She closed her eyes, and tears began spilling down her cheeks. “How well I know,” she groaned.
Lee ran a hand through his hair, walking over to pick up his deerskin jacket. He pulled it on. “I found that letter on him…the one he’d started to you and never finished. I decided it would be important to you to have that last letter…so I sent it along. He was very proud that he was a corporal and a sharpshooter. For what it’s worth, in spite of the horrors of the war and whatever he might have been through by then, I think he died happier than he had ever been. He had found something he could do himself and be proud of. He even died bravely…forgave me because he knew I’d need to hear it. His last thoughts and biggest concern, though, were for you.” He turned and picked up his hat from the back of a chair. “There is someone else’s forgiveness I need more than Joey’s, and you know whose it is.”
She looked up at him, more tears coming. “You…should have told me…before.”
He wiped tears from his own face, then put his hat on. “There are a lot of things I should have done over the years, Audra. It was the same for you. I can only tell you that nothing is changed for me as far as how I feel about you. I don’t know why God sent that boy up the hill and caused me to be the one to kill him. There were thousands of Confederate soldiers out there all over the South. The odds against me ever running into Joey were tremendous. Maybe it was God’s way of…of letting him die quickly instead of slowly in one of those stinking prisons. You don’t know…Audra. You don’t know what the prisons were like. It would have been horrible for him. I’ve gone around with it in my mind, in my nightmares, thousands of times. I hear that rifle going off…and I see his eyes…hear him call my name all at the same time. It haunts me…eats at my gut. I never even intended to shoot him, even before I realized who he was, because he was unarmed. I wasn’t that kind of soldier, Audra. I never intentionally killed innocent people. My God, you must understand that much about me!”
Her shoulders shook, and she covered her face with her hands. “Joey,” she sobbed.
Lee knelt in front of her. “Yes, you weep for Joey, because you have every right. But if you love me, Audra, you’ll weep for me, too. It’s the ones left behind, who have to live with all of it, that suffer the most. And when you’re done weeping, you think about the things I’ve told you and how much I love you. It’s either going to have to be over between us, Audra, or we’ll be together the rest of our lives and find the happiness we both deserve. I’ll be back in five or six days and we’ll either leave for Denver together, or I’ll leave alone. If I do, that truly will be the end of it.”
She looked up at him. “Where are you going?” she asked sobbing.
“To Fort Riley. I’m going to help take those prisoners in, and I want to talk to the commander there about patrolling this area better. I’m better off leaving for a while. You need time to think about all of this.”
Part of her wanted to get up and embrace him, tell him it was all right. She knew what a horror it had to have been for him, knew how he had felt about Joey. Yet the fact remained that this Yankee soldier had killed her brother. What a cruel twist of fate! She watched his eyes, understood now the strange agony she had seen there so often, yet for the moment she saw him again as the enemy, the epitome of all she had hated for so long…hated and loved with the same passion. She just closed her eyes and looked away, and in the next moment she heard the door close. Should she run after him? Would he really even bother to come back?
She turned and crawled back into bed, her body racked with sobs, Joey’s loss reawakened now with the vivid picture of how it had all really happened. Each time she drew in her breath, she caught the scent of Lee Jeffreys still on the pillow next to her. She had shared a bed with her brother’s killer, yet strangely, it was what Joey would have wanted. She knew deep inside that Lee’s killing the boy was just as awful for him as if she herself had accidentally killed him. She drew the pillow to her, and she realized her tears were not just for Joey. They were for all the Joeys, and all the Lees, and all the women like herself who had been left behind.
Toosie walked out onto the porch, carrying the four-day-old little baby girl she’d named Lena. She had given birth the very day Lee left for Fort Riley, and she had not been outside the house since. It felt good to breathe some fresh air, even though that air was cold. She draped the baby’s blanket over her tiny face and walked close to Audra, who was sitting in a chair watching the horizon. The frayed pieces of paper on which she had written her love song to Lee eight years ago lay on her lap. “Would you like to hold little Lena for a while?” Toosie asked.
Audra seemed startled, as though she didn’t even realize Toosie was standing near her. She quickly grabbed the papers and shoved them into a pocket of the wool jacket she wore. “Yes, I’d like that,” she answered, putting on a smile.
Toosie leaned down and placed the tiny baby girl in Audra’s arms. Audra cuddled the child close, lifting the blanket and kissing her dark little cheek. Toosie pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “He’s going to be back pretty quick,” she reminded Audra. “Maybe even today. Are you going to Denver with him?” she asked cautiously.
Audra sighed deeply. “I still don’t know what to do, how to feel.”
“Yes, you do, Audra Brennan Potter,” Toosie answered firmly. “You know that you love that man, and that he loves you with every bone in his body. You’ll never find another like him. He’s suffered enough over what happened. Don’t punish him more by sending him away alone. You’ve both been alone too long already. You know good and well being together is what Joey would want. There is no greater gift you could give to your brother’s memory than to marry Lee Jeffreys.”
