Gatekeeper (16 page)

Benton recoiled at the pungent stink of whiskey. At least six inches taller than the colonel, Benton looked down at him and unbelted his scabbard, surrendering it to the man. “I will remind you, Colonel,” he said, emphasizing the man’s lower rank, “that I am a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.” He glanced at the solid blue hill. “And if you call that playing at war, then yes, Colonel, my men and I are quite finished.”

“You treasonous bunch of cowards.” The colonel’s pale blue eyes blazed hot, his face mottled red with rage. “We would have slaughtered the lot of you Rebel filth if we hadn’t overrun you and feared killing our own. Damned traitors!”

Apprehension seized Jillian.

And then she heard herself—or rather, Bruce Bowers—yelling at the colonel. “You Yankee bastards…”

The colonel, who had turned and started back toward his horse, stopped suddenly. He whirled, eyes glowing red as he drew Benton’s own sword from the war-battered scabbard. Jillian could only watch as the colonel lunged toward her. Benton darted between them. The sword came down on his head with a sickening crack. Jillian felt something cold and hard in her hand. A knife! This was her chance to get revenge. A wicked thrill shimmied through her body and as the colonel assaulted Benton, the force of the blow causing him to stumble back toward her, she gouged the blade deeply into his back, between the ribs, and then pulled it out and pocketed it before anyone saw.

Bloody and dying, Benton whirled and, eyes wide, clutched her coat. He dropped to his knees in the mud, his eyes glazed and unfocused. Something gleamed in his hand—Bruce Bowers’ bronze button.

Jillian was jolted awake. Her heart pounded. Perspiration drenched her clothes.

And clenched in her fist was Bruce Bowers’ coat button.

Chapter Eleven

Suddenly, Benton was there.

Jillian gasped.

“Hush, hush,” he cooed as his strong arms enveloped her. “It’s all right. It was only a bad dream.”

She moved into his comforting embrace but it did little to dispel her fear. It wasn’t just a bad dream. There was something foreboding about it. Malevolent.

Still clutching the button, Jillian sobbed against him, feeling as if she were somehow responsible for what had happened to him. Or as if she
would
be responsible for something terrible happening to him.

A sickening wave of nausea rose in her throat.

“It was just a dream,” he said again.

“Benton… Thank God you’re all right.” She pulled away just far enough to look into his eyes. “It was awful. I was Bruce Bowers. I stabbed you and there was nothing I could do to stop it.” Her heart hammered against her rib cage. She could still hear the sickening crack of Benton’s skull when the sword came down on it and feel the cold steel of the knife in her hand. A violent shudder racked her body.

She opened her fist and stared at the button. “This was his. You ripped it off his coat when he stabbed you.”

Something desolate and dark flitted through Benton’s gaze. He closed her hand around the button and held it. With his other hand, he trailed his fingers down her cheek, brushing away her tears, caressing her. Jillian wanted nothing more than to cling to him, to linger here in his reassuring arms. But she couldn’t. Not now.

Something about Bruce Bowers murdering Benton had
everything
to do with Lynn Bowers kidnapping her sister.

Jillian searched his eyes. “Why would he want to kill you?”

Benton’s lips parted but he did not speak. He drew in an audible breath.

Jillian sat up on her knees. “I don’t understand. Was Hattie still in love with you?”

His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. Jillian swallowed hard. “Were…were you still in love with Hattie?” Her heart froze in her chest until he answered.

He began with difficulty. “I grew up with the men who served under me. We attended school together, church. Hattie was the prettiest belle in Williamson County. And when I was promoted to colonel at the age of twenty-two, she began sending me pretty notes and baskets filled with home-baked goodies. I was nearly completely cut off from the commissary.” He gave her a little smile. “Word got around and I guess all the other fellows were a little jealous.”

Jillian shook her head. “But why?”

