Just Once

by Jill Marie Landis

  “I’m not here for a handout.” She pulled herself up to her full height and met his stare straight on. “I’m here to see Mr. O’Hurley.”

  He cut her off. “He doesn’t have time for the likes of you. Why don’t you mosey on over to Tchoupitoulas Street and try to dram up a little business over there?”

  “I’m certain that if you tell Mr. O’Hurley, my father, that his daughter, Jemma, is here, he’ll be more than happy to see me.”

  The color immediately blanched from the rude man’s face. He swallowed twice, mumbled an apology, and took off down an aisle between the crates. She could hear a door slam in back of the warehouse, the sound reverberating in the high, cavernous building. Tapping her toe, she glanced over her shoulder and contented herself with watching the passing crowd outside while she waited for a summons from her father.

  “Jemma!”

  At the sound of her father’s voice, she turned. He was racing up the aisle toward her. The death of his partner and the move had taken its toll. He looked older. His mouth was drawn into a stern line. The creases beneath his eyes had deepened, but he moved with the old familiar determination and energy that had made him such a successful businessman. Dropping her parcel, she started slowly toward him and then stopped a few yards away.

  He stood still. His gaze swept her, staring as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Bracing herself for censure, she tilted her chin and met his gaze. She expected anger. She expected a scene. She was prepared for anything but watching him open his arms to her in welcome.

  It was a moment before she realized he was waiting for her to respond to his warm gesture of greeting. Jemma couldn’t swallow around the lump in her throat. With tears blinding her, she ran to her father and, for the first time that she could ever recall, she felt his arms close around her as he held her close.

  It was the dream of a lifetime. The smooth, cool satin of his waistcoat was soon stained with her tears of relief. She felt him awkwardly patting her back, murmuring, “There, there now, Jemma. Everything is all right now.”

  Finally, when her tears were spent, she pulled back and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Thank you, Father. I certainly didn’t expect you to forgive me so easily.” Behind them, startled stevedores and clerks watched the reunion. Jemma lowered her voice. “When I arrived last October and found out Alex Moreau was dead, I … decided to take advantage of my reprieve. I truly never intended to be gone so long—”

  “Thank God you didn’t marry Moreau’s grandson. I can’t begin to tell you everything, but the girl you exchanged places with was nearly hanged for murdering a young man a few months ago.”

  “Oh, no!” Jemma was horrified to think that something so terrible might have happened to the beauty with the startling amethyst eyes she had encountered that fateful night at the cathedral.

  “Yes, but all is well, and she and your would-be groom are living on St. Stephen’s Island in the Caribbean. Marrying him would have been the worst possible thing for your standing here in New Orleans. His reputation as a drinker was well known; in fact, they even say he was responsible for his cousin’s death. But enough of that,” he said, hooking his arm through hers. “Let’s get you home and settled. I hope you like the house.”

  The laborers around them slowly drifted back to work. Because his words had given her pause, before she took another step, Jemma wanted her future settled once and for all.

  “Before we go anywhere, I want you to know that I’m not the same naive girl I was when I left.”

  “I’m sure you’ve much to tell. When I think of you being exposed to the perils of the journey north, it terrifies me.”

  “That’s behind us now. I want things to be different between us, Father. I’ve learned so much about myself, about who I am and what I can do.”

  She knew he was too astute not to notice the state of her dress and her hair. She was surprised he had nothing to say on the matter. Surprised and grateful. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he was not saying.

  “I hope you realize I won’t be pushed into marriage, Father. If you still have any notion—”

  He responded before she even finished. “I certainly won’t make the same mistake I did before,” he assured her, straightening the watch fob on a gold chain draped across his vest. Then, with another smile, he called for his carriage to be brought around, took hold of her elbow, and steered her toward the door. He called out to one of the clerks, “I’m taking the rest of the week off.”

