In a Stranger's Arms

by Hale Deborah

  Sometimes they hadn’t talked at all, just sat in the dim warm kitchen and kept each other company.

  A single salty tear inched its moist trail down Caddie’s cheek. The last time she’d wept in this kitchen, on the broad shoulder of a reticent Yankee, she’d felt better for it—strangely liberated.

  Now she just felt empty, and she had no one to blame but herself.

  She woke, hours later, from a familiar nightmare.

  Something had been chasing her. Something faceless and nameless, but all the more terrifying for its mystery. She’d tried to run, only to find her feet weighed down. Which had been worse—the fear of pursuit, or the suffocating frustration of a body that would not obey her?

  So often, back in Richmond, this dream had robbed her of desperately needed sleep. Since she’d returned to Sabbath Hollow, it had come less and less often. Tonight it had overtaken her with a vengeance.

  Caddie jolted fully awake.

  In the warm darkness of a summer night, a fine mist of sweat hovered on her brow and the nape of her neck. Her breath came in rapid, uneven little gasps. For an instant she relished the relief of waking.

  Then she heard the dog bark.

  Chapter Eleven

  WHEN SERGEANT STARTED to bark and a light flickered on in the house, Manning cursed under his breath. Of course it made sense that Caddie would leave the dog outside at night to keep watch. He should have known she’d do that.

  Or had he let it slip his mind on purpose?

  “Hush, now, Sarge,” he called softly to the dog. “No need to wake everybody out of a sound sleep. Tem’s mama won’t thank you for it.”

  Would Tem’s mama thank him for coming back to Sabbath Hollow if she caught him? Manning wondered.

  By the time he reached Washington, he’d firmly decided against returning. After this he’d keep an eye on the family from a distance, provide assistance whenever Caddie or the children needed it, but not entangle himself in their daily lives. It had worried him a little that Caddie might one day dissolve their paper marriage. Perhaps he should have persuaded her to consummate their relationship, after all.

  Too late now.

  Each day away from Sabbath Hollow had eroded his resolve, like a steady rain on rootless soil.

  As he took orders for lumber and furniture, Manning decided he would have to talk face-to-face with Bobbie Stevens before he went away. Besides, he couldn’t keep the horse and buckboard that belonged to Caddie.

  At last he’d reached a compromise with himself. He would return the mare and wagon during the night, then saddle up his gelding and ride over to the mill. After he discussed business with Bobbie the next morning, he’d decide on his next move.

  Only he hadn’t reckoned on one vigilant, noisy dog.

  “Come on, boy. Pipe down.” When his pleas had no effect, Manning reined in the horses and climbed down from the wagon. “You know me. I’m not going to hurt your precious family.”

  As a warm wet tongue swiped across his fingers to the intermittent accompaniment of more loud woofs, Manning understood that he wasn’t being challenged or warned away.

  He was being welcomed home.

  How many folks passed their thirtieth birthday without ever having experienced that simple but profound pleasure? And who cared if the welcome committee was only an ugly brindle-colored mutt without sense enough to keep quiet in the middle of the night?

  Manning fell to the ground under Sergeant’s rapturous assault. The beast wasn’t wagging just his tail, but his whole body.

  Fleet padding footsteps sounded on the porch. “Who’s there? Don’t move!”

  Manning’s heart gave a queer lurch at the sound of Caddie’s voice. Then his gut contracted at the snap of a gun being readied to fire.

  “Don’t shoot! It’s only me.” He heard himself laughing like a lunatic as the dog’s slobbery tongue tickled his face.

  “M-Manning?” Her voice sounded strange. Was something wrong?

  “That’s right.” He tried to push Sergeant away so he could get to his feet, but he couldn’t manage more than a token effort. “Sorry I woke you.”

  He wondered if Caddie might shoot anyway, even knowing it was him. After he’d gone off without a word and stayed away longer than she could have expected. Then to arrive back in the middle of the night, waking her from a sound sleep, and likely scaring her silly in the process.

