YOU COULD HEAR THEM before you saw them. Their grunts and groans as they worked echoed against the mountains, thundered through the valley, and reverberated down the road. Their picks and shovels clanged their approach.
Jared was in the middle of his morning rou-tine with Lorelei when the noise of their pending ar-rival broke the snow muffled silence. He’d rushed outside and stood on his front porch searching the snow covered road with eager eyes. Ice crusted snow drifts blocked his view but there was no mis-taking their laborious advance and the tune, Reply To The Bonnie Blue Flag, that played in the back-ground to encourage their labor. For the first time in days, hope sprang alive within him.
From the sounds of their grunts and groans,…show more content… He missed the smell of her hair, the sound of her voice, the sweetness of her mouth when they kissed, and the smoothness of her taunt brown skin that excited his pulse. Not to be near her had been like a kind of living death.
And now here comes the enemy in the form of salvation to free this Confederate traitor so that he might return to his forbidden lover.
Two hours later, Colonel Meldrum sat atop his horse, Blackie, in front of the stone steps of Jar-ed’s house.
“Good afternoon Colonel, Jared offered. It is my great pleasure and honor to welcome you to my home.”
Colonel Meldrum was immediately suspi-cious of the tall healthy looking young man standing in front of him. One, he had a high born southern accent and two, he’d gotten his rank correct. Most civilians mistook his insignia as that of a Captain. He was always having to correct them.
“Good day to you sir and thank you for your extension of hospitality. But, I thought this was the home of Miss Lorelei Hansmueller? I attended a party here no less than a month
