Free And One Wore Gray by Heather Graham Page B

hearth, and warm woolen blankets laid over the two rockers that sat right before the fireplace. Curiously, no bullets had strayed here. The soft eyelet drapes wafted lightly in the night breeze, untouched. She wondered if the Reb colonel thought about that fact as he surveyed the room, but his sharp blue eyes gave away none of his thoughts.
    With the lamp lit, Callie could see the pallor in his handsome features. How was he still standing?
    He started to unbuckle his scabbard, still surveying the room. Again, unease came sweeping through her system. What did he intend? She swallowed hard, and determined that she would fight to her very last breath for her honor.
    He cast his scabbard and sword onto the side chair and sat for a moment. Then his gaze came down hard on her once again.
    She gritted her teeth. Well, he was welcome to stay here. She would not do so.
    She leapt up, praying that she might be granted speed and endurance while the weight of his injuries fell upon him at last.
    But even as she sprinted for the door, he was up, and she went flying straight into his arms.
    She cast back her head, and their eyes met. There was a certain amount of humor in his.
    “You’re not going anywhere, Yank. Sorry,” he told her.
    “Let me go. You’ve no right to hold me here at all.”
    “I have to hold you here.”
    “You’re supposed to be gallant and fighting for the honor of the South! It’s your duty—”
    “I consider living through this one of my duties, too, Mrs. Michaelson. So you just might—”
    “You can’t stay here. In my room! With—me!”
    His brows shot up suddenly. His hands on her shoulders were warm and firm. She felt his nearness with the length of her body. He smiled. Slowly. A handsome, lazy, compelling smile. Long ago, at some distant ball, while the whippoorwills trilled and the moss hung low over old trees, that smile must have melted many a heart.
    Now it also held a little bit of bitterness, and even, perhaps, a shade of wistfulness. Here was a hardened soldier, an enemy long in the field, probably a veteran of nearly every battle in the eastern theater of this war.
    He was amused. “Why, Mrs. Michaelson, just what are you afraid of? Me?”
    “Certainly not. You are merely a very rude—and I might add muddy—Rebel soldier. I’m not afraid of you a single bit.”
    “Why not? Is there a Yankee in the wardrobe, waiting to protect you?”
    She didn’t know if he was taunting her, or if he was really suspicious of her.
    “Perhaps there is a Yankee in the wardrobe,” she returned swiftly. “Perhaps you should leave me be and run as swiftly as you can!”
    “Hmm …Let’s see, it’s Captain Eric Dabney I need to fear, right?”
    “Yes, you should be running just as fast as you can.”
    He started to laugh. “Ah. Captain Dabney has been biding his time in a wardrobe all these hours. He doesn’t mind a Rebel dining with you, but now that you feel truly threatened by a member of the Confederacy, he’s going to come jumping out.”
    “He just might.”
    Cameron ran his knuckles over her cheek, so softly that the touch might have been just the warmth of a nearby whisper. But she felt the warmth come sweeping into her, felt it spiral and curl and flow up and down the length of her spine.
    “A damsel in distress,” he murmured.
    “Pardon?”
    “Nothing,” he said, then he smiled again, meeting her eyes. “If I’d been in your wardrobe, Mrs. Michael-son, I’d have been out of it long ago. I’d have had a sword to the throat of any man who came within inches of you. I don’t think that Captain Dabney is hereabouts. And I do think that you’re afraid of me.”
    “Well, I’m not!” But she was! Not so much of his violence, though there was violence in him. What she feared was the tenderness of his touch.
    “Not a bit?” he taunted.
    She tried to pull away.
    “Not even a little bit?” he repeated. He laughed softly.
    Her chin lifted, and her eyes met his. Her body was flush