The Fall Of Shane MacCade - MacKade Brothers 4 Part 23

It was impossible for her to believe, at that moment, that anyone wouldn't feel what she felt. The fear, the antic.i.p.ation, the rage and the sorrow.

It took so little imagination for her to see the infantry marchingthrough that soft curtain of fog, bodies and bayonets tearing it so that it swirled back and reformed. The m.u.f.fled sound of boots on earth, the dull glint of bra.s.s and steel.

That first burst from the cannons, those first cries.

Then there would be h.e.l.l.

"What are you doing out here?"

Rebecca jolted, stared. It was Shane, stepping through that river of mist. He looked pale, gritty-eyed, and angry enough that she resisted the need to rush forward and hold him.

"I didn't hear you come home."

"Just got here." She hadn't slept. He could see the fatigue in her eyes, the shadows under them, and detested the stab of guilt.

"You're shivering. You're barefoot, for G.o.d's sake. Go back inside. Go to bed."

"You look tired," she said, knowing her voice was more brittle than cool.

"I'm hung over," he said flatly. "Some of us humans get that way when we drink too much. Aren't you going to ask me where I've been, who I've been with?"

She lifted a hand, rubbed it gently over her heart. It still beat, she thought vaguely, even when it was shattered. "Are you trying to hurt me?"

"Maybe I am. Maybe I'm trying to see if I can."

She nodded and turned back toward the house. "You can." "Rebecca-" But she was already closing the door behind her, leaving him feeling like something slimy that had crawled from under a rock. Cursing her, he headed toward the milking parlor.

They stayed out of each other's way through the morning. Rather than work in the kitchen, she closed herself in the guest room and focused fiercely on the job at hand. So they would part at odds, she thought. Perhaps that was best. It might be easier, in the long run, to hide behind resentment and anger.

From the window in her room, she saw him. He didn't seem to be working. Marking time, she decided, until she cleared out. Well, he would have to wait a little longer. She wasn't leaving until the day was over.

"Where are you, Sarah?" she murmured, pacing the room, which was beginning to feel like a cell. "You wanted me here. I know you wanted me here. For what?"

As she pa.s.sed the window, she looked out again. He was walking across the yard now, past the kitchen garden, where he had late tomatoes, greens, squash. He stopped, checked something. For ripeness, she supposed.

It was painful to look at him. Yet too painful to contemplate looking away. Had she really believed she could take the experience of love and loss as some sort of adventure-or, worse, as an experiment on the human condition? That she could examine it, a.n.a.lyze, perhaps write about it?

No, she would never, never get over him.

When he straightened from the little garden and walked toward one of the stone outbuildings, she turned away. No, she wouldn'twait until the end of the day after all. That was too cruel. She would speak to him again, one last time, and then she would go.

She'd send for the equipment, she told herself as she went downstairs. She would make her exit with dignity, albeit with dispatch. To Regan's, she told herself, breathing carefully. To run back to New York just now would look cowardly. It was pointless to make him feel bad, to let him know he'd had her heart and broken it.

Let him think that it had simply been an experience, one that was over now, one they could both remember fondly.

She was never coming back. At the base of the stairs, she stopped to press her hand to her mouth. Never coming back to this town, this battleground, this house. Though she would be in full retreat, she would not run.

She never glanced at the monitors, the gauges. Down the hall, she trailed her fingers over wood and paint, as if to absorb the texture into memory.

At the kitchen doorway, the power punched like a fist....

Stew cooking. The distant pop of gunfire...

Weak, she leaned against the wall as the door opened.

She knew it was Shane. The rational part of her mind recognized the shape of him, the stance, even the smell. But with some inner eye she saw a man carrying a bleeding boy....

My G.o.d, my G.o.d, John. Is he dead?

Not yet. Put him on the table. I need towels. Oh, so much blood. Hurry.

He's so young. He's just a boy.

Like Johnnie.

