Measure of Devotion, page 21
“Would you…ah…Look, I know they may not care anymore, but would you pass along my greetings to the family? I do think of them, y’know.”
Coop forced down the lump in her throat. The family had always cared a great deal, prayed for his well-being, and would today, if they were still of this earth. Here, she again wrestled with the notion of sharing her news. Indeed, since meeting him here, she had even considered telling him that she was all that remained of his family. But, perhaps now, with duty calling and their own mortality hinging on every ounce of concentration, this wasn’t the best time. Then again, perhaps this would be the only time.
“They missed you from the first,” she said, and winced at a sudden pain in her head.
He nodded. “Sure wish you were on the right side here, Coop. Seeing you after all these years has brightened my days, but, well, you know.” He tipped his head toward the battlefield just outside.
“No place for a reunion. I understand.”
“Maybe we’ll find a way to meet up once this is done.”
“Not likely, but…” Her hand seemed to extend of its own accord and his eyes darkened as he grasped it.
“Cooper. You take care, now, hear me?”
“Good luck to you, Billy.”
He stopped at the door, chose a rifle from the rebel stand along the wall, and turned and saluted her. She saluted back as he ducked out into the chaotic twilight.
For some time, she stood pondering the exchange, their lives, the wisdom of the decision that lodged in her chest. That’s where it had originated, after all, not in her rational mind but in the heart he had wounded so long ago. He had transfused family blood until nothing remained but the fading shadow of a stranger she once knew.
Two relations, neither with a family, each making that choice. You chose your road long ago, and I’ve chosen mine now.
Dr. Taylor called for her help. She figured hers probably was the first available body he spotted. More wounded needed to be arranged in the kitchen and the keeping room debris had to be cleared promptly because the space was sorely needed.
She rubbed her stomach, trying to squelch the uneasiness, and stepped carefully over the wounded. Scattered like kindling, they made for precarious walking. Dr. Taylor said he had acquired a surgeon, nurse, and steward from another regiment, but Coop couldn’t imagine that being enough. At least he’s giving me more time here. He can’t still doubt my suitability for duty.
She set about reorganizing supplies in the main kitchen, dragged and hefted crates to make room, while nearby, Sophie worked with her father to bring their stove out of its summer hibernation. The house would soon heat up hotter than Hades, but boiling water and some form of edible sustenance were necessities. She hoped Dr. Taylor soon would send both Bauers to the cellar with the children, away from danger.
Coop cordoned off half the floor space for additional wounded and helped a rebel steward carry in four soldiers. The burden grew heavier with each man and actually caused some throbbing at her wound, so she was glad to move on to the keeping room issue. She and a Vermont private spent the next hour working up a drenching sweat, breaking open the windows and throwing debris outside. Forced to pause several times to let dizziness pass, Coop feared all this stooping and straining in this stifling heat were taking their toll.
When she doubled over and heaved up nothing from her stomach, Coop collapsed to her knees. The Vermonter yelled for help, and she squeezed her eyes shut when two men lifted her by the arms and sat her in the corner.
Someone gripped her chin and when she opened her eyes, Dr. Taylor stared back through a strange instrument.
“Hard to read concussions,” he told her. “Some take longer to settle than others. You need longer than I thought. Lay flat another few hours.” She lay back on the floor and saw him turn to the steward. “Bunch up his frock under his head.”
Every muscle in Coop’s body clinched when the steward reached for her buttons. “No. Wait.” She put both hands on her stomach. “Just let me stay. I’m not feeling…Right now, moving could be messy.”
The steward withdrew and, on Coop’s promise to remain still, she was left alone in the dusty room. She stared up at the broken ceiling and beyond. Stars peeked through the roof. Fuzzy dots of light. Her vision was acting up again, which meant this afternoon’s labor and excitement had set her recovery back substantially.
