Surrender the Wind (3 page)

“Your name?”

She frowned, his request, too authoritative. She chose her mother’s surname. “Catherine Callahan.”

“It’s a pleasure making your acquaintance, Miss Callahan. Am I to assume it was
you
who aided in my recovery?” In pain, he folded his hands behind his head, watched her, his expression making clear his rightful place in the universe. Was he calculating details about her? She moved to her armoire and snatched her dress. He wanted to know if she were alone. She’d never tell.

His facial expression changed to one of amusement. “Miss Callahan, I wish all the North were as transparent as you, for there would have been a decided victory long ago.”

Her breath burned in her throat. So he had guessed she lived alone. Finding perverse delight in piercing his enjoyment, she spun to face him. “You are very smug for someone who is my prisoner.”

“I consider it a pleasure.” He chuckled as though he played a game—the line drawn. “Since I am your prisoner, could you provide some food? I’m famished—and water. I recall that all prisoners of the North receive some kind of succor.”

She tripped on the coverlet and hauled it back up over her shoulder. “I will get your food when I’m good and ready. The sooner you get better, the sooner you’ll depart.” This was madness. To think she had an army of servants to attend her. Today she played nursemaid to a Reb who was getting above himself.

* * *

In her tiny kitchen, she bathed from a chipped porcelain washbasin, plucked her dress off the ladder-back chair, donned it, then stomped across the warm oak-plank floors, scrubbed and cleaned of the Reb’s blood. After placing a teakettle on the stove, she opened her front door and stepped out onto the porch, admiring the brick-red sunrise. Her one-story farmhouse had a kitchen, parlor and bedroom, and held a charm like the gingerbread-laced, fisherman cottages that dotted the shores of Long Island. Except there was no drop to the sea, salt air, or waves crashing on the beach. Burrowed in the Allegheny Mountains, her new home brimmed with the piney smell of hemlock, mingling with cinnamon ferns and damp mosses. The harmonious sighs of mourning doves flowed tandem with a gentle breeze that sifted through the maples and oaks.

The teakettle whistled and she returned to the kitchen, brewed tea, and arranged a breakfast platter. She brushed her hair into a tight bun and placed on her spectacles, then moved toward the bedroom.

Catherine plunked a tray in front of him. He looked at her twice, yet remained too much of a gentleman to comment on her appearance. She gave a crisp nod and sat in the chair next to him, aghast to see him drain an entire pitcher of water and empty a bowl of stew as if Armageddon descended upon him. “We chew our food before swallowing.”

“Not when you haven’t had anything to boast about in your stomach for a month.”

“I thought during your army’s forays north, you Rebels thieved and robbed enough to supply the South for the next five years.”

The Reb frowned. “However, your northern army was not the least hospitable with even less to entertain, making our friendly visit—brief.” His tone was irascible, yet tempered.

“I’ll return these papers I found on your person.” She pulled them off the table and presented them to him. “I took the liberty of reading them. I believe, Mr. Benjamin Benson, that is to say, Private Benson of Confederate Army of South Carolina, that—”

“That thieving son of a bit—” He caught himself before he finished his slur. “I am not Private Benson.”

Catherine almost laughed but dared not, after how upset he’d become. “You should not over exert yourself, Mr. Benson. You may have had a head injury. There are such traumas.”

His nostrils flared. “I assure you, I have no such trauma, Miss Callahan. As you know yourself, so do I know who I am.”

Was he delusional?
“Then who do you think you are?”

“Are you going to turn me in?”

His question was guarded, and she shrugged. “Wouldn’t I have done so already?”

Silence as thick as mud oozed between them. Why was he hesitant? Couldn’t he remember? His gaze raked her, searching for an answer. To have an amnesiac Reb on her hands…how much more complicated could her life become?

“I am General John Daniel Rourke, Army of Northern Virginia.”

He was crazy.
“But your papers say—”

“I heard you the first time!”

“You don’t have to amplify your complaint. I’m sure there is a logical reason.” She placated him as if he were a small child. “Perhaps you admire this individual or maybe you have an intrinsic desire to be a general that allows your thoughts to confuse you. It could happen to anyone.” The sooner she got rid of the raving lunatic, the better.

