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Still puzzled, he watched her disappear behind the house.
“You were very patient with her.”
He spun around and found Raven behind him. From her words of praise, he wanted to conclude he’d impressed her, but her poker face made it difficult to tell. “It took me a few moments to figure out what she was referencing. She looked so concerned. Not sure what she meant by living with me though.”
“Me, either. You ice skate?”
“Yes, my grandfather taught me when I was young.”
“Is it fun?”
“Yes. You fall a lot when you first start out, and the ice is awfully hard, but once you learn to balance on the blades, it’s fun. You can race, play tag.”
“I see.”
She appeared to be evaluating him in a new light. “She said she’s never seen ice.”
“It rarely gets that cold here.”
“What about you?”
“Once, during a job in New York many years ago. The cold was so terrible, I haven’t gone back since. I don’t understand how people can live there.”
“You’d adapt.”
“No. I’ll stay in New Orleans where I don’t have to worry about walking on knives or it being so cold my bones ache. Are you ready to leave?”
“I am, if you are.”
“I am.”
Seated beside her on the bench while she drove the horse-drawn wagon down the dusty road, Brax thought back on their conversation in the kitchen. “Should I apologize?”
She looked his way. “For?”
“My description of how I’d handle your mouth.”
She turned her attention back to the road. “I asked a question. You answered. No apologyneeded. It’s not as if you kissing me will actually happen.”
For most of his adult life, women had fallen over themselves to prove how amenable they could be in his presence, and he’d arrogantly accepted that as a normal female response. Raven was setting his normal on fire, and the flames had him enthralled. As he’d told her cousins, he’d never forced himself on a woman, so unless she changed her mind, he’d have to content himself with enjoying her fierceness, mesmerizing beauty, and captivating speech like a child looking longingly through the window of a candy shop.
Traffic had been sparse on the narrow road that led away from her home, but she’d made a turn a few yards back that put their wagon, pulled by a big mare, on a wider road with much more activity. “How far are we from the Quarter?”
“Another half an hour or so.”
He noted how competently she managed the reins. “When did you first learn to drive?”
“When I was eleven or twelve, I guess. I prefer horseback though.”
“You drive well.”
“Thank you.”
They were now in a slow-moving caravan of wagons, carriages, and small buggies. To their left were vehicles going in the opposite direction. On the edges of both sides were peoplewalking. There were men, young and old, burdened down with bales of cotton in bulging burlap sacks tied to their backs; women balancing baskets on their heads filled with everything from vegetables to laundry, and elders of both genders shepherding small children. Most of those walking were Black. Seeing them reminded him how surprised he’d been when he first came south during the war. Having been born and raised in Boston, he’d never seen so many of his own kind in one place. That same feeling returned yesterday when he exited the train and viewed the people at the station.
When they finally entered New Orleans proper he wasn’t prepared for the masses of people of all colors filling the street. The walks fronting the business and buildings were teeming with people dressed in everything from business suits, to homespun, to rags. Traffic was moving at a snail’s pace due to the vast numbers of vehicles pulled by horses, mules, and even a few cows. Vendors hawked sweet potatoes, freshly caught fish, and potions of all kinds. There were ragpickers, free-running dogs, and to his further surprise, a group of Black nuns. “There are Black nuns here?”
Seeing the wonder on his face, she laughed softly. “Yes, Steele. They’re the Sisters of the Holy Family. They’ve been here since before I was born. The Oblate Sisters of Providence in Maryland are also Black, and their order is much older.”
