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coffee without having tasted it. “I don’t want you or the girls setting foot out of the house.”
    â€œJohn.” She reached for his hand, holding the hard, callused palm against hers. What could she say? That there was no one to blame? Of course there was, but the men who manufactured war and death were nameless and faceless to her. Instead, she brought his hand to her cheek. “I love you.”
    â€œSarah.” For a moment, for her, his eyes softened. “Pretty Sarah.” His lips brushed hers before he left her.
    In sleep, Rebecca stirred, shifted and murmured.
    John left the house knowing there was little he could do. In the distance, drying cornstalks were blackened and hacked. He knew there would be blood seeping into hisground. And didn’t want to know whether the men who had died there had been taken away yet or not.
    It was his land, his, damn them. When he plowed in the spring, he knew, he would be haunted by the blood and death he turned into the earth.
    He reached into his pocket, closing his hand over the miniature of his son that he always carried. He didn’t weep; his eyes were dry and hard as they scanned the land. Without the land, he was nothing. Without Sarah, he would be lost. Without his daughters, he would willingly die.
    But now he had no choice but to live without his boy.
    Grim-faced, he stood there, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on his land. When he heard the whimpering, his brows drew together. He’d already checked the stock, secured them. Had he missed a calf? Or had one of his dogs broken out of the stall he’d locked them in to keep them from being hit by a stray bullet?
    He followed the sound to the smokehouse, afraid he would have a wounded animal to tend or put down. Though he’d been a farmer all his life, he still was struck with guilt and grief whenever it was necessary to put an animal out of its misery.
    But it wasn’t an animal, it was a man. A damn blue-belly, bleeding his guts out on MacKade land. For an instant, he felt a hot rush of pleasure. Die here, he thought. Die here, the way my son died on another man’s land. You might have been the one to kill him.
    Without sympathy, he used his boot to shove the man over onto his back. The Union uniform was filthy, soaked with blood. He was glad to see it, coldly thrilled.
    Then he saw the face, and it wasn’t a man. It was a boy. His soft cheeks were gray with pain, his eyes glazed with it. Then they fixed on John’s.
    â€œDaddy? Daddy, I came home.”
    â€œI ain’t your daddy, boy.”
    The eyes closed. “Help me. Please help me. I’m dying….”
    Â 
    In sleep, Shane’s fist curled in the sheets, and his restless body tangled them.

Chapter 3
    I t was one of the most exciting moments of Rebecca’s life—just to stand in the balmy air, a vivid blue sky overhead and the old stone house spreading out in front of her. She could smell early mums, the spice of them mixing with the fragrance of the late-summer roses.
    She’d studied architecture for a time, and she’d seen firsthand the majestic cathedrals in France, the romantic villas of Italy, the ancient and glorious ruins of Greece.
    But this three-story building of native stone and wood, with its neat chimneys and sparkling glass, touched her as deeply as her first sight of the spires of Notre Dame.
    It was, after all, haunted.
    She wished she could feel it, wished some part of her was open to the shadows and whispers of the restless dead. She believed. Her dedication to science had taught her that there was much that was unexplained in the world. And as a scientist, whenever she heard of some unexplained phenomenon, she needed to know what, how, when. Who had seen it, felt it, heard it. And whether she could see, feel, hear.
    It was like that with the old Barlow house, now the MacKade Inn. If she hadn’t heard the stories, didn’t trust Regan implicitly, Rebecca