In a Stranger's Arms Page 8

  Had decades of owning slaves made Southern folks too shiftless to look after themselves decently? Hard as Caddie tried to stifle that treasonous thought, it would not go away.

  The creak of Mrs. Pratt’s rocking chair filled the awkward silence as she stared off in the same direction as Caddie.

  “Well, well,” she said at last, shaking her head. “What do you reckon poor Delbert Marsh would say about his widow bringing a Yankee carpetbagger to live under his roof?”

  What indeed? And what would Del say if he caught her watching that carpetbagger with a strange hunger in her eyes? Or caressing his stubbled cheek while he slept?

  Though shame burned in her belly like a white-hot coal, Caddie did her best to answer Mrs. Pratt with calm civility... as Manning would have done. “I reckon Del might say he’s glad his children are getting plenty to eat.”

  Mrs. Pratt gave a sniff of derision. “You’re mortgaging your children’s birthright for a mess of Yankee pottage, missy. And stabbing their kinfolk in the back, while you’re about it. Mark my words, this carpetbagger of yours will hang around just long enough to wring every dime out of Sabbath Hollow, then he’ll skedaddle back up North where he belongs. When that happens, don’t think you’ll be able to turn to your neighbors for help.”

  The word kinfolk echoed in Caddie’s ears. “You’ve been listening to Lon, haven’t you? Well, let me tell you something, Mrs. Pratt. I’d trust Mr. Forbes with my children and my property any day ahead of a no-account schemer like Alonzo Marsh. Likely Del would have, too. Mr. Forbes can’t help where he was born. He may be a Yankee, but he’s decent and kind and trustworthy.”

  Even as she spoke the words, Caddie couldn’t figure where all her praise for Manning was coming from. She’d thought things about him every bit as bad as Mrs. Pratt had said. Yet Caddie found she could no more let the woman run him down than she could have sat silent while someone insulted Tem or Varina. In some strange way, whether Caddie wanted him or not, Manning now belonged to her, and she would defend him to outsiders with her last breath.

  She cast a pointed look around at the boarded windows of Willowvale’s once-imposing facade and at several broken floorboards on the porch. “My husband works harder than most menfolk around these parts, I reckon. He’s fixing up the old sawmill on Sabbath Creek and looking for a crew to work it. He’ll bargain wood contracts with anyone industrious enough to float a boom of logs down the creek. Might your boys be interested in undertaking either of those?”

  Mrs. Pratt’s tiny mouth stretched into a thin, taut line and her face blanched to the same gray-white shade as her hair.

  “No, I don’t reckon they would.” She spoke the words in a tight, vicious whisper. “Now clear off my porch and off my property, missy. You’re no better than that vile carpetbagger husband of yours.”

  During this conversation with Mrs. Pratt, Varina had remained so unnaturally quiet Caddie had almost forgotten the child was there. Rising from the footstool, she reached for her daughter’s hand. Whatever had possessed her to bring the child? Some cowardly assurance that folks would keep civil tongues in their heads in front of a four-year-old?

  Another coal of shame took fire in Caddie’s belly. Varina liked Manning. Only the powerful inducement of a fishing trip could have made her listen to so many ugly slanders against him without rebuttal.

  Shaking off her mother’s grip, Varina marched over to Mrs. Pratt’s rocking chair. The old lady seemed to relent for a moment. Perhaps in her bitterness, she had forgotten that little pitchers had big ears.

  “What’s your name, precious?”

  “Varina Virginia Marsh.”

  “After your grandmother, of course.” Mrs. Pratt looked the child over with a fond, sad smile. “Varina, you seem like a real smart little mite. For the sake of your grandma’s dearest friend, will you tell your mother what you think of her betraying your blessed papa’s memory by marrying a Yankee carpetbagger?”

  Before Caddie could gasp her indignation and whisk Varina away from Willowvale, the child spoke. “Carpetbagger’s a nasty word. You need your mouth washed out with soap for saying it.”

  As Mrs. Pratt’s face paled even whiter and her mouth opened and closed, Varina turned and walked back over to Caddie.

