Linda Castle Read online

  He wondered if she was the type of woman who might swoon in such circumstances while he damned his missing memory for not knowing something so simple about his wife.

  Ira grimaced again and leaned closer to Chase. He lowered his voice. “I know we made a pact not to speak about that night, even if our lives depended upon it, but I ain’t forgot, never will. I owe you—we all owe you. God willing, I’ll be able to repay that debt someday.”

  Ira’s words were like a knife blade turning in his gut. Chase’s entire life seemed to be made up of secrets. Secret meetings, secret deeds and the horrible secret that would forever keep him from Linese.

  He had to remember, he needed to remember.

  “Are you hurt bad?” Chase grated out the words. He wanted to steer the conversation in another direction. Everyone he met seemed to know more about his mysterious past than he did. It angered and frustrated him.

  “I’ll be sore in the morning, but I’m not hurt.” Ira spit out a mouthful of blood. “Let me take your buggy and horse. And thanks again, Chase.”

  “It was nothing. Forget it.”

  Linese saw a strange expression of sadness wash across Chase’s face while he spoke to Ira Goten. A profound feeling of gloom hung in the air around the stable.

  She was determined to win him—in spirit and in flesh.

  “Linese, I’m sorry you to had to see that kind of hatred.” Chase’s deep voice rippled over her. When his hand touched hers, as he helped her down from the buggy, she felt his body stiffen with tension.

  “I’ll be all right. Chase, are you hurt?”

  Flecks of blood were on the knuckles of his right hand. Tiny bits of flesh curled up on each one where he had made contact with the abrasive whiskers on his opponent’s chin. She reached out to touch his hand, but he jerked away as if he didn’t want her kindness.

  “It’s nothing. These kinds of wounds heal quickly. It’s the ones you can’t see that remain raw.”

  Linese puzzled over his meaning while she walked beside him to the Gazette. She noticed that his limp was completely gone, and she wondered if it meant that all of Chase’s war wounds were healing.

  Chapter Eight

  They reached the newspaper office a few minutes later, only to find Mayor Kerney pacing up and down the boards outside the door. His flabby jowls were florid with color from his unaccustomed exertion in the heat. His thick neck appeared nearly lacerated by the stiffly starched collar and neck scarf he wore at his throat. The fat red stickpin shone with inner fire almost as vivid as his face.

  “Chase, I’ve heard some disturbing news this morning.” The mayor’s body practically vibrated with pent-up agitation.

  “Really, Mayor, and what would that be?” Chase’s expression darkened. His voice had dropped to a deliberately controlled tone that sent shivers of apprehension up Lin-ese’s spine.

  Chase stepped around the rotund official and opened the door for her. She stepped inside before she paused to look back at Chase and the mayor. Hezikiah glanced up briefly from behind the table holding the proofing press, but never acknowledged their arrival with more than a curt nod in their general direction. The air in the office crackled around her with suppressed anger, and she wondered what in the world was going on.

  “’There is a rumor going around town that you might have stepped into a situation involving a known secessionist.”

  One corner of Chase’s mouth curled up. His face was still a swarthy portrait of anger. Silver fire leapt within his iron gray eyes.

  “What are you talking about, Mayor?” The same deadly calm flavored his voice. It was yet another aspect of his persona that Linese had not seen before.

  “This would be better spoken of in private.” Mayor Ker-ney cut his eyes toward Linese.

  The threat to Linese was clear to Chase. “All right, step into my office.” Chase walked through the door and shut it behind his back. He faced Mayor Kerney and disgust filled his mouth with bitter bile. He didn’t like the man, but beyond that he hated whatever the politician held over him, hated him for knowing things about himself that he did not.

  “What have you got to say about it, Chase?” the man demanded. “I thought we made it clear—”

  “If you’re talking about the mob kicking Ira Goten in the street, then yes, I stepped in.” Chase cut him off before he was forced to hear any more about secret meetings and pacts. “I would do the same for any man—without regard for his politics.”

