Little Love Affair (Southern Romance Series, #1)
Read Little Love Affair (Southern Romance Series, #1) Online
Authors: Lexy Timms
Tags: #historical romance, #civil war, #civil war romance, #soldier, #battle, #romance, #contemporary, #free romance, #free historical romance, #military, #military romance
Little Love Affair
Southern Romance Series, Volume 1
Lexy Timms
Published by Dark Shadow Publishing, 2015.
Also by Lexy Timms
Saving Forever
Southern Romance Series
Little Love Affair
Southern Romance Series
Book 1
By
Lexy Timms
Copyright 2015 by Lexy Timms
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2015 by Lexy Timms
Little Love Affair
Book 1
Siege of the Heart
Book 2
Freedom Forever
Book 3
K
nox Township, August 1863.
Sentiments are running high following the battle of Gettysburg, and although the draft has not yet come to Knox, “Bloody Knox” will claim lives the next year as citizens attempt to avoid the Union draft. Clara’s brother Solomon is missing, and Clara has been left to manage the family’s farm, caring for her mother and her younger sister, Cecelia.
Meanwhile, wounded at the battle of Monterey Pass but still able to escape Union forces, Jasper and his friend Horace are lost and starving. Jasper wants to find his way back to the Confederacy, but feels honor-bound to bring Horace back to his family, though the man seems reluctant.
Prologue
H
is legs were close to giving out. Jasper gasped with effort. His friend’s arm dangled uselessly around the back of Jasper’s neck, and his feet stumbled over the roots and underbrush. His head lolled on Jasper’s shoulder, breath dragging into his lungs in gasps, and his skin was burning.
Sweat trickled down Jasper’s forehead in the August heat. He had long ago unbuttoned his coat, heedless of manners, but it hardly made a difference. He was hauling a wounded soldier over rough terrain, and exertion plastered his shirt to his chest with sweat. He was so tired now that he did not even bother to swat away the flies that raised welts on his skin.
“Wh-Where...” His friend’s voice came out reedy.
“Just a little farther,” Jasper managed. It was all he had said for days now as Horace’s condition deteriorated and the man slipped ever further into delirium. He did not tell Horace his own strength was fading, and that he had not eaten in far too long. He did not share the terror which kept him awake at night.
Even here in the forests, far gone from the battlefields, the war followed them in the stink of Horace’s wound, in the raving words he spoke to the darkness, “Let me go. Let me die.”
“Just a little farther,” Jasper would plead with him.
“I failed them,” Horace whispered.
Jasper knelt between the trees and prayed as his friend slept: for the wound to heal, for water the next day, for what food they could scavenge, for safety in these northern woods. It was a circuitous path they took, skirting forests and fields, and the delay was killing Horace.
Gagging caught his attention. Jasper thudded to the ground, his knees buckling as Horace retched. All of the water he had managed to get the man to drink an hour ago was gone and Horace’s face had gone a waxy color.
“Horace. Stay with me.”
But the man’s head lolled to the side. His breath wheezed faintly in his lungs. Pus seeped from the dressing at his shoulder.
Jasper looked around desperately. If he could only get Horace
home
...
If Japser waited for that, Horace would die. Japser’s eyes caught a ruined little cottage through the trees, tumbling-down walls and a half roof dappled with shadows by the forest canopy. Tracing down the hill, he caught the glint of wheat fields. There was nothing for it now. He was half-dead himself. He would take his courage in his hands, hide his coat and bury his pride, and he would ask for the medicine and food they needed.
He slipped his arm under Horace’s shoulders and hauled himself upright, the man’s body held in shaking arms. Only a few steps more.
“Hold on,” Jasper whispered to his friend. “Just a few more minutes. Just hold on a little longer.”
H
er own sobs echoed in her ears as Clara ran, dress snagging on brambles and her blonde hair straggling out of its bun to tumble down her back. She could hardly breathe for the stitch in her side and her feet were aching, but she could not stop running. The cliff was ahead, a promise of wind and birdsong away from the oppressive August heat. A place where she could be alone, where she could let her sadness pour out of her without scaring Cecelia, without sparking her mother’s own quiet grief.
She stumbled onto the ledge, eyes closed with exhaustion, and felt the bite of granite on her palms, her knees. Her breath was dragging into her lungs, the bodice of her dress constricting painfully, and her legs were shaking. Would she be able to get back up? She almost did not care. Trying to steady herself, she looked up at last, and felt something release deep in her chest.
The vista spread before her was like nothing else in the world: great trees dwarfed by the massive swells of the land, the scent of wildflowers on the breeze and the shadows of clouds scudding across the earth. God’s creation in all its glory, reminding Clara how much remained of the world she had once believed in.
And yet, looking out at the sea of green, with the rush of the river below in her ears, she could feel tears streaming down her cheeks. Solomon had brought her here even when she was too little to make the climb himself, carrying her on his back, and she had thought him the bravest, wisest, strongest older brother a girl could have. A brother who would never, ever leave her.
A sob burst out of her, a whimper even her bit lip and clenched hands could not keep in. It was childish to be so undone by this, when Knox Township was full of women who carried on with their heads held high, young children in their arms. Everyone had lost someone. Every family had buried a son, or a father, or cousin—and the rest of them carried on with dignity, even if their eyes were shadowed with pain.
Even at home, Cecelia wept softly sometimes at night, and their mother had taken to staring into the fire at night without words, as if her soul had fled her body. But come daylight, they swallowed their grief and went on as if...as if everything was moving on, with or without Solomon. As if they had managed to accept that they might never know what had happened to him, whether he was alive or dead, whether he was a prisoner, whether he would ever come home. As if not knowing did not destroy them.
On the days when it overwhelmed her, when Clara was driven up into the forest to hide away and cry, washing her face in the stream before she returned home, what she envied most was the uncomplicated nature of her family’s sadness. For their mother, it was the loss of a child. For Cecelia, it was Confederate treachery and the loss of a brother who had been kind, who had been dependable. When had Solomon ever disappointed them? Never.