The Return Of Chase Cordell

“Well, Major, it’s been a pleasure traveling with you, sir.” Jeffrey’s voice wrenched Chase from his misery. Chase turned back to see Jeffrey standing stiff and straight.

“Have a good journey.” Chase managed to give the young soldier a smart salute that denied the watery feel of his own legs. A loud cheer rose up from the crowd when Jeffrey returned the gesture.

A bright flash of painful recollection ripped through Chase’s thoughts at the sound of the mob. In his mind’s eye he saw a group of small boys taunting an old man with silver hair and a long, flowing mustache. The children were chanting a litany.

“Crazy Captain Cordell.”

Chase gulped down his emotion and felt the cold, steely resolve sweep over him. No matter what it took, no matter how he might flounder in this strange and unknown place, Chase was not going to let anyone find out the truth about him. He no longer wished he had told the surgeons, he no longer pined for the safety of a hospital bed. Chase would sooner be struck dead than be an object of ridicule like his grandfather.

There was no indecision in him now. His course of action was clear and straight. He would bluff and wheedle and lie to keep his secret. He would inch his way through this nightmare until—by the grace of God—he might regain a tiny scrap of memory, but until that time he would keep his silence.

Chase looked down and saw the mayor’s pudgy hands holding a bright scrap of ribbon. The politician babbled without end while he pinned it to the blue uniform. He marveled that the mayor could find an empty spot on his chest among the decorations the Northern army had already bestowed upon him. The small strips of ribbon felt heavy as stone on his Union coat because he didn’t remember what they represented.

Suddenly it all became a blur. The crowd, the banners, all whirled in front of Chase without substance. He felt detached, alone, apart from everyone standing in the sweltering April heat.

He stared over the short mayor’s shoulder and searched every face in the crowd, hoping against bitter hope that perhaps there would be one face amidst the throng that would spark some remembrance.

A heavy, cold weight grew in Chase’s belly when no one was even vaguely familiar.

Except for one.

His tormented gaze kept returning to a tiny blond woman, nearly hidden beneath a straw bonnet and lace-covered parasol. She was biting her bottom lip. As unhappy as Chase was to be a war hero with no past and little hope for the future, she appeared to be even more miserable.

She met his eyes and a tiny quiver of her chin sent his belly plunging to the vicinity of his boot tops. He looked away, but something about the woman reached out to him.

He felt an odd affinity for her. She seemed to be a kindred spirit adrift in a sea of strangers. While all those around him smiled brightly and wished him well, her face held a measure of sadness. He would like to have spoken to the woman, to give her reassurance, but for the life of him he didn’t know why he should feel that way.

“Now, Major, I’m sure you are glad to be home.”

“Yes—yes, Mayor—I am.” Chase found it difficult to pull his gaze away from the clear blue of the woman’s compelling eyes. There seemed to be a silent question deep inside them.

For a moment Chase thought he knew what the question was, but it may have been fancy, because it had simply flitted away like a butterfly over a field of sweet, ripe clover like the rest of his past. Every feeling, every thought was no more substantial than a wisp of smoke he could not grasp.

“Come, Major Cordell, don’t be shy. It’s been a long time. There’s not a man jack among us who would blame you for giving your little wife a kiss right here, in public.”

Chase watched while the mayor took hold of the pretty blond woman’s gloved hand and drew her forward. She stiffened beneath the politician’s hold and Chase saw the color in her cheeks intensify when his body and hers abruptly made contact from breastbone to waist. The end of his sword scabbard swung around and hit him in the shin with a plink of sound. Several of Chase’s medals poked him through the fabric of his uniform while the mayor shoved the woman with the intense blue eyes tighter against his chest.

Chase stared dumbly down at her upturned face. Heat arced between their bodies while they stood frozen on the platform. All the curious people who were strangers to Chase seemed to be waiting for him to do something, say something, to the woman.

“Go on, Linese, give your husband a proper reception,” The mayor urged.

