New Frontier of Love (American Wilderness Series Romance Book 2) by Dorothy Wiley

said, carefully handing his blade to her and then taking her dagger. Her nearness assaulted his senses, making every quickening heartbeat drum inside his chest.
    As he willed his heart to calm, he studied the extraordinary blade. The workmanship was exquisite. The hilt, cut from a semiprecious stone, displayed chiseled in scrolls and inlayed silver fittings. Two diminutive horse’s heads pointing in opposite directions formed the hand guard. Each horse had eyes made from tiny sapphires and bridles gilded with gold. The artistic armorer decorated the silver scabbard by chiseling each side with amagnificent cross. “It’s remarkable. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” He turned it over and the crest’s sapphire winked up at him. “This stone is nearly as…blue as your eyes.” He almost said as beautiful as your eyes, but stopped himself just in time. That was close.
    “Thank you, Captain. Your knife looks nearly as fierce as you do,” she said, appraising the weapon. “This is a fine-looking handle. Did you make it yourself?”
    “Yes, but that’s an even longer story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you sometime,” he said, looking away. This was not the time to pursue that story again. He already regretted sharing it with Bear. He should have kept it buried forever.
    “Do you prefer the knife to your pistol?” she asked instead.
    “Yes, in most situations. It is always accurate, doesn’t require dry powder or loading. It’s quiet when there’s a need for stealth, and it’s unaffected by water if I need to swim a river or I’m caught in a storm.” The knife also served him in many other ways. He used it to skin and dress game, eat with, mend saddles and harnesses, cauterize wounds—often his own, and on one occasion to dig a grave for a fallen comrade.
    “I’m sure you’ll face all those situations and more in Kentucky. You’re like a knight clad in buckskin Captain. Something tells me you will face them without fear.”
    “Not so. Even noble knights felt fear. But a brave man must choose whether fear will make him strong or weak. Armor or buckskin, a man is only as strong as the courage of his heart.”
    Suddenly, those words held new meaning for him. Would his heart ever again be strong enough for love? Love takes courage. He’d learned that long ago. He clenched his fists, angry withhimself. He was letting fear make him weak. He was afraid of the future because of the pain of the past. He was a coward when it came to love. A damn coward. Pure and simple.
    He turned his attention back to studying the dagger, not wanting her to see his face.
    Of all the failings a man could have, he disliked cowards the most. He called such men parasites who freeloaded off the courage of others. He scorned cowards more than an enemy. At least an enemy fought for his beliefs or his own motives. Like clouds without rain, cowards were men with vaporous souls. During the war, men who showed even a tendency toward cowardice did not last long under his command. They got mess duty or became someone else’s problem. He did not allow cowards to put the lives of brave men at peril. Warfare has rules.
    But so does life. He didn’t like feeling like a coward. Could he muster enough courage to love someone again?
    Sam offered the dagger back to her and took his knife. He studied the blade’s edge for a moment, still lost in thought. The war finally ended. His trust in the lessons of war and his big knife did not. Firearms were optional. The knife was not. It was the one thing in his life that never disappointed him. More than once, wrapped in the hands of a soldier’s courage, the blade had saved his soul, even as it claimed the souls of others. For pistols held only one shot, and a hatchet, once buried deep in an enemy, took precious seconds to withdraw. But the knife was quick and, when needed, savage.
    Like other tested soldiers, he discovered that when two men battle, when one must live and one must die, the victor is