Triumph by Heather Graham

curiously poised over the water.
    “What the hel—sorry, Miss Tia. What on earth is he doing?” Jemmy demanded.
    “I don’t know ...” Tia murmured, and she felt uncomfortable again, watching the Yank. As if she knew him. Or should understand something about him that she hadn’t quite placed in her mind.
    Suddenly, like lightning, he moved. When he straightened, he had a huge catfish dangling from the broomstick.
    “Hell, yes!” Jemmy cried, delighted. “Oh, sorry, Miss Tia—”
    “Quit apologizing for swearing!” she said with a sigh. “This is a war.”
    “Yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am. I’ll get the cooking fires a-burning!”
    “Now, wait ...” Tia began uneasily. She didn’t want any gifts from the strange enemy.
    But they weren’t waiting. They hadn’t really eaten in almost forty-eight hours, and they hadn’t had a decent meal in months. A fire was quickly lit. Gilly was an expert at what was called hardtack stew, a meal made by boiling hardtack and adding in bacon grease—or real, smoked bacon, which the Yank had in his saddlebags, and in this case, the hardtack stew made a filling side dish for the main course of the very delicious, fresh fish. The Yankee stranger supplied coffee as well, and laced each cup with a sip of the whiskey. To Tia’s alarm, by the time the moon had risen high in the night sky, the boys were looking up to the Yank as some kind of god.
    Washing their utensils with Jemmy by the brook, she told him sternly, “He’s still a Yank. He’s dangerous, and you boys can’t forget that.”
    “Yes, Miss Tia, but you said we needed to buy time. We’ve bought some time. Trey and Gilly are in the cabin now, getting some of the soft stew into Blake and Stuart. We’re giving them the strength to run when the time comes, right?”
    She nodded. That much was true.
    “We’ll also try to get them a night’s sleep. It doesn’t look as if the Yank’s going anywhere yet. But don’t go forgetting that he’s the enemy.”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “In the morning ...”
    “Yes?”
    “I’ll get him to accompany me down to the brook somehow. You boys follow. I’ll keep him occupied. Then you can come in and take him by surprise. You’re going to have to move with speed and certainty. Can you do it?”
    “I may be young, ma’am, but I know my duty.”
    “Good.”
    They returned to the camp.
    The tall Yank alone remained by the fireside, standing with a tin camp cup in his hand while he watched the fire die down. He cut a very dashing figure in his handsomely fitted frockcoat, one booted foot set against a log, his head slightly bowed.
    Again, she had the eerie feeling he knew the minute they drew near; his hearing was uncanny, as was his eyesight.
    He turned to them as they reappeared. His eyes were the pure color of the blaze in the fire, and something about the way he looked at her was just as dangerous.
    Jemmy paused with her by the Yank. “I’ll go on in and see how our injured boys are doing, getting their nourishment down,” Jemmy said.
    “You do that, soldier,” the Yank advised.
    Jemmy left, a bit awkwardly.
    And Tia found herself alone with the Yank once again. She felt his gaze as he assessed her with his fire-glowing eyes, a slight smile on his face. “Perhaps you should run in with your valiant, protecting army,” he told her.
    “Perhaps I should.”
    “Ah, but you think you should keep an eye on me.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “So why do you look like a bird about to take flight? Are you afraid of me, Godiva?”
    “No.”
    “But your heart is beating a thousand times a second, so it seems. I know that look on your face, so wary ...”
    “You don’t know me at all!”
    “Every inch of you.”
    Her heart was indeed beating a thousand times a second. And still, she lifted her hair from her neck with a bored nonchalance. “I would appreciate it if you’d quit being so rude as to remind me of my most uncomfortable folly.”
    “I wouldn’t remind you, if I were