Christine Dorsey Read online

  The Rebel’s Kiss

  Christine Dorsey

  Publishing History

  Print edition published by Zebra Books

  Copyright 1992, 2013 by Christine Dorsey

  Digital Edition published by Christine Dorsey, 2013

  Cover design by Kim Killion

  Digital formatting by A Thirsty Mind

  All rights reserved. No part of this book, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, may be reproduced in any form by any means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Table of Contents

  Quote: A Wartime Journal

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Excerpt: To Love A Rebel

  Other titles

  Reviews

  Meet Christine Dorsey

  To romantics everywhere...

  believers in the power of love.

  And as always to Chip.

  Is anything worth it? This fearful sacrifice—this awful penalty we pay for war?

  — Mary Chesnut,

  A Wartime Journal,

  July 26, 1864

  Prologue

  Appomattox Court House

  April 9, 1865

  Nothing.

  He felt nothing.

  No regret that defeat was at hand. No righteous anger aimed at the enemy. Not even a modicum of relief that the long four years of suffering were nearly over.

  Nothing.

  And the worst part—the part that made him want to bury his face deep in his hands—was, he knew he should feel... something.

  A pained groan sounded, seemed to echo through the hollow shell of a man he once was, and Jacob Morgan turned. Scanning the sea of men stretched out on makeshift pallets around the hospital tent, he searched for the one who had made the noise. From habit he moved through the cool, gray dawn toward the man who had called out. Habit, not compassion, Jake noted without emotion.

  Mechanically he dropped to his knees in the moist Virginia soil to offer the dying man a drink of water.

  The war’s end came too late for the nameless soldier staring up at Jake with pain-glazed eyes. He’d been gut-shot, no chance of recovery. Jake had seen him earlier—was it yesterday or last week? He couldn’t remember. But he did recall he’d been able to do nothing for the man except wrap him up. No treatment. No cure. The wound was mortal. God knows he’d seen enough of them to recognize it. This man wouldn’t be marching home. No warm welcome from loved ones for him.

  The riotous chatter of morning birds caught Jake’s attention and he looked over the dawn-tinged landscape. Gently rolling hills, hazy from April mist and smoldering campfires. And men, many of them rolling out of their bedrolls, wondering what this day would bring.

  Jake glanced again at the soldier beside him, then started to rise. It was so unfair, and Jake tried to grieve for the injustice fate had dealt this man.

  But God help him, he couldn’t. It simply wasn’t there.

  The hand weakly grabbing his arm stopped Jake, and he sank back down on his heels. “Doc, is it true what I’m hearing?” The voice was feeble and rusty from disuse, or maybe from crying out in pain. “Bobby Lee really givin’ up?”

  Jake tried to look somewhere other than the man’s face but couldn’t. He swallowed, hunching over. “Looks that way.”

  “Shit.”

  Jake thought of all manner of replies he might make, but none of them made any sense—nothing made any sense. He shook his head, his hands dangling between his legs. “I guess that pretty near sums it up.”

  The man’s eyelids fluttered shut, and Jake thought him drifting to sleep. Standing, Jake stretched his stiff, aching muscles. He was thirty-three years old and he felt like an old man—an old man ready to die.

  “Hey, Doc.”

  Apparently the soldier was fighting sleep for now his eyes were open, and he appeared almost lucid in the gray dawn.

  “What you think them Yankees is gonna do with us?”

  Didn’t the man realize he was going to die? A day, two at the most and all his earthly concerns would be over. But Jake didn’t tell him—he didn’t have it in him to tell this soldier the truth. So he squatted again, hands on knees.

  “Word is we’re to be paroled, sent home.”

  This news seemed to please the wounded soldier. The brackets of pain around his mouth relaxed. “Home,” he whispered, then turned his head away. But Jake had seen the shimmer of tears in his eyes and shifted uncomfortably on his heels, ready to leave.

  “Where you from, Doc?”

  Oh God, he didn’t want to talk about this, but the soldier was staring at him, and he had no choice but to answer. “Richmond.”

  “Richmond,” the man repeated, then added, “I’m from Georgia myself, Jasper County. Getting well nigh planting time.” Again the man’s parchment-thin lids lowered. Again Jake started to rise. Again the hand stopped him. “You going home, Doc? You going back to Richmond?”

  It happened before Jake could stop it—the sudden flash of his wife’s face, his son’s. Empty, ashen... lifeless. Jake started to answer but his voice was thick. He cleared his throat. “No. No, I’m not going home.”

  “Neither am I.”

  The words were spoken softly and Jake was so intent on fighting back his own memories he almost didn’t hear them. It was light enough to see clearly now, and Jake watched the soldier’s face, waiting. His eyes were closed, but surely he’d open them, ask another annoying question.

  Jake waited, his legs stiffening up. More men were waking. Jake heard orders yelled, answers grumbled, and still he waited. His eyes strayed down to the man’s chest, and abruptly he yanked the cover away, flattening his hand over the soldier’s heart.

