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He thought clouds had rolled over the sun. Everything grayed and flattened. And all the noise, all the hell of it dimmed into an almost peaceful quiet.
Was it over? At last, was it over?
He reached a hand inside his uniform for Lizzy, drew her photograph out. Stared, stared as blood smeared over her beautiful face.
Then he knew.
He knew.
Pain came in a sudden, shocking flood as blood streamed out of his wounds. He cried out against it, cried out again in a sorrow too deep to bear.
He would never build her a pretty stone house near the singing creek with honeysuckle growing wild and wild as he’d promised her. They would never fill that house with love, with children.
He had done his duty, and lost his life. He tried to kiss her face one last time, but the photograph fluttered out of his numb fingers.
He accepted his death, he had sworn an oath. But he had sworn one to Lizzy as well. He could not accept that he would never see her again, or touch her.
He murmured her name as the breath and the blood ran out of him.
He thought—his last thought—he heard her call to him. He thought he saw her, her face pale, wet with sweat, her eyes glazed as if with fever. She spoke his name. He spoke hers.
Joseph William Ryder, known as Billy to all who loved him, died on the bend of the road above the sunken ground that came to be known as Bloody Lane.
RYDER WOKE COLD to the bone, with his throat burning dry and his heart at a gallop. Beside the bed, D.A. shoved his nose against Ryder’s hand, let out a nervous whine.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’m okay.”
But in fact he didn’t know what the hell he was.
Everybody has dreams, he told himself. Good ones, bad ones, weird ones, wet ones.
So he’d dreamed about Billy Ryder. They’d just found the guy’s grave. It wasn’t such a stretch to dream about him, about dying at Antietam.
A soldier who dies on September 17, 1862? Odds were pretty damn good he’d bought it on the battlefield on that bloodiest day of the war.
Billy Ryder had been on his mind, that’s all.
And that was bullshit. Stop being an idiot, he ordered himself.
He’d felt something at that grave site, and he felt it now. Something off, something he couldn’t quite get a grasp on.
Sleep hadn’t helped, obviously. He glanced at the clock, saw it was still shy of five. He wasn’t going to get any more sleep, and wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it anyway.
The dream, vivid as life—and death—left him unsteady.
He’d stood on that battlefield. He’d walked the sunken road of Bloody Lane. And though he considered himself a practical, grounded man, he’d felt the pull of the place, the power of it. He’d read books on Antietam—he lived here, after all. He’d studied it in school, taken visiting friends and relations on the tour.
But until tonight he’d never imagined it—no, he corrected, felt it so vividly.
The smells of it, the sounds. Stinging smoke, fresh blood, burned flesh, the raging storm of artillery fire that filled the world above the cries of dying men.
If he’d been a fanciful man he’d have said through the dream he’d lived in it, and died in it.
As Billy Ryder had.
Put it away, he told himself. Beside him Hope stirred a little, and the warmth of her layered over that cold he couldn’t quite shake. He thought about just rolling over, onto her, clearing his mind with that slim, soft body.
He considered the hour, deemed it pretty damn unfair to wake her before dawn, even though he figured he could make it worth her while.
He rolled out of bed instead, then just walked to the glass doors, pulled them open and stepped out on the bedroom deck.
Maybe he just needed some air.
He liked the quiet of this hour, and the way the slice of moon, not quite finished with the night, showed itself through the trees. He wished fleetingly that he’d gotten water before he’d come out, then just stood pulling in the peace.
All the work, stress, frustrations of the job were worth it for moments like this. Moments of utter quiet and stillness before night ended and day began. Soon, the sun would blur the sky to the east with red, the birds would wake chattering, and the cycle would start again.
He liked the cycle fine, he thought, absently lowering a hand to D.A.’s head when the dog leaned on his leg. He had what he wanted. Good work, a good place, family who not only mattered but who understood him, and if he had to be sentimental, loved him anyway.
