Wedded to War by Jocelyn Green Page A

over, Caleb poured the coffee into his tin dipper and swirled it in the cup, hoping it would take the edge off his hunger. Hodges had gone off in search of a card game, so for the first time all day, Caleb was relatively alone.
    His hand immediately went to pat the pocket of his uniform,assuring himself that Charlotte’s letter was still there. He didn’t need to see it anymore; he had it memorized by now.
    So she was going “out of formation,” she said. Caleb rolled the tip of his mustache between his thumb and finger, back and forth, as he mused. He was sure Charlotte’s mother would be appalled at any deviation from the norm, and he wondered how that stuffed shirt Phineas Hinges—Hobbs—Happysack—whatever his name was—was reacting to it. He had always known that Charlotte was meant to do more than just look pretty and be petted. But nursing? Why would she put herself in an army hospital, bound to be the bloodiest place on earth, aside from the battlefield itself? Had she somehow gotten past the haunting memories of her father’s drawn-out death, or was she punishing herself for being helpless to save his life?
    He brought his cup to his parched lips and absentmindedly gulped, as if it was iced tea instead of scalding hot coffee, burning his tongue. Closing his eyes, he ignored the sting in his mouth and allowed his mind to travel back to a time when there was no war on the doorstep, a time when he and Charlotte had been together.
    It seemed like a lifetime ago that Charles Waverly had died. Caleb was twenty, Charlotte sixteen. She had looked so lost, so abandoned, and she had asked him for help. Death had bonded them together in a way that little else in life can. He longed to shield her from as much pain as he could, the way a father would protect his child, and called often to check in on her throughout the first year of intense mourning. She grew to rely on him, on his strength, his words of comfort, and he relished it.
    What would I do without you?
she had often said, and his chest swelled.
    When the grey veil of grief began to lift off her face, she looked at him differently with those caramel-colored eyes, the flecks of gold brilliant with happiness. If he could make her eyes shine, it made his day.
    Not long after her mourning clothes changed from black to grey and deep purple, he realized his affection for her was not as a surrogatefather figure toward a pitiable child, but as a man toward a woman who warmed under his gaze.
    The more time they spent together, the more he felt for her. He hoped it was mutual. But when she said,
I need you
, he began to fear that he had simply stepped into the void in her heart left by her father. That she needed him because he was a safe place, he was reliable, as her father had been.
    The thought needled him until he could no longer sleep at night. He cared for her for who she was, but he had a nagging suspicion that she cared for him just because he was there. He wanted the woman he loved to love him not because she needed him, but because she wanted him, whether he was right there in front of her or miles apart. Would she have loved any man just as much who had happened to be by her side during her darkest days and nights? If Charles could see them from heaven, would he accuse Caleb of putting Charlotte’s grief to his advantage by preying on her wide-open heart?
    She seemed blind to the spell she cast on him. He had made up his mind not to steal a kiss from her willing lips—she was still so young, by then still only seventeen—but the temptation was driving him mad. Once he kissed her, he’d never be able to think with his head and not with his heart again. He would have done everything he could to convince her to be his, while she was still in a state of grieving for her father.
    It wouldn’t have been right.
    So he chose a path that took him away from her—medical school at Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut—not because he didn’t love her, but