by Rosalyn West
Dismissed from his obligations, Dodge chose to search out a comfortable chair on the fringe of the gathering where he could succumb to the agony of remaining on his feet. In the three weeks since sensation had begun seeping back through his legs, he’d ignored the doctor’s cautionings, pushing his recuperation beyond the edge of endurance to get to this spot, to stand beside the friend to whom he owed his life. That done, he could collapse in happy misery. With a glass of good bourbon in one hand and a cigar smoldering in the other, he amused himself by watching the elite company mill about with practiced insincerity. They were smiling at his best friend through gritted teeth because he was now linked to the mighty Sinclairs of Pride County. And the Sinclairs couldn’t be snubbed.
Dodge wasn’t one for artifice. His cut-to-the-point bluntness put him at odds with the average silken-tongued Southerner. To Dodge there was a fine line between tact and lying, a line most of those in the room crossed without compunction, though none quite so eloquently as Starla Fairfax.
He never made a conscious decision to stare. The black-haired beauty demanded attention, and who was he to refuse? She was everything he’d ever heard about Confederate women, with their vain need to conquer everything in their path as determinedly as Sherman had on his sweep to the sea. He could imagine a long line of broken hearts, left like smoldering chimneys in Starla’s scorching wake. But what man could resist casting himself in the path of purposeful self-destruction? She was the most mesmerizing creature imaginable.
She entranced him.
He watched her flit from gentleman to gentleman, a lunar moth, all dainty gossamer without weight or true substance. She’d light for a moment, fluttering both fan and eyelashes with the seriousness of a fencing foil: en garde, parry, thrust, luring each unsuspecting fool into a game he’d already lost. The tease of her smile, the sultry gleam of promise in eyes cold as glittering gems, the musical scale of her laughter playing out in devastating lower registers, the tempting toss of ebony curls—all were designed to bewitch and intrigue. While Dodge was both those things, he was also wondering why a woman so beautiful, so alluring, could be so good doing something she obviously disliked so much. Because the instant she was certain of her conquest, she ducked away from the besotted swain to home in on another.
The swaying bell of her skirt stilled before Deacon Sinclair, a man so austere and forbidding that most females quaked at his attention. But not Patrice’s daring Mend. Her performance was flawless; Dodge gave her that. The stroke of her closed fan along the lapel of Deacon’s frock coat was meant to stir a flurry of excitement within the breast beneath it. Her luscious pouts puckered her lips into unbearably kissable treasures. But when she leaned near enough to send most men staggering back in a panic of self-denial, Deacon caught her Wrists, and with a contemptuous word, pushed her away.
In that moment, Starla turned to catch Dodge’s entertained smirk. Instead of blushing at the witness of her failed seduction, she met Dodge’s look with one of haughty challenge. Instead of fleeing in embarrassment, she sashayed toward him, her stride purposeful in intent. The edge to her words betrayed her annoyance at his refusal to look ashamed.
“Something amuses you, sir? Share the jest so we both might laugh together. Unless you only find humor at the uninvited expense of others.”
He grinned up at her. He didn’t have Deacon Sinclair’s celibate nature, and the woman had set everything that was male growling to life inside him. She was magnificent this close, her skin ivory perfection against the cloud of raven hair, above the snug dip of her neckline, skin that would feel softer to the touch than anything had a right to.
But a wise man wouldn’t give such a woman the power that came with the knowledge that she rattled him to his soul. So he gave away nothing with his reply. “Oh, I have a hell of a sense of humor, ma’am. I was just admiring your boldness in taking on Sinclair. You had to know that was like trying to defeat the Army of the Potomac with a pocket knife.”
She almost smiled. Almost.
“How uncharitable of you to liken my attention to that of a siege.” The assessment in her gaze grew less flattering. “I suppose you’d be scrambling for cover.”
“No, ma’am.” He nodded toward his crutches. “I’m not much for running these days. I tend to stand my ground.”
