In a Stranger's Arms (14 page)

She glanced back up again. Her eyes sparkled with interest, but her puckered brow looked guarded. “You know I’ll be glad to help out if I can. What is it you need me to do?”

Manning’s Adam’s apple bobbed wildly in his throat. He’d been trying so hard to keep both physical and emotional distance from Caddie. But the further he pulled away, the tighter some invisible cord between them stretched, until he feared it would wrench him off his feet and propel him forcefully into her arms.

“I need somebody to keep the books, and I think you’d be good at it.” He gestured to indicate the entry hall, unfurnished but immaculate. “You’re so methodical. Even before Miss Gordon came, you always kept the house neat as a pin. Everything in the kitchen has its place. I marveled at how you packed so much onto that old buckboard for your trip from Richmond.”

Caddie looked flustered, but a trifle flattered, too. For a wild moment Manning mistook her for eighteen instead of twenty-eight.

“You’re very observant, sir. Not everyone considers my craving for order a virtue, I’m afraid” She pulled a droll face. “My daughter, for instance.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. Nor could he stop himself from meeting her gaze. “Well, I do.”

The laughter froze in Manning’s throat, yet he had to clamp his lips tight to imprison a torrent of words that threatened to gush out of him. He longed to tell Caddie of all her other special qualities he’d noticed. Some he’d sensed from the beginning, like her strength of will and her devotion to her children. Others, like her concern for anyone in trouble and her appreciation of the smallest kindness, had taken him by surprise as he’d come to know her better.

Caddie’s gaze faltered before his, falling once again to the ledger in his hands. “I—I’ve never kept accounts before, other than the household money. What if I made a mistake?”

His face suddenly felt cold, as if all the blood had leached out of it. “Everybody makes mistakes, Caddie.”

He certainly had. Was he making a big one right now? Putting forward a plan that would force the two of them into more frequent contact. Standing so close to her without the distracting presence of Tem and Varina. Close enough that he might reach out and graze her hair with his fingertips, if his shaky self-control slipped for an instant.

Perhaps it wasn’t too late to correct his mistake. “If you’d rather not—”

At the very moment he pulled the ledger up to shield his chest, Caddie raised her hand to rest on the book’s green cover. Its movement towed her a step closer to Manning and brought her fingertips to rest against the base of his neck. The lightest of touches, yet it threatened to cut off his air.

Caddie wrenched her hand away and took a step backward. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I only meant... I’d need your... help.” She made it sound like a shameful admission.

“It... isn’t so difficult.” A good deal easier than catching his breath. “You just keep track of the money coming in on one side of the ledger and the money going out on the other side. Whatever’s left over at the end of each month is our profit.”

“I reckon I could manage that.” One corner of Caddie’s mouth curved upward, coaxing just the hint of a dimple where her face had begun to fill out.

Manning caught himself inhaling deeply, to draw as much of her scent into his lungs as they would hold. It reminded him of the fresh sweet aroma of an orchard after a spring rain.

His hands clamped down on the ledger to keep them from trembling. More desperately than he’d fought at Gettysburg, Manning battled his urge to drop the book and seize his wife instead. Feasting on her lips and glutting his nostrils on her fragrance, he might find the nourishment he craved.

But at what cost?

“I—I’d like you to pay out the wages at the end of each week, as well.” Manning’s voice rasped in his ears as he struggled to keep it steady. He thrust the heavy book at Caddie, then jammed his hands into his pockets to keep them from reaching for her. “I know a lot of the folks on our payroll would rather not work for a Yankee if they had any choice. If you give them their wages instead of me, it mightn’t bother them so much.”

He turned and headed for the door. The Stevens boy had put the old lathe to use, turning a few decorative balusters to match the broken ones that marred the elegance of Sabbath Hollow’s front porch. Might as well get started replacing them while he still had a bit of daylight. More importantly, he wanted to get away from Caddie before he did something foolish.

Hardly aware that he was speaking aloud, he muttered, “Besides, if you keep the accounts you won’t need to worry that I’m cheating you.”