So like Johnnie. Young, bleeding, dying. The uniform was filthy and wet with blood. The new stripe of his rank was still bright on the shoulder of the tattered jacket. There was a rustle of worn paper from a letter in the inside pocket as she peeled the uniform away to see the horror of his wounds.

Just a boy. Too many dying boys...

Rebecca saw it, could see the scene in the kitchen perfectly. The blood, the boy, those who tried to help him. There, the letter in Sarah's hands, the paper worn where it had been creased and recreased, read and reread. The words seemed to leap out at her....

Dear Cameron...

"They couldn't save him," Shane said carefully. "They tried."

"Yes." After the breath she'd been holding was expelled, Rebecca pressed her lips together. "They tried so hard."

"At first, he only saw the uniform. The enemy. He was glad that a Yankee had died there. Then he saw the face, and he saw his son in it. So he brought him home. It was all he could do." "It was the right thing to do, the human thing." "They wanted that boy to live, Rebecca." "I know." Her breath shuddered out, shuddered in. "They fought as hard as they could. All the rest of that day, through the night, sitting with him. Praying. Listening to him, when he could speak. Shane, there was too much love in thishouse for them not to try, not to fight for that one young boy's life."

"But they lost him." Eyes grim, Shane stepped forward. "And it was like losing their son again." "He didn't die alone, or forgotten." "But they buried him in an unmarked grave." "She was afraid." Tears trembled out, rolling down Rebecca's cheeks.

"She was afraid for her husband, for her family. Nothing meant more to her. If anyone found out that boy had died here, and John a Rebel sympathizer who'd lost a son to the Yankees, they might have taken John from her. She couldn't have stood it. She begged him not to tell, to dig the grave at night so no one would ever know. Oh, she grieved for that boy, for the mother who would never know where or when or how he died. She read the letter."

"Yeah, then they buried the letter from his mother with him."

"There was no envelope, Shane. No address. Nothing to tell them where he had come from, or who was waiting for him to come home. Just the two pages, the writing close and crowded as if she'd wanted to jam every thought, every feeling into them." A breath shuddered out. "I saw it. I could read it, just as Sarah did...

Dear Cameron."

Shane's eyes went dark, his stomach muscles tightened, twisted.

"That's my middle name. Cameron was my grandfather's name.

Cameron James Mac-Kade, John and Sarah's second son. He was born six months after the Battle of Antietam." Shane took a steadying breath. "The name's come down through the MacKades ever since. Every generation has a Cameron."

"They named their child after the boy they couldn't save."

Helplessly Rebecca rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the flats of her hands. "They didn't forget him, Shane. They dideverything they could."

"And then they buried him in an unmarked grave."

"Don't hate her for it. She loved her husband, and was afraid for him."

"I don't hate her for it." Suddenly weary, Shane scrubbed his hands over his face. "But it's my life now, Rebecca, my land. I can't change what happened, and I'm sick of being haunted by it."

She offered a hand. "Do you know where he's buried?"

"No, I've always shut that part out." As he'd tried, most of his life, to shut it all out. All those wavering memories, those misty dreams. "I never wanted any part of this."

"Why did you come in now, tell me now?"

"I don't know, exactly." Resigned, he dropped his hands. "I saw him, beside the smokehouse. Bleeding, asking me to help him."

He drew a long breath. "It's not the first time. I couldn't not come in, not tell you anymore. You're part of it. You knew that all along."

"He's buried in the meadow," she murmured. "Wildflowers grow there." She reached for his hand again, tightened her fingers on his. "Come with me."

They walked out toward the meadow, through the bright wash of sun. The mountains were alive with color, and the flowers underfoot were going to seed. There was the smell of gra.s.s and growing things. When she stopped, the tears still fell quietly.

For a moment, she could say nothing, could only stare down atthe ground where she had once dropped her first clutch of wildflowers.

"They did their best for him. Not far from here, another man killed a boy simply because of the color of his uniform. These people tried to save one, despite it." She leaned into Shane when he circled her shoulders with his arm. "They cared."