She listened to the relentless cannon fire, the rifle shots, and couldn’t pinpoint their directions. She wondered what Sophie was doing, if someone would tell her that Coop lay in the other room, compromised once more. She tried counting the stars, but smoke from the battlefield frequently blotted them out. Finally, she closed her eyes. Some things were easier to see this way, she mused. Billy’s big frame filled the farmhouse doorway, pack on his back, long gun in hand, that bright new bandage on his bare arm. Brothers fighting brothers.
By the time reality struck her, Coop knew someone was unbuttoning her frock. She lurched upright. Through the blur, she saw Sophie kneeling at her side, working intently.
“Sophie. Eh…no.” She slapped a palm over her chest. “You needn’t do that. I’m—”
Determined at her task, Sophie shook her head and picked Coop’s hand away. “Lie down and stop fussing please.” Coop quickly covered the remaining buttons, but Sophie pried her fingers between Coop’s. “You’re not in charge here.” Grimacing against Coop’s strength, she eventually slipped each button through its hole. “There! Now lay down.”
Sophie blew a breath up to her forehead as she watched Coop settle back. Beads of perspiration slid down his cheek and his eyes belied his discomfort—and apprehension.
“Sophie. You know you needn’t go through all this trouble.”
Sophie gritted her teeth and pushed Coop’s hands aside. She laid his frock open, and exposed the buttoned white shirt, yellowed and soaked with sweat, spotted with soot down the front where dirt and gunpowder obviously had worked their way between the buttons. To her surprise, the flimsy fabric revealed another shirt beneath it, and both clung to Coop’s upper body like a second skin.
Sophie reached for the top button. “You definitely need to cool down.”
“Stop.” Coop seized Sophie’s hands. “Please.”
Sophie sat back on her heels. She’d assured her father she would follow him promptly to the cellar, but felt compelled to inquire about Coop, if he had indeed left without saying good-bye. She hadn’t expected to find him like this. And now here she was, exasperated beyond belief, her goodwill, shaken.
“Why won’t you let me help you?”
“I’ll be just—”
“Are you afraid?”
Coop cocked her head, apparently struck by the question. “What would I be afraid of?”
“Maybe of a woman’s attention to your personal needs.”
“Hardly. Rest assured I’ve had plenty of women’s attention in my day.”
Sophie had wondered about that. She tried again for the top button. “Then you won’t object to showing some of yourself.”
“Oh, but I will!”
“Coop!” Sophie swiped at the perspiration now trickling down her own cheek. “Look at you. This shirt is stifling you, and you wear an under garment that looks as tight as this one. Surely our army can find you better fitting shirts. These are far too small.”
“Eh…They keep my muscles tight and strong.”
“Fine. And in the meantime, you swelter and pass out.” She rushed her hands to Coop’s throat, popped open the first button, and had her fingers on the second before Coop could stop her. Why am I bothering with this man? I’ve never allowed one to test me this way.
Coop coughed and winced but refused to move his hands. He suffered still, it was clear, yet would fight to his last breath to remain fully dressed. He must pose a formidable foe on the battlefield, she thought.
“I-I’m sorry, Sophie, but I’m doing better, and you’ve been through enough today. Your fortitude, your generosity humbles me.”
“Compliments will neither heal you nor stop me, Cooper Samson. You are correct, that today has been the most frightening of my life, and I do not need further struggle. So, grant me this effort and I’ll leave you be, which seems to be your preference.”
Coop set his hand on her arm. “I wish you well, is all. It’s far safer downstairs. You must know I don’t want you to go. No man in his right mind would, and I-I am no different, but—”
“Then why?” Sophie searched his tired eyes, pondered their depths, and wished he could recognize her sincerity, this peculiar insistence she had to tend to him. “You don’t trust me.”
Then his eyes flickered shut. He dropped both hands and sighed hard. She momentarily thought he’d lost consciousness.
Finally, he muttered, “Trust is cautiously granted.”
“Trust is earned, Coop.” She set her fingers on the next button and waited for him to react. When no objection came, she unbuttoned it and then the rest.
