The Return Of Chase Cordell

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“Mmm.” He never looked up. He just continued to rub his fingertips against his temples in small circles.

“You’ve been in here for hours. Are you hungry?” Linese approached his chair warily, half-expecting a sharp rebuff for invading his territory.

He looked up and fastened a remarkably sober gaze on her. A single dark strand of hair rested across his thick eyebrows. His eyes were hooded and languorous, but the rough-etched contours of his face were still distant and hard.

He reminded her of a wolf—ravenous and feral. The narrowed gaze he fastened on her was a mixture of suspicion and distrust. It pulled at her heart.

“No. I am not hungry.” His speech was softly slurred from the brandy.

“Is there anything you require?”

“No.” He sighed heavily and looked away. “There is nothing that I require.” His sardonic reply held a measure of poignancy.

It intrigued her, drove her onward. She took a halting step toward him. “Chase? What is it? What is wrong?” she whispered.

“My head hurts from reading so much.” His deep, throaty explanation stopped her only inches from his leg.

She looked down at him again. Suddenly the hard lines of his face didn’t seem so harsh. In her eyes, as she wanted so desperately to believe it, he wore only the lines of strain and fatigue. He had seemed so aloof and independent before. He now displayed a vulnerability she had never seen.

A wave of compassion and love swept over Linese. She bent down and grasped his boot top at the ankle. She lifted his leg with both hands.

His head came up with a start. “What are you doing?” His eyes narrowed down to gray slits. The sole source of Linese’s courage to persist in the face of his scowling expression was her deep love for Chase.

“I’m taking off your boots.” She grabbed her skirt with one hand and shoved it out of the way, while she knelt in front of Chase to take hold of his heel and pull off the tight-fitting boot.

Chase started to protest, then Linese bent toward him in front of him. Her position allowed him a completely unobstructed view of her breasts. One golden curl hung down beside her swanlike neck. Chase tried to look away but the sight was hypnotic.

He stared at the creamy swell of her flesh and imagined what it would be like to touch her. Heat danced up his legs toward his belly while he observed her. He could almost feel her flesh in his palms, could imagine what it would be like to bury his face in her pale hair. He could practically smell the combination of soap, honeysuckle and his own passion.

His boot came off.

His foot hit the floor with a thud. Pain radiated up his leg to his damaged hip. He drew a hiss of breath between his clenched teeth and tried to master the ache in his leg—and his heart.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

The concern in her voice shamed him. He wanted her to believe he was impervious to pain and hurt. He wanted her to admire him. God forgive him, he wanted her.

“Of course not,” he growled. His mouth was sour with the taste of the lie. Another in a series of lies he kept telling her. It struck Chase that his life had become one long, bitter untruth.

He disgusted himself. And the more he wanted Linese, the more disgusted with himself he became, because she embodied truth and goodness and a past he yearned to remember.

Linese paused to look at him. Chase devoured her body with his eyes. Then she smiled and picked up the other boot and slid it off. When she was finished, she sat down on the floor beside his outstretched leg.

A tingling sensation began to burn his thigh where it was touching Linese’s back. The spiraling heat traveled up the length of his body and into every muscle and sinew. The feeling gathered and pooled in the pit of his stomach only to send fingers of desire swirling back out to his limbs, his hands, his fingers.

The top of her golden head was so close, if he flexed his fingers, he could touch her. He cursed himself for wanting her, but it did no good. He wanted her anyway.

“I’ll read to you for a while. Maybe the pain in your head will go away.”

“I don’t need to be read to.” He could not trust himself to sit here while she was so close, so appealing. She had no notion of how perilous it was to remain with him. She could not know—he did not know himself—how deep his affliction ran.

“I want to read to you, Chase.” Her soft words contained steel. She glanced up at him and he saw something new in her cool-water blue eyes. He saw determination harden within their depths. To protest further would put him at risk of exposure. He was, after all, married to her.

Married to her.

“Fine.” Chase sighed in disgruntled capitulation. He reached for the glass, tipped it up and drained it. If he got drunk enough, maybe he could ignore the way her skin looked or the softness of her lips. He would simply close his eyes and let the brandy numb his brain and his need.

Linese felt a tiny shiver of satisfaction at Chase’s grudging response. She wondered if this was how a general felt when he gained the hill or took the river. She bent her head and tried to hide her smile of pleasure. She was Chase’s wife, she should sit and read to him of the events in Main-field. She should pull off his boots and linger with him over a glass of spirits, and then maybe they would be able to find what had been lost in the two years he was gone. Linese picked up the first paper and read the date aloud.

“’June 22, 1861. The citizens of Cooke County have formed a home defense and are calling themselves the Cooke County Home Guard Cavalry.’” She glanced up at Chase. He had leaned his head back against the chair and his eyes were closed. She started to read again.

Chase listened while Linese read about Texas and the campaign to secede. Reports of the weather and the escalating war took most of the space, with an occasional tidbit about a birth or death. Her voice was pleasant and somewhat soothing to him. He found himself actually enjoying the sound of it.

After a few minutes he heard the paper crinkle and realized she had stopped reading. The room seemed empty and cold without the sound of her voice. He raised his head and looked at her.

She was neatly folding the paper away. “Do you wish for me to continue?” She tipped her head toward him and raised her eyebrows in question. The lamplight glinted off the clear azure color of her eyes.