She glanced at the crutches. It would have been a simple thing for her to use his infirmity to strip the pride from him. She could have done so with an unkind remark, even with a disdainful glance designed to make him feel less of a man in her esteem. From such a glorious creature, the wound might have been fatal. But no trace of sympathy or intolerable pity softened her mood. Her gaze lost none of its glitter as she said, “Is that so? Then you do more than watch?”
Relieved and revitalized, he snapped to the challenge. “As much as decorum … and the lady … allow me, ma’am.”
“You have no manners, sir.” She said it casually, as a comment, not a complaint.
“If someone told you I had, they misled you. We’re going to get along famously, you and I.”
His confident claim shocked past her air of ennui. He saw the change and wondered over it. Her stare sharpened warily, transforming her from flighty moth to aggressive bird of prey in an instant.
“Why would you think that, sir? You do not know me, nor I you.”
“I mean to remedy that, the you-knowing-me part. But I do know you. I know you’re more like your brother than I first suspected.”
Starla frowned, alarmed, agitated by his insight and insinuation. “You and Tyler are friends?”
“Not exactly. We’ve had—dealings.”
“And that makes you think we will, too, is that it, Mr. Dodge?” She trailed the edge of her fan along his jaw to let it pause beneath his chin. Their gazes met and held for a heartbeat, then two. Just when he feared he’d strangle on the thickening sense of expectation, her ripe lips pursed in sultry defiance, daring him to make some foolish claim.
Unable to resist, Dodge grinned wide. “I’d bank on it, ma’am.”
Her fan continued up the other side of his face, then delivered a sharp rap to his ear that was neither playful nor coy. It stung like the bite of her pronouncement.
“You’d be wrong.”
With that she spun away, leaving him grinning after her, not at all discouraged.
What he did find discouraging was that though she fired his blood into a twenty-one-gun salute, below the waist there was nothing burning … not even a spark.
If a woman like Starla Fairfax couldn’t bring a man’s loins roaring back to life, he was as good as dead. Was that what he had to look forward to? A lifetime of chafing at desires he couldn’t satisfy? He couldn’t look at a woman like Starla without imagining the touching and all the pleasurable things that would follow that initial contact if he had his way. If looking was all he’d ever be allowed, death seemed preferable.
He quickly hid his misgivings as Patrice Garrett came to kneel beside his chair. She teased him with her knowing smile, coaxing his humor back from the edge of abysmal self-indulgence as only she could.
“Has she broken your heart already?”
Dodge gave her a wry look. “I don’t think it was my heart she was trying to rupture.”
Used to his blunt ways, Patrice wasn’t offended. “That means she’s either interested—”
“Or—?”
“She’s interested,” Patrice concluded.
Dodge wasn’t so sure. “In filleting me alive, maybe.”
“If you hadn’t made an impression, she wouldn’t have bothered to give you an honest reaction. She’s—how to explain Starla Fairfax?”
“Complicated?”
Patrice nodded at his astute claim. “And you like her! Oh, I’d hoped you would. She and Tyler—” A sad bitterness broke that happy reminiscence, and Dodge was quick to distract her from her sorrow.
“Now, you hold on there, missy. Don’t go ringing wedding bells just yet.”
“I won’t.�
�
But he could see her eyes measuring him for groom’s wear. Surprisingly, he didn’t fight her overt matchmaking too hard. What man would object to the thought of sharing a future of days—and nights—with a woman of such beauty and mystery? Until he caught a glimpse of a furtive figure skimming past the doorway to the hall, reminding him of the one detail surrounding Starla Fairfax that could be a problem.
“Take a walk with me.”
Though surprised by the suggestion, Patrice supplied his crutches, letting him lever himself up and out of the chair without offering her assistance. She’d never compromised his sense of worth by fussing; it was one of the things that so endeared her to him.
Once the padded supports were wedged under his arms, he started toward the lobby of the hotel, through the throng of well-wishers, pausing often to wait for Patrice to receive hugs of guarded congratulations. She followed without question until they left the noise of her celebration behind. Once in the foyer, she stayed him with a hand upon his arm.
