Thunder hounded her steps down the mountain trail, like gunfire reverberating in her skull and skittering a violent cold sweat over her skin. The limp in her stride and newborn in her arms slowed her pace, but nothing could ease the erratic taste of fear gripping her breath with each thunder clash.
Visions burst at every explosion. A dying nurse in her arms, bleeding from an abdominal wound from a shell. A soldier fighting for breath from the ravages of a gas attack. Dark German eyes piercing hers before seizing her mouth in a violent kiss, stripping her of the distance and strength she’d coveted for years. Three pulls of a trigger as she fired a pistol into the head of a man trying to kill her brother. One. Two. Three.
She cringed against the hateful, haunting memories and attempted to quicken her pace, only to stumble.
August caught her by the arm, steadied her, and then quickly released her. She nodded a reluctant thanks before forging ahead, the sound of August’s gentle voice as he spoke to Jude about the hound, Scrubs, at the boys’ side whishing a gentle distracting to her terror. She focused on August’s voice, attempting to allow the comfort and calm of his mellow base drive the panic away, but another boom of thunder jolted her pulse.
The darkened sky promised a deluge. Soon.
“We need to hurry.”
August turned to her, those eyes so pale and gentle, they somehow softened her scowl. She couldn’t shake the memories of his care for Eliza’s body as he quietly helped her wrap it until Granny Painter or one of her midwife apprentices came to prepare it for the wake. She’d notify Clive at the general store, and then mountain people would crawl out of the hollows and cabins to pay their respects. And, of course, someone would have to dig the grave. Eliza had no family, no kin apart from the two children who now belonged to Jessica.
She tried to wrap her mind around that thought, but a closer boom of thunder blasted her mind with white fear, sending a seizure-like tremor through her and waking the baby. The farmhouse rose before her around the tree line path, across the field. Pinpricks clawed at her spine, like the cold steel of a pistol at her neck. Her throat strangled. She hobbled faster. The baby started to whimper, but Jess couldn’t stop.
An overwhelming panic rose above logic and understanding. It gripped her senses and left her practically paralyzed... unless she could get to the house before the storm grew any closer. Before she lost her last remnant of control.
Another clap of thunder nearly crippled her to the ground, but August caught her again.
He looked down into her face, his brow crinkled with concern.
“I need to get inside.” Words squeezed through her tightening throat. “Please.”
August looked up at the sky, then to the front door, and back at Jess’ face. She didn’t have time for him to sort out the problem, or her weaknesses. She’d already swallowed two gallons of pride saying “please” to the man.
She attempted to jerk free from his hold and take the final steps to the house before her body became immovable, but August swept her and the baby up in his arms and crossed the final expanse to the back porch steps just as the sky opened.
He placed her down on the porch, his unnerving stare almost distracting her from the panic lacing each breath she took. She slung the door open, ushered Jude inside, and turned to August, who stood at the threshold, unmoving.
Her fingers dug into the wood of the door, but she couldn’t quite take her gaze from his.
“You are safe.”
His whisper, the compassion softening the sharp edges of his jaw, clashed against her assumptions and desperate need to hate him. Safe?
Lightning flashed behind him and the thunder cracked in unison, lighting the sky and reigniting the terror.
“Thank you,” she managed to say before slamming the door in his face. Maybe she said it. The blackness on the fringes of her thoughts sifted memory and present into a murky mess. She needed to hide.
“What are you doing?” Her grandmother’s voice filtered in through the coming fog.
Jess turned to her and pushed the crying baby into her grandmother’s arms and then, as the darkness started closing in on her vision and the sounds of gunfire eclipsed all other noise, she fumbled up the stairs to her room, opened the tiny closet, and closed herself inside.
***
August walked up Spring Street over the well-worn train tracks glistening with fresh rain. He’d learned summer rains arrived in a hurry but ended as quickly, leaving the earthy smells of wet grass and flowers mingling in the damp air. He stopped at the corner of the Hot Spring’s depot and drew in a fresh breath of honeysuckle air. The small town stretched before him, buildings huddled around a narrow, dirt-stained main street, which had grown only a little since his people had ‘invaded’ this tiny corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Behind him extended the long bridge over the French Broad, a steel edifice he and his comrades succeeded in repairing after the flood left the bridge gnarled and broken. The mountains, shields of gray and blue, rose on every side, cradling the town and its five hundred natives.
August shoved his hands in his pockets and completed the short walk along the twelve-foot wooden fence to the entry gate. His feet hesitated each time he crossed the threshold back behind the fence, the temporary freedom of the day stolen with one step. He looked back over his shoulder before entering his confinement for the night. His thoughts turned back to the afternoon’s tragic scene and Jessica Ross’ behavior—her fathomless emerald eyes seized with terror. Confinement came in all shape and sizes. For some, it was wooden fences and barbed wire, for others... bitterness and fear.
