Federal surgeon Erik Reichmann searches for a contraband of medical supplies in Savannah during Sherman's March to the sea, and discovers Layla Stuart, apothecarian, midwife, and smuggler up to her neck in intrigue, she in a photo and letter he retrieved off her brother a year before. Told her twin was killed by a sawbonz, Layla believed her beau left the Yankee for dead. Erik wants revenge and his mother's ring on Layla's finger. Trying various means of seduction, he lodges in the Stuart household to find the whereabouts of the shipment and Layla's beau (thought to be her husband). He learns the truth of her marital status and against his better judgement, cannot avoid the building flames of desire for this willful woman. Layla wants no part of this Yankee, but she is weak to his advances, good looks, strange philosophy and bedside manner. Intrigue surmounts when Erik's adversary exposes the "truth" about her twin. Although Layla loses all trust in Erik, she realizes she's smitten. To discover the truth as much as these feelings tearing her apart, she takes the shipment to find her beau. Unfortunately the trap has been set. Layla is shot, literally blinded and nearly drowned until Erik rescues and heals her back to health. Layla discovers passion and unconditional love, and soon Erik convinces her to marry him before he leaves Savannah. While he follows Sherman through the Carolinas, Layla's beau returns. Blind, she still knows the truth despite his lies, and discovers the ring she use to wear is Erik's mother's. Maddened with jealousy, her beau ignites a fire to Layla's shop and home. As Erik saves her from a burning inferno, her sight returns and she is forced to make a choice between the two loves of her life.
Misguided Obsessions
By Dinah WalkerAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Dinah Walker
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4567-5246-0Chapter One
December 22, 1864
Frigid air whooshed through the stuffy corridor. Rodie sprang from the bench puffy eyed. In her crouched position where she fell asleep, Layla pushed upon cramped legs. Her wet slippers skated across the patched waxy floor, and stopped on a strip of petticoat. Teetering off balance, she slammed against the wall, her long ringlets dangling across her face.
Footsteps advanced before she straightened, and two strong, gentle hands grabbed her elbows to steady her. Instinctively, she drew back to gather her uncontrollable mass of curls. In two shakes of a cat's tail, her heart lurched double-time. Before her, inches, stood the dreaded terror of all southerners ... only the damn Yankee—a paradox—snatched a blue `kepie' from his head like some courtly gentleman, and bowed to reveal an abundance of box holly curls.
"Are you all right, ma'am?"
Layla checked her temper, her eyes snapping an indwelling fire of hatred. Far from all right, before the vilest of enemies, she pushed a ringlet behind her ear, and tugged the constricting ties at her throat.
"Indeed, sir."
The young man advanced looking unsettled by her actions. "Are you sure you're—"
Rodie jumped between them, and waved an old penknife beneath the Yankee's nose. "You so much as look at me sister ..." Rodie's voice lowered, his small nostrils flared. "I'll carve ye into Yankee fodder, I will."
The soldier's reddish brows slanted; his green eyes glared stupefied at the youth barely taller than himself.
With her heart in her throat, Layla whispered, and latched onto Rodie's bony shoulders. "You mind me well, Roderick Stuart. Do not say another word and hand me that pig-sticker." She attempted to pry the knife from his grip but Rodie clenched tighter, grit his teeth, and expanded his chest.
From behind the young officer, a man taunted, "Yeah, MacGregor. Can you steal this Belle or will the stripling best you before the major can?"
MacGregor, seemingly unaffected by the tease said, "Mind your tongue, Burkes or I'll see Cooper tends that leg of your'n." A Scottish burr rolled off MacGregor's tongue as his gaze remained on the weapon set to do its worst. "Better yet Beales; he's itchin' to do an amp."
"I'm scared." Burke's sarcasm surmounted. He placed a beefy hand across his massive chest, evidently unimpressed with the lieutenant's authority.
Layla's heart sped. More boys in blue filled the hospital corridor behind the giant, unkempt like her countrymen—a wounded, smelly, scraggly lot—with little humor left. To maintain her dignity, she'd refrain from addressing them. In fact, she'd leave! Never mind those needed tending! Indifference waned for her brother's sake. These men could break him as easily as they had everything in their path through Georgia.
