Against Her Will

Chapter Forty-Two

Her fighting stilled but Tanner could still feel the tension in her body and there was more that he wanted to say. "You don't get to do that, Temperance!" he scolded as gently as his temper would allow. "You don't get to make that decision for the people who love you! We damn sure don't believe that we'd be better off without you. I love you--scars and all. Hell, I'm a messed up piece of work myself."

Tanner snorted and shifted his hold on her though she kept her face buried in his chest. "I shot my damn brother in the back and I can't bring myself to walk across that porch where he died--I can't even look at that spot without having flashbacks and losing myself. I can't sleep under a roof because I have dreams that the walls are closing in. I can't go a full night and sleep peaceful because I see things I don't want to see. I see the starving men, the sickness, the disease. I hear the gunfire and cannons. I feel the whips, the chains, the hopelessness. I know what it feels like to want to die--to wish for it so damn bad that your heart aches. You're not the only one who's been through hell, Temp, and I can't make it back out without you. You are my dream, Temp. You are everything I ever wanted and all I need. And that boy downstairs, he loves you with all his heart. You can't just skip out on him like that. You remember what it was like to lose your mother--do you really want to do that to him?"

Silence reigned for several long moments and then Temperance's body seemed to deflate. The tension left it in a rush and she clung to Tanner as her hot tears soaked through his shirt. Tanner held her gently and buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent and reassuring himself that she was safe and alive. "You gotta quit living like this, Temp," Tanner's voice was softer now and much more soothing.

"I want to heal," Temperance whispered, her voice hoarse from her tears. "I want to feel that sense of peace I felt in your arms last night..."

"Then feel it," Tanner urged as he kissed her soft red curls. "Close your eyes and listen to my heartbeat, feel my arms around you and know that you are being held by the man who loves you--the man who would take on the world just to see you smile."

Silence once again fell between them. Tanner did as he had said he would and simply held her. He didn't care if they sat like this all day and into tomorrow, he was going to hold her as long as she needed.

"Robert, the man who told me about my father and brothers, the one who brought the sickness to our house, I fancied myself in love with him." Tanner was surprised when Temperance spoke and he almost replied but then remembered his promise to simply listen and closed his mouth. "I was young and naïve and somehow believed that God had sent Robert to me. I believed he would help me, my mother and my sisters and that we would one day marry and be happy. They were simply the daydreams of a child. I watched him die. I tried to nurse him to health but I couldn't. I fell asleep with my head on his heart and when I awoke there was silence beneath my ear. At that exact moment my youngest sister came into the house with a terrible cough and I knew--God took everyone of them away from me but left me alive. I read Robert's journal after that. He had kept it while in the war and the last entry spoke of me. Of how he wanted to properly court me and he said such nice things about me...We were both foolish."

Temperance chewed her lip a moment before continuing. "Yancy came shortly after I buried my family and Robert. I shouldn't have trusted him but he pretended to have been a Union soldier after seeing Robert's coat that I had kept. I was so lonely and it was my birthday and he seemed so nice. We even ate cake together... then nighttime came and I agreed to let him sleep on the sofa. I just wanted a friend. I wanted someone living and breathing to be around me after having had so much death. I was foolish. He came into my room that night and he took me away from my home... We went to a house where he lived with two other men."