14
Fort Daniels, 25 February 1871
Chad paused and looked at Claire. She held her glasses loosely in one hand, and her dark copper lashes made little C’s on her lightly freckled cheeks. His desk lamp burned low, and he could see she had been reading something. Ah, the charts he had pulled out for her. He had to admire her persistence in doing what she came to do even amid the chaos of an attack and its aftermath.
He wondered if anything of hers besides her glasses and nightclothes had survived the shelling of the general’s house. Not that her possessions mattered—the important thing was that she was safe, even if not exactly sound due to her previous injuries and the treatment she’d endured for them. But how lost would she be once it all hit her? He and the others at least had some groun
