Lucas wheeled his mount, wending around rough-barked trees to catch up beside her. “I’m truly blessed to be in the august company of a military genius. Why Caesar himself would be awed. The Romans falling on their knees. I cannot think of how to thank my maker for His divine providence.”
“And I’m blessed with guidance bleated from a man with the aptitude of a goat.”
“We’ll go your way, this time, for assuredly I am humbled by the blazing glory of your intelligence.” He watched her stiff carriage, thoroughly enjoying goading her. He had decided beforehand to take the bridge but the devil in him kept it from her. “When I contemplate sharing your illustrious company, it’s no wonder why all my common sense flees with the wind, laying in its wake, complete idiocy.”
Rachel lifted her chin a notch higher. “As usual, Colonel Rourke, I am the antidote to that sad reality.”
With effort, Lucas resisted the temptation to snatch her from her horse and kiss away that smugness. They had gone through a lot together. Rachel was a stubbornly brave, willful woman who worked for him. He was responsible for her. He remained duty bound for reasons she could not understand. They’d be safe in Union hands soon. Perhaps they’d never see each other again. He could not make a commitment, the way she deserved.Honor.His mind repeated the word, but his gaze fell on her lips.
He glanced up to the brilliant blue sky, pondering the possibilities of a life together. He found himself smiling.
After crossing the bridge, Lucas grew wary. Too quiet. No birds singing. No squirrels running up the trees. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. They were being watched. As his brother had described to him, they had traveled close to Grant’s fortifications, but how close? He looked down at his butternut trousers, gripped his reins, and then scanned the area in front of him. No challenge came from the woods beyond.
Lucas’ head snapped up. A bullet whizzed past his ear. He tackled Rachel off her horse. They crashed to the ground. He rolled with her off the road and behind a hefty boulder. More bullets ripped through the leaves overhead, spraying debris. Friend or foe?
“Need I jog your memory, this was your idea,” he reminded her. A shell hit the earth thirty yards ahead of them before it burst. “I have no doubt those are Yankee cannons greeting us.” Lucas raised his head above the rock. “Yes, sir, those are our boys in blue. What a pretty sight.”
“A wonderful welcoming,” Rachel demurred.
Lucas reached over and ripped off a piece of her petticoat.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He tied it to a stick and waved it overhead. “Surrendering.” He counted to three and the gunfire ceased. The Yanks dragged a cannon out of the woods, pointed it right at them.
“Don’t shoot!” Lucas thrust his hands in the air. When he deemed it safe, he called to Rachel but instantly regretted it. Men mesmerized into grotesque statues, frozen with open, gaped mouths, and blatant stares at Rachel. Their casual whispers spoke their unconcealed admiration and lust. Lucas narrowed his gaze on them.
Rachel tripped on a rock. Lucas thrust his arms out to catch her. A shot fired from up in the trees. Lucas grabbed his chest and crumbled to the ground. Rachel screamed and scrambled over him, protecting him with her body. An idiot sharpshooter must have thought he was reaching for his gun.
“You fools! You do not know who you’ve shot!”
“Lucas! Lucas! Oh, please tell me you’re not dead.” Union soldiers gathered around him. Rachel grabbed one of their guns and pointed it at the soldiers.
“Stay away from him. Every last one of you. We’re Yanks!” Then she threw the gun away and cradled his head in her lap. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak. Rachel’s hot tears fell on his face. Rachel’s tears. Her warm fingers, stroked his head. In the next instant, she pulled back, grabbed his bandanna, and reached to press it to his wound. Then she stopped.
Lucas glanced down at his chest. The bullet burned like hell. He flexed his fingers over his wound, then frowned. No stickiness? He sat up. No blood. He looked at Rachel, her expression now as quizzical as his must be. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his father’s pocket watch and examined the bullet embedded in the gold.
A profound look of relief crossed Rachel’s face. Tears welled in her eyes.
He held out the watch, turned it to see all sides. “Damn. I wanted to give this to my son. Thought I could have it dried out after the soaking in the river.”
Rachel’s eyes widened, her expression switched from relief to astonishment to murderous intent in the flash of a second. “You…have a son?” she snapped.
“Someday I will, if I get out of this mess.” He grinned.
And if the look in Rachel’s eyes were daggers, he would be dead.
Chapter Nineteen
“Thanks to you, Rachel, we are now in the unenviable position of being prisoners of the Union Army. Everything we have gone through is for naught. The information you have stored in your head is more critical than ever.”
“Don’t you think I realize that?” She whirled on him and started pacing the makeshift jail set up from a commandeered farmhouse. A fire burned in the fireplace, a bed in the corner, a stool and end tables added to their meager arrangement. Bars were hammered over the windows of what had been someone’s parlor. Outside, a wood pile rose next to a cutting stump surrounded by wood chips. Beyond that was a privy and hundreds of tents with blue-coated Yanks milling about.
“You certainly didn’t during our interview with Colonel Crawford, did you?” Lucas drawled with distinct mockery. With regret, he recalled how they’d been dragged, tried and judged before the irascible Yankee colonel.
“And what are you implying?”
Lucas folded his arms in front of him and leaned against a whitewashed wall next to a framed replica ofDante’s Inferno. Right now, he was so hopping mad, he felt like one of the enraged souls caught in the circles of hell. “Don’t you think it was a little over the top, telling him you had intimate connections with General Grant and were a personal friend of President Lincoln, demanding to write a letter to them? Colonel Crawford sure bought that tale.”
