Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2)

One of the most exquisite books I have read in a very
long time.  While Ever My Love is first and foremost a romantic story, the
sensuality is very low key and oftentimes subtle. This by no means deters from
the story; in fact, I think the book is better for it. Ms. Craig has a new fan
and I am definitely going to find and read more from this writer. --
Romance
Junkies
(4.5 Stars.)

Craig . . . excels at describing the complex social
climate of antebellum Louisiana, in which unspoken rules govern which
relationships are permissible across racial and class lines . . . The pacing is
brisk, the characters multifaceted, and the plot compelling . . . This saga is
another winner. --
The Historical Novels Review.

Doesn’t pull any punches in this ante-bellum romance.  I
strongly recommend Ever My Love. --
Books for a Buck

A breathtaking novel that is well researched, rich in
historical detail, featuring a beautiful passionate and caring heroine who
discovers love and compassion in the least likely of candidates. --
Mystic
Castle
(Five Hearts, Recommended Read.)

On the eve of the Civil War, the daughter of a Southern
planter finds her loyalties tested in a magnificent saga of family pride and
forbidden love. --
Fresh Fiction

Ever My Love is an exciting tale, well-written, with good
dialogue . . . it takes readers along on this precarious trip of adventure and
love. --
Romance Reviews Today

4.5 Stars! Memorable Civil War setting interwoven with
strong secondary characters and plot lines. If you are searching for a
memorable read and a historical romance with a bit more cutting edge, this is
definitely one to consider. --
Epinions.com

All in all, a fine way to spend the day; amongst the
strife and angst of a dangerous time in our nation’s history, where the heroes
and heroines of the day were those devoted to righting the wrongs practiced by
a slave owning society. --
Historical Romance Writers

Scared he’d lose sight of his brother in the night, Peter
followed close on John Man’s heels. They were in new territory now, miles
beyond the boundaries of the Johnston plantation.

John Man reached a hand behind him and Peter stopped. “You
hear that?” John Man whispered.

Hounds. Peter grabbed his brother’s arm. “John, what we gone
do?”

“Likely they’s two, three mile away yet. Keep you head.”

They ran, the dark pressing in on them. Then the fear pushed
them faster and they thrashed through the brush, heedless of the noise they
made -- the hounds followed their scent, not their clamor.

They struggled up a hill and the woods ended. Headstones
gleamed in the moonlight and Peter trembled, dreading the white shadows of
ghosts emerging from the graves.

“This way,” John Man said, turning right to skirt the
cemetery.

Peter’s breath came ragged and shallow. “They’s louder,” he
gasped. He could hardly breathe, his chest was so tight.

John Man paused. The hounds were closing in. He stared at
the heavens, at the cold, indifferent moon. “We not gon’ outrun them dogs.”

“John, they tear us up, they get us.”

“I ain’t going back, Petie. They axe my foot, I go back
again.”

Peter clutched at his brother, the fear sucking at his
courage. “I’s scared, John.”

“Petie, let ’em catch you, take you home to Grandmama. Hear?
Climb up dat sycamore so the dogs don’t get you ’fore the men come up behind
’em.”

“Don’t leave me, John.”

John Man pried Peter’s fingers loose. “You ain’t a man yet,
they don’t be too hard on you.”

“They thrash me, John.”

John Man gave him a shove. “Petie, get up dere now. I’s
going on.”

John Man ran. Peter climbed. Higher and higher up the trunk,
the branches smaller and thinner.
Dey stop to catch me, dat give John time.
Peter kept climbing.

His heart began to steady, his breath to slow. He’d be safe
once the men caught up with the dogs to hold them off. Then he’d climb down, go
back to Grandmama. After the man cut him with the whip, she’d tend him.

The tree top bent over from his weight. Peter scrabbled for
a better handhold, grabbed onto a branch. It snapped, and he grasped at the
next one. He missed, his body now tipping further out, away from the bole.
Hands seizing on outer twigs, Peter crashed down and down through the leaves.
He bounced when he hit the ground, the breath knocked out of him.

He tried to suck air, but his lungs were stunned. Keep you
head. It come back. Wait for it. At last, air. He gulped it in, and sound
returned to his starved brain. The hounds were coming. He ran headlong through
the gravestones, too frightened to heed the ghostly rising vapors.

John Man had run east, like they’d planned. He’d go the
other way, find another tree.
Hurry. They coming.

Nothing but brush now as he ran down the hill. Too late to
turn back to the trees. Peter plunged into briars. The baying of the hounds so
close now, so close. Thorns clawed at him, cutting and slicing and snagging as
he scrambled for the swamp. No thought of the briars nor of the snakes and
gators in the bayou, he knew only flight.

Moongleam on water. He threw himself into the black soup.
Too shallow. Running, thrashing and splashing, giving himself away. Panic had
him, and he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think.

