Free Desert Angel by Pamela K Forrest Page A

she was curious to do some more exploring before Jamie needed to be fed again.
    “Quiet little thing,” Hank commented as they watched her walk back toward the house. “Hardly said two words,” Woods agreed.
    “Real polite-like, too.”
    “Cute as a long-legged filly takin‘ her first steps.This’en just mite do a bit better than the other one.”
    “Woman should be quiet and polite. Why, I knew a woman once … “
    At the corral March talked quietly to a couple of horses, who greeted her with soft whinnies. The chicken house was abandoned but in good shape, and an old worn-out mule happily scratched his rump against the fence rail. Peeking into the dark, cool depths of several barns and outbuildings, she decided to save them for later exploration. She was getting tired, and Jamie would soon be demanding his supper.
    Walking back to the house it struck her how peaceful it was with only the occasional stamping of the horses and the twittering of the birds. March had always dreamed of a home that was without the constant bickering that she had endured as a child. It seemed to her that nothing ever made her father happy. He always had a complaint, whether it was about the food or the noise of the children.
    Whenever something went wrong, as it frequently did, he always found someone else to blame. She had learned how to dodge his blows as a young child, and how to protect the little ones from his temper when she was grown. It seemed to her that he always had a plan to get rich quick, one that avoided any work on his part. He didn’t object to anyone else in the family working, just as long as he wasn’t directly involved.
    It had always amazed her that her pretty, educated mother had ever married such a brash, insensitive man. March had asked her once, but her mother had gotten so upset that March quickly changed the subject. It was only during March’s long hours of labor to give birth to her stillborn daughter, that Virginia Evans had told her the story, perhaps hoping that March would continue to fight rather than to give in to the pain and sure death that crept ever closer.
    More than twenty years earlier, at the start of the war between the states, Virginia and her family, staunch supporters of the Confederacy, had hidden a wounded Rebel soldier in their home. His injuries were not life-threatening, but took a considerable time to heal.
    The only child of a shipping magnate, Virginia was fascinated by the heroic presence of the soldier. During his lengthy stay, he told wonderful stories of his home in Georgia, of the cotton plantation his family owned and the life that waited for him once the war was finished. He was charming and gallant, captivating sixteen-year-old Virginia with great ease.
    Perhaps, in happier times, Virginia’s father would have investigated the soldier more thoroughly. Perhaps if he hadn’t been concerned with the survival of his business interests, he would have convinced Virginia to wait. But he,
    too, was taken in by the soft-spoken man, and gave his only, beloved daughter to George Evans.
    When George rejoined his unit, Virginia was pregnant with her first son. George returned twice more in the next couple of years, each time leaving his wife pregnant with another child. When the war was finally finished, the North claiming victory, George was eager to step into the shipping business owned by his father-in-law.
    Instead of returning to the wealth and prestige he craved, George discovered that his wife and three small children were living in former slave quarters. Both of her parents were dead, and the shipping business bankrupt. The burned- out shell of her former home seemed like a skeleton taunting George that he’d never be anything more than what he’d always been, except now he was saddled with a wife and children.
    To his credit, he did not abandon his family, but that was his last and only noble gesture. Selling the land to the first carpetbagger to show interest, George