Ada’s mood swung downward and threatened to explode, but anytime she thought of leaving, she found there was really nowhere to go. Better to travel in numbers, the men reminded her, than disappearing at the hands of the minions traipsing around the fields and towns. Besides, what did she have to go home to? Richard? He’d lied to her and he didn’t have anything to say when she’d confronted him.
So, she picked up the pieces of her heart and ran, as it were. Only problem with that was Francois. His role as savior was deflated when he told her he loved her. Love. She still shook over it. She sat next to him a few times on the back of the horse and the comfort against her was relaxing and exciting and like home. It confused her so she pushed it from her mind, deciding all this was too overwhelming.
Plus the War kept showing up everywhere they went. She laughed. Of course, it did. She still had her nurse’s outfit on, minus the apron, and it looked rather ragged. Just like Francois’s outfit… She closed her eyes, trying to block the sunlight that was trying to force her to see the truth about them when she did everything in her power not to.
Inhaling deeply, she placed her mask of indifference back on and turned to face him.
“So where are we today?”
Francois and Edward were next to the mare they rode. Edward lowered the mare’s hoof while a concerned Francois looked on. Both glanced at her.
“Middle Tennessee I reckon,” Francois answered. “Hard to tell after a while, considering how the land is so badly beaten all along the south.” He spat to the ground.
Ada couldn’t help but smile. Her refined secessionist now sported a rough beard and hints of a mustache. It was more than the whiskers that had appeared a few days ago. Edward refused to let his grow, using his bowie knife to keep his head shaved as well as his cheeks. At first, she wondered why Francois allowed his to grow but the man stated he plainly didn’t think the black man would let him use the knife, then the two men laughed. She failed to get their humor, so dropped the question.
The last four days had been hard. They might have escaped the war in Virginia, but he was right—traces were everywhere. Remains of burned homes, torn railway ties with some bent in odd twists, which both men agreed were ‘Sherman’s neckties’—a telltale sign of Union General William T Sherman’s campaign through the South to take Atlanta and then upward into the Carolinas, but to her, they were signs of the devil. She noticed the black man’s brows shot up at the sight, while Francois grew more and more agitated at the Federals with every step they took that showed the destruction of the South.
She did cringe at each sight, a shudder that didn’t fade easily anymore. Shaking her head, she got up off her makeshift chair and asked, “So is Rose okay?”
“She’ll be fine, if we all walk for a spell.” Edward spat to the ground and patted the horse’s side.
Ada gulped. Walking would take them forever to get to… mentally she paused. “So we’ll be walking to where?”
Francois couldn’t help but snort. “Good question. Thinking the route we’re on now will take us back to Louis’ana. Home.”
She stopped. “Why would I want to go there?”
Francois stopped, his own thoughts questioning him the same. Why did he want to go back? And drag her with him? Edward hadn’t questioned, so Francois guessed he was from there, a rather rude presumption, he gathered, but it was what it was, since his owner was part of the Tigers. In reality, he hadn’t really planned to return, yet that was the direction they were taking.
Did he want to return? To see Emma, with her baby and Jack? Memories of their smiling faces, hers especially, used to drive a spike into his heart. Now, at the wisp of the memory, it was a dull heartache, annoying but livable. Had the War done that? Or Ada?
“Wasn’t exactly what I planned when we left the battlefield, but it is familiar.” He shrugged. “Even if they thought we were alive, it’d take more than a whim to get soldiers out west to look for me or you or even Edward, so it’s safe ground for all of us.”
Now, she was pacing. That was a somewhat irksome trait of hers, he mulled.
“I can’t go there. I mean,” she stopped and glared at him. “Why would you want to take an abolitionist home to your slave-owning plantation?”
Her snarl at the end was sharp. “I wasn’t thinking that way. Look, doctors have been scarce since the War began. You might find some place that’d let you practice.”
She didn’t say anything, just concentrated more on lifting her skirts as she walked over the terrain. “Surprised you didn’t suggest you could marry me, considering.”
That stab he should’ve expected. He’d made his declaration on his feelings, yet through this trip, he’d left her alone. Considering she hadn’t replied the same, he figured she wanted him nowhere close. So he kept a distance, even though it was eating him up inside. With her asleep on the saddle blanket and his coat, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“I would love it if you married me.”
She frowned but laughed. “I should think not.”
He wanted to fume but he stomped that fuel down and did his best to give her a hurt expression. “Oh, madam, how you wound the heart.”
She laughed. The sound
