Excerpt of An Outlaw in Wonderland by Lori Austin

Richmond, 1864

The intelligence on the Confederate Ranger Mosby led to Major Forbes being dispatched from Falls Church with one hundred and fifty Union men in pursuit of the partisans, which resulted in one hundred and six Union losses—twelve dead, thirty–seven wounded, and fifty–seven captured.

Mosby lost six men. Six.

Still, the information had been valuable enough to attract the attention of General Grant, who had given a commendation to Ethan through his superior John Law.

Men like you will win us this war.

Ethan only hoped it was soon. Each day brought more wounded, each night more dead. Ethan listened, looked, lurked, and discovered several more bits of information for Mikey. The last time they'd met, his brother related Law's newest plot to end the war.

"Losin' their leaders can make men retreat before they even start," Mikey said. "If we know where the battle's gonna be, me and the sniper will get there first. He'll eliminate the officers."

Ethan winced as if he'd heard the shots, but he couldn't argue with Law's logic. The removal of a few top men might, in the end, save the lives of many.

The sole bright spot in each day was Annabeth Phelan, and considering that Ethan saw her only across the bloody, broken bodies of young men, he shouldn't be so happy about it. However, his work was much easier now that she was part of it. She was intelligent, skilled, and devoted. He felt less alone every minute she was near.

He'd taken to thinking of her as Beth in his mind, though he hadn't yet had the courage to call her so aloud. Would she think he was forward and crass? Or would she like it?

Ethan stepped from the surgery, then stood blinking at the sky. While buried in blood, he forgot how bright the stars were, how green the grass, how exquisite the flowers. As he lowered his gaze, he saw Miss Phelan—Beth, his mind whispered—speaking to a man he didn't recognize. Not that such was unusual. There were so many people at Chimborazo—personnel, patients, soldiers—in truth, he hardly knew any.

But there was something about this one that made Ethan uneasy. He kept his cap drawn low and his face tilted so shadows obscured his features. His clothes were baggy, dirty, and nondescript. Of course, at this point in the war, whose weren't? Everyone made do with what they had, found, or stole. Still, Ethan had learned enough since becoming a spy to suspect that anyone trying that hard to appear like everyone else wasn't.

He took a step in that direction, and the man murmured to Annabeth, ducked his head, and strode away. Ethan might have followed, perhaps called out, but she turned, and the moon cast a bluish hue across her open, honest, innocent face. She wasn't beautiful, perhaps not even pretty, but when she smiled at him, all Ethan saw was her.

"Was there something you needed, Doctor?"

You, his mind whispered.

"Not at the moment," he said, lifting his gaze to seek out the fellow she'd spoken with and determine where he'd gone.

Except he was gone. Considering all that lay before them was a long, flat expanse that led nowhere, Ethan's neck prickled. "Who was that ye were talkin' to?"

"A friend from childhood."

An unreasoning jealousy overcame him. She, no doubt, had friends all over this camp, all over this state. He wanted to be her friend.

Liar. He wanted to be so much more.

"You shouldn't be out here alone."

"I'm not alone." Her lips curved. "I have you."

He wanted her to have him, while he had her. His attraction for Annabeth Phelan was all consuming. He dreamed of her throughout the endless nights.

"Not all men are like me."

"None of them are."

She didn't know how right she was, and she never could.

"I'll walk ye to yer quarters."

She nodded and led him back the way he had come, past the surgery, in the opposite direction. He forgot about her friend—where he'd gone, who he was, and why, if he was a friend, he'd disappeared instead of shaking hands and introducing himself. It was only later Ethan thought of such things.

They didn't speak; they didn't touch, and that was all right. Whenever Ethan was with her, pretty much everything was.

"Here we are," she murmured.

Ethan had no excuse for what he did next. She wasn't his; she couldn't be. Yet when she lifted her face, he kissed her. Nothing was ever the same again.