  “Can we leave now, Mama? I don’t like this place.” Louder, she added, “It smells bad.”

  Caddie hustled her daughter back to the buckboard before the child provoked Mrs. Pratt into a seizure of some kind.

  Not a word passed between them as they drove back up the lane at a bone-rattling clip.

  Finally, when they pulled in sight of Sabbath Hollow, Varina asked, “Where are we going next?”

  “Home.” Caddie blinked furiously to dispel a fine mist that fogged her vision. Their visit to the Pratts had been one of the most humiliating experiences of her life. She couldn’t face repeating it right away.

  “When will you go to the other places?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe.” Now that she’d had a foretaste of what to expect, she dreaded the prospect, but that didn’t matter. The mill needed workers and wood. If facing down the neighbors and countering the lies Lon had spread might help, she would do it. She just needed a little time to mend the tattered shreds of her self-respect.

  “Do I have to come with you?”

  Transferring the reins to her left hand, Caddie patted Varina’s small knee with her right “No, dear. I believe it would be better if you stayed home and went fishing.”

  “I can go? Even though I talked disrespectful and made that old lady mad?”

  Caddie had spent nearly four years trying to teach her daughter proper manners–rewarding decorous behavior, punishing impertinence. With the fortunes of the Confederacy falling, she’d sensed it might be the only lasting legacy she could bestow on her children. What she was about to do could render all those painstaking lessons useless.

  “Some things are more important than manners, dearest.”

  “They are?” Varina turned and stared at her mother as though she’d grown a tail or her face had turned blue.

  Caddie nodded. “Like sticking up for your friends when folks say mean things about them that aren’t true. I’m proud of you for doing that, Varina.” The words almost refused to pass her lips.

  “But,” she added in case her daughter should draw the wrong moral from what had happened, “I’d have been even prouder if you could have found a more respectful way to say what you had to.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The child sounded impatient with the frequently repeated admonition, but also a bit relieved that one constant in her world hadn’t shifted too dramatically.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I was proud of you, too.”

  Chapter Seven

  “YOU GOTTA TAKE me fishing tomorrow! Mama said!” Bellowing her good news, Varina raced toward Manning and Tem as they emerged from the wooded path that led to the old mill.

  The child grabbed Manning’s hand in hers and swung it in a wide, exuberant arc between them. A hearty grin spread between her plump cheeks. For a moment Manning felt his hurts ease and the weight of weariness lift from his shoulders and eyelids.

  He still had so much work ahead to make the neglected sawmill fit to operate. His goal to protect and provide for the family spurred him to keep at it every available minute. And yet...

  Didn’t he owe them something more? As a child, he’d been fed, clothed and schooled. Never known danger or harsh physical punishment. Looking back, Manning realized he’d have willingly taken a few licks, gone hungry or ragged now and then in return for a little more fun and affection in his life.

  “Fishing sounds like a fine way to spend the day.” As he looked first at the little girl and then at the boy, Manning felt the muscles of his face stretch, curve and warm in ways they never had before.

  His heart felt as if it was being stretched and warmed, too. “If you were as well behaved and as big a help to your ma this afternoon as Tem was t
o me, I guess you both deserve a treat.”

  As Manning’s gaze lingered on the boy, a smile flickered across Tem’s face and he seemed to hold his slender frame a little straighter.

  “I figgered Mama wouldn’t ’llow me to go fishing after I sassed that old lady.” Varina sounded a little suspicious of her good fortune. “But I didn’t care. She had it coming.”

  Manning ran a hand through his hair, puzzling why Caddie would reward the child for impertinence. Though she lavished plenty of affection on Tem and Varina, their mother was a stickler for good behavior—manners especially.”

  “You know, a proper young lady respects her elders, Varina.” To his surprise, Manning heard himself parroting Caddie. “I hope you apologized.”

  Varina shook her head so hard her rusty braids swung wildly. “Nope. Won’t neither till she ’pologizes for running you down.”

  The back of Manning’s throat tightened and his eyes felt like they’d been bitten by a swarm of blackflies. What had he ever done to merit such a stalwart little champion?

