Heather Graham's Christmas Treasures

by Heather Graham

  When morning came, Isabelle made no pretense of denial. She kissed him eagerly by the light of day, met his eyes openly, honestly, and smiled at his hoarse cry as she was swept into the ardent rhythm of his love-making.

  She dined with him that evening. He told her about the battles, about Wilderness, about Cold Harbor, Chancellorsville. There was so much sadness in him. She kept a tight rein on her own emotions as she told him that James had been taken prisoner at Petersburg, but that she had heard he was in Washington, not Camp Douglas, in Chicago, which the Rebs feared so greatly.

  Two nights later the men started playing Christmas carols. They came in and used the piano, and they played their sad harmonicas. She felt for them, for their longing to go home.

  She didn't run away when they sang, and when Sergeant Sikes prodded her, she even rose to sing herself. To the tune of "Greensleeves" she sang about the Christ child's birth, and when she was done, the room was silent and still, and the eyes of every man in the place were on her. At last Sikes cleared his throat, and Private Trent laughed and said that he had made a wreath, and he went out and brought it in. She told them that they could find the household decorations in the attic, and they raced up to bring them down. Soon the place looked and smelled and glowed of Christmas.

  Travis, who had watched her from beside the fire, turned and left the room. She heard his footsteps on the stairs.

  Rising, she determined to follow him.

  He was in the room they shared, staring down at the half-packed portmanteau she had set in one corner. She stared at him in silence as his eyes challenged hers.

  "You're leaving again?"

  "Yes."

  He walked across the room to her, pinning her against the door, his palms flat against the wood on either side of her head. He searched her eyes for a moment, then walked away to stand in front of the fire, his hands clasped behind his back.

  "There's something for you on the table," he told her.

  "What is it?"

  "Go see for yourself."

  She hesitated, then walked across the room to the round oak table by the window. There was an official-looking document there wrapped in vellum and red ribbon.

  "Travis...?"

  "Open it," he commanded.

  She did so, her fingers shaking. There was a lot of official language that she read over quickly and in confusion, and then she saw her brother's name. Lieutenant James L. Hinton. She kept reading, trying to make sense of the legal terms and the fancy handwriting. Then she realized that James was to be exchanged for another prisoner, that he was going to be sent home.

  She cried out and stared at Travis. She didn't know how he had arranged it, only that he had. She started to run toward him, then she stopped, her heart hammering.

  "Oh, Travis! You did this!"

  He nodded solemnly. "Merry Christmas. You never let me give you a gift. This year I thought you might."

  "Oh, Travis!" she repeated; then she raced into his arms. He kissed her, and it was long and deep, and as hot and glowing as the fire. Breathless, she pressed her lips against his throat. "Travis, it's the most wonderful gift in the world, but I have nothing for you. I would give you anything—"

  "Then marry me."

  She was silent. She saw the fever in his dark eyes, the shattering intensity.

  "I—I can't," she said.

  Disappointment banked the ebony fires. His jaw hardened, and she could hear the grating of his teeth. "And tomorrow afternoon you will come down to the office as if we were perfect strangers, and you will ask my blessing to leave."

  "Travis..."

  "Damn you! Damn you a thousand times over, Isabelle!" He turned away from her.

  "Travis!" she called again, and he turned to her.

  He stared at her for several agonizing seconds, and then his long strides brought him to her, and he wrenched her hard into his arms. His kiss was laced with force and fury, and his hands were less than tender as he touched her. She didn't care. She met his fury.

  "Isabelle!" Her name tore from him raggedly as his fingers threaded into her hair. In the end, the loving was sweet, agonizingly sweet, and accompanied by whispers that he loved her.

  Lying with her back to him, she repeated the words in silence. I love you. But the war was still on; he was still the enemy. She couldn't stay, and she couldn't tell him how she felt.

  Not even for Christmas.

  * * *

  Travis lay by her side and watched the moonlight as it fell on the sleek perfection of her body. Her back was long and beautiful, and the ivory moon glow caressed it exquisitely. Her hair was free and tangled around him, and he thought with a staggering burst of pain about how much he loved her, how much he needed her. And perhaps God was good, because he was alive and able to hold her, and she was here with him. And, damn it, he knew that she loved him!

