And no longer forced. He neither held her chin, nor her back. His lips touched hers, he cupped her breast. The knuckles of his other hand moved lightly along her body, touching low against her abdomen, her waist ...
“Bastard!” she cried, wrenching free from him, stumbling back in the water. “What are you doing? Why? How could you, when you ... when you know ...”
He stood still, narrowed eyes dispassionate, arms crossed over his chest as he studied her.
“When I know what?”
She wiped his kiss, his touch, from her lips, staring at him, shaking. She was so unnerved. So frightened. Now it wasn’t so much a matter of what had she done! It was a matter of just what was she doing, oh, God!
“When you know how I feel. He is dead, dead, don’t you understand?”
“He may be dead, but you are very much alive,” he said. He took a step toward her in the water. “Whether you want to be or not. But then, just what is it? Do you somehow think that you’re supposed to want to be dead as well?”
“I am supposed to grieve. We’re all supposed to grieve!”
He nodded. “Grieve, yes. Throw ourselves on funeral pyres, no.”
“I’ve not done anything like that.”
“No, you just deny every living instinct you have.”
“I don’t. Just because I deny you—”
“It’s not a matter of denying me. But you think that you can pretend that things you’ve done aren’t real—what happens if there are consequences?”
“God damn you, nothing happened, there are no consequences!” she cried furiously. “And what are you doing here, torturing me in the water? Don’t you have wounded men to tend to somewhere?
She paused suddenly, remembering her dream of the night before. In a halting, distant voice she said, “Your cousin is coming.”
“What?” he asked, startled.
“His ship is nearly here.”
He stared at her, eyes narrowed. “How do you know? How do you even know he’s on a ship?”
“I saw it.”
“When?”
She shook her head impatiently. “In my dream. I’m telling you, your cousin is coming, and he ...”
“He what?”
“He needs help badly.”
He paused only a second longer and then moved past her. He started swimming. His strokes were hard and sure. He was an excellent swimmer. Naturally. She should have expected as much, she thought. He was like an extension of this land he loved so much. Like her, he’d grown up where the days were often long and unbearably hot, and where water could be found at ever turn.
She followed along more slowly, keenly aware of her lack of dress, of the way her cotton undergarment clung to her wet skin when she rose from the water. But he was paying her no heed. He had risen, water sluicing from him, and she found to her distress that she was watching the way his cotton long johns clung to his muscles, his thighs, and his buttocks.
They were worn long johns. Threadbare in places.
She didn’t have much time to watch. As quickly as he was out of the water, he was stepping into his trousers, slipping his shirt over his shoulders. Still barefoot, he turned back at last, reaching a hand to her to help her from the water. “I’m all right,” she protested, arms hugging her chest, but he emitted a sound of impatience and she knew that he wasn’t looking at her at all.
“I can manage—”
“Get out. You haven’t a thing to hide with which I’m not familiar.”
“You’re not at all a Southern gentleman—”
“Want to see me get worse?”
Gritting her teeth, she accepted his hand, and he drew her from the water to the shore. He plucked her black mourning gown from the ground and handed it to her. She shivered, dressing with her undergarment soaking still, then trying to draw her hose and shoes over her wet feet and legs. A soft, clean towel would have been a sweet luxury, she thought. But it wasn’t to be.
“Let’s go,” he said impatiently.
“Go where? Aren’t we at the river—”
Yes, they were, but apparently, not exactly where she had thought they were. He didn’t like giving her any more information than he had to, but since he was so anxious, he decided to explain their position. “The brook curls around this little spit of peninsular hammock. The deep water comes in around the other way.”
He caught her hand and drew her along purposefully. They came back to the area where the camp tents were pitched and passed it by. As they followed another trail, she could see sails rising high out of the water. In another few steps she saw that a ship was anchored in the river, and small boats were coming into the shore.
Julian turned to her. “You were right. He is here.”
Tia McKenzie stood anxiously by the water, waiting, surrounded by a number of the Florida militia men.
“You should go on alone. Your sister won’t want me assisting when you tend to your own flesh and blood,” Rhiannon protested.
He didn’t let go of her hand. “Yes, she will. She wants him to stay alive. So do I.”
As they came to the shoreline, he at last released her and stepped out to the water to help drag in a small boat. There were three men aboard. One rowed and one held the head of the third man who was wrapped in a blanket.
One of the men stood nimbly and jumped into the few feet of water at the embankment, dragging the boat on in.
Jerome, an arm then cast around one of the men, scrambled from the small boat and came toward them. Rhiannon saw his face, and though he was a stranger, she knew how he felt, and felt a strange trembling sensation fill her. She had thought that it was Julian at first in her dreams, because he looked so much like Julian. Or Ian. Except that he had higher cheekbones and a touch of auburn to his hair. And Indian blood.
Jerome McKenzie saw her watching him anxiously. He was obviously fairly gone in whiskey or rum, because he was singing with drunken cheer. “A-sail, a-sail, and up the canvas, pirates on the shore, and there they be, Lord, they be me, a pirate, fare me well!”
“Let’s get him into the surgical tent, quickly,” Julian ordered.
