Lydia

And even if he did understand, she could never expect him to forgive her. Not Donovan Cole.

Sarah pressed shaking hands to her ice-cold face. Dear heaven, what had happened tonight? Why had Donovan been so insistent on getting close to her? Why had she let him? There’d been nothing between the two of them in Richmond. It was Virgil who had courted her. Sweet, eager Captain Virgil Cole, who’d held back nothing from her—including Robert E. Lee’s plan to push north into Pennsylvania.

She’d learned later that Virgil had died at Antietam, and that Donovan had been taken prisoner. For that, and other uncounted tragedies, she would never escape her own blame. The servants who’d acted as her couriers had relayed Lee’s strategy to the North. The resulting alarm had galvanized Union forces, triggering the bloodiest day of the entire war.

Sarah had only done her duty. But that knowledge did little to ease the nightmares that racked her sleep.

Wild with agitation, she sprang to her feet and raced into the bedroom. Her battered leather portmanteau lay under the secondhand brass bed. She wrenched it out and, slapping off the dust, flung it open on the patchwork coverlet. Her quivering hands fumbled in dresser drawers, jerking out underclothes, toiletries, small treasures-Stop!

Sarah forced herself to stand perfectly still and take deep, measured breaths. Running wasn’t the answer, she reminded herself. She’d done it once before, three years ago in Missouri, when someone recognized her on the street. Now it had happened again. The odds were, it would happen almost anywhere she took refuge.

And Sarah had reason to stay. Miner’s Gulch had become her home. She’d made friends here. She’d delivered sixteen—no, seventeen—babies, nursed the town through measles and scarlet fever epidemics, and taught nearly a score of children to read and cipher. To leave now, with so much more to be doneNo, she could not even think of it. It was time to face up to the past. It was time to take a stand.

Against Donovan Cole.

She sank onto the bed, cheeks flaming anew at the memory of Donovan’s nearness—his iron-hard grip on her shoulders, his fingers loosening her hair, tangling roughly in its falling cascade. She’d been half-afraid he was going to kiss her. If he had, Sarah realized, she would have been lost. That kiss would have seared away her prim mask—and her own response would have betrayed the good woman she’d worked so hard to become.

Sarah’s fist slammed into the pillow. Of all the men in the world, why did it have to be Donovan Cole? Damn him! Oh, damn him!

And damn her own foolish heart.

There could be no more hiding from the truth. Back in Richmond, even while she was charming secrets out of Virgil Cole, it had been Donovan who had haunted her dreams. Brooding, aloof Donovan, who never gave her so much as a smile.

And that, she realized with a shudder, had been all to the good. She could never have played Donovan as she had so many other men. He was too strong for that, and too astute. Sooner or later, she would have found herself at his mercy.

As for tonight—but tonight counted for nothing. Donovan might have been fleetingly attracted to Sarah Parker. But he had never even liked Lydia Taggart. Once the full truth dawned on him, he would despise her.

And Donovan was not one to let bygones be bygones-Sarah knew him that well, at least. As sure as sunrise, he would seek her out and confront her. When that happened, she would need all her strength. Otherwise, his anger would destroy her.

By morning, the storm had passed. Donovan stepped out of the cabin into a world transformed by white magic. Snowflakes glittered on budding aspens and frosted the dark green stands of lodgepole pine. On the high horizon, diamond-crowned peaks glistened against the clear spring sky. It was beautiful, Donovan admitted grudgingly as he strode off the porch and into the yard. Whatever else one could say about this godforsaken spot, at least it favored the eye.

Flexing his arms, he wrenched the ax blade loose from its chopping block and laid into the uncut logs with a fury that sent chips flying. He had spent a sleepless night tossing on his pallet in the loft. And it wasn’t just the cries of his new nephew that had kept him awake. Every time he’d closed his eyes, it had been her face he saw—Lydia, or Sarah, or whatever her accursed name was.

His head ached from asking questions, then weighing his own answers. Who was Sarah Parker? Was she really Lydia Taggart, or had it been the other way around? Why would she fake her own death, then hide out in a place like Miner’s Gulch? Why had she panicked when he recognized her?

The conclusions, as they slid inexorably into place, had sickened him. The war—yes, it had to be the war. The charming young Widow Taggart had appeared in Richmond at the war’s beginning, then conveniently “died” at its end. The servants who’d recounted her death—yes, of course, they’d been her collaborators all along. And the young officers who’d frequented her parlor, Virgil among them, had been her innocent dupes.

Lydia.

His mind ejaculated her name with every blow of the ax. He should have known she was a Yankee spy. Maybe if he had, he could have saved Virgil. He could have saved himself two years in the hell of Camp Douglas.

