Lydia

“Did you hear?” Donovan’s own eyes were damp. His arm tightened around his sister’s shoulders. “You’ve got a boy! Listen to him squall!”

Varina lay still for a moment, then rallied. “Let me see him,” she whispered. “Give him to me, Sarah—”

“As soon as I cut the cord and wrap him up.” Sarah fumbled with the knife and string behind the veil of Varina’s nightdress. A moment later she straightened into full view, a tiny, squirming bundle in her arms.

“Here’s your new son, Varina!” she exclaimed, her face glowing.

As she bent over the bed, Donovan noticed that the pince-nez glasses had dropped off her nose and were dangling from a cord pinned to her shirtwaist. Her eyes were a luminous silver gray, framed by thick, lustrous lashes. Tendrils of light brown hair had escaped their tight bun. They framed her sweat-jeweled face in damp, curling wisps. Her mouth, curved in a tender smile, was as softly inviting as a ripe peach.

Again, that sense of recognition stabbed Donovan’s memory, this time with a force that made him reel. What the devil was going on here? He could have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he’d never seen Sarah Parker outside Miner’s Gulch. And yet-”Give me my boy!” Varina gathered the pucker-faced infant into her trembling arms. “I’ve got a name for him already. Charles Donovan Sutton—for his father and his uncle.”

“That’s fine, Varina.” Distracted once more, Donovan gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. He didn’t relish the thought of his own name being coupled with mutton-headed Charlie’s, but if that was what his sister wanted-”We won’t be needing you anymore, Mr. Cole.” Sarah’s crisp voice broke into his thoughts. She’d replaced her spectacles, Donovan noted, and tucked the loose tendrils of hair behind her ears. “If you’ll be so kind as to leave us, I’ll wash Varina and get her settled.”

“I’ll be on the porch if you need me.” He edged around the blanket, leaving Sarah to her bustling, Yankee efficiency. Four long strides carried him across the too-warm cabin and out onto the snow-dusted porch. Latching the door behind him, Donovan sagged against the frame, limp kneed with relief. One hand raked his dark chestnut hair and eased down to massage the tension-knotted muscles at the back of his neck.

It was over. The baby was here, and Varina was all right. For this, he owed his thanks to the coldly capable Miss Sarah Parker, whoever she was. If she had not arrived in time-He shuddered away the thought as he stared out into the falling snow. There was no use fretting over what might have happened, he reminded himself. Sarah had come. She had readily done what he himself had been afraid to do. She’d read a book—that’s what she’d told him. A book! Good Lord, the woman had steel-wire nerves, and ice in her veins!

Sarah.

Enveloped by whirling snowflakes, he stepped off the porch and wandered into the dooryard. Her face shimmered before his eyes—the tender face he’d glimpsed as she bent over Varina with the child in her arms. Something about that face haunted him. What was it?

He was imagining things, that was all. He had never set eyes on Miss Sarah Parker until three days ago, when she’d come to check on Varina.

Damnation, what was it, then?

Unbidden, his mind had begun to drift. Through the blur of snow, he glimpsed the blazing lights of a grand ballroom and heard the faint, lilting strains of a quadrille. He saw gray uniforms with golden epaulets, the flash and swirl of a mauve skirt, a lace-mitted hand on his brother Virgil’s sleeve…

And that face. That beautiful, laughing, sensual face-a ghost’s face now, Donovan reminded himself. A face he had almost succeeded in forgetting.

Behind him, he heard Sarah Parker come out onto the porch and close the door behind her. “I’m leaving now,” she said softly. “Varina’s resting with the baby. There’s some broth warming on the stove—” She broke off hesitantly as Donovan turned and started back toward her; then she plunged ahead, a note of agitation straining her voice.

“I’ll send the children back when I pass the Ordway cabin. They’ll be all right. It’s not far, and Annie knows the way. Don’t let them trouble their mother too much. Varina needs her…rest.”

He had stopped a scant pace from where she stood. She blinked up at him through the snow-blurred lenses of her spectacles, her parted lips petal soft in the silvery light.

“I have to go,” she said, turning away. “The storm’s getting worse.”

“Wait.” Donovan caught her elbow, spinning her back toward him. He had meant only to thank her and go inside, but now he stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear his eyes from her face.

The resemblance was coincidental, that was all, Donovan told himself. With so many people in the world, some of them were bound to look alike. All the same, seeing those features on a straitlaced Yankee spinster was like being gut-kicked by a ghost. His senses reeled as he struggled with the bittersweet memories, the unanswered questions.

Leave it be, reason cautioned him. Let her go before you make a fool of yourself. But it was easier said than done. Donovan stared into Sarah’s face, battling long-buried urges that were too powerful to resist.

She cleared her throat nervously. “You won’t have to worry about taking care of the baby. Annie knows enough to—”

Her words ended in a gasp as Donovan lifted the spectacles from her nose and let them drop to her breast.

