The Pride of Jared MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 2)

"I'm better-looking," Rafe told her as he started down.

"Hard to say. The family resemblance is almost ridiculous." She held out a hand. "You'd be Rafe MacKade."

"Guilty."

"I'm—"

"Savannah Morningstar." He didn't shake her hand, just held it while he gave her a long, practiced once-over. "Regan was dead on," he decided.

"Excuse me?"

"You met my wife last weekend at her shop. She told me to think of Isis. That didn't do me a hell of a lot of good, so she said to think of a woman who'd stop a man's heart at ten paces and have him on his knees at five."

"That's quite an endorsement."

"And dead on," he repeated. "Jared said you might be coming by.'' He tucked his thumbs in his tool belt.

"I don't want to interrupt your work."

"Please, interrupt my work." He aimed that grin again. "I'm just killing time until Regan gets home from the shop. We're living here temporarily. Want a beer?"

This was the kind of man she understood and was at ease with. "Now that you mention it."

But she hadn't taken two steps behind him when she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the curve of the staircase.

Intrigued, Rafe watched her. "Problem?"

"There. It was there, on the stairs."

"I take it Jared told you about our ghosts."

She felt weak inside, jittery at the fingertips. "He told me there had been a young Confederate soldier, that Barlow had shot him after a servant had brought him into the house. But he didn't say—he didn't tell me where."

Her legs felt heavy as she walked to the stairs, as she followed the compulsion to go up. The cold was like a blade through the heart, through to the bone. Her knuckles went white on the rail.

"Here." She could barely get the words out. "Here on the stairs. He could smell roses, and hope, and then... He only wanted to go home."

She shook herself, stepped back one step, then two before turning. "I could use that beer."

"Yeah." Rafe let out a long breath. "Me too."

* * *

"Do you, ah, do that kind of thing often?" Rafe asked as he popped the tops on two beers in the kitchen.

"No," Savannah told him, very definitely. "There are some places around this area... this house, the woods out there..." She let the words trail off as she looked out the window. "There's a spot on my bank where I planted columbine, and areas of the battlefield that break your heart." With an effort, she shook off the mood and took the beer Rafe offered. "Leftover emotions. The strong ones can last centuries."

"I've had a dream." He'd only told Regan of it, but it seemed appropriate now. "I'm running through the woods, my battle gray splattered with blood. I only want to go home. I'm ashamed of it, but I'm terrified. Then I see him, the other soldier, the enemy. We stare at each other for a dozen heartbeats, then charge. It's bad, the fight. It's brutal and stupid and useless. After, I come here, crawl here. I think I'm home. When I see her, when she speaks to me and tells me it's going to be all right, I believe her. She's right beside me when someone carries me up the stairs. I can smell her, the roses. Then she shouts, looks at someone coming toward us down the stairs. When I look up, I can see him, and the gun. Then it's over."

Rafe took a long drink. "What stays with me the longest, after it's over, is that I just wanted to go home. I haven't had it in a couple of months."

"Maybe that's because you are home."

"Looks that way." Suddenly he grinned and tapped his bottle against hers. "A hell of an introduction. Are you up to seeing the place, or do you want to pass?"

"No, I'd like to see it. You've done some work in here."

"Yeah." The kitchen had a long way to go, Rafe mused, but the counters had been built and were topped by a warm slate blue that showed off the creamy ivory of new appliances and gleaming glass-fronted cabinets of yellow pine. "Regan put her foot down," he explained. "A workable kitchen and a finished bath and she'd handle living in a construction site for a while."