B000XUBEHA EBOK (37 page)

She bent forward and mopped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just can’t stop crying. I keep thinking I’ve used up all my tears, but today the supply seems to be endless.” She covered her face and her shoulders shook. “It’s like losing her all over again. I’ve lost her twice.”

Nothing made a man feel more helpless than a woman’s tears. And particularly in this case. Della wept for the child she’d had with a man that Cameron had killed. After several minutes, he stood and walked out on the suite’s terrace. A light haze hung over the Blue Ridge Mountains reminding him of a time he didn’t want to remember. After lighting a cigar, he watched a column of steam moving away from the train station. Before the war, Atlanta had been a railroad town. At least half a dozen lines had converged here. He didn’t know if that was still true.

It was time to consider what came next.

When he looked at Della, he saw a soldier he’d killed, the last in a long line of good men. When she looked at him, Della saw the loss of everything she had loved and valued. Maybe now that she’d been forced to face and accept Claire’s death, she could begin to recover and put the past behind her. But only if he walked away.

There was no reason for them to remain together. He could leave her enough money to go back to Texas if that’s what she wanted to do. And he’d speak to Mercator Ward about providing her a stipend and an inheritance. And then . . .

She’d taken off her shoes, so he didn’t hear her cross the terrace in her stockinged feet, didn’t realize she was behind him until she slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his shoulder blades.

“Oh, James.” Her voice was so low and anguished that he could hardly hear her. “My baby girl is dead. And it hurts so bad.”

Now, finally, he was free to hold her and comfort her. Turning, he gathered her into his arms and placed his chin on top of her head. She fit in his arms like she’d been made to go there.

“Tell me how I can best help you,” he said gruffly.

“Take me to bed and just hold me,” she whispered after a minute. “Let me cry myself to sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept in a week.”

In the bedroom, he pulled the draperies shut, kicked off his boots, mounded the pillows against the headboard, then laid down and opened his arms. She hesitated, giving him a long, measuring look, then raised her skirt and placed her knee on the bed. In a moment, she’d stretched out beside him and nestled her head on his shoulder. He closed his arms around her.

She pressed her hand flat on his chest, then absently tugged at a button. “I said I believed Claire was with the Wards. But that can’t be entirely true. I’ve had the dream for years, about following the hearse . . . and it was always hers, not Clarence’s as I told myself it was. And there was the feeling of dread, of not wanting to know or to change anything.”

The warmth of her ran down his right side. He stroked her arm and tried to rise above thinking about the soft fullness of her breasts pressed against the side of his chest. Today she’d worn her hair twisted into a bun on top of her head, and he could smell the scent of the lemon and vinegar that she used to rinse away any traces of shampoo. When she spoke, he caught a faint whiff of whisky.

It made him feel good to know that she mixed lemon and vinegar to rinse her hair, and that, unlike most women, she enjoyed a glass of whisky. He’d seen her small clothes hanging to dry on prairie bushes and knew her shimmies and petticoats and pantaloons were plain with only a narrow band of inexpensive lace trimming the hems. He’d tasted her cooking and ranked her biscuits among the best. He had seen her iron and he had heard her whistle. He’d watched her laugh with joy and weep in pain.

He would love her until the day he died. There could never be another woman for him.

He blinked and looked down at the top of her head. While he’d been indulging in reverie, Della had unbuttoned his shirt and slipped her hand inside. He felt her fingers on his skin. Instantly his chest and belly tightened into ridges of muscle.

She noticed. “James?” Her voice was a husky whisper. “I’ve been thinking . . .”

“Yes?” The word came out as a groan because her fingers had slid to his waist.

“I can’t hate you any more for using me twice than for using me once.”

Rising above her, he looked down into her damp hazel eyes. This close, he noticed green and gold flecks. “Are you sure?”

“Our truce is almost over.” Her gaze dropped to his lips and his mouth suddenly dried. “We need to talk soon. But not now.”