“Welcome home, Chase.” She raised on tiptoe and touched her soft lips to the side of his face in a self-conscious greeting.

His heart slammed against his rib cage. Linese. This was Linese. This was his wife.

God, she was beautiful, and younger than his own twenty-one years, if he had his guess. She was the very image of what every soldier wished he had waiting for him at home. So why did Chase feel the cold wave of melancholy engulf him?

Chase swallowed hard and beseeched God to let him remember her, but nothing happened. He remembered nothing about her, felt nothing for her, except perhaps pity.

He was doomed to play out this charade in a life he could not recollect. And this poor woman, who had done nothing to deserve this kind of punishment, was condemned to play it out with him.

Chapter Two

The disparity in their height made it easy for Linese to look up at Chase and study his face beneath the wide, flop-brimmed hat.

He was older. His jaw was leaner, perhaps sterner than she remembered. There was a determined strength to his chin that had not been there before. Two years had brought him from brash youth to somber maturity. His boyish handsomeness had hardened into the rugged face of a man.

The familiar strand of raven hair was the same, though. It was peeking out from the band of his hat, near his abundant dark brows. There was an unfamiliar look in his gray eyes that made Linese shiver unconsciously while they slid over her face like inquisitive fingers. She could almost feel his probing scrutiny.

She drew back from his broad chest and twisted her hands together until the seams inside the gloves cut into her fingers and made her aware of what she was doing. The crowd around them seemed to be holding its breath, expecting him to say something.

“Linese,” Chase acknowledged stiffly.

All of Mainfield seemed to release a collective sigh, as if some action of import had just taken place.

Chase didn’t know what else to say to the woman. Any man, particularly one who had spent the past few weeks staring at survivors of war, would consider her a belle. He knew be was lucky to have a woman like this, knew he should feel pride to be her husband, but he did not. He searched his blighted soul and tried to find some memory of her.

There was none.

He found nothing but the same odd, haunted feeling of kinship with her, here among all the strangers who talked too loud and smiled too much. In the end, all Chase could do was stand woodenly on the platform, feeling like a green recruit, while he nervously flexed his fingers inside his soft leather gloves. He sensed Linese was no happier than he was, but she managed to give him a trembling smile before her dark brown lashes fluttered down to conceal her eyes from him.

A tendril of dread entwined itself around Chase’s mind. Could she already see the difference in his actions? Had he made a blunder that she would reveal to the crowd of onlookers? Was there some special word of greeting between them that he had failed to provide? A thousand fears rose up inside him.

He had been a fool to think he could deceive her. A woman would know any subtle change in the man with which she had shared bed and hearth. Chase silently cursed himself as more than a fool to have thought he could pull off his subterfuge. His pitiful deception had not lasted one hour since his return.

He maintained his rigid stance, ignoring the pain in his hip, for what seemed an eternity. Chase knew he was found out, while he waited for her to utter the words that would ring his death knell in front of the assembly. He mechanically worked the muscle in his jaw while the seconds ticked silently by, and yet she said nothing. Finally he could stand the suspense no more. Chase forced himself to speak to her, wishing to put an end to his misery.

“Let’s go home, Linese.” His voice was hard and flinty.

She looked up and blinked at him in obvious surprise. At the same moment, the mayor stepped in front of Chase as if to prevent him from leaving.

“We planned a little celebration for you, Chase. You can’t leave so soon.” The mayor’s voice held a measure of irritation and authority.

Chase looked down at the man and felt the heat intensify beneath the sweatband of his hat. The last thing he felt like doing was struggling through some celebration where people would be telling him stories about things he didn’t remember, and he didn’t much care for the mayor’s tone. If Linese was on the verge of exposing him, the fewer people around the better he would like it. If by some miracle she had not seen the lie in his eyes, then the sooner he could find a room and shut himself into it, the happier he would be, the easier it would be. Either way, he wanted out of Mainfield as soon as possible.

