Enemies

Enemies By

Maren Smith

Enemies By

Maren Smith

A Newsite Web Services Book Published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved. Copyright 2008 © by Maren Smith This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission of the author or Newsite Web Services, LLC Published by Newsite Web Services, LLC P.O. Box 1286, Loganville, Georgia 30052 USA [email protected] disciplineanddesire.com

Chapter One 1902, Wellsville, New York Countryside Doctor Duncan MacRae had always considered himself a ‘somewhat’ man. He was somewhat tall, but still short at five-foot-nine-inches. His frame was somewhat slender in build, but topped with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Even his hair was somewhat sandy, although really it was more of a muddy brown, which matched the color of his eyes exactly. And if the Devil himself could be considered even-tempered, than Duncan was even somewhat that. He rumbled down the icy driveway in his singlecylinder Trumbull car, the top folded out in case it began snowing again. The wheels skidded on the ice and gravel until his runabout came to a stop at the stone base of the Caxton Orphan Asylum’s front steps. At the last minute, he remembered to fill his pockets with peppermints for the children before jogging up the porch and walking inside. He had just received word this morning that the new superintendent had arrived late the previous night. It was time to make her acquaintance. Duncan wasn’t exactly eager. In the twelve years that he’d served as the staff doctor for Caxton’s children, he had suffered through a number of management changes. In his opinion, not one of them had been anything but a muddleheaded busy-body without a lick of common sense. Granted, a few had been well-versed in the proper running of a large institution. Occasionally, an attempt was even made at making Caxton into a healthy one, albeit only when healthy ran parallel to cheap in the budgeting. At this point, Duncan held little hope that the new superintendent would be any different from her predecessors. Although he did hope this one might be a tad bit nicer than the late, great Mrs. Lippett,

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who after twenty-two years of tyranny, both here as well as in numerous other facilities, had finally turned up her toes and died. After twelve years of near daily visits, Duncan knew the way to the superintendent’s office quite by heart. He stalked through the empty main entrance, jogged up the stairs to the second floor, and made his way down the long, sterile hall towards the window overlooking the remote countryside. The door he wanted was the last one on the left. Just as he was reaching for the porcelain knob, a peal of girlish laughter sounded from inside the room and the door burst open. It collided squarely with his forehead and knocked Duncan flat on his back on the hardwood floor. A tall, blue-eyed blonde woman stood frozen in the threshold, one hand guiltily holding the knob and the other covering her gaping mouth. "Oh my goodness gracious!" Beside her, a little girl in pigtail braids was solemnly shaking her head. "I think ya kilt him, Miss Alma." Duncan was not amused. He lay where he was, making no move to regain his feet and watching as the ceiling spun in lazy circles above him. Concussion, he thought. He would likely have brain trauma from the blow and a knot on his forehead the size of a goose egg. "Oh my," the blonde woman said again. When she leaned over, peering into his peripheral range, he looked at her. "Are you all right?" His face darkened into the blackest of scowls. "No." He lay his hands flat on the floor, but as he slowly pushed himself upright, he was hit in the chest by an overly-exuberant, warm and wriggling puppy, which promptly began a playful mauling. Duncan threw up his hands in time to catch it before the wee beast shed all over his mustard

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tweed suit, but not before it managed to plant several wet kisses across the doctor’s nose, cheeks, and chin. The child laughed and clapped her hands. The woman looked positively mortified. "Toby! Get down this very minute! Sally Kate, stop giggling and grab him!" Both females launched themselves at Duncan, trying to catch the puppy as it bit and licked at his hands. Duncan struggled just as determinedly to get out from under both dog and child, as well as Alma’s voluminous petticoats. Finally, Duncan caught hold of the little beast’s scruff and deposited the entire wiggling package into Sally Kate’s arms. He wiped the slobber from his face with his handkerchief and glared at Alma. "Tell me you are someone here to adopt this wee girl and her dog." Alma stuck out her hand. "Good morning. I am Alma Burke, the new superintendent." Duncan almost closed his eyes. "And you are?" she prompted, her hand still held out for his. "Doctor Duncan MacRae," he growled. Reluctantly, he reached for her hand, but rather than helping to pull him up off the floor, she shook it instead. Any reasonable person would have been acutely embarrassed and probably would have apologize profusely for having put him through such an ordeal. But not the blonde woman. Instead of being upset, her face relaxed into an expression of great relief. "Oh thank goodness!" She lay her hand upon her chest. "And here, I thought you were a prospective client. This wouldn’t have been good publicity." She invited him into her office and told the young girl, "Thank you for that lovely tour. Please take the puppy to the kitchen for some

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breakfast and ask the cook to send up tea and cookies for two." "Yes, miss." Shutting the door, the woman turned to him with a grin. "How is your head? Shall I call down for some ice?" He gingerly touched the tender spot on his forehead. It would likely be a bruised lump by nightfall, but he only shook his head. "No, I’m fine." As he followed her back to her desk, accepting the seat that she offered him, Duncan took stock of the woman seating herself across the desk from him. She was a lovely creature, a stunning Venus with pale blue eyes and blonde hair pinned up beneath a huge and feathered hat. She was also young. Very young. In fact, if she was a day over twenty-five, he’d cheerfully eat his shoe. She smoothed out her sunshine-yellow dress— its wide and flowing skirts made of chiffon, not cotton, with a trim, tight corset, puffed sleeves, and a ruffled bodice that gave her quite a bosomy look, and which was also not at all what he would have considered suitable for the superintendent of a working asylum—and beamed a smile at him. "What can I do for you, Doctor?" Duncan’s dark eyes narrowed as he sized her up and down. "Have you had any experience running a place the size of Caxton, Miss Burke?" "It’s Alma. And no, none whatsoever." She smiled again. "Can I get you some tea?" He couldn’t have heard that right. He leaned towards her, cocking his head slightly to one side as he echoed, "None?" "Oh well, I have done some charity work." He folded his hands between his knees. In the flattest possible tone, he asked, "What kind of charity work?"

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"Well, one year I donated a half hour of my time every week to sitting and reading with the inmates of the Female Inebriates Asylum back home." Duncan was quiet, waiting for her to continue, but Alma only smiled at him and tapped her fingertips on the desktop. Finally, he asked, "Is that all?" Her smile faded slightly. "You should have met some of those inmates. Believe me, Doctor, a half hour was quite long enough." "I meant in regards to your qualifications," he said, exasperated and trying hard not to snap. "Is that all?" "Oh." Alma’s smile faded a little more. "Well, no, of course not." She cleared her throat. "I suppose my best credentials would then have to be my firm disposition and stubbornly turned-up nose. I doubt the children have ever seen such a determined tilt in one’s facial characteristics before. The little dears have been staring at it since the moment of my arrival." Duncan could hardly help himself from staring either, although it wasn’t her freckles that transfixed him. His mouth tightened into a hard line. He couldn’t believe it. They had actually found someone worse than Mrs. Lippett. "You’ve no experience," Duncan said, struggling to swallow his beginning-to-boil temper. "If I may be so rude as to inquire, Miss Alma, what in hell makes you think you’re capable of running this kind of asylum?" "Oh, but I’m not," Alma simply said. "I never said that I was. In fact, I’m pretty much here against my will. No one else would take the job, you see. So until a more accomplished replacement can be located, my father is of the opinion that this would be a good way for me to—how did he say it— build character, learn responsibility, shed some of my selfishness, and develop compassion for my

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fellow man. That sort of thing. And since he has purchased a seat upon the Board of Directors, I’m fairly well stuck here until further notice." It was all Duncan could do not to close his eyes and groan. And then it was all he could do to keep from erupting out of his chair like a volcano. She must have glimpsed the internal bubbling in his black-as-a-thundercloud expression, for she also hastened to assure him, "But just because I don’t want to be here, don’t think for a minute that I won’t take my supervisory duties seriously. I promise you, I will. Right up until I’m replaced. In fact, after touring this detestable facility, I’ve already hatched within my brain the ideas for several very desperately needed reforms." As though he had a colony of ants scurrying about in his trousers, Duncan shifted in his chair. Then he shifted again, fighting to keep from growling as he asked, "And what kind of reforms are those?" "Well, let me think." Alma steepled her fingers and pursed her lips in thought. "I suppose my first change will likely be in regards to braids." "Braids," Duncan echoed, his tone utterly flat and without the slightest inflection. "Yes. Have you seen my poor girls? They are all slant-eyed, their hair has been monkey -wrenched so tightly behind their ears. And don’t get me started on the ears," she said with a flap of her hand. "I swear, in all my born days, I don’t believe I have ever seen so many ugly pairs all in one place. They stick straight out. It’s dreadful, really. Completely unattractive." "I don’t give a hang if they have becoming ears or not," Duncan snapped. "My concerns are for their stomachs and their overall health, something which has been overlooked in this place now for far too long! I want to know, Miss Burke, what you’re going to do about that!"

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"I assure you," Alma said firmly, "there is nothing I take more seriously than the health of the little ones now within my charge. Which is why I have declared that the windows of the barracks should be thrown wide open. You can never have too much fresh air." "Are you daft? It’s the middle of winter!" he protested. "They have hot bricks and plenty of warm blankets on their beds at night. A little fresh air won’t kill them." Duncan was shocked by her airy dismissal. "Pneumonia bloody well will!" Now Alma blinked, appearing to notice his alarm. "Doctor MacRae, you cannot think that I mean to have the windows open at night, do you? Only during the day, to freshen the barracks. Why, if I had them open all night, the beds nearest the windows would be completely snowed in by morning." "Whereas the children shouldn’t mind a bit having to shovel their beds out before they lie down on them at night?" "Are you always this argumentative?" she asked him curiously. "Here you are, growling out demands for reforms and yet you don’t seem very happy with any of the important ones that I’ve come up with. Since you aren’t concerned with ears, I’ll bet you haven’t bothered yourself to notice how my girls are forced to wear scratchy red petticoats, either?" "Pet—" Duncan shifted in his chair, grabbing the arms as he echoed incredulously, "Petticoats?!" "How any girl is supposed to preserve her selfrespect while wearing red petticoats that hang an irregular inch longer than her blue-checkered gingham dress, I just don’t know. Are you sure you don’t want some tea?" "Miss Burke!" Duncan stood up. He drew an attempt at a deep and calming breath. "I have

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never heard such a spout of nonsense in all my life! You are frivolous, rattlepated and totally unfit for this position of trust. The Board of Directors is truly mad for having sent you here! You should know that I intend to send a letter posthaste, demanding to have you removed from office!" "Splendid!" Alma sat back with a smile. "And here I thought we’d not get along. With any luck, the Board of Directors shall get both our letters at the same time and have no choice but to be rid of us both. Here, let me walk you to your car." Duncan blinked at her in surprise as she came back around her desk. "Do I understand you correctly? You’re looking forward to being dismissed?" "Oh, absolutely!" She opened the door for him and followed the doctor out into the hall. "This place isn’t fit for children, much less for me. If I didn’t stand to go to jail for it, I would be here every night at the stroke of twelve to help every last one of the poor dears escape from this evil place." "I’ll admit the building is run down, but I hardly think Caxton evil." "Well, it is. Hot and stuffy, and—ugh, lord!—just smell the odor in this hall!" He followed her to the stairs. "One would think evil to smell less like antiseptic and more like sulphur." "Which only goes to prove why you are no more fit to be Caxton’s resident doctor than I am fit to be its superintendent. In which case, it’s only fair to warn you that I also intend to write the Board and request a new doctor." At that, Duncan stopped at the top step to glare at Alma, who continued blissfully on as though she hadn’t noticed. "And what reason do you have to do that, might I ask?" "Because you are as polished and as brilliant and as charming as a tombstone, which is not at all

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what one expects in a visiting doctor for children. Personally, I believe doctors should be fat." "Fat?" "Yes. Fat men are happy men. You, sir, look as if you’re fresh from an autopsy. No. You will not do for the Caxton orphanage." They resumed their trek down the stairs together, although by now Duncan was grinding his teeth in poorly veiled aggravation and walking so quickly that he passed her. "And I happen to think red petticoats are cheerful, warm, and hygienic." "Which also proves that not all doctors are wise." Duncan stopped where he was on the stairs. He snapped around to face her with near military precision and a sharp click of his heels. "You, Miss Burke," he stated crisply, "don’t need to be sent home as much as you need to be taken across the knee and given a good sound spanking!" Alma froze one step above him. She blinked at him, her surprise melting into the first signs of irritation. "How dare you!" "You may not have asked to come here," Duncan told her sharply, "but here you are and here you’ll stay until someone is sent to replace you! That puts you in a position of trust that you damn well better take seriously. Because if I, for one second, begin to think you’re engaging in a strategy of careless decision-making to expedite your release from the burdens of managing this facility, then I will come to your office, I will turn you across my knee, and I will paddle a sense of responsibility into your errant backside, something your father should have done before he sent you here!" War was declared right there on that innocent looking stairwell, not three steps from the bottom. ______________

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Caxton was an awful place. Alma had five days to review her situation, and that was the irrevocable sum of her analysis. It had long corridors, bare walls and shuttered up windows that let in no light from the outside world. It even smelled hideous: a mingling of wet, scrubbed floors, ammonia and unaired rooms, and food—if the lumpy gray slop served from the kitchens could be called that. Forget reformation. Alma would be content just to make this place somewhat livable before she left. And it wasn’t just the asylum that needed making over; the children needed it as well. The blue-uniformed, dough-faced little inmates resembled human children only through their diminutive heights. As she toured the facility from one nursery to the next, her eyes skimming from one unsmiling face to the next, the sheer magnitude of the job ahead of her seemed all but overwhelming. The doctor was right, her father had to have been out of his mind to think she could do any good here. Unfortunately, whether she liked it or not, this was where she was now stuck until her father decided that she’d suffered enough and brought her home. To help facilitate her miraculous rescue, every day for that entire first week, Alma wrote her father a heartfelt letter, begging release from the Caxton prison. She usually did it promptly upon waking each morning, just as soon as it hit her that she really was surrounded by Mrs. Lippett’s dour and uninspiringly brown wallpaper, listening to the racket that twenty-five little girls made as they all scrambling to get dressed for the day. Eventually, the realization would hit her that this all wasn’t a really bad dream, and Alma would drag herself out of bed. Upon leaving Mrs. Lippett’s room, the real battle would then begin in earnest. The regular institutional staff had taken it upon themselves to educate Alma on the proper running

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of an orphanage. Most of the rules, which were laid down for her as if by presidential decree, were as ridiculous as the notion of making a necklace from hen’s teeth. "There is no smiling and no laughing allowed," Mrs. Welsey, the head housekeeper, said. "These are charity cases and should remember their places accordingly." "Discipline should be maintained at all times," Mr. Lanthum, the middle school teacher, informed her as he idly trailed a narrow switch through his fingers. "On Wednesday nights, I serve corn-meal mash for dinner," the cook, Mrs. Sawyer, sniffed. Oh yes, Caxton was due for some serious reforms. But where to begin? Alma was seated at the desk of the previous superintendent, surrounded by stacks of ledgers and sheaves of papers—her every action watched over by the smiling portrait of her mother, protected within its gilded frame, the only frippery upon the desk—and trying to answer that very question when she heard a knock at her office door. "Come in," she called, not bothering to glance up from the pages of the large accounting ledger she’d been struggling for most of the morning to reconcile. From what she could see, she had virtually nothing of a budget to work with, which was going to make even the slightest of reforms a good deal more difficult. Shaking her head, she made a note to herself to add a postscript request for funds to the bottom of her next pleading letter home. She vaguely heard the door open as she made a note in the margin beside a questionable entry, then finally closed the ledger and looked up. She blanched when she saw the doctor, but then managed a grim smile. "Good afternoon to you, Doctor. How is the day treating you?"

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Duncan sat down in the chair across from her and cleared his throat. "Fairly well, Miss Burke. I no longer feel like throttling you silly, so I suppose I can’t complain. And you?" "That all depends. Have you come here today with the intent of battering my person?" The hard line of his mouth thinned almost to the point of disappearing entirely. "That wasn’t my intent when I left the house this morning. However, the day is yet young." Folding her hands over her desk, she raised her brows in polite inquiry. "To what then do I owe the pleasure of your company?" "Your qualifications for the position of superintendent," Duncan cleared his throat, "or your lack thereof notwithstanding, I am willing to consider that you intend to take your responsibilities to Caxton seriously. And to that end, I have decided that I should offer you my assistance and support, rather than providing you with more obstacles to battle. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to make a list of all the changes I’d like to see take place." What little smile Alma had been nursing died with a wince. "At least you are more polite about it than the others were." With a sigh, she cupped her chin in her hand. "All right, let’s hear your demands." He pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket and unfolded it. "First, I should like the dietary needs of the children to be expressed to the cook and consistently met. That garbage they are forced to eat now can hardly be called food much less nutrition." Having been witness to a full week of Caxton daily fare, Alma wasn’t about to argue with him. "Agreed. Next?" "A teaspoon of cod liver oil should be administered to each child daily."

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"Blech!" Alma made a face. "It’s good for them," Duncan argued. "Despite the taste." "Agreed," Alma said again. "But reluctantly." "Then I have noticed a lamentable lack of—" He paused when, chin still propped alluringly in the palm of her hand, Alma crossed her eyes at him. "— of exercise that is essential for the growth of healthy young bodies. Fourthly..." "Don’t you ever smile, Doctor MacRae?" He looked at her. "You know, a smile," she said. "An upward tilt of the mouth that causes those around you to do the same. Exercise for your face." Without expression, Duncan blinked at her once, then twice, and then said, "Fourthly, I would like to see more scholastic programs being taught beyond the bare minimum that is currently accepted in the classrooms here." Lifting her head from her hand, Alma smacked the top of her desk with an open palm. "Good sir, I’ve already gotten off to a rip-roaring good start on that one! In fact, two of the middle school instructors quit this morning when I outlawed the use of the cane and switch." Now it was Alma’s turn to pause when she noticed his attention, while still on her, had drifted somewhat south of her eyes. She blushed, but was not so naive as to believe that the meager endowments she possessed on her chest would have been enough to attract anyone’s eyes, much less the handsome doctor’s. Which only left one other thing for him to have been staring at. "It’s my freckles, isn’t it?" she guessed. His gaze shot guiltily back up to her face. "I beg your pardon?" "My freckles." Alma nodded. "Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I know how ugly they are."

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Duncan dutifully looked at her freckled cheeks and nose, and though he disagreed, he wasn’t about to admit that he’d been staring at her mouth. "My mother used to say freckles were kisses from the angels." Alma arched her eyebrows. "Really?" She thought about that for a while. "You know, angels kiss the strangest people. As a child, I used to know this horrid little boy. Freckles covered every inch of him, and he was positively horrid to me." "The devil has his angels, too." She threw her head back with a bark of startled laughter. "So whose angels kissed me?" At that, the oddest, most intense expression sank across Duncan’s face. His skin flushed and his breathing quickened just a bit. Concerned, Alma stood up to peer at him more closely. "Are you all right, Doctor MacRae?" Duncan abruptly slapped his list on her desk, and without a word, he turned on his heel and stormed out of her office. "Well, now what have I said?" Alma went to the window, throwing up the heavy sill to lean as far out as she could. A moment later, Duncan stomped down the front porch steps below her and stalked down the driveway to his car. "Grumpy old codger!" she yelled, then grinned and waved when he looked up. He cranked the engine and slammed the car door when he got in. She could hear him muttering, but was too high up to make out the words. Because of the distance between them, she couldn’t be sure, but he almost seemed to be berating himself. Folding her arms on the sill, Alma watched him drive away. A corner of her mouth turned wryly upward and she addressed the portrait upon her desk. "Mama, I am going to make that man smile. Just you wait and see."

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Chapter Two The next day, Duncan found Alma waiting for him on the front porch with her hands braced upon her hips. The early morning sunlight bathed her, the bright yellow glow seeming to set the gold of her hair on fire. Was it possible for a woman to grow more beautiful every time one looked upon her? Alma certainly seemed to, and it irritated Duncan no end. So did the fact that he’d spent an unheard of forty minutes in front of the mirror this morning, just to make sure he looked nice when he got here. He hadn’t fussed that much over his clothes since before he’d married Freya, his wife of thirteen years. His mouth flattened into a frown as he climbed the asylum steps, wondering as he’d done nearly every day for the last twelve years where in the world Freya might now be. He looked at Alma again. She even sort of looked like Freya. Maybe not physically, but she definitely had the same flightiness around the edges of her. "Good morning, my enemy," she greet him cheerfully. Her greeting irritated him even more. "I don’t want to be regarded as your enemy," he snapped. Especially not when she looked so beautiful, dressed in her white and pink satin gown, with its wide pink bow draped alluringly across her bottom. Her puffed sleeves were low and barely upon her shoulders, which left an open expanse of creamy, white flesh visible through the sheer lace collar that buttoned stylishly at her throat. The gown was as elegant as it was revealing, and Duncan liked it immensely. Which was also highly irritating, and by the time he reached the top step, it was all he could do to keep from scowling at her.

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"I am not in the least antagonistic," he briskly stated. "Not so long as you mold your policies to suit me." Alma grinned. "I wish the others were as nice and as open about that as you are." "I’m not nice," Duncan bristled, internally pleased at least for the compliment. "I’m simply more persuasive than most." She gave him one of her dazzling smiles, which went straight to his loins, heating him as warmly there as the morning sun that was spilling across his shoulders. Totally ill-suited to the job though she was, she did have a beautiful smile. One of those that could melt a man like a pat of butter on a hot dinner roll. He squared his shoulders and banished that delicious image from his mind. That was, he told himself firmly, nothing more than twelve years of celibacy beginning to take effect. "I was hoping you might have a moment today to go over the sick logs with me," she said. "Note that I have only been here one week, and as you can see, I am making a concentrated effort to uphold the responsibilities of my office." She pressed a hand upon her heart and did her best to stifle her smile. The impish sparkle in her eyes remained, however, and the cause was lost. "And I do so with all seriousness, as well. Should you be in an amiable mood, perhaps you can support my newest reform. I want to permanently separate those children who seem recurringly prone to illness from the general population. To cull them, if you will. Or at least to move them to a nursery far enough away from the others as to lessen their contagiousness." A more sophisticated man might have said something suave and charming. Something like: ‘Splendid move’ or ‘For you, my dear, I would be delighted to be of assistance in any way possible’. But not Duncan. No, the words he heard spilling

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from his mouth were, "It’s about time," and that fell quite a distance short of being charming by anybody’s standards. Fortunately for him, Alma was unfazed by his bruskness, and they spent the afternoon in her office, poring over the late Mrs. Lippett’s daily dairy of noteworthy contagions. "Emma certainly seems sick an awful lot. ‘June twelfth: sniffles and cough. July third: fever. August thirtieth: cough.’ Good heavens, what happened September the eighth? It takes up to two pages!" Duncan didn’t need to look up from his own stack of records to answer her. "Measles hit the nursery." "Goodness." "Fortunately, your nursery attendant noticed the signs, and an adequate quarantine was performed." "Miss Smith is very capable." "If you can keep her sober," Duncan said dryly. Sitting back with a sigh, Alma paused to rub her eyes. "I had no idea this was going to take so long." "This was a good idea," Duncan told her. "Good ideas take time. Although, I suppose you could bring some of the older children up here and let them catalog themselves." "Oh, I wish that were so," Alma said, slowly stretching her arms above her head and arching the stiffness from her back. His eyes were drawn straight to her bosom, rounding so alluringly right to the brink of spilling forth from her bodice. "Unfortunately, half of my darling dears can’t write, and the other half can’t read. You can blame the school master for that." "What’s he done?" "He quit. Yesterday morning, after I reinforced that the switch should no longer be a mainstay of his classroom."

