Free For Time and Eternity by Allison Pittman Page A

what good people would never do. Homes burned. Children killed. Innocent men tarred and run out of town. Somewhere—” he looked out across the river—“there’s a place where our people can live in peace and worship God with the same freedom allowed to your people. I just wish—”
    He stopped as more voices came from the clearing. Men carrying small wooden chests and women with arms full of folded quilts. Even children carried the odd tool or utensil.
    “Come here.” He took my hand and led me back into the trees. The bustling activity at the river’s edge disappeared, leaving nothing but forest shadows. I’d never spent time exploring the woods so near our home. Mama had been clear in her warnings about how easily a girl could get lost. No sun, no direction, no wind to carry your voice. She, of course, had in mind the dangers of being in the forest alone, yet she would take little comfort at the thought of me being so isolated with a boy. Any boy. As the leaves and branches closed in around us, I felt my own sense of fear. Inexperienced as I was with both forests and boys, I knew he’d brought me here to kiss me. And there, with the heels of my boots backed up against the mossy base of a cottonwood tree, he did.
    To say that I had never been kissed before is a statement so obvious, it barely warrants words. I shied away from his first attempt, holding my hand up between us and saying, “Please, Nathan. Don’t.” Had I walked away, found my path back to the river’s edge, left him in the darkness of the forest, I know he would not have followed. This is but one of the moments I remember, one of the final crossroads where I stood, blind to the obvious path of escape. And I will not say that Nathan forced his kiss upon me, lest God cut me down for lying. It came down to this: Neither of us took a step away from the other. Nor one closer. My hand remained suspended between us, and I remember looking up and seeing nothing but his eyes. Hearing nothing but his breath. Feeling nothing but the beating of my own heart. And then, imperceptibly, my finger moved. It must have, because the tip of it brushed the rough cotton of his shirt. He could not have felt my touch—I barely felt it myself, and it was my own flesh.
    Then he spoke. Just one word. My name. When he did, everything he’d ever made me feel, all those whispering tendrils of fear and hope, joy and anticipation found each other, twisting themselves into one strong cord, and anchored someplace deep within, pulled me to him.
    It was, at first, nothing more than a sweet, simple kiss. Nathan’s lips did little more than graze across mine before he pulled away, smiling that half-moon smile.
    “I love you, Camilla Deardon. Do you believe me?”
    I nodded, my heart too full to let him know that I loved him, too. But he soon would because no girl would give herself over to the embrace that followed if she did not truly love. This time, when he bent his mouth to mine, he lingered, cradling my face in his hands to draw me closer. I offered no resistance. In fact, as our kiss grew more ardent, our breath ragged, our bodies entwined, it was he who pulled himself away, leaving me flushed and bewildered. Unsteady on my own feet.
    “I’m sorry.” He turned away from me, running both hands through his hair. His voice had the hoarse, haggard quality of a man emerging from some great battle. “I should not have done that.”
    “It’s all right,” I said, my hand against my swollen lips. “I—I wanted you to.”
    Three steps away, he stopped and turned. “Why?”
    I dropped my hand and looked at him, terrified of the answer.
    The sound of dried twigs underscored his journey back to me. He grabbed my shoulders and stooped down, his eyes level with mine. “Tell me, Camilla.”
    “I suppose I love you.”
    His face became a burst of sunshine in the middle of the shadowed forest, and the loud whoop he cried sent some small creature scuttling off in the distance. I