Triumph

by Heather Graham

  “We’d heard you were coming. I remember you from many years ago. It’s good to see you again, sir—though in a strange uniform.”

  “Billy, the men who brutally pursued our people in this uniform have split, just as the nation has split. I thought about it long and hard before I chose the path I did.”

  “Did your dream visions lead you to your quest?”

  Taylor smiled. It had been a long time since he’d been with the Seminole people. “Under the influence of the black drink—and stone-cold sober—I made my choice. You have stayed with Jarrett McKenzie.”

  “Oh, I think some of those swaggering braggarts in Confederate uniform are complete asses,” Billy said, and grinning, he added, “I will get your horse. You’re leaving?”

  “I’m going after Miss Tia.”

  “Good, you will save me the trouble. Her father’s men guard the circumference of the house, but outside the grounds here ... I tell her not to ride into danger. She promises she will not and does so anyway. She doesn’t think she lies because she refuses to see danger when it stops her from doing what she will.”

  Billy brought Friar from his stall and went for the saddle while Taylor bridled his horse. He thought that Billy’s assessment of young Miss McKenzie was right on the money—she didn’t think, and she didn’t see danger. She did what seemed right for her at the moment. She didn’t even see the danger she was causing in her father’s own house. She had no idea how her every word and movement were affecting Raymond Weir.

  “Thank you, Billy,” he said, and grinned, stepping back.

  Taylor followed the path Tia had taken. It was a clear shot to the woods, and once there, he could easily follow her trail. The area was exceptionally beautiful, the floor blanketed in pine needles, the trees forming canopies of green darkness overhead. He cantered through the trails at first, then slowed, certain she had stopped somewhere ahead. He dismounted, walking the distance, until he came to a copse around a beautiful, freshwater spring. She was seated upon a log, legs curled beneath her, staring at the water.

  “Too cold to dive in?” he inquired.

  Startled, she swung around, eyes widening, then filling with anger as she looked back to the water. “How did you find me? Billy told you where to go?”

  He walked over to her log and stood by it, then hunkered down, folding his hands before him, staring at the crystal clarity of the water as well. He didn’t gaze at her. He didn’t need to. It seemed that she was a memory in his mind’s eye. Her eyes were very dark, mahogany dark like her father’s—a strange twist of inherited traits, since James’s family, with their Seminole blood, all had light eyes, blue or green. Tia’s very coloring was part of her beauty. The depth of her eyes seemed endless. The color seemed to match the sable luster of her hair. Her cheeks were fair. Pure ivory and cream. And her features were delicate and beautifully formed. Soft rose naturally blushed her cheeks, her lips were the deep red of wine, generous, full, beautifully formed. He remembered too clearly the taste of them.

  “No one needed to tell me where to go,” he said. “You’re easy to follow.”

  “Why did you follow me? I left the house to escape.”

  “To escape what?”

  “Mainly you,” she said, turning to stare at him.

  “Or perhaps your father’s disappointment?” he suggested. She turned away quickly, and he knew that he was right. She had wanted to get to him—and so her stirring rendition of “Dixie.” She hadn’t gotten beneath his skin at all—he liked the song. But she had disturbed Jarrett.

  “I’m not your concern. Why did you follow me? Why couldn’t you just leave me be?”

  “Billy was about to come after you—he said he warned you to stay closer to the grounds of the house.”

  She shook her head, staring at him. “You’re in danger. I’m not. I serve with the Rebel militia. No one is angry at me.”

  “You don’t need people to be personally angry at you to attract violence, I’m afraid. But I told you before—I’m angry with you.”

  “Well, are you a threat?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve certainly warned you of that, too.”

  “But you’ve given me your word that you will not reveal my secret.”

  “As long as you keep your word.”

  “I said I would.”

  “But will you? You like to play with fire.”

  She sighed, then stared at him. “Why is it that a man is brave and a woman foolish when they both want to fight for something in which they believe?”

  “I don’t consider all women fools.”

  “Only me? How selective of you!” She shook her head angrily, loosening the coil that had held the length of her hair. It rumbled down her back. He rose, but she saw him coming and jumped off her log, retreating from him. She backed into a tree, and he reached around her, capturing a long tendril of her hair. It curled around his fingers like a silk sheath. “I should slice this off here and now, force you to keep your word.”

  “My father would kill you.”

  “For what—assault upon your hair?”

  She tugged at the lock. “Let go.”

  “Maybe. After we have a conversation. Tell me, Miss McKenzie, who do you know better? Weir—or me?”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Colonel?” she demanded impatiently. “We’ve known Colonel Weir forever; he is a friend of the family.”

  He leaned toward her, laying his free palm flat against the tree at her back. “No, Miss McKenzie, you misunderstand me. Who do you know better? Was there a serious relationship between you two?”

  “It’s none of your business, is it, sir?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “How can it be?”

  “Well, I feel that I’ve come to know you rather well. And having learned how well versed you are in the art of seduction through intimate experience, I feel obliged to ask. Does he know your lips the way that I do? Or the feel of your bare breast in his hands—”

  She was quick. She very nearly caught his cheek with a serious slap—one which might have left it reddened for hours to come.