The broad muscular chest Sophie expected to see lay bound beneath a thin, tarnished cotton undergarment, a shirt so tight it flattened Coop’s small—feminine—breasts.
Sophie recoiled. Unsure of what she saw, she stared at the softly rounded mounds, and knew they hardly resembled a man’s well-exercised chest. No, she wasn’t mistaken.
She yanked the overshirt closed. Her heart now throbbing in her throat, she looked about, relieved to see they were still alone, and gazed up at the soldier she thought she knew. Coop lay staring at the ceiling.
“Coop, I-I…Um…”
“Please don’t be angry.” Coop’s eyes closed.
“Angry? I’m not sure what I feel, actually, but it’s not anger.”
“I’m so thankful for that. Honestly, I have never been comfortable, keeping this from you. I never should have, considering all we have shared.”
Yes, Sophie thought, we have shared a great deal. So many confidences, touches—and kisses. Between women.
“Well, I am shocked. Definitely shocked. I can guess why you hid from the army, but…Coop.” She lowered her voice. “You kissed me.”
“How could I not? It was Christmas Eve and everything felt…Controlling my emotions in your company had become extremely difficult, and we were so comfortable together. I-I didn’t think about it.”
“I remember every glorious moment. Everything I dreamt about for years became real in those moments—and I didn’t know.”
“I was too afraid of a lot of things.”
“You? Afraid? Of what? That I would report you? I would never do such a thing.”
“Well, at first, before we came to know each other, yes, that was at the back of my mind. But after we’d enjoyed time together—”
“And kissed.”
“Yes, kissed, it felt…almost too late. I wasn’t the man you thought I was. You had every right to resent me, feel humiliated, and hurt. Plus, I couldn’t bear it if attentions from the real me repulsed you because…you’re in my heart now.” Coop took a breath. “I-I just never expected that you…”
Sophie reached for Coop’s hand and entwined their fingers. “That I what? That I, like you, prefer a woman’s touch?”
Coop’s eyes moistened. “And you kissed Cooper Samson.”
“Oh, I did. And honestly? Never have I been more confused. And our intimate parting at Christmas meant too much to spoil it with confusion. And now I know why.”
“I wish I had had the courage to trust you from the start.”
“My months of self-doubt would have passed far easier, if you had, so consider yourself duly scolded. But I understand completely.”
“The army would dismiss me, send me home in disgrace.”
Sophie struggled to think through her fluster, the excitement blooming in her heart. She found it so unjust that the army would oust such a skilled and devoted soldier, regardless of gender, but she knew it would. Shortly after the war began, she’d read about the discovery and discharge of a woman in uniform. Once aware of the woman’s deception, townspeople shamed her as a harlot trickster and banished her from town.
Coop was violating all the rules.
Sophie stared at the shirt, then up at Coop. The ruse had been flawless.
“Billy didn’t recognize you. Truly amazing, how you’ve hidden yourself all this time.”
“Women have just as much to defend as men. This is our country, too.”
“Oh, I agree, but you’ve risked everything, Coop, your very life. You certainly don’t deserve disgraceful treatment. I believe your honor and character are beyond reproach.” She promptly buttoned the shirt and draped the frock closed.
“A woman’s honor and character mean nothing when it comes to soldiering, Sophie. Being a woman is a terrible offense.” Coop winced when a shell exploded directly over the house. She tugged Sophie away from a floorboard falling from above.
“This is unbelievable.” Sophie fanned away the dust. “This house…” But she knew she now had to cope with an even larger issue, and it lay right before her. “You know, after two years and all you’ve been through…to not need serious medical care until now, to have never been, well, exposed…” She shook her head.
“One of the lucky ones. That’s what I keep telling myself. Only some minor wounds. I’ve had plenty of close calls, though, where I just managed to hide in time or cover myself, fording rivers, bathing, that sort of thing.”
“How you managed to persevere and constantly stay on guard. It’s simply stunning.”
