Jack stared down into her trusting, loving gaze and felt something inside him begin to crumble. He'd told himself he was making a new start. He'd promised God, and yet he hadn't begun again. Not really. There would be no beginning, no new start, until he trusted his wife. Trusted her with his heart and his soul and his secret.
Jack's heart felt as if it were being twisted out of his chest. This was the moment, he knew. If he didn't trust her now, didn't hand her his soul on a silver platter, she would never look at him this way again.
But if he told her, the love in her eyes might congeal, turn into something cold and ugly, as it did before.
Or it might not.
He looked down at her, raking her face with his eyes, memorizing it, loving it. She was all he'd ever wanted in his life, all he'd ever needed. Here on this tired old sheep ranch, with her and the children, he'd finally found the home, the place, he'd searched for all his life.
And now, to keep it, to find out if it was real, he had to risk it all.
Don't be a coward for once in your life. Just open your mouth and spill your guts. She might leave?hell, she'll probably leave. But she might stay. She might take you in her arms and kiss you softly and tell you she loves you anyway.
At the thought, he groaned aloud.
"Jack?"
"All right." He shoved the words up his throat. "We'd better sit down. This'll take a while."
A quiet gasp escaped her. She stared up at him earnestly. "Are you sure?"
Unable to speak, he nodded. He took her hand and
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grabbed the lamp, leading her up the ladder into the hayloft. Together they sat against the back wall. Jack focused for a moment on the feel of her fingers twined through his, and prayed that when it was over, she'd still want to touch
him.
"It's all about Johnny." His voice softened as he spoke his brother's name. "He was strong and funny and not afraid of anything." A bittersweet smile came with the memory. "I was .. . small and weak and afraid of everything. Except when I was with Johnny. He always made me forget how scared I was of things.
"Like the war." He shuddered. "Johnny just had to go in the first wave. Me, I didn't want to go at all. I thought it was wrong, and besides, you were just starting to show with Savannah, but ... I couldn't let him go alone."
Jack let his gaze wander to the back wall, where the hay lay piled in heaps. The sweet scent of it filled the air, but Jack didn't notice. All he could smell was blood and sweat and fear.
"So we went." His eyes narrowed, he stared at the planked wall, dancing with dust motes. Bitterness churned through him, leaving an acidic taste in his mouth. "It didn't take long to realize how undersupplied and untrained we were. We marched and marched and marched. After a while our boots gave out, and there were no more, then our food gave out, and there was nothing but rotten apples and stolen corn. We were tired and hungry and sick.
"Our company fought a few little skirmishes here and there, but nothing much. Nothing really dangerous. Our biggest enemies were disease and boredom.
"Then ..." His voice cracked, gave out. Memories and images shot through his mind. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut.
"I'm right here, Jack. You're safe. It's okay."
She said the words over and over again. Jack concen-
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trated on the gentle drawl of her voice until the rawness of his emotions melted into something more manageable. 'Then came Antietam." He shivered at the name. It had been forever since he'd uttered it out loud, and even now, years later, it made his stomach seize up with fear and shame.
He tried to detach himself from the horror. He stiffened and stared straight ahead. Images filled his mind in a sickening array of blood and death. The warm, cozy barn blurred, became the mist-shrouded cornfield. "The rain had started again by morning, and ground fog hugged the hollows and trenches. It was nothing but mud?so much mud....
"All of a sudden all hell broke loose. Guns and cannon fired into the mist from a dozen directions. The call came to charge. I ... I took a step. But it was so muddy, I couldn't move?I didn't move. I was so goddamn scared."
Shame pulled the strength from his voice. "Then a canister exploded in front of me. An arm flew past my face?
"I saw Billy Walker standing in front of me, clutching a bloody stump. 'My arm,' he kept saying. 'My arm.' "
Jack felt battered by the tide of memories he'd kept suppressed for so long. "I couldn't move. I heard Johnny yell at me from somewhere up ahead."