Edge Of Time

Twelve

Twelve

The next weeks were sheer bliss. Heaven. And Craig found himself happily falling into the routine of married life. As before, the sheriff's deputies had turned up nothing new in the Harris woods and he was beginning to relax into the idea that the man had in fact moved on. Craig strode through the streets of Charleston, sweltering in the August heat. Soon, though, the fall crispness would come, and then be exchanged for the cold air of winter. Craig felt like a little boy when he thought of it. He loved the snow, loved winter—though it tended to be the bane of his medical career, what with slips and slides and broken bones—but every year he couldn't wait to throw his first snowball. Marissa preferred autumn, she'd told him that just last night. Marissa...

Longingly he glanced toward the road that would take him home to his wife and wished he had more time to spend with her. His army commitment didn't allow time to maintain much of a personal practice, but Craig still did his best to honor those who'd been his patients before the onset of hostilities.

And right now instead of heading home he was on his way to a house call.

Marissa usually accompanied him but she'd stayed home that afternoon. He missed her. He felt like a lovesick fool, but that's what he was. It was wonderful to share his work with her, though he could never shake the sensation that she was biting her tongue, and he was certain that she knew more about medicine than she let on. He could never manage to coax the whole story out of her.

Climbing the steps of his patient's modest farmhouse Craig pounded on the door several times before a man of middling years yanked it open. From a curtained doorway inside the house he heard a woman weeping. Craig smiled in greeting at Steven Miller who had been discharged from the Confederate Army a week or two ago after a severe injury to his left arm in Chattanooga.

"You are not welcome here," Steven said flatly, his steely gray gaze angrily assessing the younger man.

Craig drew back in confusion. "What are you talking about, Steve? I came to see Annie. She sent for me."

"Without my permission. No son of a bitch traitor is going to lay hands on my wife!"

Disbelief washed over Craig like an icy ocean wave. "Traitor?"

"Your wife is a Yankee spy!" Steven spat the words in Craig's face. "Everyone knows it."

What the hell? Incensed Craig, the much larger of the two men, took a menacing step forward. "How dare you speak such slander against my wife? Marissa is not a Yankee or a spy! I can personally attest to that."

Steven closed the distance between them and glowered up at Craig. "Oh, I'm sure you can." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "Of course, who would believe you? You're probably in cahoots with them blue-bellied bastards too!"

Shocked, Craig was speechless for a moment. "Why you son of a bitch!" He snarled, doubling his fists. "My own brother died in service of the Confederacy. For you to suggest I would so sully his memory is an outrage!'