  But, she realized, he had goaded her on purpose, he had expected the slap—and so he had caught her hand in the nick of time.

  She lifted her chin, her eyes flashing. “You tell me, sir—how does the feel of my bare breast compare to that of your wife?”

  She might as well have managed to strike him, the sudden pain that seared him was so very sharp.

  Abby was dead. For what felt like many years now.

  Yet her question seemed to rob him of breath, to tear at his heart, his soul.

  She didn’t realize that his wife was dead.

  But he had no desire to inform her. He stared at her blankly, fighting the reminder of the pain and impotent rage that had filled him at her death. He had learned to live with it. He’d been with other women since her death. He didn’t understand what affected him so, until he thought, she’s like Abby in this, too much like Abby.

  He hadn’t seen it at first, because they were so different. Abby was pale in her beauty, golden, with eyes bluer than the morning sky. But she could be so stubborn as well. Set on her own course, refusing to see the danger ...

  He could still hear her, crying out that she could reach the injured men. He could hear himself shouting to her, “Abby, no!”

  She had turned to smile, but had kept hurrying forward.

  “I can reach them.”

  But he couldn’t reach her.

  “Abby, no!”

  He had run after her. The day remained loud with the sound of fire. So loud that he didn’t hear the individual shot. Her eyes were still on his.

  Abby, Abby ...

  Huge, blue eyes, so very wide on his ...

  But she was falling, and when he caught her, confused, unable to believe what had happened, he lowered her to the ground. Pulled his hand away.

  And it was red, so very red; God yes, a sea of blood seemed to drip from his hand, blood from the hol
e that had pierced through her back, and straight into her heart ...

  His fingers tightened. He didn’t realize that he had unintentionally pulled Tia’s hair until she cried out.

  He eased his hold. Stared at her hard. Yes, in her way, she reminded him of Abby. And then again, she did not. She attracted and intrigued him. She didn’t know the power of her own passion. She made him feel a hunger stronger than what he’d felt with even the delicate wife he had loved so much. She infuriated, compelled, repelled him. She was the daughter of a friend; not a woman to be any man’s plaything, and yet, she didn’t know what she did. Best get the hell away. He had no power over her, no power to stop the tempest that surged around her. He gave himself a mental shake. Let go. Stepped back.

  “Everything about Abby brings perfection to mind, Miss McKenzie, her breasts included. Turn around. Get on your horse. Ride back to the property where those who love you can protect you.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do. Go tend to your own perfect Abby!”

  She spun around and walked away—just in time, perhaps. He was knotted with the anguish and fury she reawakened within him.

  Let her go, let her walk away. You couldn’t change fate for a woman who loved you, who listened to you. Here you are the enemy, loathed and despised ...

  He didn’t make a move to stop her. Staring into the water, he swore that he would ride away, and leave her to her own destiny.

  When he awoke on Christmas day, Brent thought that he would turn and find her gone, or discover that the night had been a dream. But it was not. She lay beside him, curled into the covers, appearing as innocent and untouched as she had come to him, and yet forever changed.

  He slid carefully from the bed, washed and dressed. Without awakening her, he left the house and walked the distance to the hospital. His aides greeted him with coffee. His patients, even those dying, seemed to awaken with a certain cheer for Christmas. Nurses and orderlies gave him home-cooked treasures, often small but given with love. He attended to his men, and the time passed far more quickly than he had known.

  At last, he could return to the house, and again, he feared that she would be gone.

  But there were delicious aromas arising from his house. When he entered, he found her in the kitchen. She offered him a beautiful smile. “No turkeys, I’m afraid. Nor could I get my hands on a ham. We’ve a rather sickly chicken, but there are two of us, so I think he will do.”

  He followed her with his eyes, and then came to her, taking her into his arms when she turned toward the stove with knit wool potholders in her hands. “The chicken will be the best I have ever tasted, though I admit to my greatest hunger wandering in other directions.”

  She flushed, telling him, “It will burn ...”

  “Rescue the chicken.”

  She did. She had sweet potatoes, turnips, and canned tomatoes as well. Canned peaches rounded out their feast. Conversation was polite; she asked about his current patients, and he told her what he could. They didn’t talk about the war, or the ravaged South, or the fact that they might well be losing, or that this time, Lee might fail and Grant might take Richmond.

  When they were done eating, he helped her to pick up the dishes, but then, in the kitchen, he could wait no longer. He pulled her into his arms, kissed her. She fumbled with the buttons on his jacket. He nearly tied her into her apron for all time. And still, breathless, laughing, they shed their clothing on the way to the bedroom. They made love, and made love again, and sated for the time, Brent stoked the fire, and she had risen with him, so he wrapped her in the blanket and sat with her in the chair before the flames, watching them burn.

  “Mary ... why did you really come here?”

  “I told you—because I wanted to be with you.”

  “But I thought you wanted to be alone.”

  “I needed to be alone for a while. Because of my father. But I also needed to be with you. Because I can’t just be somewhere and pretend the war doesn’t exist. And because I can’t just be somewhere ... and forget that you exist.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.”

