Rachel's Choice Read Online Free

enough to wish she’d never married James Irons with his devil-may-care ways. She sighed. It had never seemed to her that she’d picked James, at least not consciously.
    Since they were toddlers, she’d followed James into all sorts of mischief. He’d been forever concocting adventures, such as the time he’d turned the sheep into the Methodist camp meeting or when he’d substituted hard cider for sweet at the Sunday school picnic. And no matter what mess he got into, she’d been there, three steps behind him, trying to save him from certain disaster.
    For an instant the terrified face of twelve-year-old James Irons flashed across her mind. Another boy had dared him to cross the frozen surface of Thompson’s Mill Pond in late March. James had fallen in halfway across, and she’d pushed a beanpole out on the broken ice to save him from drowning. He’d never admitted that he was scared, and once he’d crawled onto the solid bank, he’d stripped off his clothes and run home stark naked and laughing.
    â€œYou had your playing at war games, James Irons,” she whispered bitterly, “and just like when we were kids, you’ve left me to pay the piper.” Only this time she couldn’t forgive him. Her love for James, like her marriage, was as cold as yesterday’s ashes.
    She wasn’t about to admit defeat. Her will was strong enough to do anything—it was her body that couldn’t rise to the occasion. James and his family be damned. Providence had dropped a man into her lap, and it was up to her to use him to her advantage.
    But at what cost? The man in her kitchen was her enemy. Giving him aid was more dangerous than anything she’d done in her life. Continuing to help him couldcost her everything she’d worked for … everything she had to give her coming child.
    Chancellor was badly injured, maybe even dying. He could lose that arm as easily as not. But if she could heal him … if she could convince him that not turning him in to the authorities would be worth his labor … Even a one-armed man would be a better farm worker than none at all.
    Could she keep a Confederate soldier here against his will? Did she even want to try?
    A crash of breaking crockery from the house tore Rachel from her reverie. “What happened?” she demanded as she threw open the kitchen door. Chancellor lay sprawled face down, bleeding on her rag rug. Shards of a shattered soup bowl littered the floor. “What have you done?” she cried as she went to his side and knelt by his head.
    Chance groaned. “Not much of an escape plan, was it?”
    â€œHas the fever addled your mind?” She took hold of his good arm and tugged. “You’ll have to help me. I can’t lift you back into bed by myself.”
    Sweat beaded on his ashen face.
    In spite of her resolve not to, Rachel felt a rush of sympathy for him. He must be in terrible pain.
    â€œYou’ve brought this on yourself,” she admonished, as much for her benefit as his. “You should have stayed on Pea Patch Island.”
    â€œHave you been there?” His fingers tightened on her wrist.
    She pulled away, shaken by the haunted look in his eyes and the human warmth that had leaped between them at his touch. “You’ll kill yourself.”
    â€œI’d be better dead than going back there,” he said.
    â€œLiving’s always better than dying.”
    â€œMaybe.” His finely drawn features took on the hue of old tallow. “But Pea Patch Island isn’t living.”
    She swallowed. “I have to do something about your arm.”
    â€œIt’s my arm, and my life.” Then his head slumped back against the rug, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
    â€œYou’re still my patient,” she whispered as she pressed her fingertips against the pulse in his neck. He was very weak. If she didn’t stop the blood