“Manassas…” She had spoken the single word so quietly that Canaan almost wondered whether he had imagined it. He hadn’t even seen her lips move. Indeed, the three whispered syllables seemed nothing more than a haunting breath through his mind. “‘Twas there I lost my—my fiancé in 1861.”
He opened his mouth to utter a sympathetic reply, then stopped himself when she sniffed several times. She sounded not as a woman on the verge of tears, though, but as one about to issue a sarcastic quip regarding some ironic twist of fate.
“Of all things…” she finally muttered. “A sword…a sword directly to his heart…of all places on his body…” She shook her head, as if mentally flinging aside the bitter memories, then glanced back at him. “But I’m certain you did not so cruelly lose your sweetheart in the