She did not gasp; she did not cry out or push him away. She did not even stiffen; though he did. Down low, where such things occurred, he came immediately to rigid, relentless, and ready life.

He'd said she shouldn't be out alone because not all men were like him. But the way he felt now, he was very like the men he'd warned her about. He wanted to shove her against the wall right here, or perhaps drag her between the buildings over there. Haul up her skirts, skim a finger over the soft skin where thigh became buttock, fill his palms with that flesh as she gasped into his mouth, as she whispered his name.

"Ethan."

As she whispered it now, against his lips, their breath mingling. They stood so close, she would have felt the brush of his erection if not for the barrier of her skirts and crinoline. Then she would have been screaming, pushing, pointing. Telling him and everyone who would listen what he had done, how he had dared. He would find himself married to her by tomorrow, and that would be—

Her tongue touched his. How could she help it? His had somehow made its way into her mouth, and she tasted of dawn. Of new days and hope. Of sunshine pushing through darkness. Of life. And Ethan thought . . .

If he found himself married to her tomorrow, perhaps that wouldn't be so bad.

In the distance, cannons sounded, reminding him who he was, why he was here. He couldn't marry her while living a lie. He shouldn't kiss her while living one either.

Ethan stepped back. Her mouth glistened in the moonlight. Her tongue peeked out, as if she wanted to taste him again. He certainly wanted to taste her.

"Beth, I . . ." he began, uncertain what he meant to say, to do.

"Don't you dare say you're sorry!"

He snapped his mouth shut as she spun and went into the building. The slam of the door echoed almost as loudly as the artillery.

Had he meant to say that? Probably. It was what men like him did with women like her in situations like—

He glanced around. This situation was not one for which any etiquette existed. He was a physician with the blood of men—no, the blood of boys—beneath his fingernails. She was a nurse who no doubt had the same blood in the same place. They were not in a drawing room preparing to dance. The only music was that distant rumble of guns.

Yes, kissing her had been inappropriate. But here . . .

What wasn't?

***

Annabeth's lips still tingled; she could taste Ethan on her tongue. Closing her eyes, she pressed her fingers to her mouth.

He'd called her Beth. No one else ever had, and the way he'd said her name in an accent that brought to mind emerald hills she'd never even seen yet somehow knew made her shiver despite the never–ending heat.

Were all kisses the same? Consuming. Inflaming. A promise to a world unexplored.

She had been kissed only once before, and at the first touch of the boy's lips, she'd hauled back and broken his nose.

"You took long enough to get here."

Annabeth's lips tightened beneath her fingertips. She dropped her hand. "Speak of the devil"—Annabeth opened her eyes as Moses Farquhar stepped out of the gloom—"and he appears."

With golden hair and a gaze the shade of spring grass, Moze would have been too pretty if it weren't for the permanent crick she'd put in his slightly large nose when he was fourteen. Why he'd thought he could kiss her back then, she'd never quite figured out. At the time, she'd wanted to pound him into the dirt the way she had when she was eight. On the Phelan farm, Moze had just seemed like one more brother among many.

When Mrs. Farquhar died after scraping herself with a pitchfork used to shovel manure—her arm had first swelled, then oozed, then turned black—her husband was unable to care for three–year–old Moze and still manage the farm. Annabeth's mother, who already had six children underfoot, had shrugged and welcomed another.

As Moze and Luke were a few months apart in age, they'd been inseparable from the first. Even after his father remarried and Moze returned home, the two boys had spent all of their time together, doing their chores side by side, first at one farm, then at the other. For fun, they would harass Annabeth until she wanted nothing more than to smother them both.

"You're the one who ran off as if he had something to hide," Annabeth said.

"I do."

"Moze, what are you—?"

"I'm a spy, Annie Beth Lou." He called her by the name both he and Luke had used for her when they were children. She hadn't liked it much then either.

Silence reigned, broken only by the distant guns; then Annabeth laughed. "Sure you are."