His mind drifted back to Richmond, in those early days of the war—to Lydia Taggart, with her fine, big house, her money, and her knack for throwing the liveliest soirees in town. Lydia herself had been a dazzler, always gay and laughing, always surrounded by a bevy of young officers. Even Donovan had not been immune to her charms. But she was Virgil’s girl, and so he had kept his distance.

If only he hadn’t. He might have seen through her deadly masquerade before it was too late.

The cabin door swung open. Annie and her little redhaired sister, Katy, came trooping down the front steps, bundled into their ugly patchwork coats. They waved to Donovan as they trudged across the dooryard toward the gulch trail.

“Wait a minute, where are you two going?” Donovan lowered his ax. One hand reached back to massage his complaining back muscles.

“We’re going to school,” chirped freckle-faced Annie. “We always go to school on weekdays.”

“At Miss Sarah’s?” Donovan’s voice dripped contempt.

“Uh-huh. Miss Sarah says that girls who learn to read and write can become anything they want to. I’m already in the second reader, and Katy’s—”

“Go on back in the house,” Donovan growled. “You’re not going anywhere today. Your mother’s bound to need your help.”

Annie’s chin lifted. Her grip tightened on her sister’s mittened hand. “We already offered to stay. But Ma says she’ll manage just fine. School’s important. She doesn’t want us to miss it. Not even today.”

Donovan sighed. “All right, then, go on. But be careful in the snow. Don’t slip and fall.”

The warning went unheeded as the two little girls scampered across the clearing and disappeared among the trees. Donovan gazed after them, storm clouds seething in his mind. What would Varina say, he wondered, if she knew her daughters were being schooled by a Yankee spy?

Maybe it was time he told her.

After chucking the ax soundly into the block, he swung back up the steps and into the cabin. He found Varina sitting up in bed, her newborn son slumbering in the crook of her arm. Her hair was mussed from sleep and her eyes were ringed with tired shadows, but her smile was as serene as a Madonna’s.

“I keep thinking how Charlie would have enjoyed this little mite,” she murmured. “I’ll admit to his not having been much of a provider, but he loved his children, Donovan.” She glanced fondly at four-year-old Samuel, curled like a puppy near her feet. “I only hope they’ll be able to remember that.”

Donovan sank onto a stool, his heart aching for her. “As soon as you’re well enough to travel, I’m taking all of you back to Kansas,” he said. “You’ll have a proper house. The girls will wear proper clothes and go to a proper school, and as soon as the boys are old enough—”

“No.” There was a thread of steel in Varina’s soft voice. Donovan stared at her, shocked into silence.

“I’m not leaving Miner’s Gulch,” she said. “This claim was Charlie’s dream, and now it’s mine. I know you mean well, but I won’t go back to Kansas and live off anyone’s charity—not even my own brother’s.”

Donovan chewed his lip in a slow boil of frustration. How could he have forgotten how stubborn his sister could be? “Damnation, Varina, look at this place!” he exploded. “The slaves on White Oaks lived better than this!”

“White Oaks is gone, Donovan. And we’re no better than anybody else these days—if, indeed, we ever were.”

“Varina-”

“No, listen to me,” she said. “I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

Donovan groaned, guessing what that proposition might be. “If you’re expecting me to stay and work Charlie’s claim—”

“It’s my claim now. Mine and the children’s. But we can’t work it alone. For your help, I’d be willing to give you half of any profits we make. Charlie always said the mine would pay off. He was so close to finding gold when he—”

“Don’t, Varina.” Donovan knew he was being cruel, but it had to be said. “Charlie was chasing a phantom. Everybody knows the gold veins in these parts played out years ago. And even if they hadn’t, I’m not a miner. I’m a lawman.”

“For how long?” Varina’s free hand reached out to clasp his forearm. “How much time will you have before you cross some young hothead and he shoots you in the back? I just buried Charlie. I don’t want to bury you, too.”

Donovan battled the urge to grind his teeth. This discussion was not going as he’d planned. He’d come inside aiming to unmask Sarah Parker for what she was. Instead, Varina’d gotten the bit in her teeth, and now she was running away with it.

“I’ve made a home here,” she was saying. “You could, too. You could build your own cabin right on this land if you wanted. Why, you could even court yourself a good woman and have some young ones to grow up alongside mine—”

“Blast it, Varina, don’t you go planning my life!”

“And why not? If the planning was left to the men, this world would be a sorry place. And don’t you tell me a pretty girl can’t turn your head. I noticed the way you were eyeing Sarah Parker last night—”