"Cole…" she murmured.

He pulled her hard against him. He found her lips, and he kissed her deeply, and she tasted even sweeter than he remembered. She was vibrant and feminine. He choked out something and touched her breast, feeling her nipple hard as a pebble beneath his palm. She melted against him. She gasped, and she trembled beneath his touch. Her lips parted more fully, and his tongue swept into the hot dampness of her mouth.

Then, suddenly, she twisted away from him with another choking sound. Startled, he released her. She shoved hard against his chest, backing away from him, wiping her mouth with her hands as if she had taken poison. Her eyes remained very wide and very blue. "Bastard!" she hissed at him. She looked him up and down.

"Stupid bastard! In a Confederate uniform, no less! Don't you know this whole area is crawling with Yankees?"

"I'll take my clothes right off," he offered dryly.

She shook her head stubbornly. She was still trembling, he saw. Her fingers worked into the fabric of her skirt, released it, then clenched the material again. Her breasts were still outlined by her wet blouse, the nipples clearly delineated. He took a step toward her. "For God's sake, Kristin, what the hell is the matter with you? You're my wife, remember —"

"Don't touch me!"

"Why the hell not?"

"You're a bushwhacker!" she spat out. "You're his — you belong to Quantrill, just like Zeke."

That stopped him dead in his tracks. He wondered how she had found out. A haze fell over his eyes, a cool haze of distance. It didn't really matter. He'd had his reasons. And though he wasn't with Quantrill anymore, if he'd found the right man when he had been with him, he would have been as savage as any of them.

"A friend of yours stopped by here right after you left in the fall," Kristin informed him. "Bill Anderson. You remember him? He remembered you!"

"Kristin, I'm not with Quantrill any longer."

"Oh, I can see that. You got yourself a real Reb uniform. It's a nice one, Cole. You wear it well.

But it doesn't cover what you really are! Who did you steal it from? Some poor dead boy?"

His hand slashed out and he almost struck her. He stopped himself just in time.

"The uniform is mine, Kristin," he said through clenched teeth. "Just as you're my wife."

He didn't touch her. Her face was white, and she was as stiff as a board. He started to walk past her, heading straight for the house. Then he spun around. She cringed, but he reached for her shoulders anyway.

"Kristin —" he began. But he was interrupted by a man's voice.

"You leave her alone, Johnny Reb!"

Cole spun around, reaching for his Colt. He was fast, but not fast enough.

"No!" he heard Kristin scream. "Matthew, no, you can't! Cole, no —" She threw herself against his hand, and he lost his chance to fire. She tore her eyes from his and looked over at the tall man in the Union blue coming toward them with a sharpshooter's rifle raised. Kristin screamed again and threw herself against Cole. He staggered and fell, and he was falling when the bullet hit him. It grazed the side of his head. He felt the impact, felt the spurt of blood. He felt a sheet of blackness descend over him, and wondered if he was dying. As he railed against himself in black silence for being so involved with Kristin that he never heard or saw the danger, Cole heard the next words spoken as the man

who had called to him, the man who had shot him, came forward.

"Oh, no! Oh, my God —"

"Kristin! What's the matter with you? I'm trying to save you from this jackal —"

"Matthew, this jackal is my husband!"

As he slowly regained consciousness, Cole realized he wasn't dead. He wasn't dead, but he'd probably lost a lot of blood, and it seemed as if he had been out for hours, for it was no longer daylight. Night had fallen. An oil lamp glowed softly at his side.

He was in the bedroom they had shared, the bedroom with the sleigh bed. Everything was blurred. He blinked, and the room began to come into focus. He could see the windows and a trickle of moonlight. He touched his head and discovered that it had been bandaged. He drew his fingers away. At least he couldn't feel any blood. Someone had stripped off his uniform and bathed the dust of the road from him and tucked him between cool, clean sheets.

Someone. His wife. No, not his wife. Kristin. Yes, his wife. He had married her. She was his wife now.

She had stopped him from killing the man.

But she had stopped the man from killing him, too.

A sudden pain streaked through him. He was going to have one terrible headache, he realized. But he was alive, and he was certain that the bullet wasn't embedded in his skull. It had just grazed him.

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and then on the floor outside his door. He closed his eyes quickly as someone came into the room. It was Delilah. She spoke in a whisper. "Dat boy is still out cold." She touched his throat, then his chest. "But he's living, all right. He's still living, and he don't seem to have no fever."

