In a Stranger's Arms Read online

  The direction of their future settled, Manning headed off to tackle a few more small repairs around the house before sundown. Once Caddie had gone to bed, he would lock up the house and turn in. The last thing he wanted was another embarrassing encounter like this morning.

  He’d gone a few steps up the back stairs when another thought struck him. “While I’m in town,’’ he called down to Caddie, “I’ll see if I can hire someone to help you around the house.”

  “Can we afford that?” She sounded almost offended by the suggestion. “I’m quite capable of managing on my own.”

  Was she talking about a hired girl, Manning wondered, or about him?

  She’d been forced to accept his help, but she resented the necessity—that much was clear. When it came to Varina’s stubbornness, Manning didn’t think that little crabapple had fallen far from the maternal tree.

  He turned and looked back at Caddie—tattered, overworked, but somehow still regal. Her fierce pride and bullheaded independence would not make it easy for him to fulfill his vow. He couldn’t let it stop him, no matter how much he admired those qualities.

  “We all need help now and then, ma’am. There’s no shame in accepting it.”

  Chapter Six

  “YOU’RE A FINE one to talk about accepting help with good grace, Mr. Forbes.” Caddie’s voice echoed in the bare entry hall. She shot Manning a challenging look as she donned her bonnet.

  A full week had passed since their negotiated agreement to reopen the old sawmill, yet they still hadn’t engaged a single worker. Despite the notices Manning had put up all over Mercer’s Corner no lumber contracts had been forthcoming and no girls from the neighborhood had inquired about the housekeeping job. Caddie intended to find out why.

  “Give it a little more time.” Manning raked long fingers through his dark hair.

  Stiffened with sweat, it stood on end like the bristles of a corn broom. It shouldn’t have looked the least bit attractive to a fastidious woman like Caddie.

  But it did—damn it.

  “Your neighbors probably don’t get into town that often,” Manning protested. “Word will find its way around in time.”

  “It certainly will.” Caddie spoke in a brisk tone as she pulled on her last decent pair of gloves. “For I intend to spread it myself. You need a crew of good workmen to finish the repairs on that mill. Mark my words, if you keep trying to do everything by yourself, you’re going to wind up injured. Or else get yourself run down until you fall ill. I’ve lost one husband, sir. I can’t afford to lose another.”

  Was it her imagination, or did Manning’s complexion suddenly take on a grayish pallor? The stormy look in his steel-blue eyes was surely more than her fancy. Could the man be that set on working himself to death? Or was it something more?

  He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t like you having to go cap in hand to your neighbors on my account.”

  Neither did she, but Caddie wasn’t about to let that stop her. Having discovered something she could do to speed the rehabilitation of Sabbath Hollow, she wouldn’t have let the entire Army of the Potomac stand in her way.

  Manning had been working too hard.

  Though she wouldn’t have let him guess it for the world, genuine concern lay beneath her offhand talk of losing another husband. Every morning, that ornery old rooster had barely finished crowing when Manning took a corn pone and a piece of cold meat for his breakfast, then trudged up the hill and through the woods to the mill. Awhile after the sun had set behind the Blue Ridge Mountains, he dragged himself back to Sabbath Hollow for a late supper.

  Every evening Caddie noticed some new injury—a gash on his forehead, a blackened thumbnail, a slight limp. And every evening Manning appeared more exhausted from his day’s labor. Last night he’d fallen asleep at the supper table before he could even finish his meal. When no amount of calling succeeded in rousing him, Caddie had been obliged to shake his shoulder.

  But not before the sight of his peaceful, unguarded features had tempted her to graze her fingertips down the side of his face and rest for a furtive, tender moment on his jutting chin. Many hours later, the memory of that stolen touch fueled a scorching blush in her own face.

  She turned away from Manning, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “It’s not as though I’ll be begging for handouts. I’ll just pay a few social calls on my neighbors, to let them know the children and I are home. If I happen to mention the sawmill in conversation, where’s the harm in that?”

  Before Manning could tell her what harm there might be, she walked over to the bottom of the stairs and called up. “Varina, Templeton, come on, now. I’m pretty near ready to go.”

