstairs and sit with her. I’ll prepare the stew.”

I stared into Granny’s faded blue eyes for a moment trying to decide which would be worse for me: sitting with that Yankee or making a stew out of one of my kids. After getting a drink of water out of the bucket, I decided sitting with Alice was the lesser of the two evils.

Granny patted my back as I trudged toward the stairs.

Alice’s eyes were open when I reached the room. She sat in the bed, propped on two pillows. I glared at her. “Do you need anything?” I ground out.

“No…thank you,” she said, her voice weak and barely discernable.

I started to turn to leave.

“Wait,” she rasped.

I hesitated.

“I…thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” she said softly. It was the first time I’d recognized anything feminine about her, other than her anatomy.

My shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “You’re welcome,” I muttered. “Now, if you don’t need anything—”

“Wait,” she said again. “Would you…would you mind keeping me company. Just for a little while?”

I stared. While I dreaded the thought of spending one waking minute in the company of this woman, I knew I couldn’t go downstairs where the smell of goat stew would waft in from the kitchen.

Besides, her sudden vulnerability stunned me. She had fought alongside men. She’d killed a man to put him out of his misery.

I’d expected the same acerbic hauteur I’d gotten from her the first time we met. Not this. Anything but this.

With a sigh, I sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you feeling better? Do you still have fever?” I reached over her and touched her forehead. This time, she didn’t swat my hand away. She was cooler than before but still warm to the touch.

Her gaze met mine, and the look in her blue eyes startled me. Her stare captivated mine and held—direct, penetrating. Her eyes seemed to take me in all at once. Immediately, I wondered if my hair had escaped my chignon, if tears stained my cheeks, or if spittle dotted my chin. As I withdrew my hand from her brow, I tucked a loose strand of my dark hair behind my ear. “What possessed you to join the Union Army?” I blurted, uncomfortable with the silence and with her keen gaze on me.

“After the emancipation proclamation was issued, I felt I needed to help right an injustice,” she said after a moment of thought.

“That was over a year ago.” I could scarcely imagine she’d pulled off her farce for more than a year. “How’d you hide…your identity?”

“When you can shoot straighter, ride farther, and fight harder than any man, they don’t really question you,” she said.

I believed her and snickered at the thought of a woman fooling so many men. I glanced at the remnants of her uniform with its distinctive red, blousing breeches and blue, cutaway jacket decorated with gold piping. “Why the Zouaves?”

She shrugged. “A good many other Irish were in it. I knew they’d accept me. Besides, the uniform concealed…more.”

“Laws of mercy! You’ve all but ruined your chances of making an advantageous marriage,” I told her as if I were scolding a wayward child. My heart had begun to race, and I didn’t know why.

She pursed her chapped lips. “I don’t think keeping women from fighting or voting is right either.”

I laughed outright. “Women? Vote? Or fight? And even if a woman was foolish enough to want to do those things, that day will never come.”

“Are you not as educated as your husband?” she asked gesturing at the gold wedding band on my finger.

“Don’t be silly.”

“Shouldn’t you have as much say as he does about the laws concerning your rights?” she asked.

Of course I did, but I wasn’t about to admit it to this brash Yankee girl. “Everyone has their place in this world.” I smoothed my palms over my apron. “And I’m sorry to say it, but your place was—is—not among a bunch of filthy men.”

She jerked her chin. “Those men were my comrades.”

“Is that why they left you here to die?” I couldn’t hide my spite.

Her full lips parted, and she finally—finally—averted her gaze from my face. I released the breath I’d been holding. Guilt pricked me. I’d been cruel to her. “Can…can I put a pillow under your leg? Are you comfortable?”

“A pillow would be nice.” She lifted the covers as I pushed one of the smaller feather pillows under her knee. Her thigh was muscled and hard, not soft like mine. My fingers brushed her bare skin. Inexplicably, a blush heated my cheeks, and I knew it had something to do with the fact that she seemed more a man than a woman. “Would you like to wear one of my nightgowns?” I gestured to the man’s shirt she wore.

She sniffed at her shoulder. “Do I stink?”

“No. I merely thought you might want something more…feminine…to wear.”

She shook her head vehemently. “Nobody will ever put a dress on me again.”

“It’s not a dress,” I snapped back at her. “It’s a nightgown.” Visions of her standing in the darkness with the hem of that shirt hitting her about midthigh intruded on my thoughts. It was simply indecent to be so exposed.

She heaved a sigh as she considered my offer. The ungrateful thing half sneered. “I suppose I would like to wear something clean for a change, but I doubt anything you own would fit me.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Quite a bit taller and quite a bit broader than I, her build reminded me of a sixteen-year-old boy’s. Not even Grayson stood as tall as Alice. But Dalton did.

“I have something that might fit you.” I slid off the bed to rummage in the chest of drawers. When I pulled open the bottom drawer, Dalton’s scent filled my senses. I breathed it in, longing to feel his strong arms, yearning to feel safe and sheltered again.

Missing…

A lump welled in my throat as I withdrew one of his neatly folded nightshirts. “This was…is…is my husband’s,” I said. “It should fit you.”

Again, those stormy eyes collided with mine and held. The way she studied me with that deliberate stare unnerved me. She winced as she shifted in the bed to drag her shirt out from under her bottom. At once, I moved to help her, placing Dalton’s nightshirt on the bed as I gathered up Alice’s shirt and dragged it off over her head.

I easily saw how she passed herself off as a man now. Her broad, angular shoulders looked as strong as any man’s. Muscular biceps defined the shape of her long arms. But my gaze drew magnetically to her breasts. All peaches and cream, they were small and boasted dark, velvety nipples. I swallowed thickly, realizing I couldn’t stop staring—and also realizing Alice didn’t seem to care.

Instead, she leaned back slightly as if to give me a better view. Her nipples rose as she inhaled a deep breath. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought she intended her pose to be provocative. Was she that shameless?

A wave of heat settled in my neck, and, hands trembling, I unfolded Dalton’s nightshirt and slipped it over Alice’s head. At the same time, we both reached for the ties at the neck. Our hands clashed once and then twice, and I let out a nervous laugh. I swatted her hands away. “Let me.”

Her hands dropped to her lap, and she watched me as I looped the thin ties into a perfect little bow. I sat beside her once more. “What was it like?” I asked. “Fighting?”

“Very boring,” she replied.

Her answer surprised me. I would have thought battles and seeing other places besides my little corner of the world to be quite the opposite. “Boring?”

She nodded and then leaned back against the pillows, resting her head on the headboard. “A lot of picket duty. A lot of hurrying up only to wait. And wait. And wait some more.” She smiled. “Not the battles though.”

“Did you see much action?”

“A few skirmishes,” she said. “Mostly we stood guard duty in Decatur, Alabama.”

I tried to imagine what it would be like to charge into battle amid the cannon blasts and blazing colors. “But you must have seen fighting here.”

She nodded. “I fought all through this campaign. Those Tennessee boys weren’t about to give up an inch of ground. The worst was at what we named the Dead Angle.”

I’d heard of it. Confederate General Cheatham had dug in on the top of a hill a few miles north of Atlanta, and the Yankees had fought tooth and nail for that ground. So many had been killed, and in the sweltering summer heat a temporary truce had been called so the dead could be buried. “You were there?”

The horror in her faraway gaze indicated she had. She forced a fake-sounding laugh. “If I’d been told it was so bloody hot down here, I might still be in Boston handing out pamphlets.”

“Boston?” I’d been as far north as Saratoga but never to Boston.

Storm clouds gathered in her eyes. “Well…maybe not Boston. Not anymore.”

Silent, I stared, hoping she’d reveal more about her fascinating life.

“I-I always felt like I was born in the wrong body,” she whispered. “That I should have been a boy instead of a girl.” Her eyes caught mine but only for a second before she looked away. This time, she was the one who had trouble maintaining eye contact. “Do you ever feel that way?” she asked.

“No,” I said, my voice but a breath.

A smile played on her lips. “No. A woman like you wouldn’t.”

A woman like me? I didn’t understand. “What do you mean by that?”

She shrugged. “You’re… Well, look at you. You’re feminine. Pretty.” Her gaze raked me in such a way it made me blush.

I felt I needed to change the subject. I sensed something unspoken and dangerous was about to surface. “Do you regret leaving home?”

She wrung her hands. “I couldn’t have stayed where I was. My folks brought me over from Ireland during the great famine.” Her eyes misted.

“I was only five years old at the time, but I remember the Bostonians laughing at our clothes and our accents. We were poor as poor could be. My da took a job as a stable hand, and my ma worked as a seamstress. I even had to do odd jobs to earn money. We weren’t much better off in Boston than we had been in Ireland.”

“Is that why you left Boston?” I asked.

“No. I grew up there. We lived on Batterymarch on the waterfront in a house with three other families,” she said. “There were no schools for us and at night, my ma taught me to read by the light of a single coal-oil lamp.”

I thought back to my own education. I’d had the best tutors. I spoke three languages with fluency. I could cipher. My hand was neat, and I knew how to keep the plantation books. From an early age, I’d been well versed in literature and mythology and could even read Latin and Greek. When my tutor wasn’t present, Uncle Hewlett had seen to it that I could recite Shakespeare and a plethora of poems. Learning had been a fun pastime for me. I realized I had taken my education for granted.

Alice continued. “I read everything I could get my hands on. I dug newspapers out of the garbage so I could keep up with what was going on in the world. That’s when I began attending the abolitionist meetings at the church. And that’s when I fell in love with someone I shouldn’t have.”

I bit my tongue to keep from asking her for the details. Part of my education had included etiquette. “I see,” I said, giving her license to resume, but already my mind filled with wild imaginings. A rich boy? A politician’s son? A priest? The possibilities loomed endless.

“So, I left Boston and went to New York,” she said simply, omitting all the delectable details I craved.

“But your parents—”

“My da died when I was fifteen, and my ma…well…she turned me out.” She blinked a couple of times, and I recognized just how close her tears lurked.

“And then you joined the Zouave unit?” I asked, hoping to redirect her maudlin thoughts.

She shrugged. “Like I said, the Zouave uniforms concealed more than the standard-issue uniforms.” Her hands moved over her breasts, and she cupped them, drawing my gaze there once more. “Unlike you, I don’t have a hell of a lot to conceal.”

I looked at my own well-defined breasts. “If I could trade with you or give you some of mine, I would,” I admitted truthfully. “My corset’s so tight right now I can hardly breathe.”

Her stare dropped from my face to my chest and lingered uncomfortably long. “Yours are beautiful just as they are,” she said softly.

Despite the humid summer heat, a chill swept down my arms. No one had spoken to me or looked at me in that way since the day Dalton rode away with Cobb’s Legion. I couldn’t decipher what lay behind Alice’s eyes, and I certainly couldn’t figure out my own thoughts.

I changed the subject. “Granny’s poultice should help your leg.”

Alice chuckled. She lifted the covers and looked at the clean bandage. The nightshirt had only dropped to her hips, and I caught a glimpse of the dark auburn curls at the apex of her thighs.

“What’s in this thing?” she asked, wrinkling her pert nose. “It stinks to high heaven.”

“There’s no telling with Granny.” The tension melted out of me when she lowered the covers.

She leaned forward conspiratorially. “You don’t think she’d poison me, do you?” she whispered.

“No. Granny talks big.”

“She called me a scourge. A scourge!” Alice railed, but her tone was in jest.

“She’s called others much worse,” I assured her.

“The army doctor wanted to take my leg off,” Alice said.

“Off?”

Alice snickered. “He changed his mind when I pulled my revolver on him.”

I could hardly believe I got on so well with this strange woman. She and I talked like old friends. I’d almost forgotten that moments ago, I’d sworn to hate her. No matter how easily we conversed, my heart ached for my kid.

“Your revolver?” Wild images danced in my head.

“It worked. I still have my leg. But it made him so mad he refused to give me any laudanum.”

“You must have been in terrible pain,” I commiserated.

“I wasn’t about to let any of them know it,” she said through clenched teeth. “Especially after he called me a disgrace. I’d fought as hard as any man in my unit. Harder than some.”

“He called you a disgrace?” I understood her anger.

She snorted. “Yes. But I told him I hadn’t hidden behind the lines like he had. I shouldn’t have said that, but I was damn mad.”

An awkward silence fell between us, and I steered the conversation back to her stint in the army. “How’d you do it? How’d you keep all those men from finding out you are a woman?”

“Oh that?” She grinned. “That was easier than I thought.”

“But…what about y-your monthly?” I asked, blushing at the mention of such a personal thing.

She waved her hand in dismissal. “The bloody piles were so common no one thought anything about it.”

Imagining the lengths she’d gone to in order to conceal her body, to relieve herself, even to sleep at night made my head swim.

“The only thing they really questioned was my age, but that was only when I enlisted,” Alice said.

“Weren’t you lonely for female company?” I asked.

Something flared in her eyes at my question. “I visited the fancy ladies like any of the other soldiers.”

My mouth fell open. “You what?”

“When the other soldiers went to the whorehouses, I went along,” she stated plainly.

“Weren’t you shocked?” I tried to envision her in the room with a…a fancy lady. What on earth could they have done together?

Alice winked. “The girls were more than happy to keep my secret.”

I’d hardly had a worldly upbringing. I even bordered on being somewhat naive. But something told me Alice had done more with those women than she admitted. The thought of it caused a strange stirring inside me. My mouth went dry. My channel clenched involuntarily. I shifted on the bed in an attempt to assuage the throbbing under my skirts. The movement only made it worse.

Had Alice made love with a woman? I couldn’t dare ask her.

As if sensing my consternation, she placed her hand on my bare wrist and gave it a reassuring rub. “I was joking,” she said. “I never meant to upset you.”

Relieved, I nodded.

“You know my name,” she told me. “But I don’t know yours.”

“Belle Holloway.”

She smiled. “Belle.” She said my name as if she liked the way my name felt in her mouth. “The name suits you.”

Chapter Three

Alice had gobbled the stew and asked for a second helping. I avoided looking in the bowl as I carried it up the stairs on a tray. I didn’t want to be reminded those tiny pieces of stringy meat belonged to one of my goats.

“Thank you,” she said as I placed the tray across her lap. Already a bit of color had returned to her face.

The dog barked and alerted me to riders coming up the drive. I rushed to the window just in time to see five Confederates plunge to a halt in front of the house.

“Who is it?” Alice asked, her cheek bulging with a hunk of stew meat.

“Soldiers. Confederates.” I quickly averted my gaze to the window. I wiped my hands on my apron. “I’d better go see what they want.”

Alice’s brow furrowed. “Are they…are they here to take me?” she asked.

“Don’t be a silly goose,” I told her, starting for the door. “What would they want with you?”

She gulped. “Well…I did kill Martin.”

Martin. I’d never known his name until now. I waved my hand in dismissal. “No one needs to know about that, Alice. He was dying anyway. You just saved him several more days’ misery.”

As I descended the stairs, I thought about Alice. She’d been a Yankee soldier, and for that reason alone, I could turn her in to these Confederates. I could have her out of my house and out of my bed.

But I knew I wouldn’t do that, and I couldn’t figure out why. My reluctance perturbed me. I realized I was clenching my fists and had to force myself to relax. Alice’s presence unnerved me, but the alternative of imagining life without her unsettled me far more.

Uncle Hewlett got the front door at the same time I did. He opened it.

The Confederate in charge tipped his well-worn slouch hat at us. “Ma’am,” he greeted.

“How can we help you?” Uncle Hewlett asked.

“We’re pulling out. Prepare for the Yankees to move in again,” the soldier in gray said.

“Moving out?” I asked, distressed. I’d barely survived the last Yankee invasion.

“We’ve got no choice,” the Confederate said. “I would suggest you bury all your valuables. What the Yankees don’t take is being looted by a gang of deserters that’s been causing trouble around here.”

“A gang?” Uncle Hewlett asked.

“Yes,” the soldier said. “There are about four of them left as far as we can tell. We caught and hanged one of them, but they’re a pretty mean bunch.”

His gaze drifted down my mourning gown and back up again. “Are there any menfolk besides you on the place?” he asked Uncle Hewlett.

“No sir,” Uncle Hewlett said, but I imagined Alice could be handy with a gun, and we had the dead Yankee’s pistol and rifle in addition to hers.

The soldier tipped his hat again but stopped before turning to leave. “One more thing,” he said. “Sherman’s ordered all the civilians out of Atlanta. There’ll be refugees coming through these parts in the next few days.”

I gaped. “Civilians?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Uncle Hewlett shook his head in disgust.

A sense of panic seized me. Refugees. Yankees. Looters. I’d struggled to hold on to the few things we had: the goats, the house, the clothes on our backs. I didn’t want to see the things for which I’d worked so hard stolen by brigands and Yankees. Neither did I want to give away the things we’d surely need in the coming days, weeks, years.

