The Lady in the Mist (The Western Werewolf Legend #1)

  ***

  The last of the cavalry horses disappeared into the dense growth surrounding the road, which passed near her cabin. Not wanting to think about what could have happened, she wrapped her arms around herself, laying her head against the cool pane of the leaded glass window. Robert would have said, "Now, now, don't worry, Sonja. We'll get another chicken. They left us one. The hen will be enough." If she closed her eyes, she could hear his voice. She could still hear the voice of the man she had lost over three years before. Was she going mad?

  The merciless demons had taken the goat. The goat for heaven's sake! The Union Army expected people to survive on little more than nothing. She forced the thoughts out of her mind. She and the lieutenant had missed a bullet, and they were both safe.

  Grateful, the Yankees, were gone, she turned to get about the noon meal and came face to face with the lieutenant. Her hand came up, clutching at her throat. Her fingers had trembled for an instant before she remembered to tighten them around her arms once more. "You startled me."

  Stepping away from the window, Sonja made a pretense of gathering up her skillet she kept near the stove on a peg in the wall. "I'll have lunch started in a few minutes." She glanced over her shoulder. His somber eyes watched her. His stare bore into her with the intensity of a knife. If he had sliced open her heart, he would not have seen into her soul any more clearly. "You shouldn't be out of the bed." The shake of her head she intended to scold him with made her feel lightheaded. "If you open your wound again, you won't like the way I have to close a tear. I promise you." The vision of how she had had to lay a hot poker across his flesh to cauterize the wound came back to her. With such primitive measures, she had managed to stop the flow of blood. Somehow the Rebel had lived. He should have died.

  The memory of the night she had come upon him on her way home from Hortence remained blurry and muddled. Sonja blamed the fact she had fled in terror of the great monster in Hortence's tiny cottage. The creature had been the ugliest vermin she had ever seen. Gathering a bowl to mix cornbread in, Sonja caught herself before she dropped the wooden spoon. The spoon shook in her hand.

  When Ty's hand touched her shoulder, Sonja jerked. The bowl fell clattering to the floor.

  "Easy. I won't bite," he said, his voice laced with good-humored comfort.

  His efforts annoyed her. Turning her before she could step out of reach, he gazed at the expression of start on her face. "I'm sorry I frightened you. That wasn't my intention."

  Sonja looked into those blue eyes, the color of the sea she imagined. "No, it was my fault. My mind wanders sometimes. That's all." She tried to shrug away the embarrassment at being startled so easily. Her heart was still lodged somewhere in her throat, while her hands now fisted at her sides, still wanted to shake.

  "You saved me again." His words though evenly modulated bore a hint of amazement. "I'm grateful." Ty's mouth creased into a smile as warm as any summer's day. Sonja's heart thudded unwittingly in her chest. From the depths of her woman's core, a sensation broke free surging through her, sending a wonderful feeling through her tense muscles. His nearness was not as awkward as it should have been. His words, spoken so earnestly, filled her with a kind of desire. The need to be held and loved, she mused, flowed through her.

  "I could have done nothing else." She tried to step back out of his arms.

  Ty held on. The look in his eyes spoke of longing. Sonja found herself drawn to him.

  "Yes, yes you could have, but you didn't. Why?"

  His question simply asked proved too much for Sonja to answer. Ty's hands held her like vices, making her heart pound in her chest. "I couldn't turn you over to them." Her face burned. She would not have for any price.

  "If they find me here, they'll hang us both." He dropped his head before glancing back from hooded lashes. "Now, if I intend to seek justice, Jeb along with everyone else out there will know I'm staying here. No way to change the fact that I'm on Yankee land.

  She could not deny the truth of his words. The Yankees hung people for merely being suspected of harboring the enemy. Why had she lied for him? Sonja dropped her eyes. Was she that lonely? Had she sunk so low as to hide a man, a Rebel for Christ's sake, simply to have someone to talk to, to share her cabin? To share her bed? The last question, though unbidden, hit home. Sonja shoved at his arms in an urgent attempt to break free. She couldn't be having these feelings now! Not with the full moon rising within days.