Everlasting Light - A Civil War Romance Novella (10 page)

“We can have biscuits tomorrow with our Christmas dinner.” Papa McKenna licked his lips in anticipation.

“I can bake a blackberry pie.” Mama McKenna shook her head. “This truly is amazing.”

Zeke made a fire in the hearth. “I jus’ wish Mistah Braedn would’ve brung that pretty woman for me to settle down with.”

They all shared a laugh. Good humor didn’t seem so out of place anymore.

Finally, dried off and changed, Braeden reentered the room. Alaina’s pulse quickened when he neared.

“I can’t believe that I’m looking at you. It’s like a dream.”

“And I can hardly believe you’re really home.” She remembered what he said earlier. “Why did you think I’d passed on?”

He led her to a chair near the fire, sat, and pulled her onto his lap. Under the circumstances, she didn’t care that her in-laws glimpsed such a bold display of affection.

She touched his beard, afraid to take her eyes off him lest he disappear like one of her visions of happier times. He looked different … older, and his reddish-blond whiskers certainly added distinction. But he appeared healthy too. His shoulders were just as broad as she remembered, his forearms strong and powerful. He hadn’t come home half-starved as most Confederate soldiers, and he certainly hadn’t lost his zest for life.

“I got wounded in Virginia,” he began. “I took a bullet in my right side, but it went clean through and out my back without hitting any major organs. Then I got captured. The Federal commander, however, was a Christian man and took pity on us wounded Rebels. He ordered his doctor to tend to our injuries and allowed us to rest two days before we made the march north to the prison in Maryland. Prison camp.” Braeden gave a wag of his blond head and stared into his coffee. “It was an unspeakable horror, but I survived.”

Inhaling deeply, he continued. “We’d all read about Sherman’s march through the South, the burning of Columbia. I worried about you all.” He looked pointedly at Alaina. “Shortly after my arrival at the prison camp, Ambrose Powell, a good friend of Jennifer Marie’s aunt in Charleston, got captured and ended up there too. He told me that Jennifer Marie died of the smallpox, and that—” Braeden paused to choke down the obvious emotion. He stared into Alain’s eyes. “He told me he heard you’d died too.” He glanced across the way. “And, you, Mama … Papa.”

“Oh, Braeden—” Alaina rested her forehead against his temple. “How awful for you.”

For several moments, a heavy silence hung in the air.

“When the war ended,” Braeden continued, “and I got released with all the others, I was as skinny as a reed and weak as a kitten. I knew I’d never make it back to South Carolina alive. From the information I’d been given, I figured there was nothing to come home to. I managed to straggle into the nearest town, and as I was sitting on a bench, despairing about my situation, the Union commander who’d apprehended me on the battlefield crossed the street to shake my hand like we were old friends. I hated him for a good long minute, until he said we were brothers—brothers in Christ. We were brothers against brothers in this awful war, but now, he told me, it was time to reconcile. I ended up forgiving him, and he offered me a job. Working on the railroad, repairing track.”

“The railroad!” Alaina wanted to smack him. She hugged him instead. “I should have known.”

Braeden chuckled. “I got two hundred dollars in gold just for signing on. I accepted a six-month term and earned one hundred dollars a month. I was fed three hearty meals a day and soon got my strength back. At first I wondered if my position was traitorous but soon decided quite the opposite, since the railroads will eventually help the South get back on its feet.”

“That’s true, son.” Papa McKenna kneaded his jaw.

“Then at last my contract was up. I prayed about what to do, and the Lord prompted me to head home. I couldn’t guess why, because I expected nothing to be left, no family, no house, no farm. But God wouldn’t allow me to do anything else. I felt no peace until I decided to make the trek back here. I purchased a couple of horses and supplies along the way. As I got closer to Columbia, the devastation made me sick. These last few miles were the worst. I mourned all over again the loss of the love of my life.” His arm tightened around Alaina.

Hot tears filled her eyes.

“And I mourned my parents, whom I thought were dead too. I had hoped maybe I’d find Kirk, Michael, or Zeke. But then, as I came around the bend, I saw the house all lit up.” Braeden chuckled, although emotion pooled in his amber-brown eyes. “I gaped for a full minute. The lighted windows shone right into my soul.”

“Lighted windows?” A frown creased Mama McKenna’s brow. “So that’s what those candles were all about. I’d wondered, but in all the commotion, I haven’t had a chance to ask.”

“I put the tapers there.” She clung to Braeden. “It was my prayer that their special light would guide my husband home.”

He kissed her. “They did. They surely did.” He smiled. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Like an added blessing from Heaven, Alaina recalled a passage of scripture from the Book of Isaiah, and it sent her heart soaring.
For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
She stared deeply into his eyes. “Apart from our Savior’s birth, this is the best Christmas ever!”