第 36 页

Panic and despair choked him as he tried to remember. Something, he thought, desperately, please let there be something....

But there was nothing. No memory; no hint of memory. His mind was chillingly, terrifyingly blank.

He banged his head back against the tree and squeezed his eyes shut. He started to fist his gun hand and felt a red-hot stab of pain.

He glanced down. His hand was a scraped, wood-infested blur of dripping blood and ripped flesh.

The image hurled him back in time. Bloody fingers, a bloody arm. Blood and dirt, blood and dirt, blood and?

Johnny.

Jack moaned softly as image after image spiraled through his mind. The rain, the thunder, the image of Johnny's dead face in the window. The nightmare.

He remembered what he always remembered: the beginning and the end. It always started with the nightmare and ended with the darkness.

Self-loathing washed through him in a dizzying, nause ating wave. He ignored the pain and curled his injured hand into a bloody, shaking fist.

The war was over, goddamn it. Why couldn't he forget? Why?

He'd tried so hard. He'd done everything the doctors had told him to do; he'd told himself he'd done the manly thing, the normal thing; he'd sealed his lips and never once spoken of the bloody battlefield at Antietam or the day Johnny had died.

And yet the memories persisted, thrived in the dark, twisted recesses of his mind.

Once he'd thought that talking about it might help. After so many years alone, sitting in that lightless, airless hospital room, with nothing to do but think about?dwell on-?the horror, he'd thought all he had to do was share his memories and they would go away.

Except there had been no one with whom to share them. No one who would listen. He still remembered the day he'd finally made it home. The endless, aching months on the road between the hospital and home had dissolved the instant he'd seen the tall, graceful mansion. On bare feet that had walked hundreds of miles over rocky, dirty roads, he'd run to the front door.

He told himself it didn't matter that there was no one to greet him. They didn't know he was coming home, after all. They hadn't even known he'd been in the hospital. They knew only that the war had been over for months, and neither of their sons had returned.

At first the welcome had been everything he'd hoped for. His father and mother and Amarylis and Savannah had crowded around him, hugging, laughing, weeping, welcoming. He and Amarylis had shared a wonderful, magical night of love. A night that had given Jack his wonderful Katie.

In the morning, though, everything changed. All it had taken was a single, casually spoken word. "Hospital."We thought you were a prisoner of war, son.

Jack cringed even now, remembering the gut-wrenching shame he'd experienced at his father's quiet words.

No, I was in a hospital.

Where were you hurt? His mother's words, filled with concern.

That had been the hardest question of all to answer. He had no physical scars, no limp, no missing limbs; no injuries of the kind they could understand and accept.

He didn't blame them?or at least, he tried not to. Hell, he'd lived through it, and he couldn't understand.

He'd tried his best to explain. I don't know what happened, Dad.... They shouted the order to attack. But I... I couldn 't move. Then Johnny yelled to me, and I ran after him, but it was too ... late. He was dead. After that, I woke up in the hospital?

You froze like some two-bit coward because things got a little bloody? His father turned away from him in disgust. His voice had been full of quiet condemnation. You 're no son of mine.

Jack said nothing more. He realized then, when he looked into his father's cold, disgusted gaze, that the doctors had been right. He should have sealed his lips and borne his heartache and guilt like a man. In silence.

He'd disgraced them, and to his father, a third-generation Georgia gentleman, there was no greater crime.

He and Amarylis had been asked to leave. His wife hadn't wanted to go?she'd made that more than plain? but there was Savannah to worry about, and Amarylis had no money and no family. That's why she'd married Jack in the first place.

Then the hatred began. Not a little bit at a time, day by day like some marriages, but bang! all at once. One day she loved him, the next day she despised him. And Jack understood her contempt. She'd married him for security and respectability, and in one miserable sentence, he'd stripped her of both.

Together and yet horribly separate, they left Rafferty Farms, left Georgia, left the South. Jack hadn't known then where they were headed; he knew only that he had to be as far from the South as possible, as far from other men as he could be.