I sighed. Our money was no good. Without anyone to work the cotton fields, there was no way of making more money. All I had was my goats and my house.

“Y’all be careful,” the soldier called as he mounted his horse. He wheeled around, and the riders were off.

“I guess we better get together anything we want to hide,” I told Uncle Hewlett.

Without words, he nodded, still staring at the backs of the soldiers riding away. Finally, he exhaled a deep breath and uttered words from Julius Caesar. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.’”

Placing my hand on his shoulder, I stared too, watching the bright late-summer sun sink behind the front gates of Rattle and Snap. I didn’t intend to lose any of our ventures to Yankees or thieves.

The first wave of refugees from Atlanta trickled through three days later. Most traveled on foot. A few had all they could carry on rickety wagons pulled by balky mules. All of them had one thing in common. They were angry.

Every house that still stood along McDonough Road was full to bursting with displaced, disgruntled relatives and strangers alike. We took in five of my distant cousins, my widowed aunt, and three of their servants who planned to travel farther south to Macon. I’d only met them once before, but they were family, and we couldn’t turn them away.

Everyone had to double and some triple up in the beds. Aunt Mavis slept with Ma, and that left me in bed with Alice, who’d grown stronger and stronger since eating the goat stew.

“I can’t believe Sherman forced everyone to leave their homes. It’s inhuman,” I ranted as I peeled back the covers and crawled into bed with Alice.

She scooted over to give me room. I’d never realized just how small this bed was until now.

“I agree,” Alice said. “What point is there in forcing women and children out of their homes?”

I turned down the wick on the lamp and settled down on the mattress. Tonight, no breeze wafted through the open windows. We needed no other cover than a sheet and thin quilt. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my own bed, but it felt different with Alice’s warmth next to me. Very different.

I slept fitfully, afraid I’d unintentionally bump my knee against Alice’s wounded thigh. I’d grown unaccustomed to sleeping in the bed with anyone else. The last person I’d slept next to had been Dalton.

Missing…

Dozing again, I dreamed of him. In the dream he kissed me and held me and told me I was safe. He lifted me off my feet, lay me in the bed, and then made love to me.

My eyes snapped open, and reality crashed back over me. My heart twisted at the dream. It had seemed so real. Common sense railed that Dalton might not ever come back. He might be dead. My heart ached—but sexual desire still raged. I swallowed thickly and glanced at Alice. She lay on her back, eyes closed, her breathing even and deep.

The details of my vivid dream replayed over and over in my head. It had seemed as if I’d actually been with him. Even my body had reacted. Wetness dampened my inner thighs. My channel ached to be filled. With every breath, my nipples brushed against the smooth cotton of my nightgown.

Would she know if I finished what my dream lover had started?

I drew up the tail of my nightgown, luxuriating in the slither of the soft cotton sliding up my bare thighs. My heart pounded in my throat as I reached between my legs and swirled a finger over the hardened little hillock there. Jolts of bittersweet pleasure coursed through me. My breath left my lungs in a ragged rush as I glanced at Alice again, hoping desperately that she still slept. That I wouldn’t awaken her with my movements.

I recalled her pointed stare the day Uncle Hewlett had slaughtered the kid. In my mind’s eye, I remembered the sight of her bare legs and the smoking revolver in her hand…and then, her naked breasts. I inhaled.

What drove me to think of her when I should be fantasizing about my husband?

At this point, I didn’t care. All that mattered was assuaging this rampant desire. I’d rarely resorted to pleasuring myself, but tonight I felt I had little other choice. Dalton was away, and the dream had been so realistic.

And I needed this. God, how I needed it.

Closing my eyes, I dipped my fingers through my nether lips to coat them with my slippery juices. I forced the visions of Alice away and instead, imagined the scent, the feel, the touch of my husband as I began to rub myself in a circular motion. I dragged in a breath. My thighs parted and lifted. The muscles there strained. I fought the urge to rock my hips. Dalton…

Almost there…

Oh yes. But Alice’s angular face intruded once more. In frustration, my eyes snapped open. I expected to find her still sleeping.

Instead, two eyes sparkled in the darkness. She stared back at me. Humiliated, I froze. My hand stilled. My face flamed. Did she know what I’d been doing?

I expected to find condemnation or disgust in her gaze, but even through the murky darkness, I recognized something else—something that frightened me.

She shifted and inched closer. I jumped when her hand covered mine, but she gripped my fingers tight and held them in place over my quaking cunny.

“Be still,” she whispered, moving even closer.

My heart fluttered wildly against my rib cage. I gnawed my bottom lip.

“Be still,” she said again. “Close your eyes.”

Near tears, I reluctantly obeyed. My body, however, seemed far too willing to comply with whatever Alice wanted to do to me.

“Spread your legs, Belle,” she said, her breath hot against my ear.

In spite of the stifling heat, chills rippled up and down my entire body. I opened for her, scarcely an inch. My breaths came in panicky gulps. Her body countered mine from my head to my feet. Her heat. Her soft skin. Her lean thighs and calves. Her toes.

“Spread your legs.” It wasn’t a request.

Whimpering, I opened my thighs wider and wider still. Yes… Her hand slid over mine, and she breathed a moan as her fingers delved between my already slippery folds. My heart lodged in my throat. “God—” I choked on my words. My voice sounded desperate. Needy.

“Shh.” She began to touch me as no other person ever had. Her fingers explored my swollen lips in a slow, maddening caress. I warred with the knowledge that I should depart the room this instant and with the desire to find satisfaction at the hands of another.

She gave voice to a soft whimper—as if she enjoyed sliding her fingers easily and expertly over my sensitive flesh.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even swallow. One finger sought entry and then pushed slowly inside. I tensed. She was touching me! A woman was touching me as intimately as my husband had! I knew I should demand that she stop or at the very least swat her hand away. I did neither.

Her caresses dredged up wicked desires in me I never knew existed. Grief and desire and other emotions I couldn’t identify churned within me, and I realized I wanted this. I wanted to forget, to lose myself, to let go and simply feel.

She gave voice to another husky moan as she moved impossibly closer and worked her finger even farther inside me.

“I’m inside you, Belle,” she whispered.

Make her stop! Tell her to quit!

I stretched open my legs impossibly wider and lifted my hips to give my body to her.

Her finger slid out, and she palmed me, massaged me, only to push back inside again. Other fingers reached lower to places that shouldn’t have enhanced my desire, but they did. I wanted to look at her, to watch her. I didn’t dare.

She drew out and this time, plunged two fingers into my weeping cunny. I cried out. She stretched me. She hurt me in ways that made me want more.

She brought me to the edge of pain and pleasure, and I gloried in it.

All coherent thought fled as she began to piston me with the two fingers while her thumb beguiled my clitoris.

My head swam. My body floated. The sound of wet suction filled my ears. The pleasure of her fingers intoxicated me. I tried to think of Dalton, to imagine he touched me with such familiarity. But this…dear sweet Lord, this was so different from Dalton’s touch that I could think of no one but Alice. She seemed to know just what to do, just how much pressure to apply and where.

The tension melted out of me, and I dissolved into her hand. I lifted my knees as far as I could to give her complete access. Her fingers sought and found some secret spot inside me, and suddenly, bliss rolled over me like summer thunder. Gripping handfuls of the sheets, I arched, grinding against her hand. My toes curled. I heard the shameless sound of my own voice moaning and encouraging her as release came with the most intense quickening I’d ever experienced. Alice wrested every last bit of pleasure my body had to offer before she withdrew her fingers.

I expected her to snatch her hand away, but instead, she caressed my cunny, my thighs, my abdomen. When she pressed a kiss to my shoulder, I summoned all my courage to turn my head and watch her as she finally moved away from me. Holding my gaze, she lifted her glistening fingers to her lips and tasted them.

Shocked, I stared. Watching Alice slide the finger into her mouth that had just been inside me was the most erotic, most scandalous sight I’d ever witnessed. Something electric and unspoken hung in the air between us until she finally twisted onto her back.

I lay there, trembling. I couldn’t believe what I’d just allowed her to do. Not daring to breathe, I watched as she plunged her hand under the sheets. I realized she was touching herself, but I couldn’t bring myself to do to her what she’d done to me.

Touch her. Touch her, fool!

I wanted to. But before I could muster the courage, the covers rustled with her trembling. She moaned softly, and the bed shimmied before she exhaled several rough breaths; then she was still.

Moments later, her breathing became even and slow, and I knew she’d fallen back asleep.

Long after she had drifted off to sleep, I still lay awake. My body still hummed with what she’d done to me. Her touch had chased away the ghost of my dream, and I didn’t know whether to be angry or happy for the reprieve from the hollow place inside me that would not be sated until Dalton returned home from the war.

If Dalton returned from the war.

I rose to tend the goats just as an orange glow of sun sliced across the horizon. Wanting to think, I slipped off without Uncle Hewlett, knowing the heavy pails of goat’s milk would be difficult to manage.

After the Confederate riders had gone, he’d informed me I should carry Pa’s pistol with me, but I didn’t feel I needed it. Besides, I didn’t know how to shoot, and no one would ever find the secluded spot where we hid the goats.

Alice.

The back of my neck blazed when I replayed last night’s events in my head. Alice had caught me masturbating—and then she had brought me to orgasm. The memory of her fingers between my legs, searching, probing, penetrating renewed my desire.

Perspiration beaded between my shoulder blades and trickled down my back. I blew out a breath. I had to stop thinking about this. About Alice.

When I arrived at the spot where we kept the herd, the goats filed into milking order. It was the same every day. First, Cinnamon because she had taken the stance as the herd leader—the queen. Then came the twins. The others fell into a line that made no sense at all since age or the order in which they’d birthed kids didn’t seem to be factor.

After filling their feed bucket, I took my position on the stool and greeted each doe as she presented herself to be milked. I laughed at Jeff Davis, who kept looking up the path for his nemesis, Uncle Hewlett. “He’s not coming today, President Davis!” I called to the ornery buck.

He blew and bleated and stomped his hooves on the ground, obviously angry because he’d been cheated out of what he considered his morning romp.

I covered the milk pails, hefted them into a small wagon I used for hauling, and hitched Jeff Davis up so we could take the milk to the springhouse. Jeff and I bypassed the big springhouse we’d used before the war. Fearing Yankees or other thieves would loot it, we used the old one my grandfather had used when he’d built the big house at Rattle and Snap.

Granddaddy’s first house had been a two-room log cabin with a loft for the children. When he’d moved into the big house, he’d given the cabin to Uncle Hewlett, who stood on the porch now as I passed on the creekside path below. “I’ll get that for you,” he called, lumbering down the porch steps.

Jeff let out a high-pitched baa, and I held the reins tight to keep him from upsetting the milk cart.

Uncle Hewlett eyed the goat. “Don’t give me any trouble, you grand rascal.”

I could have sworn I saw Jeff grin. Straightening and stretching, I breathed in the scent of late summer, of tired leaves and cool clay. As Uncle Hewlett cautiously led Jeff toward the springhouse, my thoughts turned once more to what had happened with Alice last night.

As I walked back to the big house, I stared at the rushing water in the creek, mesmerized by the ripples and the rich hues of browns and greens. Alice had touched me between the legs. And I had let her. I bit my bottom lip. What did it mean? Had I committed a sin? Had I been unfaithful to Dalton?

Confused, I struggled to think clearly as my rampant mind ran in a thousand directions. All those times Alice watched me and studied me flitted through my head. Now, I recognized the look I’d seen in her eyes that had unnerved me. Desire.

A chill shook my spine.

Desire.

I gulped. Alice desired me? A woman? Someone of her own sex?

I’d often seen buck goats in rut attempt to copulate with each other. I knew the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but I had assumed only males engaged in that type of activity.

The right thing to do would be to set Alice straight, to tell her that I’d made a mistake in allowing her to touch me in such a manner. But even now, my thighs warmed and my channel clenched at the thought of feeling her hand between my legs again.

These years without Dalton had been long and torturous.

Was I so wrong to seek physical pleasure in such an innocent way? After all, Alice was a woman. It wasn’t as if I could fall in love with another woman. What had happened between us was merely two women comforting each other in the dark.

I nodded.

That’s all.

Comfort.

Lost in my thoughts, I went in the house and climbed the stairs only to be shocked back to reality when I discovered Alice standing in front of the mirror with my shears. A dusting of auburn hair littered the floor.

“What are you doing?” I cried.

“Cutting my hair,” she replied simply.

“But I thought… I assumed you’d want it to grow now that you’re no longer trying to pretend to be a man,” I said.

She smirked. “Hell no. I like it short.” She snipped off another lock.

I blew out a breath. “Give me those shears. You’ll end up looking like you’ve got the mange.”

I drew a nearby chair up for her and helped her to sit. I’d cut Dalton’s hair and knew how to do it, but I could not comprehend why she’d want to look like a man now that there was no longer a need for it.

“Why on earth would you cut your hair?” I asked, combing through her thick locks. “The color is so lovely, and it would be stunning long.”

“I like it short just like I like wearing breeches,” she quipped.

I rolled my eyes and then pinned her with a stare in the mirror. “Alice, you can’t keep pretending you’re a man.”

“Who’s pretending?” She lifted her chin defiantly. “I just don’t like long hair.”

Her gaze caressed my own hair, and then she added, “On me.”

Giving in, I snipped and trimmed and combed until her hair was as short as any man’s. I loved the feel of her soft, short hair. I even liked the incongruous hard lines of her face offset by those decidedly feminine lips.

“Belle,” she began, and my heart skipped a beat at her serious tone.

“Yes?”

“What we did last night… I’ve done it before,” she said softly. “With a woman.”

I wasn’t ready to hear about that. Women making love to other women…

That was not what I’d done. She merely comforted me when I was upset. Hadn’t she? “I don’t judge you,” I snapped. I sounded harsher than I’d intended.

“It’s why—” she began, but I quickly interrupted.

“Alice, it doesn’t matter. Not to me.” My cheeks burned with a blush, so I made a big pretense of putting the scissors away while she admired her reflection.

I didn’t want to admit it to myself or anyone else, but Alice did possess a very unique sort of beauty—a beauty that intrigued me. I swallowed. Hers was a dangerous, bold beauty that lured me to entertain sinful thoughts.

To want to know more about what she’d done with other women.

“Thank you, Belle,” she said, lifting her gaze to mine in the mirror.

Again, the look of desire shone in her eyes. My stomach turned a somersault, and I struggled with my own physical yearning to be touched again. Why hadn’t the one time sated me? My gaze flicked briefly to her lips, and I wondered what it would be like to feel them against my own, plying, pressing, kissing…

Blinking, I forced the lustful thoughts away and went to the chest of drawers. “You can’t go about the house in that nightgown, and if you’re opposed to wearing a dress, you might as well wear some of Dalton’s clothes.” My voice seemed higher pitched than usual, and I chattered as fast as a squirrel corned by a cat.

“There’s a belt in here somewhere,” I said, rummaging. I sounded nervous. “Ah, here it is.”

But when I gathered up the clothes and turned, I froze at the sight. Alice stood waiting, stark naked. It was an invitation—one I didn’t know if I was ready to accept.

Boldly, my eyes traveled down her body, lingering on her small breasts with their dark peach nipples and lower, down her lean torso to the sparse copse of dark auburn curls at the juncture of long, coltish legs. For someone who’d hidden herself from view for the past two years, she seemed terribly comfortable with her nudity now.

The bandage on her thigh appeared clean. At least she no longer bled. And when I saw that she continued to heal, my thoughts turned dark and lustful.

She cleared her throat, and my guilty gaze shot to hers. My stomach tensed. Her stormy eyes had grown dark. “Put the clothes on the bed, Belle.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t say a word. Instead, I did as Alice bade me. My pulse stampeded in my veins. Every hair on my body prickled.

The floorboards creaked when she took a step closer. “Pull up your skirts, and bend over the bed.”

I should refuse. I should walk away from this. It was one thing to allow her to touch me in the dark but quite another to submit to it in broad daylight—knowing she’d been with a woman before—knowing I’d gladly be with her again.

Anticipation thrummed through my veins as I gathered my skirts higher and higher. Alice moved in behind me. “Bend over, Belle,” she whispered as she arranged my skirts with care.

Air wafted in through the slit in my drawers. I trembled as she braced one hand on the base of my spine.

“Spread your legs, sweetheart,” she said, the hint of her brogue evident.

Walk away. Don’t submit to this. I inched my feet farther apart. Alice voiced her approval as she worked her hand into the slit of my pantalets. Heat radiated from her hand when she cupped my mound. I quivered and spread my thighs even more. Already, my channel grew damp awaiting her invasion.

I bit my bottom lip.

Alice tickled my wanton flesh with her fingertips. “Tell me what you want.” One of her fingers prodded my opening. I pushed back, wanting the digit inside me, but a sudden smack on my bottom made me yelp.

