She said finally, “Since there’s no school today, I’m going to work on organizing the rest of Julianna’s files.”
“Where’s Little Reba?”
“At the market. She should be back shortly.”
“I’ll see if the gardener needs help with anything,” he said.
She nodded and watched him leave.
Drake helped gardener Frank Poole dig out a stand of old hackberry trees that Julianna wanted to replace with magnolias. She’d hired the thirty-year-old Frank a few months ago through the Freedmen’s Bureau. She wanted to help the freedmen get started on their new lives, and a job was a good place to begin. Drake and his brothers were of the same mind. The laborers working for him were formerly enslaved, as were the women working as housekeepers at Archer’s hotel. Rai had a small army of freedmen working in his warehouses, and on his ships and docks.
Drake knew nothing about Frank’s past but learned a bit as they worked and he talked about his ongoing search for his mother. Over sandwiches Little Reba brought out for lunch, Frank told Drake more. “I was sold away when I was five but have been looking for her since the day after Freedom. Searched all over Mississippi where I believe I was born, but no one had ever heard of her or her master.”
“Why do you think you were born there?”
“Old woman on my last place said people there told her that’s where I’m from, but I could’ve been born anywhere, so I’ll keep looking.”
Judging by the number of advertisements and letters in some of the Black newspapers, there was a flood of people seeking sold-away family members just in the New Orleans area. Multiply that by the estimated three million held in slavery across the South before Freedom, and Drake suspected there were thousands upon thousands wanting to reestablish ties to their kin.
“Are you going to stay in New Orleans?”
“Just until the end of summer. I’m going up to Baton Rouge next. If I don’t find her there, I may head to Texas. My wife says she’s going to leave me if I make her move again. We’ve been going from place to place since Freedom, so I understand her complaining, but I have to find my mother. She’s expecting me to. Otherwise why’d she crop my ear this way if not so she can recognize me?” He turned his head and Drake saw the shortened lobe of his left ear. He wondered how common the practice had been. Hester Vachon, wife of Rai’s best friend, Galen Vachon, was born into slavery. Her mother severed the tip of Hester’s little finger at birth in case she was sold away and needed to be found. What other methods had slave parents used in the hopes of finding their children again, was a question he couldn’t answer. He did know how fortunate he and his brothers were to have been born free. He couldn’t imagine the heartache he’d be suffering had he been sold away from his parents. “If there’s anything my family can do to assist you, please let us know.”
Frank nodded. They finished their lunch and went back to work.
At the end of the day, Frank left for home and Drake went into the house to wash up. As he cut through the kitchen he was surprised to find Valinda stirring a pot on the stove. “Where’s Reba?”
“She had to leave. A man came by about an hour ago with a note from her brother-in-law. Reba’s sister is ill. The brother-in-law has to work tonight and needed Reba to come and sit with her.”
“Did he say how serious it was?”
“No, but she said if she has to stay longer, she’d let me know.”
He didn’t want to be in the house alone with Valinda. Just looking at her made him want to throw all good intentions out the door. Desiring her continued to plague him.
“She left dinner. Are you hungry?”
He was, but it had nothing to do with filling his stomach. “I am. But let me wash up first.” And he left her alone.
Val admittedly had a moment of panic when Reba was leaving. Being in the house alone with Drake was only going to magnify what they both were determined to avoid. Due to the circumstances of her marriage to Cole, there’d be no intimate relations. Was it selfish of her to want another taste of passion because she’d have none in her life going forward? How would Drake react if she were to ask him for one night in his arms? How might she start the conversation? What should she say? She wished she knew.
Drake came downstairs clean and refreshed but wanting Valinda continued to bedevil him. In a way, he wished her intended had already arrived, so he’d be occupied with other things, like how to send the man back to New York alone, but for the moment, she ruled his thoughts. She, with her sunny smile, honey-brown skin, sharp wit, and lips made for him alone. He was glad to see her, and now he had to get through the evening without pulling her onto his lap and slowly stripping her bare. The thought made his groin tighten and he sighed at the self-torture.
He found her in the kitchen removing dishes from the oven with a towel-covered hand and he enjoyed the view of her skirt-shrouded backside as she bent into the oven.
“Do you want to eat in the dining room, or upstairs in your room alone?”
“I’d like to eat outside with you, if you don’t mind.”
She turned, studied him for a lengthy moment before refocusing on her task. She removed another dish and set it on the counter. “I don’t mind.”
Their gazes held. He lowered his eyes to her mouth, reminding him of its taste and shape, before rising them again to her brown eyes. Desire waited, and it was mesmerizing. “You shouldn’t look at me that way,cheri.”
“No?”
“I’m doing my best to keep my distance. You’re not helping.”
“What if keeping your distance isn’t what I want?”