“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”
“You’re just saying that.” Clara folded her arms over her chest and lowered her eyes. “I have dirt under my fingernails. I have calluses on my hands. My clothes are—”
Wilhelmina placed a finger over Clara’s lips to stop her recital of her list of perceived faults.
“I don’t care about any of those things. You’re beautiful, Clara. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Clara wordlessly lifted her arms, and Wilhelmina pulled Clara’s chemise over her head. Clara’s lustrous red hair tumbled onto her bare shoulders. Her luminous breasts were full and ripe. Wilhelmina took one into her mouth and was rewarded with a soft moan. The moan grew louder when she flicked her tongue against the hard pink nipple.
“Don’t stop,” Clara said after Wilhelmina pulled away.
“I don’t intend to.”
Wilhelmina pulled Clara’s pantaloons down and watched her step out of them. The hair at the apex of her thighs was the same shade of red as the locks on her head. Wilhelmina slowly dragged her fingers through it. She felt something slick and hard as Clara rocked her hips against her hand.
“More,” Clara said in a fierce whisper. “I want more of that.”
Wilhelmina pulled Clara tight against her and slipped two fingers inside her wetness. Clara moaned again.
“Oh, yes, Wil.”
Wilhelmina leaned against the wall for support as Clara rode her fingers. With her free hand, she gently kneaded the soft, warm flesh of Clara’s breasts. Clara’s hips moved faster and faster. Wilhelmina matched her pace, pumping her hand in time with Clara’s urgent thrusts.
Clara clutched her shoulders, her eyes wild. Wilhelmina watched a myriad of emotions play out on her face. Heard the aching need in her whispered pleas for “More. More. More.”
Then Clara’s eyes widened. She arched her back, cried out, and sagged against Wilhelmina. As Clara’s head lolled on her chest, Wilhelmina felt strong muscles spasming around her fingers, gripping them tightly, and pulling them deeper.
Wilhelmina gently lowered Clara to the ground. Skimmed a hand across her stomach as they lay on a bed of hay. Clara giggled as she pushed Wilhelmina’s hand away.
“Stop. That tickles.”
Wilhelmina kissed her and looked into her eyes.
“I love you, Clara Summers.”
Clara flashed a lazy smile. “I love you, too, Wil Fredericks.” She shook her head in wonder. “I never knew anything could feel that good.”
“Neither did I.”
Watching Clara had nearly been enough. She had almost been able to feel everything Clara was feeling. Almost, but not quite. Her heart pounded in her chest when Clara reached for her. Pulled her to her feet.
“Then let me show you.”
*
Clara’s fingers felt clumsy as she unbuttoned Wil’s uniform coat. The brass buttons were cool against her skin, providing a stark contrast to the warmth emanating from Wil’s body.
Wil’s body.
She remembered the first time she had seen Wil undressed. When she had cut away the bindings around Wil’s chest and unveiled her secret. Then she had only seen Wil naked from the waist up. When she had bathed her, she had done so with her eyes averted out of respect to Wil’s privacy. Now she didn’t need to turn away. Her mouth watered in anticipation.
The only other woman she had seen unclothed, aside from herself, was her mama. Near the end when Mama had been too weak to care for herself and Clara had done it for her. But that wasn’t the same. The things she had done for Mama were out of love. The things she wanted to do with Wil were out of love, too, but a much different kind.
She took off Wil’s coat and laid it aside. Treating it any other way would have felt disrespectful somehow. She touched the bindings covering Wil’s breasts but made no effort to remove them. She sought Wil’s permission first.
“May I see you? May I touch you?”
Wil’s eyes were wet.
“I think I might die if you don’t.”
Wil’s statement offered an unwelcome reminder of how close she had already come to dying—and how close she still might be if she followed through on her vow to return to the front. Clara pushed those thoughts from her mind. The war didn’t exist inside these walls. In here, there was no hate, animosity, or rancor. In here, there was only love.