  Mayor Kerney’s small eyes narrowed. He pulled out the only chair in the room and sat down. He leaned back. His smile was confident. “I hope I don’t need to remind you of the, uh, incident that took place two years back? At the time we all agreed making such matters public could be detrimental to the old Captain’s health. Is there any possibility you may have changed your mind? If you have reconsidered our arrangement, then we might have to reassess our previous decision to spare the old ranger the public scandal.”

  Chase swallowed hard. He had no memory of what Kerney was talking about, but he understood the mayor’s meaning, his threat. His grandfather was in jeopardy. Defensive feelings blossomed inside him. Most of the sporadic memories about his grandfather were of his humiliation at having the old gentleman for a relative, but now in the face of Kerney’s threat, he knew he would risk all to keep the old man from harm.

  “I’d do anything necessary to keep my family safe.”

  “Good. I thought as much. So now what can we do to heal this breach between us, Chase?” Kerney tented his fingers over his abundant belly.

  “What is it you want from me?” Chase felt disgust when he asked the question. He did not want to bind himself to Kerney further, but if it meant keeping his grandfather or Linese safe, he would willingly make a contract with the devil himself.

  “First, get rid of Hezikiah Hershner.” The more the mayor smiled, the more Chase wanted to knock all the shiny white teeth from his fat mouth. “Second, I expect to see some editorials in the Gazette that voice the right opinion—the opinion of Mainfield’s Businessman’s Association.”

  Chase swallowed his pride. “And just what is the opinion of you and the businessmen? That you have no allegiance? That profit is the most important thing?”

  Kerney smiled and looked at Chase as one might look at an errant child. “You need not sound so indignant.”

  Frustration filled his chest. Chase had to regain more of his memory. He had to find out what his grandfather had done. The question was, could he solve the puzzles in time to save them all from the growing threat?

  Linese watched the mayor leave the Gazette office with a rising sense of doom. Something about the smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face made her heart thud inside her chest. She looked up and found Chase studying her and Hezikiah with troubled eyes.

  “Chase, is anything the matter?” She took a half step toward him, until his glowering expression halted her in midstep.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” He turned and shut the door to the office.

  Once again she felt the sting of being shut out of his life. Linese felt the first spark of anger. Their special day together had just gone up in a puff of smoke.

  Something was going to have to be done, and soon. She had taken about all the rejection she was going to stand. She had waited silently for about as long as she would wait.

  Later that day Linese watched Captain Cordell saddle his horse with deft, sure moves. A wave of pity swept over her. The old gentleman could do so many tasks, seemingly without effort, but when it came to his mind, he was like a child.

  “Going for a ride, Captain?” She rubbed the velvet muzzle of the tall black mare.

  “Yep. I think old Tess could use some exercise. She’s been acting like she needs a good gallop.”

  She smiled. More than likely it was the Captain who missed the feeling of the Texas wind in his hair. He had carved a reputation almost as big as the country itself during the Indian wars. But that was before his mind went, when Chase was just a sp
routing youth, from the tales Hezikiah had told her during the past two years.

  “Don’t wait up for me. Tess and I may be out quite late, we’re going for a good long gallop.” He swung into the saddle.

  His agility made it hard for Linese to believe he was nearing sixty. She watched him disappear into the thicket, taking the same overgrown path Chase had emerged from the other evening. She had not seen the Captain take his horse down that path in many months.

  If she had not had business of her own, she would have taken a walk into the woods to investigate why they both would use it when it was little more than a faint trace. Surely there were other paths and game trails that offered less resistance into the thicket. It was a puzzlement, these Cordell men and their strange ways. But she pushed the thought from her mind.

  Linese turned away, busy with other plans. She was determined to sunder the wall around Chase, and she was going to begin tonight.