Burkes limped forward, his threat hidden in a malicious grin. "Better do what Mammy says boy," he goaded Rodie. "Put your toy away."
The young lieutenant cautioned Burkes with the wave of his arm, and Layla guessed the movement startled Rodie. He lunged from her grasp and the entire scene slowed ghastly before her. The knife back-lashed across the lieutenant's hand who ensnared Rodie's neck as the blade flashed a turbulent dance in his fist. Before the tall burly Burkes bound into the fray, Layla moved faster than her thoughts. Edging between Rodie and the lieutenant's embrace, she wrapped her cloak around Rodie's wrist and applied enough pressure to send the weapon splaying across the floor. Quick to retrieve the knife, she wielded toward the lieutenant and Burkes. Rodie sneered, the least grateful for her heroics, his pale eyes emboldened of one betrayed, his neck braced by the lieutenant's arm.
Hoots of male laughter echoed through the hall.
"Let him go!" Layla demanded. Standing ground, she glanced about, lighter and flushed with exertion. Everything stopped. Her thoughts jumbled more fear than she cared to awaken within herself. Were these the detestable `Bummers' Kyle warned her about? Aside from the slow drip of blood on Lieutenant MacGregor's boot, silence reigned over the hall. Above Rodie's reddened face, the lieutenant gawked. Layla fumbled for the ties at her throat and followed his gaze to the cape at her feet. Though, she had little in regards to a bosom, her tightly confined breasts strained against the mourning attire like one of the "queans" along the waterfront not a lady of means. The somber colored wool, patched and ripped, revealed her discolored thin petticoat beneath. Her worn chemise peeped between a few threads attached to her bodice and skirt, and pouched through holes beneath her arms.
The lieutenant's green eyes—the least feral in nature—focused on the rise and fall of her slight cleavage. Of all things, he appeared smitten, scarcely older than her age of twenty, she rejecting lad's with such looks since twelve. And he bled, and held her brother as if to protect him from himself.
"Best have that hand tended, sir, before you lose it too." Layla referred to the loss of a limb MacGregor worried Burkes about.
Burkes limped forward, his lascivious look making Layla's skin shrink. Though a meager protection, she waved the weapon and mustered her most loathsome, vilest expression.
"Beware ye scum!" She kicked at the cape at her feet. "It's more than boys to be wearin' these." She referred to the knife. "If you wish to continue making more like yourself, I'd watch what I reared when out raping and abducting ..." she couldn't keep her waning Irish accent from clipping words, "or yer liable to find yer means of generation dangling from a virgin's bonnet." She faced them stone still except for her weapon-wielding arm, her threat more a menace to herself with each passing second.
Burkes halted in his tracks. Rodie stopped struggling in the lieutenant's arms, his mouth agape.
"I thought belles were supposed to be friendly?" Burke's intimated snootily.
"No, saucy ... remember?" One man jeered.
"Depends if they've any Yankee loving. Doubt she has!"
Another joined in. "She's downright unneighborly!"
"Hey, Burkes." Another participated. "Think she's had ole Johnny Reb's sausage?"
Having no idea what this meant, by the reaction of most in the hall, the question boded a ribald effect. Layla simply held her breath.
"Sure's hell like to give her mine!" Burke's rubbed his scruffy beard, and sized her like some plump buttery biscuit about to be bitten into, his yellow teeth agleam with fiendish amusement.
"That will be enough!" MacGregor tongue-lashed for all its worth. "The major will hear about this!"
Burkes stiffened then backed off. MacGregor's threat all but killed their fun with such a pause over the crowd. Rodie squirmed and the light brown freckles across MacGregor's nose turned several shades of scarlet, his entire face beet red, he obviously embarrassed for everyone present. Forcing a sheepish smile in her direction, he eased his arm from Rodie's neck.
Not surprising, Rodie sprang away, fists ready for another rough. Layla breathed in relief, and stuffed the dagger in her dress sleeve then plucked at Rodie's suspenders, yanked him back, and pushed him through the hospital staff door. Remembering her cape, she motioned him to remain.
The lieutenant hastily lifted her garment, dusted it off, then bowed and handed it to her, his face pale with the effort.
"Why it's Rake the Second!" A man guffawed and started another round of laughter.
The...