He reached for the small buttons running down her bodice then hesitated. “Della, this feels like taking advantage.”

“If so, it’s me taking advantage of you.” She brushed his hand aside and opened the buttons herself. “I want the pain to go away for a while. I don’t want to think about the past or the future. I just want to lose myself in the here and now, and I want you to help me do it.”

Her bodice opened to the sight of soft mounded breasts, and Cameron’s questions vanished along with any thought of hesitation. He took his time undressing her, not hurrying, learning the sight and touch and taste of her, kissing the various parts of her as he revealed them.

He kissed her shoulders and arms as he drew off her jacket, returned to her lips then ran his tongue down her throat to the deep cleft between her breasts. Here he encountered the powdery fragrance of rose water beneath the warm mix of musk and apple that was the scent of her skin.

Next, he removed her skirt and petticoats, then paused to admire the hourglass shape of her. Most women didn’t like corsets, but Cameron appreciated the way a corset defined a woman’s form, accenting breasts and hips. As this corset laced up the front, she faced him while he opened the laces, and she tugged at his shirt while he kissed the tops of her breasts, then the sides, and after he dropped the corset off the edge of the bed, he devoted himself to teasing her nipples into hard pink buds.

After pulling her to the side of the bed, he kicked off his trousers, then knelt on the floor, placed her foot on his naked thigh, then drew her garters off. He ran his hands up her leg, shaping the contours of ankle, calf, thigh beneath his palms, then teasing his fingers inside the top of her stockings. His mouth found the bare skin above her stockings and he licked the inside of her thighs as he rolled the stocking down on one leg and then the other.

“James.” Reaching with suddenly urgent fingers, she drew him back to the bed and pressed him on his back. “It’s my turn,” she whispered against his lips. “I’m new at this . . .”

He’d made love to women, but being made love to was a new experience, and one he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. It was difficult as hell to lay quietly while she slid down his body trailing hot kisses over his nakedness and doing things with her hands and fingers that made him feel crazy inside. The pins had come out of her hair, and a dark cloud of silken tresses spilled over his chest and belly.

When he felt her fingernails inside his thighs, he groaned her name. “Don’t . . .”

“I want to.”

The heat of her mouth on him was electric and more arousing than anything he could have imagined. He thought the top of his head would fly off if he couldn’t have her beneath him now, now.

Pulling her up to him, he rolled her onto her back and rose above her, staring down into her radiant eyes and parted lips. He wanted to remember this moment always. Her hair wild on the pillow, her eyes shining with desire. He wanted the taste of her sweat on his lips, and the scent of their lovemaking permeating every breath.

“Della.” He entered her gently, almost reverently.

He’d never had trouble arguing the law or debating issues or principles. But Cameron had never been a man to discuss feelings easily. Yet here, in bed, with no barrier between them, he could let his body speak to her of love and admiration and desire. His tenderness could share her loss. His caresses could comfort. And when their passion transcended gentleness and spiraled into the wild urgency of crescendo, he took what she offered and gave himself entirely.

After she had caught her breath, she leaned over him and kissed him, lingeringly and sweetly. “I can sleep now.” Then she stretched out beside him and, in minutes, fell asleep.

Cameron woke her at seven for a supper he’d ordered delivered to the suite. Then he tucked her back into bed and lay beside her, smoking in the darkness, listening to her breathe, and thinking about the future.

She had said their truce would end soon. The message couldn’t have been clearer.

Chapter 21

“I won’t be long,” Della said after the hired driver handed her out of the carriage. She spoke to Cameron through the window. “Perhaps twenty minutes.”

He wore that hard-eyed, tight-lipped expression that made her think he’d have something to say if he were the type of man to speak of emotions.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” Bending her head, she inhaled the fragrance of the flowers filling her arms.

“Do you know where to find the Wards’ plot?”