  It was plain he found her attractive. In the library his body nearly hummed with sexual hunger. When he gave her the cameo, she saw desire and yearning smoldering in his eyes. The way his hand trembled when he touched her breast left no doubt that he still wanted her. He had never expressed his feelings in words, but he had shown her his ardor on their wedding night.

  Whatever obstacle was keeping them apart, it was not a lack of passion. His limp was gone, and he no longer paced his room at night. She simply had to find a way to give him a little nudge in the right direction.

  While Linese walked back to the house, she thought about his wound. Chase’s aide had described it in some detail in the first letter she received while Chase was in the hospital. His hip must be badly scarred. She worried her bottom lip and wondered. Could such a thing as that be enough to keep him from her bed? Could his strange, changing moods be no more than male pride?

  Linese shook her head. No matter. Whatever the cause, she intended to attack it like a general and remove it from their lives—tonight.

  Linese placed the last of the dozen candles she had boldly decided to sacrifice into the quadra-plate silver candelabra and placed it on the dining room table. The smells floating from the kitchen made her salivate. She caught herself grinning when she looked into the wavy mirror hanging above the squat oak server.

  “Tonight, Major Chase Cordell, you are in for a surprise.” She took one last critical look at the table and felt her body tingle with anticipation. The sensation was much like the one she had felt on her wedding night—expectant, eager, yet oddly shy. It was still two hours until Chase would come home, two hours in which she could plan and hope.

  She had Toby Sillers bring her home early in a rented buggy after she had finally plucked up her courage and decided on this plan. The tall clock in the corner chimed.

  Linese checked the food simmering in the kitchen once more. She had only one more task to complete. A fresh dress was laid out on her bed and a bath was waiting in the hip tub upstairs. Tonight she wanted to look her best. Tonight she wanted Chase to gaze upon her and find her too appealing to resist any longer.

  Chase put his horse in the stable and turned toward the house. He had left the Gazette early, hoping to find some clue about the incident Mayor Kerney was holding over his head like a sword. For the past two days, he had hammered at his faulty mind to no avail. Then today, when Linese had gone of on some vague errand, he decided to return to Cordellane and use his time alone in the big house to further delve into his missing past.

  He stepped inside the empty house and for a moment thought he smelled food. Chase shook his head in annoyance. If the annoying buzz in his ears was not bad enough, now he could no longer trust his senses. Disgust at his imperfect body rushed over him while he strode toward the library. Like the rest of the house, he knew it would be empty, since the Captain had been riding off into the thicket at sunrise and not returning until after dark.

  Chase’s eyes swept over the stack of Gazettes strewn across the old rug. Memories of Linese reading to him came unbidden, threatening to steal his flagging concentration. He fought the temptation and bent over to look closer at the papers. Some nagging voice inside his head told him the answer lay before him. If he could only decipher the puzzle.

  He scanned each page, searching for something, anything that might trigger a memory. Whatever his grandfather had done, it had taken place shortly before he left Linese and went to war. Surely any event serious enough to allow Kerney to blackmail Chase would be recorded in the Gazette.

  While he stared at the row of inked pages, his thoughts turned to the old man who was the father of his sire. The Captain seemed harmless enough, but who could say what form his mental affliction had taken in the past or would take in the future. A feeling of pity mingled with an odd burst of affection. The old ranger might be mad as a hatter, but he was still Chase’s blood, and he would fight Kerney and his cronies to keep him safe.

  A muffled sound on the stairs made his head come up with a jerk. The humming in his ears was growing worse, but he was sure he had indeed heard something. Without a sound, he slipped from the chair and went to the library doors to investigate. The threat Kerney made about his grandfather and Linese was real and had resurrected all the soldier’s instincts he had honed while fighting for his cause.

  A shadow fell across the hallway. Chase lunged from the library and felt his fingers dig into familiar flesh. At the same instant, he heard a soft cry of pain that made his gut wrench.

