In a Stranger's Arms by Deborah Hale Page B

stairs.
    “You fetch the coffee. I’ll make it.” Eager as she was for a cup, somehow the notion of a Yankee blundering around in her kitchen didn’t sit right with her. “Then I’ll go check if the hens have laid.”
    “I can do that for you.” Manning Forbes passed Caddie a small sack of coffee beans, then headed for the door.
    “No!”
    The questioning, anxious look on the Yankee’s face reproached her in a way no words could have done. She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but she’d already accepted more of his help than her pride could tolerate.
    “I’ll see to breakfast.” Caddie struggled to blunt the sharpness that crept into her voice. “In the meantime, could I prevail upon you to chop me some firewood?”
    “Yes, of course.” His whole bearing radiated eagerness to be of service. “I’ll get Templeton to help me.”
    An anxious whimper rose unbidden from Caddie’s throat.
    “Yes?” Manning Forbes shot her a swift glance.
    It galled her to admit weakness in herself or her kin, especially to a Yankee. Concern for her little boy did battle with her pride and left it a bloody wreck.
    “Don’t expect too much of Templeton, please. He never was a very forward child and he had a hard time growing up through the war. So many frights. So many worries. Varina never knew anything else, so she took it all as a matter of course. She’ll sleep like a log anywhere and eat what doesn’t eat her first.”
    Manning chuckled as he headed out the back door. “She seems a very self-reliant little mite.”
    “Oh, she’s all of that. And it was a blessing while we were in Richmond. I don’t know how I could have managed with two high-strung children.” Caddie had no intention of confiding in a Yankee, but somehow she couldn’t help herself. “It’s going to be uphill work making a proper lady of her, though.”
    Manning found out just what Caddie meant later that morning when he and Templeton were scavenging for deadwood to split.
    They had pulled a fallen maple trunk clear of some underbrush when a series of piercing shrieks rent the air. Manning had heard nothing like them since the battlefield amputations at Antietam. Sergeant began to bark wildly.
    Had an intruder broken into the house and attacked Caddie and Varina? Manning dropped his hatchet.
    “Stay here, Son!” He glanced at Templeton then bolted for the house.
    Strangely, the boy did not look a bit perturbed.
    “Mr. Forbes, sir,” Templeton called out, barely audible over the screaming and the barking. He didn’t sound perturbed, either. “That’s prob’ly just Rina getting her hair combed.”
    Manning slowed his desperate scramble and looked back at the boy. “Are you sure?”
    Templeton nodded, petting the dog to calm it “She takes on like this every time Mama combs her hair.”
    The ferocity of the caterwauling had not abated. Manning found it hard to believe the child wasn’t being butchered with a dull meat ax.
    “I’ll just go see if I can help any.”
    The boy looked dubious. “I’d stay clear if I was you.” Manning kept walking toward the house, though his gut tightened way down deep, a sensation he recalled from the tense hours before battle.
    He found Caddie and her daughter in a large room that must have once been a fine parlor. At some time before or during the war, it had been stripped of furnishings right down to the curtains. Once likely spread with luxurious rugs, the hardwood floor now hid its proud face under a carpet of grime many layers thick.
    In the corner beside an impressive fireplace, Caddie had managed to corral her daughter. Now she held the struggling child tightly around the waist, while her other hand raked a comb through Varina’s rusty mane. Manning winced as he watched the little girl’s sturdy heel collide with her mother’s knee. Wrestling a yearling hog would have been easier.
    Varina’s raucous protests echoed off the bare expanses of wall, ceiling and floor, making them sound even