  Tears burned Jake’s eyes, and he let out a shattered breath before pulling the blanket up, covering the soldier’s face.

  One more dead soldier. What was one more dead soldier? He’d seen hundreds of them, maybe thousands. He’d tried to help and he’d watched them die. What was one more?

  But the tightness in his throat wouldn’t go away, and blinking only made his eyes smart.

  There were worse things than feeling nothing.

  Chapter One

  Southeastern Kansas

  September 1865

  “They’re coming back, Sam!”

  Samantha Lowery lifted her cheek from the cold, metal gun barrel that rested on the windowsill and peered through the broken pane. She’d smashed the glass herself, but now she felt a rudiment of regret thinking how much it would cost to replace. Yet in the scheme of things one damaged window was
nothing. The echo of gunfire still rang in her ears and she didn’t know if she could stand any more. But Will was right. They were back. Except this time they’d only sent one man. A solitary rider galloped toward the house.

  Toward Willy and her.

  Samantha’s back stiffened and she gripped the musket’s stock, her fingers white against the well-worn wood. The gun was still loaded. She hadn’t fired when the others came. She’d watched them shoot holes in the barn, knock down the fence, and trample her garden. And she’d ached to do something—anything—to stop them. But she hadn’t.

  It wasn’t cowardice, Samantha had told herself as she watched the dozen or so men attack her clothesline and mangle the clean sheets in the dirt. If she’d been alone, the gun barrel would have scorched her hands from firing. She’d have shot, praying that her unpracticed aim was true. Anxious to taste revenge.

  But there was Willy. And he was her responsibility. All that was left—all that the war had left. If she shot at the gang of bushwhackers, they’d fire back. It was as simple as that. And they wouldn’t be wild shots into the barn or air. They’d be carefully aimed into the house. And then there’d be more than just property to mourn.

  So Samantha had dragged her father’s old hunting piece down from above the mantle and she’d watched all her hard work pummeled beneath the horses’ hooves.

  Then she’d collapsed over the gun when the men rode off toward the Missouri border. But they hadn’t all gone. And now the one they left behind rode straight for the house, his sidearm in hand.

  “What are we going to do, Sam?... Sam?”

  Samantha spared a glance toward her younger brother. He was scared. And who could blame him? Thirteen was too young to have to deal with all this violence, this hatred. But he had dealt with it, and this wasn’t the first time.

  Focusing back through the shattered glass, Samantha watched the man gallop closer. He wore gray—she could make that out. That and the gun. His hat shadowed his face, though she doubted she’d recognize him anyway.

  Landis Moore added more border ruffians to his gang every day—men who straggled home from fighting the war. But then no one could prove that, any more than they could prove Moore was the one behind terrorizing Unionist families in the area.

  “He’s going to shoot us, Sam!”

  “Get down, Will.” Samantha didn’t dare take her eyes off the man racing toward them now. Her hands started sweating and she gripped the stock, her finger bent around the trigger.

  She wanted to fire a warning shot. But then she’d have to reload, and by that time the stranger would be in the house, emptying his pistol into Will and her.

  “He ain’t stopping, Sam!”

  She could see that! He was almost upon them, his powerful horse lathered and snorting, the sun gleaming off the pistol wavering in the air.

  She’d have to shoot him. The realization came to her the same moment she heard Will yell for her to do it. Samantha thought of Pa and of Luke. They’d shot men, surely. They’d...

  “The barrel throws to the left,” Samantha mumbled to herself as she took aim. She’d never hit him. She never hit anything. Her older brother Luke used to take her behind the corn crib and try to teach her to shoot. But she never got the hang of it. And now Luke was dead. Killed the second time the armies clashed at Bull Run, fighting men dressed in gray... like the stranger riding toward her.

  The deafening explosion from the gun startled Samantha. The stock slammed into her shoulder, and the smoke stung her eyes. From somewhere in the back of her mind came the warning to reload, but she couldn’t make her fingers move.

  “You got him. You got him, Sam!” Will jumped up beside her. He sounded as surprised as she felt. He lurched toward the door, but not fast enough to escape his sister’s grasp. “Let me go, Sam.” Will wriggled, but Samantha only clung more tightly to his cotton shirt.

  “Maybe he’s not alone.” Samantha let loose of her brother when her words sank in. Jumping to her feet, she reached for the ramrod, pulling it clear of the musket with trembling fingers. Luke had taught her to load the musket, and the process was almost second nature. But not today. Not with a man lying out under the hot Kansas sun. A man she’d shot.

  When Will reached for the musket, Samantha gave it up readily. Let him do the loading... she’d do the killing. Working quickly and efficiently, Will poured gunpowder and shot into the ancient gun—the gun her great-grandfather had used at Breed’s Hill. Will handed it back, acknowledging her nod of thanks, and looked toward the door.