  They were going home together. There would be time to tell him of Hunter, time to explain all she had experienced, of her love for the backwoods “Kaintuck” who had stolen her heart and carried it with him into the wilderness. But not yet. Not yet.

  She would know when the time was right. First, she wanted to bask in the warmth of her father’s love, to put to rest any doubt of his sincerity. And she wanted to hold the memory of Hunter and her time in Sandy Shoals in her heart for a while longer.

  Hunter cursed the summer squall, the river, and the streak of bad luck that had kept him from heading for New Orleans. Standing beside Noah at the bow of a keelboat, he let his gaze sweep the river for debris. Rain dripped off the brim of his hat and sloughed into his collar. His buckskins were soaked, his hair plastered to his back, but nothing could dampen his determination. He was going to find Jemma if he had to track her halfway around the world.

  His departure had been delayed a week because Lucy had taken it into her head to fall head over heels in love at the first sight of Devon Childress. After knowing him a day, she wanted to pack up and go south with the preacher to the unsettled Texas territory across the Mississippi. Hunter had immediately declared her too young. They fought bitterly. Her resultant tears and pleading, coupled with his own stubbornness, had kept the situation stirred up until Nette negotiated a truce.

  Lucy and Devon promised to wait until Hunter either returned with Jemma or sent his permission in a letter. Devon refused to go on without Lucy. Hunter hoped that after the two got to know one another, the infatuation would cool.

  Wind churned the water. Spray from the boat hit the chop that misted the air. Noah, his red shirt and black pants sopping wet, hanging precariously from a guide rope, balanced barefoot on the rail like a nimble-footed pirate. He watched the river, looking for hidden sandbars, pointing out directions to the deckhand manning the tiller.

  “There’s a cove not far from here where we can take shelter,” Noah shouted over the howling wind. “I don’t like the color of the sky.”

  Hunter didn’t like the threatening yellow-green underbelly of the sky either. A flash of lightning ripped the clouds and then, a few seconds later, thunder rocked the air around them.

  “Go around back and make sure the animals are secured,” Noah called out. Hunter hurried to do as his friend bid. When Noah hired on as a pilot, it was an unwritten rule that he took command until he had seen the passengers safely through the shoals.

  Hunter skirted the cabin and was already headed toward the stern when the flatboat suddenly rammed into something with a force so great it knocked him off his feet. The frightened screams of two horses aboard, as well as cries of terror from inside the cabin, mingled with the shuddering of the craft. With a horrendous groan, large portions of wood and nails were torn asunder.

  All forward motion stopped. Hunter lurched to his feet and struggled against the pitch of the boat. With one glance at the empty bow, he knew that Noah had been ejected into the water. Hunter shut out the desperate calls of the other men aboard and leaned out over the quickly disintegrating bow. He thought he saw a flash of Noah’s red shirt in the muddy water, and was reminded of the day he had nearly lost Jemma to the water. He doubted that his luck would hold a second time, but without considering the consequences, he dove.

  As soon as he surfaced, he spotted Noah clinging to a twisted log that was being swept downstream. He began swimming in that direction, gauging the distance between them as it bega
n to close. When he was close enough to reach out and grab the log, he realized that the left side of Noah’s face was torn open, streaked with blood and rain.

  His friend was only semiconscious, barely able to hang on. Hunter draped one arm over Noah’s back and held on to the tree with the other. Unable to battle the current with the injured man, he hoped it wouldn’t be too long before the log jammed against other debris along the bank.

  A macabre parade floated by. Passengers aboard the wrecked keelboat struggled against the current. The body of a youth with barely the first fuzz of beard floated past. Crates and barrels bobbed along, crashing into victims. Some crates had broken open, their contents already vanished beneath the rushing water. Screaming horses struggled to keep their heads out of the water as they swam toward shore.

  Finally, one end of the branch caught on a logjam and they stopped in a small eddy. Hunter furiously blinked water out of his eyes and tugged on Noah’s arm. When his friend was free, Hunter rolled him onto his back, hooked his arm across Noah’s chest, and began to swim toward the bank a few feet away.

