Beverly Jenkins Read Online Free Page B

handsome and intriguing man she’d ever met.
    She’d tried to rid herself of memories of Chase Jefferson, and after her first few weeks in Henry Adams she’d pretty much succeeded. He was a soldier, a drifter, an adventurous man with no roots whom she’d known for less than a day. She’d decided she was a fool to let such a rogue capture her imagination. And that had pretty much been the end of that. Until today.
    Well, there was nothing for it. He was here now. And the question she had to answer was how she was going to handle him.
    Chase continued to be amazed and touched by the numbers of people who’d turned out to honor the Tenth. The food had been delicious, his men had been feted and toasted. In the adjoining room, the fiddlers were sawing away, and Chase noted how relaxed his men appeared to be. It would be hard to adjust to the trail again after all this.
    Chase was only half listening to the gushing young woman seated by him. She appeared next to him the moment he’d entered the room, and introduced herself as Mae Dexter, daughter of the mayor, and one of the women who’d handed him flowers during the parade. Chase hadn’t had the heart to tell her he didn’t remember her, but he’d promptly accepted her invitation to share dinner with her and her father. While politely enduring their company, Chase spent most of the evening scanning the crowd for Cara Henson. He’d yet to see her and was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined her that afternoon.
    “Are you listening to me, Sergeant Jefferson?”
    Mae’s question cut into his thoughts. Although her tone had been one of playful hurt, Chase heard the impatient undertone and gave the young woman his full attention.
    “Are you married, Sergeant Jefferson?”
    “Maebelle!” exclaimed her father, turning from a conversation he’d been having with one of the elders sitting to his left. “I apologize, Sergeant,” the mayor said, shooting dark looks at his only child. “Maebelle sometimes forgets she’s still a child.”
    “I am not a child, Papa,” she protested petulantly. “I’m almost sixteen.”
    “No harm done, sir,” Chase replied, trying to smooth the waters. “I can answer the young lady’s question. No, I’m not.”
    When she sighed unashamedly in relief, Chase couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “I’d like the honor of dancing with your daughter, Mayor Dexter, if I may?”
    Father looked first to Chase and then to his daughter. He grudgingly gave his permission, but not before cautioning Mae to mind her manners.
    Out on the floor Chase realized he’d made a serious error in his choice of partner. Mae’s only topics of conversation were Mae, Mae’s new dresses from St. Louis, and Mae. Chase doubted she’d spoken three intelligent words all evening. If he had to stand up with her all night, it would be a long one.
    As if she’d read his mind, Sophie claimed him at the end of the dance on the pretense of Chase needing to meet someone. Sophie spirited him away from the pouting young woman and led him into the crowd.
    “Thank you,” Chase said earnestly as he and Sophie sought solitude behind the closed door of her well-furnished office. “I thought I was going to be stuck with her all evening.”
    “Well, Mae may be brainless but she’s damn persistent. Here—” and she handed him a brandy.
    Chase swallowed the fine liquor slowly, then sat back and relaxed. “So, how’ve you been?”
    They spent the better part of an hour catching up on lost time. When they’d last seen each other, the Civil War was still being fought, Chase had been a growing but already handsome eighteen-year-old, and Sophie, one of the most sought-after quadroon women in New Orleans. She’d run a very elegant and exclusive house of pleasure backthen, and her beautiful, multiracial girls had been in great demand by generals and businessmen on both sides of the country’s conflict. Sophie, Chase, and Asa Landis, now the town carpenter and for more than