“Dodge—?”
Then she saw what he’d seen, the one missing—and uninvited—guest who would have completed the joyous event in heart, if not in mind.
Tyler Fairfax stood in the shadows of the foyer. He wore clothes that looked slept in, his shirt half untucked, his black hair unruly over eyes red and raw from too much drink. His bleary gaze took in Patrice in her wedding finery, anguish cutting a brief swath through the dull glaze before he pulled his impassive mask together.
“I beg your pardon, chère. It was not my intention to sully the evening by showing up unannounced. And unwanted.”
Patrice steeled herself behind a chill of bare civility. “Not even you could ruin tonight.” She turned to go, but with unexpected agility Tyler caught her wrist. Dodge made no move to intercede. Tyler Fairfax posed no threat except to himself. Dodge recognized the signs of a man suffering from a case of unrequited devotion.
While Patrice stood stiff and still, Tyler lifted her hand with the utmost care to where he could place a brief kiss upon it. His intense stare never left hers, except for a flicker downward to observe the shiny gold ring she wore. A wry smile warped his lips.
“Bonne chance, Mrs. Garrett I wish you well.”
Patrice withdrew her hand with a curt, “If that’s true, you can stay away from us. And from Starla.”
“It’s for my sister that I ask a favor.”
She glared at him narrowly. “What?”
“When you return to the Glade, take Star with you. It’s not safe for her to remain in town unpro—alone.”
“Unprotected” was the word Dodge guessed he meant to say. But unprotected against what?
“Patrice, I beg you to do this for her sake, not mine. You’ve my word I’ll stay away. She’s just arrived. Her bags are still at the station. She can’t come home. Patrice … if you ever cared for us at all … please.”
There was just enough honest agitation in his voice and in the furtive shadowing of his stare to alarm Patrice into nodding.
“All right, Tyler.”
Her cool tone offered no opening for further conversation. Still, he hesitated, his stoic facade wavering when he finally said, “Tell Reeve—” But he broke off abruptly and wheeled away, leaving the rest unspoken.
And as Dodge escorted the troubled bride back to her reception, he was disturbed, as well.
What danger was Tyler so afraid would befall his sister upon her return to home and family?
Chapter 2
Home.
The relief of it shivered through Starla Fairfax as she stood on the cool balcony of Glendower Glade. She’d spent many a social day and evening at the Glade, enough to feel comfortable within its sprawling rooms, but it wasn’t the house that embraced her with welcome; it was the sense of familiarity.
She took in a deep breath redolent of the rich, fertile scents of Kentucky soil and blue stem grasses still wet with dew. More subtle aromas were entwined with those of springy earth, of horse and fragrant blossoms, of crisp inland air free of the thick salt tang she’d come to despise. It was the clean crispness she missed the most in the air, across the endless pastures and unclouded sky. Heaven on earth in Pride County, Kentucky. And no matter what her brother warned, she was home to stay.
Of course, for now she was just a guest of the Glade and her best friend since childhood. She might have felt awkward coming home with the newlyweds, but the sprawling Glendower horse farm was large enough to afford a Northern Army battalion privacy in one wing and yet house a Southern regiment in the other without one knowing of the other’s presence. She hadn’t hesitated in accepting Patrice’s offer. There was something to say about Providence. She needed the solitude, the benign surroundings, the time to gather her thoughts and the direction of her future about her.
For the last four years she’d made herself forget those she’d loved and left behind. She’d lived someone else’s life in a world foreign to her own—until it was more dangerous to remain and pretend than to return and face the demons of her youth. She told herself she was ready to meet them.
All the way up from the Gulf Coast she’d repeated that catechism of bravery. But now, even here, tucked safely within the bosom of the Glade, she felt the tendrils of shadowed recall reach for her, chilling along her flesh like an unhealthy breeze, knotting her stomach in remembered anxiety. The shadows housed at Fair Play. She knew then, as panic tightened, that she’d fooled herself if she thought she was strong enough to greet those memories head-on.