  Looking at it that way, he could hardly blame her if she winged him.

  “You came back.” Caddie sounded as though she was talking in her sleep. Her voice drew closer with every word. “You really came back.”

  When he felt her arms go around him as he lurched to his feet, Manning wondered if he’d fallen asleep and dreamed this whole thing. When her hand fumbled its way to his whisker-stubbled cheek and rested there in a welcoming caress, he knew he couldn’t be conscious. And when her lips somehow found his, he vowed to shoot any man fool enough to wake him up.

  Her kiss tasted like sugar pie to a fellow who’d lived for years on beans and hardtack. Soft. Sweet. Comforting.

  Every mouthful making him hunger for more.

  “What’s going on out here?” demanded a small voice, hoarse with sleep.

  From out of the darkness, Templeton called, “Are you all right, Mama?”

  The dog took to barking again as it ran toward the house. Caddie started and drew back from Manning in a way that told him their kiss had come as much of a surprise to her as to him.

  Perhaps he should have resented the children for interrupting, but he couldn’t. The sound of their voices made his throat tighten and his eyes sting. Somehow he knew that consulting Bobbie Stevens and returning the buckboard had been mere excuses to bring him back to Sabbath Hollow.

  Because he’d left a piece of his heart behind.

  “Everything’s fine, dear.” The quaver in Caddie’s voice contradicted her assurance to the children. “Manning’s home.”

  Would he ever hear two sweeter words?

  A junior version of the rebel battle yell erupted from the direction of the house and hurtled toward him on a stampede of young, eager feet. Manning barely had time to hunch forward and stretch his arms wide to capture them.

  Varina hit him like a warm cannonball. Her stout little arms went around his neck and squeezed so hard his head spun. Templeton gave him a less violent welcome, but no less affectionate, wedging his bony shoulder under Manning’s left arm.

  A warm breeze wafted the aroma of ripe clover. High overhead, friendly stars winked in the soft, dark sky. Manning was glad he’d come back to Sabbath Hollow at this ungodly hour, when protective shadows could veil the intensity of his emotions and a secret tear might fall to earth unmarked.

  Caddie wrapped the night around her like a quilt as she scrambled to collect the patches of her tattered composure and piece them back together.

  Never in her life had she thrown herself at a man the way she’d just done. A proper-bred Southern lady, she’d mastered the art of encouraging a favored gentleman to offer certain tokens of esteem. Offering an arm to clasp. Requesting the honor of a waltz. Perhaps begging for the liberty of a quick kiss.

  Even after she married, Del had been the one to make his approaches, while she had submitted or discouraged him according to her inclination. When he’d stopped soliciting her favors, it would have been unthinkable to press her attentions upon him. And he’d been a husband to her in more than name.

  Manning Forbes had never shown more than the faintest, most guarded interest in her as a woman. What must he think of her behavior tonight? Grabbing hold of him. Pushing her lips against his, like some painted hussy soliciting her carnal business.

  Caddie could only hope the exuberant welcome he was getting from the children and the dog would drive her brazen indiscretion from his mind. Or perhaps he’d excuse it on the grounds of her overwhelming relief to find he was not some dangerous intruder.

  Surely to goodness that had been what prompted her to drop the gun and b
olt into his arms.

  What shocked and frightened Caddie was how much she’d enjoyed those sweet, too-brief moments. Why, if the children hadn’t called out she might still be standing there, her lips tangling with Manning’s and only a threadbare cotton nightdress between his deft, purposeful hands and her supplicant body.

  She didn’t dare let herself dwell on that thought.

  “Come on now, you two!” she called to Tem and Varina. Frustration sharpened her voice more than she intended. “If you carry on like this you’ll tear the poor man to pieces, not to mention wake everybody from here to Mercer’s Corner. Tem, make that dog hush!”

  The dog quieted to a soft whimper that told Caddie he was ready to bark his head off again at a moment’s notice. She didn’t need to see her son’s face to know her rebuke had soured a little of his delight over his stepfather’s return.

