Little Love Affair (Southern Romance 1)

“Can you forgive me?” Solomon asked her.

Clara waited, heart in her throat.

“Why did you do it?” Cecelia asked him finally. “Don’t say I’m too young to know. Tell me the truth.”

Solomon paused, looking out at the forest as he chose his words, and Clara fought the urge to run away before he could speak. She wanted so desperately to know what he would say, and she could not bear to hear his excuses.

“Because when I marched,” her brother said at last, “I believed so much in the cause that I never even really believed there were soldiers on the other side of the war. I couldn’t understand why they would fight us, Cee. I thought perhaps I could speak to them, show them they were wrong.” He gave a despairing laugh. “Lord, I was such a fool. The battles...I don’t want to tell you of the battles. Cecelia, I can’t bear you to know what they were like. But I lost my faith. I saw men throwing themselves on bayonets for the south. I saw men die, and I doubted everything. They talked about a world without this kind of struggle. They said there were no poor in the south, no beggars. I wanted to believe them. I wanted to believe there was a reason they were doing all of this.

“When I found Jasper...” His voice trailed off.

Clara looked away, her hands clenched. Her heart had leapt when she saw Jasper on the ground, injured. The sight of his face still made her lose her breath; if she looked again, she would go to him.

She could not. For days she had turned it over in her head, and it always ended in pain and death.

“Your brother saved my life,” Jasper said. “He found me on the battlefield, wounded, and he might have left me there to die, or killed me himself—but he carried me to a field hospital and made sure I had care.”

“You asked me to make it quick,” Solomon said. His eyes were distant with memory. “You were holding the cross at your neck and I thought: if I kill him now, his family will never know how he survived the battle. There’s no honor in killing a wounded man, and to leave you there was to kill you.”

“So you brought him home,” Millicent said softly. She knelt to pry the pistol from Cyrus’s fingers and tossed it aside, then held her hands out to Cecelia.

“How did you know to bring me here?” Solomon asked.

“You mentioned fishing on Lost Run,” Jasper murmured. “With your sister.” His eyes found Clara’s and he smiled.

Her stomach fluttered, and she turned her face away, resolute.

“But you came back.” Cecelia spoke up again finally. She was looking between Solomon and Jasper.

“I didn’t want to. I was wounded, and I thought I would bleed out on the battlefield. I was glad that you would never know. I didn’t know how to face any of you again.” Solomon’s eyes met hers. “Cecelia....can you forgive me?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “But I’m glad you’re back. I thought I would never see you again.”

Clara clenched her hands, looked away. At her side, Millicent was weeping softly. She picked her way over the hillside to her son and enfolded him in her arms.

“I failed you,” Solomon whispered into her shoulder.

“You came back.”

“I fought for them.”

“Then you came back, and you inspired one of them to come with you.” Millicent’s arms tightened around him. “It hurts me that you could turn your back on us all. But you returned. I cannot ask for more than that. I cannot

turn back time. You, and you alone, will have to atone for the past.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You will find a way.”

“There is no atoning,” Clara whispered, and they both turned to look at her. She shook her head, furious. “You can’t possibly make up for what you’ve done.”

“No one knows that better than I.”

“And yet you dare ask for Cecelia’s forgiveness? For Mother’s?” The sight of his bowed head filled her with fury. “You left us alone with the farm failing and you promised you would come back, Solomon, but I never thought it would be like this. I grieved you. I thought I would give anything to have you come back again.” She felt tears spill down her cheeks. “Now I wish you hadn’t.”

Cyrus stirred at her feet and Clara stepped back as he pushed himself up. He scowled at the sight of Solomon.

“Where’s my pistol?”