By the time they'd reached North Dakota, Amarylis had started to show with Katie. Every new inch on her waistline added to her hatred for Jack and their unborn child. Even Savannah, who had once been the apple of her mother's eye, became just another tainted fruit from the poison tree.

He understood her contempt and almost respected it. It mirrored so closely how he felt about himself.

The gun. The thought burrowed in his mind and grew. This time he could do it. This time he wouldn't let fear stop him. This time he could pull the trigger for sure. This time?

Lissa.

Memories of her spilled through him, warming the cold, dark spots in his soul. All thoughts of suicide and failure vanished.

We 'II get through this together, Jack. I promise.

A broken sob escaped him. He clamped a bloody hand over his mouth. God, it sounded good. Jesus ...

He closed his eyes, remembering the strength of her arms as she'd held him, the taste of her tears as she'd begged him never to leave her. Then he remembered the night he'd left. She'd reached for him, held him in shaking, desperate fingers, tried to keep him from running.

Together, Jack. Together.

Suddenly he ached to hear those comforting words again, trembled with the need to feel the softness of her skin and smell the lavender-scented sweetness of her hair.

He moved away from the tree and started walking through the tall, swaying, golden grass toward home.

Toward Lissa.

Chapter Twenty-five

It took Jack hours to find his way to the house. He paused by the side of the barn. The last, fading rays of sunlight cast the farm in a cozy glow. The house seemed almost iridescent, its ordinary whitewashed boards transformed into pearlized planks by the setting sun.

He felt a stab of longing so powerful and unexpected, he almost staggered from the force of it. For years he'd dreamed of living in a place like this. An honest-to-God home. A place filled with dreams and laughter and light. And here it was at last.

He started to take a step toward it when a sound caught his attention. He paused, turned toward the barn door. From inside came the clanging thunk of metal on metal. Frowning, he eased the big wooden door open and slipped quietly inside.

Lissa was standing with her back to him, carefully reorganizing his tools. She'd cleaned his pitchfork and put it back where it belonged. The huge red ribbon around the tool barrel was gone. The only thing out of place was his old Winchester shotgun. For some reason, the weapon was propped in the corner of the barn. It stood at an odd angle, almost as if it had been thrown there and then forgotten.

"Lissa." He said her name quietly, half expecting her to vanish at the sound.

She gasped and spun around. The hoe she was holding slipped from her hand and thudded to the ground. "Jack!"She snatched up her skirts and ran for him, throwing herself into his arms.

At her touch, Jack swayed with relief. The warmth of her body against his was a soothing balm on his soul. "God, you feel good," he murmured against her hair.

She clung to him. "I missed you so much. I was so afraid.""I always come back," he whispered, feeling the moisture of her tears seeping through the flannel of his long Johns and dampening his chest.

She pulled away suddenly and stared up at him through glazed eyes. He realized then, looking in her eyes, how much he'd hurt her by leaving. How afraid she'd been that he wouldn't return. The knowledge that he'd hurt her was like a dull, aching sore in his heart.

He wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly. He wanted to share with her, wanted to tell her everything, but he was afraid. So goddamn afraid. The doctors told him never to speak of it, never even to think about it. What if he opened his mouth and instead of words coming out, he screamed? He was afraid that if he screamed once, he'd never be able to stop, and one day he'd wake up again, nameless and alone, in a dirty hospital bed.

He shivered at the thought, remembering the countless months he'd spent in that sagging cot, unable to think or speak. Staring sightlessly at the blood-splattered ceiling.

"Jack?" she whispered, touching his cheek.

He looked down at her. He could see the question in her eyes, see how desperately she wanted to understand where he'd been and why he'd gone. But she didn't ask.

"Why?" The word slipped out unexpectedly.

"Why what?"

"Why don't you ask?"

She blinked in surprise. "I want to know, but... I trust you, Jack. That's the most important thing. You'll tell me when you're ready."Jack stared down into her trusting, loving gaze and felt something inside him begin to crumble. He'd told himself he was making a new start. He'd promised God, and yet he hadn't begun again. Not really. There would be no beginning, no new start, until he trusted his wife. Trusted her with his heart and his soul and his secret.

