And One Wore Gray by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

air on her cheeks, to feel the coming of the darkness, the whisper of the night. For these fallen men around her would never again feel the soft caress of a breeze, or the endlessly sweet nectar of the first soft kiss of the night.
    She turned, anxious not to see the faces of the men as she hurried past them.
    The house, she realized, was riddled with bullets. Her front windowpanes were shattered. There was even a small cannonball lodged in the stone base of the left corner of the porch.
    This was one battle Callie would never be able to forget.
    She stepped back into the parlor. Her feet crunched over broken glass.
    It was beginning to grow very dark and shadowy within the house, and she was anxious to light the gas lamps.
    She started to move, but then her hand flew to her mouth and she tried desperately to swallow down a gasp. Fear, vivid and wild, came sweeping through her. She fought a growing sense of panic, biting down hard upon her knuckles.
    She wasn’t alone.
    There was someone in her house. Someone who had come through the rear door, and into the kitchen.
    From the parlor through the hallway, and to the door frame that led into the kitchen she could see him standing there. He was very tall, and his height was emphasized by the plumed hat he wore at a rakish angleover his brow. She could see little of his features, for the shadows of dusk hid them.
    But she could see his uniform, and it was gray. Gray trousers, rimmed in gold. Knee-high black boots. A gray frock coat, also trimmed in the same gold. He was southern cavalry, she thought quickly.
    The southerners had pulled out. That’s what Captain Trent Johnston had said.
    So what did this southerner want with her? She’d heard tales of what happened to lone women when men of an invading army came their way.
    Don’t panic, she warned herself.
    But his mind was moving in the same direction, and his warning came down upon her like a hammer.
    “Don’t!” he rasped out sharply, before she had found the breath to scream.
    She had to scream, she had to move. Quickly. Captain Johnston still had to be close by.
    Callie spun around, ready to exit her house as swiftly as the wind. But even as her hand fell upon the doorknob the southern cavalryman fell upon her.
    Her scream escaped her then, as his hand touched her arm, ripping her away from the door. “Stop it, damn you, ma’am, I am not spending the rest of the war in a prison camp!”
    The voice was deep, rich, almost musical in its drawl. But it was also touched with an arrogant authority, a harshness, even a ruthlessness.
    And his face …
    He was the soldier she had touched! The one she could have sworn had lived.
    He stared at her with eyes as sharp as steel blades beneath those imperious, high-arched, and deadly dark brows.
    “No!” Callie screamed, finding breath at last. Her fingers clawed at the fingers that held her arm. She touched something warm and sticky. Blood.
    She looked up into his eyes.
    They were deep blue, nearly cobalt. They stared at her evenly and with a dangerous and determined warning.
    “Let me go!” she demanded. Oh, Lord. She was a competent woman, she assured herself. She was not easily intimidated. She had lived here all alone since the war had begun.
    She had never been so frightened before in all her life. This soldier looked at her as if he had some personal vengeance in mind.
    “Let me go!” Her voice was starting to rise again. He was very tall, even allowing for the heels of his boots. He towered over her, and his frock coat emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. His jet dark brows framed his eyes, and hiked up high as he watched her. His mouth was set in a firm line within his square and unyielding chin.
    “Miss, don’t—”
    “No!”
    She wrenched free and made for the door again. “Captain Johnston!”
    The cry rose high on her lips.
    “Don’t! Dammit, I do not want to hurt you!” He swung her around and planted his hands firmly on either side of her head