“I’m going home,” he said flatly. Chase saw the mayor raise a brow in surprise, but the crowd obligingly parted in response to his request. He felt a hand on his arm and looked down at Linese, who stood at his side. Her small cloth-encased fingers gently plucked at the blue uniform, until he obliged her by lifting his arm away from his body enough for her to slip her fingers inside the crook of his elbow.

He tried not to limp too much when he fell into step beside her. It was an odd sensation, to be walking beside a woman whom he didn’t know, but who knew him, or at least the man he had been two years ago. He allowed her to lead the way and attuned himself to her. Chase saw her staring straight ahead at a small surrey parked beside the train depot, which he suddenly realized was her destination.

Pure panic engulfed him in a cold wave. He would, of course, be expected to handle the horse, as would any self-respecting man. Fool that he was, he had not thought about that inevitability when he rudely refused the mayor’s offer of a celebration. Chase didn’t have any idea in which direction he should point the beast. He had no knowledge of where he lived, whether it be a house on the next street or a dwelling many miles away. Fear crept upon him like an assassin.

The petite woman, his wife, lurched to a stop beside him when his boots suddenly became anchored to the street. She looked up at him quizzically from under her wide parasol, but he was incapable of willing himself to move.

“Chase? Is something wrong?” she asked.

He looked down and forced himself to meet her eyes. A pang of guilt surged through him. This gentlewoman, Lin-ese, did not deserve to be treated like a stranger.

“No—no. I, uh, it’s just that I…” he stammered and shot a look back over his shoulder toward the main section of town. Maybe it was not too late to accept the mayor’s offer. Maybe he could postpone the disaster awaiting him at the innocent-looking surrey.

His last chance was lost. The crowd had begun to disperse, few people remained. He was going to have to flounder through his confusion and pray he would survive this test. He shut his eyes for one moment and silently be-seeched God for a memory, but no one answered his silent entreaty.

He opened his eyes and found her looking up at him. While she patiently watched him, he was struck again by her delicate features. She reminded him of a fragile bit of fine china. Her skin was the color of cream. She was too exquisite for a tall, rangy man like himself.

More questions swirled through his throbbing head. Had he been the kind of man who could sweet-talk a lady like Linese? Were they acquainted since childhood? Did some old friend introduce them? How had he won her affections? How well did she know him? A million unanswered thoughts popped into his mind while they stood staring at each other in the heat.

“Did you wish to go to the office?” Her brows rose into arches over cornflower blue eyes. “Hezikiah will be gone already, if you had hoped to see him, but if you would prefer to go to the office first, we could—”

“Yes, I would like to visit the office.” He cut her off abruptly, thanking God for whatever it was she was talking about.

“All right. Shall we walk?”

“Yes.” Chase dared not allow himself to be forced into the surrey—not yet. His hip was a steady, agonizing throb, but he summoned his strength and prepared to walk.

Linese paused beside him, and he realized she was waiting for his arm again. It was an odd thing, this possessive feeling inside him that answered her actions. When she looped her gloved hand through his elbow he felt the nearly unbearable heat between their bodies increase, but it was not an altogether unpleasant sensation. Chase tried to ignore her nearness while his mind raced ahead, trying to make sense of the disjointed riddle of his life, and the strange, haunted connection he felt for Linese.

“I think you’ll find the office is little changed,” she said softly.

What office could she be referring to? Linese had made reference to a newspaper in her letters. Was that what she meant? He plucked up his courage and steeled himself to meet the second challenge of his return.

Linese kept her eyes straight ahead, but her thoughts were only on Chase. The hours she had spent weaving fantasies about his homecoming swam in her memory. She had hoped he would sweep her into his arms and murmur words of affection. How foolish she had been to expect such a display from Chase Cordell. He had not seen fit to put his feelings into words before he left, had not done it by letter, and he seemed to have little inclination to do so now.