Jack's heart felt as if it were being twisted out of his chest. This was the moment, he knew. If he didn't trust her now, didn't hand her his soul on a silver platter, she would never look at him this way again.

But if he told her, the love in her eyes might congeal, turn into something cold and ugly, as it did before.

Or it might not.

He looked down at her, raking her face with his eyes, memorizing it, loving it. She was all he'd ever wanted in his life, all he'd ever needed. Here on this tired old sheep ranch, with her and the children, he'd finally found the home, the place, he'd searched for all his life.

And now, to keep it, to find out if it was real, he had to risk it all.

Don't be a coward for once in your life. Just open your mouth and spill your guts. She might leave?hell, she'll probably leave. But she might stay. She might take you in her arms and kiss you softly and tell you she loves you anyway.

At the thought, he groaned aloud.

"Jack?"

"All right." He shoved the words up his throat. "We'd better sit down. This'll take a while."A quiet gasp escaped her. She stared up at him earnestly. "Are you sure?"Unable to speak, he nodded. He took her hand and grabbed the lamp, leading her up the ladder into the hayloft. Together they sat against the back wall. Jack focused for a moment on the feel of her fingers twined through his, and prayed that when it was over, she'd still want to touch him.

"It's all about Johnny." His voice softened as he spoke his brother's name. "He was strong and funny and not afraid of anything." A bittersweet smile came with the memory. "I was .. . small and weak and afraid of everything. Except when I was with Johnny. He always made me forget how scared I was of things.

"Like the war." He shuddered. "Johnny just had to go in the first wave. Me, I didn't want to go at all. I thought it was wrong, and besides, you were just starting to show with Savannah, but ... I couldn't let him go alone."Jack let his gaze wander to the back wall, where the hay lay piled in heaps. The sweet scent of it filled the air, but Jack didn't notice. All he could smell was blood and sweat and fear.

"So we went." His eyes narrowed, he stared at the planked wall, dancing with dust motes. Bitterness churned through him, leaving an acidic taste in his mouth. "It didn't take long to realize how undersupplied and untrained we were. We marched and marched and marched. After a while our boots gave out, and there were no more, then our food gave out, and there was nothing but rotten apples and stolen corn. We were tired and hungry and sick.

"Our company fought a few little skirmishes here and there, but nothing much. Nothing really dangerous. Our biggest enemies were disease and boredom.

"Then ..." His voice cracked, gave out. Memories and images shot through his mind. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm right here, Jack. You're safe. It's okay."She said the words over and over again. Jack concen trated on the gentle drawl of her voice until the rawness of his emotions melted into something more manageable. 'Then came Antietam." He shivered at the name. It had been forever since he'd uttered it out loud, and even now, years later, it made his stomach seize up with fear and shame.

He tried to detach himself from the horror. He stiffened and stared straight ahead. Images filled his mind in a sickening array of blood and death. The warm, cozy barn blurred, became the mist-shrouded cornfield. "The rain had started again by morning, and ground fog hugged the hollows and trenches. It was nothing but mud?so much mud....

"All of a sudden all hell broke loose. Guns and cannon fired into the mist from a dozen directions. The call came to charge. I ... I took a step. But it was so muddy, I couldn't move?I didn't move. I was so goddamn scared."Shame pulled the strength from his voice. "Then a canister exploded in front of me. An arm flew past my face?

"I saw Billy Walker standing in front of me, clutching a bloody stump. 'My arm,' he kept saying. 'My arm.' "Jack felt battered by the tide of memories he'd kept suppressed for so long. "I couldn't move. I heard Johnny yell at me from somewhere up ahead." Come on, Jacko. We need you!

The memory seized him by the throat. An eerie coldness crept through his body, chilling him to the bone. He shivered, squeezed his burning eyes shut. "I ran as fast as I could, screaming Johnny's name over and over again. I knew he was in trouble, but I didn't know ..." His words trailed off.

"Jack?"

He shook his head. Shame wedged so tightly in his throat, he couldn't talk, couldn't breathe. Tears burned his eyes and blurred his vision. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from crying.