When the first soldier died, Emily and Rachel wrapped his
body in cloth, and some of the soldiers dug a grave in the family cemetery, and
they had a small service for him. The
ones that were able attended, and the Evans family looked on.
Death was a normal part of life, especially a life as hard
as theirs. People died. Animals died.
More were born. And the cycle continued.
But something about this man—this stranger—coming to her farm to die
made Emily think harder about soldiers in general. For once, she entertained the notion her
father, brother, and fiancé wouldn’t come home.
Had Jakob, Papa, and John been buried with respect on some farmer’s
property, or had they decomposed with fallen brethren on a foreign
battlefield? She didn’t want to think
too much about it, but couldn’t stop the thoughts from surfacing. It seemed the life she had once known was
getting dimmer with memory, while her unknown future was speeding toward her at
a breakneck pace. She would probably
never again dance with Jakob under the stars at an Independence Day picnic, or
brush her thigh against his while they sat in church together. That thought hurt. Poignancy and regret pummeled her as the
soldiers silently stood around the grave of their friend. She could only hope that her men had gotten
the same respect.
Later, Emily was doing the wash, while most of the able men
were working on chores: chopping wood, fetching water, cleaning the barn, and
more pasture work. Emily was lost in the
tedium of stirring the pot, when she heard an exhalation of air behind
her. She spun around to see Isaack
lowering himself at the base of the nearby tree. He’d been up and about, in spurts, during the
day, although he spent most of his time on his pallet in the barn with the
other sick men. She was happy to see his
coloring looked better, but the thin sheen of sweat on his brow concerned her.
Walking over to him, she felt of his forehead. After the heat of the fire, though, it only
felt clammy.
“I’m alright. I just
needed out of the barn for a while. Feel
the sun.” His voice was raspy, yet
seemed kind, although he still had that dangerous feel about him. Emily wondered what it was about him that
made him seem that way. Was it his dark
hair, so wild about his face, coming down well below his collar? The stormy eyes? His untamed beard, rough and shaggy? Or the fact his clothes were so tattered and
torn she could see more skin than was appropriate. Of course, they all sort of looked that way, and
Emily decided it might be the set of his shoulders, or the way he held his arms
stiffly at his sides, as if his muscles were tensed and ready for a fight all
the time.
“I’d be happy to give you a haircut and a shave, if you
like, after I finish with the wash,” she offered, in an attempt to get him to
relax. Emily regretted the words almost
as soon as she uttered them. She hadn’t
offered any of the other men haircuts, nor anything as intimate as a
shave. But something primal inside
Isaack made her insides restless. When
he was in the barn with the others, she could easily distract herself with the
endless chores about the farm. But with
him outside, watching her, she was helpless against the onslaught of
fidgetiness.
Isaack quickly turned all thoughts of Jakob to guilty
feelings when he was around. She wasn’t
sure why, except there was a longing there that shouldn’t be. A longing to talk to Isaack, to get to know
him, to see him smile, to know what was under that untamed, dangerous
exterior. And Emily understood it was
utterly wrong.
“I’d be much obliged.
Thank you.” He spoke low, sending
a tremor through her body, even in the heat of the yard.
“Well, if you can manage a wash in the creek while I finish
up, you’d feel much better.” She turned
back to her work, dropping a bar of soap at his feet. Emily willed herself to focus on the task at
hand, and not let herself get carried away with fanciful thoughts of this man
she didn’t know.
When she looked back, Isaack wore a smile. An actual smile, aimed at her. It took her breath away.
He didn’t speak, but grabbed at the soap and managed to
stand, leaning heavily on a walking stick as he made his way through the path
in the woods.
She wondered if he was strong enough to walk all the way to
the creek and back. He hadn’t been out
of bed long, a few days at most. But he
seemed to understand, as she did, that exercise and sunshine were good for the
soul. And she tried not to worry too
much about him as he was gone. By the
time she was hanging the laundry on the line to cool, he still wasn’t back, and
she began to worry a bit. But by the
time she was finished and hanging sheets on the line to dry, he was back and
resting under the tree again. She had no
idea when he’d made it back, only that she was glad he hadn’t fainted in the
water and drowned.
She went inside to get her scissors and a towel, then out to
ask Mr. Potter if she could borrow his straight razor, since Papa had taken his
when we left. Emily was glad Mr. Potter
was the soldier around while she looked for a razor. She didn’t want to ask Abe, afraid Abe would
want her to shave him too. There was a
distinct difference between Abe and his leering looks, and Isaack and his quiet
watchfulness.
Emily stood behind Isaack cutting his hair in an
uncomfortable silence. For some reason,
her hands shook, and her breathing was odd.
It hitched around with the pounding of her heart in her chest. It was as if she’d been running around the
house, but knew it was because of Isaack and his nearness, and the intimacy of
what she was doing. She didn’t
understand her feelings around this man.
She’d never felt anything like it before, but it was a torturous bliss
she couldn’t explain. Instead, she
forced herself to pretend it was little Jaimie instead, whose hair she had her
fingers buried in, whose scalp she scratched as she finger combed the hair to
grab clumps of it to cut. She only hoped
she didn’t do anything with this wonderful feeling to embarrass herself.
If the hair cut was going to be this awkward, what would
touching his face to shave it be like?
She found out soon enough.
Sitting cross-legged in front of him, she focused on the hair she was
about to remove instead of the gray eyes focused intently on her, and the lips
she was working around. As she snipped
away the longer beard with scissors, Emily couldn’t help but wonder how long it
had been since Isaack had seen his face.
