One Wore Blue Read Online Free PDF Page B

top of her head. She felt beautiful and very grown-up—and more. She felt very confident with herself as a woman, and she had the time of her life flirting, smiling, and dancing. The young men flocked to her, and it was wonderful. She knew that she must never really torment a young swain, but it was certainly proper enough to be a very charming flirt, and she couldn’t help but enjoy her power.
    That is, she had enjoyed it until she saw Jesse. He had been leaning in a doorway watching her, and she realized that he had been watching her for quite some time. There was a very irritating amusement in his eyes and in his lopsided smile.
    And then he came to her to claim a dance and swept herinto his arms, even though she had promised the dance to someone else.
    “Ah, but you are growing up to fulfill your every promise of beauty, Miss Mackay!” he had assured her. But his blue gaze had still been alight with laughter, even when he had bent over her hand and brushed it with a kiss. The kiss brought a flush to her cheeks, and she wanted to kick him even as she felt palpitations pulsing beneath her breast, right in the area of her heart. “So who are you out to dazzle tonight?” he asked.
    “The world, Jesse Cameron,” she told him sweetly. But when he laughed again and released her, she had been careful to accidentally tread upon his toes with her new leather pumps.
    Jesse could go hang! She had outgrown Jesse Cameron, outgrown that kind of infatuation, she told herself firmly that night in 1859 at Harpers Ferry. She wasn’t in awe of Jesse anymore. She had grown up—and she had grown up with definite opinions, so she was probably—to Jesse—more than ever a “wayward little dickens.”
    Jesse could be amusing and polite. He could even be charming—when he chose to be so, she thought. He never minced his words or opinions, and he had never given a fig for popular thought. He was incapable of bending or compromising, she reminded herself. If she married him, he would surely never accept her advice the way Anthony did.
    Nor would he tolerate indecisiveness on the question. Jesse would demand all or nothing if he demanded anything.
    Anthony was by far the more civil man.
    Jesse was really nothing compared to Anthony.
    It was the feeling she had had for Jesse that she remembered. The excitement when he was near, the wild, challenging excitement, the shivers, the tremors. It was that feeling she missed with Anthony. It wasn’t Anthony’s fault. She simply wasn’t a child anymore, so naturally she did not feel those things.
    “Look! Oh, Kiernan! Someone’s moving down there again!” Lacey called.
    Kiernan hadn’t been paying attention. By the time she looked, whoever had moved—if he had moved—had disappeared.
    “Lacey, I’m sorry. I just don’t see anything.”
    “You’re not trying!” Lacey told her.
    “All right, all right, I’ll keep my eyes open this time, I promise,” Kiernan assured her.
    A moment later, they heard the whistle from the night train. It was about one thirty.
    “Everything is all right. The midnight train has come through,” Kiernan said.
    Lacey shivered emphatically. “I tell you, something is going on tonight.”
    A fierce chill swept through Kiernan. She still hadn’t seen a thing, but she suddenly sensed that maybe Lacey’s fears were based on something real.
    Kiernan looked from Lacey back to the window. She blinked, certain that she had seen a movement by the shadowy buildings. Little pricks of unease danced up and down her spine. Lacey was right—there was something going on.
    But it didn’t affect them, she thought. Surely they were safe in Lacey’s home.
    She turned back to her hostess once again. “Lacey, have we got a gun in the house?”
    Lacey slowly shook her head, and Kiernan almost laughed. They were alone because the men were off to find a spot for a new weapons-productions plant, and they hadn’t a single firearm in the house.
    “Oh, Kiernan! Do you think