Love Rules Read online

  ***

  The next day Jesse was in considerable pain but the wound looked cleaner. He rested most of the day. Maggie fed him, kissed him, and teased him.

  Thoughts of taking her in vanished. She was his, he wanted her, and that was all that was important. Dreams of nights spent loving her danced in his head as her kisses tempted his senses.

  She even disrobed and walked about naked for him. The pleasure she gave was immeasurable. He smiled and reached for her, but she shook her finger.

  “No. You’ve got to rest.”

  It was all like a dream. And he prayed he wouldn’t wake up. Nevertheless, the following morning he woke and she was gone. Reality quickly settled over him.

  He felt the draft of her leaving him. His head hung. How could life be so unfair?

  If she really was the Black Widow, it was his duty to bring her in. He had to face it. He’d made love to the woman, and it wasn’t without feeling. But he had orders, too, and he couldn’t forget them. She had quickly forgotten their paradise.

  He wanted to believe she'd just stepped outside for some air, but his mind raced with the knowledge that she was still a spy. Warning the Federals took priority.

  She had her duty, and he had his. Jesse slammed a fist on the table. How could she betray him? He knew she had gone to make a report.

  He rummaged through the cabin for her gun and found it.

  When she opened the door an hour later, she stood poised at the door, her dress see-through from the sunlight, silhouetting what he wanted most, her.

  Too late for that. He had the gun aimed at her. Desire fled from her face, replaced by fear of the unknown.

  “W-what are you doing?” Her eyes went from the gun to him.

  Disbelief lingered between them.

  For a moment he started to put the pistol down and pull her into his arms, but duty kept the gun in front of her. His heart clouded with a sadness he couldn’t express. “Where you been, Maggie?” His voice sounded raspy, even to him.

  Knowing where she’d been, he had to tear his gaze from her. He wanted her so badly.

  “I had work to do.”

  “I gotta take you in. I know who you are.”

  “Take me in?” She frowned at him, a slight tremble to her limbs.

  “That’s right. I know who you are, and I must take you in. I don’t want to. Lord knows, but it’s my duty. Do you understand?”

  She nodded slowly. “Who told you who I was?”

  “I knew all along,” he said sadly.

  “And I trusted you, the first rebel I ever trusted.” Her brow rose arrogantly.

  “And you knew this was coming all along.”

  “No, I considered letting you go. I seriously contemplated disobeying orders.

  That’s how much you tempt a man. Until you left. Then I knew I would have to. I didn’t say I liked the idea, or enjoyed doing this. In fact, I hate it. But, Maggie, we’ve lost a lot of men because of you. A lot of lives, do you understand that? I thought maybe I could change things, but that was wishful thinking. Honestly.

  After what we shared, I wanted to. But I have a duty, too.”

  She hung her head. “Yes, I guess you have, and I’m sorry for that. Sorry, I was a part of the misery. I understand. I’ve prayed for forgiveness. God does forgive.”

  He didn’t say anything. His eyes devoured her, but his duty rang in his head like a gong. He couldn’t afford her tipping the Federals off again. She had caused too many of the deaths in the region. He had to remember that.

  “Where you taking me?” The sadness within her seemed to swell.

  “To my commanding officer.” His grip on the gun shook.

  “I see.”

  “What could you have possibly told them this morning? You’ve been with me for days now.”

  “I just have to report in, whether I have information or not. If I don’t, they’ll come looking.” Her eyes were wild, with fear or with pain, he didn’t know. “It’s my duty. They let me stay here in this shack if I report to them every few days. It’s the only way I can survive. It’s how I’ve survived so long. Don’t you see? How did you think I stayed here?”

  “I-I….”

  “You thought I gained the information by seducing soldiers?” Maggie gasped in surprise and white-hot anger.

  “Only when I first met you.” Jesse shook his head. “But I wish to God you hadn’t said that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re nothing to each other. So…what will they do with me?”

  “Put you in custody, I guess. But don’t ever say we’re nothing to each other, Maggie. We made love.” He frowned as he looked at her, thinking about what the Confederate government might do to a traitor, female or not.

  “Then let’s get on with it.”

  Jesse reached to caress her cheek, but she turned away from him. “It shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t know you were a virgin…but I won’t lie to you, Maggie. I wanted you for sure and certain. I still do.”

  “I guess you thought…you thought I sold my body to the soldiers to get information. But I didn’t have to.”

  “I guess I did at first. Maggie…what else could a man think? You were spying for the North. I thought you were experienced. I thought you did this all the time.

  Forgive me that. When I realized, I was so happy you weren’t that way, and if you hadn’t left this morning, this probably wouldn’t be happening. Dammit, I care about you. Sometimes a man has no choice.”

  She frowned this time and it stayed in place. “A man has a right to chose, and you did! You used me, and maybe I deserved it, but I’ll never be that foolish again.”

  “Maggie, what happened wasn’t part of the bargain.”

  “Let’s get this over and done with. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

  “God, Maggie, forgive me. I think, I fell—”

  “Don’t—don’t say it. Just take me in and leave it be.”