  With a deafening clatter quite out of proportion to her small feet, Varina charged down the staircase. Templeton dawdled quietly along behind her with his faithful canine shadow. Though Caddie saw the brindle-colored mongrel dozens of times a day, his homeliness never failed to jar her. During the past week, the dog’s faithful devotion to Tem had begun to win her heart in spite of his appearance.

  Varina dashed straight at Manning. Perhaps to keep from being barreled over, he bent and scooped her up into his arms. Though he tried hard to hide it, Caddie saw him wince. Her daughter was a sturdy little armful, especially for a man with so many injuries.

  “Do I look pretty?” As usual, Varina didn’t ask a question so much as demand an answer.

  Before Caddie could exclaim in outrage at such forwardness, Manning nodded. “Pretty as a picture.”

  “Pretty as Mama?”

  “Varina Marsh!” Though Caddie tried to force her gaze away from Manning, it flew right to him.

  Their eyes met and locked. Caddie doubted she’d blushed as often during all her debutante days as she had in the past fortnight. Many years had passed since she’d been so intensely conscious of herself as a woman, or cared if a man noticed how she looked.

  She didn’t want to give a fig what Manning Forbes thought of her, any more than she wanted the sound of his footsteps on the porch to set her heart skipping like a flat stone across a still pond. He’d turned her world upside down. Did he have to thaw out her long-frozen emotions and set them all topsy-turvy, too?

  “Pretty as Mama?” Varina’s question jolted Manning so hard that he almost dropped the child on her sturdy little backside.

  In spite of his futile resistance, Caddie lured his gaze to her. Manning saw what he’d been running from for the past week—a woman who grew more beautiful and desirable by the day.

  Through the shock of that realization, he managed to choke out a diplomatic answer to Varina’s question. “I’m sure you will be once you’re a grown-up lady. If you keep your hair combed and your face clean, that is.”

  The child wrinkled up her nose as if at a bad smell. “Then I reckon being pretty ain’t worth the bother.”

  Caddie shook her head and gazed heavenward. Manning chuckled as the brittle tension between them shattered into tiny harmless pieces. He nuzzled Varina’s plump cheek, coaxing her into a fit of giggles.

  “I wager you’ll change your tune in about a dozen years, young lady.” He swung her down onto her feet. “For today, I’m sure you’ll charm all the neighbors.”

  “Not if she goes fishing for compliments, she won’t.” Caddie beckoned to her daughter.

  “What kind of fish is that? I want to learn to catch ’em.”

  “Not a fish you eat, Rina.” Templeton spoke up from his perch on the bottom step as he petted the dog. “When folks fish for compliments it means they ask if they’re clever or if they look pretty. Fishing for compliments is bad manners.”

  Perhaps figuring she’d as soon be hanged for a sheep as a goat, Varina spun around and stuck her tongue out at her brother.

  The muscles in Manning’s face ached from his strenuous effort not to grin.

  “That’ll be quite enough of that, missy.” Caddie brushed a smudge of dust off Varina’s skirt and straightened her hair bow. “If you can’t behave nicely, I
won’t be able to take you along.”

  A small lower lip thrust out. “Suits me. I’d sooner go up to the mill with Manning.”

  He had visions of his whole week’s labor undone in an hour.

  “Me, too, Mama.” Templeton spouted his little sister’s favorite phrase.

  Caddie looked from one of her children to the other, motherly exasperation written plainly on her face.

  Manning suspected a little of it extended to him, as well. For the life of him he couldn’t figure why. The woman didn’t seem to need any better reason than his presence in her house to be provoked.

  Taking Varina’s hand in a firm grip, Caddie motioned for Tem to join them. “I declare, you two. The poor man has his hands full enough at that mill without playing mammy to both of you for the afternoon. You’ll come with me and you’ll behave nicely, or we will have words. Is that understood?”

  The dispirited tone of Tem and Varina’s “Yes, Mama” chorus tugged at Manning.

  “Ah... ma’am?”

  Caddie lifted a finely arched brow to inquire what he wanted.