"Yeah, they cared. They still can't leave him here alone."

"We make parks out of our battlefields to remember," she said quietly. "It's important to remember. He needs a marker, Shane.

They would have given him one, if they could have."

Could it be as simple as that? he wondered. And as human? "All right." He stopped questioning and nodded. "We'll give him one.

And maybe we'll all have some peace."

"There's more love than grief here," she murmured. "And it is yours, Shane-your home, your land, your heritage. Whatever lives on through it, through you is admirable. You should be very proud of what you have, and what you are.''

"I always felt as though they were pushing at me. I resented it."

Yet it had eased now, standing there with her in the sun, on his land. "I didn't see why I should be the one to be weighed down with their problems, their emotions." He looked over the fields, the hills, and felt most of his weariness pa.s.s. "Maybe I do now.

It's always been more mine than any of my brothers'. More even than it was my father's, my mother's. We all loved it, we all worked it, but-"

"But you stayed, because you loved it more." She rose on her toes and kissed him gently. "And you understand it more. You're a good man, Shane. And a good farmer. I won't forget you." Before he realized what she was doing, she'd turned away.

"What are you talking about? Where are you going?"

"I thought you might like some time alone here." She smiled, brushing at the tears drying on her cheeks. "It seems a personal moment to me, and I really have to finish getting my things together."

"What things?"

"My things." She backed away as she spoke. "Now that we've settled this, I'm going to stay with Regan for a few days before I go back to New York. I haven't had as much time to visit with her as I'd planned."

She might as well have hit him over the head with a hammer.

The quiet relief he'd begun to feel at facing what had haunted him was rudely, nastily swallowed up by total panic.

"You're leaving? Just like that? Experiment's over, see you around?"

"I'm only going to Regan's, for a few days. I've already stayed here longer than I originally intended, and I'm sure you'd like your house back. I'm very grateful for everything."

"You're grateful," he repeated. "For everything?"

"Yes, very." She was terrified her smile would waver. Quick, was all she could think, get away quick. "I'd like to stay in touch, if you don't mind. See how things are going with you."

"We can exchange cards at Christmas." "I think we can do better." Through sheer grit, she kept that easy smile on her face. "Farm boy, it's been an experience."

Mouth slack with shock, he watched her walk away. She was dumping him. She'd just put him through the most emotional, most wrenching, most stunning experience of his life, and she was just walking away.

Well, fine, he thought, scowling at her retreating back. Dandy.

That made it clean. He didn't want complications, or big, emotional parting scenes.

The h.e.l.l he didn't.

She'd reached the kitchen door and just stepped over the threshold when he caught up with her. A tornado of temper, he snagged her shoulders, whirled her around.

"Just s.e.x and science, is that it, Doc? I hope to h.e.l.l I gave you plenty of data for one of your stinking papers."

"What are you-"

"Don't you want one last experiment for the road?"

He dragged her up hard against him, crushed his mouth down on hers. It was brutal, and it was fierce. For the first time, she was afraid of him, and what he was capable of.

"Shane." Shuddering, she wrenched her mouth free. "You're hurting me."

"Good." But he released her, jerking away so that she nearly stumbled. "You deserve it. You cold-blooded-" He managed to stop himself before he said something he wouldn't be able to livewith later. "How can you have slept with me, have shared everything we've shared, and then just turn around and walk, like it meant nothing to you but a way to pa.s.s some time?"

"I thought-I thought that's how it was done. I've heard people say that you stay friends with all the women you've-"

"Don't throw my past up at me!" he shouted. "d.a.m.n it, nothing's been the same since you came here. You've tangled up my life long enough. I want you to go. I want you out."

"I'm going," she managed, and took one careful step, then another, until she'd reached the doorway.

"For G.o.d's sake, Rebecca, don't leave me."

She turned back, steadied herself with one hand against the jamb. "I don't understand you."

"You want me to beg." The humiliation was almost as vicious as the temper. "Fine, I'll beg. Please don't go. Don't walk out on me.