“Good morning.”
Starla gave a start at the sound of another’s voice, then turned to greet her friend with a smile.
“Why, Mrs. Reeve Garrett, you are the last soul I expected to see before noon.”
Patrice wasted no time with false blushes. Her features glowed from a happiness that touched Starla’s spirit with a bittersweet pang. The new bride embraced her warmly.
“I wanted to make sure you didn’t feel excluded here.”
Starla’s laugh held a sliver of its former sharp wit. “Why, Patrice, honey, you’re not suggesting something indecent, are you?”
Patrice hugged her hard. “Oh, Lord, I’ve missed you, Star. Why did you stay away so long?”
Caught up in the same tangle of regret, Starla could think of nothing clever so she stayed silent, soaking up the joy of being with her dearest friend on earth. They’d grown up sharing every secret, every wish. But now Starla could share no more than her gladness. Her motives and her memories were best locked away from even the most sympathetic ears. Patrice would never understand, even if she might forgive.
Starla pushed away, adopting an air of conspiratorial naughtiness. “So, tell me, how you finally managed to snare ol’ Reeve Garrett without your sourpuss brother putting a hole in him.”
Arm in arm, giggling like schoolgirls, they looked out over the placid pastures of Glendower Glade to tell secrets once more. Starla went teary-eyed at hearing of the deaths of both Reeve’s and Patrice’s fathers—Avery Sinclair in battle, Byron Glendower to natural causes less than two months ago. She listened pridefully as Patrice told of holding the Sinclair properties until her brother’s return and mourned, along with Patrice, the martyred execution of Reeve’s half brother, Jonah, at the hands of the Union Army. For a short time Jonah had been Patrice’s fiancé. It had taken tragedy and turmoil for her and Reeve to realize they belonged together. Then, finally, Starla asked the dreaded question.
“What about Tyler? Why wasn’t he at your wedding? He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“You haven’t seen him yet?”
Starla shook her head. “I came right to the hotel from the station. Nothing’s happened, has it?”
If Patrice thought it odd that Starla had gone to a wedding before going to her family’s home after a four-year absence—that she’d yet to visit there—she knew her friend too well to mention it. Instead, she addressed her anxiousness.
“Tyler is—fine. When was the last time you heard fro
m him?”
“I haven’t, really. Just short messages to say he was well.”
“Then you know nothing of what he’s been doing since you left.” Patrice’s expression told her more than any words. She couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes. “He’s changed, Starla.”
Knowing her brother, Starla braced to hear the worst. “Tell me.”
“Since the war, he’s been running with the Dermont brothers.”
That said plenty. Starla wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Them! Ugh! Not a brain among the lot of them. Why would Tyler turn to the likes of that trash?”
“Reeve, Mede, Noble—they all left to follow the fighting. Tyler stayed to take care of your father and the distillery. He helped the Dermonts form a local Home Guard. At first they did some good, protecting a few of the small outlying farms from raiding Yankee bands. But when the federals declared martial law in all pockets of Confederate support, like here in Pride, they stirred up trouble, as often with the people they were supposed to protect as not.”
Starla took a deep breath, her heart aching. “And now?”
“Now they hide behind hoods in the night and frighten those they can into supporting their causes and—”
“And?”
Patrice faced her then, her features toughened to exclude all sympathy. “And they ‘intimidate’ those who won’t bend.”
“By ‘intimidate,’ you mean what?”
“Burning barns, killing livestock, sometimes worse.”
Starla’s eyes squeezed shut on the images that arose. “I never should have left him.” She gazed at her friend in anguish when Patrice gripped her shoulders.
“You cannot blame yourself for Tyler, Star. He made his own choices.”
Her disbelief and pain continued to grow. “But he wouldn’t have done such things if I hadn’t gone.”