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Duncan shook his head. "If he can’t follow the rules himself, he’s got no business teaching children." Alma looked both surprised and pleased. "That’s what I thought." They sat for a moment, staring at one another, and then Duncan had to look away. Changing topics, he leaned over and picked up the picture off the corner of her desk, turning the frame so he could see it. "Is this you?" "No." Alma stood up quickly, all but snatching the photograph back from him. She gently stroked the frame before setting it back in its proper place. "It’s my mother. She died when I was little." "I’m sorry," Duncan said automatically. Alma’s smile resurfaced as she teased, "It’s hardly your fault." Her cheeks pinkened as she gave him an apologetic look. "I shouldn’t have grabbed, but I don’t have many things of hers. The picture is one of my favorites." "It’s all right," he said. "You have her eyes." Her embarrassment was instantly replaced by the sunniest of smiles. "Thank you." And there they were, staring at one another again, with her grinning and himself basking in the warmth of it Duncan cleared his throat. He dropped his eyes to the surrounding paperwork and picked up a stray sheet from a nearby stack. "Perhaps we should take a break from cataloging. We could improve their dietary menu instead. Look at this: boiled potatoes, boiled rice, mashed potatoes, oatmeal. There’s so much starch in this menu, it’s a wonder the children can bend at all." His lips compressed as he skimmed the page. "You know, this is the disaster you should be trying to change, rather than fussing over braids, pretty ears and red petticoats." "Braids are more important than diet," Alma contradicted. "I should think it would be far better

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for them to starve of malnutrition than to go through all their lives starved of self-respect and confidence." If he was looking for a way to break her beguiling effects on him, he’d just found it. Duncan raised his head and glared at her. "That’s a very callous statement, Miss Burke." Smile fading, Alma only shrugged. "Callous, but true. I quite firmly believe that dignity is the cornerstone of a happy future, and there is so little of either to be had within these walls." "Without proper sustenance, they would have no future at all." "True. But being a mere temporary replacement, I can only change so much. I plan to concentrate on the most important issues first and the rest I’ll simply have to leave to my replacement, or tackle as I have the time." Duncan set his pencil aside. "Miss Burke—" "Alma," she corrected as she went back to studying one of the books before her. "Gracious, Miss Burke is so stiff and formal." "When you accept a job," he doggedly continued, "undesirable though it may be, do you not intend to do your best work and see the task through to the end?" The hard edge of his tone made her glance back up at him with startled eyes. "Well, of course I do. But, a girl should also be practical." "Practical nothing. This is sheer laziness on your part. You may not have wanted this job, but you did accept it." "I was browbeaten into accepting it, you mean," she protested. "And simply because I am not accommodating your list of important reforms, that doesn’t make me lazy." She picked up the book, raising it like a barrier on the desk between them. "Besides, I have made no secret of not wanting to be here. I think myself rather noble for attempting

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to reform anything in this catastrophe of an asylum that I’ve been thrown into." "The manner and method of your arrival here is irrelevant, Mi—" He caught himself and stifled a sigh. "Alma." "Thank you," she acknowledged primly. He continued through gritted teeth. "The fact remains, you are here. For better or worse, you are the one in a position of authority, and you need to exercise that authority for the betterment of this institute." "And that’s what I’m doing!" She gestured to the mess of bookwork all around them. "Separating the sick from the healthy is very important. As are clothes and self respect!" "Hogwash! The only issues you’re tackling are the petty, insignificant ones. You are doing it deliberately so you can ease your way through to the end of your imposed exile without dirtying your fingers on the more difficult ones." "Now, see here!" Alma slapped her barrier of a book down on the desk between them. "I already have one grump of a father I don’t like; I certainly don’t need another one. What I do need are children with softer and prettier ears, petticoats that are properly sized, a fat doctor with a jolly sense of humor, and about a hundred adoptive parents. I would also like to finish this catalogue so I can move on to the more serious reforms—So there, I do intend on tackling those! But not until I’m good and ready!" "That’s it exactly," Duncan said, glaring at her crossly. "You plan to do as little as possible until your release. This," he picked up the papers in his lap and dropped them on her desk. "This is merely a distraction for my benefit, isn’t it?" "How do we go from nice conversations to your growling like a bear?" she countered irritably. "Only one of us is superintendent here, and that’s me!

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Now, are you going to help me with these books or not?" Duncan sat there for only a moment, and then stood up. He took off his tweed coat and laid it over the back of his chair. As he walked around the desk, he unfastened his cuffs and began to roll up his sleeves. "What are you doing?" she asked, when he took hold of her arm and pulled her out of her chair. "I’m going to help you," he said, and took her seat for his own. "Although I do believe your opinion of what you need and mine are about to differ. I’m beginning to think you aren’t anywhere near as superficial as you’re trying to make yourself appear. But if ever an attitude required adjustment, it’s yours. So—" Alma went as stiff as a board as she took in the meaning of the narrow lap he was presenting her, and Duncan took hold of her other arm. "—first I am going to help to adjust your attitude, and then we are going to tackle some of the more serious reforms. Starting with your menus!" She braced her legs, leaning her weight against him. "You can’t do this! I am the superintendent! I am your employer! I am telling you to stop this nonsense right now!" "Do tell." He pulled her down across his thighs with very little effort. Releasing her arm to wrap his own around her waist, he pinned her firmly into place. "You can’t do this!" she cried again, a note of panic finding its way into her angry words. But Duncan only reached down to catch the hem of her pretty white gown. His reasons for raising her skirts and tossing them over her back, baring the plump white seat of her bloomers, were due more to practicality than any real lewdness. He wanted this lesson to be a memorable one, and preferably one that wouldn’t need to be repeated. That simply

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wouldn’t have happened if all the flat of his hand encountered was a half-dozen petticoats and the fat pink bow that decorated her fanny, all of which worked together to protect her bottom with layers of muslin and satin. And besides, he told himself as he sat gazing down at the rounded heart of her scantily clad bottom, she was hardly in possession of anything that he hadn’t encountered at least once in his medical career. Admittedly, what she did have, enticingly encased in the ruffles and ribbons of her fancy silk bloomers, was certainly one of the nicest he’d yet viewed to date. Round and womanly, curved and wobbly in all the right places. He gave his target a warning pat, and Alma let out a shriek the instant his hand came to rest on the quivering swell of her right bottom cheek. "You—you—y-you pervert! Y-you brute! If you strike me, I-I-I’ll make you so terribly sorry! Oh! You’ll regret your mother ever met, much less married, your father! Duncan MacRae! You let me up right now!" Duncan raised his arm and his hand came crashing down on her plump backside hard enough to flatten her soft flesh beneath his fingers and with enough of a vigorous follow-through to leave her bottom cheeks wobbling delightfully. "Oh!" Alma sucked a startled breath. Her eyes widened and her jaw fell slack. Her entire body jolted that much further across his knee when he promptly followed the blow with a second one that cracked down upon the vulnerable twin of her stinging right cheek. "Ouch!" Wincing, she snapped her right hand back before he could smack her bottom yet again, but the doctor merely caught her wrist, transferred his grip of it to the arm that kept her locked across his thighs, and proceeded to set a disciplinary rhythm

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for the last official business that he was likely to perform at the Caxton Orphan Asylum. A pity really, since spanking Alma quickly proved to be one of the most satisfying tasks he’d executed in a good, long time. There was a certain measure of stress-relief hinged to it. Perhaps if he’d tried spanking one or two of the previous superintendents, by now Caxton might well have been a healthy and happy institution. An image which was just inspiring enough to set Duncan’s jaw and to fill his arm with the enthusiasm to see this job through to its proper end. His hand cracked across Alma’s squirming bottom harder and faster than before. She jumped at the sound of each meaty wallop, gasping and kicking up her feet in an attempt to block the abuse being heaped on the defenseless summits of each nether cheek in turn. Rather than try to dodge her shoes, Duncan slapped her shins until she dropped her feet back to the floor. "Are you ready to apply yourself as the mistress of this facility?" he asked, his hand beginning to smart as he applied a harder than average slap to the bottom of her wriggling rump. "You beast!" she cried, kicking one leg with a frustration that hinted of near petulance. "You horrible, hideous villain! Let me up!" Apparently not. Raising his arm, Duncan applied himself with even greater determination. A few tell-tale fingermarks began to appear beneath the pale surface of her bloomers. Her flinches were growing increasingly more expressive, and her distress could easily be seen in the hunching of her shoulders and the clenching of her writhing bottom each time his hand smacked down upon her. Four smacks covered her entire backside and won him a high-pitched whimper for his efforts. There was a distinctive red flush spreading out over both cheeks and, by the

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look on her face when she craned her head back to level a string of the most maidenly and yet imaginative curses he’d ever heard directed at himself, as well as any future descendants unfortunate enough to spring from his loins, Alma was not finding this a comfortable experience. "Stop! Please wait!" She cried out, her eyes squeezing briefly shut as his hand cracked down again. "Oh! Wait! Can’t we—Oh!—talk—OW!— please?" "I would like nothing better than to discuss this with you, but only if you are going to set your frivolous tendencies aside and apply yourself seriously to meeting the needs of this institution." "I am meeting their needs! Dignity—" Duncan leveled a bevy of quick swats that quickly had Alma squirming and crying out wildly. Her bottom was no longer a soft blushing color, but a hot shade of scarlet that rivaled the pink bows that decorated the leggings of her bloomers. "Properly fed-up bellies first! Dignity has waited this long and can wait a bit longer!" He smacked her buttocks from side to side, allowing not an inch to be neglected, and even smacked the backs of her thighs. She fought him in earnest then, bucking and rolling her hips until he threw one of his legs across the backs of her own to help pin her down again. Kicking her feet with angry futilely against the floor, Alma dissolved into frustrated tears. She tried again to roll off his knee, but her strength was failing beneath Duncan’s punishing hand. And it was about time, too, because his palm was starting to really hurt. Stopping, Duncan held her over his lap while he shook out his throbbing hand and flexed his tingling fingers. Beneath the thin fabric of her undergarments, he could feel the heat emanating from her wounded skin. In a moment that was

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entirely un-doctorly of him, the temptation to peel her bloomers down and rub and soothe her tender backside shivered through him. Her poor hinds must be a deep, dark red by now, he thought, as he gave in to the urge to settle his hand upon her lovely bottom cheeks; they certainly felt well scorched. "All right now, Alma," Duncan said. "I want you to tell me why you are across my knee, getting your bottom smacked as though you were a little girl instead of a grown woman." Sniffing and gasping, Alma struggled to pull her tears under control. She raised her head to look back at him and, in the interim of the spanking, her temper rallied. "I am across your knee because you are a villain," she seethed, her voice cracking as another tear trickled past her lashes and fell to the floor. "I am getting spanked because we do not agree on which reforms are more important than the rest. To be sure, I shall have your job for this because my father owns this institution and sits upon the Board! And don’t you dare call me Alma, you fiend! It’s Miss Burke to the likes of you!" One had to admire her gumption, but it was also apparent that he wasn’t yet half through with this. "You realize, of course, that I have far less difficulty dispensing this discipline than you have in receiving it." Duncan’s hand rose quickly, and Alma let out a shriek that was equal parts rage as well as remorse for having to bear further smacks upon a bottom as tender as her own. "I can cheerfully continue this for as long as you require it." Her toes drummed the floor as he spanked her even harder than before, and her determination not to break down was completely lost as he took his time, delivering a fervor of steady blows all over her bucking flanks. Harder and harder, again and again, until Alma was sobbing continuously and her bottom felt swollen and stiff beneath his palm. He didn’t stop until she was hot to the touch and the thin

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cloth of her bloomers couldn’t begin to hide the hot cherry-red color of her flesh from hips to midthighs. When Alma mournfully twisted back her head in an attempt to see the damage done upon her, Duncan glimpsed her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes red-rimmed and raining tears down the length of her freckled nose until they dripped from her chin. She was quite the loveliest woman he’d met in some time now. Without a doubt, she was the loveliest he’d yet held. It was a thoroughly inappropriate thing to be thinking. Especially since he wasn’t done with her quite yet. Her minute of defiance had pretty well guaranteed a continuance a slight degree harsher than what his bare hand could provide. Leaning towards the desk, Duncan began to search the drawers, looking for what he knew Mrs. Lippett had always kept within easy reach. "Ah," he said, as he discovered the worn and well-utilized, hard-soled slipper in the back of the bottommost one. "No-o!" Alma groaned. She wiggled, but it was a dismal protest at best, and she let out an earpiercing shriek even before he brought the slipper down for the first meaty whack. He fell into a cadence that was, for him, comfortable, but which left her bottom bouncing and reduced Alma from coherent pleas to frantic shrieks and dervish wriggling just to get away. "You—" SMACK! "—are going to—" SMACK! "— take this—" SMACK! "—job—" SMACK! "—seriously!" Her toes scrapped the floor, her hair fell free of its bobbypins and flew about her face and shoulders in a halo of bright gold as she fought to escape the slipper. Until, in a sudden finale, crowned by only a single, harder than normal whack of the leather sole, her torment came to an end.

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Alma drooped over his knee, covering her face with her one free hand as she wept bitterly. She kicked one foot upon the floor in dismal defeat. "Now," he told her, "you are going to do right by your office, Miss Burke. You are going to do what’s best for these children in your care." She made a feeble attempt to rise, but Duncan wasn’t yet ready to let her go and his arm tightened around her slender waist. "At this time tomorrow, I expect you to have a week’s worth of healthy menus and an exercise regime ready for my approval, or you will find yourself right back in this position. And if I am forced to correct you twice in as many days, my girl, these bloomers of yours," he patted her tender bottom, "will come down!" Immensely pleased with his moment of authority, Duncan released her waist and Alma eased herself off his lap. She stepped out of arm’s length, reaching back with both hands to catch her bottom in a grip of tender sympathy. When she stared at him, the look on her face was one of hurt and high indignation. She swiped her hand across her furiously blushing cheeks, dashing the tears away with the back of her wrist, and then glared at him again. "I will accept your silence as acquiescence," Duncan said, and stood. But there was absolutely no mistaking the flash of mutiny that sparked across her face when he said that. In an instant, she grabbed the slipper from his hand and ran across the room to fling it into the fireplace. Her skirts swirled around her legs as she spun back to face him, her hands ducking behind her to rub and hold and rub her aching bottom even more. "There’s your acquiescence, Doctor MacRae," she said, her voice trembling with both anger and tears. "Were I you," he said evenly, "I’d get to work on the menus and the regime."

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Gathering his coat and rolling down his sleeve, Duncan left her to stew in her office alone. Whether it was his method or the action itself, the spanking certainly didn’t seem to have had quite the effect he’d been hoping for. Shaking his head at himself, he stalked down the stairs and headed for the front door. He’d only just reached his car and was opening the driver’s door in preparation to start the crank when a clay flower pot, complete with potting soil and three straggling ivy vines came crashing down across the ground no more than six feet away. Duncan ducked by reflex, throwing up his arms to protect his face as dirt and gravel sprayed his legs. "You arrogant, evil, irredeemable—" Alma sputtered, trying to come up with a word mean enough to accurately describe her wrath. Her eyes brightened when she lit upon one. "Man!" Duncan turned around to stare up at her, leaning well out of the second story window. She’d thrown that pot to hit him! His temper exploded. Slamming the door of his car, he shouted back, "And you are a silly, addle-patted nin—" She slammed the window shut and snapped the drapes together in a gesture of added vexation. Duncan shut his mouth as violently as he had the car door. Although half tempted to march back up there and give this spanking thing a second try, he was too angry to trust his temper. He cranked his car up instead. He was quite a distance down the road before he realized he hadn’t seen a single child, and particularly not Anne Wilkes and her sniffles, which had been his initial reason for going to Caxton in the first place. He groaned, leaning his elbow against the side of the door and covering his forehead with his hand. Great. Now he was going to have to go back again tomorrow.

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Chapter Three lma was awakened the next morning by the reverberating gong that summoned the children to breakfast. It started her bolt upright among her blankets and pillows and for the eighth time in as many mornings she very nearly fell out of bed before she got her bearings. For a moment, without the slightest idea of where she was, she rolled onto her side and then sharply flopped back onto her belly the instant her bottom grazed the mattress. With painful vividness, it all came flooding back to her. Alma sucked a slow breath through gritted teeth and then let it out again, wincing as she gingerly rubbed the wounded area. She was going to have to do something about that doctor. If she was expected to stay here for any length of time at all, then that tyrannical grouch of a man just simply had to go. Period! Caxton needed a new doctor, preferably a happy and round one that would smile and laugh and bring a ray of sunshine into this dismal place every time he paid them a visit. Promptly after dressing, she penned a note to her father stating exactly that. And then on a whim, instead of accepting her breakfast tray in her room, as had become her normal routine, she went downstairs to eat. She knew her mistake almost immediately. The dining hall was absolutely dreary. The walls were bare, a drab sickly-gray that cast a pall of gloom over everything within. The oil-cloth-covered tables were burdened by row upon row of tin cups and tin bowls and unsmiling, anemic-looking orphans seated upon plain wooden benches. The only splash of color lay in their blue-checkered uniforms, some of which were too big or too small for the little one they clothed.

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In contrast, the institutional staff had their meals upon a dais at the head of the room, looking for all the world like a board of Inquisition about to cast judgment upon the waifs gathered below. The temptation to cover her head with her arms and run screaming from the hall was strong, but it wouldn’t have been dignified. Alma let the door close behind her, and the dull clack of tin spoons against the sides of tin bowls petered away into silence. Orphans and staff members alike turned to stare, and not a single smile raised the lips of a single child. "The breakfast bell has already sounded," Mrs. Welsey stated. "Tardy diners do not eat." She was seated at the head of the table, a position she had no doubt been enjoying since the late superintendent’s passing. Small wonder then that Alma’s coming had evoked something less than cheerfulness from the older woman. "I am not a tardy diner," Alma corrected with her sunniest smile. "I run this institute, and from now on the meals don’t start without me." Somewhere off to her right, Alma heard a whispered, "Look at her pretty dress." "No talking!" Welsey snapped, her voice booming over the comparative silence of the hall. "No," Alma said, scanning the children closest to her for a clue as to who the whisperer might have been. "From now on, this hall shall be full of talking. There is no finer way to build one’s communication skills than through table-time conversation." Mrs. Welsey frowned as Alma made her way down the lower aisles to the podium. "There should be a breakfast tray for you in your room." "I believe a superintendent should take her meals with her charges," Alma said, taking the only vacant seat at the table. As she sat down, a helper from the kitchen brought her a plate. Breakfast for the staff was mutton hash and spinach greens, with

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tapioca pudding cake to the side. What the children had looked about as appetizing as lumpy white paste. She eyed the difference somewhat guiltily as she picked up her fork. "It’s just one of the hundreds of new changes that shall be taking place, now that I’m in charge." Welsey's face turned a slow shade of mottled purple, while the man sitting next to her asked, "What sorts of changes did you have in mind, Miss Burke?" "As many as are required, Mister... er—" "Johnston. I oversee the boys’ dormitory." "Mister Johnston, then. Since these innovations are for the well-being of every boy and girl beneath our roof, I am sure no one here will object when I say that, starting with lunch today, everyone will be eating the same thing." For such a lie, she should have been struck by lightning. And the look on each of her staff members’ faces said as much. Nonetheless, Alma gave them her sweetest, most confident smile and turned her attention to her plate. The children were staring at her. So were her colleagues, and that made her breakfast tasteless and heavy to the point of sitting lumpishly in her belly for hours afterward. Her father might have placed her in charge, but it was obvious that the resident staff was too deeply entrenched in their ways to be easily uprooted. Alma could already tell she was going to have to battle tooth and nail for every inch of authority and respect she gained. ______________ Alma met Duncan at the top of the front porch steps, almost as though she’d been lying in wait for him. She looked heavenly, despite her slightly cross expression. Her dress was a deep, dark red with marching band white stripes that laddered their way down the front of her snug-fitting jacket bodice. It

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was right there at the tip of his mind to wonder if she’d selected this scarlet gown because it might match a certain aspect of her lower anatomy, but he wasn’t stupid enough to ask. Especially, since he wasn’t entirely sure if he still had a job. "I was hoping you’d come by today," Alma said, pasting a small and tight smile to her somewhat less than enthusiastic about seeing him expression. He couldn’t help but be a bit surprised. "Were you?" "I have decided to forgive you for your barbaric treatment of me yesterday. I’m sure it was the heat of the moment that inspired your truly ungentlemanly behavior towards my person. However, an orphanage requires a doctor, and for that reason I am willing to overlook your beastliness... if only just this once." And of course, his being the only doctor in a sixty-mile radius probably didn’t have a thing to do with that decision. Duncan resisted the urge to smile. "Thank you. That’s very kind." "It certainly is," she agreed. "I have also decided that, in the interest of maintaining a good working relationship, rather than fire you, as was my mind-set last night, I would like to see if we can’t start anew." Duncan braced one foot on the bottommost step and inclined his head at her graciousness. "I am more than willing to forget our shaky start—in the interest of maintaining a sound and viable working relationship. However, it would help me greatly—to avoid certain repetitions of beastliness, you understand—if you complied with last night’s request to have a proper menu and exercise regime drafted and ready for my approval. Otherwise, I’m afraid the heat of a rapidly approaching future moment might once again overtake me and be cause for another bout of barbarism to occur."

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Her lips compressed a little tighter, but to her credit, Alma managed to hang onto her smile. "I’m afraid I’m going to have to say I do not have the menus ready. But if you can contain your Neanderthal tendencies for but a moment, I would like for it to be noted that as I attempted compliance to your arrogant edict, I found myself confronted by an unyielding obstacle. Caxton is broke. There are no funds with which to implement a change in diet. I have written a letter to my father requesting a remedy to the situation and expect a bank draft by the end of next week. At that time you may expect your change in menus." "And the second half of my arrogant edict?" "It was implemented this morning: ten minutes of enthusiastic calisthenics, right after breakfast. It is slated to occur daily. Will that suffice?" Duncan acknowledged her efforts with a slight bow. "At least you made the attempt, which was more than you were willing to do last night. So, yes, that will suffice." Ever so slightly, the stiffness of her posture relaxed, and her smile eased into something a bit more genuine. "Very well. Then I have something I’d like to give you." Surprised again, Duncan arched an eyebrow. "And, what would that be?" "A peace offering. I want to prove my sincerity." "Oh?" Duncan allowed himself to be led through the entrance way and down the long hall past the kitchen, where the smell of boiling potatoes and the clatter of dishpans assailed his senses. "If you mean to show me the kitchens, I’ve already seen them." "No," Alma said. "Although, considering your penchant for menus, I thought you might find the location of my gift particularly appealing." Growing curious, Duncan asked, "What kind of gift is this?"