“It’s one thing to serve under an officer who is younger than you are but, Jillian, you have to understand. I was not the wealthiest man in the county by any means. My father built cotton gins for a living. He died when I was only sixteen. We weren’t members of the well-appointed planter class.”

She tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. He somehow never failed to surprise her. She had always thought of Civil War era Southern men as being somewhat like the characters in
Gone with the Wind
. Slave-holding, gambling dandies with hoop-skirted belles on their arms. And here was Benton telling her a totally different story.

“It was by pure luck alone I was able to go to military school. So when I rose like a rocket in the ranks and caught the attention of the most sought-after belle in the county, men like Bruce Bowers weren’t too happy about it.”

Jillian stared. “So he was…wealthy?”

“Very. Before Shiloh he tried to buy a commission but the men in our company wouldn’t have it. I was one of the few with any military schooling, so…” His voice trailed off.

She couldn’t suppress the feeling there was more to this than he was telling her. She thought back over the letters she’d read. “But…why did you break it off with Hattie when you’d written her you wanted to terminate your long engagement and get married in a month?”

Benton averted his gaze.

Comprehension seeped through Jillian. She felt as if she’d been hit in the stomach. She brought her fingers to her lips. “You slept with her didn’t you?”

He shot her a quick glance and then swallowed uncomfortably. “We didn’t actually
sleep
.”

A wave of heat rushed up Jillian’s spine at his admission. All sorts of sordid images filled her mind. Voluminous skirts thrown up in a clandestine and passionate encounter. So that’s why he’d been so concerned about
compromising
her the night before. She inhaled sharply. “I’m beginning to see a behavior pattern here.”

He flinched and then very slowly, he lifted his gaze once more to hers. His eyes narrowed into slits. The soft gray turned steely. “Is that what you think?”

Jillian crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re wasting your energy manifesting to me.”

“Jillian!”

She continued before he had a chance to interject anything else. “Because I wouldn’t want you to
compromise
me.”

“Stop this. It’s not the same.”

She shot to her feet. “And just how is it different?”

“Because Hattie was pregnant.”

Jillian’s breath froze. Her mouth fell open. How could Benton have refused to marry a woman he had gotten pregnant? Her heart twisted. She’d believed he was different. She’d believed he cared.

And above all she wanted to know every last detail of it.

Her every instinct screamed at her to turn inward, to unleash her psychic ability and see for herself. She wanted to do it. She wanted to lash out at him, to prove to him that she was not the simpering coward she’d been on their first encounter—to prove to him she was not powerless.

She closed her eyes and willed the energy to surround her and at once, she was careening through a tunnel of light, spinning nauseatingly fast until she came to a dead and sudden stop.

Jillian was hovering above them. Benton and Hattie. Her heart lurched. Hattie was beautiful. Dressed in a billowing silver skirt that accentuated her tiny, tiny waist, Hattie stood facing Benton. Her shiny brown hair was swept back off her face, rolled up and secured with a decorative comb. She stared at Benton with unadulterated love glowing in her big brown eyes.

Jillian felt guilty for eavesdropping. She started to quit this but stopped when she saw Hattie seize Benton’s sleeve in her fingers. A solitary tear rolled down her alabaster cheek. “How can you do this to me?” Her voice broke with emotion. Her knuckles whitened. Jillian’s heart went out to her. She had wanted to hate her but she couldn’t. Instead, she pitied her.

God, why did she have to be so beautiful? With her wide eyes and translucent complexion, she looked like a carbon copy of Melanie Wilkes.

“I won’t marry you then leave you alone, at the mercy of the Yankees. We are losing this war, Hattie. My men are starving, freezing. And if your insight is correct, I will die within the year. God help me if I leave you to the same fate I left my brother’s wife. God help me. I will not do it.”

Hattie searched his steely gaze. She desperately clung to him with both hands. Tears poured unchecked down her face. “But I love you. Don’t go back! Let’s run away together. We could go to Europe. Anywhere! Please, Benton!”