  But he knew, too, that tomorrow would come, and that she would indeed enter the study and demand safe passage.

  Suddenly he smiled ironically. He could remember being young, could remember his parents asking him to choose the one thing he wanted most for Christmas. He would think carefully about it, and they always gave him the gift he chose.

  If only someone would ask him now. He wouldn't need to think. There was only one thing he would ask for.

  Isabelle.

  He mouthed her name, then rose, dressed and stepped into the hall. The smell of roasting chestnuts was in the air, along with the scent of the pine boughs the men had brought in.

  Tomorrow would be Christmas Eve. She would come down for her safe-passage form, and he would give it to her.

  * * *

  He had been right. At noon Sergeant Hawkins came to tell him that Isabelle had requested an audience with him.

  And now he was alone.

  Chapter 4

  Christmas Eve, 1864

  With her safe-passage permit in her hands, Isabelle closed the door to Travis's office behind her and leaned against it. Didn't he understand that it hurt to leave him, but that it was all that she had left? She was among the nearly beaten, the bested. She was a part of the South. Once she had thrilled to the sound of a Rebel yell; once she had believed with her whole heart that Virginia had had a right to secede; once she had followed that distant drum.

  It was true, perhaps, that the end was near, but the South had yet to surrender, so how could she do so?

  She hurried along the hallway. Sergeant Sikes was there, waiting for her with his light blue eyes clouded, his face sad and weary. "So, you're leaving, Miss Hinton. I had hoped that you might stay this year."

  She adjusted her gloves, and smiled. "It's Christmas, Sergeant. We should be with our own kind, don't you think?"

  "It ain't up to me to think, ma'am. I'm just the sergeant." He turned, opening the door for her. "Seems to me, though, that Christmas means we ought to be with the ones we love. Yes, ma'am, that's what it seems to me."

  "Sergeant," Isabelle said sweetly, stepping onto the porch, "didn't you just tell me that you weren't supposed to do any thinking?"

  "Um." He whistled, and their horses were brought up by one of the privates. She mounted without his assistance, and he sighed and mounted his horse. They started out, Sergeant Sikes riding behind her. Even so, he was determined to talk. "We celebrate a day when a little baby was born. Oxen and lambs flocked around him!"

  "Right, Sergeant," she called back.

  "There were angels floating around in heaven. Wise men made a journey following a star. Why, ma'am, God looked down from heaven, and he actually smiled. Miss Hinton, even God and the army know that Christmas is a time for peace!"

  She turned around, smiling, "You love him a lot, don't you, Sergeant?"

  "Captain Travis? You bet I do, ma'am. He's a great officer. I've known him for years. I've watched him put his personal safety behind that of his men every time. I've seen him rally a flagging defense with the power of his own energy, and I've seen him demand that the killing stop when the war turned to butchery.
Damn right—'scuse me, ma'am—I do love him. And you do, too, don't you?"

  She opened her mouth, not at all sure what she was going to say. In the end she didn't say anything at all. She only stared across the snow-covered fields and saw that another party was out that day, three Union soldiers heading south, trailing a hospital cart behind them. They were headed for the farmstead where she had been attacked the year before.

  "Sergeant! There's a man on that cart."

  "That's the way it looks, Miss Hinton."

  "Come, then, let's see if we can be of help!"

  She urged her horse on, then realized that she had forgotten the men were Yankees. Maybe it was Christmas magic that made her so concerned for the unknown soldier in the cart. She didn't know.

  Her mare plowed through the dense white snow until she was nearly on top of the first soldier. "Sir! What's happened? I've been a nurse, perhaps I can be of some assistance."

  The young officer paused, reining in, looking back as one of the other soldiers lifted a body from the cart and headed for the house. "I don't think so, ma'am. The old fellow isn't going to make it. We found him on the trail, barefoot and fever-ridden, and we've been trying to help him along, but, well, it doesn't look very promising."

