In a Stranger's Arms

by Hale Deborah

  It would hurt her, though. She tried not to show it, but Manning could tell just the same.

  “I want to.” Surely she would hear the raw need trembling in his voice, and believe him.

  Her hunger to be cherished and desired must come before everything. Even before his perverse urge to punish himself.

  Manning shut the door behind him. He pictured himself shutting out his doubts, his dread and anything else that might cast a shadow over the loving he was about to give this woman.

  Late-summer twilight deepened and a warm breeze wafted in the partly open window.

  “In that case—” Caddie stepped toward him and began to untie his cravat “—could I get you to unfasten my dress? Some of the hooks are fearful hard to reach.”

  Manning shrugged out of his coat. “I guess I could manage that, seeing as you had to undress us both last time.”

  Presenting her back to him, Caddie lit a candle on top of her bureau. “May as well be able to see what you’re doing.”

  She meant to keep her tone light and casual, Manning was pretty sure, but a beseeching note crept into it in spite of her. For some reason, this mattered to her.

  It mattered to him, too. Manning’s fingers fumbled with the tiny hooks down the back of her dress. This wasn’t a case of all cats being gray in the dark. Caddie didn’t want just any warm male body as a substitute for the husband she’d lost. She wanted him and he must not fail her.

  Turn about, they undressed one another. Only the quickening rasps of their breath frayed the edge of their intent silence. When the last of Caddie’s undergarments had parted company from her glorious body, Manning could keep silent no longer.

  “I can’t believe it” He shook his head, amazed.

  “Believe what?” Caddie glanced down at herself, a spasm of embarrassment contorting her features.

  Manning reached out and stroked a long red-brown curl that dangled over her shoulder. “That you could be any more beautiful than I remembered.”

  She couldn’t dismiss his words as flattery when his body bore such compelling witness to their truth.

  Manning leaned past her to twitch back the bedclothes, then he took Caddie in his arms and eased her down onto the sheets. As a warm summer night enfolded the Virginia countryside, Manning satisfied Caddie, by touch and kiss and whispered word, that she was everything he’d ever dreamed of in a woman, and so much more than he had ever hoped to find.

  He fashioned himself into an instrument for her pleasure, all his senses alert to the faintest sound or movement that might suggest what she wanted next.

  He couldn’t deny that part of what she wanted was to caress him, explore his body and give him pleasure, too. Something in him tried to resist the seductive power of her touch, withholding a scrap of reason to sit in judgment on the rest of him. In the end, he could resist her no more than oil-soaked tinder could resist the kiss of the flame.

  The first time they’d made love, on that drunken stormy night, he’d felt enough to pierce the thick fog of his pain and stupor, winging him away to bliss. Tonight the intensity of sensation tread a razor-fine edge past which pleasure must become pain—perhaps even death.

  Leisurely at first, their kissing and fondling grew more and more fevered until they blundered together, straining for release. As Caddie whimpered and panted in his arms, her body clutched Manning in a series of delicious spasms that pulverized his consciousness into a handful of glittering dust and scattered it to the four winds.

  When he woke to a pearly dawn, Manning held Caddie and stroked her hair. He didn’t give her a chance to look into his eyes, though, in case she should find some lingering regret there and mistake its cause.

  “Whereabouts are you going to sleep tonight?” she teased him.

  After a long simmering kiss, he replied, “Wherever you want me to.”

  They both chuckled, knowing where that would be.

  After breakfast, they washed up the dishes from the party. Then the whole family went to church in Mercer’s Corner, where their neighbors politely pretended as if nothing untoward had passed at the barbecue.

  For lunch they ate a cold collation of food left over from the party. At Tem and Varina’s urging, all four of them, and the dog, went fishing. Though they didn’t catch so much as a tadpole, the whole family had a fine time.

  Finally, late in the afternoon, Manning stole away to his bedroom, determined once and for all to destroy Caddie’s last letter to Delbert Marsh.