Heat blazed through my backside. Immediately, rage filled me, but when her hand plunged into my drawers again, my fury melted. “Now, tell me what you want,” Alice ground out.

“Y-your finger,” I stammered. I dropped my head down on the mattress, exposing my bottom even more. How could I submit to this reckless sort of thing with such willful abandon?

A sigh of delight escaped my lips when she gave me what I’d asked for. Her finger thrust into my sheath. Liquid pooled in my channel and then trickled down one of my thighs.

“Do you want two fingers?” Her voice was rough. Hoarse. “Do you want it to feel like a man fucking you?”

“Yes.”

A second finger joined the first, stretching me to capacity. I cried out at the curious sensation of pleasure mingled with pain. I thrived on it. I loved it. I wanted more. “Harder,” I heard myself say.

I was totally at her mercy, bent and spread for her and more than willing to allow her to assault my cunny with her fingers. She controlled me, and the surrender I experienced at giving myself over to her completely vindicated me. Absolved me. It swept me away from the trials and worries that plagued me. “Harder, Alice,” I managed through gritted teeth.

“Damn, Belle. You’re wet.”

She worked her fingers harder and faster than Dalton had ever dreamed of fucking me. I debated begging her to stop. The words hung on my tongue, but I forced myself to take it. I wanted to take it. At that moment, I would have done anything Alice asked of me for the pleasure I would receive at her hand.

“Do you like my fingers up your hot little cunny?” Alice asked.

When I didn’t immediately answer, her palm found my ass cheek again. The sting burned and then melted into a delicious throb. I yelped and moaned. “Yes, yes!”

The hand that had so recently popped my bottom tangled into my chignon. She pulled my head up with unthinking force. I cried out—louder than I should have. The fingers between my legs pistoned me relentlessly. Arching, I clawed at the covers. My knees quaked. I’d never been dominated like this.

I loved it.

As soon as I surrendered, violent spasms racked me from the inside out. I bit my bottom lip to keep from crying out again. My channel clenched in frenzied convulsions around Alice’s fingers. I spiraled, soaring on the sensual sensations emanating from my loins.

Alice’s intrusion slowed and gentled. She released my hair. How did she know I’d quickened? I wilted over the bed, luxuriating in the heavy sexual satisfaction pulsating through me.

She cupped me and caressed my sex, working her fingers through my swollen nether lips as if she were in love with that part of me. A jolt shot through my loins when she rubbed a drenched fingertip over my throbbing clitoris. I let out a whimper.

Alice chuckled softly and patted my ass. “Help me get these breeches on.”

Unable to speak, I nodded. I’d never felt so awkward and aroused and confused around a nude woman before. Shaking, I stood, letting my skirts fall back into place. Although my clothes now concealed my body and no one would know what I’d just allowed another woman to do to me, my damp pantalets rubbed against my thighs, an ever-present reminder of a stolen, secret moment of sin.

Unable to meet her eyes, I unfolded the shirt, then moved behind her so I could help her slip it on. Inadvertently, my fingers brushed her skin, and I circled her to begin fastening the buttons. She let me. I didn’t doubt she’d let me do far more if I only ventured to try it.

She watched me so intently, and I trembled so badly I could hardly work the tiny buttons into the holes. The backs of my fingers burned in contact with her collarbone, the flat hollow between her breasts, and the silken skin of her tummy.

It was a mistake. Alice, I should never have—

But I couldn’t utter the words. Even now, I longed to run my hands around her waist and lift my lips to hers. Would she kiss me back, or would she be repulsed? My heart skittered as I imagined touching her the way she’d just touched me. What would it be like to explore another woman’s femininity?

My face heated. The back of my neck sweltered. I felt faint. Finally, I’d fastened the endless row of buttons. I picked up the breeches and bent low, holding them open for her. I avoided looking at the auburn tuft of hair at the apex of her thighs.

Bracing her hand on my shoulder, she stepped into each leg with difficulty. Slowly, I pulled the fabric up her legs, my thumbs brushing her legs the entire way up. She held up the shirttail as I fastened the buttons. My channel tightened when my fingers grazed her curls.

Touch her. Is she as wet as I am? Oh God in heaven, just touch her. Reach between her legs and…

“Belle?” she said, and my heart literally skipped a beat.

My eyes met hers.

Her lips parted, and I hung on the moment, waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to bring up what had happened between us. Her gaze warmed, and her pupils enlarged. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Nothing,” she whispered. “I mean, thank you. For the clothes. For the food. For…everything.”

Fearing what might happen if I didn’t, I stumbled a step backward and nodded. “You’re welcome.”

You’re welcome? I felt like an utter fool. I had to get out of her presence. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Tense, I walked to the door but stopped. “Pa broke his leg a couple of years ago. I think there’s a crutch in the attic. I’ll see if I can find it for you.”

As soon as Belle left the room, Alice dropped onto the side of the bed and blew out a sigh. She lifted her hand to rake it through her short hair but stopped at her lips. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cream-coated fingers to her mouth, breathing in the scent and flicking her tongue over the digits to taste Belle.

Alice knew from Belle’s passionate reaction that she would go all the way with her, and the knowledge that the prim, proper southern lady would spread her legs for another woman drove Alice mad with desire.

Her mouth went cotton dry at the thought of Belle lifting all those frilly petticoats and then beckoning her to touch her—taste her. Alice tried to swallow but couldn’t. She’d seen the look of desire in Belle’s eyes. The curiosity to explore, to not only be touched but to touch as well.

Alice’s clitoris throbbed and ached. God, she’d go mad if she didn’t appease this raging lust. She inhaled. The house was quiet. No one would know if she touched herself. Her pulse accelerated as she reclined on the bed and worked her fingers under the waistband of her pants.

She jolted as soon as her fingers found her eager, swollen clit. Belle…

Her lashes descended, and in her mind’s eye, she saw Belle’s face. Belle’s lips. Belle’s head disappearing between her thighs and then—

Alice gritted her teeth to keep from crying out as she began to massage her cunny. Fleeting, erotic images of Belle’s lips and tongue teasing her to ecstasy flooded her thoughts.

Every muscle in her body tensed, and she shuddered as she found bliss at her own touch. She hissed a sharp breath through her teeth and stilled when the last jolts of pleasure ebbed.

Footsteps echoed on the attic stairs, and Alice shot upright. Her lust—at least temporarily—assuaged, common sense rushed back. It was wrong and unfair of her to pressure Belle for more. Alice knew it full well, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Her heart sank. It was happening all over again, and she felt powerless to prevent it. While other women pretended, for Alice, being with a woman was all real. Utterly, frighteningly real. She could fall in love with a woman. She could spend the rest of her life with a woman. And goddamn it, she could get her heart broken by a woman—again.

The best thing to do would be to keep her hands off Belle. After all, Belle’s husband was away fighting. He’d eventually come home, and where would that leave her, Alice?

She wiped her fingers on the coarse fabric of her breeches and steeled herself. She would not touch Belle again. She could not.

That night, Uncle Hewlett played a reel on the fiddle while we all clapped and tapped our feet. I hadn’t felt this carefree in a year. Even though it meant having to share our rations, I enjoyed having a full house of laughing relatives again.

But when Alice appeared at the parlor door, leaning on the crutch I’d found her and clad in my husband’s shirt and breeches, everything came to a screeching halt. Literally.

Uncle Hewlett’s bow scratched across the strings, and he lowered the instrument.

My cousins gaped.

I leaped to my feet. “Alice, come in. Join us,” I said, smiling as I took her hands and coaxed her into the parlor. The feel of her fingers lacing with mine caused my heart to flutter. I hoped no one else saw the blush coloring my cheeks.

I introduced her to all the cousins and to my aunt. They greeted her suspiciously. But when I made the introduction to Uncle Hewlett, she offered to shake his hand. I gulped. Uncle Hewlett stared. His gaze flicked to mine before he gingerly took her hand and shook it.

“What is your last name, sir?” she asked.

His dark brow furrowed. “You may call me Uncle Hewlett.”

She shook her head. “I owe you the respect of referring to you by your surname.”

Uncle Hewlett’s shoulders squared. He’d been offended. His jaw set and his eyes narrowed. “My last name is the same as Miss Belle’s pa’s, and I expect you to refer to me as Uncle Hewlett.”

Alice gave him a curt nod. “You may refer to me as Miss O’Malley.”

He studied her for a moment. “I’ll do no such thing. In this house, you are Miss Alice. We are, all of us, family here. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” she said quickly.

I suppressed a grin, gathering Alice wasn’t accustomed to anyone being more overbearing than she was.

She sat beside me on the settee, and Uncle Hewlett resumed his reel. As the night wore on, everyone gradually accepted Alice’s different manner of look and dress. Doubtless, my cousins thought all Yankee girls acted like Alice.

While everyone else grew more and more at ease, I became increasingly tense. Soon, we’d all be turning in, and I would be getting in bed with Alice again.

I shifted on the settee. The motion of my thighs pressing together made me ache anew. Although I clapped in time to the music, my thoughts were miles away, drifting in the dark where I could be touched…and venture to touch. Behind my closed door and under the sheets, I could indulge my illicit fantasies, and no one would ever know.

Alice had already gone to our room while I closed up the house for the night. My heart thundered as I climbed the stairs. I couldn’t wait to have her hands on me again. I couldn’t wait to lose myself in the pleasure she gave to me.

God in heaven, what was I doing?

I pushed all doubt away. I needed this. I wanted this.

Alice sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed in Dalton’s clothes.

Trembling, I closed my bedroom door, and then holding her gaze, I twisted the key in the lock. Already, my cunny clenched in anticipation. Cream flooded my channel, dampening my pantalets for the second time today. Why couldn’t I get enough of this? Why had the one time not satisfied me?

Alice stared. I swallowed, summoning courage. “Touch me,” I said, my voice but a breath. “Please touch me again.”

A long, taut silence ensued, and for a moment, I thought she would refuse me. Finally, she pushed herself up and walked across the room to where I stood. My lashes fluttered shut, and I gulped deep breaths of air as she wordlessly began undressing me. Her hands worked hastily. Neither of us spoke as she peeled away my bodice and then unlaced my corset. I started to tell her I had to leave it tied so I could wriggle into it since I had no one left to lace it, but I kept my mouth shut and my eyes closed.

The whalebone and cotton fell away. She released the tapes that held up my chemise, and suddenly my top half was naked. My nipples pebbled as the cool air wafted over them.

Her fingers tugged the drawstring of my petticoat. It whispered down and dropped in a heap around my ankles. She didn’t merely help me out of my clothes. She exposed me, and I did absolutely nothing to stop her.

She turned me and pushed my back against the door, her face hovering inches from mine as she untied the ribbons that held up my pantalets. I resisted the urge to stop her, to grasp the waistband and hold up the last barrier between her fingers and my body.

Her quick, harsh breaths fanned my face, smelling of the sweet Muscadine wine we’d sipped. Her hands shook as she pushed my pantalets down. My chest rose and fell, brushing her coarse linen shirt.

I wanted her. I wanted her as I’d wanted Dalton. More. My body shook with the need to touch her, to please her, to open and soften to her.

Her hands threaded into my hair and released the clasp that held up my chignon. I heard it clatter to the floor as my long locks spilled down over my shoulders. Opening my eyes, I watched as she wound one of my black curls around her index finger.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured.

Boldly, I took her hand and drew it to my breast. My senses exploded as she cupped me there and then rolled my nipple gently between her thumb and forefinger. Everything inside me careened wildly out of control. When her hand left my breast and skimmed down my belly and between my legs, I instantly spread for her.

What wanton muse had possessed me? Still gazing into my eyes, she slid her fingers through my already creamy folds. Her shoulder dipped slightly as she reached farther, searching, searching—oh, yes, finding.

My world tilted. I clung to her shoulders and moaned as she found that wonderful spot inside my channel. I’d never experienced a touch so gentle and yet so effective. Her head descended, and at once, my nipple was in her hot mouth. Her tongue flicked the distended bud, and I wound my fingers into her hair, holding her head captive there while her expert fingers plunged into my eager cunny.

The words she’d uttered the night she’d killed the wounded Yankee resounded in my head. “Will you do the same for me?”

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. I was her slave. I would willingly do anything she bade me to do.

The door rattled on its hinges as I rocked my hips in time with her hand. “Yes,” she hissed, and suddenly bliss was upon me.

Shocked that it had happened to quickly, I whimpered and rode her hand as spasms coursed through me with violent abandon.

“Don’t stop,” she said, her mouth now at my ear. “Let it come, Belle. Let it come on my fingers.”

My sheath squeezed her fingers. She didn’t let up. I couldn’t stand it. The pleasure was too much. The throes continued and continued until they finally eddied away.

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I gave in to the pleasure she rendered from my sex. Her hips wedged between my legs, and she pinned me hard against the door. She pushed her lust-coated fingers into my mouth. “Taste it, Belle.”

I should have been repulsed. Instead, I grasped her hand and suckled and tasted and drank the sweet nectar she’d milked from my cunny. I was hers, and she knew it.

When I’d licked her fingers clean, she backed away and shucked her clothing. I watched, fervid to touch her. She undressed like a man, kicking off her boots by wedging on the heel with the toes of the other foot. Reaching behind her head, she yanked her shirt off, neck first. I had her breasts in my hands before she could get her breeches undone.

My impatience to touch her vied with confusion. My mind screamed that this was wicked, immoral. My body had a voice and a will of its own. Her nipples grew taut in my hands. I tweaked and tugged them, fascinated by the differences and similarities in our bodies.

Alice’s teeth sank into her bottom lip. I loved that I did this to her, that I gave her this pleasure. The feel of her firm breasts reignited my own desire.

Taking my hands, she dragged me toward the bed. When the backs of her knees hit the mattress, she sank and pushed herself back, spreading her legs while I crawled onto the bed between them. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the dusting of hair where her swollen clitoris peeped from between two peachy folds. She spread her legs wider, and her flesh opened like the petals of a rose to expose all her glistening secrets.

Beneath all her bravado, boots, and boyish looks, she was all woman—so delicately feminine—that I stared amazed.

“Put your finger inside me, Belle,” she rasped.

Hesitantly, I reached for her but then stopped. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes you do,” she said as her hand clasped mine. She guided it to her center and bucked when I cupped her mound. Her entire body trembled, and she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth.

I swallowed thickly. Heat radiated from her body. Slick wetness coated my fingers. I’d done this to her. I ached to explore her. My fingers curled into the creamy crevices.

Gripping fistfuls of the covers, she bowed off the bed. “Don’t tease me. Please, Belle. Please.”

My pulse pounded. I felt as if I were outside myself, watching as I knelt between a woman’s legs to pleasure her. Doubt surged. And then she grabbed my wrist with both her hands and pulled my palm hard against her. My eyes widened as my middle finger slipped inside her moist heat.

It was as if I’d plunged my finger into ripe, warm fruit.

Alice writhed. Moments ago, when I’d been in the throes of my own orgasm, I’d had no other thought than to please her. Now, fear gripped me. Could I do to her what she’d done to me?

Her sheath—hot and wet and soft—licked at my finger. Summoning every last vestige of courage I possessed, I pushed my finger in farther.

“Yes!” Alice cried. Her fingers moved to her clitoris, and she began to rub it around and around. The knee of her good leg lifted, and she rocked her hips, forcing my finger in and out of her.

Her free hand encircled my arm, and she pulled me forward so that my hair brushed her belly as I rose to my knees. From this angle, I could piston her. Some savage passion came over me as I began to thrust in and out of her channel.

My mind raced, stopping on one thought: had any man ever done this to her? Something ugly and possessive reared inside me at the idea of it. I wanted to ask her. I wanted to make her admit allegiances that I shouldn’t. I wanted something more from her, and I couldn’t even identify what that something was.

Her breasts jiggled with her raw movements, and flicking my hair back over my shoulder, I leaned down so I could latch on to her nipple. I sucked and stroked it with my tongue. Whimpers and groans escaped her lips as she burrowed her fingers into my hair and held my head there. The muscles in her thighs and calves tensed as her legs closed on my body. I couldn’t have gotten free of her if I’d wanted to, and the thought of her forcing me, dominating me, making me do unspeakable things to her reignited my desire.

Her channel tightened and spasmed around my finger in successive, hard contractions. Her soft cries told me she’d found release. I continued my pace until her arms and legs relaxed, and then, my finger still embedded within her, I collapsed on top of her body.

I don’t recall moving or breathing for what seemed like an hour. Her fingers smoothed over my hair and my shoulder as if she caressed me with a feather instead of her hand.

For the first time in two years, the outside world melted away. Rattle and Snap, my family, my goats, my worries—everything—disappeared until there was only pure physical liberation. I felt safe in a way that I never had before.

