The thing with truces is that they rarely last. The other thing about truces is that it's never the big things that break them; it's a pebble, bouncing down a hill until it hits just the right rock and suddenly it's an avalanche.

Gold wasn't thinking of avalanches or truces when he returned to the plantation after two days. He wasn't thinking of anything but sleep, hot food, and a bath, though probably not in that order. Possibly food in the bath, and he'd have to take care that the sleep came after, not during his bathing. He only meant to stop by the library long enough to drop off his saddlebag before heading for the kitchen to scrounge up something edible. Trouble was, the library wasn't empty.

"Captain." Almost the moment the door opened Archie Hopper was standing at attention, more of a statue than a soldier. He wasn't quick enough. Gold knew what he'd seen, the image of his medic and Belle French hugging burned into his brain. Damn and blast, but he knew the girl would be trouble.

"Go notify Lieutenant Nolan of my return." He flicked his fingers in Hopper's direction without looking at him. Hopper was more than glad of the reason to leave.

"Yes, sir," he said in a nervous, almost squeaky, voice. He was gone from the room a moment later, but that still left one person more than Gold was wanting to deal with.

"I'm sure you have things to be doing, Miss French." He kept his words short and clipped, his voice almost normal if one didn't know well enough to really listen.

"I don't know what you thought you saw, but..."

"Somewhere else, now, before you lose more than your book borrowing privileges." He threw the saddlebag onto the chair with enough force to send it tipping backwards, crashing against the floor. This time, rather than carefully controlled his voice was thick with the Scottish brogue of his childhood, none of the edges rubbed away by years living in America.

"My privileges? But I didn't break your rules. You said not to come in here alone, and as you were gone I asked Archie..." She stopped talking the moment a book flew across the room, pages falling out as it hit the wall and fell to the floor. A second book was dispatched almost immediately, a twin casualty.

"What are you doing?" She sounded so distressed that he couldn't help but look at her. A mistake, as his anger spiked again and a third book hit the wall. All he saw when he looked at her was Belle in another man's embrace.

"What I'm going to do to every book in this library if you keep arguing with me." And if she doubted that he could she didn't know him very well yet. Even now his hand rested on the spine of a book. "Is that what you want?"

"This isn't your home. You're an intruder, and you're ruining everything my papa and grandfather built up. You're being hateful, for no reason. There's nothing between Archie and I but friendship." She spun on her heels after saying her piece, leaving the room. Finally it was empty, just like he wanted it. Like he should want it.

"Hellfire," he swore as he paced the room, too agitated to sit. Ten minutes ago he'd been ready to all but collapsed in his bed, and now he felt the need to fight someone. Or get blinding drunk.

Better yet, he thought, what he really needed was a visit to a whorehouse. It had been too long since he'd had a woman if he was jealous of one of his men getting a hug. That had to be what it was; he worried about Hopper getting too attached to a Southern girl who would never leave her home once the war ended, but when it came down to it he was a man, and had to make his own choices. If his heart got broken it was his own fault.

What if Belle - Miss French - was the one with the broken heart? What if she thought she could convince her soldier to stay in the South after the war, and he left her?

Gold would kill Hopper, and with his bare hands.

He growled and stormed from the room, then the plantation, headed for the barn. He needed to get away from the house before he did something he would regret; Hopper was a gentle man, without a bad word for anyone. If he was feeling homicidal urges towards a man like that then something was wrong. A ride might calm him down; if not a visit to the house at the edge of town might really be warranted.

"Being chased?" From just inside the barn Graham spoke. He was crouched beside one of the horses, stroking the forearm with more tenderness than Gold had ever seen him use on a person, with the exception of Bailey once when the boy was ill and Graham visiting.

"Feeling a little suffocated by that ostentatious monster of a house." He stopped to watch Graham, who was looking up into the horse's eyes. Gold didn't know how Graham had managed to watch the horse so intently, and yet still observe his behavior. "I think staying in one place too long is getting to all of us, or at least Hopper."

"Something happened?"

"I caught him with Miss French." He winced when he said the words. 'Caught' made it sound like much more than an embrace, but he didn't feel the need to clarify.

"She's a pretty thing," Graham mused. Gold was surprised he'd noticed; he didn't pay much attention to people in general, and most of the time didn't seem to care about the difference between females and males.

"She's fair enough to look at." She was more than fair, she was beautiful. And young. Too young, really, for Hopper, which made her far too young for him.

For him? "Son of a bitch."

"Cap?" Graham looked at him for the first time since he'd come in, pulling himself up and resting a hand on the horse's neck.

"Love has killed more than any war, Graham. Don't ever doubt that." Maybe it wasn't love, maybe he didn't even know what love was, but he understood now just what that embrace had bothered him so. Belle was his, and he didn't want anyone else touching her. He wanted her smiles, her touch, her sweet voice in his ear. He wanted her. He might worry about going to hell, except that he was obviously already there.

"Seems like it should be easier than that. It is for the animals." He offered a carrot to the animal he was currently tending to, before guiding her back to her stall. "You like her."

"Yes." Graham was a damn hard man to lie to; it was lucky that he was just as hard of a man to pry a secret from. Any confession made would stay with him. "But she's either engaged to some local hick or interested in the good doctor."

"She loves one of them?" From some hidden recess in the barn, different from the one Gold had found, Graham pulled out a bottle of liquor and took a sip before passing it.

"Better chance of that then her feeling anything for me. I'm the damn monster destroying her home and making her work like a servant." He took a swing, then another, before passing the bottle back.

"I don't think she loves him. She doesn't look at him any different than the others. Mates look different." He nodded as if he'd offered sage advice.

"Right." One of these days he was going to have to have a talk with Graham about men and women, and the games they played. Or maybe he'd just take the man to the whorehouse with him and let him get a different education, one long overdue. He was too naive when it came to some things. Women, mostly.

"You're not going to tell her." Graham knew him, perhaps better than almost anyone. He'd stayed in Gold's spare room for over a year, after his rescue from the Comanche, as he'd learned how to be among white people again and Gold had learned how to be a single father. Since then Graham spent as much time as he could in wilder places, often hiring himself out as a guide, but he always came back with a present for Bailey and a story to tell. More than talking, though, he was a listener.

"Me telling her anything is about as likely as this damned war ending next week." Which was, as far as he was concerned, the end of the conversation, a fact he signified by downing half of Graham's bottle before leaving the barn with a brisk nod in the other man's direction. If he was lucky he could make it up the stairs without running into anyone.