He couldn’t ask for better. Then why, he wondered, did it feel as if something hadn’t quite clicked into place? That something hung up, just slightly out of alignment, and all he had to do was turn it a bit, and it would fall just where it should be.
“What’s wrong?”
He turned, saw Hope. Something wanted to click, wanted to shift and fall.
“Ryder?” She stepped out, tying the short little robe he wished she hadn’t bothered with.
“Nothing. I’m awake, that’s all.”
“It’s early, even for you.” She moved to him, laid her hands on the deck rail as he did. “Listen to the quiet. Country quiet, country dark. You can forget in all the busyness that there are times and places so wonderfully still.”
Since he’d been thinking nearly the same, he looked down at her. How could she be so damn perfect? It threw him off.
She smiled back at him, and the look of her, still flushed and soft from sleep, blew right through the center of him.
“I could make coffee. We could sit out here, drink the first cup of the day and watch the sunrise.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” He wanted her—too much and too often—but what was the point in fighting it? Not in the bed, he realized, where he’d dreamed of bloody death and bitter loss.
So he took her hand, pulled her toward the steps leading down.
“What are you doing? Ryder, you can’t just wander around. You’re naked.”
“Oh yeah.” Quick and clever, he tugged off her robe, tossed it in the direction of a deck chair. “You, too.”
Over her protests, he towed her down the stairs.
“Country dark, country quiet, country private. What are you worried about? Nobody’s around to see you. Well, there’s Dumbass, but he’s seen you naked before. Me, too.”
“I’m not walking around here without any clothes on.”
“I wasn’t planning on doing much walking.” So saying, he lowered her to the grass, damp and cool with dew.
“Oh, and this isn’t nearly as crazy as walking around naked. We can—”
He lowered his mouth to hers, stopped her words with a slow, shimmering kiss.
“I want to touch you while the sun comes up. I want to watch you, to be in you when the day takes over. I just want you,” he said and kissed her again.
So with words that touched her heart, he seduced her. With hands thorough and skilled, he aroused her. She gave herself to him, thrilled to be wanted, grateful to want. She opened herself on the dew-laced grass as the last stars guttered out like candle flames, as the moon slid away under the rise of shadowed land. As those first glimmers of red and gold eked through the night-dark woods.
He took what she offered; gave her what he had. With her he ended the night and began the day. The dreams of death and despair faded away. Inside him something turned, just a little. Something clicked and fell.
Here was hope. Here was Hope. And she was perfect.
As he felt her crest, birds woke singing. And the sky bloomed with another dawn.
SHE EXPECTED GUESTS by three, and the family well before. After she picked up her car, drove back to the inn, she spent the time doing her routine room checks.
She needed to be busy, she thought, so she wouldn’t be tempted to speak her thoughts aloud. To speak to Eliza.
In Nick and Nora she checked the lights, the TV remote, the room folder, added a bit to the room diffuser before going
out and doing the same in Jane and Rochester.
Fresh flowers would arrive early afternoon.
She moved from room to room changing lightbulbs when needed, adjusting room temperatures.
Back in the kitchen she filled a fruit bowl, set out cookies, made a fresh pitcher of iced tea.
In her office, she checked and answered emails, phone messages, busied herself while she wished the time away.
Today, they’d tell Lizzy they’d found her Billy. What would happen then, she couldn’t know. But she wanted to.
Just as she wanted to know what had been behind that look in Ryder’s eyes in the predawn dark. He’d been too quiet, even for him, since they’d found Billy Ryder’s grave.
And there’d been something quietly urgent in his lovemaking. They should have laughed, she thought now. Two people making love on the lawn with a dog for silent company should have laughed, been playful. But he’d been intense, so focused.
And she? She’d been swept away, taken under by his intense, focused need.
She wanted to reach him. She thought she’d begun to, and now? She didn’t know, and he wouldn’t say.
She remembered Avery’s words. You didn’t love and try to change. That was true, that was real and right. So she’d wait until he was ready to tell her what was behind that look in his eyes.