A quick look over his shoulder. The dogs roiling the water
now, their eyes gleaming yellow in the moonlight. That dream, he lived the
dream that haunted him since childhood, his legs churning but going nowhere.

They were on him. The lead hound dragged him down for the
others to snap and snarl and tear at. Slashes, gnawing, crunching as teeth
found bone. His brain shut off the pain -- but not the horror, the terrible
knowing as teeth ripped at his clothes, at his flesh.

Over the growling and snapping, Peter heard his own scream,
far away, high and without end.

By the time the men caught up to the dogs, Peter’s blood
thickened the dark water and he had ceased to struggle.

Warm hands pulled him out of the water and laid him on the
ground in a circle of lamplight. A man with a shotgun over his shoulder nudged
him with his boot. “You boys may as well take him on back. See if somebody
wants to try sewing him up, but I reckon it won’t do no good.”

Two black men, barefoot and ragged as Peter, knelt down. One
of them took off his filthy rough shirt and wrapped it around Peter’s neck
before they lifted him.

“Let’s see can we catch us the other’n,” the lantern-holder
said. “The bloodhound’ll pick him up afore the blue ticks, whatcha bet.”

Marianne Johnston rose easily at first light. Not for her
the drowsy mornings waiting for coffee to be brought to her in her rose-silk
canopied bed. She had too much to do, and much of it was best done before the
sun burned off the morning mist.

Freddie, Marianne’s tiny King Charles spaniel, bounded from
the foot of the bed to demand a kiss, then jumped to the floor and carried off
one of Marianne’s satin slippers before her feet hit the floor.

After a merry romp retrieving her slipper, Marianne gave her
long hair a quick brush and pinned it any which way. She had already pulled on
her gardening skirt with the big pockets when she heard the commotion outside.

Throwing her blouse on, she opened the balcony door and
leaned out. A cluster of slaves knotted around a spot below her. When someone
shifted, Marianne saw the bloody mess they tended. They’d come for her.

She tied her shoes, pulled her medical bag from a shelf –
“Stay, Freddie” -- ran down the grand staircase, through the polished parlor,
and out to the courtyard.

“What happened?” she called, still running.

Pearl, a slender young woman with delicate features and big
doe eyes, righted the rag on her head with a trembling hand. “Dogs got him,
Miss Marianne. But he still breathing.”

Pearl stepped aside so she could see the boy’s mangled
flesh. Marianne crossed herself and closed her eyes. Dear God, help me. She
breathed deeply, opened her eyes.

Little Annie, the house’s favorite, stood gaping. “Go tell
Evette we’ll need hot water, Annie, and to clear off her big table. Run on.” To
Pearl, she said, “We’ll wash him in the cookhouse.”

Marianne had sewn up gashes and applied poultices among the
slaves since she was thirteen, but this poor boy – she had never seen such
wounds.

When did we start setting dogs on our people? she thought.

She and Pearl kept pace with the men carrying Peter.
Whenever Marianne needed an extra hand for nursing, it was always Pearl she
sent for. Pearl had gentle hands, and she didn’t carry on at the sight and
smell of blood.

Marianne wiped at the boy’s face. “Who is it?”

“It be Peter, Miss Marianne.”

Not one of them she knew. He couldn’t be more than fourteen,
and he’d tried to run. The awful risks they take, she thought. His head lolled
when they put him down. He’d lost so much blood, she doubted he’d ever regain
consciousness.

She and Pearl bathed him first with warm water, then with
witch hazel. Marianne watched to see if he felt the sting on his wounds, but he
neither blinked nor groaned. Better he was out now, anyway, while she worked on
him. Lacerations all over his body, from ears to ankles, even chunks of flesh
torn clean away. And they said he’d been in the bayou. He’d have fever for sure.

Marianne set hot pads on the puncture wounds so they would
bleed and cleanse themselves. The rips and gashes she cleaned herself with
witch hazel, making sure there was no debris in them. They were ghastly, but
not deep.

From a vial in her bag, she dribbled sweet oil on a length
of black silk thread and set to work with her needle. With sure hands, she
began with Peter’s ear, nearly torn from his head. “Was he alone?” she asked.

“He run wid his brother, John Man.”

Marianne didn’t ask any more. If they caught John Man, she’d
hear of it soon enough.

Evette and her helpers worked around the grisly tableau.
There were people to feed, bread and corn and beans to cook, whether Peter lay
on the big table or not. The aroma of salt pork and beans, soon to be carted
out to the fields, mingled with the smells of blood and witch hazel.

While Pearl kept hot compresses on the punctures, Marianne
sewed the other wounds. After an hour, Evette handed the mistress a tin cup of
sweet coffee and she drank it down. Marianne paused long enough to dab the
sweat from her face, then picked up her needle.