Despite our differences, on some level, Alice was the same. She understood me. She accepted me. She knew me as I knew her in that unspoken way only two females can.

That night, I slept naked for the first time in my life—in the arms of another woman.

Alice listened to the big grandfather clock downstairs chime three. She touched her lips to the top of Belle’s head, and Belle shifted and snuggled closer.

Silky legs entwined with Alice’s. A graceful hand cupped her breast possessively. Alice should be in heaven. Instead, she was in hell.

She’d told herself she wouldn’t push Belle. Shit, she’d told herself she wouldn’t have anything else to do with Belle. But when Belle had come into the bedroom earlier and had begged to be touched, Alice had been unable to resist.

Instantly, her thoughts flooded with carnal images of Belle’s face as ecstasy crashed over her, of the sounds of Belle’s soft moans and the warm, wet feel of her cunny. Alice tensed at the memory of how Belle’s sheath had contracted around her fingers.

She recalled the alluring mixture of curiosity and apprehension gleaming in Belle’s eyes when she’d touched her for the first time. Alice had never ached for a woman’s touch more. And her mouth! When Belle had taken her nipple into her mouth, Alice had thought she’d die from pleasure.

Still, rejection and heartbreak was inevitable. Alice knew it. Just as she knew Belle would come to her senses and put a stop to their trysts. She shifted her hip, coming in contact with the soft muff of hair at the apex of Belle’s thighs. All this was fleeting and temporary.

Doubtless, Belle was lonely, and Alice offered a safe place to satiate deep sexual needs.

Alice thanked God she hadn’t allowed it go any further. She filled her lungs with a deep breath, but she immediately regretted doing so. Belle’s feminine perfume filled her senses. Alice cleared her throat. Her face flamed when she considered just how close she’d come to tasting Belle’s luscious cunny. Or worse—what if she’d kissed her mouth?

Alice blinked away the visions of taking Belle in her arms and devouring her plush lips.

No. Best not to take their tenuous relationship there. She had already done more than she should to the very beautiful, very vulnerable, very married southern belle.

Chapter Four

The next morning, my cousins left before I went to milk the goats. The big house seemed oddly quiet without them. They’d kept Ma company, and she pouted like a toddler when they took off down the long drive.

I watched until the little band of stragglers reached the front gates, and then I breathed a sigh. “I’d better go do the milking, Ma. You stay here in the house.”

Still clad in her nightgown and robe, she ambled into the parlor. I’d help her dress when I returned from tending the herd. I grabbed my straw hat, tied it on my head, and was just about to step out the door when I heard the now familiar thump, thump, thump of Alice’s crutch.

I turned to find her standing at the top of the stairs. My heart slid sideways at the sight of her dressed in Dalton’s shirt, breeches, and boots. I knew what feminine treasures lay underneath those very masculine clothes.

“I want to work,” she announced as she hobbled down the steps.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” I scolded.

“I won’t spend one more minute in that bed knowing you’re working your fingers to the bone to keep food in my mouth.” She grimaced with each difficult step.

I sighed. She wouldn’t be swayed. Thus far, I’d kept the location of the herd a secret from all visitors and even the neighbors. I couldn’t believe I was actually inviting this—for all practical purposes—Yankee soldier into my haven. Partly, I wanted her to know me.

With a smile, I removed Ma’s blue bonnet from the series of pegs on the wall where we kept our hats. Alice arched an eyebrow at me before she snatched Pa’s old slouch hat off the rack. Muttering something indiscernible about bonnets, she clapped Pa’s hat on her head. My smile broadened as I returned the bonnet to its peg.

“It’s a bit of a walk,” I told her. “Do you think you can manage?”

She gave me a terse nod, and we set off toward the woods.

“I’m a city girl,” she confided as we walked.

I looked her up and down, realizing that although she had masculine mannerisms, she hadn’t grown up on a farm as I had. The contrast in her character amused me. “Not even in Ireland?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t remember Ireland.”

“What was Boston like?”

“Dirty. Big. I’m certain there are nice places in the city, but we were poor and rarely ever stepped outside the Irish community,” she said.

“I can’t imagine living in a city. I’ve lived here all my life. I was born here,” I confessed.

“What happened to your ma?”

“The doctor said it was probably a stroke. She was right as rain up until my little brother was born,” I said, gazing dismally over the rotting cotton as we neared the field.

Alice guffawed as the vast fields loomed into view. “That’s a lot of cotton! It looks like it’s going bad.”

“It is,” I said miserably.

“Why don’t you pick it?” she asked.

“There’s no one to pick it. Uncle Hewlett and I have enough work to do around here with Pa, Grayson, and all the field hands gone. Besides, even if we could pick it and bale it, we couldn’t get it out of the country and sold.”

“What do you do for money?” She’d accurately assessed the situation.

I shrugged. “There’s no money to be had.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Alice took in the scenery as we crossed the creek and passed the cabin. She said nothing when I moved the brush that hid the path to where I kept the herd.

This early in the morning, each blade of grass and each leaf glistened in the delicate morning light. I couldn’t decide which time of day held more magic, dawn or dusk.

And now, added to that magic, night.

When everyone else was asleep, Alice and I created magic of our own. No one knew. No one suspected. Even now, as I walked beside her, my skin tingled from being so close to her. Every part of me sang with awareness.

Brownie bounded toward us. I patted her head and praised her, and then she immediately stuck her curious nose in Alice’s crotch. Alice swatted her away.

“It’s all right, Brownie,” I said. “Alice is a friend.”

I turned to Alice. “She’s very protective of the herd.”

“The herd?”

As if on cue, Jeff Davis let out a long, loud bleat. Alice stopped as the massive buck trotted toward us. I chuckled realizing how intimidating he must look with his wide rack of horns and those blazing eyes.

“Is he…friendly?” Alice asked, stepping behind me. She gripped my shoulder with one hand as if I could come between her and Jeff if he took a notion to dislike her. Her other hand readied the crutch to do battle.

I laughed out loud. “Uh…sometimes.” I pushed the tip of the crutch back toward the ground.

As if Jeff could sense Alice’s fear, he pranced and pawed at the ground with one hoof. When he neared us, he stood up on hind legs and pinned Alice with a sideways stare, challenging her.

Her fingers tightened on my shoulder.

I grinned. My little old goat scared this tough Yankee tomboy. I seized Jeff by one horn and gave it a shake. “Stop showing off, you old fool.”

He dropped down on all four hooves and grunted. I scratched his head and between his horns. “This is Jefferson Davis,” I told Alice.

She burst into laughter. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he does look like old Jeff Davis!”

“Come and meet the rest of the herd,” I said, holding Jeff by one horn as we walked toward the makeshift barn. “Everyone ridiculed my pa for owning dairy goats, but no one’s laughing now. These goats provide all the milk for us and our neighbors now that the soldiers have taken the rest of the livestock.”

And then an awful thought occurred to me. “You wouldn’t tell anyone about the goats, would you?”

Alice cupped my cheek, and the touch was so oddly intimate it made my stomach somersault. “We have too many secrets between each other to betray one another’s trust,” she said softly.

Breaking the spell, the melodic sound of goat bells jangled as the does trotted up to be milked. I turned toward the herd, encouraging them as they approached. I tried to act as if the unexpected caress hadn’t affected me, but suddenly every movement, every step, every breath, every blink of my eyes seemed exaggerated.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever milked a goat before,” I said.

Again, she graced me with a wry smile that deepened the lines in her thin face.

“Have you ever milked a cow?” I asked.

She shook her head.

We climbed the two stone steps into the old cabin alongside the goats. Alice seemed far more leery of the gentle animals than I would have guessed. Her reaction amused me.

“First, I fill the bucket with feed or sometimes hay,” I said, demonstrating. “The does like alfalfa the best, and the more they enjoy their feed, the easier they are to milk.”

I gave Isis a pat on the head. “This is Isis. She’s my fussy one. I always use a fresh pail with her because she tends to kick.”

“They kick you?” Alice asked, incredulous.

“Not me so much. But she will kick the pail over—or worse, dip her hoof into the milk.” I pulled up the short stool where I sat to do the milking.

Cinnamon pushed through the others to take her place as leader. I secured her head in the stall and then arranged my skirts as I sank onto the stool. Alice leaned on the wall behind me and watched intently as I reached underneath the goat and grasped her two udders in my fingers. I squeezed thumb to pinkie, thumb to pinkie, and the milk hissed into the empty pail.

“Why goats?” Alice asked. “Why not cows?”

“We had cows,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at her. “Until the soldiers took them.”

Her mouth formed an O, and she averted her gaze back to where I milked Cinnamon’s teats.

“But we’ve always kept goats,” I said, concentrating on the milking. “When my pa was a baby, cow’s milk made him sick, and Granny’s ma—she was the local wise woman back then—gave him goat’s milk to drink. We’ve had goats at Rattle and Snap since.”

“Do you ever eat them?”

“Oh no!” I said and stopped milking to glance at the kid pen where one of my beloved babies was missing. “These are dairy goats. I couldn’t bear to part with any of them…unless a human’s life was in danger.”

Afraid I would start crying, I turned back to Cinnamon and commenced milking her.

“What does the milk taste like?” Alice asked.

“This milk tastes like summer. Like honeysuckles and blackberries and ripe persimmons, like the fresh, tart scent of leaves and grass,” I mused and then smiled. “In other words, goat’s milk tastes like what goats eat.” Since I’d milked Cinnamon out, I withdrew the bucket from between her legs and dipped my finger into the milk. Alice leaned in and sucked the digit between her lips.

I gasped. My whole body reacted as her eyes locked with mine and her tongue teased the underside of my finger. The wet heat of her mouth reminded me of the tight warmth of her channel. My own insides clenched in response.

Perspiration beaded at my hairline. My reaction shocked me. Cream gathered in my own sheath as a deluge of images assailed me. Alice spreading for my touch. Flicking my tongue over her hard nipples. I wanted to do all those things. With her. With a woman.

My heart pounded.

Breaking the spell, she slowly released my finger, pressing a flirtatious little kiss to it before she stood once again. “Delicious,” she said.

Up until now, I’d reserved such actions for the bedroom. Never, not once, had I engaged in anything sexual outside my room or, up until last night, outside my bed. Right now, however, all I wanted to do was pull up my skirts and let her pleasure me. I dragged in a breath. What the hell?

I stood, drawing up the front of my skirts at the same time.

Alice stared. “Belle…”

My resolved wavered. “Don’t you want to?”

“More than anything,” she whispered.

“Touch me, and let me touch you. I want to. Please don’t deny me.” I couldn’t believe the words that sprang from my lips.

Alice came toward me, not stopping until my spine found the stall wall. Her gaze held mine as her fingers wriggled their way through the slit in my drawers.

“Mmm.” She voiced her approval when she found me wet and ready.

My eyes closed. I spread my feet farther apart. My body reacted as if it had a will of its own. I rocked against her hand. I wiggled on her fingers, desperately wanting her to appease my desire. Whimpering, I covered her hand and pushed it higher. “I need…” I couldn’t finish my request.

“What do you need, Belle?” Her voice was like the rough nap of velvet brushed backward.

“Please—”

“Tell me.”

“Your fingers.” I gasped.

“Where?” She slid through my folds. “Tell me, baby doll, and don’t sugarcoat it. I want to know precisely where you want my finger.”

I tried to swallow but couldn’t.

She straddled my thigh and slowly rode it. “Where?”

“My…my cunny. Inside my cunny,” I told her.

At once, her finger glided upward. Her mouth found my neck, and she nibbled and sucked, and all the while she fucked me with her finger. I clung to her, tilting my head to the side to present more of my sensitive neck to her inquisitive lips.

The sudden urge to touch her at the same time consumed me. I worked my hand under the loosely belted waistband of her breeches and underneath the hem of her shirt. She moaned and shifted to allow me admittance. Her finger slowed inside me, and she withdrew only to begin a circular assault on my clitoris while I delved into her damp sheath.

Hot. Wet. The only sounds that met my ears were the chomping of the goats and our heavy breathing. Alice smelled like my clean linen, and I breathed in the fragrant scent of her as I explored her dewy cunny. I ached to kiss her, but somehow, that would be crossing an undefined line. I ached to do more: to kiss her between the legs the way Dalton had done for me.

But that—with another woman—seemed taboo. Forbidden.

My mind swam with images of burying my face in her cunny, of lapping up her cream and suckling her nether lips and her pearl.

She half-squatted over my thigh and rode my hand. I wondered how it would feel to have her riding my face like that. To have her pushing down on my mouth, smothering me while I thrust my tongue up inside her hole. I wanted to die like that, consumed by her essence, with her cries of pleasure being the last thing I heard on this earth.

My mind replete with visions, I found release first. Every muscle in my body tensed, and I writhed against her hand, letting this wicked heaven wind through my body and then crash. When the last trace of pleasure subsided, it was Alice’s turn to cling to me while I brought her to orgasm.

Her mouth whispered hot words of encouragement as I alternately fingered her and then massaged her swollen pearl. Emboldened by her response, I pushed two fingers up tight into her cunny. I caught the short hair at the back of her head in my hand and tugged. Hard.

“Pull it,” she ground out.

A shiver tore through her, and she sank her teeth into my shoulder as she bit back a cry of pleasure. Her channel convulsed, squeezing my fingers in furious succession.

Afterward, neither of us moved. I wanted to remain here forever, slowly caressing her, sliding my fingers through her juicy folds. At the same time, my mind struggled to grasp this thing between us. A woman. Another woman. Panic surged, and I tamped it back down.

I couldn’t think about it. I refused to think about it. Doing more with her was merely a fantasy to enhance my pleasure. Besides, the goats wouldn’t allow me to interrupt their routine for any longer—not with their udders full.

Trembling, I released Alice.

We gaped at each other, and I resisted the urge to hold her, to kiss her. Somehow, I knew she wanted that same sort of connection with me too. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

Breaking the spell, she stepped away and shoved the tail of her shirt back into place.

Osiris nudged her head into the stall and began chomping oats. “Would you like to try?” I asked Alice, my voice tremulous. After all, she’d told me she wanted to help. Besides, I had to do something—say something—to break this awkward tension between us.

Eyeing Osiris dubiously, Alice sat on the stool.

“This is Osiris.” I introduced milker to milkee.

“Osiris? Isn’t that a male’s name?”

“The finicky one is Isis, her twin sister. Isis and Osiris. I don’t think it much mattered to her that we gave her a god’s name instead of a goddess’s.” I placed the pail under the doe’s udders and showed Alice the technique again. She rubbed her hands together and grabbed hold of the udders. As if the doe knew a stranger had her teats in hand, she bleated and danced.

“It’s all right,” I whispered to Alice. “Squeeze like I showed you before.”

Her first attempts yielded no results. Osiris complained and stamped her hind hooves.

“You’re cutting off the flow with your pinkie. See? You’re holding her teat too tightly,” I said, brushing my finger over Alice’s little finger. “Gently. As if you’re playing a piano pianissimo.”

“I’ve never done that either,” she quipped.

I chuckled. “Imagine playing the keys starting with your thumb. 1-2-3-4-5,” I said demonstrating.

Alice tried again, and milk shot into the pail. Her face brightened; her eyes flashed with triumph. “I did it!”

“Go ahead and milk her out,” I said, folding my arms over my chest so I could watch.

Suddenly, everything was as normal as if magic had not just happened between us, as if it had all been nothing more than a forbidden fantasy. I chewed my bottom lip, desperately wanting to dispel the cobwebs of confusion in my head.

Instead, I contemplated the funny way Alice had of sticking just the very tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth when she concentrated. I found the habit strangely endearing.

It took her twice as long as it took me, but when she’d milked Osiris dry, she turned and grinned, displaying her half-full pail of milk.

I made sure the oat bucket was full. Isis was next in line. “I’ll milk this one,” I told Alice. “Isis is the kicker.”

By the end of the day, we’d stored the milk, raked and mucked the barn, trimmed the goats’ hooves, and traded milk to the neighbors for late summer vegetables. While Alice and I took care of the outdoor work, Uncle Hewlett cooked, cleaned, and kept an eye on Ma.

Showing Alice how to do everything slowed me down considerably, but I knew my patience would bless me in the future. With a strength that matched, if not exceeded, my brother’s, Alice worked hard. Even when we choked on the fumes from the fetid hay as we raked it out of the barn, she hadn’t complained.

Our conversations flowed seamlessly, and even when we weren’t talking, I found her company soothing. Easy. I could simply be with her.

But I couldn’t figure out what she meant to me. Were we friends? We’d hardly known each other long enough for that. What was the meaning of the intimate moments we’d shared? I refused to acknowledge that we might be lovers. We were both women.

Maybe our connection lay in the fact we’d been thrown together by misfortune and necessity, and we’d simply chosen to make the best of an otherwise difficult situation.

I enjoyed the help she offered. I needed it—just as much as I needed the comfort she offered me.

