“I am sorry, Abigail,” Boyd said, his voice weak and hoarse.
“My father was already as good as dead and I think my mother was ready to follow him.”
“Are you sure your father was already dying?”
“I smelled it last week. He hung on far longer than I thought he would.”
“You smelled it?” Boyd tried to sit up straighter and winced.
She gave him a hand in getting more comfortable. “Yes. There is a smell to the dying. No one believes me, but there is.” She sat down next to him. “I tried to tell my mother, to prepare her, but she would not listen. She changed after the attack. I think it broke her. Maybe if my father had not been so badly injured she would have recovered, but . . .” She shrugged. “I was hiding and I should have come out. Maybe I could have been helpful.”
“No. Who hurt them?”
“The Rebs.”
“Ah. No, it was best that you remained hidden. They could have hurt you, too.”
“Maybe. All I could think of was that I had not brought my rifle with me so how could I fight what looked to be six soldiers, maybe more.”
“You could not have. Do not let it make you feel guilty.”
She had been trying not to and it helped to hear someone else say it was unnecessary, but Abigail suspected the guilt would haunt her for a while yet. She worried about what her brother would think if he returned and she had to tell him what had happened. Abigail feared he would then feel guilty for not being here even though he had been given no choice about that. She prayed he would return alive and whole, for this cursed war had already cost her too much.
Chapter Two
“They are gone, sir,” James said.
Matthew tore his gaze from Abigail. “Are ye sure?”
Before James could reply, there was the sound of breaking glass and they all crouched down. Matthew stared toward the door of the bedroom where the sound had come from but, despite a few added odd sounds, there was no sign of an attack being set up. He was just standing up to go and look when there was another crash of glass breaking toward the back of the house and he went back down into a crouch.
“Thought you said they had left,” he muttered, glancing at James.
“Saw them all ride off. Didn’t see none turn back.”
“Yet some must have circled back.”
“Not sure we can be certain of that without getting our heads shot off,” said Dan.
“I smell smoke,” said Abigail as she began to stand up.
“Stay there and stay down,” Matthew ordered. “Skirts and fire dinnae mix well.” He stood up and headed for the bedroom door.
Abigail sat down and muttered, “I am not one of your damn soldiers.” She looked at Boyd when he laughed weakly. “What?”
“In times like these we are all soldiers. A war forces us into the job sometimes.”
“That is a very dark view of things.” She frowned when he shivered. “You are growing cold. You should have said that you were cold.”
She moved and grabbed the handle of a chest set at the foot of the bed holding the bodies of her parents. As she began to drag it over to where Boyd sat, one of the other men hurried over to help her. She looked at his roughly cut brown hair and blue-gray eyes and recalled that Matthew had called this man James.
“Thank you kindly, James,” she said. “It was a lot heavier than I remembered.” Matthew abruptly cursed in a loud startled voice and she looked at him. “What is wrong?”
“Handle is hot.” He touched the door. “So is the door.”
“The kitchen,” she said, and dropped the quilt she had been lifting out of the chest for Boyd then stood up.
“Stay there,” Matthew ordered again and strode toward the door leading to the kitchen. Even as he braced himself to touch another hot door handle, smoke began billowing out from beneath the door. “The fire is going weel in there, too.”