She could have found it blindfolded. After reassuring him, she stepped away from the dust thrown up by the carriage wheels, turning toward an arched gate forged of scrolled wrought iron. For the third time she walked beneath the arch and onto the parklike grounds of the old Marshall Cemetery.

If this had been her first visit, Della might easily have gotten lost. Narrow, graveled roads meandered in all directions, curving through stands of tall pines or dividing acres of carved stones. In some places, hedges of winter-bare lilac or verbena defined private areas; in other sections, low stone walls set off family plots.

Della turned right—by the tall, winged angel—and climbed a hill, passing beneath the branches of several thick old oaks, until she reached a stone bench protected from the chilly breeze by a stand of leafy azaleas. The bench faced a plot delineated by white stones forming a square around a handsome granite stone with the name Ward raised in the center.

Slowly Della walked around the square plot, examining the markers for Mr. Ward’s parents and grand-parents, reading the names of ancestors and Ward relatives. Eventually she came to a stone for Mercator Ward. His name and date of birth were already carved. There was even a Bible verse inscribed on the stone. Everything but the date of death. Beside his stone was that of Enid Ward. Beloved wife and mother. She’d been fifty-eight when she died.

Della stood before Mrs. Ward’s grave for several minutes, not wanting to look at the next two gravestones.

First, she let herself notice the grass on the adjacent plots. Mr. Ward must have paid someone to maintain the family plot, as the grass was clipped close for the winter months and there were no weeds. A fresh coat of whitewash brightened the perimeter stones.

Finally she made herself read Clarence’s stone; his name, his dates of birth and death, and a listing of his rank, the two medals he had been awarded, and the battle in which he died.

And then. Claire’s small marker was embraced by a stone angel. She had lived eight days. The verse was simple. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .

Standing very tall and stiffly erect, Della blinked at the heat behind her eyes. Then she divided her flowers and placed half at the base of Claire’s stone and half at the base of Clarence’s stone.

“Damn it.” She could see Mrs. Ward’s grave from the side of her eye. “Damn, damn!” Knowing she would feel small and mean spirited if she didn’t do it, she took a few flowers from Claire and Clarence and placed them on Mrs. Ward’s grave. She glared at the stone. “These flowers are not because you were a nice person, Enid Ward. You’re getting them because I am a nice person.”

For a long time, she stood looking at Claire and Clarence’s markers and thinking about a life and family that was never meant to be. At length, she removed a spoon from her wrist bag. She’d taken it from the hotel. The soil was rich and loamy at the base of Clarence’s headstone, and it was easy to dig a hole with the spoon. When the hole was deep enough, she rolled two letters and a photograph into a tube and pushed it into the hole before she replaced the dirt. Then she blinked hard and sat on the white stones at the foot of Clarence’s grave. Della closed her eyes and lifted her face to the thin morning sunlight.

“I have to believe that you knew I didn’t hate you. You had to know that,” she said softly. “And I understand that you were hurt and angry and exhausted when you sat down to answer my last letter.” She spoke to his stone, feeling the anger and guilt leave her. Letting it go. “If you had finished writing your letter, and then posted it, I think you would have regretted that letter as much as I regretted my last letter to you. If you had lived, Clarence, I believe you would have forgiven a young wife’s self-pity and foolishness.”

She heard Cameron’s boots crunching the gravel as he walked up the hill, and she stood. “You were a good man, Clarence Ward. I’m glad I knew you for a little while.”

She saw Cameron’s hat first, then his face; and then his full, tall frame came into view, and she was surprised to see that he carried flowers. When he reached her, he removed his hat and held it against his chest, then he stepped forward and placed the flowers on Clarence’s grave.

“Oh, James,” Della whispered, taking his hands in hers. Suddenly she understood. “I’ve been so blind. You’ve been searching for the same thing I needed.” She drew a breath and let it go. “I forgive you, James Cameron,” she said softly, looking into his eyes. “You were doing your duty in a war that no one wanted. And so was Clarence. I forgive you.”