The Pride Of Jared Mackade

'Morning sickness is pretty common among pregnant women.'

'Being sixteen, alone, sick and pregnant isn't common. It sure as hell shouldn't be.'

'Feeling sorry for me is a waste of time. It was a long time ago.' Now she did draw back, and she saw his face. 'But that's not exactly what you're feeling.'

'I don't know what I'm feeling.' Nothing frustrated him more than not being able to see inside himself for the answers. 'I've got questions I haven't figured out yet how to ask. You make me ask, because you don't tell. And yes, I do feel sorry for you, for the kid who was left to fend for herself, and make choices for herself that no child should have to make.'

'I wasn't a child.' Her voice was measured, her shoulders were suddenly stiff. 'I was old enough to get pregnant, so I was old enough to face the consequences. And the choice I made was mine alone. No one else could have made it for me. Having Bryan was one of the few right decisions I made.'

'I didn't mean that. I didn't mean Bryan.' Seeing the heat in her eyes, he gave her a quick shake. 'I meant where to go, what to do, how to live. God, how to eat. And, damn it, Savannah, you were a child. You deserved better than what you got.'

'I got Bryan,' she said simply. 'I got better than I deserved.'

He couldn't make her see what he wanted her to see. For once, he simply didn't have the words. Perhaps they were too simple. 'I wonder what it would be like to create something like that boy, and to love without restriction. Without ego.'

She could smile now. 'Wonderful. Just wonderful. Are you coming home with me?'

'Yeah.' He took her hand. 'I'm coming home with you.'

He thought about that kind of love, and her kind of life, as she slept beside him. He would never have gone out and searched for a woman like her. It bothered him a great deal to admit it, even to himself.

She wasn't polished, or cultured, had no sheen of the sophistication he usually looked for in a woman.

That he had looked for, Jared reminded himself, once. And that had certainly been a pathetic mistake. And yet didn't a man need a woman he understood, a woman he knew? There were huge pockets in Savannah's life he neither understood nor knew. Large pieces of her that were separate from him, tucked away in her memories.

A young girl, pregnant and alone, deserted by everyone she should have been able to count on. He felt pity for that girl, as well as—and it scalded him to realize it—a vague distrust.

Where had she gone, what had she done, who had she been? As much as he wanted to get beyond that, his pride held him fast. She'd borne another man's child, been other men's fantasies.

That thought stuck in the pride, in the ego, and refused to be shaken free.

His problem. He knew it, rationalized it, debated it. As she shifted beside him, turning away rather than towards him, he worried over it.

How many other men had she loved? How many had lain beside her, each wishing he was the only one?

Yet, even as he thought it, he reached out to hold, to possess her. Her body curled warm against his, and he could smell her skin, that earthy, sensual fragrance she carried without the aid of perfumes.

He knew her routine now. In the morning she would wake early, but slowly, as if sleep were something to eased out of, like a warm bath. She would touch him, long strokes over the shoulders, the back, the arms. And just when he began to tingle and heat, she would rise out of bed. She would arch her back with a lazy, feline movement. Lift that long, thick black hair up, let it fall.

Then, as if there were no difference between a sleepy siren and a sleepy mother, she would slip into a faded blue cotton robe and go out to wake Bryan for school.

And often, very often, Jared would lie in bed for long, long moments after she padded across the hall. Aching.

He almost wanted to believe she'd woven some sort of spell over him with her gypsy eyes and sultry smile and that go-to-hell-and-back-again attitude. She knew him better than he knew her. Knew his ghosts, recognized them, felt them. She was the first woman who had walked in what he considered his woods and heard the murmurs of the doomed.

It linked her with him in a way that went beyond the physical, even the emotional, attraction. It lifted it into the spiritual. It lifted it beyond what he could fight, even if he wanted to fight.

Whatever it was that bound him to her gave him no choice but to keep moving on the same path toward her.

So he fell asleep with his arm hooked around her waist, holding her close. And dropped weightlessly into dreams.

There was pain in his hip where a mortar blast had sent him flying into the air, and hurled him down again. His head was aching, his eyes were tearing. It was so hard to focus, hard to force himself to set one foot in front of the other.

He didn't remember entering the woods. Had he crawled to the trees or run into them? All he knew was that he was terribly lost, and terribly afraid. His lieutenant was dead. There were so many dead. The boy from Connecticut with whom he'd shared last night's dinner, with whom he'd whispered long after the fires burned out, was in pieces in a shallow ditch where the fighting had been so fierce that hell would have been a relief.

Now he was alone. He knew he had to find somewhere to rest, someplace safe. Just for a while. Just for a little while. His home wasn't so very far away. Just north into Pennsylvania. The Maryland woods weren't so very different from those near his farm.

Maybe he could be safe here until he could find his way home again. Until this war that was supposed to have been an adventure and had become a thousand nightmares was over.

He had turned seventeen the month before, and he had never tasted a woman's lips.

Unbearably weary, he stopped to lean against a tree, drew in ragged breath after ragged breath. How could the woods be so beautiful, so full of color and the smells of autumn? How could that horrible noise keep going? Why wouldn't the guns stop blasting, the men stop screaming?

When were they going to let him go home?

With a shuddering sigh, he pushed off the tree. He skirted a rock and, with a burst of relief, spotted a path. Just as he stepped toward it, he saw the Confederate gray.

He hesitated only a moment, but whole worlds revolved inside him. This was the enemy. This was death. This was the obstacle in the path leading to what he wanted most.

He shouldered his rifle even as the boy facing him mirrored the movement.

They shot poorly, both of them, but he heard the whine of the shell close enough to his ear to stop his heart for a full beat. Then he was charging, even as his mirror image charged.

Their terrified war cries echoed each other. Bayonets clashed.

The enemy's eyes were blue, like the sky. That thought intruded as he felt the first agony of blade in flesh. The enemy's eyes were young and full of fear.

They fought each other like wild dogs. Even in the short time he had left, he would remember little of it. He remembered the smell of his own blood, the feel of it as it poured out of his wounds. He remembered waking alone, alone in those beautiful autumn woods.

And then stumbling down the path. Crawling, crying.

He would remember, for all of the hours he had left, he would remember the sight of the farmhouse just beyond the clearing. The color and glint of the stone, the slope of the roofline, the smell of animals and growing things.

And he wept again, for home.

Someone was with him. The face was older, weathered, set in a frown under a soft-brimmed hat. He thought of his father, tried to speak, but the pain as he was lifted was worse than death.

There were women around him, shouts, then whispers. Soft hands and firelight. Cool cloths, and the pain slipped into numbness.

Every word he spoke was a searing flame in his throat. But he had so much to say. And someone listened. Someone who smelled like lilacs and held his hand.

He needed to tell her he'd been proud to be a soldier, proud to serve and to fight. He was trying to be proud to die, even though the longing for home was fiercer than any of his wounds.

When he died, Jared woke, his heart stuttering. Savannah stirred beside him. And this time, this time, turned to