The Pride of Jared MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 2)

"Cool," came the absent, obviously uninterested answer. Jared took her denim jacket from a hook by the kitchen door. "It gets chilly after sundown."

"Just to the woods," she insisted as she shrugged into the jacket. From there, she could hear Bryan if he called her.

"Just to the woods," Jared agreed, and closed his hand over hers. "Do you get lonely out here during the day, by yourself?"

"No. I like being by myself." She walked outside with him, where the air had a faint snap and the sky was so clear the stars almost hurt the eyes. "I like the quiet."

They went down the uneven steps that had been hacked into the bank, then across the narrow lane to where the woods began with shadows.

"I kissed my first girl in here."

The just-greening trees opened to welcome them in. "Did you?"

"Yep. Cousin Joanie."

"Cousin?"

"Third cousin," Jared elaborated. "On my mother's side. She had long golden curls, eyes the color of the sky in June, and my heart. I was eleven."

Comfortable with shadows and starlight, she laughed. "A late bloomer."

"She was twelve."

"So, you liked older women."

"Now that you mention it, that might have been part of the attraction. I lured her into the woods one balmy summer evening, when the sun was going down red behind the mountain and the whippoorwills were starting to call."

"Very romantic."

"It was an epiphany. I drew together all my sweaty courage and kissed her near the first bend in the creek, when the air was full of summer twilight and the smell of honeysuckle."

"That's very sweet."

"It would have been," he mused, "if my brothers hadn't followed us and hidden to watch. They screamed like banshees, Cousin Joanie went tearing back to the farm. Of course, my brothers ragged on me for weeks after, so I had to take on each of them to save my honor. Devin broke my finger, and I lost interest in Cousin Joanie."

"That's sweet, too. The rites of passage."

"I've learned a few things since then, about kissing pretty girls in the woods."

When he turned her into his arms and his mouth moved over hers, she had to admit he was right. He'd learned quite a number of things.

"Where is cousin Joanie now?"

"In a nice split-level in the 'burbs of Virginia, with three kids and a part-time job selling real estate." With a sigh, he pressed his curved lips to Savannah's brow. "She still has those gold curls and summer eyes."

"One more ghost in the MacKade woods." She looked back through the trees. She could see the lights she'd left on in her cabin. Her son was safe there. "Tell me about the others."

"The two corporals are the most famous. One wore blue, the other gray. During the Battle of Antietam, they were separated from their companies."

He slipped an arm over her shoulders so that they walked companionably, their strides matched. "They came upon each other here, in the woods, two boys barely old enough to shave. In fear, or duty, or maybe both, they attacked each other. Each one was badly wounded, each one crawled off in a different direction. One to the farm."

"Your farm?"

"Hmmm... A Union soldier, torn open by the enemy's bayonet. My great-grandfather, no friend of the North, found him by the smokehouse. The story is that he saw his own son, who he'd lost at Bull Run, in that dying boy, so he carried him into the house. They did what they could for him, but it was too late. He died the next day and, afraid of reprisals, they buried him in one of the fields, in an unmarked grave."

"So he's lost," Savannah murmured. "And haunts the woods because he can't find his way home."

"That would be close enough."