In a Stranger's Arms by Deborah Hale

wood of the stairs.
    Before Manning could properly savor his stepson’s felicity, Caddie swept past him. Her tight-lipped glare made him feel like some vermin who’d invaded her house.
    He frowned back. Was it such a crime to have made the boy happy? The house was a mess, anyway. A whole pack of dogs running loose couldn’t have made it a whit worse. Besides, this might go a ways to allaying any fears Templeton might harbor about the treatment he could expect from his stepfather.
    Thrusting the whole incident to the back of his mind, Manning busied himself with a few small repair jobs around the house while Caddie put the children to bed. Sabbath Hollow would need a lot of labor and care to make it anything like it had once been. The only way to get there would be one job at a time in every minute he could spare.
    By the time Caddie came back downstairs, Manning was losing the struggle to keep his eyes open.
    “I made up a bed for you.” She spoke in a frost-crusted voice, staring steadily at some object just behind him “Third door on the left at the top of the stairs. I got the linen out of an old trunk in the attic. It smells awful musty, I’m afraid, but I’ll wash it tomorrow.”
    Manning turned toward the stairs. “It has to beat an old army blanket and a tree trunk. Thank you for making the bed up—you needn’t have gone to any trouble.”
    He had not climbed far when Caddie’s voice stalled him “Is it true what Lon said?”
    His head rocked with weariness and his body ached in strange ways from being so close to her. The day’s events had roused his emotions to a pitch he usually took care to avoid. He was tired of being called and thought a Yankee and a carpetbagger.
    As Manning spun around and thundered back down the stairs to face his unclaimed bride, his anger flashed like a photographer’s phosphorous. “Did you not listen to what I told the children, or did you think I was lying to them? I’ve given you no reason to think I’d ever mistreat Templeton and Varina. Just because I wasn’t born in the South doesn’t mean I’m some kind of criminal!”
    “No, no!” She clapped a hand to her lips and moved toward Manning, stopping so close to him he could have reached out and touched her.
    If he’d dared.
    Her slender fingers fluttered down her lips, coming to rest on her chin. “I didn’t mean about the children. It’s the other. About getting out of our marriage if I didn’t... if we didn’t...”
    “Oh, that.” Manning’s anger ebbed, but the strange agitation lingered.
    Her nearness disturbed him. The queer look in her eye, half frightened, half curious, disturbed him. The subject of her question disturbed him most of all.
    “I can’t claim much knowledge of these matters.” He stepped back from her. “But I don’t think your brother-in-law is lying. An unconsummated marriage can be dissolved.”
    “Then must we...?” She hugged her arms tightly around herself, as if protecting her bosom.
    Manning didn’t want to think about her bosom.
    She tried again. “You said we wouldn’t need to...”
    “And you think because I’m a Yankee I must have bamboozled you into wedding with false promises?” Manning shook his head. “I haven’t. Nobody needs to know our... sleeping arrangements but us. This can be a kind of insurance policy for you, if you decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth to keep around.”
    “You mean it?” She seemed to sway on her feet, but whether from relief or exhaustion, Manning wasn’t sure.
    “I do.” It was the second time he’d spoken those words to her in the last several hours.
    Would he be able to keep from blurting them out a third time if she asked him one short, simple question?
    Do you want me?

    It wasn’t as though she wanted a Yankee carpetbagger in her bed, Caddie told herself as she tossed and turned on her musty sheets. So why had her flutter of panic been accompanied by another flutter in that secret spot, deeper than the pit of