  It wasn’t until Hunter had Noah on shore and could examine the extent of his injury that he realized how seriously LeCroix had been hurt. The left side of Noah’s handsome face had practically been torn away, the wound gaping close to his eye, which was mottled with blood. Hunter ripped off his own shirt. He swallowed, plumbing the depths of his courage as he reached for the torn skin along Noah’s cheek. Then, gingerly, carefully, he tried to smooth the ragged edges back together.

  Noah moaned, but didn’t gain consciousness. Once Hunter had bound the man’s head with torn shreds of his shirt, he dragged him into a copse of trees and waited for the rain to stop. There was no dry tinder, nothing with which to start a fire. His only hope was to sit with Noah and watch the river. Sooner or later, if and when someone from the ill-fated keelboat made it to shore and found help, then word of the accident would spread up and down the river.

  He closed his eyes and thought of Jemma, hoping she was safe and that she had reunited with her father. He cursed himself for ever leaving her, and hoped to God she had made it downriver and had not fallen victim to the Mississippi’s whims. He thought of what he would say, what he would do when he found her. As the wind lashed his wet hair against his cheek and the rain stung his eyes, he swore to himself and the Almighty that he was never going to let her out of his sight again.

  He had lost everything: his hat, his rifle, his bag of clothes. All he had left was the possibles bag at his waist and the powder horn around his neck. He opened the possibles bag and felt inside for the heart pendant. Relief swelled when he touched it. The trinket he had been carrying to Jemma was still there. It gave him hope.

  Noah stirred. Blood was still oozing down his torn face. Hunter felt utterly helpless, afraid to go in search of help and leave his friend to the elements and creatures that dwelled in the forest along the river. If he was lucky, a search party looking for victims would find them soon; but he knew it was a big if, especially the way his luck had been going.

  Sitting on his haunches, shirtless, hatless, and soaked, he felt a tug on his hand and looked down. Noah had his eyes shut, his face contorted with pain.

  “Leave me here.” The words were barely audible.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  “I can’t see, Hunt. What good’s a man like me who can’t see?”

  Hunter gazed down at the tall, once-striking man who had been his friend for what amounted to a considerable number of years. They had marched downriver with the Kentucky troops, fought side-by-side at the Battle of New Orleans, battled the elements and the river. Both cursed the fact that the land was being settled faster than they liked. Hunter knew what the loss of his eye would mean to Noah, just as he knew what the man was asking him to do, but there was no way in hell he was going to leave Noah to the elements.

  “I can’t hear you over this storm,” Hunter lied.

  “If you play the hero, I’ll hate you forever, Boone.”

  “Ask me if I care.”

  Noah’s hand tightened on his wrist, but there was no strength behind the hold. “Get going. Don’t risk losing Jemma again.”

  No matter how tempting, no matter how much he wanted to be with Jemma, the image of Charlie Tate swirled through his mind. Hunter closed his eyes again, turned his face up to the rain.

  Noah was in his late twenties. Still so young. He had a long life before him. No matter what he suffered now, whether he liked it or not, Noah could learn to live without an eye. There was no way Hunter could play God this time. He wasn’t ready to lose his friend. He knew he never would be.

  Noah had fallen silent, his eyes closed. Hunter checked the crude, wet bandage he had made out of his shirt. The bleeding had slowed.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Rain beat down through the newly budded leaves. The river raged by.

  If Jemma’s saints were looking down on him, he hoped they understood what he had done for Charlie and why, and had forgiven him. Surely they wouldn’t punish him now by taking his friend. Surely they would watch over Jemma and keep her safe, and his, until he could find her again.