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"If you ever toured the facilities here, I’m sure you must have seen that ugly green reception room." "I certainly did. It hurts my eyes just to think about it. Why?" "Well," Alma threw open the door to said room. "Voila! What do you think? Is my peace offering up to standards?" It was a poor man’s patch job of redecorating. Alma had stripped the room of its stained and tattered wallpaper in an attempt to rid the place of as much greenness as possible. There wasn’t much that she could do about the tile floor or the green glass light fixtures or the huge water stain on the ceiling, but she’d replaced the curtains with cheery yellow ones and turned the place into a kind of laboratory, complete with scales, thermometers, an industrial-sized bottle of aspirin powder, and a dentist’s chair complete with drilling machine. There was even a plant set on top of the oak and glass cabinet. The same three-vined ivy that she’d hurled at him the day before, repotted and apparently none the worse for its two-story fall onto the gravel drive. Duncan stepped into the room, for a moment utterly humbled. She was the worst superintendent in the history of Caxton as he’d known it, and he couldn’t wait to be rid of her, but she was also the only one to have ever done anything like this for him. "Doctor Brice in Wellsville has decided to remodel," Alma told him from the doorway. "Since he is putting in all new white enamel and nickel plate, he let me purchase his old drill and chair on credit and for quite a reasonable price. Do you like it?" She had created for him a working laboratory that was homey and yet professional. Duncan turned around twice, simply taking in the

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unexpected sight of it. It was his very own surgery within the walls of the orphanage. He was touched. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "Of course, you realize this only means that I shall have to visit you more often." She looked at him, and he quickly amended himself. "Caxton, I mean." Alma blinked and looked away. "True, but I comfort myself by knowing this is still the right thing to do. Change often means suffering a drawback or two. Fortunately for me, I shall only have to suffer you until my replacement arrives." "Then you still plan to flee these walls as soon as your father’s grants his reprieve?" "Just as fast as I can manage it," she affirmed. "It might go quicker for me if you penned him a note or two as well. I could give you my father’s address, if you like." "I have never before met anyone so stubbornly set on being given the sack." He walked into his new office and laid his hand upon the smooth surface of the examining table. Almost musingly, unable to help but feel a small stab of pain that he couldn’t say the same, Duncan said, "Someone magnificent must be waiting for you back home." "If you’re asking whether I’ve a beau pining for me, no. There’s no one. However, compared with standing as a loving mother to over a hundred runny noses, dirty fingers, and soiled underpants in desperate need of changing, magnificent hardly comes close to describing what I have waiting for me." "In that case, and in gratitude for these lovely surroundings," Duncan spread his arms to encompass the room, "I shall endeavor to speed you on your way. Will one note a day be sufficient?" The last vestige of somberness left her face, and Alma smiled again. "If you’re terribly busy, then I can settle for one, but two might speed me on faster."

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Basking in the glow of her smile warmed him like sunshine. He could almost feel a smile of his own, tugging at the corners of his mouth. Blue eyes sparkling, she came into the room, letting the door fall softly closed behind her. "Gracious, but we’re almost back to being friends again, aren’t we? In that case, you may once more call me Alma." "Alma," he murmured. He still didn’t like her very much, he told himself firmly. He was just being agreeable and non-argumentative. But distant, he told himself as his eyes dropped again to her ribbon-pink mouth. That bewitching bow was calling to him in a way no married man ought to heed. They stood, staring at one another until Alma dropped her gaze and cleared her throat. "Mrs. Welsey should be along any minute now with the first round of patients for your new office. Nothing too serious, I don’t think. A case of the sniffles and two new toddlers, who were dropped upon my doorstep about an hour ago by the Ladies of the Baptist Aid Society. I really didn’t have the beds to spare, but the Ladies were terribly insistent and even offered to pay the rather handsome sum of one dollar and fifty cents per week for each if I would only take them in. Given the circumstances, I could hardly refuse." Her mouth forgotten, Duncan exclaimed, "Three dollars a week? Miss Burke, you’re in the wrong profession; that’s highway robbery!" So much for their truce. "No, it isn’t either!" Alma protested, heartily offended. "It's business. I’m really rather proud of my negotiating skills. Besides, it’s money that could very well be spent for the betterment of not just the toddlers, but of all their little fellow inmates as well." "You talk about them as if they were wards of a prison!"

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"Well, aren’t they?" Alma countered. "Just look at this place. Cold environment, cheerless rooms, antiseptic smells, and I don’t know when you last spoke to the staff here, but they are the grimmest of wardens that ever I’ve encountered. The only difference between Caxton and a real prison is that true prison uniforms are much more cheery and my babies have no hope of early release on account of good behavior. If only we had a barbed wire wall, I’d commence tunneling immediately!" "The Ladies of the Baptist Aid Society can’t afford three dollars a week," he argued stiffly. "And if you view Caxton as a prison, then who aside from yourself is in a better position to change it?" She folded her arms across her chest and, with a very peevish look about her, opened her mouth to answer, and Duncan quickly added, "Starting with menus." She closed her mouth again and glared. "I don’t want to discuss this anymore. I’m still not entirely recovered from the last argument we had." A brisk knock sounded at the door and Alma turned just as Mrs. Welsey pushed it open. She stepped inside to admit a string of four children, the oldest of which seemed about six. Giving both Alma and Duncan the same look of censure, she left again, but only after making a point of bracing the door well open. Alma flushed, her cheeks turning a bright pink. "Well, for heaven’s sakes! Just what does she think we’re going to do? Fall madly and passionately into one another’s arms? This is a medical office! What sort of person becomes amorous in a medical office, and with a doctor no less!" His embarrassment became irritation very quickly. "What kind of person indeed." She stopped. Her mouth snapped shut, and she looked at him with wide eyes. "I-I do apologize." "Think nothing of it."

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"I didn’t mean it quite like it sounded," she said, but he had already turned to the children. He had no business wanting to take Alma into his arms anyway. Not madly, and certainly not passionately. He already had a wife. And whether he knew where she was or not, infidelity was hardly smiled upon, no matter how appealing the blonde, blue-eyed and sweetly smiling other woman might be. "All right," he said, making an effort to sound cheerful for their sakes. "Who shall be the first to sit upon my nice, new table?" Alma sighed. "I’ve done it, haven’t I? I’ve made us enemies again already. What a pity we couldn’t make our truce last longer than four minutes." Thoroughly irritated, Duncan turned his back on her. He lifted the first young boy onto his examining bench, took his temperature, looked into his mouth, and finally stripped away his clothes in search of anything suspicious—chicken pox, measles, the plague. The motions were comforting, clinical and scientific, and he didn’t have to think about Alma while he was doing it. Unfortunately, she wasn’t content in letting him ignore her for long. Obviously feeling guilty, she stood behind him, tapping her fingers together and trying to make amends all throughout his examinations. "I-I want you to know, I’m hard at work on some of those serious reforms you wanted." He ignored her. "I walked all through the place this morning, thinking to myself, ‘Now, what would Doctor MacRae change?’" When he still said nothing, she bit her lip and said, "I confess, I couldn’t find much so I wrote another letter to my father, asking again to have you replaced by a nice, kind, fat man." Listening to the sound of one little boy’s heart, Duncan still kept his own council. Although he did

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give her a very dark look over one shoulder, which she must have taken to mean ‘apology accepted’, for she beamed a smile right back at him and the set of her shoulders relaxed. Having never seen a stethoscope before, the little boy shied out from under the conical end, picked it up to look inside, and then blew in it. Duncan closed his eyes, but managed not to pull away. "This one’s fine," he said, and Alma stepped outside to summon Mrs. Welsey to take him. While she was in the hall, Duncan made himself busy with the second boy. He was still struggling to take the toddler’s pulse with one hand and fish fouryear-old Matthew’s fist out of his jacket pocket with the other when she returned. Having discovered the peppermints, Matthew wasn’t about to let go, no matter how much Duncan jostled him. Alma came to help him and, robbed of his candies, the boy began to bawl. Sitting down on the only chair, she pulled the child onto her lap and rocked him. "When I purchased all these fine things from Dr. Brice, I noticed the grocer had a sign in his window advertising free puppies. I was thinking I might get one. What do you think about Caxton taking on a lovely basset hound as a kind of a mascot? Then I could reward good little boys and girls by letting them feed and play with two dogs instead of one. That should be all the incentive I’ll ever need for maintaining good behavior here for the rest of my life." "The rest of your stay, you mean," Duncan said dryly, glancing back at her. Alma looked awfully appealing holding Matthew in her lap, and for a moment, he forgot he was supposed to be irritated and stared. Realizing what she’d said, Alma suddenly blushed. "Yes, that’s what I meant, naturally."

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Without a word, Duncan turned sharply away from her. Stop wanting her, he commanded himself firmly. Think of Freya, for heaven’s sake. Or at least all you’ve gone through since she left. But still it was everything he could do to keep his hands from shaking as he began to check the second toddler. He went through the motions of the examination by rote and, when he could finally gather his thoughts together enough to judge the boy free from contagion, Alma passed him back to Mrs. Welsey, who took both children back to the nursery. Six-year-old Anne Wilkes finally got her sniffles attended to, and was judged to have allergies. It was Matthew who had the cold. Mrs. Welsey hustled him off to bed while Anne was released back into the wilds of the asylum with a peppermint candy to suck on. With no more children waiting for his attentions, he started to pack his black bag to leave. "I want to apologize to you again," Alma said. "I really didn’t mean to insult you." "It’s fine," he said. He couldn’t even remember the insult. All he wanted now was to get as much distance between himself and the entirely too alluring Alma Burke before he did something he’d regret. "Are you angry with me?" "I don’t know you well enough to be angry," Duncan said. "You sound angry," she said, and he glared at her even as he re-packed his stethoscope. "You look angry, too." "There’s nothing to be angry about," Duncan said, shutting his bag with a snap. He turned to go but stopped when he saw Alma sitting on the examining table. "Do you have time for one last patient?" she asked, smiling that winsome smile that stole his

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breath and brought to mind images better left unexplored. His hands began to sweat. He had to work at reminding himself that he really didn’t like her. "There’s nothing wrong with you." Duncan was somewhat surprised the words came out at all. His throat felt tight, chokingly so. Damn, but she was beautiful. "I don’t know." Alma pressed her own hand to her forehead. "I have been feeling awfully warm." "You do seem flushed." And soft, and inviting. But he dared not say that. He didn’t even want to think it, but the rebellious thoughts refused to go away. "It alternates with chills and shivering," she offered helpfully. It had been entirely too long since the last time he’d held a woman in his arms. He swallowed hard. "It sounds uncomfortable." "But not serious," she assured him. "Perhaps it’s something easily cured by a peppermint?" He should have his head examined. To touch her would be the pinnacle of mistakes in his life, and he knew it. But the temptation of Alma was drawing him in anyway, and he couldn’t seem to help but come a little closer. To breathe in the scent of her, and watch as her small smile became sunny enough for him to bask in. "Being as you are the man of science," she said, "if that’s your professional opinion, then who am I to argue?" For a moment, Duncan couldn’t move. Slowly, he bent down and put his bag on the floor. As he straightened, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sliver of candy. On a half thought out whim, he even unwrapped it for her. His fingers trembled a bit as he held it out. When Alma opened her mouth, what could he do but place the peppermint on her tongue? And as he

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pulled his hand away, his thumb accidentally brushed her lips. It was an unintentional caress that he felt all the way down to his toes. He had absolutely no business doing this. He tried to think of Freya, but at the moment he couldn’t even recall her face. And, Alma was right here. Incredibly lovely, her blue eyes fringed by long, blonde lashes and her cheeks dusted with angel kisses. It had been so long! Don't think about it, he told himself sternly. Think on something else. Like gangrene and food poisoning and swollen spider bites. It was a valiant effort. Unfortunately, Alma was not respecting it as such. She was watching his mouth, her own pursing slightly as she sucked on the candy and tucked it into the side of her cheek with her tongue. "I really should go—" He was silenced by her kiss. It was so sudden. She just closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing her lips to his in a closed and maidenly caress. Common sense screamed for him to push her away, but his body responded of its own volition. Even as he tried to step back, his arms snaked round her shoulders and waist, dragging her so close that not even a breath could fit between them. He felt her breasts flatten against his chest as she became liquid in his embrace. His hands roved down to cup her bottom, holding the delectable curves and pulling her hips against his own, startling Alma with a gasp, although she didn’t pull away. And, Duncan took full advantage of her desire to invade past her lips and steal a taste of her sweet mouth. It was time to stop. He had to. He was married, and this was wrong. Duncan cupped Alma’s face in both hands and tried to pull away, except that she chose just that moment to utter a soft hum of surrender way back

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in her throat. At the sound of it, Duncan was lost all over again.

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Chapter Four His body felt warm and his loins were tight. Every time her soft lips moved against his, currents that felt almost electric pulsed all the way through him to his toes. His hand moved down to cup her breast, the stiffened nub of her nipple poking up behind the cloth of her bodice, eager for the touch of his fingers. She made another low moan, trembling at his touch, and the thought occurred to him that unless they stopped now—right now—Alma’s father would be a hundred percent within his parental rights to have Duncan horsewhipped. "Good Lord preserve us!" Both Duncan and Alma sprang apart, turning to see Mrs. Welsey standing in the now open doorway. Duncan swallowed Alma’s peppermint, which he suddenly discovered was in his mouth. The housekeeper glared back and forth, from one to the other, so scandalized that even her jowls were quivering with self-righteous indignation.. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! This is a good, Christian institution. What kind of morals are you trying to instill in the susceptible minds of these young children, fondling each other like—like proletariats? And on the doctor's examining table no less! For shame!" Duncan stood as stiff as a piece of wrought iron, his jaw clenched so tightly the veins stood out on the side of his neck. Alma just turned red. "The Board shall hear about this," Welsey said stiffly. She shot Alma a scathing look, then slammed back out of the room again, leaving the guilty to contemplate the nature of their sins. "That old bat hasn’t been fondled in far too long," Duncan growled under his breath.

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Alma laughed, a high-pitched half bark that was more surprise than real amusement. "It wasn’t funny," Duncan said anyway. He bent to retrieve his bag, grabbed his coat and slapped his hat back on his head. "I beg your pardon," she objected. "But how was I to know you had a sense of humor locked somewhere inside you?" "I never should have touched you," he muttered, more to himself than to her. He shook his head as he pushed past her for the door. "I touched you," Alma pointed out. "But, I knew better." It was difficult trying to maintain his illusion of anger. More than anything, he wanted to march himself back to her and take her in his arms. He wanted to hold her, kiss her brow and slowly work his way back into her hot, little mouth. It was a truly Herculean effort on his part just to keep from tearing her clothes off and mounting her like a wild man right here on the floor of his brand new surgery. The one she had made for him. He shook his head at himself. "What we did was wrong." "Why?" she half-laughingly demanded. "Because I can’t have you!" Duncan finally snapped. "It’s not right, and it won’t ever happen again!" He slammed from the room and headed for his car. Upholding such a decree might very well kill him, but he was determined. From this moment onward, there would be nothing but business between himself and the entirely too huggable and kissable superintendent, Alma Burke. ______________ Alma threw herself into her work. She had every floor, wall, and ceiling scrubbed down to the grey paint. Every window was polished until they all

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sparkled in the cool winter sunlight, and yet there was just no getting rid of that awful institutional smell. The odor seemed to be ingrained in the plaster and tiles, in the sheets and clothes, and in the pores of everyone who lived there. After four days of straight cleaning, Alma finally gave up. All she’d done was add a slight scent of lye to the overall smell and to wrinkle the fingers of every able-bodied worker between the ages of eight and sixteen. Her own hands were even chapped and red from the harsh, abrasive soaps, and her tender skin was wrinkled almost beyond recognition. But let it not be said that Alma Burke was above the work she delegated. She was quite proud of herself for having wielded her fair share of that scrub brush, getting down on all fours on the floor until her shoulders and her knees ached, just as though she actually belonged here. And still, in the end, Caxton won and Alma was left with nothing to do but admit defeat and to mourn the loss of two broken fingernails. She was sitting in her office, pondering the pros and cons of simply burning the whole place down and rebuilding everything up again from scratch when the post arrived. Sandwiched between the monthly grocer’s bill and an inquiry from a couple in search of a new son, was her father’s bank draft. Her spirits lifted instantly as she sat gazing at the sum her father had sent her, lovingly backed by three beautiful zeros and no cents. If she couldn’t beat the smell, at least she could beat the ugliness. Alma donned her coat and her galoshes, and started walking to Wellsville. Though she could have taken the orphanage dogcart, walking the mile or so to town was more of a luxury than a chore. It meant she got a whole half of an hour of peace and quiet all to herself, without all the fuss and noise of both children and staff members to make it hard for

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her to think. No wee moppets beating each other up just outside her office door. No Mrs. Welsey lurking in the shadows and scowling at her and her hated reforms. Just Alma and the birds, the sunshine and the snow dropping off the trees to the ground. Although it had been rather warm the day before, overnight the weather had chilled again, refreezing everything that had partially thawed and dumping a second layer of fresh snow over that. It left a good two inches of very slick ice to blanket the gravel road beneath her boots, but as long as she walked on the crisp, new-fallen white, she didn’t slip so very often. And not even the threat of a turned ankle could make her give up the pleasure of the unrestrained shopping she planned to embark upon once she reached the local shops. Caxton was so desperate for change, she scarcely knew where to begin. New paint, that was a given. Good-bye dingy grey walls, and hello to splashes of color in every hue of the rainbow! There would be new toys for the nursery, blankets all around, and fresh, colorful, cheerful uniforms that would make even those children who had parents envious. And of course, she really needed to do something about the menus, which should finally please the grumpy doctor. Although, by now she was quite ready to give up on ever seeing that man smile. Too bad he wasn’t here with her, Alma thought. He’d probably enjoy hearing about all the delicious new meals she planned to feed her charges. There were six girls big enough to be of assistance to the cook and Alma had already arranged for them to start helping in the kitchens, just as soon as the cook succumbed to reason and allowed them through the door. Once that happened, then the daily meals could take on a whole new range of delectable goodies, like carrots, corn and beans, brown bread, molasses

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cakes, pancakes with real maple syrup, poppy seed muffins, and tapioca pudding with lots of fat, juicy raisins. Her mouth watered at the thought of thick vegetable soup, Italian pastas, apple-dumplings, ice cream and gingerbread cookies. Just the smell alone of all that tastiness spreading through the asylum halls as it cooked should brighten Caxton until it rivaled the very sun! And then there were the asylum’s orchards, such as they were, consisting of only two apple trees and a scraggly plum bush. Alma had already sketched out a diagram for where she was going to put the new trees she was going to order at the feed store. Then she could add pears and peaches and a wide assortment of berry bushes to further delight the children’s palates. The old chicken house, once properly repaired, was large enough to house at least a hundred hens, and the dairy barn hadn’t been home to a cow in ten years, but that would also change in the coming spring. By the time Alma got through with Caxton, not only would it have fresh eggs and chicken, beef and milk, but it would be virtually self-sufficient! Alma strolled along the roadside, a small, satisfied smile turning up the corners of her mouth. She couldn’t wait to share her ideas with Duncan. At the very least, it should finally prove to him that she was indeed taking her position as a temporary superintendent as seriously as he was inclined to think she should. Not a half a mile out of Wellsville, she found herself climbing a slight but steep and very icy incline in the road. As absorbed as she was in her visions of grand reformations, Alma didn’t hear the frantic beeping of the car, which was rapidly sliding downhill, until the big, black shape of it whooshed sideways past her. Ice and snow sprayed up from the spinning tires, covering the entire front of her as

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the corner of the bumper slapped aside the folds of her skirts, barely missing her leg. It scraped off the edge of the road, down into a short gully and crashed into the bushes that lined the fence of the horse pasture on the other side. Alma fell to her bottom on the ground. Her eyes and mouth both wide with shock, she slid slowly down the ice until she once more reached the bottom of the hill. And there she sat, too stunned even to think. All of the car that she could see was the back bumper sticking straight up over the edge of the gully and the gravel streaks where the tires had scraped through thin spots of ice to the bare road beneath. A car door slammed, and the Doctor’s familiar voice bellowed out a frantic, "Alma! Alma, are you hurt?" The automobile’s engine coughed. As it died, a cloud of steam and smoke billowed into the air, startling an owl from a nearby tree. It promptly took flight, relocating itself to a safer and quieter perch. "Alma!" Duncan clawed his way to the top of the gully, his eyes the size of dinner plates in his pale face. He ran towards her, slipping on a patch of ice at the last second, and falling down hard beside her. "Oh my heavens!" she declared, staring at the smoking car. "Are you all right?" "Am I all right?" he echoed, shocked. "Are you all right? Did I hit you?" He grabbed her shoulders, looking first at her back to see if she’d fallen all the way flat, and then into her eyes. He snatched the gloves from his hands and his fingers combed up through her hair, knocking her hat off into the snow and ruining her coiffure as he searched her skull for bumps. "Did you hit your head?" he asked anxiously. "Alma, are you hurt anywhere?"

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"No," she stammered, and he let go of her head to run his hands down each of her arms. "I don’t think s—OH!" Her words ended in a shriek as, finished with her arms, he continued his search for broken bones via her legs. His hands disappeared beneath the hem of her skirt, following her right ankle to its adjoining shin and then up past her knee. Just when she thought she’d seen the limit of his Neanderthal tendencies, he came up with a whole new method for getting under her skirts! Alma had never been manhandled quite like this before. How undignified! How awful and ungentlemanly! How utterly thrilling all at the same time! She grabbed her thighs in an effort to block the advance of his hands. "Doctor, please!" "How’s your back?" he asked, switching to her other leg and following the length of that one down again. "Fine!" Alma hastily assured. "I-I think I’m fiine-OH! Stop that! Doctor, please!" She slapped at his hands until he removed them from beneath her gown. Her heart was racing in a way that had nothing to do with her near miss with his car, and her face felt scorched. She quickly touched her cheeks, hoping they looked nowhere near as red as they felt and praying that he wouldn’t notice if they did. "Can you stand?" Scrambling to his feet, Duncan reached down to help her and his arm felt as strong as a steel band when he wrapped it about her waist and pulled her up. Alma stumbled at the suddenness of it, and he promptly tucked her protectively against his side. "Oh my," she breathed, his aftershave, whatever it was, instantly topping her list of favorite and manly colognes.

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Duncan insisted on holding her as he walked her through a few practice steps, just to make sure she really was all right. His concern was so touching, that Alma had no choice but to forgive him for all his unrestrained manhandling. She even resisted the temptation to limp a little, although she was fairly sure something marvelous might have happened if she had. At the very least, he might have given her a ride into town. "You see," she said, once she’d satisfied him that he hadn’t crippled her for life. "I’m perfectly fine. A little wet in the seat, but none the worse for having been dropped padding-side down into the snow." "You’re not hurt," Duncan said, as though still trying to convince himself. "You’re not hurt." "No," she smiled and patted his shoulder soothingly. "I’m fine, thank you. A few inches more, though, and I’d have likely been under your car." A comment which probably should have remained unsaid, for no sooner had her words steamed the air between them, than did his face suddenly change and that dazed look of concern turned to one of intense and irrational anger. He grabbed her shoulders again, this time shaking her soundly. "You bloody, fool woman!" he roared. "Didn’t you hear me shouting? Couldn’t you hear the car honking? You could have been killed! Why weren’t you paying attention?" Alma stared at him with wide eyes. Heavens, but he was a man of volatile passions! Before she could draw breath enough to protest, Duncan bent to catch her waist under his arm and suddenly her feet left the ground and Alma found herself tipping over. He wrapped her around his hip, jostling her until her bottom was straight up in the air and Alma was staring straight down at the ground.

