Free The Colonel's Lady by Clifton Adams Page A

love me. Oh, Matt, I'm glad you followed me here. At first I thought you had come to cause trouble, and I hated you for it. But I don't any more. I love you, Matt. I've always loved you.”
    “You take strange ways to show it. Why did you marry Weyland if you loved me so much?”
    “I explained that, Matt. I had to get away.”
    “I would have taken you away.”
    “No, you wouldn't have. You would have fought to the bitter end—just the way you did fight to the bitter end.”
    “Not quite. I spent six months in the Yankee prison at Fort Delaware because of you, Caroline.”
    “I'm sorry, Matt. What else can I say?”
    What else could she say? I looked at her, I studied her, and I saw not a particle of regret, not the slightest twinge of conscience for what she had done. To her, it had been the sensible thing, and to Caroline the sensible thing was the only thing.
    “Kiss me, Matt,” she murmured. “Hold me close.”
    “What about Weyland?” I said bitterly. “You married him. He's your husband. You made a fine hero out of him and got him promotions and then married him because he could offer you things I couldn't. Don't you think you owe him something?”
    “Don't talk, Matt.”
    “I want to talk. I've got a lot of things to get out of me, and they're not pretty things. What about Weyland?” I felt her shudder against me.
    “So that's the way it is....” Somehow I was not surprised. “Tell me, Caroline, was it worth it? Was it worth deserting your country for, and me, this five-room mud house on the edge of God's nowhere?”
    “It's better than Virginia,” she said tightly. “Or Alabama.”
    “But you hate it just the same, don't you?”
    She pressed her forehead against my shoulder and I knew she was crying, although she made no sound and her eyes were dry. “Yes, I hate it. I was going to go back —go anywhere—because I couldn't stand it here any longer. But it's different now that you're here.”
    “What difference can I make? I'm not a colonel, not even a lieutenant. I'm just a common trooper.”
    “You won't be forever. I know you won't, Matt. I can wait, as long as you're with me.”
    It was like talking to a child—a stubborn, persistent, spoiled child who couldn't understand that the world was not made specially for her and for nobody else.
    “What do you intend to do?” I said with bitterness. “Send over to headquarters every day and get some 'carpentering' done?”
    “Don't talk like that, Matt.”
    “How else can I talk? You married Weyland. Not me.”
    I wanted to hurt her now. I wanted to hurl her away from me and walk out of the place and never look at her again. But I couldn't do it. I could feel the warmness of her body against me as I held her and the old familiar hunger returned. I could recall a thousand empty nights. For all nights were empty without her. For a moment there were just the two of us, as it had been once before so long ago, with no past and no future. And for that moment I was content.
    “Matt.”
    “Yes.”
    “Kiss me again.”
    I kissed her again, bruising her mouth against mine, and only then did I realize how much I had missed her. I don't know how much time passed before I began to feel a difference in the room—before I heard the steady, measured inhaling and exhaling of someone's breathing. I released Caroline and half turned toward the open doorway. Colonel Weyland was standing there.



Chapter Five
    I WON'T SOON forget that day. That year-long afternoon that I spent in my bunk waiting for the sky to fall. The troopers of A Company were out on detail when I got back to the barracks building, and I was glad for that because I wanted to be alone. I lay there on my bunk and waited for the end to come, waited for Weyland to do whatever he was going to do, and there wasn't a thing I could do to stop it.
    In my mind I kept seeing the Colonel's face as I looked around and saw him standing there. I had never seen so much hate on a face before. Morgan's