Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

salvage some of these ribbons, too. And there’s a piece of nice lace. Maybe I can make do…” her voice trailed off dully. It was hopeless, but she didn’t want her mother to realize that fact just yet. When she was all worked up, as she was at the moment, it was best to try and let her down gently.
    “Slippers!” Lena cried, extracting a pair of molded ankle-high shoes with pointed toes and tiny buttons up the sides. “I wore these on my wedding day but haven’t had an occasion to have them on since. Try them on and see if they fit.”
    Obediently, Kitty slipped one on her foot. It slipped and slid on her heel when she tried to walk around the room. “We can pad the toes with something,” Lena said quickly, “…and where they’re molded, I can scrub them. They’ll do nicely.”
    “Well, what’s going on in here?”
    They turned at the sound of John’s happily booming voice. Without waiting for a reply to his greeting, he was across the room in two quick steps to wrap his arms around Kitty and cry, “Kitty, baby, you did it. Jacob told me how you pulled ol’ Betsy and her calf through, and I’m real proud of you. I couldn’t have done a better job, and I doubt Doc Musgrave could have, either.”
    Before she could speak, Lena slammed the trunk lid and got to her feet. “It was disgusting! It was absolutely sickening for her to be groveling in the straw, reaching inside a cow’s… Disgusting!”
    “Well, would you have had the cow and the calf both die?” John looked at her in wonder. “Be thankful Kitty had the good sense to think otherwise. We’ll have meat on our table next year…something we won’t have this winter—you can be sure of that. I didn’t find a single turkey today.”
    “Oh, Poppa, I’m sorry,” Kitty hugged him. “I’ll go out with you tomorrow, and maybe between the two of us, we can scare them up. We’ll ask Jacob to go along, too.”
    “You’ll be working on your dress for the party,” Lena sniffed.
    John scratched at his beard. “What party? Jacob said the Collins lad was by here today. Does he have anything to do with this talk of a party?”
    She hadn’t wanted him to hear it this way, but it was too late. Lena was only too eager to tell about Nathan’s visit to invite Kitty to a party at the Collins plantation on Sunday.
    John kept scratching at his beard, something he did when he was trying to sort things out in his mind. He pursed his lips, a sign that he was trying to find the right words to say what he finally had sorted out.
    He went into the kitchen, with Kitty scurrying behind him. “Poppa, what do you think?” she asked anxiously, “Do you approve of Nathan?”
    He sat down in his chair at the head of the table, then drew her down to sit on his knee as he’d done when she was a child. “Kitty, you know I’ve raised you to make your own decisions, and this may well be the first really important one you’ve been faced with.”
    “Nathan is a gentleman,” she reminded him. “He has a good name.”
    Nodding in agreement, he said, “I’m sure you’re right on both counts, honey, but you have to realize we’re living in troubled times. Nathan Collins and his family want slavery. I don’t. They want North Carolina to secede from the union. I don’t. They want war. I don’t. They’re willing to have that war and maybe get killed just so they can preserve the so-called right to own another human being.”
    He paused to take a deep breath and look directly into her eyes. “God never meant for a man to be bought and sold like an animal, Kitty. I’m a peaceful, God-fearing man. I’ve freed what slaves I had, and I try to mind my own business and stay out of all this talk of war. I’m mightily afraid, though, if war comes, as it surely will, none of us will be able to stay out of it.
    “What I’m trying to say is that I have all ideas that Aaron Collins won’t take kindly to his son courting my daughter, and you should realize that before