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Volatile passions, she thought, and truly ugly shoes. Alma blinked at them twice. "You could have been killed," he bit out angrily, each word accompanied by a strong-armed ‘whap’ to the seat of her skirts. The first crack as his hand was enough to start her back into motion. Catching hold of his leg out of reflex, Alma struggled to right herself. "Oh no, no! Not again!" His palm smacked her backside without pause, delivering a quick, but furious barrage that stung her pride more than it did her bottom. Still she let out a startled shriek at the impact of it, waving her hands as she tried both to grab his assaulting arm as well as his nearest shoulder in an effort to get back on her own feet. But the steel was back in his arm, and he kept her pinned across his hip until his palm had delivered two dozen hard swats and the full measure of his displeasure was beginning to be felt. In the muted impacts of the wallops, if nothing else, for fortunately her skirts absorbed most of the blows. As suddenly as it had started, Duncan set her back upright, and Alma, her eyes still as large as saucers, quickly caught the back of her skirts. He pointed angrily at her, his finger just inches from her nose. "Don’t you move from this spot!" He turned around and started back down into the gully after his car. Alma had a very black moment, when her own anger got the best of her surprise, and she found herself wishing Duncan might be squashed by his own car. But it was only a fleeting thought, and afterwards she was very ashamed for having entertained it. After all, it was only natural to expect a reaction born of fear to be irrational. And it could have been much, much worse. He could have thrown her skirts up or cut a switch or two from a

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nearby bush. In which case, she rubbed her bottom, she’d likely be feeling a great deal more abused than she currently did. Several gunshot backfires shattered the roadside quiet and then the car started again. The cloud of steam and smoke chugged thicker before the entire car lurched forward and disappeared completely into the gully. It took nearly ten minutes, filled with muffled cursings and the sounds of skidding tires, before Duncan reemerged again a good sixty feet further down the road, where the gully gradually leveled out. Back on the road once again, Duncan put the car in reverse and very slowly crept back towards her. "Get in," he said crossly. "I’ll take you home." "No," Alma told him. Although doing her best not to sulk, that’s how it sounded, even to her. Feeling silly for still rubbing her bottom, she folded her arms across her chest and glared at him instead. "Every time I start to like you, you do something beastly to me again. And this time, it wasn’t even my fault! You were the one driving that silly thing. I should be spanking you!" The look he gave her said such would never be likely, but he did incline his head in a kind of acknowledging bow. "You’re right. You didn’t deserve that. But I’m not the only lunatic with a car on the road today, and there’s no guarantee that anyone else will be looking out for your well being. So get in. The road conditions are awful, and they only get worse the closer you get to town." "No," she said again, stubbornly. "As it so happens, I’m going to Wellsville. My money came today and there is a lot of shopping to be accomplished." "There’s nothing you need so desperately that it’s worth risking your life." "Ha! You can say that only because you don’t live in the same hell I do." He gave her a hard look,

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but Alma wasn’t about to be cowed. "Go along home, if that’s what you want. You needn’t put yourself out for me. I’m a big girl, Doctor MacRae, and I am going to town." "I knew I should have taken those skirts up," he growled, but Alma turned around anyway and started walking back up the hill. She refastened two buttons down the front of her coat, which had come undone sometime during her near accident and, as she walked, brushed at some of the mud and ice that clung to the front of her. After a moment, she heard the car door slam and then jogging steps came up from behind. "You dropped this," Duncan said, as he fell into step beside her. He handed her the bank draft her father had sent. Then shoving his hands into his coat pockets and hunching his shoulders against the cold, he started walking beside her up the hill. "You certainly don’t need to accompany me," she told him peevishly. "I’ve managed this walk a time or two on my own before. I neither need nor require an escort." "I beg to differ," Duncan argued. "If you are so preoccupied that you can’t hear my shouting or the car horn during the good ten seconds it took me to slide down this hillside, then you are very much in need of an escort. In fact, I’d say you require an erstwhile bodyguard on twenty-four hour Alma duty!" "Are you volunteering for the job?" she asked. "Not hardly." "Well, I’m certain I couldn’t trust you to take it, even if you were," Alma said, stung by the harshness of his tone. She gave him a reproachful sideways look. "Despite the fact that you’ve twice now done harm upon my person, I could not in good conscience hire any bodyguard who didn’t keep his word."

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Duncan glared at her. "And what word are you saying I’ve broken?" "Why, the vow you made last week, of course." Alma smugly lifted her chin a notch. "You swore rather emphatically that you’d never touch me again. And here we are, a mere four days later, and suddenly you’re all hands. See? You’re totally untrustworthy." "Apparently, I didn’t lay hands on you nearly long or hard enough," Duncan growled stiffly. "Perhaps, I should take a second crack at it. After all, if I’m going to develop a reputation for untrustworthiness, I should like for that reputation to be unequivocally well-deserved." Alma shut her mouth after that, and they crested the top of the hill without another word passing between them. Although Wellsville wasn’t a very big town, there were enough people living nearby that many of the shops were open, despite the poor weather. Duncan followed her without complaint from one business to the next, opening doors for her and even offering to carry what few packages she couldn’t get the shopkeepers to deliver. She hired an upholsterer to come in the morning to re-cushion the chairs in her office, and painters to tackle not just her rooms, but the entire institution. She put an advertisement in the paper for nursery attendants and schoolteachers to cover for those who had so disliked Alma and her reforms as to quit. She even stopped by the grocery and disrupted the old man’s daily routine by canceling Caxton’s standing reorder and replacing it with all sorts of yummy new food stuffs that would be sure to delight everyone except the existing staff. "Mushroom, rice, cheese, preserved green beans..." Duncan glanced up at her over the top of the list. "It’s nice to see you’ve finally taken me seriously."

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"Of course I have. I said I would, and I," she couldn’t help but tease, "unlike some I could mention, always keep my word." "What do you expect from a nefarious villain and Neanderthal?" As they left the grocery, he asked, "I think you’ve been to every shop in town. Is there anything else you need?" "Yes." Alma glanced up and down the road, before spying the candy striped barbershop pole across the street. "My young gentlemen are all raggedy little urchins in desperate need of proper grooming. Miss Smith is in the habit of attending them, but she does so with the aid of dull scissors and a bowl. Small wonder I can get none of them adopted out. What loving family would take a boy who is shaggy on top of his head, but bald from the tips of his ears on down?" "Another case of ugly ears?" Duncan asked, with a knowing tilt of his brow. "Exactly." She flashed him a sunny grin over one shoulder and she stepped out into the icy street, heading towards the barbershop. ______________ She really did have the most enchanting smile, Duncan thought when she turned around to give him that beacon of a grin, walking backwards into the street as she did so. He saw the car as a black flash out of the corner of his eye an instant before the frantic honking started. Alma turned at the sound; Duncan dropped his packages and dove for her, catching her in his arms just as his feet slid out from under him and they both went down on the icy street in a tangle of limbs and petticoats. The car swerved up onto the opposite sidewalk, crashing into the front support post for the general store’s porch roof, which effectively stopped the vehicle’s out of control spin

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although the impact did little good for the general store. Or for the front of the car for that matter. It did, however, cause an eye-catching commotion, and what few customers there were inside the store came spilling outside to gather on the sidewalk and watch. About half of the onlookers contented themselves with examining the dented car, the broken post and the now badly sagging porch roof, as well as the woman driver, who was standing up on the front seat and lamented her smoking engine with a loudly wailed, "Oh no!" The other half of the crowd studied Duncan, who was lying almost fully across the local orphanage’s new superintendent and showing absolutely no signs of being in any hurry to get up again. "Well, this is twice in one day," Alma said, her invitingly warm mouth smiling up at him. "So much for keeping your hands off me." Thankfully, Duncan had taken a vow to save lives; otherwise he’d have strangled her right there in the middle of town.

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Chapter Five Duncan’s face turned a deep shade of red, and he reared back as if the touch of her body beneath his burned. But, no sooner did he set one foot on the ice than did he discover the other was tangled in the hems of Alma’s numerous petticoats. He jerked at his trapped shoe, and something tore. Behind them, the crowd on the sidewalk got bigger. "Wait, you’ve got my underskirts." Alma struggled onto her knees while Duncan bent to free his leg. The careful acrobatics of untangling him from all her layers soon had her giggling. He had to step out of the torn hem before he could be free again. He reached for her, saying, "Of the six cars that exist in this town, you’ve nearly been hit by two of them. Can I please take you home now?" "It’s hardly my fault no one in the state of New York knows how to drive in snow. Besides, the odds are quite likely that the other four will crash before I ever see them." "Are you two all right?" the woman driver called to them. Slowly climbing to her feet, Alma cautiously crept towards the sidewalk. Duncan had a harder time. In shoes without traction, his feet fell out from under him in opposite directions. At this point, if he weren’t already humiliated enough, he’d have done better to crawl. "I’ll get some salt," someone called to him helpfully. And, Alma told the driver, "Yes, thank you, we’re fine." Using the raised wooden sidewalk to steady herself, she made her way to the ruined car. "Oh my. That does look awful. I hope it can be fixed."

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"I’m sure it can, for all the good that will do me. I’m supposed to be on my way to an interview." The woman flapped her arms in a half-hearted shrug. "It looks like Hornell middle school shall simply have to find another replacement teacher." Duncan could all but hear Alma’s ears perking. "You’re a teacher?" she asked excitedly. "Really?" "A very unemployed one as of now, I’m afraid," the woman muttered, staring at her crunched car. She waved a hand rather ineffectively in an attempt to disperse some of the steam still rising from the engine. "What do you teach?" Alma asked. "Oh, never mind. That doesn’t matter. It’s much more important to know this: If you could only change one thing, would you: A. Alter an unhealthy diet; B. Properly groom the hair of a child with ugly ears; or C. replace a hundred petticoats because they are scratchy and red and don’t at all match the rest of the uniforms?" "Oh, the petticoats would have to go, of course," the woman replied at once. "Have you ever been forced to wear a scratchy underskirt against your skin? It’s dreadful beyond words." Alma clapped her hands. "You’re hired!" "For the love of—" Duncan scowled and shook his head. He took a step towards the sidewalk and nearly lost his footing again. Several of the men that had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the store extended their hands to help him, but they were a good four feet out of reach. Alma, on the other hand, took hold of the newly hired driver’s hand and leaned back out over the ice, stretching out her leg and extending to him her boot. "Here, Doctor. Take my foot." Duncan looked at her and her pro-offered ladies' boot. There must have been three or four yards of

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ruffled winter petticoat exposed. And beneath all that, the barest expanse of a naked, pink calf. He looked up to see several men on the sidewalk grinning back at him. "I'd rather be struck by lightning," he growled. "Come on, Doctor," Alma cajoled, wiggling her foot. "The least you could do after throwing me into the streets is to come and meet my newest employee." "Threw?" he echoed incredulously. "I threw you?" Alma glanced up at the stranded driver. "By the by, what is your name?" "Bonnie," the woman said. "Bonnie Chambers. My heavens, does he always scowl so blackly?" "It’s part of his charm," Alma told her. "You, both of you, deserve each other," Duncan snapped. He grabbed Alma’s foot only long enough to be reeled to the sidewalk and surer footing, and then he released her. Glaring at Alma and shaking his head, he headed for the hill and his car still parked on the other side. "Oh, don’t go," Alma called after him. But irritated beyond the capability to stay, Duncan didn’t even bother with a backwards look. "Red petticoats, indeed! She doesn’t know the first thing about that woman! What kind of interview was that?" Except that he already knew the answer. It had been an Alma interview, through and through. ______________ For the first time since her banishment to Caxton, Alma awoke the next morning with excitement and enthusiasm. She was not only ready and anxious to start the new day, but she danced all the way through her morning routine. She couldn’t wait for the breakfast gong to sound. She couldn’t wait to confront the resident staff. For the

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first time since coming here, Alma had an ally instead of an enemy. Bonnie Chambers was sleeping just two rooms down in the freshly vacated room of the nursery attendant, who’d preferred quitting over dining on the same substandard fare as the children. Alma rushed through bathing and dressing, and only penned a quick note to her father thanking him for his generous bank draft. She was out the door and down the hall before it hit her that she’d forgotten to ask for either a replacement doctor or a superintendent. She made a mental note to herself to write two letters tomorrow to make up for it, and then hurried down the hall to Bonnie’s room. Pressing an ear to the door, Alma listened for the sound of movement within before knocking. "How was your night?" she asked when Caxton’s newest resident teacher opened the door. "Dreadful! That bed is as hard as stone. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the ceiling is infested with mice. They’ve been stampeding overhead like a herd of horses all morning!" "Ah," Alma glanced up at the ceiling, watermarked with giant yellow rings from past leaks or spills. Hesitantly, she said, "I do believe that’s the children you’ve been hearing. Which isn’t to say that we don’t have mice, since I know for a fact that we do. But, they are as anemic as the rest of us and certainly not healthy enough for stampeding. Are you ready for breakfast?" "Is it going to be as bad as you warned me last night?" "Without a doubt." Bonnie came out of her room and closed the door. "My stomach is braced and ready to ingest the worst." As it turned out—and though it gave the cook fits both in the storing of the wide assortment of new foods that Alma had purchased the day before

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as well as in the cooking of it—breakfast wasn’t at all bad. Scrambled eggs, sausages, applesauce, milk and little buttered triangles of toast decorated each tin plate. There were even very sparing pots of jam set upon the tables. Alma walked down the rows of children, breathing in the happy aroma and listening with glee to the muffled whispers as they eagerly picked out what they wanted to sample first, once the business of prayer was through. "This isn’t half as horrible as I was expecting," Bonnie whispered as they reached the podium. "Wait for it," Alma replied. She climbed the steps to take a seat among the eight remaining old termagants that made up the resident staff, and they all turned to give her the darkest of scowls. "Scandalous!" Miss Smith snapped. "That’s what this is! I’ve never seen anything like it!" "Just exactly how much money are you planning to spend on these children?" one of the few remaining schoolmasters demanded. "A frivolous waste of funds," Mrs. Welsey said, shrilly. "You should be ashamed of yourself!" Ignoring the lot of them, Alma went to her seat at the head of the table. "This is Miss Bonnie Chambers, and she will be replacing Mrs. Yarwood," Alma said, making room for Bonnie to sit beside her. "I’m sure you’ll all try hard to make her feel as welcome as you have me." Again, for saying such a thing she halfway expected to get hit by lightning. Bonnie must have shared that expectation, for she blanched and even moved her chair slightly away from Alma’s. Fortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of electrical storms this time of year. "Have you ever held a position at a proper institution before?" Welsey asked, looking Bonnie over dubiously.

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"Until yesterday, I hadn’t yet been so..." Bonnie gazed down upon the rows of children, "...blessed." "Then, I hardly think you’re qualified for the job," Welsey announced, giving Alma yet another black scowl. "Oh, but she is," Alma argued. "Extremely qualified, in fact. She’s a teacher, has an open mind, and she very nearly hit me with her car. What are the odds that I should be almost run down by an unemployed teacher so soon after the schoolmaster quit?" "It is fairly difficult to argue with fate," Bonnie agreed as she laid her own napkin in her lap. "You wouldn’t be short a teacher if you didn’t make so many dreadful changes," Welsey snapped. "Madam," Alma announced, pouring her morning tea. "You will see a good many more changes before the end of today. Just you wait." The first of which started before the morning meal was even over. The upholsterer arrived fifteen minutes after breakfast began, and Alma wasted no time in showing him to her office. She even assigned a young boy to do his running for him should he need it. The painters came next, plodding down the road in a wagon laden with ladders and gallons of paint. Alma sent them straight to the playrooms and sleeping quarters to brighten the dreary walls with the aide of six of her biggest boys to speed the process along. The girls she put to work minding the younger children, all of whom were sent outside to play in the snow while the paint fumes were the strongest. Bonnie took on the overwhelming task of remodeling the dining hall, taking with her five of the most destructive children in Caxton to help her. The sounds of ripping wallpaper filled the entire lower floor for hours.

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"The Board will hear about this!" Welsey declared. "If you don’t like my changes, then you can always leave," Alma told her. "Certainly, I’d enjoy the peace that would follow." "I’d sooner roast in the fiery pits of Hell before I allowed you to chase me from these halls!" "Don’t you think you’d be happier keeping house for a different institution? I know I would be." "Are you threatening my position?" "That’s not what I said." "Go ahead," Mrs. Welsey told her hotly. "I’d like to see you try to give me the sack! I have four relatives sitting upon the Board, and every one of them is capable of devouring little busy bodies such as yourself with their morning coffee!" "If that were true," Alma said. "I doubt that I would still be here to suffer this conversation." "And now, you’re calling me a liar!" Exasperated, Alma huffed, "I know you probably thought the position yours after Mrs. Lippett departed, but don’t you think for the sake of civility, that we could at least make an attempt to get along? Just what is it about me that you find so objectionable?" "Your frivolous waste of the asylum’s funds is unforgivable!" "I have only spent the money sent to me by my father," Alma told her shortly. "The asylum had none for me to bother with. And, being as it is his generosity that I am spending, I can do with it as I jolly well please." "Caxton is fine the way it is!" "Yes, if you happen to be a mole!" Welsey drew herself up self-righteously straight and, with double chins quivering indignantly, said, "In my nineteen years at this facility I have never met a more irresponsible, unconventional fool! You

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are, without a doubt, the worst superintendent ever to take command of this noble institution!" "Good heavens." Alma blinked at the housekeeper for several startled seconds, and then began to smile. "Why, Mrs. Welsey! Considering the awful state of this place, I shall take that as a compliment!" "So help me, I will see you gone from this place if it’s the last thing I do!" Welsey turned on her heel and stormed for the door. And, Alma continued her all-out attack against the reigning ugliness with ever increasing cheerfulness. It would quite possibly be, she realized, her last formal undertaking as superintendent once the Board received Welsey’s furiously penned letter. But if that was the case, then Alma intended to make it such an end as to keep the resident staff horrified and in a delicious state of uproar for years to come! The carpenters arrived at a quarter past noon, and Alma took them straight out to the barn, since that needed less work than the henhouse to make it operational. Within minutes, they were knocking out the rotting boards and shoring up the support beams in preparation of bestowing upon the building a brand new roof. Alma lingered to watch until the workers began removing the old, moss-covered shingles. As bits of wood and debris began flying through the air, she made her way back up to the orphanage’s main building and glanced in on the children in the yard. There was no running, shouting, or snowmen. Nor snow angels anywhere that Alma could see, or winter forts in mid construction anywhere. Instead, the children stood huddled around the dining room windows, bundled in their coats, scarves and mittens, hunched against the chill like little penguins, patiently waiting to be let back inside. This just would not do.

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Thankfully, there were real children lurking just beneath the somber Caxton-made exteriors, and it only took a few well thrown snowballs to bring about the most rip-roaringest snowball fight in the history of the asylum. Once that was underway, Alma snuck back inside and left instructions with the cook that, when her babies had tired themselves out, there should be hot chocolate all around. "You’re going to have every one of them sick before nightfall," Mrs. Welsey sniffed. "But at least, they’ll be happy," Alma said cheerfully. "This is a charitable institution! It’s not their place to be happy! It’s their place to be grateful for what’s provided them!" Alma couldn’t help but wonder if a few well thrown snowballs might not transform Mrs. Welsey into a laughing, cavorting, carefree person, the way it had the children. She quickly left the kitchen before she was tempted into giving it a try. ______________ Duncan arrived at Caxton at two that afternoon to find the place in a state of complete upheaval. His car was pelted with no less than eighteen snowballs before he managed to get it parked, and he had to duck and dodge his way to the front door. First thing when he stepped inside, he saw the brand new waiting area where prospective adoptive parents could sit and await the leisure of the superintendent. At the foot of the stairs was a narrow table crowned with a huge bouquet of springtime flowers made of cloth, and instead of white, the entire foyer had been painted a bright yellow. The smell of it was almost strong enough to bowl him off his feet, but every window in the lower floor had been thrown wide open in an effort to dispel the fumes. It was now as cold inside as it was out, but still, the change was impressive, and

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Duncan found himself peeking into rooms just to see what other little touches Alma might have evoked since he’d last visited. The upholsterer had finally finished his work in Alma’s office and was ready to start on the chairs in the main hall. He had also grown fond of his helper. "The most cheerful worker I’ve had in years," he’d told Alma. "He comes with me when I go!" It was her very first adoptee, and while Duncan did his best to repair Jeremy Black’s broken little finger, Alma charged into his surgery to share her unbridled excitement with him. His first sight of her was like a breath of pure spring sunshine. He didn’t know how it was possible for any one person to get more beautiful with each passing day, but somehow she managed it. Glaring crossly down at Jeremy’s finger, he did his best to concentrate on his job, all the while praying that if he could just keep his hands to himself for one day, then maybe he could break his Alma addiction. "Not only does he want Keith as his nice, new son, but he says he’s going to show the boy all the tricks of his trade. So, naturally, I rushed to fill out the proper paperwork, and I got the most wonderful idea. Just look at all the businesses in Wellsville without a single orphan in them: the grocery, the feed store, the law office, the barber, the painters and carpenters, not to mention the bakery and all the hundreds of farms in the area. We could start an apprenticeship program. Even if nobody falls hopelessly in love with the orphans we send them (highly unlikely, in my opinion), the children would gain valuable working experience that could provide for them financially all the rest of their lives." In the middle of bracing and wrapping Jeremy’s finger, Duncan said, "I’ve never known the townspeople here to be very open-minded about change."

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"No," Alma agreed. "I noticed that in my shopping the other day." "How do you plan on broaching the subject with them?" She stopped pacing just behind him, and the scent of her perfume washed over him in the softest of breezes. Ever so slightly, his hands began to shake as his focus shifted away from the injured finger and began to drift towards Alma. "I’m not sure," she said. "Carol at the bakery seemed like a nice, round, happy person, so I thought I’d be direct with her. But Mr. Grange is grumpy and old, and with him I think I shall have more success if I lie outright." Duncan stopped in the middle of what he was doing to give her a dark look, but Alma pretended not to notice. "There is another grocery store that I could order from, although it is a good twenty miles down the road. I was thinking I could tell Mr. Grange that, although I would much rather give my business to him, Green’s has already agreed to take two sturdy boys to sack and carry its customers’ groceries in exchange for my business, and that I simply must be practical." "You’re not going to lie to anyone," Duncan told her sternly. "We could charge the businesses twenty-five cents a week," she continued. "Alma," he warned. Finished wrapping Jeremy’s finger, Duncan gave the boy a peppermint and sent him on his way. "The children would, of course, get to keep every penny of their hard-earned money," Alma continued, feigning enthusiasm even as she took a wary step back when he stood up and turned to face her. "That would give our chicks the extra bonus of gaining real money-management experiences. We could allow them to keep a penny

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a week to spend on whatever they wished, and then invest the remaining twenty-four cents in a savings account at the bank." "Alma," Duncan said again, folding his arms across his chest and giving her an even sterner look. "Imagine the sound investment strategies that a wise banker could impart upon Caxton’s young minds as they saved their money, building a solid financial foundation upon which to start their lives as soon as they leave our care." "You’re not going to lie to anyone," Duncan told her firmly. "And if I have to turn beastly to get the point across, I will." He drummed the fingers of one hand upon his arm, and she glanced down at them. "You know, I really think your insistence on spanking the Caxton superintendent is detrimental to the well-being of this institute," she hedged. He unfolded his arms, reaching instead for his shirtsleeve. He began to roll it up, exposing the taut cords of muscle that ran the length of his forearm. Wisely, she gave in, taking a mammoth step backwards even as she threw up her hands to ward him off. "All right, all right! But you should know that your being such a stickler for honesty is going to severely cripple my ability to do what’s best for these children." "You’ll find another way, I’m sure." Duncan turned back around to put away the unused portion of his bandages. "You could come with me," Alma offered, brightening somewhat. "I’m sure you have plenty of good points to add that would help me make my case more acceptable to the locals." "I can’t think of a single reason for going to town." Although, he could think of a half a dozen reasons not to. Time spent alone with Alma, even in the car for the few minutes that it would take to

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drive to Wellsville, was dangerous time where anything in the world could happen, and which would likely wind up with him holding her again. That spelled disaster any way he looked at it. "You have a car," Alma pointed out. "Not only could I get there quicker, but I’d be able to visit everyone and be back home again long before dark." "I’ve got things to do this afternoon." He hardly trusted himself to keep his hands off her as it was. She was entirely too desirable. Freckles and all. "Please, Duncan." She laid her hand on his arm. "I’d be truly grateful for your support. The words of a doctor are a very powerful influence. You could interject a positive opinion here or there and sway just about everybody to my cause." "And lose all of my patients, should the project turn sour. I’ll be run out of town right alongside you." "I’m already out of town," Alma smiled broadly. "But, I wouldn’t mind it if you came here to live. There are immeasurable benefits to being a resident doctor as opposed to merely a visiting one. Think of all the healthy new reforms that you could help me make." Duncan barked in laughter. "Not for all the tea in China!" Her smile faded. "Am I so awful that you won’t even consider living with me? I know sometimes I can be difficult, but I can be nice, too." Much too nice, Duncan silently agreed as he found himself looking at her mouth. Hunger for her churned his blood until the wanting was unbearable. And, he could think of no way to reassure her without making an utter fool of himself. So, he concentrated instead on putting his supplies away. The wraps went in the drawer. Iodine ointment in the cupboard. When he turned for his black medical

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bag, she was standing right there. So close that he could have kissed her. "It must be very wearying to scowl all the time." She touched the side of his face. "You must be very unhappy." "Nonsense." It came out more harshly than he intended. Her hand was scorching his skin, consuming him clear to his soul. He couldn’t think. "Someone must take very good care of you then." Not for a long, long time. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. If it was her hope to distract him from his reasons for refusal, it worked. Duncan was hopelessly distracted by blue eyes and pink, wet lips, and a perfume as faint and mysterious as her myriad ways of thinking. And when she stepped back, he moved forward and caught her by the arms. Let go, he told himself. But his hands refused to obey. He ended up pulling her closer instead, and the touch of her as she became pliant against him was more than he could bear. "Tell me no," he begged her gruffly. But Alma only shook her head. "I don’t want to." He stared at her mouth, a curse exploding from his own when she tilted her face up to his. Freya was nowhere in mind, all sense of duty and respectability were simply gone. Only Alma remained, soft, seductive, and in his arms. Duncan knew better. She was a lady of quality, not one night stands. Pain was all that would come of this, for them both, but especially for her. And yet, caught up in the undeniable temptation of her, when Alma rose onto her toes, shyly touching her lips to his, the last of his reserve fled him. Without another thought to the consequences, he took what she offered.

