2

Looking back to catch a last glimpse of Heather, Gideon stumbled over his own feet and almost fell. The big man beside him grabbed hold of his arm to keep him upright and moving forward.

Gideon turned his face resolutely south as he got back into step. “You can turn loose of me now.”

Jake White laughed and grasped Gideon’s arm all the tighter. “I’m feared to turn you loose, lad. Afraid you’ll be deserting the likes of us for your pretty washerwoman.”

Jake had come over from Ireland a few years before. He’d joined up with the Union Army saying he’d seen Ireland fall apart with the hunger parting families and he wasn’t wanting to see his new country rent asunder as well. Already into his thirties, he was years older than most of the soldiers, but he lacked family to tie him to home. He’d had a wife, but she’d been carried off by a fever.

“I feel like I’m deserting her.” Gideon glanced over his shoulder, but there was nothing but more men marching along behind him. No girl in a dark blue dress chasing after him.

“Aye, that you are,” Jake agreed pleasantly. “But a soldier marches where the generals order.”

“She’s carrying my child,” Gideon said.

“Noticed as much the last time she laundered my uniform.” Jake let go of Gideon’s arm at last and looked straight ahead. His next words carried a weary sadness. “My Irene, she was in the family way when the fever took her.”

“But you didn’t desert her.”

“Nay, I did not, but the enemy won nevertheless.” He sighed before he shook himself like a dog after a dip in a pond. “But that has naught to do with your bonny lass. She’s a strong one in spite of her winsome looks. Else she couldn’t have followed the army these months. She’ll be glad for the rest of going home to birth your little one.”

“Her father was against her wedding me.”

“What did you expect, lad? A skinny excuse for a man like you showing up to steal his daughter. You don’t look like you’d last two rows hoeing corn.”

“I never did take to hoeing,” Gideon said with a laugh. “Of course, I never thought to take to soldiering either.”

“But here you are.”

“Here I am.” Gideon peeked back over his shoulder in hopes she’d run along after the troops so he could feast his eyes on her yet one more time. But that wasn’t Heather’s way. That was more the sort of thing he would do. Think nothing of the consequences but follow the whim of the moment. That’s why he’d risked the ire of the captain and broken rank to give her one last kiss. A kiss she’d remember the more for it being unexpected.

He’d think on that kiss and the look on her face and keep back the weariness of the march. Sometimes it was better to think about what had been rather than what was ahead. And what had been were many sweet nights with his Heather Lou.