  “I’m sorry for waking all of you in the middle of the night” said Manning. “I forgot the Sergeant would be on guard duty. You have to admit, he makes a fine watchdog.”

  Caddie nodded. The sound of Manning’s voice had somehow stolen hers. Why until this moment, had she never appreciated the simple pleasure of listening to him speak?

  Maybe his accent did lack the easy, melodic Southern cadence, but his voice had a deep, soothing resonance that reminded her of rain on a shingled roof. When he got riled, it could boom like thunder—which, in some curious way, added to its appeal.

  “Well...” Manning cleared his throat. “I guess... you children ought to get back to bed... maybe....”

  At Tem’s and Varina’s noises of protest, Caddie recovered her voice again. It only seemed to fail her when she tried to talk directly to Manning. “That’s right. If the pair of you stay up any longer, you’ll be cranky and quarrelsome tomorrow.”

  “Mama...?”

  She didn’t need to hear the question. “Yes, Tem, you may bring the dog to sleep in your room for the rest of the night.”

  “Woof!”

  If she hadn’t known better, Caddie would have sworn the beast understood what she’d said.

  “Good night,” Manning called after them. “I’ll be in as soon as I stable the horses.”

  Her voice still wasn’t anxious to cooperate, but Caddie forced it. “When did you eat last?”

  “I—that is—”

  “Come by the kitchen before you go to bed. I’ll fix you something. A body can’t sleep decently on an empty stomach.”

  “To tell the truth, I could eat a horse and chase the driver.” He chuckled—a sound like the wind through a pile of crackly autumn leaves. “Thanks.”

  Eating, sleeping, tending the animals―mundane, practical matters they’d so often talked about. Just as though that baffling kiss hadn’t taken them both by storm.

  Which was just how she wanted to keep relations between them, Caddie told herself as she herded the children and the dog back into the house. She was grateful to Manning for not making a fuss about her singular lapse of self-control.

  Still, a perverse streak of nature made her wish he’d betrayed some subtle sign that the rash intimacy had shaken him half as violently as it had shaken her.

  Manning’s hands shook as he removed the harness from the horses and turned them loose to graze.

  How could a man perform such commonplace chores after Caddie had kissed him? He felt as though some powerful force had smashed him to pieces, then put him back together wrong. Suddenly he had to get reacquainted with an unfamiliar body, strange new thoughts and even stranger feelings.

  True, he’d considered Caddie a very attractive woman from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. Sometimes her attitudes and reactions had exasperated him, and he hadn’t been certain if it was because she was a Southerner or because she was a woman.

  In time he’d discovered many admirable qualities about her, and found himself anxious to win her approval. But never had he thought of her running into his arms and planting that kind of kiss on him. Now he couldn’t seem to think of much else.

  What had made her do it? He could hardly guess.

  How had she felt about it once the whirlwind moment had passed? The answer to that seemed a little more obvious. Everything about her actions, her words and her tone of voice had told him she regretted it. Wanted to forget about it and pretend it had never happened.

  If that’s what she wanted, he could pretend with the best of them. But he knew it was no use trying to forget or regret that kiss.

  He delayed going into the house as long as he dared, so Caddie would have time to prepare him a bite to eat, then go back to bed. The longer an interval passed before they had to look each other in the eyes, the easier it would be to behave as if nothing had changed between them.

  Acting on a hunch, he groped around the ground at the base of the dogwood bushes and found his gun where Caddie had dropped it. A wonder it hadn’t gone off, compounding the commotion of his return.

  He sauntered back to the pump, where he washed his hands and soaked his head in an effort to keep awake long enough to eat. Finally, when he’d given Caddie time enough to cook up a five-course dinner, he hefted his gun and his rucksack then entered the candlelit kitchen through the back door.

  When he heard Caddie’s voice, he nearly jumped out of his boots.

  “I was afraid you’d changed your mind and gone back to Washington again.”

  She sat at the table, across from a place set for him, her hands wrapped around a tin mug. A thick chestnut braid hung over one shoulder, the closest Manning had come to seeing her hair unbound. She’d wrapped a shawl over her nightdress, though she surely didn’t need it for warmth on a night like this.