  “I... well, the fact is, I could use the boy’s help up at the mill for a few hours, if you’d oblige me by letting him stay.”

  The transparent mixture of happiness and gratitude on Templeton’s face gladdened Manning more than anything in a long time. Caddie’s look of horror cast him back down again in the space of a heartbeat. My, but that woman had a talent for putting a worm in a fellow’s apple!

  “I’m sorry to disoblige you, sir. The mill’s too dangerous a place for my son. If anything should happen to him—”

  Manning cut her off. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to him. I’m talking about simple jobs like holding a board steady for me to nail so as I don’t hammer any more of my fingers.”

  “I could do that, Mama. Please.”

  Varina yanked on her mother’s arm. “Me, too, Mama!”

  Now look what you’ve done. Caddie’s glare said it plainer than words.

  A quick stride took Manning to the little girl. He dropped to his haunches before her. “Your mama needs you with her even more than I do, Varina. I tell you what, though. If you go along and behave yourself real well, I promise I’ll take you fishing tomorrow. Tem, too, if your mama needs him to go.”

  “Fishing—yahoo!” Varina jumped up and down in most unladylike excitement.

  Tem hung his head.

  As Caddie’s eyes rested on her son for an instant, Manning sensed her struggle between a mother’s natural protectiveness and an intense desire to make the boy happy.

  “I suppose Templeton can lend you a hand for the afternoon, if you both promise me you’ll be very careful.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Manning and Templeton replied together, exchanging a look of triumphant allies.

  When Manning rose to his feet, he caught Caddie regarding him with a very different expression. He’d seen one like it on the face of a Union general whose battlefield blunder had been remedied by the quick thinking of a junior officer.

  The look had not been one of gratitude.

  She should be grateful to the man, a feeble voice of prewar gentility protested in Caddie’s mind as she and Varina drove off to pay their calls around the neighborhood.

  Thanks to his providence, she and her children were eating better than they had in years. She didn’t have to endure the humiliation of staying at Sabbath Hollow as guests of Lon and Lydene. In large measure, she’d been able to shift the heavy burden of reviving the plantation onto Manning’s broad shoulders. But didn’t the Yankees owe her at least that much for all they’d stolen? The caustic bile of bitterness stung in Caddie’s throat. If not for Manning Forbes and hundreds of thousands like him, her family’s fortunes wouldn’t need restoring. Sabbath Hollow would still be gracious and prosperous. Her children would never have known a moment’s hunger or fear. And they wouldn’t need a stepfather, kind or otherwise, for their own pa would still be living.

  A shiver ran up Caddie’s back and the contents of her stomach curdled to think what her married life would be like if the war had not intervened. Not for an instant would she credit Del’s death as a favor on the part of the Yankees. Though the tensions and ill will in their marriage had festered as acutely as those between North and South on the eve of Fort Sumter, Caddie had never wished her husband dead.

  Had she?

  “Where are we going, Mama?”

  Her daughter’s question rescued Caddie from having to face the impossibly painful inquisition of her conscience.

  “Several places, dear. Willowvale, Gordon Manor, Oak Hill.”

  Just saying the names lightened her mood, bringing back fond memories of parties, hunts and racing meets. Dressing up pretty and dancing, gossiping with the women and flirting innocently with the men.

  “Which one first?” Below the hem of Varina’s skirts, two sturdy pantalet-clad legs swung back and forth in time to the jingle of the horse’s harness.

  “The Pratt place, Willowvale.” Caddie tugged on the reins to urge their old mare off the road and down the Pratts’ long lane. “They’re a fine old family. Mrs. Pratt was your grandma Marsh’s dearest friend and her husband once sat in the General Assembly.”

  “Anybody there to play with?” Varina didn’t sound much impressed by the Pratt family pedigree.

  “I don’t reckon so. Mrs. Pratt’s family are all grown. Some of them might be married and have young’uns, though.”

  Varina craned her neck and raised a hand to shade her eyes as she peered toward the plantation house. “I see somebody!”

  The child’s eagerness made Caddie wonder if bringing Varina along had been such a wise idea.

