The Bride Wore Gray -- A Time Travel Romance

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live in another time? Think it's impossible?

Ask the heroine in my Civil War Time Travel Romance, "The Bride Wore Gray:"


She wore gray.

He wore blue.

But their love defied the boundaries of war.

And time.

A love meant for eternity.

Meet Liberty Jordan, the heroine in my story, as she takes part in a modern-day re-enactment of the Battle of Antietam that took place in September 1862:

Today

An open farm field near Sharpsburg, Maryland

Liberty Jordan died three times today and it wasn’t even noon.

She put her fingers in her ears as fire burst from the barrel of the canon, wishing, no, pleading for the sun to come out of hiding and shoot her the peace sign.

No such luck.

The fog lingered and the air was filled with black dust from the gunpowder settling over the buried bones of fallen soldiers.

Like a light mist shrouding the past.

She sniffed the air. The smell of battle lingered as the Federals in blue and the Confederates in gray met in an re-enactment of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

Antietam.

A wall of blue marched across the field, exchanging volley after volley of gunfire.

She ducked down, hoping, praying she could do her part.

They're watching you, girl. Don't disappoint them.

The screaming artillery fire shattered her nerves, shaking her, making her teeth rattle in her head. Her legs ached from crouching down low in the trench, her neck stretched out, trying to see what was going on.

Would it hurt her to scream and yell, then fall down and pretend to be dead?

One more time? 

Liberty dug in, ready for the next go-round. Wasn’t that why she’d brought her students here? To see history up close and personal? Besides, the kids were waiting to capture her big moment during the climax of the battle on their cell phones.

If I live long enough.

Thank God this wasn’t a real battle. With soft bullets exploding in the body, sending lead everywhere. Tossing a man’s guts onto the ground. No wonder casualties were high back then.

She drew each breath slowly. She couldn’t let her students down.  

With her face washed clean of makeup and her strawberry‑blonde hair hidden under the wide brim hat, Liberty looked like a young Southern officer. Her uniform consisted of a heavy cotton white shirt and a long, plain shell wool jacket that came down to her knees.

Two rows of shiny brass buttons gave the uniform a classic military look.

Unfortunately, her button-up gray pants dragged on the ground, prompting the men in her regiment to kid her about her uniform being too big. All she had to keep her pants up was a flimsy braided belt.

Yet there was something magical about putting on the uniform and walking the walk. As if she’d suddenly found herself back in 1862 and she was a real soldier living and breathing the sights and smells and sounds of battle. She had only to whisper a magic word to be transported back in time.

Liberty rubbed a gold button on her jacket like it was a lucky charm, then shook her head. That was impossible.

She rolled up her baggy pants, then pulled the wide brim hat down over her face. If no one looked down at her modern hiking boots, she could pass for a Confederate officer.

She squared her shoulders, determined not to give herself away, when two infantrymen jumped into the trench and saluted her, then reported troop movements. Liberty mumbled a few words, then saluted back. So far, so good.

She was too good.

Someone shoved a breech loading rifle into her hand and explained how to load the gunpowder inside the barrel, then the powder-filled paper cartridge. She was still trying to figure out what to do with a ramrod when another cannon exploded next to her. She covered her ears. Damn, that was loud. She ducked down into the trench made to look like a sunken lane with crisscross fence rails running up and down each side. She prayed the storm of artillery would end.

It didn't.

Everyone kept shooting off their guns and shouting orders to each other. Charging down the hill, picking off opposing soldiers, but refusing to die no matter how many times they faced a rifle aimed at them.

“How much longer can this battle go on?” she wondered out loud.

“Hard to say,” said the soldier next to her. “Back in 1862, the Rebels turned the country road into a fortress and held off the Union troops until they were overrun.”

“Jeez, what have I gotten myself into?” Licking her dry lips, she squinted up at the sun showing its face overhead. Who was doing the intense firing?

She didn't have to wait long to find out.

“They're coming! They're coming!” came the yell from somewhere behind her. “Fire!”

Startled but curious, Liberty poked her head up. Oh, my God, she'd never seen anything like it. The earlier skirmishes this morning didn’t compare to the big finale.

Smoke, fire, shell explosions, pyrotechnics. And hundreds of canons.

Union soldiers, marching, marching, fifty to a hundred steps a minute, keeping the rhythm of the drum, yelling, flags waving. With their muskets and rubber bayonets drawn, they were on a dead run, coming straight at her. She raised her rifle, aimed, but it wouldn’t fire.

“My gun’s jammed,” Liberty cried out, tossing down the weapon.

“Fall down and play dead, kid.” The soldier grinned at her, smirking. “They don't call this Bloody Lane for nothing.”

Bloody Lane?

She let out a low whistle. A half‑hidden country road sunken by erosion turned into a fortress. Five thousand six hundred casualties.

C’mon, girl, you can do it.

It isn't a real battle. No one gets hurt.

Oh, yeah?

------------

Liberty gets more than she bargained for when she discovers a long-buried artifact in sacred ground that transports her back through time to the real Civil War battle...there she meets a handsome Union Army doctor.

He discovers that the young Confederate officer is a beautiful woman...and makes it his job to protect her from from the ravages of war. His passion for her is timeless and her love for him unending.

But will the magical twist of fate that brought them together also tear them apart?

Join me next time to follow Liberty's Civil War journey...