  He gave the child’s dimpled hand a squeeze. “You needn’t have got yourself in trouble sticking up for an old Yankee.” Hoarse with emotion, his voice sounded gruff.

  Cheerfully indifferent to his tone. Varina skipped along at Manning’s side as they neared the house. “Mama stuck up for you, too. She told Mrs. Pratt you’re kind, and dustworthy.”

  A high, wet squeal drew Manning’s gaze to the hand pump, where Caddie was filling a bucket with water. Their eyes met, then instantly averted. In that briefest exchange of glances, he could tell she’d overheard her daughter.

  Manning knew he shouldn’t ask—shouldn’t care about the answer. But he couldn’t help himself on either count. “You said that?”

  Letting go of Varina’s hand, he hefted the water bucket. The rope handle bit into his palm. He risked another quick glance at Caddie.

  If he’d caught her committing a crime, he doubted she could have looked more thoroughly unsettled. Her hands fluttered like a pair of small, pale birds. One rose to her face, pushing back a strand of rich, mahogany hair.

  Her lips parted, then clamped together again, as if waging a struggle over what words they would permit to escape. After a couple of false starts, her answer forced its way out.

  “Of course I did. How can we expect folks to do business with our mill if I’m not willing to tell them the proprietor is honest and trustworthy?”

  Trustworthy? Though he knew he should feel flattered, the word rang in Manning’s ears like an indictment. Would Caddie consider him trustworthy if she knew the secrets he’d been keeping or his true motive for coming to Sabbath Hollow?

  “My dear brother-in-law is behind all this.” Caddie’s brisk words splashed over Manning like icy well water from the bucket he carried.

  “How do you mean?” He welcomed the diversion.

  Caddie turned to the children. “You two run along and play until suppertime.”

  “Can we go dig up some worms for fishing tomorrow?” Varina looked from Caddie to Manning as if weighing which of them would most likely give consent, and who would have the final say.

  Manning held his peace.

  After a moment’s consideration, Caddie nodded. “Try not to get too dirty.”

  When Varina ran off without answering, Templeton called back, “I’ll do all the digging, Mama. Rina’ll just hold the can I put the worms into.”

  Shaking her head as if to say she’d believe that when she saw it, Caddie held open the kitchen door for Manning to tote in the bucket of water.

  “I didn’t want to say what I think of Lon in front of the children,” she muttered. “The scoundrel is their kin, even if he hasn’t acted much like it lately.”

  “Has he done something to hurt Tem or Varina?” Manning dropped his bucket, not caring that a good deal of the water sloshed out onto the kitchen floor.

  Rage thundered through him like a cavalry charge. This overwhelming urge to protect the Marsh children went far deeper than the demands of his promise. That shook him.

  Caddie looked from the spilled water to Manning’s face, her brow puckered in annoyance. “No need to get so riled up. Of course Lon hasn’t hurt the children... except by trying to prevent us earning a living.”

  “How’s he doing that?” Unnerved by the relief that swamped him, Manning fetched the mop and swiped it over the floor.

  Caddie emptied the remaining water into a pair of pots on the stove. “By going around to the neighbors and spreading all kinds of stories about us. Making folks think it’s their patriotic Southern duty not to have any dealings with a Yankee-owned sawmill.”

  She sat down at the table and began breaking a mess of early green beans into smaller pieces for the cooking pot.

  Manning leaned on his mop. “Sounds like you and Varina didn’t have a very pleasant visit this afternoon.”

  He’d worried that Caddie might not receive too warm a welcome. Lon’s gossip spreading could only have made it worse.

  Silence fell in the kitchen, punctured by the juicy snap of the beans and the soft thud of them dropping into the pot. Caddie kept her eyes cast down, as if the mindless chore demanded her total concentration.

  It looked like his plan to make life easier for the Marshes had misfired badly. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you and the children outcasts in the community.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Her voice sounded as though it had squeezed out of a tight opening. “I hate to think what a pass we’d be in by now if you hadn’t come along. Some folks just have a knack of saying the most hurtful thing a body can hear. Unfortunately, old Mrs. Pratt has always been one of them. I don’t know what possessed me to call on her first off.”