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Chapter Six Expecting the sweet exploratory caresses she had experienced with him before, Alma was not at all prepared for the brutality with which he conquered her mouth. He bruised her lips, forcing them against her teeth until she surrendered completely, and when she opened to his invasion, she found herself swept away by it. They fell together against his examining table, his arms lifting and pulling her to him, his low guttural moan sending her sensibilities dancing away like autumn leaves on a stiff wind. She barely knew it when he lifted her bottom and dropped her on the tabletop so he could push her skirts up around her hips. There was only a half a moment's awareness when, unwilling to take the time to unhook the battalion of buttons that lined the front of her gown, with a single burst of impassioned energy, Duncan tore her bodice from throat to waist, laying Alma bare for his touch. She gasped, the shock of suddenly being vulnerably unclothed in front of a man almost enough to bring her senses back into clarity. But then Duncan touched her again, laying his palm almost reverently upon her chest between the swells of her breasts, and Alma forgot all her protests. "You are truly lovely," he told her softly, his long fingers trailing from the dip of her throat to her navel. Then he bent his head and followed that leisurely caress with the heat of his mouth. Alma arched into each kiss with eyes closed tight and head thrown back. She shivered when he cupped her breast and almost forgot to breathe entirely when he bent to trace the pebbled tip with his tongue. The suckling of his hungry mouth seemed to pull the moans right out of the core of

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her. The only sound in her ears became the roaring of her own pounding blood, and the only sensation she could feel was that of him, sucking at her breast until each draw was met with an answering tug way down deep within her womb. A shower of bobbypins scattered across the floor as she raked her fingers through her own hair. She grabbed, needing some anchor to sanity before she was completely blown away. His hot mouth came back to hers. His hand trailed lightly along her inner thigh, moving gracefully upwards until he found the moist wet folds hidden beneath a copse of soft curls. Alma was undone. "Oh, Duncan," she breathed. She could not think, and had no idea what to ask for. But, she knew what she wanted. "More." The sound he made at the back of his throat seemed almost like a growl as he pushed her skirts and chemise up out of his way. Bunching them around her waist, he reached for the ties of her bloomers. "Lift your hips," he said, and stripped her underwear straight off her legs just as quickly as she complied. This was getting well out of control, but Alma liked the way he felt beneath her hands. She parted her legs when he nudged against her knee and instinctively wrapped them around his hips. "Oh," she breathed again as he unfastened the front of his trousers. She engulfed the length of him as easily as a scabbard sheathes a sword, and there was little more than a mere twinge of discomfort when Duncan thrust past the barrier of her maidenhead, possessing her completely. She barely had time to gasp her acknowledgment of the pain and then it was gone, leaving only the pleasure of his embrace to remain.

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The movements were as old as time and the ecstasy just as overwhelming. It built in her womb, rippling all through her as he rocked and moved to a rhythm of his own making. Until she shook with it, crying out as she burst apart, only to fall gradually back down to earth again in a thousand, shimmering pieces. Another deep thrust and Duncan found his own release, a hard expulsion of breath the only sound he made. But when he stopped, the whole world seemed to pause with him. Trembling in her arms, he bowed his head, sweat dripping from his temples onto her flushed breasts. She reached up to cup his face, and he pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand. "Why can’t I get you out of me?" Her mouth swollen and red from his kisses, Alma smiled. "I don’t think I want you to. I like holding you like this. It could almost make my stay here bearable." "And when you go?" he asked, raising his head to fix her with a sober look. "Then what am I to do?" Her smile faded. "I-I didn’t mean it quite like that." He let go of her and began to pull away. "This was wrong from the beginning. I’m such a fool." "You could come with me," Alma suggested as she sat up. "Surely doctors are needed in big cities as much as little ones." But, he didn’t seem to be listening to her. "I never should have touched you," he muttered as he turned completely away, and Alma sat up a little straighter when she heard him curse and repeat even softer, "This was wrong." The loathing in his voice had Alma pulling her bodice back over her breasts. She held the buttonless edges closed with fisted hands. "Why? Didn’t you want to hold me?"

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The look he gave her was almost as wounding as his tone. "Here." He thrust a cloth into her hands. "Scrub yourself. You don’t want to get pregnant from this." That gave Alma a start. Pulling the torn edges of her bodice closed, she stammered, "You—you’re overreacting." "Am I?" He yanked his trousers up and began to stuff his shirttails in around his waist. "I’ve ruined you." Despite the sting of tears that burned her eyes, Alma laughed. It was a brittle sound. "Don’t be absurd! This isn’t the dark ages! I— " She lifted her chin a notch. "I could have a hundred lovers if I’ve a mind to." Except that she knew better, and the look he gave her said as much. He straightened his clothes and ran a quick hand through his hair before scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his wrist, erasing all trace of her kisses. "Wait here." "Where are you going?" Alma asked, climbing down off the table. "I’m going to sneak upstairs and get you a change of clothes, hopefully before someone sees you like that." With his hand on the door, Duncan paused to look back at her. He shook his head, that derisive look on his face again. "Take my advice, Alma. Clean yourself up. You might be surprised at how fast they really will have you replaced if you become pregnant." He slipped out the door, leaving Alma to stare after him with a mix of both hurt and indignation on her face. Except that he was right. To be sent home in disgrace, to have to face her father, not to mention the rest of the judgmental world, with a belly expanding with child and no husband at her side, was the last thing she could ever have wanted. It would have been a social death sentence. She

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didn’t think her father would cast her to the streets, as she knew many fathers did. But, he was far more likely to hie her off to the nearest church and keep her on her knees with guilt-laden sermon after sermon for the rest of his life. Alma picked up the cloth and cleaned herself as best she could without any water. She got down on her knees and picked up her fallen bobbypins. Without a brush or a mirror to check herself in, she combed her hair back with her fingers and twisted it back into a bun again. Then she sat back down on the examining table, with her back to the door, to wait for Duncan’s return. It didn’t take long. Within ten minutes, he was back with a fresh dress, stuffed down inside a pillowcase for its transit through the halls. "I ran into Mrs. Welsey," he said, closing the door behind him. "I swear that woman must be part bull dog; she can smell impropriety a hundred yards away." He thrust the pillowcase into her hands. "Here. Get dressed. I sent her to the kitchen for the week’s menus. I told her to bring it to your office and that we’d go over it there." Then he stood there, looking at her, and Alma felt a momentary twinge in her chest at the discomfort that crossed his face before he cleared his throat and awkwardly turned himself around. As a gentleman would have. As though he hadn’t just made love to her not fifteen minutes ago. This wasn’t at all what should have happened her first time. Alma looked down at the dress and her biggest incentive to put it on became so that she wouldn’t attract any undue attention on her way back to her room to cry. Her hands shook just a little as she put it on, with Duncan checking his pocket watch all the while. "You leave first," he said as she was fastening up the last of the buttons. "I’ll follow you up to your office in a few minutes."

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"No," Alma said woodenly. "You’d best leave. If you act angry as you go, they’ll assume we’ve had another fight, and it won’t look so odd." He must really have wanted to go, too, because Duncan didn’t argue. He only reached out to cup her face in the warm palm of his hand. "Alma, I’m sorry." She covered his mouth with her hand, closing her eyes as the twinge in her chest became almost like pain. "Don’t, please." Her eyes began to sting and she had to bite her lip to keep it from trembling. "Please. Don’t be sorry, too." Unable to bear being this close to him any longer, she slipped quietly from the room. She only ran across one person, a painter, as she walked, a model of sedate grace, upstairs to Mrs. Lippett’s quarters. And she almost made it all the way there before her tears began to fall. ______________ For nine full days, Caxton buzzed in a state of complete upheaval. Every wall that could be painted was. The barn was made ready for cattle. The henhouse needed another week and then it too would be functional. And in the midst of a break between the two projects, the carpenters—from the goodness of their creative hearts—built a child-sized home out of their lumber scraps. It came complete with windows, a shingled roof, and a pint-sized door with a porcelain doorknob, artfully decorated with an inked daisy in the middle of it. The carpenters even took the time to paint their creation pink with white trim, and it became the instant treasure of every little girl who longed to play house. Alma promptly penned off a request to her father for two dozen baby dolls to be sent post haste, lest he never hear from her again. The dolls were on her doorstep within the week. It was rather

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comforting to know her father, at least, still desired her correspondence. And even with Caxton torn up by renovations, Alma still managed to adopt out a child. A young couple visiting from Pennsylvania took four-year-old Matthew home with them as a souvenir. More than anything, Alma would have loved to share her good news with Duncan. But after their last encounter, he’d disappeared and been very careful to make his inspections only during those brief interludes when Alma went to town. As the snow continued to melt, and the coming spring continued its gradual approach, those ‘brief interludes’ were occurring more and more often. With a newly repaired barn and henhouse just waiting to be filled, Alma wasted little time in placing an order at the feed store for a hundred and fifty chicks and two calves, to be delivered in the coming spring. With the help of her father’s money, things were finally starting to come together and shape up nicely. Also, her apprenticeship program would hopefully be up and running by the end of the month. Mr Grange had bought her little white lie about Green’s willingness to take an orphan and, in fact, was so outraged that the rival market would dare move in on his most reliable customer, that he agreed to take two. Willard, the Barber, was cheerfully willing to take on an apprentice so long as his was a good-natured and pleasant boy, who was also a good conversationalist. Apparently, even as the only barber in town, business could periodically be slow, and he was looking forward to the company. Carol the baker’s only requirement was that her helper be a sturdy girl big enough to see over the top of the counter. Alma even had a surprise request from the Baptist preacher’s wife, who was willing to pair an orphan with her handyman and

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school him in how to properly maintain the church and its gardens. And every second Wednesday of the month, the local Ladies Sewing Society was more than willing to pass on their quilting skills to all of Caxton’s oldest girls. On the other hand, however, the law firm had flat out refused to participate, as had City Hall, although Alma thought she’d argued quite convincingly that they needed a filing girl and switchboard receptionist far more than they needed a new typewriter and picket fence. Still, when they politely, yet firmly, showed her the door, Alma wasn’t completely surprised. What did surprise her was the refusal of the farmers. Not one of the biggest farms was willing to take on a new hand for either tilling, planting, or harvesting seasons. The most likely reason being the twenty-five cents a week charge. Farmers, she was beginning to realize, had very tightly closed purse strings. And so it was that Alma found herself walking home from her third endeavor without a single enlistment from the hitherto uncooperative farming community. The snow and ice had spent the majority of the previous week melting, which left the ground quite muddy, but with sprigs of newbudding plant life everywhere she looked. Birds were singing gayly, the sun at her back was the warmest that it had been in months, and Alma wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to any of it. Instead, she was mulling over the possibilities of her children exchanging their harvesting labors for fresh fruits and vegetables rather than for money. Maybe they could set up roadside stands and sell the proceeds of their hard work to passing travelers. After all, who could say no to a five-year-old orphan with a bushel of vegetables. Lost as she was in a fantasy that involved a hundred corn and tomato stands littering both sides

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of the road leading to and from Caxton, it wasn’t until Alma was almost to the asylum’s front steps that she realized she’d just skirted Duncan’s car on the way. Duncan! Her head came up, and her heart did a strange, fluttering dance inside her breast. It was a fluctuation that lasted barely halfway up the porch because that was when Duncan slammed through the front door and headed angrily down them. He stopped when he saw her and glared. Despite the thunderous expression on his face, Alma nearly forgot how to breathe. It was terrible to feel like that for a man who so obviously didn’t care to return the sentiment. Were Alma a more sensible girl, she’d have turned her nose up into the air, stalked upstairs to her office and left him utterly alone. But instead, when he charged past her, she turned sharply on her heel and chased after him, just barely reaching his car ahead of him. With a pert grin, she opened the door for him. "Good afternoon, my stalwart enemy. I don’t suppose you’ve found a replacement for me yet?" "Not for the lack of trying," he said tersely. "Never give up hope," she encouraged. "Heaven knows I’ve written enough letters. Were our employer anyone but my father, I dare say I should have been sent packing weeks ago." His dark countenance didn’t abate in the slightest. He merely fixed her with another hard glare, a muscle ticking alongside his jaw as he clenched his teeth. "Where have you been?" Her heart was back to doing cartwheels. "Why, Doctor MacRae," Alma teased. "Did you miss me?" She blushed as it occurred to her that he might have missed the feeling of being inside her.

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Certainly, she’d missed having him there. She felt warm just thinking about it. Except that he hardly seemed to be entertaining seductive memories at the moment. Especially not when he rounded on her, his brown eyes flashing as he grabbed onto the car door, his hands bare inches from her own. "I want my bottles back," he demanded. Alma blinked, her smile fading. "Bottles?" "I mean it, Alma. If I find out you’ve done this out of spite just to punish me, I will blister your backside, so don’t push me!" She blinked again. "Spite?" "Don’t play the innocent with me, young lady!" Duncan snapped. "This whole foul plot reeks of frivolous, devil-may-care Alma Burke-ishness! From the very beginning, you’ve wasted no opportunity to take every unintelligent stand possible against me. I’ll bet you were standing in the thick of it right along with the rest of them! In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that it was all your idea!" "Foul plot?" Her eyebrows came together in confusion. "The rest of who?" He leaned over the door towards her, growling, "If you know what’s good for you, little girl, you’ll have every one of those bottles back in my surgery by the end of today!" It seemed to be the day for echoes. "Little girl?" Alma’s eyebrows arched up towards her hairline as he got into his car. She snatched back her hand in time to keep it from being slammed in the car door, and Duncan took off with such ferocity that mud splattered up from his tires all across the front of her skirts. "You ornery, ill-tempered beast!" she shouted after him. She didn’t even get a backwards, scathing glare for her efforts. Alma sighed, her shoulders drooping.

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It appeared that they truly were enemies once again. And, things were no calmer inside Caxton, either. Children were running through the halls in the most delightful state of uproar, and it took Alma nearly twenty full minutes to convince Miss. Smith and Mrs. Welsey to unbarricade themselves from inside the nursery. It was another two hours before she finagled an explanation out of them, and it took a lot of hard talking to convince Bonnie to drive her to the house of the ‘Mad Doctor’, as they had taken to calling him, to talk. She probably should have stayed at home. The endeavor was a disaster from start to finish. Bonnie stayed in the car, her hand on the throttle, ready to drive like crazy should the doctor venture outside. She needn’t have worried. Duncan refused even to come downstairs, and instead, bellowed his complaints from the upstairs window he’d poked his head out of when Alma knocked upon his door. "Cod-liver oil?" Alma asked, laughing just a little. "You terrified my staff for hours over cod-liver oil?" "Don’t you dare laugh about this!" he warned her, thrusting his head and shoulders so far out the window that for a moment she was afraid he might fall. "I had nine bottles of the stuff in my cupboards at that mockery of an orphanage. I want to know where they went!" "I really don’t kn—" "Don’t stand there and tell me you don’t know!" he bit out angrily. "That’s valuable and expensive medicine you’ve taken, and I need it to treat those children!" "I didn’t give you that office so I could abscond with your supplies!" Alma protested.

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"I want every one of those bottles put back where you took them from," he commanded from the second story. "And I mean now, Alma!" "Now see here—" Alma stopped with a slightly frustrated sigh. "Can’t you come down so we can discuss this like civilized adults?" "Come down so you can ply your witch’s wiles on my nature? Ha!" He disappeared back inside his house. "It’ll take more than wiles to sweeten that nature," Bonnie muttered under her breath. Duncan reappeared almost instantly and glared at her now, too. Then, he fixed his scowl back on Alma. "I suppose she was in on this plot, too!" "There was no plot," Alma insisted, growing a little irritated when he uttered another bark of disbelief. "And whether you believe me or not, I still don’t know what happened to your bottles, although you might try asking some of your patients. You should see some of the lengths those children go through to avoid having a spoonful of that horrible stuff poured down their gullets. My poor staff is very overworked in that regard!" What Alma thought to be a fair argument, only enraged Duncan further. "Then hire more staff! This is important! More so than braids or petticoats or painting walls! This is medicine!" Throwing up her hands in exasperation, Alma started back off the porch. "Don’t you toss your hands at me, woman!" he thundered. But Alma’d had enough and didn’t turn around, not even when she heard him slap the windowsill with the flat of his angry hand. Head held determinedly high, she headed back towards Bonnie and the car without so much as a backwards glance until she heard him bark after her in a language that must have matched his last name. The Gaelic words were as hard as curses, and her shock at

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hearing them yelled in such a completely different dialect had Alma spinning around so fast that she nearly slipped and fell into the mud. "Don’t you yell at me in that tone of voice unless you’re yelling at me in English!" she shouted up at him. "I don’t know what happened to your lousy bottles, you grumpy old codger! What, do you think I pawned the stuff? There’s hardly a black market demand for cod-liver oil!" "How do you explain nine missing bottles, then?" he countered blackly. "I can’t! But the next time you feel in a fighting mood, you come fight it out with me! Don’t you dare take your foul temper out on my staff! They aren’t used to your abuse!" "Then they need to keep their hands off my supplies," Duncan snarled with more than his fair share of derision, "instead of—" "Instead of what?" Alma demanded. "Do you think Mrs. Welsey is skulking through the darkened corridors of Caxton, guzzling your medicine just to spite you?" Duncan pointed down at her. "If she is, she’s following your lead!" "Oh! Of all the unreasonable—" Losing the last vestiges of her own temper, Alma grabbed up a handful of caked mud and hurled it at him. Duncan ducked inside in time to keep from being hit, but the projectile struck a square of glass in his multipaned window and shattered it. Duncan thrust his head back out of the open window so fast that Alma was sure he really would fall this time. She hoped he broke his leg on the way down. Staring at the window in shock, he then glared back down at her. "I’ll take my belt to you for that!" "Ha!" Alma barked, hands on her hips. "I’d like to see you try it!"

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She never saw a man go so dark so quickly. This time when he ducked back into his house, she took off running for Bonnie’s car as fast as she could flee. She didn’t bother to open the door, but jumped over the vehicle’s side and fell face-down in the seat just as Duncan charged out onto the front porch of his house. "Drive!" Alma shouted. "Drive!" When Bonnie saw the leather razor strop in Duncan's hands, she needed little other encouragement. Mud splattered the side of his house as she jammed the car into gear and raced back towards the main road. Trying to turn herself around and pull her legs down into the car, Alma began to laugh breathlessly. "Is he following us?" Looking back over her shoulder, Bonnie shook her head. "No. Goodness, Alma! You'd better get up before someone sees you. Your undergarments are flapping in the wind like a flag of surrender!" Turning herself right side up was an awkward process, made even more difficult because Bonnie refused to stop the car to help her. By the time Alma managed it, they were almost to Caxton, and she was laughing so hard that she had tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hair had come halfway undone, leaving only a partial bun of bobbypins dangling over one shoulder. The rest was a tangle of kinks and curls that whipped about her face in the frigid wind as they sped for home. Pale and wary, Bonnie could only shake her head. "I don't know who's more dangerous: you or him." That only set Alma off again, and she laughed all the way home.

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Chapter Seven Sitting at her desk, Alma waited tensely, her ledger open in front of her as she stared with fixed determination at the pages. She had no idea what she was reading, she was far too nervous. Duncan’s car had pulled up to the front of Caxton’s porch and every nerve inside her was tinglingly aware of his presence. Her ears were straining to hear his approaching footsteps in the outer hall, although she halfway expected for him to take his usual tour through the nursery and schoolrooms and then promptly leave again without so much as a by-yourleave aimed in her direction. Except that yesterday’s image of him storming out onto his front porch, strop in hand, refused to leave her mind. She shifted in her chair, her bottom all but prickling as she bit her lip in apprehension. Surely, if he were going to carry that threat out to its painful conclusion, then he’d have chased her down last night. Surely, he was only likely to be cross and glare at her today, and that was only if he even bothered to look at her at all. Alma felt her cheeks heating, and she shifted yet again. This was really very silly. Here she was, a grown woman and the administrator of a charitable facility, and already she’d been spanked more times by the visiting doctor than she had in all the rest of her childhood. How very backwards! She squared her shoulders and tried for the umpteenth time to focus on the words inked into the pages before her. He probably had no intention of seeing her today, anyway. She was doing a lot of worrying for nothing. The door to her office opened without a knock, and her stomach sank right through the seat of her chair to her toes as Duncan walked in.

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Without his strop. Thank God. And yet, Alma wasn’t quite lulled into even a slight sense of relief. She’d had quite enough experiences across his knee already to know his broad and bare hand was lethal enough on its own. He certainly didn’t need a strop to make her kick and howl. Dropping the book, she stood up when he came towards her. Just what she intended to do, she wasn’t quite sure. It wasn’t exactly dignified to run screaming through the halls with the doctor fast at her heels. Although Mrs. Welsey and much of the staff would likely enjoy the spectacle, particularly after he’d caught up with her. She rubbed her suddenly sweaty palms against her skirted thighs and cleared her throat. "Good morning, my dear enemy. I sincerely hope you’re in a less difficult mood today." Frowning all the way, he walked over to lay a slip of paper upon her desk and calmly took a seat across from her. Bracing his elbows on the armrests, he folded his hands before him, crossed his legs, and glared at her. Not taking her eyes off him, as though afraid he might suddenly spring the distance between them to grab her (highly unlikely—not even Duncan was that barbaric), Alma picked up the paper. Easing herself back into her chair, she then dared a quick glance away from him to look at it. "A bill," Duncan supplied. "For the window you broke. Had you not chosen to see the matter as one big joke, we might have been able to come to a more peaceful resolution." In the middle of reaching for the cashbox in the bottommost drawer of her desk, Alma almost choked. "I hardly saw the matter as a joke! And besides, it wasn’t me hurling accusations from my upstairs window!"

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"And, I wasn’t the one hurling rocks. You may think since I’m the only doctor in sixty miles that I have a limitless income with money to spare. But medicine is expensive to come by, even for me, and especially so when I’m paid for my services in chickens and not coin." Alma paused, looking up from the small stack of coins she was counting. "Really? I’ve almost got a brand new chicken house. Perhaps I could take some off your hands. Or was that a figure of speech?" "I wish it were," Duncan said dryly. "For lancing Agatha Webster’s boil, I received a dozen eggs, and Hubert Bibby set a brand new precedence last fall when he gave me a pot-bellied pig, still very much alive, for removing a spray of buckshot when his brother-in-law mistook him for a deer. Chickens were what I was paid this morning when I set Mr. Powell’s broken arm. They were delivered, however, with freshly wrung necks so they’re hardly in an egg laying mood. At this very moment, my housekeeper is preparing a chicken and dumpling supper for whenever it is that I eventually make it home tonight. But that’s neither here nor there." "I’m very sorry," Alma told him. "I certainly hope so. Windows are expensive. Although I probably ought to be thanking you, being as I’ve now got a prime opportunity to get rid of that blasted pig. Hopefully, the glazier will find it a fair trade." "No, I didn’t mean that," Alma said, then caught herself when his look darkened even more. "W-well, that is to say, of course I’m sorry about the broken window. I feel just awful for having done that. My temper truly got away from me. But, I’m also sorry about your housekeeper." Duncan blinked slowly and guardedly asked, "What about her?"

