The Return Of Chase Cordell. Linda Castle

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