Sarah twisted wildly away, averting her face as if she were disfigured. What was wrong with the woman? Donovan wondered. Why was she so afraid of having a man look at her? Didn’t Sarah Parker know how pretty she was? Didn’t she realize what a beauty she would be without those oldmaid lenses and that skinned-back hair?

Somebody ought to tell her, he thought. Hell, somebody ought to show her.

Driven by some demon he could neither understand nor control, he gripped her arm harder, forcing her back toward him. “Let me look at you, Sarah,” he rasped. “Let me see you as you were meant to be seen!”

“Let me go!” She was struggling now, in obvious panic. A gentleman would do as she demanded, Donovan reminded himself. But he’d left off being a gentleman somewhere between Camp Douglas and Kiowa County. Besides, the situation had already gone beyond propriety. Whatever it took, he vowed, he would see it through.

Catching her jaw with his hand, he wrenched her face upward. “Blast it, I’m not going to hurt you,” he muttered. “Just hold still and trust me!”

Her only reply was a sharp kick in the shins. Clenching his teeth, Donovan held on to her. His fingers found the coiled knot of her hair and began to fumble with the pins. His pulse leapt as the silken cascade tumbled loose over his hand.

“Donovan! No!”

With a sharp cry, she wrenched herself away from him. Her own momentum flung her against the kindling pile. She stumbled over her skirt, then caught her balance and whirled back to face him, half-crouched, like a catamount at bay.

Donovan, she had called him. Back in the cabin, Sarah Parker had addressed him as Mr. Cole.

Bewildered, Donovan backed away a step. “Now listen,” he began, “I didn’t mean to—”

He broke off at the full sight of her face—the tousled curls framing high, elegant cheekbones, the stormy eyes, the wide, sensual mouth. And suddenly the face had a name—a name that blazed like hellfire across Donovan’s mind.

Lydia.

He stared at her, too dumbfounded to speak. This was impossible, he told himself. Lydia Taggart was dead. Her own Negro servants had shown him her grave when he’d come back to give her Virgil’s ring. They’d told him how a mortar shell had struck the house during Grant’s assault on Richmond, exploding in her bedroom. He had placed the thin, gold circlet on her headstone and walked away.

Lydia.

A sense of betrayal stole over him, replacing disbelief and darkening his emotions. Whatever was going on here, he swore, he would get to the bottom of it if it took all night.

Fist clenched, he took a step toward her. “Lady,” he growled, “you’ve got some tall explaining to do!”

But even as he spoke, she darted up with a little cry and sprinted for the shed. Donovan heard the mule snort as she flung herself onto its back. Numb with shock, he watched her come flying outside, wheel her mount and disappear like a phantom into the snowy blackness of night.

For a long moment he stared after her, snowflakes clustering on his unshaven cheeks. Then, with the sound of hoofbeats ringing down the gulch, he forced himself to stir. Like a sleepwalker, he turned and walked slowly back toward the cabin. His footsteps, crunching snow, echoed the rhythm of his thoughts.

Lydia. Lydia Taggart. Alive. And a Yankee.

Chapter Two (#ulink_f01cc75d-c4c0-5fb2-856d-37a4ae637063)

Sarah unsaddled her mule and left it munching hay in Amos Satterlee’s barn behind the store. Calmly, as if the whole town might be watching, she mounted the snowswept back stairs to her rooms, twisted the key in the lock and stepped inside.

Only when the door was securely bolted behind her did she surrender to panic. Her pulse, which she’d kept under control by sheer force of will, exploded into a ripping gallop. Beads of sweat broke out on her ash-pale forehead. She sagged against the wall, her knees too weak to support her weight.

She should have known it would happen—that sooner or later, even here, someone would recognize her. Most of the Southerners in Miner’s Gulch, including the Suttons, had arrived before the war, in the ‘59 gold rush. Sarah had felt relatively safe among them. Then, just last week, she’d stopped by the Sutton cabin to check on Varina and had run smack into big Donovan Cole. Only then had she realized, to her horror, that Varina was Donovan and Virgil’s sister.

She would never have gone back to the cabin if Varina had not needed her so desperately. But how could she have ignored little Annie’s pleas, or her own awareness that Varina might die without skilled help? She had placed Christian duty above her own safety. Now she would have to deal with the consequences.

Sarah sank onto one of the split-log benches that she used in her makeshift classroom. By now, she realized, Donovan would have figured out everything. Even back in Richmond, where he and Virgil had frequented the parties she gave, he had seemed distant and untrusting. Now—yes, he would know. And what he didn’t know, he would guess. Donovan was no fool.

But would he understand? No, of course not. She could not expect any Southerner, least of all Donovan, to grasp the motives behind what she had done during the war.