“Surely you jest.”

“It’s not in my nature to joke about a serious topic such as this, Private Benson.” She must not reinforce his delusions.

“Do not call me that name again. I am General John Daniel Rourke, and I will not abide any slight to my family’s name.”

She gave a weary sigh. “Whatever you say. I am sure you have a plausible explanation as to why you were wearing a private’s uniform and carrying a private’s identification papers. Why it must happen to everyone in the South. Perhaps the town fool wakes up thinking he’s your President Jefferson Davis. Or Jefferson Davis is the town fool.”

He dropped his fork and it clanged on the empty plate. “There was chaos in the last battle near Spotsylvania. The lines merged in the wilderness. Injured, I was unable to fight the cur who switched my clothes and paper for his, enabling him to be placed in an officer’s prisoner of war camp where there is better treatment. Nonetheless, it is why I carry his papers.”

“An interesting story with an unfortunate end. I thought rebels were—honorable?”

“Most, but not all. But it appears I have received the better of the deal.” His voice lowered, pleasant, potent, tempered and muted by his Southern accent. It was a voice that could woo seductively, or command in such a way as to compel obedience. Indeed, the man’s whole character was in that voice of his.

His eyebrows furrowed. “Why have you helped me?”

The intensity of his gaze sucked the air out of her lungs. She jumped, upended her chair, righted it, then met a sudden need to set everything to order. She straightened her leather boots and tucked her cotton gowns inside the armoire, closing the doors with a bang. She glanced over her shoulder. He assessed her again, as if she should come forward with some powerful revelation. How many times had she asked the question? Wasn’t he caught in a world upside down as much as she?

“You have six months to force Catherine to marry me—before she reaches twenty-four years and can legally inherit her family’s assets. You will be well compensated.”

Like standing on the precipice of a bottomless abyss…if Francis discovered her whereabouts…of course, her stepmother, Agatha profited by the arrangement. The easy parlay managed by Mallory would gain him control of one of the largest dynasties in the United States.

She sagged against the back of her chair. “I took pity on you. I’m sick of all the death and dying. It has pervaded every avenue of my life.”

“I am a rebel—your sworn enemy.”

“It is ironic.” She moved to the window. The surrounding countryside was green and lovely with the return of spring and the promise of summer. She wrapped her arms around her in an effort to steady her emotions. Her war was on two fronts.

Millions of Irish immigrants had swarmed into New York City, crowded in teaming tenements, poverty, and ghettos. Along with the uncontrolled growth, the criminal members of an Irish underworld flourished. Those who lived by vice and crime preyed upon the misfortune of others by using brute strength for power and money. Francis Mallory was part of this unscrupulous circle and had manipulated more power with the distraction of the war. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, his blue-blooded father ignored the poverty-stricken life of his bastard son. His mother had died drunk and beaten to death in a West Side brothel.

“You’re more than angry.”

“I am. This war has taken everything dear from me…Shawn.”

John lifted a hand then dropped it, discerning she fought for control and would not desire any sign of consolation that might make her lose it.
Shawn—the Lt. Colonel in the photograph.
He turned over the picture of her long dead lover. He refused to be haunted by a ghost.

She pressed her forehead against the windowpane. “My brother, Shawn…”

John coughed. “Shawn is your brother?” When she nodded, he laced his fingers behind his head and relaxed against the pillows.
Interesting.
So the man she mourned was her brother and not her lover.

“If only he would come back. He would make everything right.”

She drew a long steadying breath and seeing her pain, an unfamiliar constriction rose in Rourke’s chest. Unable to get her despair out of his mind, he said, “And yet you helped a stranger.”

“You are lucky not to have proceeded onto Elmira. It is rumored to be a horrible prisoner of war camp, perhaps worse than your Andersonville. Besides…” she whispered, “…it was my Christian duty.”

Her voice swayed for a second, too complicated to ascribe to a lone emotion. Guilt? Desperation? Fear? But why? “Somehow you don’t strike me as one of those old harridans, sitting on her porch, quoting scripture and verse.”