Linese frowned at her silly thoughts and lifted her parasol higher. Chase leaned almost imperceptibly into the welcome circle of shade, but she saw he kept his body just short of actually touching her. Her hand rested within his arm, but other than that small point, Chase held himself stiff to avoid touching her.

She tried to remember every letter she had sent him. Had she made some horrible blunder? Did she let something slip about her activities at the Gazette, something that caused him to treat her with such cold reserve? Should she ask?

No. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself. Just be patient. She swallowed her fears and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. A deep intake of breath brought the familiar scent of him to her nostrils, and she experienced a thousand forgotten sensations. She was filled with joy and apprehension at his return.

There was something odd about him though. He seemed different in a way that was hard to explain. Her eyes told her that Chase Cordell had indeed returned, but her instincts told her something was missing. Something had changed drastically in the two years he had been gone, and it wasn’t only a maturing of his face and body. There was a reservation between them that signified more than just the time he had been away. He was different.

Chase should have been in his element with the whole town cheering his return. He had always adored admiration and praise, but he seemed anxious to leave the idolization of Mainfield’s populace. Even now, while he smiled and nodded to the people they passed on the way to the Gazette, Linese sensed a strain in him. His behavior was most puzzling, not at all like the brash young man who had swept into the Ferrin County social and demanded her heart.

He hesitated slightly and appeared to be waiting for her to lead the way to the office, but Linese dismissed that notion as folly. She walked beside him and tried to match her step with the cadence of his limp, without making it obvious she was doing so. His injury was probably the reason for his halting progress. She well remembered his pride. Chase would have walked through fire rather than admit he was in discomfort. Yes, that was surely the reason he kept her fingers tightly within the crook of his arm and glanced at her from time to time.

After she settled into Cordellane, she had realized that Chase had felt compelled to be a better man than most men, to make up for the mental frailty of his sweet grandfather. In the time he had been away, she had come to understand his need to prove his physical prowess. He had been trying to prove, to himself and everyone else, that he was not afflicted with weakness, not the way Captain Cordell was.

She understood why Chase felt the way he did. Captain Cordell was ignored and kept out of the mainstream of life in Mainfield, particularly during this conflict about slavery and secession. He was patronized and overlooked, treated like a harmless nuisance by most. Yes, Linese understood what drove Chase Cordell.

Chase gritted his teeth together and tried to block out the maelstrom inside his mind. The combination of heat, the strain of racking his brain for memory, and trying not to limp beside Linese, made him tired beyond belief. He longed to sit down, to be alone, to find some peace.

Linese sighed and he knew he should speak to her. He knew he should be making small talk, to find some way of reassuring her obvious fears, but he had little confidence that he could do so without exposing himself as a fraud, so he remained silent. By the time he and Linese had walked the three short blocks to a newspaper office with Gazette painted on the window in bold black letters, he was limping stiffly.

A wave of embarrassment swept over him when he was forced to place his butter-colored glove against the building for support. Linese pretended not to notice, but Chase knew she did. It sent a bitter feeling through his soul, one he did not understand but found impossible to ignore.

She unlocked the door with a key she pulled from inside the small cloth reticule dangling from her wrist. When the door opened, the pungent odor of ink and paper permeated the still summer air. Chase filled his lungs with the odor and felt his senses sharpen, but still no memory came from the black abyss of his mind.

Linese turned to him as soon as they were inside the musty, warm office. Fire sparked inside blue eyes that had appeared as calm as pools only a short while ago. Chase was puzzled and fascinated by the transformation in her.

“Chase Cordell, I know it goes against your grain to admit any kind of physical weakness, particularly in front of anyone, but it is obvious to me that you are not fully recovered from your injury. Why didn’t you say so? If you have no objection, I’m going to send for Toby Sillers to take us home—immediately.”

Part of him knew instinctively, without actually remembering, that what she said was true. The man he had been did not easily admit to weakness. But the man he was now, the broken shell of himself, was sensible enough to know he was not fully healed. He also realized with a jolt that his wound could save him further humiliation for a short while.