“If the army ever found out and sent me home, I always knew I’d have to sell the farm and move to a new town. I thought I would reenlist there, maybe join a cavalry unit.”
“You’re determined to fight, aren’t you?”
“Living a life I choose means that much to me. I’m sure freedom for all means a lot to you as well. We must never allow anyone to break our country apart, Sophie. Its principles are righteous, too important.” Coop shrugged. “I sound like my father.”
Sophie almost smiled. “The army doesn’t know what it has in you, Private Samson.”
“It has everything Cooper and I always hoped to give it, and that’s plenty.”
“So…It’s Catherine, isn’t it?”
The heavy sigh answered her question. So did those delicate eyelashes, the sleek complexion, the sensuous lines of those lips. And the tingling warmth, the cushiony depths of their Christmas kisses.
Shocking discovery and its ramifications aside, Sophie acknowledged a growing, albeit curious sense of relief. Like a restoration of faith in myself, she mused, an unraveling of the emotional twist this attachment to Coop had wrought.
Intuition knew long before I did.
“Cooper and I had always been alike, but what he carried in gentility, I guess I made up for in gumption. Choosing to do this wasn’t as hard as you might think.”
“You didn’t tell Billy before he left, did you?”
“No. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I stand by it.”
“Would he have reported you?”
Coop shrugged. “Would be one less enemy soldier.”
“Hm. Well, Cooper, your secret is safe with me.” She leaned closer. “But you must promise to survive this wretched war.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Sophie tried to think over her heart’s insistent clamor. The endearing though gnawing, confusing affection she’d developed for this man, now began to glow freely for this woman. She couldn’t deny the butterflies in her chest. And because she had spent years forthrightly dismissing it, with all practicality, desire rose welcomed and thrilling.
Leary that her voice might quiver, she managed, “Promise me.”
Because you must come back to me.
Coop rose on an elbow and cupped her cheek, drew her near until their foreheads met. Sophie felt her heart skip as Coop brought their lips together. “I promise, to my dying breath.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Get out!”
Propped in the corner of the keeping room, Coop awoke to Dr. Taylor’s command in the parlor. Around her, wounded men lay moaning, calling for aid from a rebel steward who hustled from one to the next, trying to keep up. Outside, gunfire had grown sporadic and she wondered how long she’d been asleep. She saw stars through the roof hole. Clearly.
“Lieutenant!” Dr. Taylor yelled again. “There’s no taking cover in here! Get your men out!”
Coop didn’t know if Union or Confederate soldiers were bothering him, but they’d obviously become a problem. She couldn’t imagine the crowded horror scene in that room by now.
A scream came next, from a patient in the parlor, followed by someone’s shout for chloroform. An amputation. A blast of solid shot rocked the house, and something upstairs crashed. Instinctively, she looked up again and her thoughts swung in a different direction.
Sophie, please be in the cellar.
The secret that is no more. The kiss. The promise.
“Samson?”
Drawn from her wonder, Coop stood without swaying, without a throb in her head. “Good to see you, Sarge.”
He looked her over and nodded. “Doc says you’re good to go, so head back to the unit. It’s almost dawn.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left for the parlor and Coop went to the kitchen. She hoped she wouldn’t find Sophie hard at work, hoped she was safe in the cellar with her family. But she yearned to see her, now more than ever.
Two Union and two rebel soldiers lay on scattered hay, bleeding and barely conscious, but otherwise the steamy room was empty. Near the door, a patch of flooring suddenly swung up and a rebel appeared from below, rifle slung across his back. He wrestled with an armload of goods, a crate filled with packages and a pistol on top.
“Heathen!” a man bellowed up at him.
“How can you?” came a desperate plea. Sophie’s voice.
Coop sprinted across the room and snatched up the pistol.
“Low-life reb,” she growled, pointing it at his sooty face. “Put the box down.”
“All’s fair in war, Yank. Outa my way.”
Coop cocked the pistol and prayed it was loaded. Surely as she stood here, she’d shoot him.