Alice seemed surprised when Uncle Hewlett sat down to the supper table with us.

“We don’t stand on ceremony here,” I told Alice.

I fixed Ma a plate, taking care to cut everything into small bites before I placed in front of her.

Uncle Hewlett set a bowl of the leftover goat stew in front of Alice to go along with the plate of stewed carrots and potatoes he and I would eat. After he said grace, Alice dived hungrily into the stew and had half finished the bowl before she stopped eating. “This stew is delicious. Won’t you be having any?”

I merely shook my head.

Uncle Hewlett unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap. “The stew is for you, Miss Alice.”

Her gaze shot from Uncle Hewlett’s to mine and back to her bowl. “Why? Is…is something wrong with it?”

A lump welled in my throat.

“The stew was made for you,” Uncle Hewlett told her, “from one of Miss Belle’s kid goats.”

Alice’s head dropped as doubtless she remembered what I’d told her that morning about the only reason for slaughtering a goat. She drew in a deep breath and let it out, and I thought I heard her mutter a prayer before she finished the stew, eating it this time with far less enthusiasm.

After supper, we adjourned to the parlor. With just us four, Uncle Hewlett opted to read rather than regale us with a reel. Amazed, Alice gaped as he chose a book of sonnets. He sat and opened the book and began to read.

“You can read?” Alice blurted, obviously shocked.

Indignant, he looked at her over the top of his spectacles. “Of course I can read.”

Alice fidgeted. “I thought it was against the law to teach slaves to read.”

Uncle Hewlett’s lips stretched into a taut, grim line.

“Uncle Hewlett isn’t a slave,” I interjected.

Alice’s lips parted. “Then…why would you stay here?”

“Because, Miss Alice, this is my family. Rattle and Snap is my home.” With that, he went back to reading in his melodic voice. “‘If amour’s faith, an heart unfeigned, a sweet languor, a great lovely desire…’”

Throughout the busy day, I hadn’t had time to dwell on the fact that my house was now empty. The relatives were gone. I could return to Grayson’s room, or now that Alice was better, I could ask her to take one of the other beds in the house.

I stole a glance at her in the mirror that hung over the mantel. She sat, elbow cocked on the armrest, knees apart, feet planted firmly on the floor. The fingers of one hand curled loosely on her thigh. Her posture was slightly slumped. Comfortable.

In contrast, I sat rigidly straight. My corset prevented any measure of slouching. My corset seemed to be the last vestige of my old life—my world before the war. These past years had changed us all. Before, my complexion shone as white as buttermilk. In spite of my attempts to keep my face shielded from the punishing sun, I was now freckled and sunburned. Everyone had to work long, hard hours outdoors. Frivolities like fair skin and curled hair were a thing of the past.

I brushed a loose strand of my black hair back into my chignon, and as Uncle Hewlett droned on, my gaze caught Alice’s in the mirror.

When she did not immediately look away, my breath froze in my lungs. With difficulty, I forced myself to hold her stare. Nerves rattled me, and I rubbed my damp palms on my apron.

Why did this woman have such an effect on me? My own reaction frightened me. It terrified me that I sat here contemplating going to bed with her. I knew I had no intention of taking any other bed in this house. I would go to bed with Alice. We’d undress, and then…

I swallowed thickly and blinked slowly. When I opened my eyes once more, Alice gave me the tiniest smile. Instantly, I warmed as desire unfurled and spread through my body like sweet wine.

I didn’t understand this. Right now, I didn’t want to, because I knew if I gave too much thought to my relationship with Alice, I would have a very unpleasant decision to make.

Silently, Alice and I undressed each other. As soon as the last stitch of my clothes fell to the floor, she took up the washcloth and tenderly bathed every part of my body. First my face, my neck, my arms, my breasts. Lower.

Relishing the feel of the cool water on my fervid skin, I closed my eyes and allowed her to thoroughly clean me.

My channel hummed, growing damp in anticipation. I couldn’t wait to feel her fingers exploring me. I ached for the feel of her warm mouth teasing and tasting my nipples.

“Get on the bed, Belle,” she said.

Immediately, I obeyed. She took the cloth and hastily washed herself in all the same places she’d washed me. When she finished, she limped toward the bed.

“How’s your leg?” I began.

“Shh,” she cooed. Her gaze held mine as she climbed onto the bed. “Lie down and spread your legs.”

Biting my bottom lip, I lay back on the pillows and parted my thighs. Alice inhaled sharply. “I can’t fight this anymore. I want to taste you, Belle. I want to taste your lovely…” Her voice trailed off as her head descended between my legs.

I didn’t have time to be shocked. Her mouth latched on. Her tongue wriggled through my folds. And all I could do was burrow my hands in her hair and hold her head there. A violent shudder rippled from my scalp to my toes. Exquisite. I think I said the word aloud, but I couldn’t be certain.

Exquisite.

I inhaled and surrendered as she wedged in impossibly closer. She moaned against my flesh, and new sensations rippled through me. Her fingers gripped my thighs so tightly I knew I’d be bruised. I didn’t care. Of course Dalton had done this to me, but I’d been so self-conscious I’d never allowed myself to enjoy it. But Alice…

Alice was the same. She was a woman, and her intimate acceptance of my body—of me—stunned me, released me.

I lifted my head and watched her. Eyes closed, she snuggled her face into me. Bliss relaxed her angular features. Her mouth moved over me lovingly and hungrily at the same time. Expert lips suckled my clitoris until I thought I’d die from the sheer pleasure. Her tongue tantalized every crevice, every fold, every recess. I had dreamed of this very moment, and now it was happening.

I brushed my fingers through her short hair, and her lashes lifted.

Ours eyes connected; every muscle in my body drew taut. Still holding my gaze, she raised her head but only slightly. Her lips and chin glistened with my juices. Her tongue traced her top lip. “When I’m done with you, I want you to taste me,” she whispered, and then, still looking into my eyes, she pressed a kiss to the spot where my thigh met my body.

I whimpered, desperately wanting more. Her finger found its way inside me, and she pushed home. I sucked in a breath, mesmerized as she trailed the tip of her tongue up and down the engorged little hillock crowning my sex.

“You taste sweet,” she said and sucked the nub between her lips.

My back arched off the bed. I never wanted her to stop. But, oh, she did stop. Frustration surged. I couldn’t stand this sweet torture.

“You taste like honeysuckles.” Her gaze lingered on my open sex, and she watched her slowly thrusting finger work its way in and out. “And you look like a butterfly. So delicate. So beautiful.”

Her mouth sought my nether lips again, and this time, she didn’t stop. She sucked my clitoris. Her finger prodded and pleased me, and I mewled helplessly as her kisses hurled me into that ethereal paradise where the world stopped and there existed only this.

This. This understanding, this connection between Alice and me. Between two women.

Everything inside screamed at me to let go, to surrender, to face my fears and my passion and my deepest, darkest desires—to let Alice into my heart as well as my body.

Intense and violent, the spasmodic throes continued until I could tolerate them no longer. Gasping, I pushed at her head and cried for her to stop. “Please, Alice. Please. You’re killing me.”

I’d heard orgasm described as “the little death,” but I’d never understood that phrase until now. My body hummed with it, with her. And when I opened my eyes, she hovered over me.

Her gaze dropped to my mouth, and I knew—I knew—she wanted to kiss me.

Confusion and panic returned and rushed through me in a sickening wave. As many things as we’d done together, we’d never kissed. Not once. Not on the mouth. Somehow, that seemed too intimate. But I wanted to feel her mouth on mine. I wanted to taste myself on her sweet lips.

“I fell in love with someone I shouldn’t have…”

Her words intruded into my thoughts as she bent to kiss me. I held her shoulders. Until now, I’d wanted to pretend everything we’d shared was a fantasy, that it was innocent. It wasn’t.

It was far from innocent.

Alice hadn’t fallen in love with a priest or a married man. She’d fallen in love with a woman.

A woman.

How could I have been so blind to what was right in front of me? Worse, how could I combat the emotions in my own heart?

“Belle.” Her mouth was so close to mine, I could smell my sweetness on her breath.

“I—” Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I wanted her so badly I ached. I wanted to kiss her and hold her. I wanted to taste her treasures as she had tasted mine. I wanted her to love me. But this…

I couldn’t.

Dalton…

“You’ve done this before…with women,” I said.

Her brow furrowed. “I told you that.”

I shook my head. The problem was that I hadn’t allowed myself to believe what I already knew. “I mean…you’ve fallen…in love…with women.”

“What did you think this was?” she asked, her voice edged with spite. “Hmm?”

She moved off me, and I scrambled to cover myself. “I don’t know what I thought,” I said. “I suppose I was pretending that you were…that you were—”

Her eyes narrowed. “That I was a man? That I was your husband?”

My heart broke for her. For myself. “No… At first. Not now.” I reached to touch her face, but she swatted my hand away.

She snorted as she bolted off the bed and began pulling on her breeches. “I should have known better. I have no one to blame but myself.”

I sat, and not knowing what to say, I gaped as she slipped on her shirt. She raked her hand through her short hair. “How could I have been so fucking stupid?”

And then she left the room. I listened to her now familiar limp as she stalked across the hall to one of the other bedrooms. Torn, I debated going to her. But do what? Apologize? To make love to her? To welcome her back into my bed? To tell her that this had to stop? I couldn’t decide. I didn’t know what to do or what to say.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

But I knew my body ached for her, for the comfort and unspoken acceptance she offered. The thought of Alice leaving left a hollow spot in my soul.

Trembling, I got up and donned my nightgown. I could not bear to be naked without her.

This was for the best. My friendship—or whatever it was—with Alice had been doomed from the start. I’d been weak. I’d done things I shouldn’t have.

And I knew the sooner Alice O’Malley was out of my life, the better.

Chapter Five

Alice wanted to pace, but her leg hurt too badly. Gritting her teeth, she leaned against the bed and gripped her thigh above the wound. She’d done too much today.

But her aching leg didn’t hurt near as badly as her heart. She sniffed. Tears burned the corners of her eyes. One escaped and slid down her cheek, and she angrily swatted it away. She would not cry!

She clenched her fist and beat it against the side of the bed in a silent release of frustration. “Damn,” she said through clenched teeth. “Damn.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to march right back into Belle’s room, yank her head back by the hair, and plunder her mouth. She wanted to fuck her into submission, to make her—

Make her what?

Blowing out a sigh, she dropped her breeches and crawled into the bed. Sleeping was out of the question. So was remembering what had just happened in Belle’s bed. Alice stared at the ceiling through the darkness. What had she been thinking?

Belle was married. Her husband was off fighting somewhere. But she’d been so kind. So vulnerable.

Unsated desire set Alice on edge. She still tasted Belle on her lips and smelled her on her fingers. Alice groaned. Belle was everything she was not: beautiful and soft and feminine. Her hair gleamed like a raven’s wing and smelled like lilacs. Her skin felt like silk. Soft and smooth.

Alice squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn’t drive away the maddening visions. All her life, she’d fought her desires. She’d struggled against a life society deemed immoral.

But how—oh how—could love ever be wrong?

In Boston, she’d made the same mistake. She’d fallen in love with a girl, and their mutual curiosity and lust had led to ruin. The girl’s parents had forced her into a convent, and, turned out by her own mother, Alice cut her hair, dressed as a boy, and ran away to New York.

Living as a man had not been as liberating as Alice had thought—until the first time several of the boys visited a whorehouse. Even though the prostitutes had welcomed her without reproach, sexual encounters with them had left Alice hollow and aching.

That hadn’t been love. That had been assuaging a physical need.

She twisted onto her side.

Making love to Belle didn’t leave her hollow.

Alice sniffed, and she realized she was crying. Anger flared at her own weakness. What could she do? Leave? Belle needed her help. There was far too much to do here for two people. But damn. Damn! She punched the pillow. How could she spend one more day in this house knowing how she felt about the woman who’d cared for her, who’d killed a beloved animal to save her life?

She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to admit she felt more for Belle than gratitude. These emotions were useless. Utterly useless. The war would soon be over. Belle’s husband would be coming home. Alice wondered where that would leave her. As soon as the man of the house returned, she would be sent away.

But to where?

There was nothing left for her in New York. Going home to Boston was out of the question. And now she’d ruined any chance of a life here.

Her stomach knotted. How could she have allowed herself to fall in love with a woman like Belle?

I awakened to the dreadful sound of my mother’s screams. My heart lodged in my throat. I flung back the covers and dragged on my robe as I flew down the stairs.

I stopped about halfway down when I saw four men standing in the foyer. All of them were dirty and unshaven. Instinctively, I knew they were the bushwhackers the Confederate office had warned me about.

“Well, lookie here, boys. A real Georgia peach.” The stout one in the front grinned at the two gap-toothed men behind him. They looked like brothers. Both with hair and eyes the same nondescript color of brown.

My heart pounded. The other, a black-haired man with a thick mustache, held my mother against him, his bony hand around her throat.

Heart thundering, I clutched the banister. “Let go of her.”

The one who’d spoken to me peered warily up the stairs. “Who else is here?”

I swallowed. Hard. “My servants. And…I-I took in some Yankee wounded.” I was afraid to tell him no one else was here but an old black man and an injured woman.

He took a menacing step closer, warily looking up to the second floor. “Come here.” He motioned his fingers for me come to him.

My spine flattened against the wall. I shook my head.

Ma yelped. The man with the mustache twisted her arm. “Better do as he says, peach.”

“Don’t hurt her,” I pleaded. “She’s not right.”

Ma wailed when he wrenched her arm again. “Do as you’re told!”

“All right, all right.” Shaking, I inched down the stairs, and the man in front snatched me and hauled me against him.

I gagged at the rancid stench of unwashed man and damp leather. His grubby hands swarmed over my body and into my open robe. Twisting me in his arms, he dragged my back against him and rocked his groin against my bottom. Bile rose in my throat. I struggled. He clamped his arm around my neck to pin me so he could squeeze my breast. Without thinking, without giving any consideration to any thought other than freeing myself, I bit into his arm. I tasted the bitter tang of gunpowder and sweat—and blood.

“Goddammit!” He flung me away. I reeled, but he snatched my wrist and jerked me back around. Before I could right myself, he backhanded me and would have sent me sprawling were it not for his vise grip on my wrist.

I cried out. Blood filled my mouth. All at once, he pushed me toward a table in the hallway and shoved my face down hard. My chin slammed the polished wood. My head swam. The others laughed while he wrenched up the hem of my nightgown.

This wasn’t happening. I fought to keep my wits and clawed at his hands. I kicked backward at his thick legs, but I was no match for his strength. He intended to rape me, and there was nothing—nothing—I could do about it.

A sudden, earsplitting pow rent the air. The man slumped over my back and then slid to the floor. I whirled.

Alice stood on the steps, her smoking revolver trained on the three remaining men. “Get out!”

“You can’t shoot all of us,” one of the brothers croaked, glancing fearfully at his dead compatriot.

“Nope,” Uncle Hewlett added. He cocked Pa’s rifle as he walked in from the back. “But we can take out two of you. The question is, which two?”

The one holding Ma released her. “Come on, Jake. Let’s get outta here.”

The three eased toward the door.

“Wait,” Alice said and gestured to the dead man with her pistol. “Take him with you.”

“We can’t—”

Holding the pistol with both hands, she aimed it at Jake’s leg. “Take him, or I’ll blow your damn kneecap off.”

I stepped back as two of them took the man by the shoulders and dragged him out the front door. Alice followed, never losing her intensity. Uncle Hewlett joined her at the door, and together, they watched as the brigands threw the dead man over his saddle and then rode off.

“If you cowards show your faces around here again, I’ll kill you,” Alice called after them.

My knees shook so badly I held to the table to keep from falling. “Ma, are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“Hurt you? Hurt you?” she mimicked me before she wandered toward the back of the house.

At least they hadn’t injured her. Two hours from now, she would forget it had ever happened.

“We’ll be back!” one threatened. “Mark my words!”

“Give me that rifle,” Alice said, trading with Uncle Hewlett. She aimed it at the backs of the riders, and I watched, not breathing as her finger curled around the trigger.

Her posture straightened. She licked her thumb and wet the sight and then wrapped her finger around the trigger again.

She squeezed, and the blast split the air. The rider who’d threatened us arched and yowled like a kicked dog. At that, the others spurred their horses. Dust kicked up in their wake. The pounding of hooves grew increasingly fainter, and I breathed a sigh.

Once the bushwhackers were out of sight, Alice passed the rifle back to Uncle Hewlett. Then she turned to me. Her gaze scanned my face. Everything that had happened between us gushed forth in my head, and without thinking—without hesitating—I darted into her arms.

“Hush, Belle. Hush,” she whispered as trembling fingers brushed back the loose strands of my hair.