Rhiannon paused by the shore, but once again Julian turned back for her, catching her hand. They hurried to a tent where Jerome was situated on a makeshift hospital bed.
“David, sweet Jesus ...” Julian murmured, talking to the man who had half carried, half dragged his cousin from the small boat.
“He’s been fevered,” the ship’s doctor replied. “The bullet is close to the shoulder bone.”
“Julian, Julian, dear boy, this man gave me complete hell. He kept insisting my chances of living were so much better if he lopped off my arm right away!”
“Jerome, immediate surgery does save a man’s life much of the time—”
“But you can keep my arm.”
“David is as good as I am, and you know that, and that’s why he’s your ship’s surgeon!”
“I had to come here,” Jerome insisted. He smiled drunkenly again and, despite his disheveled appearance, his grin was charming. In that, Rhiannon saw again the similarities between the McKenzies; when Julian chose to offer that smile, he was equally compelling.
Jerome abruptly tried to sit up. “You!” He wobbled his good hand in an effort to point at Rhiannon. She stiffened instantly.
“I know you,” he said, frowning with some confusion. “You were in my dreams.”
“Your wife will enjoy such knowledge,” Tia, anxious at his other side, chastised.
Jerome gazed her way indignantly. “There aren’t many women in this, but I’ve seen a good one here and there. She’s a doctor, right?”
Rhiannon shook her head strenuously. “No, no, I—”
“A healer,” Jerome said. The way that he looked at her, she thought that he was feigning some of his drunkenness, and that he had known someone very like her, or with her strange talents. Amazingly, he seemed to feel a bond with her—and to trust her.
Rhiannon saw Tia staring at her
. She’d thought at first that the young Miss McKenzie hated her, but she realized now that Tia was waiting—reserving judgment.
Rhiannon looked from Tia to Jerome. “I’m the local witch,” she told him, smiling ruefully.
“A Yankee witch, I take it.”
“I’m afraid so. How did you know?”
Jerome didn’t answer that. “And my nasty cousin dragged you here, did he?”
“Something like that,” Julian said. “Jerome, lie back. You may be the scourge of the seven seas, but we’re trying to keep you in business here!”
He did as he was told, but his eyes were on Rhiannon again.
“Don’t let my cousin take my arm to save my life because he’s afraid. He won’t lose me, and he won’t lose my arm. But we’re close, you know. He loves me. He might decide to start cutting just because he’s afraid to trust himself with his own flesh and blood. I have a wife, a babe, he may feel he owes them, but I’m not going to die.”
“The arm should have gone right away,” Julian said. “David was right about that.”
“You haven’t seen where the bullet is,” David told him. “I haven’t been able to get at it, and he was so insistent about coming here that it seemed better to do as he wanted.” He hesitated. “Risa is near here, at the least.”
Julian nodded, turning toward a private who had lingered at the entrance to the tent. “We need someone sent.”
“Liam can slip in and out like a shadow,” the man said.
Julian nodded, looking back at his patient.
“Don’t take my arm, I am going to make it. Right, Yankee witch?” Jerome asked Rhiannon.
She nodded. She was startled when his fingers, on the hand with the good arm, curled around hers.
Then his eyes closed.
“Oh, Lord,” Tia whispered. “Jerome, Jerome ... Julian, he’s not responding,” she said worriedly, smoothing her cousin’s dark auburn hair from his forehead.
“He’s been fevered, slipping in and out of consciousness,” David Stewart said.
“Oh, God ...” Tia breathed.
“Let’s get started,” Julian said.
“Are you sure you want me here?” Rhiannon asked. “You’ve enough hands—”
“I want yours,” he said harshly.
Was he testing her somehow? No, she thought. He wouldn’t risk his cousin’s life on such a trial. He believed she had a power. She shivered suddenly. She didn’t have any special powers. She wasn’t a witch. She had just learned a great deal about poppies, and she was cursed sometimes with the ability to dream things that were real ...
“Mrs. Tremaine?” Tia said, black eyes hard. She was pleading. The injured man meant a tremendous amount to everyone here, Rhiannon realized.
Yes, he was their blood kin. And he also provided supplies to the Confederacy. He kept soldiers in ammunition, he kept food coming through, medicines.
“Mrs. Tremaine, my cousin knew that you were here. He wants you here now. God knows why, but ...”
Rhiannon’s palms felt damp. “I’m here. I can’t assist, but I can try ... but I’m not magic, you know. I’m not really a witch with any powers.”
“Medicine is magic, isn’t it? Help my brother save my cousin. Too many people seem to believe that you have a special talent or power for there not to be some truth to it all. Jerome is a good man. He has brought us the means to save children as well as the injured time and time again. He has been our life’s blood.”
Rhiannon lowered her eyes, thinking that she could remind Tia McKenzie that Jerome’s services had aided and abetted the Southern cause—one totally opposed to her own. But when she lifted her eyes, she saw that Tia knew that. She was praying that Rhiannon could help save her cousin’s life and his arm.
She glanced up, aware that Julian was watching her, too. “Obviously, I want to help save lives, any man’s life,” she murmured.
