Homeward Winds the River — Barbara Ferry Johnson

The longest journey was to his arms...

Leah... Heartbroken and tortured by desired for her aristocratic Creole lover, Baptiste Fountaine, she flees New Orleans on a paddle-wheeler bound for the North -- bound for a new life with James Andrews, the lawyer who saved her from the gallows.

But as she ascends the gangplank for the sail upriver, and the first whistle of departure sounds its mournful tune, she gazes back to the cypress-shrouded levee, where the eyes of a wounded man burn deeply into her own.

Try to forget the eyes said. Someday you will long to sail southward on that river....