Audra looked up at her. “I know that.” Her eyes teared. “I’m afraid, Toosie. It seems like every time we find each other again, something happens to destroy our happiness. I’m afraid to let go and care again.”
Toosie drew up a chair beside her, sitting down wearily. Taking care of little Joey and breast-feeding a new baby following a difficult birth had left her worn out, though she was feeling stronger today. “Audra, the war is over. Nothing more like that is going to happen. Once Lee comes back, if you’ll just let go of the past, you could be so happy. Don’t turn him away. Don’t let that pride get in the way one last time, because this time it will be the last. The hurt will be too deep. If Lee Jeffreys leaves here without you, he’ll never come back. Can you live with that?”
A tear trickled down Audra’s cheek, and she wondered where it came from. She had shed so many that she was sure there were none left. “God help me, I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can’t. And God is helping you. He means for you and Lee to be together, or He wouldn’t keep bringing that man back into your life. Look at that little baby there. Wouldn’t you like one of your own? You need children, Audra, a family. So does Lee. Forgive the man and let yourself be happy. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for Joey.”
Audra pulled the baby closer, pressing her cheek against little Lena’s cheek. “What about you and Elijah? Wilena and the others? I can’t leave you.”
“Before long there’s going to be a railroad all the way through Kansas into Colorado, you’ll see. In a few years we can visit as much as we want.” Toosie touched her shoulder. “We’re all going to be fine here, now that we’ve shown ourselves against the raiders. They won’t be giving us any more trouble, and if they do, we know how to handle it. And you’ve taught us so much, Audra, about how to manage things. We can run Brennan all on our own. You’ve given up so much to help us. Do something for yourself now. Go to Denver and be the wife of attorney Lee Jeffreys. Live in that fine home he wants to build for you. You were born to that life, Audra, and nothing would make all of us happier than to see you living in grand style again, happy and in love, a string of little ones at your feet. Why, I can just picture you coming here to visit, dressed all fine and fancy, showing off sons and daughters all handsome an
d beautiful. Maybe you’ll have a daughter who can sing like you once sang, or who can play the piano. You could even have your own grand piano like that one Mrs. Jeffreys had. Lee can give you a good life, and you deserve it. All of us here, we’ll be doing just fine on our own. We’re happy, too. This is a better life than any of us dreamed we could have a few years ago. Don’t you be worrying about us, Audra.”
Audra looked at her, thinking about all the wasted years when she had treated Toosie so callously. “I’m sorry, Toosie, about the past.”
“There, you see? It’s the same for Lee. Now you know how he feels, wishing he could change the past but knowing it’s impossible.”
Audra smiled through tears. “You’ve always been so good to me, Toosie. All of you have. I would miss you so much.”
Toosie grinned. “But you’d rather miss all of us than miss just one man, wouldn’t you?”
Audra turned to watch the horizon again. “Yes. Part of me says I should want him to hurt, but I can’t do it, Toosie. I can’t let him go this time, and I know Joey would be so unhappy if I did. God help me, but I love him. It isn’t wrong to love him, is it, knowing what I know?”
Toosie grasped her hand and pressed it lightly. “You know it’s not wrong. There isn’t a soul I know of who would think that it was.”
Audra held little Lena close to her breast, thinking how wonderful it would be to have babies of her own. Joey would want her to go on with life, to put all the hatred behind her. She wondered sometimes if her brother had ever even known the feeling of hatred. He’d seemed incapable of it, and she was tired herself of hating. She wanted to love and be loved, and only one man could do that for her.
“We’d best go inside. I don’t want the baby to breathe this cool air too long,” Toosie spoke up.
Audra kissed the baby again and handed her over. “You go ahead. I’ll sit out here a while longer.”
Toosie followed Audra’s gaze. “Seems like you’ve been waiting for that man half your life. Stop waiting and denying yourself, Audra. It’s time to start really living again.”
She went inside, and Audra shivered, pulling her woolen jacket closer around herself. Cold. It seemed she had been cold for years, even in the worst Louisiana heat. It was a cold that came from the inside, an ugly kind of cold that was much worse than the winter air. Winter, it seemed, was the season she had lived with since the summer she had left Maple Shadows. There had been no more summers, except for the few brief times Lee had warmed her in his arms.
Two more days passed, and Lee and the rest of the men still had not returned. Audra began to worry that something had happened. The trip to Fort Riley could usually be made in six days, but eight days had gone by. All kinds of possibilities flashed through her mind. They could have been attacked by Indians, or maybe the outlaws had pounced on them in the night to retrieve their wounded and had murdered Lee and Elijah and the others.
She had to stay busy and not think about the possibilities. They had to be all right. She bent down to trim dead, dried roses from one of several rosebushes Elijah had purchased in Abilene earlier in the spring. She and Toosie had planted them around the house, trying to bring a little more life and color to the flat, treeless land. Audra wanted to plant some trees, but so far no one in Abilene sold such things.