The woman posed an interesting quandary. For a few moments, she’d softened her defenses, allowing him to see behind her protective wall of resentment. Gentleness and a deep-set compassion flowed from her interactions with and her glances to Jude. She carried a strength, an almost indomitable courage in each step she took, even against the pull of her limp. But her strength bowed to the weight of helplessness, both during Eliza’s birth and then... during the storm.
Everything within him stood to assistance, readied to give whatever she needed to snatch the fear from those evergreen eyes. What haunted her? August knew some of the stories her grandparents shared, but had something much worse ripped through her strength to inspire such terror?
A movement along the fence line, shadowed gray clouds in the storm-waning sky, slowed August’s pace toward the camp gate. The silhouette crept along the fence, head bent low as if searching for something lost along the ground.
There was a distant familiarity to his gait and lean physique. August moved toward the man, but the shadowed figure must have heard his approach and scampered away until he disappeared over the edge of road down toward the river.
August waited, watching the shadows a little longer to see if the man might emerge. Though his countryman’s arrival in Hot Springs came with a general sense of good feeling, or at the least indifference, there were always those whose losses and fears bent their sensibilities toward a darker turn.
Sinister? Dangerous?
One last glance over his shoulder afforded an orange-hewn main street. A figure leaned against the Tavern wall, smoke trailing from his cigarette, his dark eyes trained on the camp. On August. Davis, the man August saw in Kimp’s store, the one with such a severe grudge against him and his countrymen.
August steadied his gaze, refusing to bend beneath the glare, and then turned the corner into the Lower Lawn gate of the camp.
“In for the evening, August?” Cliff’s voice drew him from his thoughts.
The man, about August’s height, stepped from behind the guard office and met August at the bottom of the steps to the small building.
“It’s been a long day, my friend.”
Cliff placed a comforting palm on August’s shoulder. “You’re wearing the weariness in your face. My cousin beat you down?”
August chuckled, appreciating the welcome bond he’d developed with the camp guard. “More related to the sadness in my work with your cousin than your cousin herself.” Though the entire Jasper Little scene still irritated his worry. “Eliza Larson died in childbirth today.”
Cliff’s broad shoulder bent with his sigh. “I’m sorry to hear it. I went to school with her husband. Good, hardworking fella. What about his young’un?”
August raised two fingers. “The baby daughter survived. They are with your cousin.”
Cliff’s mouth dropped. “Jessica?”
August’s weary grin sloped in response to Cliff’s astonishment. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s evidence enough of Eliza Larson’s state of mind. Leaving two children in the hands of my cousin who has been fairly terrified of children ever since she watched two brothers nearly drown?” Cliff shook his head. “Seriously, August, the woman ain’t held a baby since then unless under duress.”
Which explained a great deal of her behavior from the time she wrapped the baby in a worn-out blanket, somewhat nervously, to the tension as she walked. It still didn’t explain her increased fear as they descended the mountainside, but certainly seemed to add to it.
“Why?”
“Those two brothers were boys she’d helped tutor in school. Took to them something fierce. Doc almost lost one of the boys—lips turned plumb blue.” Cliff shook his head. “You don’t know her like me, friend, but she’s more protective than any mama bear I’ve ever seen. Her family. Friends.” Cliff released a low whistle. “She might act like the devil may care, but she holds a depth of feeling on the inside nobody sees.”
“Then the children should be in good hands, yes?”
Cliff’s eyebrow snagged with the corner of his lips. “Good? Well, I reckon good and capable are two different things, ain’t they?” A cloud shadowed Cliff’s features. “Childbirth takes more women in this part of the world than the war would ever steal the menfolk.”
August allowed the silence to settle and Cliff’s gaze to return to the present before speaking. “Your wife?”
The brawny man cleared his throat and set his palms against his hips. “And the babe. A daughter.”
August touched the man’s shoulder, a prayer of comfort in his mind. “I’m sorry, friend.”
“It was three years ago, but some days... when I learn of another situation, the years disappear and I’m back in my house, holding my wife and praying for a miracle.”
Grief held a curious dagger, striking at the most unexpected times in unlikely ways. Oh, yes, August knew. And during these times of war and change, death stalked as close as a breath, touching each home with its chilling grasp. Cliff Carter embodied a certain breed of mountain man. Intimidating in size and strength, but underneath the rough edges beat a tender heart. A faithful heart.
August grinned. Cliff Carter was cut from the same mold as August’s grandfather.
August glanced ahead of him across the massive lawn framed in by a few barracks. At least his kinsmen preserved some of the beauty of the inn’s landscaping by leaving the massive holly trees and oaks in the front lawn and keeping the larger portion of the grassy area free for activity.
“General Ames visited today.”
August looked up and pushed back his straw hat to get a better view of his friend’s face, the implication clear. If the government sent Ames, something was getting ready to happen.
“He’s come to inspect the camp, look over policies.”
Warmth rushed back into August’s body and he relaxed his shoulders with a sigh. “Routine, yes?”