  “You have to marry me,” he said gravely.

  She touched his face. “No, Brent. You don’t have to marry me because I came here, because I wanted to be with you. I knew what I was doing. You don’t owe me anything. I was afraid that raised as a gentleman, you would think you owed me for my innocence, but you will not marry me for that reason!”

  He smiled. “What about the reason that I want to be with you?”

  “Brent, there is a war, you were alone—”

  “Alone all my life until I met you.”

  “That is so kind.”

  “It is also true. Marry me ... because I love you,” he said firmly.

  “Oh, Brent ...”

  “Well?”

  “Well ...”

  “Say it!”

  She smiled. “Yes, I love you!”

  “It wouldn’t be at all proper for a respected surgeon to live in sin!” he told her.

  “Not at all!”

  “And I simply won’t let you seduce me anymore if you don’t intend to do the right thing!” he teased.

  She stared at him, and started to laugh.

  And she kissed him, and they made love again, and it was the best Christmas he might have ever imagined.

  Chapter 10

  TIA RETURNED TO THE house, riding hard. When she saw Billy, she realized that she had really frightened him.

  She dismounted from Blaze, and set her hand on Billy’s upper arm. “I’m sorry. Honestly, Billy, I wouldn’t want you upset.”

  He nodded. “Please, Miss Tia, become aware of what is going on around you.”

  “Billy, I’ve been gone from home most of the war.”

  “But the war changes every day.”

  “I’ll be careful, Billy. I promise.”

  “Your father came here, looking for you.”

  “Thank you, Billy, I’ll find him.”

  “I told him you were with Colonel Douglas.”

  Billy said the words as if her being with Taylor had made everything all right. She tried to swallow down her feeling of hostility. She couldn’t. It galled her to remember the morning by the river, when she had set out to seduce him so that her green Rebel boys could take him down. She grew infuriated with herself when she thought of the things that had happened between them, the way that she had felt being with him, how quickly she had fallen to the force of his touch, how she had felt his kiss, his hands ...

  And he was married.

  She forced a smile for Billy and hurried back toward the house, clenching and unclenching her fists. She reached the house, ran up the porch steps and into the front hallway.

  Her father’s office was to the right. She walked to it, tapped on the door. There was no response. She opened the door and stepped in. Her father wasn’t about.

  With a sigh she went to the large plush leather chair his mother had ordered made for his last birthday. The leather was soft; the chair was deep and encompassing. She sat in it and leaned back, wondering why it should seem her soul was in such a tempest. She opened her eyes. A cut glass decanter of sherry sat on the occasional table across the room. She leapt up, and helped herself to a large glass of sherry.

  Her father chose that minute to enter the room.

  She was, as her mother had told her, her father’s daughter. She knew that her dark eyes were his, that she had inherited his rich ebony hair. But he was very tall, and though gaining more silver in his hair with every year, the expanse of his shoulders remained broad while his torso was as lean and hard as ever. He had been a wonderful parent, stern, a teacher. But she had always felt that she could run to him, and he could solve all problems. In many ways, she had certainly been a spoiled and privileged child. But he had expected manners, intelligence, ethics, and compassion from his children. They had all been taught courtesy, to give way to the elderly and injured, no matter their color or
ethnic derivation. His employees worked hard for him, and they were rewarded for their labors. He was, however, a typical father in many ways. His sons had certainly enjoyed a few days of carousing. His daughter he had always protected and pampered—and he expected her to behave with modesty, even if he had encouraged her education and even her free speech in almost every conversation.

  He arched a very dark brow at her, eyeing the sherry she’d poured.

  “A bit early for you, isn’t it?” he said, moving on into the room, his hands folded at his back. He went to the window. His office looked down the river at the far slope of the land. His back remained to her.

  “I’m sorry, Father!” she cried.

  She wanted to go to him. His back seemed stern and aloof.

  He turned around. She saw his eyes and knew that he loved her—but that he was baffled. She set the sherry glass down and ran to him, feeling his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head. “Whatever demon got into you today?” he asked her. He tilted her chin so that he could meet her eyes. “I was always grateful that Julian was a doctor, that he joined the militia as such. And though it tore at every paternal muscle in my body, I knew that you needed to go with him. But I have never lost sight of the fact that we were becoming a strong nation because we were so many states together, and though we went to war over states rights, the argument had always been over slavery—an institution that is obviously morally wrong, and should be legally wrong. And I can’t believe that you don’t agree with me.”

  “I do agree with you!” she said. “I just don’t agree with ...”

  “With what?” he asked.

  At the moment, she couldn’t remember.

  “Father, it’s our state I support. My God! Dozens of men were against secession, but when their states seceded—”

  “Yes, yes, I know, even the great Robert E. Lee was against secession!”

  “Well, yes, I wasn’t going to mention his name, but since you did ...”

  “Men from both sides are guests in this house,” he told her. “We were to show no offense to either. Ian has managed to be very circumspect.”

  “Ian is treading on dangerous territory!”