She trimmed up another bush, and she was behind the house when she heard a horse ride up, heard Elijah call out happily to Toosie. Her own heart beat faster. Was Lee finally back, too? After all the time she had spent watching the horizon, they had come when she was busy behind the house and couldn’t see them coming.
She stood up, walked to the back door that led to the kitchen. Elijah was hugging and kissing Toosie, and she looked away, the longing in her strong for a man to be with every night like that, without it being forbidden and wrong.
“We got caught in the worst storm you ever did see,” Elijah told her. “Held us up at the fort almost two days. Didn’t it rain here?”
“No,” Toosie answered. “We were so worried, Elijah. We thought Indians or the rest of those outlaws had attacked you.”
Elijah just laughed. “Just rain. We would still have left, but it was a black, drivin’ rain that no man would dare go out in. We jus’ had to wait till it was done with. We were all worried about you, thinkin’ it was doin’ the same thing here.”
“We’re fine. You didn’t see other outlaws?”
Audra did not hear Elijah’s answer. She had noticed someone ride up to the shed at the back of the house. It was Lee. He dismounted and took his horse inside, not even noticing her at first. Audra could hardly believe her own reaction, but she found herself running off the back porch and across the yard to the shed. He was all right! He’d come back as he’d promised! Part of her had been afraid that because she had been silent when he told her about Joey, he would decide never to come back. She hurried inside the shed, then stopped short when he exited a horse stall and saw her standing there out of breath.
They just watched each other for a moment, and Audra could see the mixture of hope and despair in his eyes. She studied him, so rugged and handsome, standing there in that fringed deerskin jacket and leather hat, a long white scar on his cheek from a bullet that could have taken him from her in an instant. The scar would fade with the years, years they would spend together. You stand before me, tall and strong, your eyes so blue…Some of the words to the song she had written suddenly came to her, along with all the love and passion she had felt for him at seventeen. Suddenly she was young again, and they were standing on a beach in Connecticut.
Lee waited for Audra to speak first. She was out of breath, as though she had run here. Should he take hope in that? She was beautiful, her cheeks rosy from the cold air, her auburn hair pulled up in a clumsy pile on top of her head. How could he leave her this time? He had never prayed harder in his life than he had been praying the last few days that she would not turn him away again.
“I’d like to stay here one more winter,” she spoke up. “It’s already November, and it would be dangerous to travel anymore before next spring. Besides that, I want to be sure Toosie and the others get through another winter all right, and the baby is still so little—”
“Are you saying you’ll go to Denver with me?” Lee interrupted.
She blinked back tears. “Yes, if you still want me to. I would just like to wait until spring. I hope you’ll…stay here with me. We have a real preacher. He could marry us. Maybe when we get to Denver, we can have a second wedding, by a Catholic priest, if you’d be willing.”
Lee’s eyes misted. “You sure, Audra?”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “You didn’t kill Joey, Lee. All of us killed him by creating that war in the first place. You were right when you said a lot of Joeys died in the war, and we’re all responsible. I’m tired of all the hating and fighting, and the pride that has kept us apart for so many years. I want to love, and be loved. I want—”
Before she could finish, she was in his arms. There was the warmth, the wonderful warmth only Lee could bring her. “I love you, Audra,” he groaned. “I never want to be apart again.”
He held her tight against him, her feet completely off the ground. She hugged him around the neck, kissed his cheek. “I love you, too. I have loved you for the longest time, Lee Jeffreys, just like in my song…Just as the sun shines and the wind blows wet and wild…” She tasted his tears when she kissed his cheek again.
“I need to hear something else, Audra,” he said then, his words broken. He set her on her feet, touching her cheek with the back of his hand, watching her green eyes. “Joey…forgave me. Can you?”
She reached up and wiped at his tears. “There is nothing to forgive, Lee, but if you need to hear it, then I forgive you. I wouldn’t have decided to spend the rest of my life with you if I could not forgive you.”
He pulled her back into his arms. “Then the war…is finally over.”
The cold November wind picked up, rushing through the open door of
the shed; but Audra did not feel it. She was in a place where she was warm and protected. She was in Lee’s arms, where it was always summer. She was never again going to let go of him.
From the Author
Many famous Civil War battlefields have been preserved and can be visited today, a still-vivid reminder of a hideous time in our nation’s history that left wounds which to this day continue to fester. There are times when one has to wonder if the war ever really ended, or if it has simply taken a different form. As long as prejudice, hatred, and intolerance of other human beings exist, a more silent civil war continues in America. My hope is that one day it truly will end.
Also by Rosanne Bittner
The Bride Series
Tennessee Bride
Texas Bride
Oregon Bride
Caress
Comanche Sunset
Heart’s Surrender
In the Shadow of the Mountains
Indian Summer
Lawless Love
Love’s Bounty
Rapture’s Gold
Shameless
Sweet Mountain Magic
Tame the Wild Wind
Tender Betrayal
The Forever Tree
Unforgettable
Until Tomorrow
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