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house. Before he reached the porch he swung his leg over Pye’s sleek haunches and took a flying leap from the horse that landed him directly at the first step to the porch. He hurried up the steps, plucked up Tara McKenzie, and spun her about the porch. “Ah, Mother! I have missed you! As always, you are radiant.”
    Tara laughed, landing breathless on her feet again, reaching up to take his cheeks between her two hands and study the depths of his eyes. “Ian!” she said, laughing, “my dear firstborn, my pride and joy—you are quite the consummate flatterer! I know that you’re deeply involved with your military career and the affairs of the world, and you probably haven’t given your doting mother a single thought. But that’s quite all right. I am so glad that you could make it here today!”
    “I have three days’ leave—and two days travel time back to Washington, Mother.” He hesitated, growing serious. “I’ve some important personal matters to discuss with you, and I don’t like the way the nation’s going,I’m afraid. There may be some decisions to be made soon, and I want time to talk with Father.”
    Tara frowned, and Ian was sorry he had spoken so quickly. His mother was no simpering belle, and most certainly no naive hothouse flower. She remained, as she approached middle age, a beautiful woman, her golden hair hadn’t dulled a bit from the time Ian was a child; she was slim and graceful, the perfect mistress for his father’s beloved Cimarron. But though she embodied genteel Southern womanhood, the scope of her world was much larger. The precarious position the McKenzies had always taken regarding the Seminole question in Florida had caused Tara to be very aware of politics at all times. Ian knew by looking at her now that she was probably far more aware that the country was holding together by tenuous threads than most of the male guests enjoying Cimarron’s hospitality.
    “Things are even worse than they seem?” she inquired softly.
    “Right before I was stationed down at Key West, I had been in Washington. I was at John Brown’s hanging. As much as I see the justice of his sentence, I think that his martyrdom will help shed much more blood than he ever managed alive. I think there is no way this breach can be healed…. We’re heading toward war,” he told her quietly.
    Her frown deepened. She shook her head. Like many people, Tara didn’t want to believe that the country could split apart, that there could be war. “I know that there is a wild and furious faction in Florida. We are a slave state, after all, and men can be adamant about keeping their property. Still, people are so split here with all the military bases that the state could well go to war against itself. But, Ian, surely saner heads will prevail.” “Not if Lincoln is elected president, I’m afraid. Mother, you know the sentiments of most of our neighbors!”
    “I doubt if Lincoln will even be on the Florida ballot,” Tara said. “Really, his being elected remains a long shot.”
    Ian shrugged. Perhaps so. But the military had kept him traveling and he’d seen Abraham Lincoln speak when he’d gone on leave with friends in Illinois, and hewas certain that those who had never seen the man were seriously underestimating him.
    Ian shook his head. “Well, nothing is happening tomorrow. Nothing will happen until the election, that much is certain. But still … I look forward to your party today, though I do assume the Democrats and Whigs are at it already within!”
    She shook her head suddenly. “There’s been some argument, but quite frankly, the majority of our neighbors are slaveholders who see your father as an eccentric—an important, powerful, wealthy and respectable eccentric, but an eccentric, nonetheless. Then, of course, there are those who claim they don’t give a fig about slavery; they are furious about the question of States’ Rights. As you say, though, it’s in the future—even if it is