Free Time After Time by Kay Hooper

shoulder as if it ached, an unconsciousmovement as he gazed into the fire. And Alex felt a sudden certainty.
    “Lousy weather,” he murmured.
    “Maybe you were … wounded?”
    “No, I was never hit,” he returned absently.
    “Hit?”
    “The Gulf.” He looked at her, puzzled by her sharp tone.
    “I didn’t know you were there,” she said, pushing aside a dim memory of blood and bandages.
    “That’s when I decided to become a photographer.” He was gazing into the fire again. “There was so much ugliness and brutality. I hated that war. Looking at it was like … like looking at a memory I wanted to forget and couldn’t. As if I’d seen it all before.”
    Maybe you had seen it before
. She didn’t say it, of course. He’d think she was nuts.
    Alex drew a breath. “It’s late.”
    “Stay with me awhile.” He looked at her, not teasing now.
    Without thought Alex reached out to brush a strand of black hair off his forehead, understandingonly on some distant level of herself that his vulnerability was a far more potent weapon than his strength. She knew how to fight strength.
    “I’m not drunk,” she reminded him softly.
    He caught her hand and held it against his cheek. “And you’re still not sure.”
    “I have to be sure.” It was almost a plea.
    “I know.” He smiled slowly. “A blue-ribbon affair.”
    Alex could feel herself dissolving, weakened by that smile. “If you were a memory,” she whispered, “a memory I regretted, I don’t think I’d be able to stand it.”
    Noah’s smile faded and his blue eyes were shot with silver. “Neither would I. I don’t want you to regret me, Alex. Ever. But I think … if I can’t hold you tonight … I won’t be able to stand that either.”
    He set both their glasses to one side. She made no objection when he drew her down beside him until they were lying close together with the quilt wrapped warmly around them. Pillows cushionedtheir heads and the fire crackled softly not far away.
    Alex was conscious of an ache of desire deep inside her, but, even more, she was aware of an incredible sense of belonging. Of coming home. His arms around her and the crackle of a fire, the muted sounds of a storm outside—it all felt so familiar.
    And maybe she was as mad as a hatter, but she’d known this man before. She had risked her own safety to protect him and perhaps she had loved him.
    Perhaps …

FIVE
    H E COULD SEE between the slats, watch as the rebel soldiers questioned the slender woman standing before their horses. It was hot and dusty within the barn, and especially here in this corncrib. He could feel the bristly weight of the corncobs, smell the dry, musty scent of them.
    Thank God they didn’t need feed for their mounts.
    His shoulder ached and he wanted to shift position. He knew he was bleeding again, and that hewas feverish. The woman would change the filthy bandage when the soldiers were gone.
    If she didn’t turn him in.
    He was desperately tired. And hungry. But, more than anything else, he was sick of war. He longed for the beauty of rolling green pastures and the sweet smell of cut hay drying in the summer sun. He kept his squinting eyes on the woman, unable to look past her at fields devastated by war, or at the house behind her, the house that had once looked graceful and dignified but now bore scars of war in its broken windows and pitted bricks.
    Why was she helping him? Because he reminded her of a brother the war had taken from this place? Or a husband? How many of her men, he wondered, had she lost in a cause that was hopeless?
    The sound of hooves recalled his feverish wits, and he heard his own ragged sigh as he watched the mounted men riding away. The woman stood where she was until even their dust was gone, then hurried into the house. He waited, too weary to push himself out from under the pile of corn. He waited and, after a time, he saw her come out ofthe house and hurry toward the barn, a bundle in her arms.
    And the