  Isabelle stared at him, then dismounted, tossing the reins over the porch railing. She caught up her skirts and hurried along the steps and inside.

  One of the soldiers was working diligently to start a fire. The other was beside the old man, who he had laid on the sofa, and was holding a flask to his lips.

  Isabelle stepped closer, and the Yankee soldier moved politely away. She gasped when she saw that the man on the couch was not a Yankee at all, but a Reb dressed in gray, with gold artillery trim. He was sixty, she thought, if he was a day, yet he had gone out to fight, and he had tried to walk home through the blistering cold with nothing but rags on his feet.

  She knelt beside him, pulling the blanket more tightly around him. "I've done what I can," the Yank beside him said. He inclined his head politely. "Frederick Walker, ma'am, surgeon to the Ninth Wisconsin Infantry. I promise you, I have done all that is humanly possible."

  She nodded quickly to him, but she didn't leave the old man's side. She took his hand.

  "He wanted to get home. Home for Christmas. We were trying to see that he made it, but... well, sometimes home is a very long way away."

  "Is he comfortable?" Isabelle asked.

  "As comfortable as I can make him."

  Suddenly the old man's eyes opened. They were a faded blue, rimmed with red, but when he looked at Isabelle, there was a sparkle in them. "God alive! I've gone to heaven, and the angels are blond and beautiful!"

  Isabelle smiled. "No, sir, this isn't heaven. I saw the Yanks bring you in and came to see if I could do anything. I'm Isabelle Hinton, sir." She flashed a look at the doctor, wondering if she should be encouraging the old man to talk. The doctor's eyes told her that it was a kindness.

  The old man wheezed, and his chest rattled, but he kept smiling. "What are you doing out on Christmas Eve, on a day like today? You should be warm and safe at home, young lady."

  "And you shouldn't have been walking in your bare feet!"

  "They weren't bare. They were in the best shoes the Confederacy has to offer these days!" he said indignantly. He sighed softly, then caught her eyes. "Oh, girl, don't look so sad! I knew my game was up. I was just trying to see if I could make it home. These nice young fellows tried to give me a lift." He motioned to her, indicating that she should draw near. "Yanks!" he told her, as if she hadn't noticed. Then he smiled broadly. "The doc here knows my boy Jeremy. Jeremy is a doc with a West Virginia division. They've worked together on the field. In Spotsylvania and Antietam Creek. Even at Gettysburg. Isn't that right, Doc?"

  "Your son is in the Union?"

  "One of them. Both my boys with Lee are still alive, and my daughters, they're back home. But you know, Miss Hinton, every year, whoever could get leave came home for Christmas. Not that we could get many leaves but... no matter what, we all wrote. My boys all wrote to me no matter what, no matter what color uniform they were wearing. And having those letters, why, it meant everything. It meant that I was home for Christmas." He broke off, coughing in a long spasm. Isabelle worriedly patted his chest. The young Yankee doctor offered him another drink. It soothed the coughing. Then he lay back, exhausted, but he looked at her worriedly. "Don't you fret so, girl. I'm going to a finer place. I'm going where the angels really sing. Can you imagine what a Christmas celebration is like in heaven? Where the war don't make no difference? Quit worrying about me. Go home. Go home for Christmas."

  She shook her head, swallowing. "I—I don't want to leave you."

  His eyes closed, but he smiled, his lips parched and dry. "Then stay with me. But when I'm gone, promise me that you'll go home."

  "I don't know where home is," she whispered beneath her breath.

  But he heard her. His eyes opened, soft and cloudy, but she knew that he was seeing her.

  "Home is where there is love, child. Surely you know that. It don't matter if it's a shack or a palace or a blanket beside a fire, home is where love is."

  His eyes closed again. Isabelle squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. Then his lungs rattled again, and the pressure of his hand against hers faded.

  Tears flooded her eyes and spilled over his blanket.

  Someone was touching her shoulder. Sergeant Sikes. "You come on now, Miss Hinton. Let me get you to Katie Holloway's place."

  She let him lead her to the door because she could hardly see. She couldn't bear the injustice of it, that the old man had to die so close to home.

