Raiding With Morgan
Page 28
Ty accepted the packet. When he read the return address on the top envelope, his racing heart nearly exploded. For there, before his very eyes, written in a neat, flowing hand were words he would forever treasure: Miss Dana Bainbridge, Portland, Ohio.
His watching grandfather spared Ty a torrent of unmanly tears. “And who might this chap with you be?”
Ty slipped the packet of letters inside the flap of his shirt for safekeeping and said, ”Grandfather, I’d like you to meet Mr. E.J. Pursley, of New Orleans. He’s our new chef.”
His grandfather’s reaction to the making of a decision impacting the operation of the family household without consulting him first told Ty where he stood with Enoch Mattson going forward.
“Well, gentlemen, it seems we have another train ticket to purchase. We best hurry along.”
EPILOGUE
Ty dismounted, tied his horse to the gate of the iron fence surrounding the Bainbridge home, and started up the lane that looped around to the dwelling’s front stoop. Tired and cramped from his ride from the depot at Pomeroy, Ohio, his limp was more pronounced than usual. His abiding fear of his upcoming call on Dana Bainbridge was that his game leg, withered frame, and the red splotches peppering his cheeks and neck made him look like the emaciated shell of a once-strong man, a far different man than the swashbuckling Rebel raider who had charmed her after barging into her kitchen in the dark of night. What kind of future did he offer a vibrant young woman in full health, with the best years of her life yet to be lived?
In her most recent letter, he’d learned that Dana’s father had sent letters and collected the incoming mail for his entire household on his Saturday trips to Portland. It wasn’t until after his death from heart failure that Dana had found every piece of written correspondence they had exchanged hidden away in his desk. Recent newspapers had contained fresh rumors of possible prisoner exchanges about the time of her discovery, and fearing that her undelivered letters might reach Camp Douglas after his departure, she had bundled them and mailed them to Boone Jordan per Ty’s original instructions.
The fact she’d never stopped writing, despite receiving no answer from him, was what gave Ty the courage to be here at all.
He had been forthright and honest in his single letter to her since his discharge from Camp Douglas. Wanting true feelings, not pity, he’d refused to deceive her as to his physical condition. Nothing in life was ever dead certain and he was fully aware there was a chance she might reject him, once she saw him in person, which was her right. He could but hope and pray she was truly the girl who’d penned those spirit-renewing letters over many months.
Every part of him fully alert, he kept walking. Though she knew the date he was scheduled to make his appearance, no one was yet in sight on the porch of the white painted house. The high steps of its veranda loomed taller than a mountain to a bum-legged ex-soldier on the brink of exhaustion.
The front door of the house popped open and the raven-haired object of his undying love stepped from the front foyer. Ty’s breath caught in his throat and his feet were suddenly lead weights that he couldn’t move. She was even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
Dana Bainbridge shared none of his misgivings. Opening her arms, she bounced down the steps. Ty saw the joy in her sky-blue eyes and his doubts and fears vanished as her inviting smile filled his whole world. Then his lips were on hers and he buried himself in the warmth and lush smell of her.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Jim R. Woolard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013920824
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3268-3
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: May 2014
eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-269-0
eISBN-10: 1-61773-269-9
First Kensington Electronic Edition: May 2014