  New Orleans, September 1817

  The street in front of the opera house was a sea of vehicles. The night air was close and humid. Ignoring the handsome young man seated beside her in the open carriage, Jemma stared at the fashionably dressed theater patrons on the crowded street, lost in the memory of the night she had met Hunter. Then, too, she had mingled with the mostly Creole crowd, but then she had been on the run, using them as camouflage. Tonight, only her heart felt like running.

  André Roffignac shifted on the seat beside her. Recently appointed her father’s assistant manager, André was a frequent guest at the house on St. Louis Street and had volunteered to act as her escort on many occasions of late. As they began the drive of a few blocks, André casually draped his arm across the back of the seat until it encircled her shoulders. The move was slow and nonchalant. Most everything André did was executed with a practiced indifference, but after spending time with him, she knew he did nothing without perfectly calculating it beforehand.

  Jemma stiffened, not caring whether he noticed. She hadn’t really wanted to attend the opera alone with him this evening, but originally her father was to have accompanied them, so she had agreed. Lately, André had become openly familiar, taking advantage of their friendship by brushing against her and casually touching her much too often. He made her feel embarrassed and uncomfortable.

  Roffignac was facing her now, the picture of refined elegance with his curled-brim hat, double-breasted cutaway jacket, and high-throated ruffled shirt. Appearances and bloodlines meant everything to him, as they did to most Creoles. It was an attribute her father found admirable. André’s dark eyes were soulful and languid, his hands long and elegant, his nails buffed to a high shine.

  As far as New Orleans society and her father was concerned, Roffignac was perfect. But to Jemma, he was a far cry from all the things she had loved about Hunter Boone. As it did almost every waking moment, her mind drifted back to the days she had spent with Hunter. She wondered if he missed her, how he was faring, where he was now.

  While she was lost in thought, André reached out, picked up the fringed hem of the narrow cashmere stole that was draped over her arm, and rubbed the costly item between his fingertips.

  “Did you like the performance, Jemma?”

  “I thought it was quite amusing.”

  “The play has been running for so long that I forget how many performances I’ve seen, but this is the first time I’ve enjoyed it so immensely.” He let go of the stole and ran his finger over the back of her gloved hand.

  She pulled her hand away, not abruptly, but easily, ostensibly to smooth her hair. If she angered André, her father would not be pleased, so she vowed to voice her concerns as soon as she and her father were alone.

  They were only two blocks from the house that her father ha
d purchased before her return. Attempting to blend in immediately, Thomas O’Hurley had shipped very few of their furnishings from the East; instead, he had decorated the new place according to what he had seen in the spacious, comfortable homes he had visited here in New Orleans. She found the style austere, the rooms cool instead of welcoming.

  The driver kept up a slow, steady pace. Night air scented with jasmine enveloped them. Jemma smoothed her long, over-the-elbow gloves and folded her hands, then took a deep breath and turned to face André squarely.

  “André, I know you mean well, escorting me about, introducing me to your friends, but I am so busy helping the nuns at the orphanage that I fear I’m often too exhausted to enjoy late evenings on the town.”

  “What are you saying, Jemma?” His dark, fluid gaze roved over her face.

  She shivered, but not with longing. All she wanted at the moment was to be out of the carriage.

  “I don’t wish to go out for a while, that’s all.”

  His smile thinned. “For a while? And how long do you think ‘a while’ might be?”

  Forever. She shrugged. “Just that. A while.”

  She could see he was not pleased, although he smiled and nodded acceptance. His eyes had grown cold, almost calculating. They fell into an uncomfortable silence.

  When the carriage clattered through the porte cochére into the open courtyard of the house on St. Louis, Jemma felt a surge of relief. The Negro driver opened the door and stood aside as André stepped out of the vehicle, took her hand, and helped her down. They walked up the wide wooden stairway to the second floor, where the living quarters overlooked the walled garden and the street. Flower boxes of trailing jasmine and geraniums lined the balcony. Her father was still up, waiting in the sitting room. He was reading, but set the book aside as they entered.