Read And One Wore Gray for Free Online

fresh-squeezed lemonade.”
    A shell burst in the sky. Jesse’s memory disappeared. Christa’s laughter dissolved into the shriek and whistle of a cannonball as it flew through the air.
    He was no longer lying on the cool green grass of home. He was in the farmlands of Maryland. The grass was no longer green, it was churning to mud beneath him as horses pranced and dug up the earth, and men fell and spilled their blood upon it.
    He had learned about saving damsels. He’d never really met a dragon, but he’d had his day with the Indians in the West.
    And he’d met enemies he’d never imagined. His own countrymen. Yankees. Men he’d gone to school with. Men with whom he’d fought in the West.
    His own brother …
    How much better it would have been, had there been dragons!
    He was bleeding himself, he knew. Not a new wound, but an old one, ripped open as he had flown through the air.
    He couldn’t feel the pain but suddenly felt the spatter of mud against his cheek.
    He wondered if he was dying.
    He tried to turn. If they’d been able to take him, his men would never have left him here. Unless they had been convinced that he was dead.
    He couldn’t continue to lie here. He was injured and bleeding. Eventually, surely, someone would come to this patch of earth again. Either the Yanks, or the Rebs. Battle could rage here again.
    But he knew he could just as easily die here before anyone ventured near enough to help him. And it was just as likely that Yanks might come upon him as Rebs.
    He blinked, moving carefully, looking about himself.
    There was a house in the distance.
    It wasn’t Cameron Hall. It was a whitewashed farmhouse, and there were planters of summer flowers on the front porch. An old swing hung from a big oak.
    The flowers had been mown down in a hail of bullets. The white paint was pockmarked with rifle fire.
    Distantly now, he could still hear the cries of warfare, the crack of steel against steel.
    His company had moved on. The battle had changed terrain. Dead men lay around him. Men in blue and men in gray.
    He tried to raise himself and crawl toward the house.
    The effort was too much for his remaining strength. The house began to fade. Blackness descended swiftlyupon him once again. Let it come! he thought. Let it bring me back to the sweet grass by the river….
    When he opened his eyes again he thought that he was dreaming. He thought he had died, and somehow made it to heaven, for the creature above him could not be any part of hell.
    She was beautiful. As beautiful as his dreams of the river, as beautiful as a clear summer sky. Her eyes were a clear, level gray and her hair was a rich, dark, abundant auburn. It framed delicate, beautifully chiseled features, a face shaped like a heart, full, delineated, rose dark lips, a fine straight nose, and high, striking cheekbones. She was bending over him. He could almost reach out and touch her. He breathed in the sweet scent of her, as fragrant and soft as roses.
    Just as he could feel and reach and touch the slope of grass back home, hear the river, be brushed by the breeze! he thought in dismay. He was seeing things again.
    But no, she was real. Perhaps an angel, but real nonetheless, for she reached out and touched him. Her fingers gently moved over his face like the coolest, softest breeze of spring.
    She lowered herself down beside him. He wanted to keep staring at her, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t the strength to keep his lashes raised.
    He felt her fingers moving around his head. And still her touch was so gentle. She cradled his head in her lap.
    “You are breathing!” she whispered. He tried to open his eyes. Tried to see the wide, compassionate, dove-gray beauty of her eyes.
    He could see her! His lashes were raised just a slit, but he could see her against the gray powder that sat in the air like an acrid mist. Her voice was low and soft and like a melody when she spoke.
    Perhaps he was dying. Even when his eyes closedagain, he could see