He stared and then set her away from him. “And what of my men? What of their fate?”

“I don’t care, I don’t care.” She begged him with her wide brown eyes.

“But I do care. I may not be able to protect you as a soldier or a husband but I’ll be damned if I fail to protect you as a man.”

Hattie stopped crying and stared. Her gaze turned hard. Her eyes narrowed. “I see.” Her voice was cold. “Now that our little accident is out of the way, you had rather me be your whore than your wife.”

“Hattie!”

She drew back her hand and slapped him with all her might. “I hope you rot in hell, Benton Smith! I hope you do die on that battlefield. And God help me but I will marry your murderer if you leave me now!”

Suddenly Jillian was being dragged back through the tunnel. Something had her ankles. She clawed at everything and nothing and twisted her head to see what held her.

A soul collector!

Panic surged. A scream ripped from her throat.

And Benton was suddenly there wrenching the beast off her. Claws dug into her foot, scratching as he pulled it away.

And as abruptly as it began, it was over and she was in a heap on the floor of her living room. Breathless and fresh from the fight, Benton loomed over her. His gaze swept her and Jillian thought for a moment he was going to ask her if she was all right. But he didn’t. Instead, he glared. Anger blazed in his eyes.

She had been afraid of him the first time she encountered him. Now she was terrified. Unable to move or breathe, she stared.

“You damn fool. You deliberately provoked the soul collectors!” His voice was like ice that sent a chill straight to Jillian’s heart. He was clearly upset.

This time she wasn’t going to show him she feared him. Defiantly, she lifted her chin. “What if I did? I didn’t ask you to rescue me.”

She instantly regretted her words. Never had she seen such a look of murderous fury. He lurched toward her to lift her roughly by the shoulders and set her on her feet. Jillian stumbled but his vise grip kept her from falling. She sucked in her breath with dread. Her ankle burned where the soul collector had scratched her.

“Do you want me to end up like those phantoms in the cemetery?” He gave her a hard shake. “Do you?”

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

His gaze searched hers before he crushed her in his arms. His lips claimed hers in a brutally intense kiss. White-hot heat unfurled in her body. His tongue pushed through her open lips, deepening his kiss, thrusting, demanding a response. He was conquering her and she was surrendering unconditionally. Instinctively, her nipples tightened. Her pussy pulsed. Jillian’s mind and body warred. She was not some fragile southern belle ripe for the taking. She was a twenty-first-century woman who did not need a man to come flying to her rescue at every turn. She yanked herself out of his embrace and stumbled several clumsy steps backward.

Breathless, she stared at him. Her fists clenched at her sides until her nails dug into her palms and she realized she was still holding the damned button. She ached to hurl it at him but she miraculously checked her anger.

Benton stood there looking extremely pleased with himself. A smirk deepened the dimple at the corner of his mouth. He brushed a finger across his kiss-wet bottom lip.

Jillian was outraged. “I don’t blame Hattie for slapping you. I’d slap you too if you were a real man.”

He laughed outright but she knew her barb had hit its target. The hurt was evident in his eyes.

Jillian could not bear to look at him any longer. She spun and rushed toward her bedroom. A strong forced knocked her to the bed and Benton flipped her onto her back before his long, hard body pressed her down into the mattress. Her breath left her lungs in a rush. His hands firmly pinned her wrists to the bed above her head. The button slipped from her palm to the sheets. She flung her head wildly from side to side. “Stop it, get off!”

“Listen to me.”

Thrashing beneath him only intensified the pressure of his body against hers from head to toe. Her heart thundered against her rib cage. “Please get off me.” Tears stung her eyes. She could not believe how foolish she had been. She’d shown him just how jealous she could be. She’d endangered him because of some woman who was long dead. Her face flushed hot. And last night she’d even told him she was falling in love with him. How stupid. What a fool she was! What a stupid, stupid fool!