I lifted my head from her shoulder and looked into her eyes. Her gaze dropped to my mouth. “He hit you.” She grazed my bottom lip with the pad of her thumb.

“And you killed him.” I tried to give her a wry smile, but it hurt too much.

Gratitude for her swept over me. She’d protected me. This woman who at one time had been my enemy had become not only my savior…but my lover as well.

“Alice, I—”

“Are you ladies all right?” Uncle Hewlett asked, interrupting what would have been an impetuous and reckless confession.

I nodded, and Alice’s arms eased slowly away. I studied her as her gaze lingered on the front gates of Rattle and Snap.

She dragged in a deep breath and then blew it out. “They’ll be back.”

Uncle Hewlett nodded. “Yes, they will.”

After we’d seen to the goats, Alice and I set out to go check on Granny and to warn the neighbors about the bushwhackers. Because Alice still had trouble walking long distances, I hitched Jeff Davis up to the goat cart. At first Alice balked, believing the old billy would nab the chance to do her in.

Jeff pulled the cart with aplomb as if to show Alice the Yankee mules to which she was accustomed had nothing on him.

Granny’s house boasted a long, shaded veranda in back, and I knew that was where she’d be, probably shelling purple-hull peas or drying speckled butter beans for the winter.

I wasn’t surprised to find her setting aside a big bowl of shelled peas as we came around back. She, however, looked very surprised to see Alice sitting atop the goat cart.

Alice tipped her hat. “Ma’am.”

“Land o’ Goshen!” Granny exclaimed, wiping her indigo-stained fingers on her apron. “But I’ll never get used to seeing a woman got up in a pair of breeches.”

I hopped down from the cart. “The bushwhackers were at Rattle and Snap this morning.”

Granny’s mouth dropped open. “Heavens. Was anyone hurt?”

“Just two of those brigands,” Alice chimed in.

Pride swelled in my breast. “Alice shot two of them. We’re sure one is dead.”

“And I bet that other one wishes he was. I got him in the spine,” Alice added with a triumphant smile.

“I take it they haven’t been here,” I said.

Granny shook her head. Her bright eyes grew dark. “But Tommy’s back home.”

Chills ran up and down my arms. Tommy had been in Cobb’s Legion with Dalton. He’d lost both legs and, through their family connections, obtained permission to be shipped home.

Granny’s gaze leveled on mine. She squeezed my shoulder. “He wants to talk to you.”

We rode home in silence. I hadn’t said a word to either Granny or Alice about my conversation with Tommy. In fact, I hadn’t even shed a tear.

Tommy had clutched my hand while he blubbered like a baby as he related the details of Dalton’s death to me. He’d apologized profusely for using Dalton’s corpse as a shield and thought the loss of his legs was somehow his payment for such a cowardly act. But I reassured Tommy that Dalton would have wanted it that way and that he ought not to regret surviving.

Even as I comforted Tommy, my own voice sounded strange to me. Foreign. As if this were happening to someone else. I realized I’d known the last time I laid eyes on Dalton as he rode down the drive at Rattle and Snap that I’d never see him again.

At the time, I’d been terrified. But now that my fears had come true, I felt strangely hollow inside. In a way, relieved. It was as I’d already grieved his loss.

Not knowing had been worse.

After losing Pa, Grayson, and Dalton and most of our servants, I realized I’d become hardened. And yet some deep part of me yearned—needed—to love and be loved.

Alice…

For the first time, I considered it as a real possibility. Alice and me.

Stunned at the news and my revelation about Alice, I’d bid Tommy farewell and then joined Alice, who still sat with Granny on the porch.

Sensing I’d learned something significant, Alice said nothing as we said our good-byes to Granny and piled into the cart. Instead, she wrapped Jeff Davis’s reins around one wrist and laced the fingers of her other hand with mine.

Once we’d unhitched the cart and released Jeff back to the herd, Alice announced it was time for me to learn to shoot a gun. Pa had been adamant that I not be taught to handle weaponry, but he hadn’t foreseen the threat of gangs and foreign invaders.

After this morning, I was more than willing to divert my maudlin thoughts.

We trekked to the back side of the property where Alice transformed our scarecrow into my first target. Once she had the scarecrow sufficiently attached to a tree, she wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her sleeve. “In the army, they told us not to bother aiming, but you can’t shoot at someone without at least pointing the gun at them.” She dusted the hay off her breeches and walked back to where I waited a few yards from the target.

Nerves knotted my stomach, and I couldn’t explain why. Neither of us had spoken about what happened with the bushwhackers, at Granny’s—or what happened between us the night before. Any tension mysteriously vanished the minute Alice chased away what was left of those marauders.

But now, it was different. At least for me. Dalton was dead. There no longer existed a barrier between Alice and me. That realization stunned me more than hearing the words from Tommy that Dalton had been killed. I’d already known he was dead in my heart. I’d grieved for him those first nights after he’d marched away when he was still alive.

“Firing a pistol is simple.” Alice dragged me from my reverie when she put the weapon in my hand.

My eyes widened at the revolver’s weight. I wondered how she’d carried a pistol and a rifle in addition to all the other accouterments soldiers wagged around.

“It holds six shots,” Alice told me as she stepped in behind me.

Her body molded to mine as she reached around me to lift my arms. “Use both hands.” Her breath feathered my ear, and I tilted my face just slightly into hers.

Despite everything, my body softened to hers. Her thumb nudged mine onto the hammer, and she pressed down until it cocked. I wondered if I’d ever be able to do this without her help and her strength.

“Brace your legs.” She patted my thigh.

I widened my stance. My pulse accelerated. My brother had regaled us with stories about how guns “kicked like a mule,” and although I’d never been kicked by one of the beasts, I could imagine the brute force one of the rugged hooves could inflict upon an intended target.

“That’s it,” Alice whispered. Her fingers trailed up my arms to the elbows where she barely lifted my arms higher. Her body countered mine. “Now squeeze back the trigger,” she told me.

I swallowed and pulled on the trigger. Drawing that little slice of metal was lots harder than I thought it’d be. Gritting my teeth, I wrapped both index fingers around the trigger and squeezed.

Pow!

My arms flew upward. My body slammed into hers. I shrieked.

Alice laughed. She laughed hard.

Ears still ringing from the blast, I whirled on her. Anger flared, but the sight of her grinning from ear to ear and holding her hands over her abdomen while she staggered and laughed melted my hot temper.

“You shot…you shot—” she attempted but ended up only pointing at the scarecrow because she couldn’t stop guffawing. Finally she dragged in a deep breath. “You shot him in the…in the damned crotch!”

I looked.

Sure enough. A gaping hole split the vee of the scarecrow’s breeches. Succumbing to a fit of laughter, I dropped to my knees on the ground and laid the pistol in the grass. Humor felt good and…strange. How long had it been since I’d had a good laugh? My sides hurt, and my face ached from smiling.

Alice rolled into the grass beside me. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she chortled.

“It’s not to me.” I tried to feign seriousness. “I meant to shoot him in the head.”

“I think perhaps you succeeded,” she said and winked. “It was just a head of a different kind.”

My gaze linked with hers, and her smile faded. My heart turned over hard. I bit my bottom lip and cupped her cheek in my hand. All at once, awareness rippled over and through me. I breathed in the scent of the late summer grass, of the damp earth, and the bitter reek of gunpowder. The sun’s warmth permeated my black day dress until a bead of perspiration rolled down between my shoulder blades. Alice’s velvet skin grew hot in my palm.

I shut my eyes as a single tear seeped through my lashes and coursed down my cheek.

“What’s wrong, Belle?” She scooted closer and took my hand in hers, lacing her fingers with mine.

I blinked. “I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

“Pretend?”

Fighting back tears, I took a deep gulp of air and blew it out. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t admit it. If I did, it would make all this real, and up until now, I hadn’t wanted to face it.

“Pretend what, Belle?”

I shook. Alice put her arm around me. “Talk to me,” she urged. “What’s the matter? Have I done something to upset you?”

“No,” I confessed. “It’s not you.”

“Then what?” Her blue eyes darkened to the gray of a storm cloud.

“Dalton’s not coming home.” I said the words I’d been unable to admit since I’d seen his name listed as missing on the casualty report from the battle at Cold Harbor.

Her forehead furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Dalton’s not coming home.” Saying the words again cemented them in my soul. “He was listed as missing in Virginia. And today, Tommy told me he’d been there when…when Dalton was killed.”

Alice didn’t say anything. Instead, she cradled my head to her bosom and held me while I finally allowed myself to grieve. It was suddenly real in an awful, sickening way. I’d thought when he died, the body would be returned. I’d see something firm, something solid to let me know that he’d really been killed. Instead, I’d discovered his name on a list of the missing and then had heard the account secondhand from a neighbor.

Dalton Holloway, Cobb’s Legion. I wanted to believe it had been a mistake. He was surely wounded or missing in action. He’d been taken prisoner. Anything. I just hadn’t wanted to accept that he was dead and I’d never see him again.

I couldn’t even remember the last words I’d said to him. I could barely remember what he looked like or remember what it had been like to see him on a daily basis. That part of my life seemed so far away now, as if someone else had lived in my body during that time.

“Does Uncle Hewlett know?” Alice asked after I finally stopped crying.

“Not yet.” I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. “First Dalton, then Pa.” I shook my head. “I can’t bear another death, Alice. I can’t stand another loss in my life.”

She listened.

I continued. “It’s not just the loss of my loved ones. My home. The cotton. The servants. God, Alice, I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Alice brushed one of my tears away with her thumb. “I’m not sorry, Belle.”

Shocked, I stared.

“I can’t pretend to be,” she confessed. “I don’t want to see you upset. Not at all. But I can’t pretend that I don’t want more from you.”

I shook. “What are you saying?”

Tears rimmed her eyes. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Belle.”

Her sincerity touched me. I knew what she’d left unsaid. I sighed.

She reclined on her elbows and made a stab at steering the conversation off course. “I don’t suppose I’ve made figuring this shit out easier for you.”

At that, I let out a wry chuckle. “Well, no. Because now…”

Blinking back another barrage of tears, I tilted my head back and looked at the turquoise sky. “I don’t know what I feel,” I said honestly. “The only real thing in my life right now is…you.”

“Me?” She poked herself in the chest for emphasis.

I nodded. “All I know is that when I touch you, I don’t ever want to stop. I don’t understand this.”

My gaze found hers again. “I don’t understand these feelings I have for you. At first, I thought I was merely seeking comfort and…and release. But now…”

“Now what?” She sat once more and leaned slightly toward me. “Now what, Belle?”

“I-I…don’t know.” My pulse pounded.

Her eyes dropped to my lips, and I shifted toward her, wanting, needing her to kiss me. My heart fluttered like a wild bird in my chest. My stomach tensed. Please kiss me. Just once. But I couldn’t summon the courage to utter the request aloud.

“I want you the way I wanted Dalton,” I said, instantly regretting confessing such a thing.

For a moment, her face tightened as if she was in pain. An odd grief glimmered in her eyes. Just as I started to voice an apology, her fingers seized my wrist. Stunned, I glanced down at her hand and then I lifted my gaze to hers again.

“I love you, Belle,” she blurted.

Even though I’d secretly longed to hear those very words, I gaped. I suddenly felt as if I’d been sucked inside myself and I was looking out through a long, long tunnel.

“I’m in love with you,” she reiterated.

Somehow, I’d realized this. I’d known it all along, but like Dalton’s death, I’d refused to believe it. And yet I couldn’t accept it. The idea of her being in love with me terrified me. “How…how can you be in love with me?” I asked, wanting desperately to understand my own roiling emotions. “We’re both women.”

“I don’t know.” Her hand tightened around my arm. She curled her knees underneath her. “I don’t know. I just know it’s true. I know that you’re beautiful and caring and that this morning, I would have killed that man with my bare hands to keep him from hurting you.”

“But—” I began, but her mouth on mine prevented me from saying anything else. My heart reeled as her kiss seemed to draw me out of myself and into her. Insistent fingers threaded into my chignon. At that moment, I knew I belonged completely to her. The realization shook me to the core. All at once, feelings of fear and love and excitement and wonder flooded me until I couldn’t sort the emotions apart. Her lips plied mine until I opened for her and all coherent thought fled. Yielding, I returned her soft kiss, admitting her tongue as she teased through the opening I left for her.

She moaned into my mouth, and then cupping my face in her palms, she deepened the kiss. Something changed. My world altered. A cord fused between my mouth and my sex, and I wanted her. Beyond caring about anything or anyone else in the world, I wanted her.

I gripped her shoulders and dragged her down as I reclined in the grass. With furious intent, I ruched up my skirts while she continued to plunder my mouth. I caught her hand in mine and pushed it down. Her fingers fought through the layers of fabric, and then…

“Oh, Alice!” I cried as her finger slid through my folds and then inside me. My body shuddered around her touch, but I wanted more. I wanted her mouth on me there. “Taste me. Please. Taste me,” I begged as I pushed her head down.

A second later, her warm tongue teased and tormented me while her finger explored my channel. I’d never felt anything so wonderful, so all-consuming. Her lips ravaged me, plucking at my clitoris and urging me to rock against her mouth. Her finger slid through my slippery crevice, prodding me, only to withdraw and stab into me again. I spiraled inward, inundated with sensation after sensation.

Nothing in my well-ordered life had prepared me for this moment. Not one damn thing. But something inside me yearned to reach out and grab happiness with both hands, the consequences be damned.

All I could think was that I wanted to make love to her. I wanted to do the same for her after she assuaged this yearning between my legs. Even more stunning was the realization that I loved her. I loved Alice.

The thought of kissing her again, of tasting her roused a passion in me that shook me to the core. Did this desire make me wicked? Immoral? At this point, I didn’t care.

I held her head and spread my legs wider. I was so close. So, so close.

“Oh yes,” I mewled as her finger plumbed my depths with persistent purpose. Faster and faster. I lifted my knees, delighting in the push-pull of her finger and the insistent drag her of mouth on my clitoris. I squeezed her head between my thighs and rolled my hips. The sound of wet suction and heavy breathing filled my senses. Alice. My lover. My love.

On the verge, I trembled. My body gushed, aching for release, for ecstasy while Alice drove me relentlessly toward paradise. Eagerly, I slipped into the heated feel of her mouth on me coupled with her finger inside me, and then I spiraled. My cunny convulsed and throbbed, and I gasped. My back arched off the ground. Wave after incessant wave crashed over me as pleasure unfurled from that one spot in my body. My scalp tingled with it. So did my fingers and toes, and Alice didn’t stop until my legs fell limp.

Sated and heavy, I opened my eyes and gazed at her, silhouetted by sun as she undid her breeches. She kicked them off, and before I could move, she straddled me and sank down on my face.

Clutching her shirt up to her breasts, she lowered herself until her damp heat pressed into my mouth. “Eat me,” she gasped, rocking roughly against my face. “Eat my cunny.”

Instinct took over, and I wound my arms around her hips and licked and sucked at her nether lips and her clitoris. This was what I’d wanted, what I’d dreamed of in the dark. Her knees spread, and she pressed more heavily against me. My senses flooded with the feminine scent of her, the sweet and slippery taste of her cream. I pulled her impossibly closer. Her thighs shook. She fell forward on her elbows. Long, low moans escaped her chest, and she began to grind herself against my mouth.

Something clicked within my soul. Something life altering and astonishing. All at once, I knew—I knew—I could love another woman for the rest of my life. I could love Alice.

Giving her pleasure, kissing her, was not merely me seeking physical comfort and pleasure. It was far more than that.

I twisted her onto her back, rolling with her. My finger found her opening and slid inside. My other hand drifted up her flat belly until I cupped her breast, and then I rolled her taut nipple between my fingers and thumb. Her hands roamed down my arm, over my head, and all the while, she encouraged me.

“Yes, Belle, yes.” She breathed the words. “Fuck me with your finger. Eat my cunny.”

I latched on to her swollen clitoris and flicked my tongue against it while sucking it at the same time. Her fingers tightened in my hair. Her body tensed. Her bottom lifted off the ground, and suddenly her channel gripped my finger in rhythmic spasms. She’d found release.

When she grew still, I kissed my way up her body, stopping to lave the flat plane of her stomach, her peachy navel, and higher to where I teased each of her taut nipples into my mouth. After I’d had my fill of her petal-soft breasts, I lifted my head and gazed into her eyes.

“I love you, Alice,” I confessed as I brushed my thumb across her full bottom lip.

She pulled me down to her, and I tasted the softness of her mouth the same way I’d relished her sweet sex.

Chapter Six

It was as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. During those early fall weeks I accepted my odd relationship with Alice. Ma would never have noticed anyway, and if Uncle Hewlett knew, he didn’t let on.

Alice and I fell into a comfortable routine of tending the herd at dawn and dusk and making the rounds to trade our milk and cheese for goods we needed from our neighbors.