“How do I strike you?” She turned toward him, blinked behind her spectacles.

John grimaced. How he’d like to toss those horrid spectacles out the window and pull the pins from her hair. “I don’t know,” he said, except he suspected a lot more beneath the surface.

“I must redress your wound.” She removed his tray from the room and returned with jars and dressings that she placed on the bedside table. John rather liked the way her fingers twisted together. Was she nervous touching him now that he was conscious? Would he make it easier for her? No.

She licked her lips and turned back the sheet. Her fingers touched his skin, feather light and the jolt he received from her touch caused him to inhale. She drew back.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.” He gruffed out. Her spectacles had fallen down her nose, revealing lovely emerald eyes, agreeable in expression and totally irresistible. An angel had descended from the heavens, dazzling as the first glow of universe and rescued him from a grim demise.

Her fingers lingered a moment at the top of his bandage, as if uncertain. He felt her innocence in her touch. She untied the knot and peeled the bandage back to peek at his wound. His stomach muscles clenched.

“Better. Needs more poultice to draw out any remaining infection.”

Keeping her features deceptively composed, Catherine opened a jar of liniment.

“That stuff stinks to high heavens. You are not going to put it on me.”

“I certainly am,” and with a quick swipe of a cloth, she layered a thick coat on the healing wound. Did he want to strangle her? She refused to shrink from under his intimidating stare.

“Smells like a nest of riled skunks.”

“Yes, but very effective.” She laughed, wrinkling her nose. “Besides you need a little humbling. Your fever has left you cranky and overbearing.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “I’ll have you know if any soldier of mine ever countermanded an order like you have just done, he’d be horsewhipped.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Benson?” She used the soldier’s name to prick his ire, despite the fact she was beginning to believe he was telling the truth. No common foot soldier could ever be so commanding.

“Are you always so contradictory, Miss Callahan? Tell me, do they breed all ladies of the North with insubordination?” He drawled with distinct mockery then flinched.

“Only when they are threatened with a horsewhip by some scoundrel. Is the salve burning yet?” Her lips twitched from his growing scowl. “That’s when it works best.”

“What other treatments do you have? Shoving wood-splints up my fingernails?”

Ignoring his sarcasm, Catherine itched to smooth back the crop of dark hair falling over his forehead. He was so churlish and stubborn, like a little boy who’d scraped his knee. “Are you scorning my expert medical care?”

“That stuff isn’t fit for my horse.”

Catherine burst out laughing. “In truth, that’s what it’s for.”

“You mean to tell me I’m being wrapped in horse liniment?”

His astonishment was priceless. “You should be more enthusiastic about your treatment. After all, it saved your life.”

“More likely will end it,” he finished.

“It will stop burning in a few minutes,” she said, half-apologetic. “But I must wrap clean bandages around you. For that I’ll need your help.”

Catherine unrolled long strips of cotton cloth. She helped him lean forward again, wrapping the clean cotton strips around his midsection, then around his back, compelled by a latent need to touch him.

She had volunteered at MacDougall Hospital and had bandaged many men but the isolation of her lone country farmhouse and the menacing Reb added an intimacy she had not experienced before. Curious about his body, she guided the bandage around his lean rippled stomach muscles, admiring his male sort of beauty. He was devastatingly handsome, his body, lean from years on the march, and she assumed, this rugged, vital man who had a monopoly on virility, attracted women like swarms of locusts. With him conscious, her thoughts clouded and erased all of her mirth. Staving off the quick unaccustomed tingling in the pit of her stomach grew impossible. Did he shudder beneath her fingertips? Twice she dropped the cloth and apologized. What did he say? She swallowed, managed a feeble answer, none of which sounded in any way intelligible.

A warning voice in her head told her to finish the task and leave. She looked down. His gaze was drawn to her breasts where they strained against the fabric of the dress she wore. General Rourke was enjoying himself. To strangle him had merit. He opened his mouth to laugh at her but stopped. A pulse beat at the base of his throat. She couldn’t see where his eyes traveled next but rather felt his heated appraisal of her waist and hips. When she stretched to wrap the cloth around him, her breast grazed his cheek.