One Wore Blue (58 page)

A slow smile curved into his mouth despite the baby’s hungry screaming. “You didn’t even intend to tell me about him, did you, Callie?”

She nodded her head, the liquid brimming in her eyes. “Yes, I intended to tell you!”

“When the hell did you intend to tell me?” he bellowed.

“You didn’t give me a chance. You came in here condemning me—”

“You knew that I’d come back. Maybe you didn’t.” He corrected himself bitterly. “Maybe you thought that I’d rot and die in that camp!”

“Damn you, Daniel, you can’t kidnap my son!”

“My son. And he’ll have my name,” Daniel said. To her amazement he walked past her.

“You can’t care for him!” she cried out. Of all the things that he might have done to her, she had never imagined this.

She had never in a thousand years imagined the fear she would feel, or the desperation, or the anguish.

He stopped and turned back with a smile. “Oh, but I can, Callie. I can. I can find a mammy to care for him within the hour. Believe me, Callie.”

“You wouldn’t!” she breathed.

“He’s a Cameron, Callie, and he’s going south tonight.”

“You can’t take him away from me! He’s mine!”

“And mine. Created under very bitter circumstances. He’s coming home, Callie, and that’s that.”

“This is his home!”

“No, his home is south, upon the James.”

No matter what had passed between them, no matter how bitterly he could have learned to hate her in the months that lay between them, she still could not believe it when he stepped past her.

“I’ll call the law!” she cried out.

“There is no law anymore, Callie,” he said to her wearily, over his shoulder. “Just war.”

She followed him to the door. Jared was crying with an ever-greater shrillness, furious that his meal was being denied him. The tears she had tried to hold back burst from
Callie’s eyes and streamed down her face. “No! You cannot take him from me!” she thundered, and she slammed against him, beating her fists against his back.

He spun on her, his blue eyes fierce and ruthlessly cold.

“Then you’d best be prepared to travel south, too, Callie. Because that’s where he is going!”

She stepped back, stunned once again. “What?”

“My son is going south. If you want to be with him, you can prepare to ride with me. I’ll give you ten minutes to decide. Then we’re moving. Meade just may decide to chase Lee’s army this time, though it seems poor Uncle Abe just can’t find himself a general to come after Lee. But I’m not waiting. So if you’re coming, be ready.”

South!

She couldn’t travel to Virginia. Her heart had been set long ago, at the beginning of the war.

She couldn’t travel to the South because she was against slavery, but more than that, because she had understood President Lincoln’s war from the beginning. The first shots hadn’t been fired because of emancipation. The war had begun because the southern states had believed that they could secede, that states’ rights were supreme. Now the war involved so much more.

She couldn’t go to Virginia because of Daniel Cameron. Because he was convinced she had betrayed him. Because he was determined to be her enemy with a far greater hostility than any northern general had ever felt for Bobby Lee.

She reached out her arms to him. “Daniel, give me the baby. Just let me feed him.” He stared at her in an icy silence. She gritted her teeth. “Please!”

His frigid blue stare still pierced her condemningly, but he brought the baby to her. Jared was suddenly in her arms, warm, trembling, precious, still screaming. Callie shook, knowing that the baby meant more to her than anything in the world.

More than war. Far more than pride or glory.

“Ten minutes, Callie,” Daniel said. “I’ll be waiting on this step. For Jared. And you. If you choose. But Jared is coming with me.”

“But we’re enemies!”

“Bitter enemies,” he said politely.

“I could betray you again, moving through this territory.”

“You’ll never have the chance again,” he said softly.

Yes, she thought fleetingly, she knew him. And she knew that he meant what he was saying.

He would take the baby.

She met his startling blue gaze and then turned and fled up the steps with Jared. She ran into her room, her heart beating. She kissed her son’s forehead and distractedly pulled upon the strings of her bodice, freeing her breast for the baby to nurse. She touched his cheek with her knuckles, and he rooted for a moment before latching on to her to suckle strongly.

Love, enormous waves of it, came rushing through her. She rested her cheek upon her baby’s head. She would never let Daniel take him from her.

No matter what had been. No matter how bitter Daniel might be.

No matter what it was she had to face as a Yank in the South.

She closed her eyes. Daniel was so wrong. Their son had been conceived in love.

Not even a year had passed since then. Not even a year since she had first seen Daniel Cameron.

She closed her eyes and remembered.…

Heather Graham lives in Florida with her husband and five children. Formerly a professional model, she has written thirteen bestselling historical romances, including the
New York Times
bestseller
And One Rode West
.