Wearing male attire and short hair, my strange Yankee boarder was the gossip of the area, but I didn’t heed the voices in my head that told me to be careful. I’d fallen completely in love with her. It surprised me how easily it had happened. When we spent time alone, we held hands, we talked, or we worked in silence side by side. I enjoyed her easy company in a way I’d never enjoyed Dalton’s.

At night, Alice and I undressed and bathed each other and then made love in my bed.

I tried not to think past the war. I wanted her to stay here with me forever. I didn’t want life to intrude on my narrow world at Rattle and Snap where circumstances shielded us from society’s watchful, judgmental eye.

I relished those nights, naked and sated in her arms. I loved the way her soft kisses starkly contrasted her almost carnal, sexual dominance of me.

That night, after she’d bathed me, my heart began to pound when she said, “Get on the bed, Belle. Get on your knees.”

I stared. I knew Alice suffered her monthly. What could we do?

“Do it!” She smacked my bottom. I gasped, shocked at first, but then the sting melted into delicious warmth.

“What are you going to do?” I asked and giggled as she chased me to the bed.

She, however, did not laugh. Instead, she swatted my backside again.

Naked, I climbed onto the bed. I trembled as I got on my knees. She crawled behind me, and I moaned when her fingers delved through my nether lips.

“I’m going to fuck you like a man,” she said.

That’s when I felt something hard prodding my opening. Startled, I fell sideways and looked back, shocked to discover Alice holding one of my thick beeswax candles in her hand.

She grinned wickedly. “Get back on your knees.”

“No!” I couldn’t dare submit to being violated with…with a candle. An inanimate object!

She pressed my thighs apart and wedged in between them, preventing me from closing my legs—allowing her to do exactly what she wanted to me. With a victorious chuckle, she moved over me, and once again, I felt the bottom of the candle slide through my nether lips and then prod my entrance.

“Alice!” I wrenched away, but she caught me and moved over me the way a man would mount a woman.

I gaped as an inch, two, three slid slowly inside me. My sheath stretched to accommodate the thickness. She seemed to know exactly how much length I could take. My lashes fluttered, and I struggled to keep from succumbing to the insidious pleasure.

“Stop your flailing, or I’ll flip you back over and shove my cock up your ass,” Alice threatened.

I didn’t doubt she meant it. The smooth hardness felt sinfully wonderful, but some prudery in me prevented me from allowing myself to enjoy it—until Alice threaded one hand under my neck and covered my mouth with hers. She thrust the candle in me as if it were indeed her cock, and I reveled in it, spreading and rocking in time with her as her fist pushed against my loins again and again. My hands roamed down her back and over her taut buttocks, and I imagined the hardness filling me did belong to her.

The muscles in her arm bulged as she worked the candle in and out. She suddenly sat back on her knees, and while she continued to plunge into me with one hand, she rubbed my eager pearl with the fingers of her other hand.

I submitted to the sensations, to Alice’s brute intent to give me pleasure. My body warmed and liquefied. My bud felt full and ready to burst, and then ecstasy claimed me with such force that it seemed as if my breath was stolen from my lungs. I arched off the bed. Alice moved with me.

“Keep letting it come, Belle,” she said huskily.

Still wrapped in bliss, I was vaguely aware of the candle slipping out. “Keep on, darling, keep on…”

A cry left my throat as Alice’s mouth clamped down on my distended clitoris. Her fingers filled me, pushing downward, still thrusting so hard her fist pummeled my body. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand the torturous pleasure. I wanted to drive her away, and at the same time, I wanted this to never end.

I felt an overwhelming urge, a fullness and then a curious and different quickening as wet, warm liquid gushed all over me, all over Alice’s hand, all over the bed.

My first thought was that I’d pissed myself. Despite the pleasure still racking my body, I tried to push back, to sit, but my limbs were too heavy, and Alice still had her face buried in the dampness between my legs.

“Stop, stop,” I moaned.

She lifted her head, her face glistening wet.

I was mortified. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asked and smiled as her tongue traced the corners of her lips. “Mmm.”

“I…I…pissed the bed.” My face flamed.

Alice laughed. “No you didn’t, darling.” Her fingers continued to plunder me slowly. “I made you gush. It’s not piss. See?”

She withdrew her fingers and held them under my nose. I expected the acrid bite of urine. Instead, the fragrance smelled honey sweet.

“See?” Alice asked again. Her fingers returned to my tingling clitoris where she slowly caressed me as she kissed her way up my body. “I’m going to do that to you every time.” Her lips nipped at my breasts and then higher where she sucked at the hollow on the side of my neck.

She lifted her head and looked into my eyes. Her hand stopped moving. “This feels right with you, Belle. I know what people say and what they think about me, but you…you accepted me—all of me, just as I am.”

“Did I?”

She nodded. “No one has ever just allowed me to just be me. No one but you.”

I stared.

She continued. “I have to be honest. It scares the hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“Because…because I love you so much…and I know that when this war is over, things will change,” she whispered. Tears rimmed her eyes. She sniffed.

I caressed her cheek, loving the smooth, warm softness against my palm. “Why does anything have to change?”

The hand between my legs moved to my waist. “I’m afraid that when the men come back, that you’ll…you’ll get tired of me, that you’ll want to remarry.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t thought of anything but her or past anything than here and now. But I did know I couldn’t imagine my future without her in it. “Alice, I don’t want to remarry. I want to be with you. Always.”

Her eyes searched mine for a moment as if she was trying to discern my veracity, and then her mouth claimed my mouth, hard and hungry. Our teeth clashed. Our tongues mated, and I tasted the sweetness of my own cream. My heart soared.

Trembling, I realized Alice was the safe haven I’d sought all my life.

I covered her hand with mine and pushed it back down, between my breasts, over my belly, farther. Her fingers burrowed into my thatch, but instead of delving into my cunny, she wet her fingertips and explored lower.

Startled, I jolted. “What are you doing?” No one had ever touched me there in a sexual manner.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Spread your legs. I want to show you all the pleasure your body has to offer.”

“But—”

“Get on your knees again,” she ordered.

My pulse quickened. And when I didn’t immediately comply, she lifted my knee with one hand and landed a firm swat to the side of my ass cheek.

I squirmed with renewed desire, but I rolled over and pushed up on my knees, leaving my head down on my pillows. My channel clenched around its own emptiness.

Alice knelt, settling in behind me.

“Don’t hurt me,” I murmured.

Another sharp smack landed on my bottom. I groaned at the curious mixture of pleasure and pain.

She coated her fingers liberally with the excess wetness between my legs, and then she slowly circled my rosette with her fingertip. That part of me came alive, wanting—needing—her inside. I actually found myself rocking into her hand, pushing back. Until—

Her finger breached the rim, and white-hot pain seared my most private opening. “Alice,” I whimpered.

“Relax.”

“Alice, I can’t—”

She popped my backside with her free hand and thrust her finger all the way inside my anus. My rim released slightly, and the pain subsided as I adjusted to the fullness entrenched within me.

“I knew you’d like that,” she whispered, moving her finger in and out of my nether hole the way she did in my cunny.

I braced my knees and opened them as far as I could. It did feel good. Really good. And extremely taboo. I couldn’t believe I agreed to allow this.

The candle prodded my cunny again, and I sucked in a breath when she pushed it inside me. Candle in, finger out. Finger in, candle out. Over and over, she worked me in a rhythm. I felt whole. Complete.

Harder and faster.

I was lost to the overwhelming sensations. To her.

And when I quickened, the walls of my sheath clamped down so hard, they pushed the candle out. My anus clamped down around Alice’s finger. She dropped the candle and wrested more pleasure from me by rubbing my clit. I withstood it as long as I could, and then I wilted on the drenched mattress.

Jolts of ecstasy shot through my body over and over. All the while, Alice peppered every inch of me with kisses, telling me between each brush of her lips how much she loved me.

I awakened to the sound of riders—several riders—thundering up the drive.

From the window, I watched as dozens—no, hundreds—of Yankees rode and marched up the drive through the early dawn fog. Not again.

Alice raised her head and blinked sleepily. “What is it?”

“Yankees.”

Before I could don my dressing gown, one pounded on the front door. Fear struck that they were here to burn the place. With a prayer they wouldn’t find the goat herd, I raced down the stairs and yelled through the barricaded door. “What do you want?” I demanded, still buttoning my robe.

“Open up, ma’am.”

“No.”

“Open the door, or we’ll burn the house down around you,” he called back.

Through the windows flanking the door, I saw several Yankees already bearing torches. The tall Yankee on the porch waved his arms at his men and issued orders to surround the house. Fury raged as I pulled off the heavy board we’d put in place to keep the bushwhackers out. I yanked open the door and blocked the threshold with my body. “I’ve already made an agreement with the officer who came before you.”

“What agreement?” He didn’t bother removing his slouch hat as he shouldered past me into the foyer. Others followed, and I stood by helplessly as they pilfered through my things. Outraged, I watched as a wiry Yankee jammed one of Pa’s snuffboxes into his pocket. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying what I was thinking.

Forcing my feet to move, I trailed after the Yankee in charge. “The other officer told me if I took in two of his wounded, then he would leave me the house.”

He turned to me. “Where are these wounded?”

Recalling Alice shooting the dying man, I lowered my gaze. “One died.” Somehow, I mustered the sense not to tell him we’d buried the man.

“And the other one?”

I gulped.

“Right here, sir.” Alice’s voice rang out with authoritative flare. She stood on the stairs dressed in some of Dalton’s clothes. She gave him a smart salute. “Private Al O’Malley.”

At that, the officer rocked back on his heels. He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. I didn’t like the way his gaze raked up and down Alice’s body.

“Well, well,” he said. “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.”

“Sir?” Alice asked as she limped the rest of the way down the steps.

“You’re that girl the Seventeenth New York left behind, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir.”

He let out a hearty laugh. “Thought you’d have a chuckle at our expense, did you, missy?”

Alice’s dark eyebrows knitted together in the center. “No sir. I did not. I merely sought to preserve the Union and see the slaves were freed just as you and all these other fine soldiers intended.”

He grimaced. “Most of us Ohio boys signed up for the payroll. Not for any highfalutin notions such as yours, girlie.”

I expected Alice to lash out at the Yankee colonel. Instead, she gnawed her bottom lip and bore a stare into him.

“Colonel Schwarz,” one of the other Yankees called.

At least now, he had a name, I thought.

“We found something buried at the edge of the cotton field,” the freckle-faced Yankee boy said.

“The other wounded man died,” Alice said quickly. “He was shot up pretty rough in the guts.”

My gaze darted back and forth between Alice and the colonel. Some strange bleak darkness descended over me. I knew something terrible was about to happen but didn’t know what.

“Is that the wounded man’s grave?” Schwarz asked.

Alice inhaled. “Yes.”

Schwarz turned to two soldiers. “Go and dig him up. A good many of these seceshes are hiding valuables in graves.”

I glanced at Alice. A cold shiver ran up my spine. I hoped the body had been interred long enough for sufficient decomposition—and that the bullet wound in his head would not be apparent. I knew better.

The two men trudged through the house, leaving mud on my hall runner in their wake. Others swarmed up the stairs.

“Wait!” I cried, but Colonel Schwarz placed two paws on my shoulders.

“You just hold your horses,” he said.

“Surely you wouldn’t violate a lady’s private rooms,” I tried to reason with him.

He snarled a smile. “We’re on a foraging raid. And you might have provisions my boys need to continue on.”

I wrenched free of his grasp. “I have absolutely nothing in this house for your men.”

“She’s right,” Alice interjected. “They don’t have anything left. The Confederates came through and took all the livestock and any foodstuffs. About a month ago, a gang of bushwhackers held them up for any valuables.”

“Is that true?” Schwarz stared me down hard.

“Yes, it’s true!” I spat back with all the verve of an angry cat.

His gaze slid down to my breasts. “You don’t look like you’re starving.”

The gall! After I’d lost everything but my home, his smug smirk infuriated me. I clenched my fists to keep from slapping him. Without warning, Alice pushed between us. “I told you there’s not anything here but my weapons, and whether you agree with what I’ve done or not, at least leave me a way to protect myself.”

Schwarz’s beady eyes darted between Alice and me, and for a moment, I thought he suspected we were lovers. Just as his lips parted to speak, a voice came from the back of the house.

“Colonel Schwarz! Come here at once!”

My heart sank straight to my bare toes. I curled my hand around Alice’s arm, but Schwarz seized me and hauled me toward the back of the house.

“Let loose of her,” Alice scolded. “That’s not necessary.”

My face blanched when I saw the soldiers had dragged up a tarp. On it lay the bloated corpse of the dead Yankee. Dirt covered most of his face and clothes, but darker than the grime was the dried blood in his matted hair. My insides hollowed as the awful memory of the gun’s blast and the terror upon finding him dead seeped through my soul—but worse—Alice had killed him. My Alice.

I glanced at Uncle Hewlett. His face remained stoic as always, but I detected the worried look in his dark gold eyes. He knew what I did. If Alice were a man, they’d let her go. But Alice was not a man. She was a woman who had obviously found herself at home among the enemy.

“Sir—” Alice began.

“He was dying,” Uncle Hewlett interrupted. His voice boomed over the din of blabbering Yankees. “He begged me to put him out of his misery. I shot him with his own pistol and then buried him in the backyard. The ladies knew nothing about how he died.”

Alice gaped.

I couldn’t breathe. The Yankees would hang Uncle Hewlett for this as surely as they hanged my father. Why was he doing this? Why would he lie?

Alice stepped in front of the colonel. “He’s lying. I shot that man. The bastards who left us here didn’t leave us a drop of laudanum. The man was dying like a dog, and I thought he deserved the dignity of a quick death.”

Uncle Hewlett waved his hand at Alice in calm dismissal. “When she arrived here, her leg was wounded so badly she couldn’t even get out of bed. Do you really think a woman had the fortitude to take a man’s life?” His voice never wavered as he continued. “Would you fault me, Colonel, for carrying out a dying man’s wish?”

“Quite the orator, aren’t you?” Schwarz asked.

As I suspected he would, Uncle Hewlett seized the opportunity to quote the bard. “‘Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful.’”

A spark of admiration glimmered in Schwarz’s eyes. “Measure for Measure. Act III, Scene I.”

Alice pushed between them, turning her back to Uncle Hewlett as if she could protect him from the blue mob surrounding us. “I killed that man. I give you my word as a soldier.”

Schwarz and all those in earshot laughed. “As a soldier?” he asked, incredulous.

Alice’s shoulders squared. “For a year, I wore this uniform and completed every task I was assigned. I was wounded helping an injured man to the rear of the lines. If I were a man, you would have given me a medal. But because I’m a woman, you jeer at me and dismiss me. You won’t dismiss me now, Colonel.”

Alice, no…

“These people had a gentleman’s agreement with Lieutenant Leatz that Union forces would not burn their home if they agreed to take in the wounded which consisted of this man and…and me,” Alice told him. “This was done without hesitation. Both of us were treated with fairness and respect. Everything possible was done to ease our suffering, and when it became apparent to me that the private could no longer withstand his pain, I fired a single shot into his head and ended his life.”

My heart sank.

Alice went on. “Do what you like with me, but leave these people their home and their dignity.” Her voice cracked. “Because they’ve certainly treated me with dignity.”

Unchecked tears streamed down my cheeks.

“Very well,” Schwarz said to two soldiers nearby. “Take her into custody. We’ll let the fellows in Atlanta decide what to do with her.”

I seized the colonel’s arm. “What’ll they do to her?”

He brushed me off. “Try her, I suppose.”

“But—”

Alice gripped my arm. “It’s all right, Belle. I’ll be all right.”

But I would not. I couldn’t let her leave. I couldn’t live without her. I shook my head. Heart breaking, I searched her eyes. “What’ll they do to you if you’re found…guilty?”

She lowered her lashes. “I don’t know.” Her hand slid down my arm, and her fingers tangled fleetingly with mine.

I wanted to grab her hand and hold on. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and refuse to let them take her.

This was as nightmarish as losing the field hands, Dalton, Pa, and Grayson all over again. Grief welled with a raw edge.

“May I have a moment alone with her?” Alice asked Schwarz.

“Make it fast. We have to move out.”

Alice took my hand and led me out of earshot of the others. I stumbled along behind her, blinded by my tears. They would hang her just like they hanged Pa. I knew it, and worse, I knew that she knew it. She was protecting my home. She was protecting Ma and Uncle Hewlett and the goats—and me. But right now, all I cared about was her.

“I want you to keep my pistol,” she said. “It’s upstairs under the mattress. I’ll make sure the army doesn’t take it.”

I didn’t want to hear anything about a pistol. I wanted to hear her say she would never leave me. Panic closed in with sickening force. “Don’t do this. I’ll tell them I shot the wounded Yankee. I’ll tell them the bushwhackers did it. Anything. Alice, please.”