  He nodded. Then he did the hardest thing in his life. He took Maggie to his commanding officer. Just before they reached the camp, he stopped and held her at arms’ length. “I want you to know something. I never made love like that to any woman. What we shared was so special Maggie, so very special. I know you felt it, too. I didn’t plan to seduce you, just take you in, but a fire within me lit the minute I saw you. I couldn’t control it. I think you felt the same way. Maybe we went a little crazy, but it was nothing short of heaven. Remember it was special. If you don’t remember anything else, remember it was special.”

  “Was it?” Her glance cut him to the core.

  “Yes, it was. And before you go, I want you to remember I got a place in Texas you can go to. You don’t have to do a thing. You can live there. If I get out of this war alive, I’ll be back for you.”

  “And what then? Will you marry me, or will you expect me to live with you in sin for the rest of my life?”

  “It’s not like that, and you know it.”

  “I know nothing of the kind. I’m a black woman, the Black Widow. You’d never marry me or fall in love with me. You’ll never see me with anything but lust.”

  He had taken the most sacred things he could take from Maggie: first her trust, and then her innocence. He couldn’t give them back. He couldn’t change their course. He had betrayed her. His love.

  She looked at him one more time, their eyes meeting, sadness bigger than both of them stood between them.

  Jesse couldn’t believe he had done it. Even when everyone in camp was slapping his back and telling him what a good job he had done, in his heart he had committed murder. He’d marred what they shared. He’d done it. Moreover, for the rest of his life, he would never forget Maggie nor forgive himself.

  Chapter Four

  “Where should I put her, sir?” the young corporal asked.

  “The supply shack for now,” the major replied after some consideration.

  “The supply shack, sir? But there isn’t room in there to sleep.”

  “We
are to provide a place. It does not have to be the most comfortable place.

  The women here would not welcome her into the barracks, and we can’t have her with the male prisoners, so put her in the supply shack for now.”

  “Yes, sir.” The corporal saluted and guided Maggie outside.

  She saw the frustration on the young soldier’s face and shrugged. “Please don’t fret about me, Corporal. The supply shack will do.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but…well, it’s not a decent place for a woman. There’s nowhere to lay down at night, and there are often rats….”

  Maggie cringed inwardly, but she wouldn’t let the young corporal worry a moment longer. It wasn’t his fault. “I’ll manage, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, ma’am. And I’m sorry. Sometimes a man doesn’t have a choice.”

  The corporal unlocked the shack, and Maggie saw that it was full but she hefted herself up onto a load of grain and sat down. “I’ve been in worse.”

  But those words rang in her head a long time. A man doesn’t have a choice….

  The corporal turned red and fastened the door quickly behind her.

  For four months she lived in the intolerable squalor of the supply shack, and then she was transferred to another prison just as ill-equipped. This went on until they finally shipped her to Camp Ford near Tyler, Texas.

  Camp Ford was one of the best prisons she’d seen. With an open stockade, it allowed the prisoners to build their own shelters, and local farmers to furnish fresh food. When her trial came up, a court appointed attorney tried to defend her. He was a lean, short man with a long mustache that rode over his mouth as though someone drew it there. He was straight out of law school, and he tried every dramatic defense he could think of to impress his peers.

  “Her age alone is enough to consider the sentence too harsh,” he had

  demanded.

  But it fell on deaf ears. They brought in a guilty verdict, and Maggie was sentenced to hang. Scared out of her mind, she trembled the first time they shut the bars on her after the hearing. She nearly fainted. Fear surrounded her.

  “Are you all right?” the captain’s wife asked as she passed by the homemade jail one day.

  “I’m just a little under the weather, I expect,” Maggie answered, aware that her feeling poorly was happening on a regular basis.

  However the captain’s wife seemed concerned for her and insisted her

  husband move her to better quarters.

  “She’s scheduled to hang, my dear,” the captain protested.

  “It’s only humane. After all, she is a woman,” she insisted. “Besides, I think she might be in a family way.”

  “Very well. I’ll put her in the maid quarters, and she can tend to the laundry until her sentence is carried out, if that will suffice?”

  “Thank you, dear. You won’t regret it.”

  I wonder. She does seem harmless, but we must remember she was the

  black widow.

  “Of course.”

  Maggie was treated decently by the captain’s wife and some of the other ladies, but the guards were cruel and vowed to watch her hang. She endured the rebel guards calling her names, talking ugly to her, even threatening her. She figured she deserved some of it. The Union prisoners treated her almost the same because of her color.

  She’d been guarded in a lone room at the back of the guard’s barracks. But the guards continued to harass her and because she earned sympathy from the captain’s wife, they were even crueler.

  However, when the captain’s wife suggested she might be pregnant, Maggie was shocked. Never had she expected it. Jesse’s baby! Part of her wanted to shout out with glee, and part of her wanted to die. She was to be hanged. How could she be pregnant and hanged?

  As time passed, she was pleased to have Jesse’s baby. A part of him he could not take away. Although the captain turned out to be a fair man and allowed her more privileges than most because of his wife’s insistence, Maggie remained under full guard.

  Life at Camp Ford proved easier on her in more ways than one. There was little disease there and when able to earn money, she could eat healthier, too, buying vegetables from the local farmers who were allowed in.

