Free Confederates Don't Wear Couture by Stephanie Kate Strohm Page B

Civil War, Mexican War through Civil War . . .” He rattled off the course names.
    â€œI’m sensing a pattern,” I teased.
    â€œFunny,” he said, and laughed. “All right, smarty-pants, what is it you wanna study when you start next year?”
    â€œAmerican social history, definitely. Probably eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women’s and gender studies,” I replied.
    â€œGotcha,” he mused. “So we’re in the same general area, just comin’ at the same thing from two different sides. Pretty much.”
    â€œPretty much.”
    â€œCoffee.” Dev woke himself up with a start, snorting a little. “Coffee,” he murmured, and snorted again, rubbing his eyes. “Oh, I had the most horrible nightmare.” He sighed. “I was stuck in a terrible land without coffee. And you were there, and you, and you!” he said, as he channeled Dorothy from the
Wizard of Oz,
pointing at me and Beau and Willie, in turn.
“Wait a minute . . . that wasn’t a dream, was it?”
    â€œâ€™Fraid not,” Beau replied cheerily.
    â€œYou are altogether too chipper for someone with no caffeine in his system.” Dev glared at him. “I want coofffeeeee,” he cried softly into his seat belt.
    â€œWell, turns out, you’re in luck,” Beau said. He took the next exit and pulled off the highway. “We’re almost there. And I’m gonna need to fill up on gas before we stop. And I’m pretty sure the gas station’ll have coffee.”
    We were almost there? I couldn’t believe how fast the time had flown by.
    As we pulled into the gas station, Dev wept tears of joy.
    â€œI think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a BP,” he recited. “Hello, lover,” he cooed at the yellow sunburst on the big green BP sign.
    Dev was out of the truck before it had come to a complete stop. He sprinted into the mini-mart without a backwards glance.
    â€œComin’?” Beau asked as he hopped out.
    â€œNah, I’m fine,” I said, gesturing to my hoops. “With all of this, you’ll be done pumping gas by the time I get out of the truck.” Plus, I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about hanging around a gas station just outside of Tuscaloosa in the twenty-first century wearing nineteenth-century clothing.
    â€œSuit yourself.” Beau clearly had no such worry as he stood around pumping gas like a Confederate pep boy. He tipped his gray kepi hat to the other people at the gas station, who didn’t seem to think it was anything out of the ordinary.
    And then, when I had finally stopped thinking about it, my phone vibrated. I scrambled around through what felt like a million yards of muslin, until I triumphantly extracted my cell phone from where I’d stashed it in my corset.
    â€œGarrett!” I cried. “Finally! Where are you? What’s up? How are you? How’s it going?”
    â€œHey, Libby,” he said, and sighed, almost dejectedly. “What’s with all the questions? I thought I was the reporter.”
    I smiled. It was sort of a halfhearted joke, but at least he seemed a little bit more like himself.
    â€œVery funny, Mr. Hotshot Reporter.” I shifted under Willie’s weight. “So do you spend more of your time running around chasing hot leads and yelling, ‘Stop the presses!’ or just coming up with brilliant bons mots behind a big glossy desk?”
    â€œUm . . . not exactly.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I-don’t-even-have-a-desk,” he mumbled very quietly.
    â€œSorry, what? What was that?” I asked. I had no idea what he’d said.
    â€œI don’t have a desk!” He shouted so loudly I nearly dropped the phone, and Willie barked unhappily. “I don’t even have a desk,” Garrett repeated at a normal volume.
    â€œWell, okay,” I said, commiserating, “that’s not great, I guess,