She swept a loose strand of my hair off my forehead. “It’s all right. They’ll ask me what happened. I’ll tell them. They’ll let me go, and I’ll come back to you. I swear it.”

“Then let me go with you,” I begged.

She shook her head. “You can’t leave Uncle Hewlett here to manage the herd and Ma.”

She was right, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.

“Atlanta’s not thirty miles from here,” she reasoned. “Perhaps I can get some provisions and bring them back. Is there anything you would like? Some sweets perhaps?”

“Don’t talk to me about candy when your life is at stake.”

“Trust me, Belle.” She whispered the words, low and calm.

I struggled to keep from sobbing.

She caressed my cheek. “Tell me you trust me.”

I swallowed. “I trust you.” But I didn’t trust those Yankees. And I damn sure didn’t trust fate.

“I’ll come back to you,” she said, and then she crushed me in an embrace and pressed her lips to my forehead. “I’ll come back to you, Belle.”

Chapter Seven

The manacles had rubbed Alice’s wrists raw by the time she and the two soldiers escorting her to Atlanta had traveled fifteen miles from Rattle and Snap. While the two soldiers rode mules, Alice staggered along behind, tethered to one of the men.

The dull ache in her leg had become a full-fledged searing pain. Sweat rolled down her face and stung her eyes. Her shirt clung to her back. Blisters burned her heels and toes. Her back muscles spasmed. Her dry mouth tasted of road dust kicked up by the mules.

But none of her misery compared to the look in Belle’s eyes as she, Alice, had been led away from Rattle and Snap in chains.

“Fellows,” Alice called. “Do you really think manacles are necessary?”

No answer.

Alice inhaled sharply. “Hey, how about a little water?”

The younger of the two, a black-haired Scot, glanced back at her. “There’s a creek just up ahead.”

Thank God.

The sun was setting, and they might decide to make camp for the night. If she could get them to remove these manacles, then maybe she could escape. Already, Alice had it all figured out. She could stay in the barn with the goats until the Yankees moved out. Then, as much as she hated to, she could grow her hair back out and don a damn dress as a disguise if she had to. She snorted. She wouldn’t do it for anybody else but Belle.

They covered another couple of miles before the two Yanks reined in the mules. They threaded their way down an incline through the brush and brambles to the bank of a creek. As soon as the soldiers dismounted, Alice made eye contact with the Scot and held up the manacles. “Please?”

He shook his head. “Against orders, Miss.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Who’s going to tell? Not me. I assure you that. Unchain me. I have to take a piss.”

At that, the Scot’s eyes widened as if he hadn’t thought about the problems of escorting a female prisoner.

“Do you give me your word you won’t try to run away?” he asked, with a quick glance at the other soldier.

Alice shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Of course you have my word—as a lady. Where could I possibly run off to in this godforsaken wilderness? Certainly not back to that she-reb’s house.”

The Scot began unhooking the key from his belt.

Alice flashed the other soldier a disarming smile. Just as he returned her smile, a shot echoed. Blood beaded on the soldier’s forehead, and he stared, stunned as he dropped to his knees.

Alice whirled. Riders sat at the top of the hill. Her pulse accelerated. At once, she knew it was the bushwhackers.

“Get down,” she warned as she pushed the Scot to the ground. “Give me that key, and for God’s sake, give me a pistol.”

Fumbling, he dropped the key.

“Dammit.” Alice reached with both chained hands and retrieved the Scot’s pistol from his holster. Twisting onto her back, she fired off a shot and missed.

The second shot, however, found its target. One of the bushwhackers stopped in his tracks and then withered to the ground, his hands over a bleeding wound in his belly.

“The key, the key,” Alice said.

There were three more, all firing from behind the pines. The Scot scrabbled for his rifle. A bullet whizzed past, and the young soldier grunted. “My hand!” he cried.

Alice fired two more shots. Both misses. “Damn.” She had to get her hands out of these chains. Dodging bullets, she groped the leaf-strewn ground for the key. Finally, her fingers closed around something cold. Shaking, she finagled the key into the lock and twisted. The manacles opened, and just when she freed her hands, she found herself looking up the barrel of a gun.

“I’ll be damned,” the bushwhacker said to one of his compatriots. “If it ain’t that tomboy that shot your brother.”

The Scot held up his hands in surrender. “I am a Union soldier and demand quarter!”

“I’ll give you quarter,” the bushwhacker said and fired right into the man’s face.

Alice’s ears rang with the shot. She twisted her head against the spray of blood and hard bits of bone that spattered her face.

A hand clutched her shirt at the shoulder and jerked her to her feet. “You’re comin’ with us.”

Unable to sleep, I tossed in the bed. My heart ached for Alice. I dragged in a deep breath. It was a mistake. My sheets and pillowslips still smelled like her, warm and woodsy.

Heartsick, I flopped onto my back. My eyes stung from crying.

I wanted to go with her, but Uncle Hewlett had practically forbidden me from following her to Atlanta. The woods were filled with deserters from both armies and brigands of all sorts. It wouldn’t be safe for a woman alone, and I couldn’t dare ask Granny or any of the neighbors to go with me. They were all in the same dire straits we’d found ourselves in: scrambling for food and wood for the winter.

Somehow, Alice’s presence in my life had made all those things seem insignificant.

Terror seized me that they’d hang her or ship her back up north and I’d never know what became of her. I knew I should take off for Atlanta right now, but I was torn between my responsibilities here and my love for Alice.

I squeezed my eyes shut against a fresh onslaught of tears. When I’d asked Uncle Hewlett why he was willing to take the blame for the Yankee’s death, he’d told me that he’d rather die than see me lose another person I loved. I knew the feeling. I hadn’t realized Uncle Hewlett was so astute in matters of the heart. If he knew Alice and I were lovers, he never let on.

Right now, I wished the earth would swallow me up.

In the darkness, I heard the dog bark. I shot up on my elbows. He barked again. Someone was outside. Alice! My pulse raced as I flung back the covers and raced down the stairs.

She’d escaped the Yankees! Already, I schemed how we would trade with Uncle Hewlett and move into the cabin while he stayed in the big house with Ma. Alice would be safe there. I ran to the door and heaved the thick board off the brackets. It clattered to the floor noisily. I didn’t care. All I could think about was having Alice back in my arms again. I twisted the knob and pulled, and my heart lodged in my throat when I saw Alice.

Bruises marred her face. Dried blood clung to her nostrils. One eye was black and swollen. Her chapped lips moved as she tried to speak.

She wouldn’t have been able to stand if two of the bushwhackers who’d deviled us last month hadn’t been supporting her.

They shoved her through the front door. She crumpled to the floor. Shocked, I dropped and reached to touch her.

“Alice!”

“I’m sorry, Belle,” she managed, her voice but a weak breath.

Fear twisted into raging anger. I shot to my feet and flew at the nearest bushwhacker, fists flailing. It proved a stupid thing to do. I got in one or two hits before he caught my wrists, restraining me.

My breaths came in great, heaving gasps. He rolled both my wrists into one of his big hands and caught my throat with the other.

“Where’s that old darky?” His breath reeked of whiskey and rotted teeth.

The way he referred to Uncle Hewlett made me want to spit in his face, but I refrained. I had to think, to keep my wits about me. “He ran off when the Yankees came through.”

The bushwhacker chuckled. I recognized him as one of the brown-haired brothers, the one called Jake. The other was the dark man with the mustache who’d tormented my mother when they were here before. My heart lurched that they would do anything to her. Hopefully, she had sense enough to hide. The Yankees had scared her, and she’d spent most of the afternoon under her bed.

My gaze slid to Alice. She struggled to push herself up, but the man with the mustache kicked her in the ribs. She slumped to the floor again. A scream tore from my throat. “Stop it! Don’t hurt her!”

“Where’s that old lady?” Jake asked, eyeing the shadows of the rooms on either side of the foyer.

“Dead,” I snapped.

He jerked my hair back, forcing me to look up at him. “If you’re lying, I’ll gut you like a catfish.” He slid his fist from my crotch up to my belly.

I shivered. I didn’t doubt his word, but I figured they’d kill us anyway. I’d heard rumors about a mother and two daughters they’d hanged by the hair and tortured by soaking newspapers in turpentine and setting them on fire to torment the women. None of them had been killed, but when it was all over, they wished they had been.

I cut my gaze at Alice. They’d beaten her badly, but her clothes were still intact. At least they hadn’t raped her—yet. I had to focus their attention on me, and somehow I had to get to Alice’s pistol, which was still hidden under my mattress.

Jake dipped and started tugging up the hem of my nightgown. “What’re you wearin’ under that nightie, sugar?”

Becoming rigid, I steeled myself, but nothing could prepare me for the awful violation of his hand between my legs. Nausea roiled, and I swallowed a rush of bitter bile back down.

Jake grinned as he rubbed me roughly. “How long has it been since you had a man?”

I flinched at the sight of his rotted, yellow teeth, but I said nothing.

“I bet you’re as tight as a June bride,” he added, pushing his hand farther between my legs. His fingers probed.

At that, I could tolerate it no longer. I jerked and tried to writhe away from his hand, but he only laughed. “Slow, honey. Slow.” And then he jerked me close. His hot breath fanned my neck. “I’m gonna take my sweet time with you,” he whispered.

I shuddered.

“Shit, Jake! How come you get that one? This’un looks like a damn boy,” the black-haired man argued. He poked Alice with the toe of his boot.

Jake released me. “It wouldn’t be the first time you corn-holed a boy, now would it, Marcus?”

Marcus drew back a fist. Hope surged that they’d fight each other, and I could snatch the opportunity to get to the pistol.

“Hold up, shitass. I’ll take this’un first, and then we’ll trade,” Jake offered. “Besides, I want the last turn with that bitch. She killed my brother.”

While he gawked at Alice, I wrenched my arm free and flew up the stairs. He followed, cursing and grasping at my heels. At the top of the stairs, I pushed a table over behind me. An heirloom vase that had belonged to my grandmother crashed into pieces, but I had no time to mourn things.

Lungs heaving, I darted into my room, and with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I peeled back the mattress and grappled for the pistol. Finally my hand closed around hard steel. Just as Jake rounded the foot of my bed, I yanked it out, forced the hammer back, and gritted my teeth as I pulled the trigger. The shot surprised him—and luckily, nicked him in the knee.

With a howl, he stumbled and sprawled, dragging me to the floorboards underneath him. “You fucking bitch!” he raged.

With the gun wedged between us, I struggled to cock the hammer, and when he lifted his body just enough to drag up my nightgown, I fired another shot.

His eyes widened. Blood appeared in his gaping mouth, and I weaved out from under him before he dropped lifelessly to the floor.

Alice…

As I crept to my door and peered into the dark hallway, I wondered if the shots had alerted the other bushwhacker. Moonlight from the window glimmered on the shards of the broken vase. I was barefoot but didn’t dare put on shoes. I wanted to be as quiet as possible.

Downstairs, I heard Alice groan and heard Marcus laugh. My stomach knotted when I heard the unmistakable sound of a belt being undone. No sounds came from Ma’s room. Good. Hopefully, she was still hiding.

I cocked the pistol and gritting my teeth, trod across the broken glass, and then sneaked down the stairs. Dread consumed me. Marcus had Alice bent over the hall table. Her breeches had been pushed down to her knees, baring her bottom. Marcus stood behind her, furiously trying to work up an erection, his pants dangling around his thighs.

From this position, I didn’t trust my aim well enough to shoot him. I bit my bottom lip so hard I tasted blood. I had to get him away from her. Wincing, I eased down two more steps. Blood from my cut feet oozed between my toes. “Marcus!”

He spun and gaped at me. “Jake!” he called. His nervous gaze darted back and forth between me and the top of the stairs. “Jake! This ain’t funny!”

I aimed the pistol. “Get away from her.”

“We was just foolin’,” he said, trying to pull his breeches back up. “We wasn’t really gonna hurt y’all.”

My eyes narrowed. “Get away from her, you bastard.”

He took one step to the side. I didn’t dare avert my gaze when Alice snatched a chair and heaved it against the side of Marcus’s head. The chair split, and Marcus hollered. I fired the pistol and caught him in the chest. Coughing and sputtering, he wilted. Alice did up her breeches as we both stared at the macabre sight until one last breath rattled out of his chest and his eyes glazed over.

As soon as I realized he’d died, I fled down the stairs and into Alice’s arms. We clung to each other, sobbing. I finally held her face back far enough to look into her eyes. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I’ve been better.” She grimaced. “I think I cracked a rib.”

I caressed her cheek. “I better go get Uncle Hewlett to help me get these dogs out of our house.”

Her hand covered mine, and she gazed into my eyes. “I like the sound of that.”

Not comprehending, I looked at her askance.

A smile played on her swollen lips. “Our house.”

I returned her smile, but mine quickly faded when I heard footsteps echo in the back hall. I gasped and whirled but blew out the breath I’d been holding when Uncle Hewlett appeared, rifle in hand. His eyes widened as he scanned the dead bushwhacker and the busted chair. “Are you ladies all right?”

Just as I was about to relate what had happened, a shot rang out from upstairs. Lightning quick, Alice snatched the pistol out of my hand, pushed me out of the way, whirled, aimed, and fired.

Jake tumbled noisily down the stairs, and when he landed at the bottom, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. His eyes stared at nothing.

Alice jammed the pistol in her belt.

We all stood there, staring for what seemed like an eternity before Alice looked at me and then at Uncle Hewlett. “Let’s get these dogs out of our house.”

“‘Cry “Havoc” and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial,’” Uncle Hewlett said, and he calmly came to help Alice and me drag the dead bushwhackers out of the house.

The first glimmer of dawn shone through the windows as I finished tenderly bathing Alice’s bruised body. I kissed every cut, scrape, and purple spot, and then I drew the covers over her and stroked her hair until she fell asleep.

As the morning light illuminated her angelic face, I watched her sleep, thinking back over the past few months. I’d lived through some of the most horrible moments of my life and some of the most wonderful.

I’d never dreamed I would find such solace in the arms of another woman. With Alice, I felt complete in a way I never had before. I cherished her friendship, her companionship, her protection, her love. And although our relationship still beguiled me, I only knew that what I had with Alice was true.

Truer than anything I had ever imagined.

Epilogue

“Get in the house, Granny!” I said, urging her in. “What are you doing out in this cold weather?”

As she hobbled into the foyer, I offered to take her coat. “Come in and warm yourself by the fire.”

“No, thank you,” she protested as she hugged me in greeting. “I don’t have time to stay.”

At the same time, Alice came in the back door and swung Dalton’s old greatcoat off her shoulders. “That damn billy goat butted me again. The son of a bitch,” she ranted as she hung the coat and her hat on a peg in the hallway. “Oh, afternoon, Granny,” she called when she saw our neighbor in the foyer.

Granny snickered. “You’re just the person I came to see. Another passel of Yankees stopped by asking questions about those bushwhackers again.”

“What’d you tell them?” I asked.

“Told ’em they rode off after they killed that Yankee girl,” she said with a wink.

Alice’s eyes widened. “Did they believe you?”

“After the story had been told to ’em all over Jonesborough about still being able to hear the Yankee girl’s ghost crying at Dead Horse Hollow Creek, I suppose they did,” she said as she patted Alice on the arm. “We protect our own around here, honey. But if you don’t want ’em to recognize you, you’d best grow that hair of yours out and start wearing dresses instead of them britches.”

Alice laughed. “Hell no.”

Granny wagged her finger at Alice. “If you won’t do it to save your own hide, then do it for me.”

Alice’s lips pulled into a smile. “All right, Granny. But just until they leave.”

Granny snorted. “Good enough.”

She hugged each of us before she was off on her mission to spread the story about Alice’s ghost to more neighbors. Once she’d gotten halfway down the drive, I turned to Alice. “I suppose we should do as Granny said and go upstairs and get you out of those clothes.”

She patted my bottom. “I’ll take off mine—if you take off yours.”

I laced my fingers with hers and started up the stairs. Even now, I was stunned at how easily I’d fallen in love with Alice—with a woman. I suspected Granny and Uncle Hewlett knew we were lovers, but neither of them would ever condemn us for it. Not in these times. Not after what Alice had done to those bushwhackers.

I imagined the people in town would talk, but I didn’t care. I was happy here with my life. With my goats and Alice.

God willing, my brother would come home safe and ask questions, but I knew in my heart Granny would handle him.

When we reached the top of the stairs, I stopped and turned to Alice. I searched her eyes.

“What?” she asked, smiling.

I cupped her cheek and blinked away the tears of joy that had taken me by surprise.

“What?” she asked again.

I smiled. “I love you.”

Without words, she crushed me in an embrace, and her mouth covered mine. Her kiss chased away all thoughts except the knowledge that I would feel this way for this woman the rest of my life.