  “If I’d known you were waiting on me, I’d have come sooner.” Though Manning doubted his own words, he couldn’t very well tell Caddie the truth. “You shouldn’t have stayed up.”

  As he approached the table with hesitant steps, he raked his fingers through his wet hair then let them slide down over his unshaven cheek. If Caddie wasn’t already sorry for that kiss, she would be once she got a good look at him.

  She rose from her chair and retreated to the stove. “I fried you up a mess of bacon and warmed over some grits. Now that you’re here, I’ll toss in a couple of eggs.”

  “That sounds good.” The hollow ache in his stomach sharpened as she named the foods. His mouth had already begun to water at the savory smell of the bacon.

  Or was it the shadow of Caddie’s shapely legs he glimpsed through her nightdress? Manning tried to deflect his thoughts, only to find them shockingly resistant to his control.

  Caddie cracked two eggs into the frying pan. They popped and hissed in the hot bacon fat. Lifting the blue enameled coffeepot from the back of the stove, she returned to the table and poured a dark, steaming stream into Manning’s cup.

  It was half-full when she abruptly tipped the pot back. “I hope this won’t keep you from sleeping. Perhaps you’d rather have something else to drink.”

  Manning assured her the coffee would not prevent him from sleeping. Since he couldn’t say the same for the sight of her slender bare feet, he avoided mentioning them at all. Though he couldn’t keep from looking... and admiring.

  When she set the plate of hot, delicious-smelling food on the table in front of him, he insisted, “Get back to bed now. Don’t feel you have to sit up and keep me company.”

  “If I did get back to sleep now, I’d be all the more tired for it in the morning.”

  He opened his mouth, but before he could get the words out, she cut him off. “Don’t go apologizing again for getting back late. Better late than—well—the children are mighty glad to have you home.”

  Shoving away from the table, she grabbed her coffee cup and carried it to the stove for a refill. “Not that they made much secret of the fact.”

  Manning jammed a forkful of eggs and grits into his mouth to keep from asking whether she was glad to have him home.

  “How did your trip go?” She glided back to the
table, her slim, pale fingers clasped around the mug. “Anybody interested in buying our wood or the furniture?”

  His mouth full of food, Manning nodded. Once he’d washed it down with a swig of coffee, he gave Caddie a better answer. “Plenty of folks interested in the chairs and tables. We may end up using most of the wood we mill for furniture. That’d save us the cost of hauling it, anyway. Whatever we have left, I figure we can sell cheap to folks in the neighborhood for rebuilding.”

  “That’s good.” As she expelled a long, slow sigh, the anxious lines on her brow and around her eyes began to smooth out. “So we’re pretty well fixed, moneywise?” Manning couldn’t help but conclude his whole trip had been worth it, just for the look of relief on Caddie’s face.

  “I can’t promise Sabbath Hollow will ever be as prosperous as before—” He stopped himself just short of mentioning the war. “But we’ll always have a good roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and plenty of food on the table. Money to give Tem and Varina a decent education. That’s all we really need, isn’t it?”

  He was asking her something more, Manning realized with a start. What he truly wanted to know was whether she would always pine for the life she’d once enjoyed. And whether she would always hold him responsible for its loss.

  Caddie shook her head. “There’s more to life than food, clothes and shelter.”

  “Such as...?” Slaves to wait on folks hand and foot? Grand tours of Europe? Endless leisure enlivened by genteel vice?

  “Never mind.” Caddie stroked her brow. To shield her eyes, perhaps? Her voice dropped to a wistful murmur. “I expect the late hour’s making me fanciful. After the past three years, a full belly and a snug room for me and mine does sound mighty appealing. Lord knows, life has done its best to keep my expectations modest.”

  Clearly he needn’t fool himself that he had it in his power to make her happy. Why did that thought gnaw at his insides—as if the tasty meal she’d just fed him had been laced with ground glass?