  She shook free of the Sergeant's touch and turned back. The old man seemed entirely at peace. The lines had eased from his face. He even seemed to be smiling.

  She walked into the snow. Someone came to assist her into the saddle, and Sergeant Sikes remounted, too.

  They could go on. She could go to Katie's for the holiday.

  Or she could go home.

  She cried out suddenly, pulling the reins with such force that the startled animal reared and pawed the air, spewing snowflakes everywhere.

  "Miss Hinton—" the sergeant began.

  "Oh, Sergeant Sikes! He hasn't died in vain, has he? He's in there smiling away, even in death. Because he's home. And I'm going home, too. It's Christmas, Sergeant!"

  Let the Yanks think that she was crazy. It was true that the war wasn't over yet. But for her it was. At least for Christmas.

  She felt that she was flying over the snow. It was a day that promised peace to all mankind.

  The snow was kicked up beneath the mare's hooves, and the wind whipped by them as she raced across the barren countryside. Sikes was far behind her, but he needn't have worried. She knew the way.

  At last she saw the house. Through the window she could even see the fire that burned in the hearth in the office.

  She leaped from her mare and raced, covered in snow, up the steps. She tore open the door, leaving it ajar, and flew on winged feet to the den. She didn't knock, just threw open that door, too. And then she stopped at last, completely breathless, unable to speak.

  Travis was behind the desk. He stared at her in astonishment, then leaped to his feet, coming quickly around to her. She sagged into his arms.

  "Isabelle! Are you hurt? What's happened? Isabelle—"

  "I'm not hurt!"

  "Then—"

  "Nothing has happened."

  "Then—"

  "I'm just home, that's all. I've come home for the holidays. Oh, Travis, I love you so much!"

  He carried her to the hearth and sat before the fire, holding her on his lap, his eyes searching hers. He whispered her name and buried his face against her throat, then repeated her name again.

  "I do love you, Travis. So very much."

  He shook his head, confused. "I think I've loved you forever. But you left...."

  "I had to stop. Some Yanks were taking an o
ld Rebel home, but he didn't make it. He died, Travis."

  "Oh, Isabelle, I'm sorry."

  "No, Travis, no. He was satisfied with his life. He'd known all kinds of love and... and he'd never cared about the color of it. It's so hard to explain. He just made me see... Travis, love is fragile. So hard to come by, so hard to earn. As fragile as a Christmas snowflake. Oh, Travis!"

  She wound her arms around him, and kissed him slowly and deeply. Then her eyes found his again. "I—I'd like to give you something. What you did, getting James freed, was wonderful."

  "Isabelle, you're my Christmas present. You're what I have wanted forever."

  She flushed. "Well, I was hoping you would say that. Because I don't have anything to wrap for you. I've been so stubborn, so horrible."

  "Isabelle—"

  "Travis, do you really love me?"

  "More than anything in the world, Isabelle."

  "Then may I be your Christmas gift?"

  "What do you mean?" He started to smile, but his eyes were suspicious.

  "I mean, well, it would be a present for me, too, really. You—" She paused, took a deep breath and plunged onward. "You said you wanted to marry me. Our minister has gone south with the troops, but your Yankee chaplain is with you, and the church is just down the lane. Travis, I'm trying to say that I'll marry you. For Christmas. If you want to, that is."

  He was silent for the longest time. Then he let out a shriek that rivaled the heartiest Rebel yell she had ever heard. He was on his feet, whirling around with her in his arms. He paused at last to kiss her; then he laughed and kissed her again.

  When his eyes finally met hers again, they were brilliant with the fires of love, and his hands trembled where they touched her.

  "Isabelle, there has never, never been a greater Christmas gift. Never. God knows, there is no gift so sweet or so fine as the gift of love."

  She smiled, winding her arms more tightly around him. "And the gift of peace, Travis. You've given me both."

  * * *

  It wasn't hard to arrange. The men tripped over themselves to decorate the church, and though little else could be done on such short notice, they did manage to bring old Katie Holloway in for the ceremony.