He pulled the door shut behind him and proceeded to attack the broken posts with a crowbar. The strenuous chore gave him a safe outlet for his overwrought emotions. As he repaired the broken railings, Manning struggled to shore up the rickety barricade he’d raised around his heart to keep Caddie out.

Every day, without half trying, she tore fresh holes in it. Heaven help him if she should ever decide to lay siege in earnest.

Chapter Nine

“
D
ORA
,
CAN YOU
keep an eye on the children while I take the payroll up to the mill?”

As Caddie tied her bonnet strings, she resisted an urge to glance in the cheap little decorative mirror Manning had recently purchased. Folks would be too busy counting their modest earnings to care what she looked like.

Don’t go lying to yourself, Caddie. It isn’t the workers you’re gussying up for—it’s their boss.
She peeked in the mirror, after all. Just long enough to stick her tongue out at herself... and to twist a loose strand of hair around her finger until it curled.

Varina barreled into the entry hall. “I want to go.”

Gazing at the child, Caddie stifled a sigh. “You most certainly cannot. I’ll be busy giving folks their wages and I won’t be able to keep an eye on you. Heaven knows what scrapes you’d get into among all the machinery and sharp tools.”

“Manning wouldn’t let me get hurt.”

For a foolish instant, Caddie wished she could make that boast. Hard as she tried not to care, she found herself elated by his smallest attention and stung by his persistent coolness.

“Manning will be busy working. He won’t be able to spare the time to keep you out of harm’s way.”

Whether or not he could spare the time, Caddie knew he’d cheerfully watch Varina if she decided to bring the child.

“But, Mama...”

“Varina Virginia Marsh, I said
no
and that’s my final word.”

The little girl heaved a martyred sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”

In the face of her daughter’s disappointment, Caddie relented a little. “If you go clean yourself up, perhaps you could help Dora make doughnuts.”

“I s’pose.” Varina cast a critical look over her hands, as if trying to figure how little washing they could get away with. “That’s still not as much fun as going to the mill.”

Caddie pulled on her gloves, then retrieved her ledger and cash box from the stairs where she’d set them. “I’ll speak to Manning about it. Perhaps you and Tem can come with me next week.”

“Bet he’ll say yes.” Varina hopped from foot to foot.

“Don’t go counting your chickens before they hatch, now.” Caddie pressed a finger to her daughter’s button nose.

“Will you give Manning something from me?”

Caddie thought of the
treasures
Varina had brought her stepfather in recent days. Stones with gold in them. Fishing worms of impressive dimensions. “That depends on what it is.”

“This.” Seizing Caddie’s hand, Varina hauled her mother down to plant a moist, noisy kiss on her cheek.

Caddie dismissed the ridiculous rush of heat to her face and the giddy tightness in her stomach. “Why don’t you wait and give it to him yourself at suppertime?”

He would like it a good deal more coming from the child than from her.

Before Varina could reply, Dora called to her from the kitchen and she raced away.

Caddie shook her head at her own foolishness as she left the house and set off up the wooded path that led to the mill. Blustery winds of May had mellowed to playful June breezes, fragrant with the scent of wildflowers. A honey-gold sun had coaxed the Virginia countryside to blossom out in its most brilliant colors. Birds chirped a saucy chorus from the eaves of the surrounding woodland. Off to the west, a bank of malicious dark clouds skulked behind the distant Blue Ridge Mountains.

How long had it been since she’d looked around her and found the world beautiful? Caddie wondered. Her feet wanted to break into a skipping, waltzing step unsuited to a sober matron rapidly approaching thirty. A sprightly little tune ran through her mind, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d catch herself humming it.

Recalling how quickly such fragile bubbles of happiness could shatter into jagged shards of pain, she didn’t dare give in to them. Much as she longed to on a day like this. Blast Manning Forbes for setting in motion this civil war between her head and her heart!

Caddie heard and smelled the mill before she saw it. The enormous wooden wheel creaked as it turned, bearing each load of water down to splash free at rhythmic intervals. Together with the rasp of the saw and pounding of hammers, it made a kind of robust music. The resinous tang of freshly sawed lumber smelled like energy and optimism.