She clasped the strips of cotton and began to unwrap them, winding the excess material around her hand like thread from a loom. She dropped the bindings on top of Wil’s coat and placed her hands on the rise of Wil’s breasts. Wil’s breath hitched when Clara began to touch her. Her shoulders. Her breasts. Her stomach. Her back. Wil’s arms were well-defined, and the indentations in her stomach were like the ridges on a washboard. Clara ran her hand across them. Let her fingers sink into the crevices.
“I’ve never seen a woman like you.”
She had strong hands and a strong back from years of working in the fields and around the farm, but she didn’t look like this. She didn’t feel like this. She unbuttoned Wil’s pants and slid them past her narrow hips. Wil stood before her, fully revealed.
“You’re—”
Beautiful? Handsome? Neither word seemed to truly fit.
“You’re perfect.”
She knelt on the hay and invited Wil to do the same. Then she laid Wil on her back and covered her body with her own. The feel of Wil’s skin against hers was almost too much to take. She shuddered at the rightness of it.
Wil parted her legs and, following her instincts, Clara slipped one of hers between them. Wil’s center was warm and wet against her thigh. Wil groaned deep in her throat and began to move against her.
Clara kissed Wil’s mouth. Her throat. Her chest. She wanted to kiss her everywhere. Even—
“Wait. Where are you going?” Wil asked when Clara started to crawl away.
Clara lay between Wil’s legs and slipped her shoulders under Wil’s thighs.
“I want to kiss you here.”
She closed her lips around Wil’s most private part. Stroked it with her tongue. Wil let out a high-pitched keening cry that made Slim shuffle nervously in his stall. Clara had never heard such a beautiful sound. She wanted to hear it again. And again. And again.
She lapped Wil with her tongue. Slowly at first, then faster and faster as Wil bucked against her mouth.
Wil tried to speak but produced only garbled sounds. Soft vowels and hard consonants.
When Clara looked into Wil’s eyes, she was nearly undone by the need she saw in them.
Wil groaned, stiffened, then stilled. Clara felt Wil’s pulse beating against her tongue.
“I like the way you kiss me,” Wil said, her voice raspy and pitched even lower than usual.
Clara lay in Wil’s arms and rested her head on her chest. Wil’s heart was beating faster than a herd of stampeding horses. She closed her eyes as Wil idly stroked her back. She felt lazy, but she couldn’t have slept if she tried.
“When are you leaving?” she asked.
Wil’s hand paused before resuming its gentle, soothing caresses.
“Tomorrow. Maybe the day after. I can’t leave before I get my strength back, or I won’t be able to pull my weight in camp. I also can’t wait too long, or I might not be able to catch up to my regiment if they pack up and leave for their next encampment.”
Clara gently touched the puckered skin on Wil’s chest.
“Short of showing them your wound, what will you say to convince your commanding officers you didn’t desert?”
Wil shrugged.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet. I can’t say I was injured because I would have to prove it. I can’t say I was captured because I’d have to make up a lie about how I escaped. The only thing I could possibly say for myself is deserters don’t return of their own free will.”
Clara couldn’t imagine the army accepting Wil back without punishment—if they accepted her at all. If she didn’t
end up in the stockade, she could find herself standing in front of a firing squad. Neither scenario boded well.
Clara held her tighter, wishing she didn’t ever have to let go.
“There’s nothing I can say to convince you to stay?”
“There’s plenty, but please don’t try. I know how dangerous it is for me to resume fighting, but I made a commitment when I enlisted and I intend to keep it. I gave up one life in order to live another. The comforts of home. My father’s riches. Those things are lost to me now. All I have left is my name. And I won’t see it tarnished by a charge that isn’t true.” Wil tilted Clara’s chin so she could look her in the eye. “Three years isn’t that long when you think about it.”
The past few days had felt like a lifetime for Clara. Three years would seem like an eternity.
“When my enlistment ends, I’m going to come back for you,” Wil said. “I’m going to come back for you, and I’m going to marry you.”
