CHAPTER FIVE
How do you know?” Gen demanded softly as she climbed to her feet.
Rafe still seemed caught in that other world. “Know? I recognize it.”
Gen took a careful step closer. “What about Spotsylvania?”
He snapped to attention. “Where?”
“You just mentioned Spotsylvania. What about it?”
For a second, Rafe looked trapped—caught between sleep and waking, perhaps. “I did?” he finally asked.
Gen motioned down to the old coat in her trunk. “You looked at that coat and said that it belonged to someone of the Fourth Georgia Regiment. Why?”
He frowned at her. “Why are you so upset about it?”
“Because...” Because it didn’t make sense, any of it. Because Gen was caught in a house in a storm with a man who shouldn’t exist, fingering evidence of a dream that seemed to have materialized. Because she wasn’t enough of a believer in things that go bump in the night to understand all this, much less believe it.
“Because,” she said very carefully, “I think that coat fits you perfectly.”
It was Rafe’s turn to look confounded. “Does that make sense?”
She wasn’t at all uncertain about the shake of her head. “No.”
He gave a funny little shrug. “Good. I didn’t think so, but I’m not sure why.”
But Gen couldn’t put it into words. “That scar along your side,” she said. “Can you tell me where you got it?”
He looked down at it, fingered it with uncertain hands. “No.”
She just nodded, not really surprised. So instead, she turned back to the trunk and reverently lifted out the coat. Beneath it were other clothes, a man’s clothes, all pressed and preserved as if waiting for the man to come back and wear them. Well, she thought wildly, he has.
Before Rafe could ask or comment, she reached over and slipped the coat on him. It fit in a way that spoke not simply of good tailoring, but long communion, molding to him from memory even more than dimension. He looked startled. He looked even more startled when Gen slid her fingers in through the blackened gash in the coat to expose the scar directly beneath.
“That’s why,” she said simply.
This time, when Rafe faced her, there was more than confusion in his eyes, and Gen could understand for the first time how he had survived such a terrible war for so long.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you told me your story?” he asked.
Gen sighed. “Yes, I do. Let’s get you dressed first, and I’ll explain over breakfast.”
By rights, none of those clothes should have survived. Not the linen shirts or the woolen or cotton trousers. Not the old house slippers and robe that spoke of a certain amount of financial comfort in an age when there had been little. But the sword said the same thing. The man who had owned these clothes had been an officer and a gentleman. Undoubtedly a landowner, if the workmanship of his wardrobe was any measure.
Gen pulled out enough to get Rafe through the next few days, even long Johns and undershirts, and then moved to close the lid again. She didn’t want to. Suddenly she wanted to do nothing but sit and sift through every piece of memorabilia up here, as if she were a detective unearthing clues to a murder. But there was a storm coming. She had to protect the house. She had to figure out a way to get in touch with Annie. She had to try to explain what was going on to her guest when she was still waiting for someone to explain it all to her.
She’d already begun to turn away when Rafe stopped her. Already dressed in a slightly yellowed linen shirt, gray slacks and suspenders, he looked as if he’d stepped out of an old daguerreotype, especially with those dark Irish looks and ghostly pale eyes. Gen admitted that she was distracted by him. Which was why she missed his intent.
She didn’t realize that the light in his eyes had changed.
“Gen...”
His hands cupped her face and lifted it to his. His brow gathered, as if he wasn’t any more sure than she what was going on. His mouth...
Gen didn’t know when she closed her eyes. It simply seemed the most natural thing to do. She lifted her own hands to his chest. She felt the flush of exhilaration take hold of her. She succumbed, for the first time in her life, to madness, and met his kiss.
Gen swore she smelled bay rum. She felt the stubble of new beard against her cheek. She heard the low moan of a hungry man even over the wind and rain. She answered, never understanding. Never believing. Not knowing why the taste of Rafe’s lips should spark such a flood of joy in her. Why the caress of his callused fingertips along her throat should melt her. Why the simple contact of his quirky, wise mouth should electrify her. Center her, spin her about, wake her up, every question and dream and bit and piece of inexplicable memory answered by the sweet, simple kiss of a stranger.