  Though reason cautioned him to keep his distance, Manning propped his mop against the doorjamb and took a step toward Caddie. “What did she say that was so hurtful?” He didn’t really expect Caddie to answer, but he had to ask just the same. It caught him by surprise when she let out a shuddering sigh and began to speak.

  “Nothing I don’t know in my heart to be true. That’s what makes it hurtful, I reckon. Nobody wants folks telling them the things they can’t bear to admit to themselves.”

  He understood far too well. Perhaps that was what dragged him another step closer to her. He sensed her reluctance to say any more, and he shared her obvious astonishment when something forced her to continue.

  “Mrs. Pratt says I’m selling my children’s birthright for a mess of Yankee pottage.”

  Manning winced. He knew how deep those words must have cut. She’d only agreed to marry him for the children’s sake. Now she was being denounced for harming them with her desperate sacrifice. Caddie had been right about Mrs. Pratt’s talent for striking at her opponent’s gravest vulnerability.

  A direct order from General Grant couldn’t have made Manning take one step closer. But when Caddie dashed the back of her hand across her eyes and swallowed a stillborn sob, his feet turned renegade, carrying him to her. Before reason could protest, he dropped to his knees beside her chair and gathered her into his arms.

  He didn’t tell her to hush, for some intuition warned him it would do her good to cry. He’d come to know her well enough to be certain she didn’t often allow herself the luxury of a moment’s weakness.

  Denouncing Lon Marsh or Mrs. Pratt probably wasn’t a good idea either. Caddie seemed to resent him speaking ill of any Southerner. Manning longed to croon some foolish endearment, but he didn’t know any. Nothing in his past life had taught him words like that.

  Not knowing what to say, he kept quiet. He just held Caddie in a firm but gentle embrace, willing mute sympathy to radiate from his heart. He kept expecting her to pull away from him at any second, but she didn’t. Not even after her sobs subsided to a sniffle now and then.

  As those seconds stretched into minutes, feelings he’d been evading for over a week suddenly ambushed Manning and took no prisoners. He fought a desperate rearguard skirmish against des
ire, but it overpowered the ragged forces of his will to rage through his body.

  Caddie fit into his arms so perfectly, like the snuggest dovetail joint that hardly needed glue or peg to hold it in place. Her fragrant feminine softness promised to fill a gaping void he’d refused to acknowledge in his life. Her nearness roused him and tempted him to venture even closer.

  If she felt this good sitting on an old kitchen chair, fully clothed and with her hair pinned up... His imagination caught fever as he pictured Caddie sprawled naked on a feather bed. Manning’s mouth went dry and every inch of his flesh smoldered. The kiss he didn’t dare give her burned on his lips.

  If he held on to her much longer, Manning suspected his sense, his honor, even his fear might be incinerated to useless ashes. They wouldn’t provide any kind of barrier to prevent him making the second worst mistake of his life.

  With an awkwardness born of forcing himself to do the opposite of what he wanted, he let Caddie go and scrambled to his feet.

  “If I can’t get men to work, or wood to mill, it doesn’t make much sense for us to stay around these parts.” He spoke the first suitable words that came into his head. “I’ve got enough saved to let us make a fresh start somewhere else. Out west in the border states, maybe.”

  When Caddie tensed and her tear-streaked features stiffened, Manning knew he’d blundered yet again.

  “Leave Sabbath Hollow? Not while I have breath in my body. This is my children’s home and I mean to see it thriving again by the time Templeton’s old enough to claim it in his own right.”

  She snatched the pot of beans from the table and slammed it onto the stove, cheap tin clashing with futile defiance against thick black iron. “No sneaking scoundrel of a brother-in-law and no shiftless, gossipy neighbors are going to stop me, either!”

  Had she meant to add no Yankee carpetbagger husband to that list? Manning wondered. He’d been a fool to think Caddie had softened her attitude toward him on the basis of a moment’s weakness and a few words in his defense hurled at old Mrs. Pratt.