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"I’m sorry she’s not a better cook." She gestured to him. "Just look at you. If she were, you’d be fat and happy, and that whole business yesterday would never have happened." His expression didn’t change. He didn’t move, not even when she slid his money across the top of her desk and put the cash box away. "Miss Burke," he began. "I want my medicine bottles returned to me." "I’ve already ordered some replacements," she said soothingly. "And you’re right; they are dreadfully expensive. One dollar and thirty -five cents per bottle? Outrageous! It’s cod-liver oil; not gold! Still, that doesn’t mean that I forgive your unreasonable temper. Why can’t you be volcanically passionate for something sweeter and more pleasant tasting?" "I am also fond of spinach and broccoli, too," he stated dryly. She sighed, bracing her elbow on her desktop and propping her chin in her palm. "Neither is very popular in my nursery, I’m afraid." The doctor gave her long, dry look. "Shall we finish yesterday’s business then, so we can get on with the day?" That anxious tingling returned with a vengeance, knotting up her stomach and prickling across her bottom until it felt as through her skin were positively crawling. "I thought we just did." Duncan stood up. Alma’s eyes grew very wide, and she swallowed with hard dismay as he removed his belt, wrapping the buckle around the palm of his right hand twice, leaving a good eighteen inches free for the swinging. He beckoned with one finger for her to get up, then tapped his side of her desk with one finger. "Over here. I want you bent over, and I’d suggest holding onto the other side."

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"But you can’t!" she wailed. Her feet rooted her to the floor as he came around the desk and took hold of her arm, pulling her up out of her chair. "I said I was sorry! I paid for the window!" His hand at the small of her back pushed her down over the desk. "This isn’t fair!" she cried, already feeling the tinge of tears. "You were more unreasonable than I was! When do I get to spank you?" "When I start throwing rocks at you," he said. "But it was an accident! I didn’t know there was a rock!" Alma tried to push herself up, but Duncan laid his arm across the small of her back and the only thing that went up was the hem of her skirt, followed by her petticoats. In a last ditch effort to stop the inevitable, as her bloomers were skinned right down to her knees, baring her trembling bottom completely, in desperation she bellowed, "I’ll call the sheriff! I’ll have you arrested! Don’t think I won’t! I don’t like you near well enough not to put you in jail for a hundred years!" "You do that," Duncan said. And the length of that leather belt hissed through the air to snap across her backside with a thunderclap ‘WHAP.’ The hurt was unbelievable. Were Duncan’s arm not holding her firmly in place, she’d have straightened as stiff as a wooden peg right back up off the desk. "OH!" Her hands shot back to grab hold of her bottom, which burned and throbbed from that single stroke with frightening intensity. "Move your hands," Duncan ordered. "No!" And Alma shook her head frantically from side to side for good measure. The belt sang through the air again, this time catching her below her hands, across the backs of her thighs and raising an instant and painful welt.

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Alma screeched. Her knees hit the desk as she clutched at the backs of her legs, holding them tightly while they stung and pulsed. "Move your hands," Duncan repeated, grim and implacable. "Mind me, Alma, or you’re going to get this whipping on your legs." Blinking against a rush of stinging tears, Alma slowly pulled her hands away from her bottom and thighs. "Grab onto the desk if you have to, but don’t interfere again," he told her. Pressing down on the small of her back, he then drew back his arm and lay into her with a brisk snapping rhythm that quickly had Alma kicking and shrieking. The spanking was as brief as it was painful. With lashes of pure smarting fire, the belt licked around her hip and drove her onto her toes. Her knees buckled, hitting the desk as she writhed in her suffering, and though she grit her teeth to keep back her wails, they escaped her anyway and accompanied each new swish and thwack as the length of supple leather found its blushing target again and again. And through it all, Duncan kept his warm hand on her back. It was almost comforting. He couldn’t have given her more than a dozen strokes before he finally stopped, but it was as if he knew she’d reached her limit. That he’d brought her to the point of clinging to the brink of it in the same way she now clung to her desk, her hands like claws, her fingernails digging into the wood. He leaned over her, his oddly comforting hand still in the middle of her back. "I found the rock after you sped off laughing. It was large enough to have given me a concussion. So let me ask you this, Alma: Where would you have got a doctor if you’d hit me?"

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Alma didn’t realize how hard she was shaking until he pulled her bloomers back up and lowered her dress into place again. "You may get up now," he said softly, and he took his hand away. Her bottom throbbed, and her eyes burned. She wanted to cry, but a sudden shock of anger made that kind of weakness in front of Duncan no option at all. She walked stiffly away from him while he put his belt back on, and then shied from his touch when he reached out to hold her. "Don’t!" she whispered hoarsely. Everything swam before her, rippling around the edges as her eyes filled up. "Don’t ever touch me again!" He did anyway. Despite her stiff-arms and her struggles to resist him, he pulled her into his unwanted embrace anyway. Duncan cradled her to his chest until all her attempts at getting away dissolved into sobs and she finally stopped fighting him entirely. "I hate you," she wept, and hit his shoulder with an ineffective fist. Duncan said nothing in response, although his arms tightened just a bit around her. He cradled her until her tears turned to sniffles and hiccups, and then, dropping the gentlest of kisses upon her forehead, he left. ______________ Still sitting on a pillow a full day after her strapping, Alma was at her desk and making a valiant effort to whip the next month’s menus into shape when there came a sharp rap at her door. Mrs. Welsey, her face set in the smuggest and most disagreeable of smiles, strolled in. Without lingering in the doorway, she stepped sharply to one side to admit a round and portly fellow, immaculately attired in a gray pin-stripe suit, polished shoes with

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spats, and a monocle over his left eye. The cane in his manicured hands had an ivory grip, his handlebar mustache was turned up smartly at the ends, and despite everything that Alma had ever said about fat men, he looked about as jolly as a tax audit. He looked every bit to her like a new enemy in the making. "Good morning," Alma said, covering her dismay with automatic politeness. "May I introduce Mister Barnaby Wellington," Mrs. Welsey announced with the same whiskerlicking smile of a well-fed cat. "Our Board’s most senior trustee." Resisting the urge to groan and hang her head, Alma lay down her pencil and pushed the half completed new menus aside. Tucking the pillow under the desk to hide it from both Welsey and the trustee, she slowly eased herself onto her feet so Wellington could get a better look by which to base his disapproval of her on Mrs. Welsey turned to go. "I’m sure you’ll find her just as I described in my letters," she softly confided as she passed him by, but not softly enough for Alma to avoid overhearing. Still, even with a sore and aching bottom, cheerful in the face of adversity was, in Alma’s opinion, the only way to go. Making a concentrated effort to walk normally, she rounded the side of her desk to greet him accordingly. "Mister Wellington, how wonderful to meet you. And what do you know, you’re just in time to see some of our latest renovations." With a mustache-ruffling harumph, Wellington thumped his cane twice against the floor. "And how much did that cost you? A pretty penny, I dare say, from what I’ve seen so far! I’ll be looking at the accounting ledgers before I go, I’ll tell you that much right now!"

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"Of course," Alma said diplomatically, and gestured to the chair across from hers a second time before he grudgingly made his way to it. "I should like to point out, however, that all the money that has so far gone into all of our remodeling has come out of a personal generosity sent to me from my father. Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?" She opened her office door in time to catch Mrs. Welsey with her ear pressed to it. "Ah! Since you’re still here, perhaps you would be so good as to inform the kitchen that refreshments are required in my office?" "After I take a tour of the facility," Wellington interjected. "And before that, I’ve some questions for you, my girl." Welsey smiled another alligator grin, and Alma closed the door on her. Stifling a sigh, she returned to her desk and very gingerly lowered herself to sit. Even without her cushion, he avoided a wince as her bottom made contact with the chair. But only just barely. She sighed her relief as the brief flare of discomfort faded into a dull throbbing sensation, and then she cleared her throat. "What sort of questions did you have in mind?" "Chiefly, why are you here? Burke could have put any number of responsible, experienced people into this position. Why you?" "Good sir, I have asked myself that very question many times." In fact, she’d bemoaned it every morning promptly upon waking and roughly every fifteen minutes thereafter until sleep claimed her again at night. "To be honest, I think my father believes that a change of mentality might do more for this asylum’s well-being than simply a change in leadership." Not to mention that her father had a dastardly and vindictive sense of humor.

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"You have no experience in the running of orphanages?" Wellington continued, unimpressed. "Nor any other large institution, for that matter?" "None whatsoever," she agreed. "How long does he intend for you to remain in authority here?" Until she managed to convince him that she was no longer indifferent to the plights of her less privileged fellow man or until hell froze over, whichever came first. "You know, I’m not entirely sure," Alma said vaguely. "But, I do believe he is at this very moment searching for someone vastly more qualified." Or at least, one could always hope. "Your father is Judge Richard Burke?" "The Third, yes." Wellington sniffed. "One would think a supreme court justice would know better." "One would think," Alma diplomatically agreed, but then spread her hands. "Yet, here I am. If you can think of someone more qualified to take over my position here, then by all means I urge you to bring him or her to my father’s attention straight away." So she can get spanked by the cantankerous Doctor MacRae, Alma finished to herself. Then she cleared her throat. "In the meantime, could I interest you in that tour of all our cheerful new changes now?" He came, but grudgingly so and with a mindset to disapprove of everything he saw. He grunted at the on-site doctor’s laboratory, thought the new window curtains were a frivolous waste of money. He scowled the entire time he toured the garden area and listened with only half an ear to her plans of expanding Caxton’s staple of potatoes and cabbages to include all sorts of new culinary delights, sown by the hands of her very own wee waifs.

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"Since I can’t get any of the local farmers in tune to the idea, I’m thinking of starting my own farm right here," Alma told him spiritedly. "I haven’t yet spoken to the gardener about it, but I think we should give each of the older children their own small garden plot and let them grow a choice of vegetable in it. Then, Caxton could buy their produce from them with real money. Not only would the children learn about finances, but every harvesting season they’ll be able to taste the delicious results of their labors and feel a well earned sense of pride at every bite." "You’ll be eating turnips and tomatoes at every meal," Wellington grumblingly predicted. "I’ll offer incentives for variety," Alma countered. He harumphed again, unimpressed. In fact, the only thing he seemed even remotely interested in was the new dining hall. Bonnie had painted a woodland mural all around the walls, complete with baby bunnies, deer, skunks, birds and opossums, which dangled from the tree branches with upsidedown grins painted upon their furry faces. Her artistic flare was wonderful, but it was obvious that what Wellington liked the best was that Bonnie had painted it all with her very own hands. "Now this," he said, admiring a tree that towered from floor to ceiling, its branches laden with green splashes of pine needles and a nest of baby robins. "This is an excellent pursuit for a woman. Nothing like the executive position of superintendent, which is a trifle beyond the intellectual capabilities of any mere female." Alma bit her tongue. She clasped her hands before her and held them tightly together, as if by clenching her fingers tightly enough, she could squelch the flare of temper that was rising with every word the pompous Wellington uttered.

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A thought occurred to him, and Wellington fixed a stern look upon her. "How much did this cost?" "Nothing beyond her usual salary," Alma assured him. "Bonnie is a teacher here." "Well!" He beamed. "Good show! Although your father would be a far wiser man if he didn’t allow such a free rein in the spending of his money around here." Alma hadn’t realized Duncan was even in the building until he suddenly entered the conversation, startling her so badly that she jumped. Her bottom protested the sudden movement, but her heart leapt in her chest at the very timbre of his growl as he said, "This institute has been long overdue for the changes Miss Burke has implemented. And there are still dozens more that are needed before Caxton can be considered anything approaching suitable." Duncan must have been listening in for a while, for when Alma turned around, he was standing in the doorway, his broad shoulder leaned against the threshold, his arms and ankles both crossed. He looked so relaxed, and yet the expression on his face was fiercely anything but. Her heart skipped a beat just at the sight of him. How dreadful that it should do such a thing when she was trying so hard to be angry with him. Wellington didn’t appear to notice Alma’s discomfit. Nor did he notice how ominously Duncan glared at him as he gestured around the room and said, "Table clothes, napkins, flowers in vases—bah! All these flighty, modern-thinking females are a scourge on mankind, what with their running from one charity house to the next, fussing and meddling in things they know nothing of! Good intentions, sir, are nothing by which to base a proper judgment on what to modify and what to leave alone! And, this woman, especially so. Just look at what she’s done to this good hall!"

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"I think it looks cheery and welcoming," Duncan said stonily, his brown eyes glittering with temper. Clasping her hands before her as though in prayer, Alma couldn’t at all keep the grin from her lips. His ire was so obvious that she could all but see the boiling surface of it seething just beneath his barely contained civility. It was the first time Alma had ever seen Duncan give that look to anyone other than herself. She had quite forgotten what moral support felt like. It was breathtaking. It was marvelous. It was almost enough even to win her forgiveness for having spanked her so terribly the day before. For the first time, Wellington came out of his pompous disapproval and took stock of Duncan, blocking the only entrance—as well as exit—to the room. A trickling understanding that he might have just overstepped himself seemed to seep through his utterly closed mind. He cleared his throat and hazarded a small glance about him, seeming to fold in on himself just a bit. "Well... I suppose it does seem a trifle welcoming at that..." "There is nothing wrong with implementing cosmetic changes, especially not when said changes have the effect of being so spiritually uplifting." Duncan pushed away from the threshold and stalked slowly into the room. "No, I—" Wellington gave the mural on the wall a sideways look. "I suppose not." "Miss Burke may not have years of experience to back each reform, but she offers this institute something infinitely better. A fresh perspective, good, solid elbow grease, and a cheerfulness that has not been seen within these walls for far too long!" Alma heard Wellington swallow as Duncan came so close as to loom over him. It was really too bad that people in positions of management had to be so unbiasedly politic. It was all she could do not to

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cheer him on, or to laugh at Wellington, who looked so terribly perplexed and was no doubt wondering what he’d said to set the doctor off. Sensing that the old trustee had suffered enough, Alma stepped in between them. "And on that note, I should think our little tour is concluded. Tea and cookies anyone?" To her surprise as well as her delight, both accepted her invitation, although there was something in Duncan’s manner that suggested he only did so because of Wellington. It was an oddly protective gesture that escaped no one’s notice, either, despite his fierce scowl that all but dared for someone to comment. Still, Alma glowed as she sat across from him, her fingertips barely brushing his but sending sparks of nerve-tingling awareness racing up her arm when she handed him a plate of sugar cookies. Wellington kept glancing from him to her over his cup of tea, but was more interested in getting as much of the refreshments into him as was possible. His only idle comment was a tentative, "Mrs. Welsey says you... work well together." Duncan’s eyes settled on Alma, so hot and piercing that she blushed. He didn’t smile, though. And, his comment was almost acidic. "Her idea of well must differ from the rest of the world’s. We can hardly stand each other." Although Alma was certain he only did so to deflect Wellington’s suspicions, she couldn’t help but feel a little stung. Still, she pasted on another sunny smile and amiably agreed, "Oh yes, we simply do not suit. He is boorish and disagreeable and not at all the kind of doctor this asylum needs. I have written a dozen letters to have him replaced, but I’m afraid I may have to resort to converting him into something significantly more useful long before I’m blessed with a new doctor."

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His glare turned sour, but she merely plied him with more cookies and deftly turned the conversation into less treacherous waters. "Did you notice the soft ribbons and lovely ponytails on the little girls in my nurseries? I challenge you, gentlemen, to find even one pair of ugly ears anywhere in this institute." After four cups of tea and a plate of her biggest cookies, Wellington bid them both good day and waddled on his way. At the thought that she might have a moment to speak with Duncan alone, Alma’s heart skipped a beat. But the instant the trustee was gone, Duncan set his tea and cookies on the table and beat and hasty retreat from the privacy of her office. Alma hurried to the window, throwing it open so she could lean outside. He must have stopped to examine someone, for it was a good twenty minutes before he stalked out the front door and jogged down the steps below. "Ornery, arrogant, ill-tempered beast!" Alma yelled after him. He spun around on his heel and glared back up at her. But when he pointed up at her and opened his mouth for a returning shot, she slammed the window shut and snapped the drapes together to block him from her sights. Vexed, she leaned against the wall and gingerly reached back to rub her tender bottom. She heard the sound of his car being cranked to life and sighed. She missed him already.

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Chapter Eight Duncan didn’t return to Caxton for more than five days. It was almost enough to slip Alma into a state of withdrawal. She had no idea how much she needed a grumpy perspective to help motivate her reforms. She wasn’t yet ready to go so far as to say that she loved him. That was ridiculous. Of course, she didn’t love him. She didn’t even like him half the time. But it was just terribly cruel of the man to keep to himself so much when she was coming to rely on him so dreadfully. So, on the fifth day, as she was walking back from town, Alma sneezed seven times and that gave her just the excuse she’d need to pay Duncan a professional call. And then she could talk some sense into him. After all, as a visiting physician, he was neglecting the children by keeping his rounds so infrequently. Admittedly, no one was sick at the moment. And had they been, she was sure he’d have come running at once to quarantine the situation, but that was hardly the point. More important than having a fat and happy doctor, she needed one that was consistent, and she marched right up to his front porch and knocked upon the door to tell him so. It wasn’t until a woman answered the door that Alma remembered Duncan once saying he had a housekeeper. She was a large, husky woman, with sleeves rolled up her burly arms and past her elbows. She glared down her beak of a nose and fixed Alma with a no-nonsense look that might ordinarily have been reserved for door-to-door salesmen. "Good morning," Alma smiled affably, taking a step towards her. "You must be Doctor MacRae’s housekeeper."

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"And you’re the woman from the orphan asylum." "I am at that," Alma said. "Is he at home?" One of her two chins rose a notch. "He is not." Alma glanced back over her shoulder to where Duncan’s car was parked in plain sight. "Are you sure?" "He’s busy," the housekeeper stated. When Alma tried to look past her into the house, the woman moved to block her view and pulled the door closer to her. A little irritated, Alma said, "Would you be so kind as to tell him that Miss Burke called to consult him on a professional matter. If he has the time, I’d like him to look in on Caxton this afternoon." "Humpf!" the housekeeper grunted and closed the door so promptly that she shut in the lower front of Alma’s skirt. "Oh, bother." Grabbing fistfuls of beige fabric, she tugged but it didn’t come loose. "Oh, bother!" she said again, even more vexed than before. Frowning, she began to beat upon the door. "Open up this door! Do you hear me? Open up, I say!" She tried the doorknob, but it refused to turn. She glared at the solid wood grain, her temper beginning to bubble and boil inside her. "Oh!" she hissed under her breath, tugging furiously at her skirts. "Oh, you just wait until I get my hands on you, you nasty old bat!" Balling her hands into fists, she beat upon the door with a vengeance. ______________ Duncan was in his second floor laboratory studying bacterial slides under the magnifying lens of his microscope when he heard a racket coming from downstairs. Someone was alternately pounding upon the door and insistently ringing the front porch bell. The noise had an oddly angry

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quality to it, rather than a frantic one, and he r aised his head for a moment to listen. "Maggie!" he called. "Are you going to get that?" The bell stopped, but as he listened, he couldn’t detect the sounds of talking. Frowning, Duncan got up and went to the window. Pushing up the heavy wooden sill, he bent over to stick his head and shoulders outside. The porch cover blocked his view of everything but a pertly rounded bottom, covered by a multitude of skirts and a flouncy white bow that wriggling back and forth rather fetchingly. Somehow, without even needing to ask, he knew who was calling at his front door. With a sigh, Duncan folded his arms across the sill and leaned on it. "Alma? Tell me it’s not you down there." The wiggling bottom disappeared as Alma stood up. A moment later, her face peeked around the side of the porch. She shielded her eyes from the sun. "Good morning, Duncan. Or is it afternoon? In any case, yes, it's I." "What are you doing?" "Oh." She gave a demure tug at her dress, but still it refused to come dislodged. "I just came by to get a professional opinion, but—" She looked down, tugged once more at her stuck-fast skirt, then sighed and faced him again. "This is a most undignified thing to admit, but would you mind too terribly coming down here? You see, your door has caught hold of me and is determined not to let go." "Why don’t you simply turn the knob and come inside?" he drawled. "I think it's locked." "My door is never locked." The set of her mouth turned extremely disgruntled. "Well, I think your housekeeper locked it when she caught me in your door."

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Shaking his head, Duncan looked at her. The sun was spilling through her hair, making it shimmer like a golden halo. She had it unbound today, and the ringlets tumbled down her back in a cascading waterfall of curls. She was also blushing, embarrassed to have been caught in so ridiculous a predicament. She looked so inviting; a maiden in need of rescuing. Even if only from a door. He shook his head again, this time at himself. "I'll be right down." As he came down the stairs, Duncan cast a glance in Maggie’s direction, but she was busy mending his coat at the kitchen table and refused to meet his eyes. "You must not have heard the door," he said blandly as he unlocked it. Still without looking at him, Maggie swiveled in her chair until her back was to him. Opening the door, Duncan freed Alma’s skirts with no more damage than a pinched look about the ruffled hem. "There," he said. "One fair maiden properly rescued." It was surprising how quickly her embarrassment turned to irritation. A soft pinkness still stained her cheeks, but in addition to it was now added a stubbornly squared chin and cross looking mouth. "Why do you put up with that woman?" she grumped, brushing emphatically at the wrinkle at her hem. "Humpf!" came from the table behind him, and Alma just about knocked him out of the doorway in her haste to glimpse the back of Maggie as she swished through the giant swinging door that separated the dining room from the kitchen. "Yes, I mean you!" Alma shouted after her. "You—you—" She actually started to push up her sleeves, exposing the little freckles all the way up her arms and past her elbows.