“Yes.” Cliff grinned, but his face quickly sobered. “But, August, there’s talk of a change. I don’t think it’s going to be much longer.”
***
Silence blanketed Jessica’s early morning steps as she held onto the stair railing. As she reached the bottom step, her grandmother’s quiet shuffling greeted her from the kitchen. Jessica’s head ached from lack of sleep, from the weariness of warring against ghosts and nightmares—faces of dying men, horrors mixed with mud and blood.
She ran a palm over her face and quelled another shiver. How could she have expected life to return to normal after all she’d seen? Shadows haunted her as rabid as death, and they’d followed her home. Home. The one place she thought she’d find peace... but it had deserted her, just as God had done. Leaving her to battle alone.
She fisted the railing and reigned in the tears, gripping her anger in an iron hold. She knew how to fight.
A lantern lit the dim kitchen. Grandmother sat by the window, a bundle of blankets in her arms, but as Jessica drew closer, she realized her grandmother held a baby. Jess stopped her forward motion, memories from the previous day flooding back through her mind in full, excruciating clarity. Eliza. The children.
Jess blinked down at the baby. Her baby? Surely not. She couldn’t take care of a baby—or a grieving little boy.
“August sent some supplies from town I’d asked for. Some bottles and things.” Her grandmother’s voice soothed gently into the silence. “Told me about Eliza.”
Jess stepped closer, peering down at the infant with the same caution she’d experienced around every baby. The tiny mouth moved on the bottle nipple and the quietest of swallowing sounds created a wispy pattern. How could someone so small terrify her so much?
Granny looked up in examination. “Blake told the preacher and he’s been spreading the word. I’m sure the Marshalls and Painters will see to the wake.”
“And the children?”
“I fixed Jude up in David’s old room. He thought he’d entered Paradise itself from the look on his little face when he crawled in that big bed.”
Jess rubbed her eyes, half to wake up and half to keep the residual tears from spilling. She slid into the chair opposite her grandmother, her heart still pumping with a sudden flight response. She her arms around her shoulders, warding off the chill of the storm and her nibbling insecurities. “You’ll take care of them, won’t you?”
Granny’s brow tilted before she looked back down at the baby. “I’ll help you take care of ‘em, but they’re not my young’uns.” Her gaze pinned Jess to her chair. “They’re yours now.”
Her grandmother’s words locked with a finality Jess repelled. She knew nothing about taking care of children, especially newborns. How on earth could anyone think it was a good idea, especially her grandmother?
“What happened yesterday? To you?”
Jess leaned her face into her palms, avoiding those searching eyes. “It’s more proof why I’m not fit to be a mother.” She sighed back into the chair and swallowed past her tightening throat. “I... I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes, I’m seized by this... terror I can’t control. What you saw?” She pointed to the front door to provide a memory cue. “What you saw was a good response. I caught myself in time to be alone for the... episode.” Her voice cracked as another sweep of warmth surged into her cheeks. Sheer panic still spiked the pulse in her throat at the thought of the storm. The thunder. The swelling fear. “I... I can’t stop it, Granny.”
Granny stared at her, her gaze penetrating deep. Jess had no idea what her granny deciphered, but whatever it was somehow meant placing that fragile little baby into Jess’ unsuspecting arms. Clearly, her grandmother failed to listen well.
“What are you doing?” Jess whispered, her entire body stiffening from the effort to hold the small and moving parcel.
Granny pushed the bottle into Jess’ free hand. “I’m fixin’ breakfast.”
With that, she turned and walked right out the back door toward the barn and chicken coop. Jess wanted to run after her and trade. She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked down at the little face, the round eyes staring right back at her almost as if she questioned Jess’ ability too.
“You should be terrified right now,” Jess whispered. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
The baby’s tiny mouth moved with a breath, so small and fragile like everything else about her, but otherwise, she didn’t seem too afraid. Jess lowered the bottle into the tiny rosebud mouth and the little one took hold of the nipple, knowing exactly what to do.
Tension rolled off Jess’ shoulders. Okay, so far so good. The swallowing pattern returned, a consistent, peaceful sound. Small fingers reached up and took hold of Jess’ braid, squeezing, then releasing, in time with her suckle.
A sweet warmth, like nothing she’d ever known, spilled over scars and scrapes around her heart. Tenderness squeezed against her tension, taunting her to release a hold on the fear engrained in every breath she took.
She touched the baby’s little cheek. “Afraid I’ll go somewhere and take that bottle with me?”
The baby’s eyes drooped lower in response.
“I guess not.” Jess chuckled, her voice loosening its hold on the little one’s name. “Faith.”
If there was a God, he wasn’t all-knowing, otherwise he’d never entrusted something so fragile and... precious to a woman with enough ghosts to impress Old Man Langston and his tall tales. But as the tenderness spread through Jess’ chest and the little baby fell into a sleep Jess envied, Jess embraced her promise.
If God wasn’t going to help these children, then she certainly would.