John watched as the basket slid further off Annie's hip and she hitched it up again. When she reached the wagon, she dumped the contents of the basket onto the pile with the other ears of corn. And returned to the row she was working.

Lovely. That was a word he never used but it came to mind now as he watched the black-haired girl, watched her graceful movements, watched sunlight place blue-black gleams in her hair. Annie studiously ignored him as she walked into the cornfield and disappeared from view. And his mind returned to the previous evening when he had followed Annie into that cornfield…

“Ain’t that right, John?”

He pulled his attention away from his reminiscing, cleared his throat and frowned as he looked at Luke, as though he contemplated the question he hadn’t heard.

Elijah and Luke waited for his response.

“Well, y’see, I have to do some thinking on it afore I can rightly say for sure…” he stalled.

“You ain’t got time for thinking, boy,” Elijah said. “You better be declaring yourself ‘fore folks get the wrong idea about you.”

Ah, the war. That had to be what they were discussing.

John shifted in the saddle and said, “Mr. MacGillivray, you know ain’t nobody gonna get the wrong idea about me. I’m a Georgian through and through. I’ll be a faithful son to Georgia and serve her when the time comes.”

“Ain’t you been listening? The time has come. They’s signing up men right now down at the Talking Rock post office. All three of my boys’ve done gone down there to sign up, and I’ve a good mind to sign up my ownself.”

“Then I reckon I’ll be signing up, too,” John said, a guilty red creeping up his throat from beneath the open collar. He hoped Elijah MacGillivray wouldn’t realize the reason he’d not been paying attention to the conversation was because his attention had been focused on Elijah’s daughter, Annie. And on the memory of the delights he and Annie had shared not ten hours ago.

John straightened his shoulders and touched his fingers to his battered hat. “Reckon me and Luke ought to be moseying on down yonder to the post office,” he said. “You coming, Luke?”

“Yep, I’m coming.”

“Then I reckon we’ll bid you a good morning, Mr. MacGillivray,” John said, nodded to Elijah MacGillivray and turned his big white horse toward the road.

John hadn’t given much thought to joining the Confederate army, but now, he’d committed himself. In front of Annie’s father. He’d have to follow through.

He didn’t know what Pa would say, but it was too late to worry about that now. His one thought was Annie. What would she think? And would her father be more likely to approve of him as a suitor if he enlisted in the army?

John cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at the green expanse of the cornfield that hid his lover from view and rode down the red dirt road toward his destiny. 
.