A wave of relief surged over Chase, followed by mortification. He realized he did not like to feel vulnerable in front of this woman. His cheeks and neck flushed. He didn’t want to appear weak in her presence, but he would have to swallow his pride and accept her offer—or risk exposing himself. The choice was not a comfortable one for him to make.

“I am a bit unsteady on my feet these days. I think that would be a good idea—Linese.” Her name sounded odd coming from his lips. He said it silently in his head a few times to accustom himself to it.

She nodded curtly and walked out the door. He slumped into a chair beside a table rigged with a large roller and dragged off his wide-brimmed hat in frustration.

How could he hope to keep up this pretense when he could not even remember his wife? How in God’s name was he going to accomplish this deception when he didn’t even know the way home, or what that home looked like?

Chase didn’t know when Linese returned, but he looked up to find her studying him from the open doorway. She stared into his eyes and he felt his soul laid bare. It was a sensation like nothing he had ever experienced, not even in the horror of war.

He stared at the face of the woman he had married, had known intimately but could not remember, and died a little inside.

His gaze sent a frisson of confusion threading through her heart. Here he was, willing to accept help, admitting to his obvious injury, something she would never have thought possible. A wave of compassion flowed over Linese at the new depth she saw in her husband.

“I’m sorry, Chase. I never meant to imply that you were not able to drive us home. I—I only meant that it would give me pleasure to do a little something for you—if you would allow it.”

Chase experienced a strange contest of emotions. He’d had the same sensation when, two days after he was wounded, soldiers came to his bedside to visit. Major Cor-dell’s quick temper and iron-fisted control of the men beneath him was a constant topic of the lopsided conversation. He had found it disconcerting, but it was nothing compared to what the expression in Linese’s blue eyes was doing to him.

Each time she fastened that open, trusting look on him, he felt trapped in a skin too tight, too confining. He was consigned to a life of uncertainty, having to live up to expectations created by himself in a past he no longer knew.

Chase Cordell was in a living hell.

Toby kept the horses at a good pace all the way out of Mainfield. Linese was grateful for the breeze wending its way through the hickory trees and for the shady spots dappling the lane. Soon she was considerably cooler than she had been in Mainfield, but no less troubled.

She found herself sneaking glances at Chase whenever he wasn’t looking her way, which seemed to be most of the time. She watched him, puzzled by the enthusiasm he displayed over the most ordinary and mundane things along the old road. He leaned out of the carriage and virtually drank in his surroundings. The gristmill, the same mill he had ridden past a hundred times before, captured his interest.

For a full ten minutes he asked Linese strange, halting questions, then he lapsed into stony silence and fidgeted with his gloves beside her.

Linese accepted the fact he was just plain uncomfortable being with her. By the time they pulled up in the graveled lane leading to Cordellane, she was nearly ill with anxiety, sure that she had done something to betray her secret to him.

Toby halted the horse and she turned to look at Chase, who seemed frozen in his seat. He was staring up at the stately old house with an expression of confounded awe in his smoky gray eyes. It pierced her heart to see such a poignant look on his bleak face. It occurred to her that a man’s home would take on great significance in the face of war and possible death. He must have often thought fondly of his home while he was away.

“Big, isn’t it?” he said in husky whisper. He continued to flex his fingers inside the thick gloves.

Chase wondered how a man could completely forget his home. The two-story rambling structure was nothing more than board and stone and mystery to him.

He knew with a bitter certainty that he should be seeing an artist’s colorful palette of recollection inside his head, but all he found was a dark gray void of emptiness and desolate feelings of loss.

“I told you Cordellane was too big and empty the first time you brought me here. Remember?” Linese gently reminded him.

She saw a muscle in his rock-hard jaw flinch and she cringed inwardly at his reaction to her words. It was as if an invisible wall lay between them in the surrey.

“No. I don’t remember that.” His words were short, his tone harsh.