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She took several deliberately hostile steps towards the kitchen before Duncan caught hold of her arm. A smile began to creep across his face. She looked so charming and so angry. It was hard to imagine this silk-clad lady of high society brawling like any bad-mannered sailor, and with his husky housekeeper no less! For if ever such an intention were premeditated, then surely that was what Alma was about. He barely managed to snag Alma’s shoulders before she disappeared through those swinging doors after Maggie. He steered her towards his surgery instead. "Put up with, ha!" she grumbled, going where he propelled her but with no small amount of reluctance. "How can you stand that woman?" "She has been with me for years and is very loyal," he said, trying his best to hide his amusement. "She is also quite capable of maintaining the house, although doing the work for a solitary man, who comes and goes at all hours of the day and night, is not an easy task. She may not produce much sunshine in the home, but she can chop her own firewood and provide a hot meal at two o’clock in the morning." Strictly for Maggie's benefit and in a most unladylike display, Alma turned and angrily bellowed over his shoulder, "I'll wager her hot meals are neither delicious nor well served!" Duncan couldn’t help it. He began to laugh. No soft chuckles beneath his breath were these, but loud, uproarious guffaws that all but shook the house. For someone not even in the habit of smiling, this was a monumental occurrence that had Alma whirling on her toes to stare up at him, open mouthed and wide eyed. His chuckles came to an abrupt end, however, when he felt the light brush of timid fingertips slipping between his jacket and shirt to touch his

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stomach. His entire body stiffened and he froze, his turn now to stare. "What are you doing?" "I’ve never heard you laugh before." Alma gazed up at him with nothing short of miraculous wonder. "It must be all the tea and cookies I’ve been feeding you. You must have gained some weight." She felt his stomach some more and beamed with ecstatic delight. "I've fattened you up, and you are naturally becoming more jolly because of it. How perfectly splendid!" "I laugh when the situation warrants it," he protested, although there was no trace of his earlier amusement on his face now. Instead, he suddenly felt brittle. And warm. Especially where her hand was pressed to his stomach. "I’ve never heard you before," she countered. "Most of the time when you look at me, you’re frowning." Her face turned serious. "I really am a bother to you, aren’t I? That’s why you want nothing to do with me." "No," he said, but his throat closed on the word and it came out harsh and rasping. She was hardly a bother; there was nothing wrong with her at all. She was perfect. She just wasn’t for him. "What..." It took effort for him to drag his scattered thoughts back around him. "What can I do for you, Alma?" "Oh, right." She blinked twice and then did the same. "Right. I—well, I was wondering if you might have a moment to examine me." And Duncan stopped breathing all over again. For a moment he felt his legs weaken. "You’re sick in the mornings? You’ve missed your flux?" "I sneezed." She turned away from him and walked the short distance to his desk. "I thought I ought to consult you before unwittingly subjecting my babies to something dreadful and contagious." His minute’s fear that she might have been pregnant had tensed him, but that was nothing compared to the strain he felt when she reached

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down to pick up the only picture that decorated his desk. How she found it amid the sheaves and stacks of papers, medical books, and man-made models of various parts of the human anatomy, he didn’t know. But she seemed to zero in on the beautiful woman smiling back at her from out of the dusty frame. "Who is this?" Alma asked, holding the picture up as she turned back to him. Her eyes were questioning, but there was a lurking darkness in them that suggested she had a niggling suspicion. Duncan didn’t know what to say. What could he say? My wife? The only woman in the world that I’ve ever loved, except for you? He shook his head. "I told you I couldn’t have you." "Is she your—" Alma’s voice turned brittle, " — your wife?" The young woman in the picture stared back at him, smiling so sweetly and looking for all the world like a woman in love. Duncan nodded once. "Yes." Alma glanced back down at the black and white photograph, the paper slightly yellowed from exposure to the light and the passing years. "Is she dead?" It took him a long time before he could manage even a slight shake of his head. "No." He couldn’t look at her. Having to watch as the tears came to her eyes would have killed him, but there was no missing the sound of it filling up her voice. "Oh," she said. "I see. Where is she?" "I don’t know." Duncan took a deep breath. "We were married for about a year, and then I came home one day, her things were gone, and there was a note on the table. She’d fallen in love with someone else. I haven’t seen her in twelve years." "Oh," she said again, and put the picture down. "Are you—" her mouth had a hard time forming the scandalous word, "—divorced, then?"

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"No. I kept hoping she’d come home." She looked crushed. Perhaps a better man would have gone to her, tried to hold her, or at least tried to find a way to soften the hurt his confession was inflicting. But the wounded tone of her voice made it impossible for him to move. "You must have loved her very much." Alma backed from the desk. "I-I should g-go. Um..." She touched two fingers to her forehead, struggling to pull herself back together. The smile she flashed him was very small and shaky and didn’t even begin to hide the watery shine in her blue eyes. "I hope you get her back again soon." He had lost hope of that years ago. The trail of Alma’s skirts brushed his leg as she edged past him. It was all the contact with her that he allowed himself. Rooted to the floor, Duncan let her find her own way out of both his surgery and his house. And out of his life. ______________ Whoever first said marriage changed all, didn’t know the half of it. Having finally made the acquaintance of Barnaby Wellington, now Alma couldn’t seem to get rid of him. And so soon after learning of Duncan’s wife, it only made Alma feel as if she’d exchanged one enemy for another. Only this one wasn’t anywhere near as interesting or as beastly or as heart-palpitatingly engaging as Duncan. She wrote six letters to her father in six days, the last of which stated simply: "My only darling Papa, I am so desperately unhappy. Please bring me home. Lovingly, your daughter, Alma." After that, she just stopped writing. If he ignored her plea this time, she would simply have to resign herself to being stranded here for life. In the meantime, as she waited for the response that

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would decide her fate, she threw herself into her work. From early in the morning until very late at night, Alma planned menus and activities; she supervised lessons in the classrooms and tea parties in the nurseries. She bought four new claw-footed tubs to add to the three Caxton already owned and instituted bathing schedules to occur three times a week instead of only once. Her sneezes turned to sniffles and then into a head that felt as though stuffed to the brim with too much cotton. Still, Alma continued to work. The last thing she wanted to do was retire to her room with no choice but to lie in bed and think of Duncan. Or worse, of the wife who’d abandoned him and yet which he still loved. So instead, she threw herself into scrubbing Caxton from top to bottom. It had been a good month since her last really thorough cleaning spree, so everything needed it: the floors, the walls, the nooks and crannies. She instituted a laundry day and every sheet, blanket, pillow, and pillowcase in the place was washed and hung outside to dry. Thankfully it didn’t rain that day, otherwise it would have made for some very interesting sleeping arrangements that night. And for every task she tackled and for every alteration she made to the existing running schedule, there stood Barnaby Wellington, cane in hand, frown in place, ready to disapprove of her efforts. It was really too bad that superintendents had to be so diplomatic. After three days of him constantly at her elbow, she would have loved so much to have snatched his cane from his hand and beaten him soundly over the head with it. Somehow she managed to restrain herself, which was quite the accomplishment, especially when one considered that seemingly overnight she’d

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developed a cough, which was rooted in her chest, and she really wasn’t feeling very well at all. In an effort to keep it from spreading to the children, she quarantined herself to her office and her rooms, but that meant that Wellington was still able to annoy her at least half the time. Every day he paid Caxton a visit, inviting himself to tea in Alma’s office and staying at least two hours. And every day Alma would sit miserably on the sofa while he took up a position of closed -minded obstinance in her most comfortable chair across from her. She’d blow into her handkerchief and surreptitiously cough in his direction when he wasn’t looking, in the hopes that he might catch a little of what she had and disappear to his own bed for at least a week. Unfortunately, the man had the healthy constitution of a horse and if he came down with so much as a case of the sniffles, then he hid it well. "Cheery playrooms, indeed," he chuckled. "What do children care for curtains and table cloths?" He shook his balding head and munched contentedly on the chocolate cake with white sugar icing that she had, in a moment of weakness, specifically requested for Duncan. She’d done it in the feeble hope that someday he might want to pay Caxton, and perhaps even herself, another visit. Though she knew she shouldn’t and though she knew he didn’t deserve it, she was missing him just terribly. "What do they need with pretty clothes, for that matter?" Wellington continued. "They run, shout and play without them all the same. Fresh air, toy varieties, playhouses, hugs and kisses, bah! It’s all fiddle-faddle and hogwash, if you ask me." Growing increasingly irritated, Alma watched him dribble cake crumbs down the front of his shirt and onto her rug. Not that it would do any good at all for her to lose her temper with him. There were

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some people that simply couldn’t be reasoned with. Wellington, with every disdainful word he uttered, was proving himself one of them. Biting her tongue, she stirred her peppermint tea and wished that she could breathe through her nose again. "You would do better, my girl, to temper your inexperience with the wisdom of your predecessor. Now there was a woman who knew how to run a proper institution!" Alma gave him a sour look, which he didn’t notice. She glanced to the clock on the mantle above the fireplace. Five o’clock. Oh, how she hoped Wellington would not be staying for dinner again! "All these silly fripperies and displays of affection are going to confuse the children," he continued airily. "You’ll have them thinking they’re as good as anyone else before long. What with all that newfangled schooling going on in your classrooms, I’ll even wager they get above their natural stations!" Scowling into her cup, Alma stirred her tea even more vigorously. "They are charity cases, my dear, silly girl. Charity! There are limitations to what they can and should do. God has seen to that!" Unable to stand another word, Alma set her cup and saucer down with a clatter on the lamp sidetable beside her. "I don’t see what God has to do with this, but if you are insinuating that He has seen fit to punish these children and therefore they are all second class now because of it, then I am going to cheat God! That our society should be burdened with orphans at all is more the work of the devil, in my opinion, but I shall even cheat him if I have to! There is no reason why any one of my babies can’t grow up to become the finest doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers that our world has ever seen! And not only do I intend to provide the best education that I can for each and every one of

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them, but for those with a mind for it, I will even do my best to see them into college!" Looking as surprised as he always did when Alma reached the end of her patience at his grumbling, Wellington only grunted and sipped his tea. "And in the meantime," Alma continued hotly, "they shall have pretty clothes, hugs and kisses and plenty of ice cream, if for no other reason than that it makes this place bearable for me!" "That doesn’t make it any less silly," Wellington grumbled. "Not in my book." Irritated beyond the ability to sit still, Alma reached for the sugar bowl. "You obviously need another lump." She gave him two and then stormed her way to the window, leaving him by the fire to absorb the added sweetness into his nature. Pulling the curtain aside, she stared down the long, empty road that led away from Caxton’s circular drive. But still there was no motorcar chugging its way to her front door. No dour country doctor on his way to pay them a visit or to stop by her office for tea or heated and productive conversations or even for the occasional kiss that would leave her head spinning and her spirit soaring. He wasn’t even on his way to spank her. She swallowed her misery. Oh well. It didn’t matter anyway. She shouldn’t be trying to cultivate a relationship with a married man. She shouldn’t be trying to cultivate any friendships at all when she wasn’t planning on staying trapped behind these unhappy walls for very much longer. Duncan was her enemy, first and foremost. An angry, disenchanted, pathetic figure of a man, who preferred to spank her as though she were a little girl, rather than a rational, responsible adult.

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It was simply beyond her that she would be perched on the verge of tears because he was not here. ______________ Duncan sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace in his office. Elbows resting on his thighs, his hands were clasped between his knees as he sat staring down into a trunk full of Freya’s old things, everything of hers that he could find which she’d left behind. There were articles of clothing, monogrammed handkerchiefs, bits of sewing, and the occasional photograph. All except for one that had been taken on their wedding day. He was sentimental, he decided. He actually wanted to keep that one. He’d already gone to see Edward Judson, the local lawyer, about a divorce. He’d spent over an hour being counseled on the reprisals of trying to obtain one, but having been abandoned for eleven out of twelve years of marriage meant that he was certainly likely to receive his request. And first thing when he returned home, he made himself sit down and pen a note to Evaleen, Freya’s sister, who was hopefully still living in Georgia. He requested Freya’s current address. It might be helpful to know where to send her copy of the divorce when he finally received it. Now as far as he could tell, he had two choices for what to do next: he could burn this trunk or store Freya’s old things in the attic. Either way, he was firm in his decision. He’d been miserable long enough. It was time to move on with his life. He deserved to be happy for a charge. Maybe he’d even get remarried someday. An instant flash of Alma’s face crossed his mind, freckled and beguiling when she smiled, impishly darling when she was vexed. He loved the way she looked when her eyes flashed with thinly veiled ire,

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or when they were half-lidded with desire. He liked the way she felt in his arms or stretched out beneath or beside him. He even liked the way she felt when he held her pinioned across his lap, her bottom bare and blushing from the administrations of his hand. He just plain liked her. If ever he were to get married again... His fingers unclasped and then he clasped them again. Had he burned that bridge beyond all crossing yet? He hoped not. Lord, did he hope not. As Duncan sat gazing at his past, gathered together like well-worn hand-me-downs in the bottom of that trunk, along the edges of his consciousness he became away of the telephone ringing down the hall. Even more vaguely, he heard Maggie answer it. He didn’t need to know who was on the other end to know he should get up and prepare his medical bag. The phone had been installed for only one purpose, and generally it was for reasons of emergency that it ever rang. And yet the trunk held him as though he were entranced by it. It wasn’t until Maggie came into the room that he finally found the strength to raise his head and look away. "Who was it?" he asked. "Some woman named Bonnie called from Caxton," she said briskly. "You’re needed there as soon as you can come, she said."

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Chapter Nine Bonnie was standing on the front porch when Duncan pulled the brakes and brought his car to a stop at the bottom of the steps. Grabbing his bag, he jumped out of the vehicle and ran to her. "What’s happened?" In the few minutes that it had taken to drive the distance between his house and Caxton, Duncan had tried to prepare himself for the worst. Being a doctor sometimes meant that, even without a shred of truth to substantiate them, one got to imagine all sorts of exciting prognoses. Everything from stubbed toes to broken necks, none of which looked very good on Alma. But now that he was here, he found his palms were sweating and his hands shaking, and the very last thing he wanted was for something serious to have happened. Fortunately, the look Bonnie was giving him resembled disgruntlement far more than it did any real concern. "She won’t stay in bed, that’s what’s happened! No matter what anyone tells her, she insists on doing everything herself. And that cough of hers, it’s just horrendous! If she gives it to me, I’m going to quit, I’ll tell you that right now!" "Alma?" Duncan asked. "Well, of course, I mean Alma! Who else would insist on doing anything around here?" He jogged up the front porch steps. "Where is she?" "Struggling to come up with an exercise regime that is as exciting as it is varied and fun. Or so she says. Personally, I think she’s sulking." Bonnie pointed up at the ceiling. "She’s in her office. But consider yourself warned; she’s not been very reasonable or cheerful as of late." Duncan didn’t need to ask why.

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Alma was sitting at her desk exactly as Bonnie had said, hunched over some loose papers, coughing from the chest and looking miserable. Looking beautiful, too. That sort of beautiful that had nothing to do with physical appearances. He’d simply missed seeing her for far too long. "You should be in bed," he said from the doorway, and Alma looked up. She coughed, and then her expression turned irritated. "Surely someone somewhere needs a doctor more than I do." He came into the room and softly closed the door behind him. "Not likely." "Lucky, lucky me." She glared back down at her papers. "Alma," he said reproachfully. "Being angry with me is not a good enough reason to make yourself even more ill. You should be in bed." "What I should and shouldn’t do is my own business," Alma snapped. "All right." Duncan put his bag down by the door. "Come on. Let’s go. You’re going to bed." "Surely you aren’t so daft that you can’t see I’m working?" "I can see that you’re sick," he said. "You need to be resting." "Thank you for calling, doctor." She made a note on the page in front of her. "Your professional diagnosis has been noted and shall be addressed as soon as I can manage it. Now, if you don’t mind, I should like to finish my work alone." "If it’s your goal to punish me by ruining your health, or to be so irresponsible that this illness settles into your lungs and becomes pneumonia or even worse, bronchitis, it’s not going to work." He braced his hands on the opposite side of her desk, leaning over until he was almost eye to eye with her. "In fact, the only thing that kind of foolishness will get you, young lady, is tipped bottom-up across

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my knee. Now as trite as that sage old expression is, I’m going to utter it anyway and leave the choices up to you. You can do this the easy way, my dear Alma, by accompanying me down the hall to your quarters and putting yourself into bed—" "Like a good little girl?" Alma added with false sweetness. "Too young, or perhaps too brainless to make her own decisions?" His dark eyes glittered with warning. "Or, you can continue to be difficult, in which case I fully intend to yank you up out of that chair and put you across my lap before sending you off to bed with a raw and burning backside." "What a true ray of sunshine you have turned out to be," she scowled. "Whether you choose to accept it or not, Doctor, I am neither brainless nor childish. I do not require spanking to make me behave. I am a fully adult woman with my own mind and my own way of doing things, and I should not be required to change myself to suit your measure!" He was implacable. "How would you like to do this, Alma?" Her seething glare was ruined by a new fit of coughing. It was an awful raspy sound that made her shoulders shake and hurt his throat just to hear it. Then Alma stood up, bracing her hands just inches from his and glaring right back at him. "You don’t have the right, Doctor MacRae. I am not your wife. Ergo, I am not your responsibility. And if you ever lay your hands upon me again, then you can just consider yourself unemployed." "Is that your answer, then?" he countered calmly. Her eyes flashed and she leaned a little closer. "Go. Away." "Right," he said, and grabbed her by the arm as he came around the side of her desk.

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To say that Alma went to her fate with dutiful remorse or even quiet dignity would be to distort the truth beyond all recognition. She fought him tooth and nail, coughing and wheezing, kicking and scratching as she was picked up and carried across the room to the couch, shouting all the way, "You don’t have the right! I’m not yours! You don’t have the right!" Maybe not, but he wrestled her down across his lap anyway, throwing up her skirts and shucking down her bloomers to fully bare the pale surface of her buttocks to the flat of his hand. Whether it was his or not, he took that right for his own, and paddled her until his palm ached and throbbed and every slap sent shocks of pain racing out through his hand to the very tips of his red, swollen fingers. Gritting his teeth, Duncan continued to wallop her lobster-red backside until Alma’s kicking, fighting and shrieking had drained right out of her and she lay drooped over his thighs, coughing and crying. It was the coughing that brought an end to the spanking, and he sat her up upon one knee when she began to wheeze with every indrawn breath. Struggling for air, Alma tried to push away from him, but Duncan held onto her, wrapping her in his arms and cradling her close until she had no choice but to lay her head upon his shoulder and succumb to his strength. She gave in, but not willingly and instead of going pliant and soft against him, she sat as stiff as an iron bar, staring straight ahead, waiting without a word for him to let her go. She didn’t even rub her bottom, although he knew it had to be throbbing at least as fiercely as his hand was. Duncan shook his head. "You are so stubborn." "I want to get up now," she said woodenly.

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"I like holding you this way," Duncan said close to her ear. "Of course, I wouldn’t mind being able to hold you without first having to spank you silly." "I liked you better when you were determined never to touch me again." "Things change," he told her. "No, they don’t." Her voice dropped to a wounded whisper. "Go hold your wife. Spank her silly for a change." "I can’t," he said simply, although in retrospect, ‘It’s not her I want, love and/or desire’ might have ruffled fewer feathers. Alma stiffened even more. "No, of course you can’t. And I’m so very convenient." Duncan couldn’t help but give her a smile at that, albeit a small one. "You have been many things, Alma, my dear. But convenient has never been one of them." He used his handkerchief to wipe her eyes and she made the most terrible sound when she tried to blow her stuffy nose. "Are you going to go to bed now, or do we need to continue this discussion further?" Hers was a sickly and yet mutinous look. "I’ll go to bed." To have tucked her in would have been his fondest wish, but they passed Mrs. Welsey in the hall just outside her bedroom door. Duncan had little recourse but to settle for the next best thing. "She needs to be put to bed for the next three days," he told the housekeeper over Alma’s squeak of protest. "She should have fresh tea, juice, water or broth brought to her every hour." "I’ll see it done," the housekeeper grunted, albeit ungraciously. "This is absurd!" Alma snapped, trying valiantly to stifle a series of small coughs that refused to be silenced. "I don’t need a watch dog!"

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"Had you gone to bed when I first asked it of you, or even better, when you first became ill, you would not now have one," Duncan said simply. "Nor would I now have one had I fired you the first time you treated me so shabbily!" she declared, one hand going behind her to rub her bottom through her many layers of clothing. She caught herself when she remembered the housekeeper was present. Tired of arguing, Duncan turned to Mrs. Welsey, who was watching them both with vindictive amusement. "If she leaves her bed for anything other than the occasional trip to the lavatories, I want to be informed." Hissing an angry breath between her teeth, Alma turned and stomped into her room. She grabbed the door as she faced him again. "You’re fired, Doctor MacRae!" She slammed the door, but after allowing her only a moment to savor her victory, he opened it again and poked his head inside. "For your information, Miss Burke, I was hired by the Board of Trustees. Only they have the power to remove me." He nodded his head once. "You have a good night’s sleep." What he heard, as he walked off down the hall, was the mingling sounds of a foot stomped in angry frustration and a cross between a growl and an enraged scream, uttered through tightly gritted teeth. He fully expected to have plants thrown at him from her bedroom window as he walked out to this car. But instead, she contented herself by hurling words, interspersed with ragged coughs. "I’m all through trying to be friends with you!" she shouted between raspy draws for breath and hard hacking. "We’re enemies for good now! You’ve brought this on yourself!" "Go to bed, Alma," he called back up to her.

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"Have tea and cookies by yourself," she rasped. "I’ll have nothing more to do with the likes of you!" "Good night, Alma, my dear!" he told her as he reached his car. "You beastly, arrogant, Neanderthalish brute!" she wheezed. He turned around. "Do I have to come back up there?" Her mouth a tightly compressed line of anger, she pulled herself back inside the window, slammed it shut and snapped the drapes closed. Duncan smiled and shook his head. Yes, a man could count himself as very lucky indeed, to have a woman like Alma standing by his side. He glanced back up at her window in time to see the slight part in the curtains snap shut again. He chuckled. Fortunately for him, it didn’t look like he’d burned that bridge beyond all repair just yet. He was halfway tempted to march back upstairs and inform the lovely Miss Burke that she was henceforth destined to become Mrs. Duncan MacRae, except that such an announcement was likely to set her off again, and she really wasn’t well enough for that kind of excitement Duncan watched the window as he started his car, just in case she peeked back outside. He wouldn’t have minded seeing her one more time before he left. Of course, he wouldn’t have minded marching himself back upstairs and putting her to bed directly, an action that would undoubtedly scandalize the entire orphanage and turn Alma’s cheeks that blushing shade of pink. But she didn’t come to the window again, and Duncan had little choice but to get into the driver’s seat. "You’re mine, Alma," he said under his breath, casting Caxton a farewell look. Whether she liked it or not, but he was content to wait until she could breathe again before he told her as much.

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______________ Alma slept on her stomach all that first night and cursed the doctor under her breath every time she tossed in bed and her burning hot bottom accidentally touched the mattress. She even cursed him off and on most of the next day, in those intermittent periods when she woke up and if she remembered to be angry enough. By days two and three, however, she was starting to feel a little better, her nose was starting to unstuff itself, and just being able to lie in bed and nap felt heavenly. Not that she was about to admit that to Duncan, though. He came to check on her every day, and every day she folded her arms across her chest, turned her head the other way and gave him a stony silence when he’d ask the same question, "How are you feeling?" Her silence was childish and hardly seemed to bother him—he simply examined her throat, listened to her chest, and checked to see if she was still feverish—but it was the only measure of justice she was permitted while confined to her sickbed, and she didn’t want to waste it. On the fourth day, however, he finished his examination and finally declared, "Two more days, and then I think you’ll be well enough to get up again." Then he laid an envelope upon her coverlet and quietly repacked his bag. "What is this?" Alma asked. "The bill?" Duncan didn’t answer. He simply bent over to press a soft kiss upon her forehead and then left to check on his real patients, the children for whom he’d been hired to care in the first place. Alma blinked after him twice, then curiosity got the best of her and she opened the envelope. Inside was a court document listing Duncan as the Plaintiff and Freya as the Defendant. It was a prayer for

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divorce on the grounds of abandonment. She read it six times before jumping out of bed and running to the window. She was too rattled even to don her dressing wrap. She simply threw the sill up as high as it would go and leaned outside, waiting for Duncan to leave for the day. "What does this mean?" she called down to him when he finally emerged onto the front porch some forty minutes later. He paused only long enough to call, "Read the second page and get back into bed." Then he continued on to his car. "Second page?" Alma darted back across the room and checked the envelope. Sure enough, there was another sheet of paper tucked inside. More of a card, really. But in short, neatly inked letters, it read, "I do believe I love you." Alma folded up both papers and put them back into the envelope. She then climbed into bed and pulled the covers back up to her waist. Laying there, clutching the notes to her chest and staring at the ceiling, she tried to think of something to sway her father when she came home wanting to marry a divorcee. ______________ Alma’s nose was back to almost normal two days later. A Friday. The very same day that an illfated skunk discovered a rusty old rat trap still set to catch a victim in the barn, and with fatal consequences. This unfortunate circumstance was, in turn, discovered by ten-year-old Nathaniel Warren, who presented with such a glorious trophy, wasted little time in collecting his prize from the trap to show to all his friends. With the carcass concealed inside his shirt, he then snuck the dead skunk into Caxton via an open basement window, tiptoed through the length of the entire building and carefully stashed

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the thoroughly deceased creature into the trunk at the foot of his bed. After using his spare pajamas to conceal his prize, Nathaniel then skipped off to the bathroom to wash the blood from his hands— hygiene being everything, as Alma was striving hard to teach them—and promptly hurried himself off to breakfast. The distinctive odor of skunk, in the meantime, permeated everywhere. It was the first smell to greet Alma upon waking and was enough to make her wish she’d never regained use of her nose. Every window in Caxton was thrown wide open. The rooms were all treated with perfumes and toilet water, and once again Alma threw herself into scrubbing the building from top to bottom. She had never before in her life done anything that required her hands to be in a soap bucket so often. When that failed to provide relief from the hideous odor, she settled instead for covering the scent with as much cleanser and antiseptic as she could find. Although, personally, she felt as if she ought to remain a wee bit peevish, an emergency call to Duncan brought him round forthwith to mix up a colossal batch of a very potent chloride of lime that stunk up the kitchen and wafted throughout the halls to do battle with the odor of the skunk. All to no avail. "That’s what you get for being sick," Bonnie told her as they went room to room, sprinkling the potion in the drapes and on the rugs. "This whole place would fall apart without you." "The last week should be considered as good practice for when I am finally replaced," Alma said. It was an optimistic hope since her father remained dreadfully uncommunicative, but she was an optimistic person, and it never hurt to look at the sunny side of things.