The idea thrilled and depressed Clara at the same time. Thrilled her because she had never wanted anything more. Depressed her because she knew it could never come to pass.
“Marry me? How?”
“Isn’t that what men and women do when they’re in love?”
Wil sounded so certain Clara started to think she was touched in the head for doubting her.
“Yes, it is.”
“And don’t you love me?”
“Yes, I do, but you’re not a man, Wil. You’re just dressed like one.”
“You’re the only person who could say different, and we can’t be together if you do. No one would accept it. No one would accept us.”
It didn’t seem fair. Clara finally knew what love was, but she couldn’t share her happiness with anyone she knew because they wouldn’t be able to understand how she could be in love with a woman. Not just any woman. A Yankee, to boot.
“Imagine it, Clara. We could have a life together if we want. You, me, Abram, and Percy. We could be a family.”
The picture Wil painted was so pretty, Clara could see it in her mind. But there was a problem with the wondrous scenario Wil had laid out: Solomon. He would rather see Wil dead than have her become part of the family. And if he knew she was a woman, that would really get his dander up. In his mind, a woman was supposed to be subservient to a man, not equal to him. Yet, during the crucible of war, Wil had proven herself to be the superior soldier. And, in many ways, the better man.
The fantasy running through Clara’s mind faded. A nightmarish reality took its place. The way things stood, she couldn’t have both Solomon and Wil in her life. Solomon was her brother, but Wil was the woman she loved.
And in order to have one, she would have to lose the other.
Chapter Eighteen
The sound of gunfire woke Wilhelmina from a deep sleep. Her first instinct was to reach for Clara to make sure she hadn’t been hit. A chill entered her bones when her hand touched only cold hay. Then she remembered Clara had returned to the house hours ago so Percy and Abram wouldn’t grow curious about her whereabouts and take it upon themselves to wander out to the barn and see what she was up to. Wilhelmina had helped her dress, then kissed her good night. The second time. Clara’s first attempt to leave hadn’t been very successful—in stark contrast to the lovemaking that had followed.
Wilhelmina would have preferred waking up to find Clara in her arms instead of her memory, but the next round of gunshots banished those idyllic thoughts from her mind. She picked up her rifle and peeked through the cracks in the boards to see if the soldiers wielding the weapons she heard were wearing blue or gray. The answer, it turned out, was neither.
Clara, Mary, and Mrs. Bragg were shooting at bottles resting on stumps of wood as Abram offered them advice on how to hold, aim, and fire the respective gun in their hands. Clara held Maynard’s pistol, Mrs. Bragg gripped a rifle that looked brand-new, and Mary struggled to wield a musket that appeared old enough to have been used in the Revolutionary War.
Percy and a man with long dark hair and a rail-thin frame observed the proceedings. Then it became clear to Wilhelmina that only Percy was watching the women take target practice because the man standing beside him couldn’t see. He had his head cocked toward the gunshots as if his ears were his eyes.
After a few minutes, the man tapped Percy on the shoulder and said something Wilhelmina couldn’t hear. Using Percy’s voice and his cane to guide him, the man made his way toward the barn. He didn’t appear to be much older than she was. Four or five years, at the most. Yet he moved not with the sprightliness of a young man, but the care of an old one.
Wilhelmina didn’t know if she should hide or remain where she was. The man couldn’t see her, but if Clara or Mrs. Bragg had told him about her, he already knew she was there.
Percy sat the man on the hay bale that had served as Wilhelmina’s dinner table the night before.
“There you go, Mr. Moses. Sit right there and rest a spell. You’ll be safe in here. Jack and Mr. Wil will keep you company while you wait. Don’t forget Mr. Wil’s our secret. No one can know about him, hear?” He ran for the door without waiting for an answer. “I’m gonna go back and see if Clara will let me have a turn. I want to learn how to shoot, too.”