  “Chase—” Linese gasped. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Linese?” He stared down at her in shock. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were wide with fear and surprise at his rough treatment. “Did I hurt you?” Chase was horrified that he might have injured her.

  “Chase, you’re home early.” Her voice was breathy with disbelief. “I didn’t expect you for a couple of hours.”

  Something about her manner made his belly clench. She was acting almost guilty, an emotion he had become intimately acquainted with lately. A tendril of suspicion wound its way around Chase’s heart. Why would she act so disappointed to see him home? Why was she home? He was certain she had said something about needing to run an errand in town, that she would not be returning from Mainfield with him. Suddenly he realized that he had seen little of her over the past two days.

  Why?

  A prickly, uncomfortable feeling, something a whole lot like jealousy, rose inside him. He had been gone a long time. Many women found the separation from their husbands impossible to bear alone. The possibility that Linese might have found, could still find, solace with another man made him crazy, crazier than he already felt without the security of a past life with her.

  The thought that another man could have her, might still have her love, clawed at him. His gut twisted painfully. Images of Linese with a faceless but whole man filled his head.

  “Is there some reason why I shouldn’t have come home early?” He stared down at her lovely, oh so beautiful face and felt his heart rend in two. Those uncanny blue eyes slid over him and left chills in their wake.

  She was so desirable. How many men coveted his pretty wife? How many men, who were free of secrets, could give her all that he could not?

  “Don’t be silly, Chase. Of course not.” Even while she denied it, there was a sly tone in her voice. “I just didn’t realize you were home.” Her smile trembled a little, as if she were the one with all the hidden secrets.

  Heightened passion mingled with the aura of suspicion while he stared at her. She intrigued him, this vixen who was his wife. One moment she was meek and blushing, the next her eyes held the promise of some forbidden treasure.

  There were so many mysteries to this lovely creature. He wanted to take her in his arms to kiss her, to truly discover all the riddles of his wife. Regret swirled through Chase’s soul when he reminded himself that he could never know those secrets, that he could not risk her discovering he was but half a man.

  “Where were you going just now?” He forced his hands to his thighs s
o he would not touch her, though his palms itched to mold themselves to her body. “I thought you were in Mainfield.”

  “I, uh, decided to come home. I was on my way upstairs to dress for dinner,” she stammered.

  Her words were like a bucket of water in his face. Suddenly his suspicion evaporated and his wariness about his missing memory rose up. “Dress for dinner? Is it a special occasion?” The unending obstacle of having to feel his way through each unknown day came back to haunt him.

  “Perhaps.” She stepped away from him and turned to look back at him with a mysterious smile on her face. “It might be a very special day.” Then she darted up the stairs.

  Linese pulled the yellow gingham over her head and wriggled the full skirt down over her hips. She could thank the war for not increasing the size of her slender form. As it was, the dress was tight as a glove and pushed her bosom up into a deep cleft above the ruffled flounce. She didn’t recall its being quite so revealing, but perhaps she had grown a bit fuller in her chest since her marriage. After all she had been barely seventeen when she and Chase stood before the minister. She leaned toward the mirror and pinned the cameo at the juncture of her cleavage.

  “I wonder if he will remember this dress?” Linese asked her reflection. It was silly, she supposed. Men were not sentimental in the same way women were, but in her heart of hearts, she hoped he would remember it. She dabbed a bit of scent behind her ears before she summoned her courage and went downstairs.

  Chase poured himself a tall brandy. He had read and reread every paper in the stack. Nothing in any of them brought one shred of recollection forward. The slim hope he had pinned on regaining at least a small portion of his memory was fast dwindling and he felt a growing sense of doom.

  His own past was nipping at his heels, but the worst part was knowing he was helpless to protect his grandfather and Linese without the memory of his own deeds. He could face his own destruction, and probably deserved to pay the price for a thousand forgotten black sins. But his grandfather and Linese were different—they were innocent.