  She cast her daughter a sidelong glance. “You recollect what you were told about behaving yourself, young lady. Mrs. Pratt always was most particular about good children being seen and not heard. If you want to go fishing tomorrow, you’ll have to make sure you only speak when you’re spoken to and then give a nice, respectful answer. Is that understood?”

  Heaving a dramatic sigh, Varina clasped her hands primly in her lap. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Thank goodness for Manning’s blatant bribe. An impulse of unforced gratitude gripped Caddie’s heart.

  Reining the buckboard to a halt, she glanced at the Pratts’ sprawling plantation house of cream-colored brick. The place looked to be in worse shape than Sabbath Hollow. The whole roof of the east wing had collapsed and most of the windows had been clumsily boarded up. When the Yankees had first marched through this part of Virginia, had the Pratts refugeed elsewhere, never to return?

  As if to dispel Caddie’s doubts, the front door flew open and a young woman in a black dress rushed out. Sleeves that should have fit snugly on slender arms hung painfully loose on hers.

  She called back to an older woman who had stepped onto the porch. “Visitors, Mother. Isn’t this a treat? We’ve had more company the past week than we got all winter. I reckon the worst of hard times are behind us.”

  “I hope they are, Ann.” Caddie climbed down from the buckboard and greeted the young woman with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Ann Pratt jerked to a halt, like a greyhound curbed hard by an invisible leash. Her half-eager, half-anxious smile vanished. “Caddie? What are you doing here?”

  Turning to the buckboard, Caddie lifted Varina down. She forced herself to overlook Ann’s uncivil greeting. Folks weren’t accustomed to receiving visitors like they’d once been—Ann had said as much, herself. No doubt Mrs. Pratt would correct her daughter’s manners as Caddie would have corrected Varina.

  “I apologize for taking so long to get around and call on everyone, ladies.” She raised her voice to include Mrs. Pratt in the conversation. “The children and I came home from Richmond a little over a fortnight ago, but we’ve been busy getting settled back in at Sabbath Hollow. I can’t stay long. I just wanted to give everyone our regards and catch up on all the news.”

  From the porch, Mrs. Pratt spok
e. “We heard you were back.” Her tone left Caddie no doubt that those tidings hadn’t cheered Willowvale. “We also heard you’d remarried in some haste.”

  Tilting her chin defiantly, Caddie clutched Varina’s hand a little tighter. “I have remarried.”

  “I’m surprised you had the face to call on folks,” said the older woman, as her daughter continued to stare at Caddie in mild horror. “If you’re brazen enough to come, I reckon I’m curious enough to let you sit a spell. Though no further than the porch, mind. The devil take it if I’ll entertain a Yankee carpetbagger’s wh—” she broke off, then amended “—wife in my home. Ann, fetch us some chairs.”

  Ann backed toward the house as though she didn’t dare risk turning away from their less-than-welcome guests.

  For a moment Caddie toyed with the notion of telling Mrs. Pratt the devil could take her, then driving away with her nose in the air.

  But reason prevailed.

  What had she expected? it asked Caddie in a wry voice strangely reminiscent of Manning’s. Had she entertained some impossibly optimistic notion that the neighbors, isolated on their plantations, struggling to put food on the table, hadn’t heard about her remarriage? She should have known better. This kind of gossip spread faster than measles in an army camp.

  Towing Varina by the hand, Caddie picked her way over rutted ground and past overgrown shrubs to the Pratts’ front porch. Alienating the neighbors wouldn’t get the sawmill operating. And it sure wouldn’t put any logs in the millpond.

  Ann reappeared with a rocking chair for her mother to sit on. Caddie pretended not to notice the gaping hole in its cane seat. The footstool Ann offered her had seen better days, too.

  Off in one of the fields, Caddie could see a man and a boy walking hand in hand. Why was Jeff Pratt strolling around his acres instead of planting them? Why hadn’t he or Josh or Willie thought to take unbroken panes of glass from some windows to repair the most important ones, as Manning had done at Sabbath Hollow? Why couldn’t he have spared a few minutes to tack a slab of cut lumber on the seat of his old mother’s rocking chair? The place even smelled of wood rot and mildew.