"Did you ever wonder how I could stop in and check on you both at the farm and here? If I were attached to a regiment, I wouldn't be free to travel about."

He had a point. But his behavior tonight had her asking: "Who are you spying on?"

"Whom do you think?"

"The way you slipped off at the first sight of Dr. Walsh, I wonder."

He made a disgusted sound. "Only Yankees shorten names, Beth." The nickname, when spoken with a sarcastic Southern twist, no longer sounded like an endearment. "Haven't you ever noticed that?"

"As I don't know any Yankees, I haven't."

"You'll have to take my word on it."

"What are you trying to say?"

He sighed and reached into his pocket, withdrawing a paper and holding it out.

Annabeth put her hands behind her back; an unreasonable belief took hold of her. If she didn't look at that paper, whatever was written on it would not be true.

Moze tightened his lips at the same time he tightened his fingers, crumpling the sheet and dropping it to the floor. "Luke is missing."

"Missing?" she repeated. "What does that mean?"

"Captured. Wounded. Gone."

She didn't like any of those words, but at least they meant—

"Alive."

His gaze flicked to hers, then away. "Not always. Missing can mean dead but never found. Lying in a Yankee hospital. Unnamed in one of ours."

"Where did this happen?"

"Mount Zion Church."

"I didn't hear anything about a battle there."

"Not a battle." He let out a quick breath. "He's with Mosby. Or at least he was."

"He's a guerilla?"

"Partisan," Moze snapped.

"They were disbanded." The partisans were considered rogues, rebels even in a rebel army, and Lee had hated them.

"Mosby's Rangers were allowed to continue, as they possessed some form of military discipline."

"How long has Luke been with them?"

"From the beginning."

"And you didn't tell me?

"Luke didn't want you to worry."

"Luke? Or you?"

"Does it matter?"

"No." She would have worried; she had worried. "Thank you for letting me know."

"I didn't come for that."

"Then why?"

His hands clenched, released. "You shouldn't be kissing him."

"You're here to instruct me about whom I should kiss?"

He rubbed the bump in his nose. "Why didn't you hit him?"

"None of your business. Now, why are you here? Besides the desire to stick your crooked nose where it doesn't belong?"

"Someone at Chimborazo has been telling the Yankees everything he sees, hears, and reads."

Understanding dawned. "You can't— He isn't— Ethan's a doctor. A very good one."

"That doesn't mean he isn't a spy as well."

"Why would you think that?"

"One man came through this hospital who knew that Mosby was headed to Rectortown."

"Only one? I find that hard to believe."

"Believe it. He was sent to call the Rangers. He delivered the message, but he never returned to the rendezvous. I traced him here. Directly to Dr. Walsh's table."

"That means nothing."

"The only person with the knowledge of the Rangers' movements comes to Chimborazo; the last man he sees is Ethan Walsh. Then the Yankees arrive."

"You spoke with this messenger? He admitted telling Dr. Walsh the information? Who else was in the room?"

"When he's not unconscious, he's delirious. Even if he survives, he'll be lucky if he remembers his name, let alone what he said and to whom he talked."

Annabeth threw up her hands. "Which means you have no proof."

"I'm not done. There's a Yankee sniper killing officers."

"Isn't that what Yankee snipers do?"

"He arrives ahead of everyone, shoots before the armies even engage. Every single division that's lost their leaders reported sending wounded here. Wounded who were well aware in which direction they were marching. Next thing we know, their officers are shot in the head." Annabeth flinched as if she'd heard the report. "This man is the best marksman we've ever seen. We have to stop him."

"How do you plan to do that?"

"I'll need some help." His imploring gaze told her exactly whom he needed help from.

"Not me," she said.

"Luke may be dead because of intelligence that came from this hospital. Don't you want to know if Dr. Walsh is responsible before you kiss him again?"

"He isn't."

"You're so sure?" Moze asked, and she nodded. "Then prove it."