Ashes in the Wind
Once in New Orleans, Alaina's spoiled cousin Roberta, takes a fancy to the Captain, and Alaina, seething with anger at the "bluebellies" who killed her parents and destroyed her home, is disgusted by her cousin's posturings. Yet it is Alaina who saves the Captain's life when he is attacked and left for dead. Filled with mixed emotions, she brings him home, and he, delirious and convinced he is in a brothel, tenderly but forcefully takes her to bed.
Afterwards, Alaina runs off in confusion, and when Cole awakens, it is the conniving Roberta he finds besides him--and honorably marries, though he cannot understand why the passions of his new bride are so different from his memory of that first, wonderous night! Just as Cole discovers Alaina's true identity and realizes she was the delicious hoyden that shared his bed, Alaina flees, accused of ambushing a Union Army pay wagon--a price is placed on her head!
Alaina and Cole's passionate story sweeps from the gracious old-world elegance of New Orleans through the great war-torn plantations of the South to the raw beauty of the Minnesota woodlands, where finally, in the ashes of their old lives, they discover the glowing embers of a spirted love.
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Kathleen E. Woodiwss Biography
on: 08/18/02