  Will’s excitement had drained when she’d pointed out the possibility of more men coming after their fallen comrade. But as minutes passed, and no horse’s hooves thundered into the yard, he seemed anxious to check outside.

  And Samantha couldn’t let the man lie there forever.

  She glanced through the window and saw him... face up in the dust. He’d lost his hat, probably when he fell from the horse. His hair was brown, light, streaked from the sun, ruffling every now and again as the wind sifted through it.

  But that was the only thing about him that moved.

  Oh God, she had killed a man!

  Samantha tried not to think of that as she opened the door. It was cooler outside than in the house. Cool, and pleasant, with birds singing, and puffy white clouds billowing across the sky. Cradling the heavy musket on one arm, and using the other to shade her eyes, Samantha scanned the horizon. No spirals of dust thrown up by galloping horses marred the landscape. Whatever prompted Moore to send this man back, Moore obviously thought he could handle it alone.

  What would Landis Moore do to them when he discovered what had happened?

  A shiver of fear ran through Samantha as she moved toward the stranger. Cautiously. The gun aimed at his prostrate body, her finger on the trigger.

  “I ain’t never seen this one before.”

  Will’s words made Samantha study the stranger. She’d never seen him before either. His face was lean, she could tell that even through the layer of dust and the whiskers shadowing his jaw. Lean and deathly still.

  She moved closer, kicking his pistol out of reach and nudging his arm with her musket.

  “You think he’s dead?”

  “I don’t know.” Samantha swallowed, forcing herself to look at his blood-covered chest. Scarlet soaked into the butternut gray of his jacket. “Here.” She shoved the musket toward Will. “I’m going to see for sure. You watch him.” Samantha wiped her hands down the sides of her drab brown skirt, and knelt on one knee.

  A few yards away the stranger’s horse whinnied, and Samantha’s reaction made her realize how nervous she was. She took a deep breath, and reached out to touch the man’s cheek.

  It happened so quickly Samantha had no time to fight. She was grabbed and flopped over onto the packed ground. Her head hit the dirt, painfully, bringing tears to her eyes. Air whooshed from her lungs. And something hard, and heavy, loomed over her, pressing against her.

  The stranger.

  She could smell him, his sweat and his blood... and his fear. His breath rasped harshly in her ears, almost blocking out Will’s frantic cries.

  “Should I shoot him? Should I shoot him?”

  Samantha tried to answer, but couldn’t form the words.

  Then she opened her eyes and looked straight into the stranger’s. They were green, pale green like the spring leaves on a cottonwood tree, and they were the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. Deep and clear, they held her mesmerized. The sounds of the day, Will’s near-hysterical voice, the birds, the horse calmly munching grass, blurred, and became hazy. Samantha tried to hold on to reality, but she couldn’t.

  Then his eyelids fluttered shut, hiding from her those sad, sad eyes, and the momentary glimpse of his unhappy soul. His weight crushed down on her, ending her fanciful thoughts. She yelled for Will to help roll him off her.

  “Did he hurt you? Jeez, Sam, I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You did right.” Samantha brushed dirt off her
skirt and looked down at the stranger. He was unconscious now, flopped over on his side, and Samantha could almost believe she’d imagined that moment when their eyes met.

  “I didn’t know if I should shoot him or what.” Will still held the musket, and Sam could sense the effort it took for him not to shake. Stepping away from the man, Samantha draped her arm around Will.

  “There was nothing you could do, Will. He didn’t hurt me.” All this had been so hard on Will. He’d been too young to be without a mother when Ma died, too young to understand when Pa was killed... and then Luke.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Will’s question reminded Samantha that the bushwhacker couldn’t be ignored. He was unconscious, but not dead. She could see the telltale rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

  And honest to God, she didn’t know whether to be sad or glad about it. If he were dead, they could just bury him, and hope no one linked his disappearance to them. Of course there was little hope of that since Moore had sent him.

  “We could take him into town,” Will offered, looking down at the man, then back to Sam.

  “How?” Samantha sighed. “You know the wagon has a broken wheel, and besides...” Sam paused to wipe her face and realized her hands were covered... with the stranger’s blood. She rubbed her palms down her skirt. “And besides, Sheriff Hughes isn’t going to like us bringing a wounded Rebel soldier into town.”

  There was no need to elaborate. It was common knowledge that Hager’s Flats’ sheriff had Southern leanings. His ability to look the other way when Moore’s gang terrorized pro-Union families made Samantha detest the man.

  “We could take him into the house.”

  “No!” Samantha softened her voice. “No, I don’t want him in the house.” Sad eyes or no, she couldn’t forget that Moore’s men had killed her father, or that men wearing gray had killed her brother. “We’ll pull him into the barn... and keep him tied, too!”

  “Tied? But he’s wounded and—”

  “And we’d most likely be dead if he weren’t. You remember that, Will.” Samantha grabbed hold of the stranger’s arms. “You take his legs.”