Chapter 5
Stockton CA, 1878
"You always were cautious with her, weren't you?" Heath asked.
Jarrod closed his eyes. "I was never really sure with her – I wouldn't have been with anybody, I don't think - and things were moving faster than they would have if she were just a Stockton girl. When there's a war on and you know you might die before ever seeing another full moon or another snowfall – well, you do things a bit more quickly than you might otherwise do them," he said.
"So where did it go from there?" Nick asked.
Jarrod said, "I saw her a lot after that. I began to take her to dinner now and then, and then fairly often. We spent a lot of days and nights together. I wasn't being wise."
"But you didn't let her in on the work you were doing," Heath said.
"No, I never did," Jarrod said. "Looking back on it, she was trying to get information out of me at first, but after a while, she wasn't trying very hard. And then – well, then one night, when we were together, I told her the truth. I told her I'd fallen in love with her."
"What did she say?" Nick asked.
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Washington DC, 1863
Julia hesitated after he said it. They were in each other's arms again after many times already, and she hesitated. And for a moment Jarrod felt like an idiot. He had read her all wrong. She didn't love him.
He started to leave.
She said, "I'm in love with you too, Jarrod."
He stopped, looking at her, seeing if there was truth in her eyes.
There was, or at least there seemed to be. She said, "I didn't think I could ever fall in love. I always thought I needed to protect my heart, to watch out for all those men who would use me as some sort of trophy. But you're not doing that."
"No," Jarrod said softly. He took her back into his arms.
"Is it just the war, Jarrod?" she asked. "Are we in love just because of the war?"
"Just because it could take us away from each other for good? No," Jarrod said. "That's not why I fell in love. It's true. It exists, and maybe things are moving along a bit faster than we expected, but I love you, Julia. I'd have fallen in love with you, war or no war."
He kissed her again, and she held on tight to him. She whispered in his ear, "I hope you never get transferred out into the field again."
That little alarm went off in his head, but she pulled him even closer and kissed him again. The alarm faded out and he got lost in her. He felt like he would stay lost in her forever, and when she said she loved him, too, he believed her.
But then, as quickly as they had fallen in love and told each other so, something changed. They still spent time together, night and day, but something Jarrod couldn't put his finger on was different. When she was with him, there was something reserved about her. It took a while for him to become confident enough, either as her lover or as a man, to ask outright what was going on, but one night, when he felt particularly alone even though he was with her, he finally asked, "Julia – what's happening with us?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Is it my imagination, or are we drifting apart from one another?" he asked.
"What makes you think that?" she asked.
"Something," he said. "Do you remember, when we talked about the war – when I told you that I loved you?"
"I remember," she said softly in the darkness.
"You told me you loved me, too, but did you really mean it, or was that the war talking?"
She was quiet for a while, then asked, "What are you asking me, Jarrod?"
"Is this real? Do you love me, or is what we're doing just to ward off that lousy war out there?" he asked point blank.
She was quiet again, but finally said, "It's not just the war. I have my pick of men, Jarrod. I wouldn't be here like this with you if I didn't love you."
He looked at her face in the dim light coming in from the street outside. "Then tell me what it is. What's bothering you about us?"
"Maybe it is the war," she said, "but I'm not with you to ward off the war. The war is scaring me. I'm afraid it will take you away from me. Maybe I'm a little distant because every day I become a little more afraid of that."
Jarrod could understand that. He had made no bones about wanting to be transferred back out into the field. It wasn't the war that was pushing them together now. It was the war that was pulling them apart. But – "I wish I could tell you that I'd never be transferred. I can tell you that I love you and I do, and if I am transferred I will do everything in my power to come back safe to you. But will you want me to come back?"
Julia sighed, was quiet for a moment, and then said, "I don't know."
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Stockton CA, 1878
"I think I took her completely the wrong way," Jarrod said. "I thought she was being honest with me and that she was really afraid to love me because I might get transferred and get killed, but that wasn't it."
"So what was it?" Heath asked.
Jarrod snorted just a little. "To this day, I'm not sure I know what was true then and what wasn't. We stayed together, and for a while I thought we were getting closer again and that we were going to work out. But then she backed off again. At the time I thought it was more of the same – she was afraid I'd get killed in the field – but later on, I found out different."
Jarrrod hesitated. They figured he was probably getting tired, and when he raised his hand to his head, they figured that headache was getting worse. Nick said, "Why don't we call it a night and give you that laudanum? We can take this up again in the morning – unless you're planning to slip off to town again."
"I won't be slipping off anywhere, but I'm not ready for that laudanum yet, either," Jarrod said. "It's still too early and that stuff makes you feel like something that got thrown out with the garbage."
"What was going on with Julia then that you didn't know about?" Heath asked.
Jarrod looked at his brothers. "It wasn't until Matt Parker came into town and I learned what was happening with him that I found out she had been with other men while she was with me, men she was getting information from."
"When did Matt get there?" Nick asked.
"It was in the spring," Jarrod said.