Perhaps the folks who worked here found it so, too. When Caddie stepped into the mill clearing she discovered the place bustling with activity. A young woman wearing leather gloves and a thick canvas apron over her dress toted bundles of lathe-turned wood to a nearby shed that Manning had converted into a woodwright’s shop. Two lanky boys carried long boards of cut lumber out of the mill and stacked them to dry.

Bobbie Stevens hobbled from the shop into the mill. A single stout cane had replaced the crutches Caddie had seen him using only a fortnight ago.

Catching sight of her, the young man waved “Afternoon, Miz Caddie. Shall I go tell the boss you’re here?”

“If you can tell me where I might find Mr. Forbes, I don’t mind hunting him up for myself.” She glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “How are you feeling these days, Bobbie? The work around here isn’t too much for your constitution, I hope.”

“Better too much work than too little, ma’am.” He flashed a rueful grin. “Never reckoned how good it would feel to earn a week’s pay.”

For the first time since she’d met him during her honeymoon with Del, the boyish young fellow looked like a grown man.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Caddie glanced down at the ledger and strongbox. “That’s why I’ve come, as a matter of fact, to pay everyone their wages.”

She didn’t mention her nagging worry about finances. Since taking over the bookkeeping, Caddie had come to wonder if they’d hired more folks to work than they needed. Would the business turn a profit before they exhausted Manning’s resources?

Bobbie’s grin stretched wider. “I’d better not hold you up, then, or I won’t be too popular around here. You’ll find Mr. Forbes in the shop yonder, doing some joining work on a batch of chairs.”

She must have spoken a few polite words of parting to the young man, but afterward Caddie couldn’t remember. Nor did she recall Bobbie Stevens walking off to the mill. For she turned toward the woodwright shop and caught sight of Manning. The shop, the mill and everything else around her seemed to melt away, leaving only the solid, focused figure of that one man.

Absorbed in his work, he paid her no heed, but carefully fixed a caned seat to a chair frame. Rays of bright June sunlight pierced the leafy canopy of lofty elms and dappled the clearing below. Through the wide door of the shop, they shimmered over his crisp profile and his large, deft hands.

With strength, skill and patience, those hands had refashioned a life for Caddie and her children. As she watched her husband’s hands move over the wood in a kind of caress, a strange pleasant warmth rippled through her flesh. Her imagination stirred with fancies of his long brown fingers tangled in her unbound hair or whispering over her bare skin.

He glanced up and their eyes met. The air between them fairly crackled, the way a comb pulled through wool threw off tiny sparks and shocks on a winter night. Their marriage was nothing but a business arrangement to him, Caddie sternly reminded herself. If she had a particle of sense or pride, she’d want to keep it that way.

She’d always possessed a generous measure of sense and rather too much pride. They came to her rescue now, stiffening limbs that wanted to melt like butter in the sun. Infusing her slack, dreamy features with brisk reality. She forced herself to approach him with sedate steps.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time to do the payroll?” Caddie willed a cool, businesslike tone into her voice when it threatened to turn soft and breathless.

“No. It’s fine. Just fine.” The tension of his stance and the stiff, grave set of his expression contradicted Manning’s words. “Would you mind sitting outside if I bring a chair and a table for you? Better light out there, and you won’t end up with sawdust all over your clothes.”

If he wanted her out from underfoot, why didn’t he just say so? “Very well. Outside it is.”

Manning disappeared into the shop, returning a moment later with a chair like the one she’d watched him assemble. Forgetting the contrary feelings that pulled her heart like a mess of warn taffy, Caddie reached out and ran her hand down the long, clean line of it.

“Where did you find this design? It looks good and sturdy, but not too heavy.” The chair’s clean, spare frame had an elegant simplicity. “I like it.”

“I came up with the design myself.” Manning sounded as though he expected her to change her mind on that account. “It’s cheap and easy to build. The cane seat makes it comfortable to sit on and lighter to transport.”

Thoroughly practical, just like its designer. Yet anything but ordinary.

“Where did you learn to build furniture like this?” Manning didn’t answer.

Perhaps he hadn’t heard her as he concentrated on finding a likely spot for her to set up.