The Pride of Hannah Wade Read Online Free PDF Page B

be poor Lieutenant Delvecchio,” Stephen guessed in advance of the knock at the door. “I feel sorry for him.”
    “Why?” Hannah set down her lemonade glass.
    “Because he’s in love with you, and you’re mine.” He smiled as a hand rapped at the door, and she was charmed by his possessive affection and that sense of being so very special to him.
    Together they went to answer the door. Lieutenant Delvecchio stood outside and the Sloanes, the guests of honor, were coming up the walk. The atmosphere took on a social air, one of flirtatious fun and good company.
    Cimmy Lou strolled along the path that circled the parade ground, which was outlined with rocks. Oblivious to her surroundings, she daydreamed about all she had seen in the private quarters of Officers’ Row: the beautiful clothes, the satins and laces, the bright baublesand beads, the gilded hairbrushes and combs, and the pretty food. She’d snitched one of the cakes and now she sucked at her fingers to get the last sugary bit of the icing’s taste while her long skirts swayed with the sauntering rhythm of her walk. Molasses was about the sweetest thing she’d had lately.
    Ahead of her, a trooper leaned against a rough cedar post that supported the
ramada
roof attached to the fort’s bakery. Long and slim, he was half hidden by the purpling shadows of twilight. At Cimmy Lou’s approach, he kicked leisurely away from the post and intercepted her. There was something catlike about him, with his small face and shiny-dark eyes, his pencil-thin mustache and pointy chin, and he had a cleverness about him, the scheming slyness of a cat, too.
    “You shouldn’t be walkin’ by yo’ self afteh dark, Miz Hooker. I’ll make shore you get safely home.”
    She pulled her fingers from her mouth with a small, smacking sound and studied Private Leroy Bitterman with a considering look. Her strong sexual instincts made her always aware of the maneuverings between a man and a woman, the planned setting up of a seemingly happenstance meeting. And this man, who had long shown indifference to her, now was casually offering to walk her home.
    “I don’t need protection,” Cimmy Lou asserted, losing interest in him now that he’d come around like all the others.
    “I’ll walk with you just the same.” He smiled and matched his stride to her slow stroll.
    “Do as you please.”
    “I’ll always do that.” He walked along. “You don’t like me much, do you?”
    “You ain’t very nice.” She eyed him. “I think you could be cruel sometimes.”
    “I’m a full-blooded tomcat. I sure as hell ain’t as tame as the men you been toyin’ with.” He spoke with an arrogance and sureness that Cimmy Lou didn’t like.
    “You don’t know what I do,” she retorted.
    “You like to get a man all hot an’ excited, then throw cold water on him Makes ya feel big.”
    “Then don’t get excited.”
    “Cold water won’t stop me.”
    “There ain’t gonna be no startin’, so there won’t be no stoppin’ neither.” Cimmy Lou kept her voice down as they came to the tent housing of Suds Row, but her tone was firm.
    “Then why you been walkin’ with me and talkin’ with me? Why you been watchin’ me all these months?” Several yards short of her tent, his steps slowed. “You don’t know me. But you will.”
    Bitterman left before she could order him to go, and that angered her. She liked to control such things. Like all men, he had eventually come sniffing after her, but he’d backed off on his own. First Captain Cutter, now Leroy Bitterman, two in one day. It worried her, made her restless and edgy as she entered the tent.
    John T. was standing at the cookstove, stirring a pot. A pair of suspenders stretched up over his bare torso, his dark skin rippling with lean muscles. He was handsome, the handsomest man she’d ever seen, with his proudly ridged features and darkly brilliant eyes. Cimmy Lou knew he’d cooked supper for her. He was always doing kind things