  When he could not find it in the wooden box on his bureau, at the bottom of his rucksack or in the breast pocket of any of his coats or shirts, he understood at last why he had kept it all this time.

  Because deep down, some part of him had wanted to be caught and punished for what he’d done.

  Now he would be.

  Chapter Twenty

  SOMETHING WAS EATING that man alive from the inside out. He thought he had her fooled, the way he managed to fool the children, but Caddie wasn’t deceived. If there had been such a disease as consumption of the soul, that’s exactly what she would have diagnosed. As the golden days and warm fragrant nights of summer passed, Caddie pondered the possible cause of Manning’s condition and searched with growing desperation for a cure.

  Many men fretted over their business affairs, but Caddie knew that couldn’t be Manning’s trouble. She kept the books, after all. Ever since the sale of the family silver had paid off their back taxes and provided a small cushion of capital, orders had begun to pour in. Manning and Bobbie were talking over plans to build a second shop, closer to the main road and fully enclosed so they could continue to make furniture even after the creek froze and the mill sat idle during the winter months.

  If anything, the load that seemed to weigh her husband down lightened when he was engrossed in his work.

  From her seat on the porch, shelling peas, Caddie heard the whoops and squeals of the children playing with Jeff Pratt’s little nephew. Tem and Varina provided a powerful but temporary antidote to whatever ailed Manning. When he became absorbed in one of their games, or in reading to them here on the porch before bedtime, Caddie would watch and brood over the three of them, tantalized by visions of the truly happy life they could have. If only...

  The front door opened and Dora appeared with the broom. She began to sweep the porch, humming a tune under her breath and moving with swaying, dancelike steps. Her sweet, dreamy smile put Caddie in mind of a velvety pansy, dark and demure.

  “Once you’re finished here, why don’t you leave early today, dear? Ann told me you’d offered to walk little Rafe up to the mill to meet Jeff.”

  Dora broke from her private musings with a guilty blush. “I believe I’ll take you up on that, Miz Caddie. Thank you.”

  “Does that mean you and Jeff are courting?”

  “Something like that” Dora sighed. “Ann and Bobbie have asked us to stand up with them when they get married. Jeff has this prideful notion that a blind husband would be a great burden to me.”

  Caddie shook her head. “Men! Their minds just don’t work the same as ours. I hope you’re succeeding in talking some sense into him.”

  “I reckon I’m making headway.” Dora tried to look demure.

  “Good for you,” Caddie chuckled. “Now scoot off and see if you can make a little more.”

  When Dora had gone, still humming the fiddle tune to which she and Jeff had danced at the barbecue, Caddie wandered inside to start supper.

  If work wasn’t the problem with Manning, she decided as she fried a mess of chicken, and neither were the children, could it be her? Old doubts about herself as a woman and a wife insisted she must be to blame. But when she remembered how Manning worshipped her in the privacy of her bedroom, a stubborn confidence took root, assuring her that was not the trouble, either.

  Part of her wanted to keep up a cheerful facade and ignore whatever was wrong, hoping and trusting it would go away in time. Experience warned her that life’s challenges needed to be faced an
d overcome. Tonight she would cradle him to her bosom and ask him to tell her what was wrong. Beg him if necessary.

  And if he didn’t unburden himself tonight, she’d ask again tomorrow and the next night and the next, assuring him that she would love him no matter what.

  Perhaps she could find the courage to trade him one painful secret for another, by telling him about Del and Lydene.

  When Manning saw Lon Marsh, he knew his own personal Judgment Day had arrived at last.

  His crew had all left for the day and he’d been just about to head home for supper.

  “What do you want, Marsh?” he challenged, as if he didn’t know.

  Leave it to Lon to wait awhile before confronting him. Playing him like an increasingly exhausted trout on the end of a fly rod. Letting uncertainty and worry snag him like a sharp hook. Paying out just enough line to tease him with false hope. Now Lon had come to reel in his catch.

  With slow, mocking movements, Lon drew from his breast pocket... a cigar.

