The Return Of Chase Cordell. Linda Castle

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.

      Linese tried to ignore the sting of his abrupt reply. Mentally she vowed to do more to make him feel at home and less like a stranger.

      Chase jumped down to the dusty driveway and she saw him wince in pain. He reached up his mustard-colored glove and she froze in place, unable to move while she savored the sight of him. She realized, with some awe, that until this moment his return had not fully registered in her heart. She had known he was home, had prepared for it, longed for it, but up until now she had not believed it.

      Now, while she stared at him in front of Cordellane, she allowed herself to embrace the happy truth.

      Chase was home—he had returned to her.

      The dark blue uniform hugged his lean, muscular body. The wide-brimmed hat sent complimentary shadows over his craggy jaw and full, determined lips. New lines were deeply carved around his eyes to add character and depth to his countenance.

      He grasped her hand tightly in his own, and her heart fluttered in the same old way it used to. Chase Cordell was still the handsomest man in Tyron County.

      She’d loved him from the first moment he’d spoken to her. She loved him now. Linese wanted to make him a good wife and fill up the old house with a passel of laughing children—children that would make him proud and drive the silence from Cordellane’s big, empty rooms. Her pulse quickened a little at the thought.

      Two years had been taken from them. The sooner she and Chase could begin a family, the better she would like it. No matter how many changes she had to make, no matter how many adjustments, it would be worth it to have Chase home again.

      Her young husband’s eager lovemaking on their wedding night had been almost frightening to her; now she longed to know his touch, to return his passion, to bear his children.

      “Marjorie? Marjorie, is that you?” Captain Cordell’s voice rang out. He appeared at the corner of the stables and interrupted Linese’s thoughts. Chase deposited her on the ground and she followed his line of vision to the old man.

      He was dressed in a dark green coat and high-topped boots. Sunlight glimmered along his silver hair and long mustache. He was a fine figure of a man, for his advanced years. His body was still straight and tall, and only the slightly blank look in his eyes would give anyone a clue that he was not like any other landowner and ex-Texas Ranger.

      “No, Captain, it’s me.” Linese gestured at him and urged him forward to join them.

      Chase watched the old man. Suddenly he felt the sensation of his scalp shrinking around his skull while a hot tingle crept up his spine.

      Two things crystallized into painful clarity in one painful heartbeat. His aunt Marjorie had died from consumptive fever, and his grandfather had been crazy since the day she had been laid to rest in the family plot behind Cordellane.

      Pity, responsibility and embarrassed shame all welled up inside Chase. He fought to understand the source of the emotions.

      He heard a sound and glanced at Toby Sillers. The boy ducked his head and sniggered before he turned away. He had been laughing at Chase’s grandfather.

      Realization dawned on Chase in a rush. He did not truly know the man who stood before him, but he shared his humiliation at their mutual flaw. Something else imprinted it-self upon the empty slate of Chase’s mind.

      Nothing had changed while he had been away. The Cor-dell madness was apparently still the object of ridicule in Mainfield.

      Chase felt resolution harden in his chest like a great chunk of ice. He would never let anyone know of his defect. He would not allow another person to suffer under the weight of a curse that they had no part in creating.

      He had no way of knowing with any certainty why he had lost his memory, but the thought that it might be, the hint that it could possibly be inherited loomed thick and dark before him.

      Chase swallowed hard.

      Would he continue to lose more and more of himself, until at last he was like the man who stood before him? Was he doomed to go slowly mad until he had no reason left at all? He gulped down the horror that washed over him and made a silent promise to himself.

      Unless, or until he could be sure this affliction was not the result of Cordell blood, he was determined to do whatever was necessary to make sure he did not sire children—no matter how great the sacrifice, or temptation, might be.

      

      At supper the tension increased. Captain Cordell asked no less than six times who Chase was. Linese had always marveled that his mind seemed to weaken even more when people other than Cordells were at Cordellane. The oldest Jones girl, Effie, had stayed around to help Linese lay out a big dinner to celebrate Chase’s return home and her very presence sent the poor Captain into mumbling fits, followed by prolonged periods of vacant-eyed silence.

      Linese watched Chase grow more sullen with each word his grandfather uttered. She finally gave up trying to make the old gentleman understand who Chase was, and simply allowed the heavy strain to fall like a dark curtain between them all.

      Consequently, the celebration meal was a total failure. She sighed and thought about the days she had spent procuring fresh milk. It had taken all her cunning, but she had even managed to get hold of a smoked ham for the occasion. More food than she or the Captain normally saw in a month sat in front of Chase, yet he picked at his food with little interest. The fact he did not even appear to be aware of her efforts to lay a nice table just for him bruised her deeply. His indifference to her hard work stung