She wondered if it would be angular and hard like the rest of him, or
soft and fleshy like Jakob’s.
Thoughts of Jakob sent a shock through her. She paused with the scissors in the air, as
she remembered her fiancé and the war he had been forced off to fight. Emily filled her mind with his face as she
remembered it, tanned from working in the sun, bright green eyes shining
happily at her, the dimple on his left cheek when he smiled.
Jakob. She must
remember Jakob.
She was wrong to think of things she shouldn’t want with
this man in front of her.
Isaack’s eyes searched her face for answers to the questions
he wasn’t asking. Emily’s lips thinned
as she resolved herself to get this over with.
Isaack wasn’t her love, Jakob was.
Any fantasies she entertained to the contrary were just
that—fantasy. And it would be an
absolute betrayal, to think of Isaack that way while Jakob was fighting to come
home to her.
She tamped down the fluttering, and ignored her irregular
breathing, as she focused on shaving Isaack’s beard off. When his face was finally revealed, it was as
she’d expected: hard and angular, with chiseled cheekbones that emphasized the
gray of his eyes under bushy brows. If
anything, it made him more dangerous looking, as his eyes still looked at her,
squinted with questions he didn’t voice.
She ignored his eyes, even as she ignored the fluttering in her belly
that she’d never felt with Jakob.
By the time she’d finished, she was shaking so badly with
nerves, she was afraid she would cut him.
But Isaack never flinched, he just sat there letting her rasp the razor
across his skin. He continued to stare
at her, with that intense look in his eyes, and Emily finally crumbled. She couldn’t do any more with him.
“There you go. All
done. I’m going to start supper. You should go lay down. You look tired.” She stood, gathering her things, and fled,
feeling foolish. It wasn’t like anything
had happened, but she’d obviously felt an attraction to him, and actually
entertained it, before the reminder of Jakob had slapped her in the face. And the fact she’d had to be reminded of Jakob
was a shame. As her intended, he should
be forefront in her mind at all times, even though she hadn’t seen him in two
years.
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, Rachel and Emily
sat at the kitchen table. It had become
a routine for them since the soldiers had come.
Most of the time, they just rested and enjoyed each other’s silence, but
tonight Rachel let Emily in on her plans.
Emily had stopped doubting her mother’s crazy schemes a long
time ago. When the North had blockaded
the Mississippi river, making it impossible to sell their cotton, Rachel hadn’t
batted an eyelash, converting everything to corn. She’d used credit at the general store, and
planted the fields with corn instead of cotton, and they’d managed to keep
their heads afloat for the two years since, even managing two yields a year to
make up for the lack of muscle on their female-run, family farm. So, even though she was nervous about the
Union soldiers on their farm, so far nothing untoward had happened, aside from
Abe, the slightly flirty soldier who was relentless, yet seemed to be
harmless. Rachel seemed to know what she
was doing.
“So, what’s next, Mama?”
She asked, curious to know if her mama actually had a plan, or if she
was deciding what to do as they went along.
“Well, it was surely serendipitous that these boys showed up
when they did. But we will help them,
and they will help us. We just brought
in the last of the harvest, and I’m going to see if I can’t talk a few into
staying behind to help with the next yield.
I’ve already talked to Mr. Potter about helping with the planting next
week, and he seemed happy to oblige.”
Mr. Potter was the New York corn farmer who’d loaned her the
razor, and seemed a personable fellow. A
bit older than the others, he seemed thankful for the rest from the grueling
pace of soldier’s life, eager for the farm work.
“I feel like we’ll lose a few more before the sick ones
begin to get better, but in the meantime, we’ll keep feeding them and giving
them shelter. Once they start getting
better, we’ll put the ones who are willing to work. We’ll butcher while they’re here. The holes in the chicken house needs repairs,
and the corn crib needs some better fortification, and there’s always fences to
mend. There’s corn to shuck, and chores
to do. We can make this farm profitable
before they leave, and then the bankers won’t be able to take it.”
The unasked question had been lurking in Emily’s mind for
days now, and she had to ask it. “What
happens when Papa comes home, and the farm is filled with men he’s spent the
last four years fighting?”
Rachel’s eyes softened, and she reached for Emily’s
hand. “Your father is a reasonable
man. I’m sure he’s just as ready for the
fighting to be over as everyone else. He
would be grateful we’ve been able to keep the farm for him to come home to.” Her smile was watery, and Emily almost
regretted the question.
“I’m sorry, Mama.
You’re right.”
Valerie Dunaway is a former socialite who has hidden from the public eye for years due to a horrific attack that left her scarred—physically and emotionally. When a strange masked man makes himself at home with her, she’s unable to run. She calls the cops, but the agoraphobic won’t go into protective custody, so Detective Hollerman calls the only people he trusts: Pierce Securities.
The click sounded at the
door almost immediately, and Quinten forcibly slowed his breathing and counted
to ten before he opened the door, gun drawn, pointed down.
As Quinten moved from
room to room, checking behind doors and furniture, inside closets, he heard the
soft padding of her footsteps right behind him. When she reached for a tiny
handful of his shirt, he mentally cursed himself for scaring her. It couldn’t
be avoided, and he was glad he could offer her a tether to reality through his
shirt. He needed to make sure she was safe. When he got to her sunroom, he
looked out the windows onto the water, where the moon reflected. It was a full
moon tonight, and the yard leading down to the water was all lit up.
“Embrace the fear,” he
said softly. “It keeps you more alert. Feel your accelerated heartbeat?” He
could see the pulse in her neck pounding and her breasts heaving under the
peignoir set she wore. 