"Thank God!" came in a whisper. Kristin. Cole could smell the faint scent of her subtle perfume. He felt her fingers, cool and gentle, against his face. Then he heard the man's voice again. Matthew. She had called him Matthew. Of course. The brother. The one he had told her to write to just so that this wouldn't happen.

"A Reb, Kristin? After everything that happened —"

"Yes, damn you! After everything that happened!" Kristin whispered harshly. "Matthew, don't you dare preach to me! You left, you got to go off and join up with the army! Shannon and I didn't have that luxury. And Zeke came back —"

"Moreau came back?" Matthew roared.

"Shut up, will you, Matthew?" Kristin said wearily. She sounded so tired. So worn, so weary. Cole wanted to open his eyes, wanted to take her into his arms, wanted to soothe away all the terrible things that the war had done to her. He could not, and he knew it.

She probably didn't want him to, anyway. She would probably never forgive him for his time


with Quantrill. Well, he didn't owe anyone any apologies for it, and he'd be damned if he'd explain himself to her. And yet…

"Kristin," Matthew was saying huskily, "what happened?"

"Nothing happened, Matthew. Oh, it almost did. Zeke was going to rape me, and let every man with him rape me, and then he was probably going to shoot me. He was going to sell Samson and Delilah. But nothing happened because of this man. He's a better shot than Shannon or me. He's even a better shot than you. He happened by and it was all over for Zeke."

"Zeke is dead?"

"No. Zeke rode away." A curious note came into her voice. "You see, Matthew, he won't murder a man in cold blood. I wanted him to, but he wouldn't. And after that, well, it's a long story. But since he's married me, none of them will harm me, or this place. They're — they're afraid of him."

"Damn, Kristin —" He broke off. Cole heard a strangled sound, and then he knew that brother and sister were in one another's arms. Kristin was crying softly, and Matthew was comforting her. Cole gritted his teeth, for the sound of her weeping was more painful to him than his wound. I will never be able to touch her like that, he thought. He opened his eyes a fraction and took a good look at Matthew McCahy. He was a tall man with tawny hair and blue eyes like his sisters. He was lean, too, and probably very strong, Cole thought. He was probably a young man to be reckoned with.

He shifted and opened his eyes wider. Sister and brother broke apart. Kristin bent down by him and touched his forehead. Her hair was loose, and it teased the bare flesh of his chest. "Cole?"

He didn't speak. He nodded, and he saw that her brow was furrowed with worry, and he was glad of that. She hated him for his past, but at least she didn't want him dead.

"Cole, this is Matthew. My brother. I wrote him, but the letter never reached him. He didn't know that — he didn't know that we were married."

Cole nodded again and looked over at Matthew. He was still in full-dress uniform — navy-blue full-dress uniform. As his gaze swept over Matthew, Cole couldn't help noticing that Matthew McCahy's uniform was in far better shape than his own, and in much better condition than that of the majority of the uniforms worn by the men of the South. The blockade was tightening. The South was running short of everything — medicine, clothing, ammunition, food. Everything. He smiled bitterly. The South had brilliance. Lee was brilliant, Jackson was brilliant, Stuart was brilliant. But when a Southerner fell in battle, he could not be replaced. Men were the most precious commodity in war, and the Confederacy did not have nearly enough.

The Union, however, seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of soldiers, volunteers and mercenaries.

Cole knew a sudden, bleak flash of insight. The South could not win the war.

"Reb — Sorry, your name is Cole, right? Cole Slater." Matthew came around and sat at the foot of the bed. He swallowed uncomfortably. "You saved my sisters' lives, and I'm grateful to you. I wouldn't have shot you if I'd known. It was the uniform. I'm with the North." He said it defensively. It was not easy for a Missourian to fight for the North.

"You had just cause," Cole said. His voice was raspy, his throat dry. His mouth tasted of blood.

Matthew nodded. "Yes. I had just cause." He hesitated. "Well, I'm home on leave, and I guess that you are, too."

"Something like that," Cole said. Kristin made a little sound of distress, but she quickly swallowed it down. Cole didn't glance her way. He smiled at Matthew and reached for her hand. She was playing the loving wife for her brother, he knew, and he wondered how far she would go. She let him take her hand, let him pull her down beside him.