  As Manning released his bated breath, Lon made a leisurely ritual of trimming and lighting his smoke. “It’s not so much what I want, Yankee. You and I both know what that is.”

  Again he reached into his pocket. “It’s more about what I’ve got.” This time he withdrew a piece of paper.

  Manning didn’t have to ask what it was. “How’d you get hold of that?”

  “Does it matter?” Lon grinned. “Let’s just say my wife doesn’t often miss a trick. I take it as a grave personal insult you spurned Lydene’s favors when she offered them. She told me you must have something in that box on your bureau that you didn’t want folks to see. I came back in later and had a peek. Danged if Lydene wasn’t right.”

  Lon turned the paper in his hand, looking at it from several different angles. “What beats the hell out of me is why you kept it around all this time? Were you brazen, or forgetful, or just plain stupid?”

  Manning didn’t reply. He’d finally figured out the answer to that question himself, and he didn’t owe Lon Marsh the truth of it.

  His silence seemed to vex the man worse than a scornful retort.

  Del’s letter clutched in his fist, Lon stabbed the air with his forefinger. “The only reason folks around here have accepted you is because they think you’re my brother masquerading as a Yankee.” He gave a harsh snort of laughter. “As if Del would ever be smart enough to dream up a scheme like that. We both know better, though, don’t we, Carpetbagger? The only way you could have come by this letter is if you took it off my brother’s dead body. Right after you killed him.”

  Not right after. Several long hours—the worst of Manning’s life—had passed between firing that shot and receiving the letter. And he hadn’t taken it. Del Marsh had given it to him. None of that altered Lon’s charge, or the verdict.

  “Guilty!” cried Lon. “It’s written all over your face.”

  Manning shrugged. “What are you going to do about it? No court’s going to convict one soldier of killing another in battle.”

  That rocked Lon back on his heels, but only for a second. “I don’t need no judge and jury to make you swing, Yankee. What do you reckon Caddie will say when she finds out it was you made her a widow? Or those young’uns you make so much of. How are they going to look at you when they hear tell you’re the Yankee who shot their pa? What about all these folks who work for you and take on like you’re the Second Coming of Stonewall Jackson? I reckon they’ll change their tune when they find out you aren’t my brother, after all, but a real live Yankee who cut him down in his prime.”

  Backed into a corner with nothing left to lose, Manning found his self-respect again. He pulled himself up tall. “In that case, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you down in the parlor of Sabbath Hollow telling all this to Caddie?”

  Lon took a long draw on his cigar, expelling the smoke in a leisurely breath. He smiled at Manning like a schoolmaster whose star pupil had just ciphered a complicated equation. “You know the answer to that as well as I do. I’ve got something you want—this letter and my silence. And you’ve got something I want.”

  He jerked his head in the direction of Sabbath Hollow. “This plantation. Nothing’s going to bring my brother back, so I might as well salvage what I can for myself.”

  “And your brother’s widow and children can go to hell?” snapped Manning.

  “Or Oregon.” Lon shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. If you can convince Caddie to deed Sabbath Hollow to me, you can take her and the young’uns wherever you want to start over.”

  “You mean it?”

  He’d thought the hour of reckoning was upon him. Instead Lon was offering to let him off with all that really mattered to him. Now that Caddie’d had time to realize Sabbath Hollow would never be more than a shabby shadow of its former glory, she might be prepared to go elsewhere. Someplace not haunted by ghosts from the past. Someplace a boy like Tem could make his own way in the world, rather than being weighed down by family tradition and the expectations of his elders.

  Manning had the skills to make a decent living for them wherever they went. It would be even easier in the booming economy of the North than here with the upkeep of that grand house like a millstone around their necks.

  And yet... “What if I can’t talk Caddie into it?”

  With a flourish, Lon tucked the letter back into his coat pocket. “You’d better try to be real persuasive, Carpetbagger. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to be off my property.”

