Free Little Love Affair (Southern Romance Series, #1) by Lexy Timms Page B

accentuated her fair skin a day ago now showed only how pale and drawn she had become.
    “Clara?” He stepped forward, and she came to a halt.
    “He’s....” Her voice broke. “He’s dead, Jasper.”
    “Your brother,” he guessed, cold dread sinking into his stomach, and her face crumpled.
    “Yes.”
    “Clara.” It would take an army to keep him from her now. He enfolded her in his arms and felt her body shudder with sobs.
    Her voice was half whisper, half cry. “They’re all back except him. They never found him, and I have to go tell my mother that she can’t even bury him. I’ll never see him and...” Her voice trailed off in a sob. “I’ll never know what happened. If he died alone, if he cried out for help. Nothing.”
    The cry broke his heart, and Jasper held her close, feeling tears welling in his own eyes. She was not a Yankee now. She was a young woman in pain. He had seen the faces of the families before he marched. They had turned out to watch the armies go, and in their eyes he had seen the cold knowledge that not all of them would come home again.
    He had faced the breaking of his faith in the mangled bodies of his fellow soldiers, but never until now had he thought what became of the Union soldiers. Shame made his cheeks burn, and Jasper bent his head over Clara’s, holding her close. He would have killed her brother if they had met in battle. He...
    It occurred to him now, for the first time, that he might have done so. He could not bear to ask where the man had been lost.
    He wanted to wretch, wanted to get down on his knees and beg Clara’s forgiveness. For the first time, his rage at the Union was tumbled over, not just in his care for this woman but for everything she represented. He was losing himself on this hill, in this northern country, and he could no longer have said whether he was even sure what he was losing.
    When she pulled away from him at last, her face pink with tears, he saw the package clenched in her hands. He wanted to turn away from her, run as far as his legs would take him. She stood before him with every reason to curse Horace and consign him to death, and she was holding out the medicine to save his life.
    “I want to meet him,” she said, her face trembling. “Your friend.”
    “I... You can’t.” Jasper swallowed.
    “Why not?” The package came down slowly. She folded it in her arms and looked at him warily.
    He paused to choose his words carefully. “He doesn’t approve of the risk I’ve taken,” he said at last.
    “The risk?” she asked, and her cheeks flushed. “I’ve sheltered you both for weeks. I’ve gone to get him medicine, Jasper. We don’t have enough to pay the laborers next week, because of this. ” She thrust the package at him once more, and snatched it away when he reached for it. “If anyone has risked anything, it is me. And you know I can be trusted.”
    “I told him that,” Jasper pleaded with her.
    “Then he should trust you.” She made to push past him.
    Jasper caught her easily, holding her back, and he held her even when her eyes flared with anger.
    “Let. Me. Go.”
    “Clara...I promised him.”
    “And you promised me you would never speak to me again,” she cried passionately. “You broke that promise, and your promise to him means nothing. I am no threat. I only want to meet the man whose life I’m saving. I want to know his face, Jasper. Can’t you understand that? My brother is gone and I would bring him back if I could, but I can’t. I can’t . All I have left is this man, do you see?”
    “I’m sorry,” Jasper whispered. He met her eyes and flinched from the pain he saw there. “I wish...”
    “You wish you were a different man,” she shot back. “A man who would have the least bit of courtesy to the woman who saved your miserable life. You’d have starved if it weren’t for me, Jasper Perry, you and your friend. Well, here. Take the medicine. Never trouble me again.” She turned and strode