David Stewart and another Reb—a huge fellow Julian surely used to hold his patients down—remained in the tent. In the short time they’d been there, Julian had been preparing; Tia, despite being so upset, had helped as well. Julian’s instruments were neatly laid out—and clean, Rhiannon noted.
“Tia, bandages,” Julian said as he and David began unrolling those tied around his cousin’s arm.
Tia nodded but didn’t obey the order. Stunned, she simply stared at her cousin.
Rhiannon stepped forward, looking at the wound as it was revealed.
“Minié ball,” she said. The Reb named David cast her a quick, appraising glance. She ignored him. The wound was a dangerous one. The Minié ball was conoidal in shape, of a lead that moved at a relatively slow velocity, changing shape and brutally ripping and tearing flesh, blood, and bone. If a man was lucky, the bullet went right on through. This bullet hadn’t. It had lodged against a throbbing blood vessel.
“You can see my dilemma,” David said. “He could bleed to death if the bullet isn’t dislodged just so.”
“Take the arm. You have to take the arm to save his life,” Tia said.
“Tia, he could still bleed to death,” Julian remarked. Rhiannon saw that because of the way the bullet had struck and settled, Julian would have to take much of the shoulder as well as the arm. Dangerous indeed.
Rhiannon hadn’t been asked, but she moved closer, standing by Jerome McKenzie’s head and taking an even closer look at the wound. The arm had been kept clean, and infection had been kept at bay by the use of compresses.
Just then she realized that Jerome had come to again. He was staring up at her. He was very handsome, striking, different. He wasn’t used to being down on an operating table. His eyes, very much like Julian’s, were on her. “You can do it, you’re the witch. Save my arm,” he told her.
She set her hands gently on his head. “Julian is the surgeon. And you have to remember, your life is most important.”
“Julian, you can do it. You can save my arm. I know. I need it. I need to keep sailing. Trust the witch. She can feel what to do. You wouldn’t hurt me, would you, Yankee witch?”
She bit her lip, thinking that the Union effort would be in better shape if this man were to die.
They were all looking at her now. Her gaze turned to Julian.
“What do you think?” he asked politely.
“I don’t know what you mean—”
“Yes, you do. I can’t get a ligature in there, nor do I dare trust one. Think you can hold the blood vessel for me, keep him from hemorrhaging?”
She sucked in her breath, amazed at what he was asking her. And the trust he was putting in her.
She swallowed, then shrugged. “If the ship’s surgeon here and your man can keep him steady, my fingers are long and thin and agile enough to keep the blood vessel steady while you go for the bullet.”
If she slipped, if she lost her hold, if Julian faltered with his forceps, Jerome would probably bleed to death. They’d be taking a chance. But the bullet had to come out—or the arm had to go. Given much more time, the bullet would wedge into the artery, and it would kill him.
“Oh, God,” Tia breathed.
“Bandages!” Julian said to her. “Tia, bandages!”
Tia moved as commanded.
“All right,” he said. He looked at David, and at his man at the foot of the bed. “Jerome?”
“Yes?”
“Good, you can hear me. I’m going for the bullet, and it’s going to hurt like hell. I’m going to give you some ether. You just have to breathe slowly when I have the bag over your mouth—”
“No ether!” Jerome McKenzie managed to get out. “Save it for men who will need it. There’s ... enough whiskey in me ... do it.”
Tia was still preparing the bandages, her back to the operating table. Rhiannon instinctively reached for the scalpel Julian would need first, and the bullet extractor he would need after clearing his position. She handed him the instrument he needed, meeting his eyes again. “Tia, you’ve got to come back over here. I need David to steady Jerome, Mal
colm to keep him from jumping, and Rhiannon on the artery. When I’ve cleared the way, soak up the blood and then take the scalpel and hand me the forceps as quickly as you can. Understood?”
“Yes, Julian.”
He turned away for a moment. Rhiannon saw that Jerome McKenzie was looking up at her again. His handsome, bronzed face was sleek with sweat from his fever, tense with pain, but he remained conscious and aware. He gave her a rueful smile. Then words formed on his lips.
“If anything should go badly ... please, tell my wife I love her.”
She found herself nodding, fighting the tears that formed in her eyes.
“Now,” Julian said.
She reached into the wound and felt the man’s flesh, his blood, his life.
They were in her hands.
Chapter 10
CORPORAL ANDERSON COULD NEVER have known just how much Rhiannon would love the brook.
She sat there by twilight, watching as the sun set. She thought that nowhere in the world could the sky put on such a show of God’s artwork. The sun was a huge orb glowing red and orange, and as the afternoon waned, it slid with startling speed down the blue backdrop of the heavens. As it did so, it brought a rainbow of pastels along with it—pinks, purples, blues, yellows, golds. Rays of heat seemed to streak in tremulous waves, and if she lifted her chin, she could feel the wonder of the warmth, the soft touch, and it was like nature’s caress.
If only that were enough ...
She was suddenly aware that she wasn’t alone. Turning, she saw that Julian stood by one of the moss-laden oaks. He was watching her.
“How is he?”