The Sapphire Brooch Katherine Logan (best beach reads TXT) 📖

Braham had nothing left except his instincts to survive and protect. He refused to let go of her, willing himself forward. “If we can work our way around and get to Capitol Square, we’ll be safer. I can make it there.” Every part of his body was screaming in agony, but he wouldn’t stop now.

“Let me down. I can walk,” she said.

Braham snugged her closer to his chest. “I’m not putting ye down. Cover yer mouth with the blanket.”

The crash of falling timbers nipped at his heels, and the roaring crackle of burning wood harried them along. They ran up a side street then veered onto another. They twisted and turned, trying to outrun the mounting flames and heavy black smoke stealing air from their lungs. Buildings collapsed in their wake as they dashed uphill.

“Run,” Jack yelled.

The Capitol finally came into view as Braham wound himself up for one final push, even though the muscles in his arms and legs burned as hot as the blaze chasing his heels. He led the way to the far end of the square, close to Capitol Street. There he crouched on his knees, cradling Charlotte and grimacing as jolts of pain reminiscent of his bucking torture whipped him with the cutting edge of a lash. He arched his back and gasped for breath, coughing out particles of soot.

“The air is smoky here, too. At least it’s not burning our lungs. We can rest for a few minutes,” Charlotte rasped.

She didn’t make a move to leave the protection of his muscle-twitching arms, but she did shudder. Memories could be painful, and she would remember the young legless soldier for the rest of her life, while Braham would see the ceiling collapsing toward the exact spot where she was standing. He clutched her tighter until finally his arms gave out. Then he set her down, but kept her close, sheltered by the curve of his body. She held on, too, her arms wrapped around him.

Airborne ash fell in profusion, even where they were sitting. He constantly had to brush it off his clothes and his head and the parts of Charlotte his body couldn’t shelter. They sat there for some time while more Richmonders arrived carrying bundles on their shoulders and family and friends on litters. They were all searching for a safe place away from the fires.

“We can’t stay. We have to find fresh air.” Charlotte eased out of his embrace and stood, using Jack’s shoulder for support. Stretching backward with her hands pressed against her lower back, she groaned, shuddering slightly, as if she were sloughing off her aches and pains. “I can walk now. Just don’t ask me to walk fast.”

She laid her hand on Braham’s shoulder, and he squeezed it reassuringly. He studied her carefully, narrowing his eyes, darting them all over her to be sure she was unhurt. Thank God, she was dressed appropriately. If she had worn scrubs, the sparks and glass which had burned and cut holes in her dress would have shredded the thin surgical fabric from her body. Although in pain and exhausted, the thought of her naked led directly to thoughts of bedding her, which lifted his spirits with a flood of renewed energy.

They plodded down Broad Street, passing through block after block of stragglers, dense smoke, and tongues of flames still leaping to the sky.

Charlotte’s eyes glazed over and her shoulders slumped, but she kept moving, shuffling one foot forward and then the other. Even in a tattered dress and soot-covered face, she was beautiful. He wasn’t sure he’d ever loved a woman other than his mother and Kit, but he had no doubt of the depth of his love for Charlotte.

He took her hand, squeezed it, then put it to his lips and pressed a kiss on her fingers. Life-giving fingers. How could he say good-bye again? Before he did, he wanted one night to superimpose over the memory of the falling ceiling; one night to fill himself with the soft, satiny feel of her beneath him; one night to love her as he would never love another.

62

Richmond, Virginia, April 2, 1865

Charlotte sat hunched on a stool with her back to the fireplace, brushing out the damp curls of her shampooed hair. The two things she missed most from home were hot showers and hairdryers. This morning, though, a copper tub filled with buckets of tepid water had been a sybaritic blessing. She had soaked and scrubbed until the patches of her uninjured skin glistened.

Her post-trauma body was in surprisingly good condition, considering she had run through Richmond’s fiery streets twice and had spent a couple of hours rescuing wounded soldiers from a burning building. The cut on her head needed only a butterfly bandage. The first-degree burns on her arms would heal without leaving scars. The scrapes on her knees and elbows were minor. The skin on her face had a burn similar to sunburn after a day at the beach. The skin would peel, but as a child she’d had worse. The fire had singed the hair on top of her head, but her scalp wasn’t burned. If she hadn’t been so muscled and toned, she wouldn’t have made it home under her own power, since neither Jack nor Braham had stamina enough left by the end of the night to carry her.

The memory of the legless soldier’s clutched hand yanked from her wrists—and echoes of his dying screams—ricocheted around her mind, leaving her body and soul empty and grieving. The disbelief on the young man’s face when Braham tore her away would haunt her to the end of her days. She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory’s grip. She didn’t want to forget him—the nameless soldier—not tonight, not ever. She would always remember his sacrifice.

She had lost patients before, but the loss of this soldier was different. And