  He pivoted on the toe of one well-polished riding boot and sauntered back to where he’d tethered his horse. Mounting with careless grace, Alonzo Marsh rode away without once looking back.

  Manning watched him go, wondering what he’d have done if he’d been carrying his Union issue rifle just then. At least if he shot Lon Marsh, he’d have a reason.

  For what seemed like a long time after Lon rode off, Manning stood in the mill clearing while his heart wrestled his conscience for control of his future. Finally, when each had beaten the other bloody, he stumbled back to Sabbath Hollow to talk with Caddie.

  They must talk.

  Whether she had to threaten, wheedle, badger or plead, Caddie refused to let another night go by without finding out what was eating at her husband.

  She watched him at supper with the children, pretending to enjoy her fried chicken and beaten biscuits, exclaiming over the children’s account of their day. All the while his eyes betrayed the anguish inside him.

  “Rafe helped us learn Sergeant a new trick today,” announced Varina.

  “Did he, indeed? And what trick might that be? Not picking pockets, I hope.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I don’t suppose you taught him to howl ‘The Star Spangled Banner’? A body could make good money in the music halls with a stunt like that.”

  “No-oo!” Varina wrinkled up her nose. “That’s silly.”

  “I guess it is.” Manning winked at Tem, who shook with laughter. “It’s no use hoping you’d taught the Sergeant a real exciting trick like jumping through a barrel hoop. That’d be far too hard.”

  “We did it! We did—honest.”

  “Well, that’s truly amazing. Any chance you’d put on a show for your ma and me after supper?”

  “Yessiree! Come on, Tem. We got to practice.”

  After the children darted off, Caddie cleared their plates in silence. Returning to the table, she stopped behind Manning’s chair and slipped her arms around his neck. “That was quite a performance. Tem and Varina will never guess there’s anything bothering you, but you can’t fool me.”

  His shoulders bowed. “Then it couldn’t have been much of a performance, after all.”

  She nuzzled his hair with her cheek and tightened her hold on him. “I can’t let this go on any longer. One way or another, I am going to find out what’s been tearing at you. Now. Tonight. I didn’t survive everything I have by taking no for an answer.”

  A sigh gusted o
ut of him—the saddest, weariest sound Caddie had ever heard. “Give me this one more hour before the children go to bed. That’s all I ask.”

  He sounded like a condemned prisoner requesting a last meal. Caddie almost recanted her demand for answers. If the trouble was that bad, maybe she’d be better off not knowing about it. But she couldn’t let Manning continue to shoulder the burden alone.

  She tightened her embrace, pressing her face into his hair, willing her love and support into him. “Whatever’s wrong, maybe we can find a way to fix it.”

  For the longest time he didn’t reply, just sat there. Then he disengaged one of her hands from around his neck and raised it to his lips.

  “You said it yourself, Caddie—some things can’t be forgiven.” The hoarseness of his voice rasped across her heart. “And some things can’t be fixed.”

  Could the man be dying of some incurable disease? she wondered as Manning put on a brave face to watch Sergeant’s tricks and help her put Tem and Varina to bed. If he was, she hadn’t seen or felt any sign of it on his lean, firm-muscled body during the nights they’d spent together. Were their nights together numbered, too?

  Closing the children’s door behind them, Caddie reached for Manning’s hand. “I know I said I wanted some answers tonight but now that I think on it perhaps it can wait till morning. Things always look better after a good sleep.”

  Did the husky note of desire in her voice tell him she wasn’t thinking about sleep?

  Perhaps.

  Manning shook his head, but reluctantly, as though his body wasn’t anxious to cooperate. “One more night with you would only make it harder to do what I have to do, Caddie-girl.”

  He headed for the stairs, towing her behind him. “Let’s go sit on the porch. I don’t want the children overhearing us.”

  “Very well.”

  A whippoorwill called from the hollow as they seated themselves. For some reason, the odd whistling cry struck Caddie as plaintive, as if the little woodland bird was bidding its mate farewell or calling in vain for one it had lost.