The door slammed shut behind Percy with an air of finality. Wilhelmina looked at Moses, waiting to follow his lead. Did he expect her to carry on a conversation with him, or was he content to sit quietly until the shooting was done?
“Wil, is it?” Moses asked.
“Yes, sir.” Wilhelmina climbed down the ladder to introduce herself properly. “Wil Fredericks, sir,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Moses Bragg. Pleased to meet you.”
His grip was firm. His hand was only slightly larger than Wilhelmina’s. He pumped hers once, then let go. His thumb slid across the back of her hand as he released his hold.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I figured it was safer in here than out there,” he said, waving his cane in the general direction of the gunfire.
“Do you think they’ll get the hang of it?”
Of the three, only Mrs. Bragg had looked comfortable holding a gun. But each shot Wilhelmina watched her take had missed the mark.
“Mary’s too afraid to pull the trigger, and Mama can’t shoot straight to save her soul. She’s nearly as blind as I am without her spectacles, but she refuses to wear them half the time because of vanity.”
Wilhelmina watched Moses use his remaining senses to get his bearings.
“If you don’t mind my asking, how did you lose your sight?”
“One of your comrades shot me. Same as Solomon did to you. Does that make us even, I wonder?” he asked with an odd smile.
“It might if we were keeping score.”
“Surely someone is. Otherwise, how would we be able to tell which side is winning?”
“How indeed?”
After Jack tapped his front paw against her leg, Wilhelmina picked up the ball of twine and tossed it for him to fetch. He ran after the ball, brought it back, and dropped it at her feet.
“To answer your question about our sharpshooters,” Moses said as she tossed the ball again, “Clara might have the best chance to hit what she’s aiming at. She can be real determined when she wants to be.”
“You don’t have to convince me of that. I wouldn’t be here if she weren’t determined.”
“You wouldn’t be where? Hiding in a barn or walking the earth?”
Wil considered the question, but not for long. The answer was too easy to require serious thought.
“Both. She could have left me to die, but she didn’t. She put herself at risk to save me.”
“And you plan to do the same for her.”
She tried to tell what he was thinking, but she couldn’t read his expression.
“What do you mean?”
“Percy says you intend to return to your regiment. Are you planning to go back because you want to return to the fight, or because you want to
keep the fight from coming to Clara?”
“Is the reason I wish to return so important?”
“Yes, it is. Clara cares for you. Abram and Percy do, too. How can you risk dying when you have so much to live for?”
Wilhelmina tapped the ball of twine against her leg, then tossed it as hard as she could.
“To paraphrase a friend who’s older and wiser than I am,” she said as Jack bounded after the tightly wound ball of string, “I want to be able to look them in the eye when I see them again.”
“And if you should fall? What would become of them then? Who would protect them? Their father’s dead and Solomon’s too busy trying to save himself to worry about anyone else. Your fight isn’t at the front, Wil. It’s right here on this farm. Which would you rather defend, your president’s pride or Clara’s honor?”
To keep her emotions from spilling over, Wilhelmina knelt and scratched Jack between his ears.
“Leaving is going to be hard enough. You’re only making it worse. I’m a soldier. I have to follow orders.”
“There’s a time to follow orders, and there’s a time to follow your heart. Only you can determine which time it is for you. No one else can make the decision for you. Not me. Not Percy or Abram. Not even Clara.” Moses paused. “Her voice sounds so different when she talks about you. I’ve never heard her sound so happy. But there’s one thing I must know.”
“What might that be?”
He turned to her as if he could see her.
“When do you plan on telling her that you’re a woman?”
*
Abram waved his hands over his head like a railroad signalman guiding a locomotive into the station.
“All right, that’s enough for one day.”
“Have you taught us everything we need to know?” Enid asked.
“Not hardly. All of you could use a heap more practice, but we’re getting low on bullets.” He took his rifle from Enid and draped it over his arm. “Save some for those of us who already know what we’re doing.”
Divided Nation, United Hearts Page 20
