The Sun Rises (Southern Legacy Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

and was recovering in a Richmond hospital. Jenna had been harping at her brother to let her go to her fiancé. Andrew had steadfastly refused.
    “Oh, dearest Mother,” Jenna cried with tears in her beautiful eyes. “Andrew is being unreasonable. It is not fair.”
    “What is it now, my dear?” Mother Montgomery gently stroked her daughter’s head lying on her knees.
    “Maisy told me that her mother traveled to Richmond and cared for her brother. It is not unheard of in these times. Mrs. Reese is still in the city. If I go now, I could stay in the same boarding house. Derek needs me! I will die if something happens to him!”
    “Do not be so dramatic, Jenna.” Andrew scowled darkly. “Since I am committed in my duties at the Charleston hospital, I have no time to travel and you truly cannot believe I will allow you to travel by yourself…a single young woman!”
    “It is not unheard of these days! Maisy says that lots of women go nurse their injured loved ones. There are so many of our boys hurt and wounded…I could help the cause…”
    “I spend most of my days at the Charleston hospital. If you want to help, you can do so there. I will send a telegram and see what I can do for Derek.”
    “I don’t care what you say! I am going,” Jenna railed. “Derek has no one else…not with both his parents dying of typhoid and his brother fighting Heaven knows where.”
    “Jenna, perhaps Andrew is right,” Jo interceded. “I understand you are upset, but it is not reasonable…”
    “Reasonable! I’m sick to death of being sensible. I have always been the obedient daughter, but if it was you, Jo…you would not be questioned! Not you! We have to keep Jo happy!”
    Shocked by the venom in Jenna’s voice, Jo’s expression dropped. “Jenna, how could you say such a thing?”
    “How can I not? If it had been Wade, no one would hesitate to go. Why is Derek different? He is as much family as you and has not put the family through what you have!” Jenna shouted, lifting her red, swollen face from her mother’s knee. “Tell me that you would not! Do not pretend that you have no knowledge of what I say. Not after everything that has happened because of you!”
    “Jenna, that is quite enough!” Mother Montgomery gasped. “Don’t take out your unhappiness on Jo. We all have suffered these last few months.”
    Rising to her feet, Jenna would not be calmed. She lashed out. “Yes…yes, we have suffered, but none like Josephine. We have to suffer in silence. I will be silent no more.”
    “Lord Almighty, Jenna, hush!” Andrew said, sharp and direct.
    An awkward moment of silence followed. Jo’s eyebrows rose as she stared at her sister-in-law in disbelief. She understood that Jenna was distraught, but it was a mortifying thing to hear such animosity in her voice directed at her.
    The siblings faced each other; their eyes locked. Then, slowly, the tense lines on Andrew’s face eased. “Your anger should be at me, sister. Not Josephine.”
    Despite Andrew’s words to redirect Jenna’s emotions, Jo was on the verge of hysteria herself. Battle after battle, disaster after disaster had well-worn on her nerves, but, now, she had come to the realization that the family resented her presence.
    She wrung her hands and glanced back and forth between the three of them. For a brief moment, comprehension swept through her. Why would they not? Had her papa not forced her union with Wade and threatened to take away their way of life if they had not complied with his proposal?
    With Wade’s death, Magnolia Bluff had fallen to her and her children. Reprimanding herself greatly, she had wrapped herself in a cocoon of grief, thinking only of herself…her children. Good Lord, did they not know they were her family…her only family? She choked back her own welling tears.
    Taking a step back, Andrew rubbed his forehead as if his head hurt. His frown was deep and fierce. “I have tried to keep from you women our predicament,