  So at the captain’s wife’s insistence, Maggie became the new washwoman for the fort.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Maggie was saying as the captain’s wife visited her while she hung wash on the line.

  “Think nothing of it, dear. It’s the very least I could do. My husband is a fair man, most of the time. And…I truly don’t think they will hang you.” The woman smiled kindly at her.

  “But the court has already sentenced me.”

  “True, however, I think the end to this war is coming quicker than anyone thought.”

  Maggie wasn’t as sure. “What is your name?” she asked as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

  “Louisa. Now, don’t you fret so. I’m softening the captain up everyday.” She walked off with a smile.

  The work kept Maggie busy and her mind off her troubles to some extent.

  However, she couldn't blank out the worry, wondering when they were going to come take her away and hang her, but the war seemed to get worse as time went on and they forgot about her. Besides, they couldn’t hang her without hanging an innocent.

  Louisa asked that the court reconsider her execution, and her husband agreed under the circumstances he would prolong the sentence as long as humanly possible.

  Then one day, news came that the war was over. Relief washed over Maggie.

  Prisoners of war would be exchanged once more, and her sentence was

  overturned immediately.

  Maggie chose to stay on as the fort’s washwoman to earn money for herself and her baby once she was sure there would be no hanging. Louisa had become such a friend; she hated leaving her. And it was Louisa who delivered Abby, Maggie’s baby.

  ***

  Maggie found the place the captain had located on the map for her. She’d gathered all her possessions and started out. One of the soldiers, a black man, gave Abby a homemade doll. Her daughter clutched it happily. But her leaving wasn’t completely peaceful. An ex-guard showed up as she was mounting her horse, Abby in her arms. She swung up and held Abby close.

  “You ain’t goin’ nowheres, girl. You might’ve escaped the hangin’, but I’m here to see you dead. Too many of my kin died because of you and your big mouth. Pea Ridge, Cane Hill, and Prairie Grove, I lost kin in them battles. Heard them Federal prisoners tellin’ how you gave the information to the generals each time.

  That’s all the proof I need that you are as responsible for their deaths as any soldier. Now, I’m gonna take pride in killing you and that half-breed kid of your’n.” He pulled the gun on her as Maggie felt for the small derringer that Louisa had given her as she was leaving.

  “Don’t do this. I can’t bring your kin back, and killin’ me won’t either.”

  “Maybe, but it shore will make me feel better.” He spat in the dirt and aimed the gun. “I believe in a person knowin’ why they are dyin’. This is for Papa Joe, Cousin Sol, my brother Dwight and the multitude we buried on that field that next day.”

  Without a second thought, Maggie aimed the small gun at his heart. He couldn’t see the gun under her skirt, and she hoped the fabric would muffle the sound of the shot.

  She didn’t need to wait to see whether he would survive, she shot him stone dead, point blank. It was dark and inside the barn, and she prayed no one had heard. The look in his eyes told her he was dead. She put the gun back in her

  small leg holster and grabbed Abby tightly. “Mama didn’t want to do that, but I had no choice. I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

  Without another word she rode out of the fort that night alone and scared, watching over her shoulder to see if anyone followed.

  ***

  They’d been traveling for a couple of days, and Maggie and the baby were bone weary. She couldn’t travel fast because the baby rode wi
th her in her lap. Abby was too big to tie on her back, so she sat in front on the horse.

  Stopping at an old Negro’s shack on her way, Maggie asked about Jesse’s place.

  Most people knew their neighbors, and she figured the old man might give her better directions than the captain had. She’d seen him sitting on his porch looking out on the meadows. He seemed to live alone as there was no sign of others about. He invited her in and waited until she sat at the table before saying anything. The Negro man had eyed her carefully. “Yeah, I know the place. It’s about fifteen miles up the road from here. Don’t nobody live there now. Ain’t for some time. It belonged to the Coleman’s. Heard tell the last son went into the army. He ain’t been heard from since. Oldest one they said died at Shiloh. What you so interested in a white man’s place for?” the old man asked. “You gonna squat on the land or something? That ain’t a very wise thing to do.”

  Maggie didn’t trust the old man. It wasn’t his business, but his eagle eye seemed to bore right through her. His constant frown told her he didn’t like her.

  The fact that Jesse hadn’t returned from the war yet bothered her. The idea of him dying in battle sent a chill up Maggie’s spine. If he were dead, then she would be a squatter. It felt like a knife going into her heart at the thought. For a moment she didn’t say anything.

  “I-I plan to work there. He sent me here to work the place for him, during the war.”

  “The war’s been over a spell. You’s a little late, ain’t ya? But a single white man, hiring a black woman.” He shook his head as though he didn’t believe her. He offered her water to drink. Maggie took it and shared with Abby, then drank the

  rest herself. Her eyes flitted about the small cabin with interest. It was a modest home with few furnishings and little to admire, but it was warm and suitable for a man.

  “Well, yes, he said the place was a mess and he needed a housekeeper and cook, and I was one of the best during the war.” She began her lie. “And I have to have a way to support myself and my baby. I guess he felt sorry for me. I don’t know. The captain himself sent me out here.”