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Alma felt a tap at her shoulder and turned to find Duncan just behind her. Her heart helplessly skipped a beat. "May I speak with you in your office?" he said. Neither smiling nor frowning, his face was stonily unreadable and for an instant Alma felt her bottom prickle in warning. She tried to think back over what objectionable thing she might have said within his hearing, but her mind went oddly blank. Surely, wanting to be replaced wasn’t a spanking offense. She’d said it often enough in the last few months, and many times within his hearing, and he’d not spanked her except for the first time. Alma handed what little remained of her chloride of lime to Bonnie and quietly followed him upstairs to her office. "Are you still angry with me?" he asked as she opened the door to admit him "Are you going to spank me again?" she countered. "Probably. Have you committed some offense that requires it?" "That’s what I want to know," Alma said. "Isn’t that why we’re here?" A corner of his mouth turned up. "No. At least, I hadn’t planned on taking you across my knee. Although," he took the door from her hand and softly closed it, sealing them into her private office together. "I suppose if you are truly aching to have one..." "No," she said quickly. "That’s quite all right. Truly." "Are you sure?" he asked, solicitous to a fault. "I’m almost certain that I could be persuaded to take you across my lap and bare your pretty bottom for a quick smack or two." Alma felt herself flush a warm pink. "I’m very sure."

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With the gas lamps all turned down and the only significant source of light now coming from the open window drapes, bathed for the most part in shadow, he looked almost predatory as he faced her. His head was slightly inclined, the darkness hiding him in patches as he stepped close to her with an intensity that had her backing away just as quickly. She started when she bumped into the door and could retreat no further. He leaned in close to her, pressing her back against the hard plank, and braced his hands upon the wood to either side of her head. He was so close that the heat of his breath brushed her face. "Perhaps than we could talk about my note." "What about it?" she whispered, the words dying a half-strangled death at the back of her throat. She swallowed hard and stared at his mouth, unable to pull her gaze away even so far as to make contact with his eyes. "Don’t you have anything to tell me?" he asked silkily. "I don’t know." Her knees began to tremble. She was very grateful for the door just then. It was now the only thing holding her up. "I’m still mad at you. You should have told me. Certainly, you should have told me before we—" his fingers began to play in the blonde curls of her hair, and she swallowed again. "—b-became so friendly... in your laboratory..." "You’re right. I should have, and I have no excuse for what I did." Duncan lowered his head, but Alma turned hers away. It was a feeble protest, but he accepted it as ‘no.’ At least until that hard, clinical mouth of his spread into a smooth, slow smile. Wolfish. That’s what it was. "Perhaps, I should apologize. I could get down on my knees. That would solve two dilemmas at once."

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Now, it wasn’t just her knees that felt weak, Alma began to shake all over. "Dilemmas?" "They’re more like questions really. The kind that simply aches to be answered as soon as possible." "Aches?" Alma echoed, a skipping record. "For days now the need for answers has consumed me." He leaned even closer, his beguiling mouth stopping only a bare inch from her own. "Tell me, my dear Alma, is the taste of you still as sweet as I remember it being?" Alma stopped breathing entirely. She felt lightheaded, almost dizzy, and every thought she ever owned went suddenly dancing away from her like leaves in the breeze. "Taste?" Duncan smiled, cupping her chin in the palm of his hand and bringing her mouth up to his. "Gladly." She was pretty sure she might have been about to protest, but she just couldn’t find the words after that. His gentle touch invited her to lose herself in him. Exploring and coaxing, he gave her all the time in the world until her reluctance let go with timid fingers and slipped entirely away. She allowed her lips to part, and then his gentleness turned consuming. Alma moaned, a simple sound of wanting that was swallowed up by his own. He pushed back from the door to cup her hips, pulling her to lean into him and the heat of his hands seared through her skin like brands, marking his ownership on her soul. A part of her felt it only fair that he should be so hot, especially since the air around them was suddenly so cool, and the row of tiny pearl buttons that had lined the front of her dress from neck to navel rained down on the carpet all around their feet. She gave no resistance when he pushed her dress off her shoulders, his hands encouraging its descent down her arms as the sheer weight of her underskirts drew the gown to the floor. Left

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standing in only her chemise, Alma lost herself in the fiery sensations his touch evoked from within. The heat of his mouth began its own declining path down her throat, and Alma closed her eyes and tilted back her head to give him better access. When he cupped her breasts, lightly tweaking the nipples until they stood prominently against the lacy front of her bodice, she arched her back with no more protest than a breathy gasp. His thumbs stroked across each hardened nub, drawing the scratchy lace relentlessly back and forth until she was beyond herself and writhing in his embrace. "Tell me what you want, Alma?" He pulled loose the ribbon that held her chemise closed in front and she cried out when he took the first budding tip in his hot mouth. Her legs lost all solidity. Without his support, she would have sagged to the floor as limp as her discarded gown. "Tell me ‘more’," Duncan demanded. He nipped and suckled at her breast. "I want to hear the plea that has haunted me, even in my sleep, since the first time I held you." "More," Alma moaned. "Again," he ordered. "More!" His mouth fastened on her other breast, drawing hard until she felt the answering tug pulling deep between her legs. She felt hot, her body burning and tingling and wanting exactly what he commanded she ask for. "More!" He tore her chemise in his haste to get it out of his way. "More," she repeated, chanting it mindlessly over and over again until his mouth journeyed up from her breasts to silence her. He cupped her bottom, lifting her completely off her feet as he pulled her hips hard into the cradle of his own. She barely knew they’d moved from the door until she felt the couch beneath her. The cushions

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were soft below her, and Duncan hard above. Nothing felt more comfortable or right than the feel of his heavier weight settling over her. Not even when he pushed apart her thighs, inviting her to wrap her legs around his waist. She cried out when he entered her. There was no gentleness in him now, only hard sinewy muscle bulging taut beneath her hands as he thrust deep inside her. "More," she sighed. She cupped his face in both hands, needing to feel as close as she could just in case they should come to be enemies again before the night was through. Sweat dropped from his brow, splashing upon her chest, mingling with her own. The usual chill in his eyes was gone, leaving behind only a familiar burning gray hunger to pierce and shake her. And she did shake, and shake and shake, rising up to meet his undulating motions as pleasure exploded through every nuance of her body. He came seconds later with little more than a soft expulsion of breath to mark the passing of his own culmination before he collapsed on top of her. Panting hard, he wound her in his arms, holding her close until their breathing returned to normal. Against her neck, he said, "I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get enough of you." Alma smiled. She stroked his shoulders and ran her fingers through his hair. "I don’t think I’ll ever want you to." He drew back to look at her, and her cheeks turned a shade of pink as she felt him hardening against her hip again. Losing some of her embarrassment, she made herself take a long look down between their bodies. Her lips moistly parted, and then she reached up to cup his face in both her small hands. "More," she whispered.

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He rolled her onto her back and gave her just that.

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Chapter Ten "I have made a decision," Alma said the next morning. "And I’m sure you’ll all think it’s a brilliant, refreshing and perfect example of smart, forward thinking." Someday soon she was going to have to temper her blatant lies in accordance to the weather. Spring was already here and with it, the stormy season was nigh. Which made her likelihood of getting hit by lightning ever an increasing possibility. Judging by the expressions on the faces of her resident staff, clearly they were waiting for that eventuality. She made her announcement over the breakfast meal, which consisted of runny grits, runny eggs and half baked toast. Cook had quit sometime in the night, leaving Miss Smith and a handful of teenaged girls to perform all the cooking in her stead. They were doing a wonderful job, considering not a one of them had much experience in the kitchen. Unfortunately, nothing had turned out very edible as of yet. "What sort of decision?" Mrs. Welsey asked warily. "A good, strong financial one," Alma told her. "I’ve made an appointment at the bank with Mr. Emerson. Starting tomorrow at two, every day I shall take five of our employable boys and girls into town to open up their very own savings accounts. And beginning next week, twenty-four out of every twenty-five cents that they make shall go into the bank to build up secure little nest eggs for each of their futures." Alma beamed. "Oh," Bonnie said, and nodded. The rest of the staff stared.

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"What about the institution?" Miss Smith finally asked. "We can hardly operate on a penny a week per child." Now it was Alma’s turn to blink wide-eyed back at her. "Actually, I thought to teach the children money management by allowing them to keep the extra penny and spend it upon whatever they liked." "You can’t be serious," Mrs. Welsey said. Alma swiveled in her chair, looking up and down the table at all the disapproving faces. But while the thought of putting money in the hands of over a hundred charity cases didn’t particularly bother Bonnie, every other adult mind at the table slammed reverberatingly shut. "I don’t understand you people," Alma said, dropping her fork on her plate. "How can we, in good conscience, be expected to turn our charges out at sixteen into a world governed entirely by money when three-fourths of them has yet to see any? If they are not to lead sheltered lives with somebody eternally looking after them, then they have got to know how to get the very most out of every penny they earn." Mrs. Welsey looked as though she were on the verge of exploding out of her chair. "You are not only serious, you are out of your mind!" "This is absurd!" blustered the middle school teacher. "What is so absurd about it?" Alma promptly countered. "It's not their place to—to—" The man's bluster dwindled rapidly under Alma's cool stare. "To learn to use money wisely?" she asked. "Actually, I think it’s a good idea," Bonnie offered. Miss Smith looked even more aghast. "But, what about the institution?"

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"What about it?" Alma asked. "Our operating cash comes from donations. I hardly think we need to pawn our chicks out like little beasts of burden." "This institute would go bankrupt on a plan like that," Mrs. Welsey drawled disdainfully. "Everyone in Wellsville knows where to go for extra farm labor when harvest time comes around. And, they know the institution’s price." Alma sat back in her chair, finally understanding why the farmers had been so reluctant to join in her apprenticeship program. Her mouth tightened as the old housekeeper continued. "However, in the interest of everyone’s getting along, I made some inquiries in town the other day. The textile factory has offered—" "No," Alma and Bonnie said together, and it surprised Alma a little that Bonnie’s tone was even sharper than her own. "Not my babies, you won’t!" the newest schoolteacher declared. "The only reason Herman Schurtz would have for hiring children would be so he could salvage all those tufts of cotton that have dropped between the machines. Just imagine the kind of orphanage this would be with half the children missing fingers and toes. How ghastly!" "He is willing to pay seventy-five cents a week per child," Welsey countered hotly. "That’s good money paid directly to this institution, and he has contracted to take every child from age ten on up." The housekeeper leaned back in her chair, announcing, "I have already agreed." "But I haven’t," Alma said. "It’s for the good of this facility," Welsey said. "Naturally, you would be against it." "How can it possibly be for the good of Caxton when it’s not for the good of the children who live here?" Bonnie demanded.

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"No one is speaking to you!" Mrs. Welsey snapped. "You aren't even a proper member of this staff!" Scooping up her grits, Bonnie up-ended her bowl over the housekeeper's white dust cap -covered head. "I work here every bit as hard as you, you mean old sow! And, I shall be truly damned before I let your collective greed ruin the physical wellbeings of my babies!" "Oh! She's gone mad!" Miss Smith screeched and dropped under the table to get out of the splattering range when Welsey grabbed up the milk pitcher. In a moment of unrestrained hostility, she hurled the contents not at Bonnie, but directly at Alma. The pitcher flew wide, hitting the fourth grade teacher across the arm he quickly thrust up to protect himself. He was doused in milk and jumped to his feet swearing as loudly and as fluently as any sailor fresh into port. Alma did not wait for Welsey’s aim to improve. She ducked under the table to join Miss Smith. While the children watched in stunned silence, the podium erupted in a brief flurry of chaos. Food and dishes went everywhere. In complete opposition with her character, or at least her social class, Bonnie stood in the middle of it all, whooping and hollering as she took revenge upon every member of the mean-spirited staff. There was not a single man or woman on the podium who did not get a face-full of egg, compliments of her athletic arm. While the tablecloth protected Alma from the liquid that splattered on the floor, it also obscured her view of what brought the spontaneous culinary free-for-all to a very sudden conclusion. Curled in a small ball at Alma's feet, oblivious that the fight had stopped, Miss Smith prayed

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fervently into her clenched hands. "Oh my... oh dear... oh my... oh—" Alma hesitated at the edge of the table cloth, reluctant to stick her head out from under cover, lest she discover that the noble Bonnie had been defeated, and her entire staff loomed at the ready, food raised high above their heads, to strike her down as she peeked out to see what was going on. But, curiosity was killing her, and the silence was becoming increasingly unbearable. At least until she heard the slow, steady tromp of hard soled shoes coming up the podium steps. Two shiny black boots walked around the side of the table, coming to a stop nearly straight in front of Alma's freckled nose. A moment later, Duncan squatted down to lift the hem of the tablecloth. He looked at her without a single trace of expression to mar his handsome face. "I don’t even want to ask." Alma smiled sheepishly. "Hello, Doctor." "Come to your office," he told her. "I’ll not talk to you under a table." The heel of her hand mashed egg yoke, and her knee slid in a splattered pat of butter, but Alma crawled out onto her feet with as much dignity as she could muster, under the circumstances. Every inch of the podium dripped with runny food. She barely resisted the urge to pat her hair back into place. But as she skirted around a toppled chair, she couldn’t help but offer, "We were discussing a few new reforms." Duncan’s look turned disgusted. Thankfully, this time his irritation was set on her staff and not her. "This home is not run for the sakes of your fat purses and full bellies. This home is for the ones who live here! It’s the superintendent's job to ensure their proper care. Anyone who doesn’t agree with her ideas is free to walk out that door and good riddance to the lot of you!"

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While no one made a move to leave, certainly no one looked pleased. Mrs. Welsey harumphed. "You're hardly objective. We all know from where your interest stems." Her spite died and a look of uncertainty rose quickly in its place when Duncan took two ominous steps towards her. "Clean this mess up," he growled. Like reluctant children, they moved to obey, and Duncan turned back to Alma. "Let’s go." Alma was so grateful for the support that she would have cheerfully agreed to meet him on the moon had he but asked her. "You’d best be careful, Doctor," Alma teased as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. "You’ve become so supportive of me lately I’m bound to forget we’re enemies." "I should hope you’ve forgotten that already." "Well, yesterday did help." She blushed as his eyes fell to her mouth. "I’m glad." He reached past her to open the door, following her hesitant retreat into the room. "I was getting a little tired of being thought of as your enemy." She clasped her hands behind her as he closed the office door. Once more, they were alone together. Some wonderful things tended to happen when she found them both like that. Her heart picked up, and her breath hitched in the back of her throat. "All right, Doctor." She cleared her throat and made an effort to sound professional. "What did you want to talk about, then?" "I saw my lawyer this morning." She looked away. "Oh." "I go before the judge next week." Her lips compressed. "Oh," she said again. "Well. Congratulations, I suppose. What does that have to do with me?"

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"Alma," Duncan said reproachfully, and she folded her arms across her chest. "If you brought me here to talk about your wife," she said, "I’d like to point out that I’ve breakfast below stairs growing cold." "I brought you here to talk about us." Duncan reached behind her to slide the door’s lock into place. "What about us? We’ve got a nice, solid, working relation—" as Alma turned back to face him, her throat closed on her words. Duncan held up one hand and beckoned her to him, every lean inch of him radiating a hunger that was almost wolfish in intensity. "Come here, Alma." But he didn’t wait for her to obey, and Alma managed no more than a step back and a shaky, "Oh my—" Then his arms were around her. "I've waited all day for this," he said Her, "It’s only nine o’clock," was lost beneath his kiss. Advance and retreat, he made love to her mouth, stroking and filling her until she sagged in his arms. "Oh," she sighed, her legs quivering so badly that she doubted if they could support her. "I lay awake last night, wanting to hold you like this." Duncan took the pins from her hair, combing her golden curls through his fingers. "Suppose I were to ask you to come to bed with me. What then, Alma?" "Bed?" She caught her lip between her teeth. "It’s only nine o’clock. What about breakfast?" "It’s not food I’m hungry for." She melted in his arms, her cheeks growing hot. In fact, the heat spread all through her, fanning through her belly, flowing in warm, molten streams down to her waking womanhood. "No?" "No." He cupped her face in both hands. "I want you. Right here, like this, for the rest of my life."

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Words like that made her tremble, and she was glad he was there to hold her up. "All right," she whispered. He made love to her on the couch, pressing his face into the side of her throat and holding her as close to him as two people could come. And no more was said about his divorce. ______________ Sighing, Alma tapped her pencil against the letter she was trying to write her father. She had no idea what to say to him. Thank you for the funds. Please send another infusion, along with fifty adoptive parents. Aside from that, there was really nothing to say unless she wanted to bore him with a list of all the changes she was hard at work making. Unfortunately, she had a feeling it might take another institutionalized person to fully appreciate such a list. With another deeper sigh, propping her chin in her hand, Alma turned her head to gaze out the window. Spring was lurking just around that proverbial corner. Birds were arriving from the south. Everything smelled fresh and green. If one could overlook the constant drizzling rain, the change in scenery positively made one want to be out and away from the asylum, roaming the lush hills or down on hands and knees playing in the earth. This newly discovered farming instinct of hers was something she’d never experienced before. She was rather proud of it, too. As far as she knew, she was the very first Burke in at least six generations to have developed one. And in all likelihood, her sudden desire to cultivate was probably the result of all the extra thought she’d put into re-designing all of Caxton’s acres of wasted gardening space and making them productive again.

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To that end, she made the decision to plow under the large potato field and section it out into private garden lots for every child nine and over. This would put them near enough to be watched from the north windows, but far enough away so that their grubbing about in the dirt would not do serious injury to the landscaped lawn. The only problem she could immediately foresee was getting the brawny, uncouth groundskeeper that Mrs. Lippett had hired some ten year ago to go along with her ideas. Nelson Jones was a friend of Mrs. Welsey. On the two occasions that Alma had found cause to speak to him, he’d grunted at her and then arbitrarily dismissed himself from the conversation even before she’d half finished talking. After the last encounter, Alma decided to change strategies. She sent him a sternly worded missive that nevertheless invited him to her office, where she hoped a closed door and maybe some cookies could keep him in one place long enough for her to inspire the need for change within his close-minded soul. As she sat gazing out the window, she spied Jones trooping across the lawn towards the main building and braced herself to wage yet another verbal battle with another member of her contrary staff. Jones had apparently done the same, for the minute his broad shoulders crossed her office threshold, there was a familiar set to them that instantly reminded her of solid, inflexible things— such as iron bars and brick walls. He wore dingy coveralls and a worn felt hat, which he saw no need to remove even though he’d stepped indoors and now stood in the presence of a lady. Even the look on his face was disagreeable. He frowned as though immensely irritated, no doubt for having been summoned from the fields by a woman he considered to be of no consequence.

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"You sent for me?" he rumbled. "Yes, please." Alma beckoned him to the chair across from her desk and smiled as she waited for him to be seated. She was so proud of herself. She barely even cringed when his filthy overalls made contact with her newly upholstered chair cover. "Thank you so much for coming. I know you are busy getting the equipment ready for tilling, so I will make this meeting brief. I just wanted to discuss the new plotting arrangements for this year’s spring planting." Jones looked back at her, his eyes narrowing. "What new arrangements?" "Well," Alma hedged. "For starters, I was thinking we might offer the children a diet that has less to do with potatoes and more to do with other vegetables, like peas, carrots, beets—" "Too late for peas," Jones said shortly. "Oh. Well, but there’s still time for corn and melons and that sort of thing, right?" The grunt he gave her would have done Wellington proud, and Jones added his own special touch to it by shaking his head as well. "If potatoes and cabbages is good enough for me, it’s good enough for charity cases." "But I was thinking a tasty change in diet would be most welcome and pleasant for everyone, including yourself and your wife," Alma said in her most convincing tone. "What is your opinion of beans, turnips, mustard greens and tomatoes?" "I don’t have one," Jones said shortly. "Caxton is hardly the owner of unlimited ground space and there’s only me to manage it. Just where do you propose to grow all this extra fare and who’s supposed to tend it?" "Well, I was thinking," she paused to glance at him, knowing this would likely not be well received. "I was thinking that the two-acre potato field would be the best place." As Jones’s face darkened

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furiously, she hurried to add, "If it could be plowed and fertilized and laid out in, oh say, sixty individual plots, with our oldest boys assisting you in the work, of course—" Her voice began to taper away as the groundskeeper turned positively apoplectic. "I-It should be quite beneficial for both little hands ... aas well as growing minds and... uh —" "Are you mad?" he demanded, shifting in his chair in agitation. "Not as far as I know. I just thought—" "That two acre field is the most fertile and valuable piece of earth we’ve got." "I understand that. I just think—" "It’s not a playground for children!" Jones thundered at her. This was not going at all as she’d hoped it would. In fact, judging by his closed mindedness alone, he seemed a whole new enemy in the making. Alma stifled a sigh and drummed her fingers once upon the desk. "I am not suggesting creating a playground. I am suggesting that we build for them an educational experience that they can carry with them to sustain them throughout their lives. The potato field is the best possible place for that." "Over my rotting corpse," Jones told her. Alma blinked in surprise. "I hardly think it necessary to go to those sorts of lengths, Mr. Jones. All I’m suggesting is that if we—" He stood up and planted his meaty hands upon her desk, looming over her threateningly. "That’s my field. It grows potatoes. Potatoes have always grown there and they will continue to do so for as long as I’m here." "For how long would you like that to be?" Alma demanded, but then caught herself. It was hard to squelch the anger beginning to bubble within her, but she did her best. Squaring her shoulders, she tried again. "Mr. Jones, I have already decided that

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the two-acre field is the best plot to use for the children's gardens. You and the potatoes can either comply, or you can find yourselves another place to grow." "This is my work!" he snapped back, his voice rising. "I'll be damned if I let your brats muck about under heel and in my way!" Alma stood up, bracing her hands on her desk and leaning back towards him. She still managed to keep her voice steady and calm, although it was getting significantly harder. "Caxton is run exclusively for the benefit of my 'brats', Mr. Jones. They are not infernal nuisances, here solely to be a burden to you, a philosophy that you seem to share with just about every other member of my staff. And let me further say, if you intend to remain our resident farmer, then sir, I suggest you adopt the ability and patience to mentor our boys and girls in gardening and simple outdoor chores." "You think you can come in here and throw out years of good sense for your new-fangled nonsense!" "It’s not nonsense!" "Bollocks! Bunk and Sunday school notions! Damned woman’s suffrage, that’s what this is!" Dryly, Alma said, "Whether or not you favor the movement, I am still your superior, and you will do as I see best." His eyes flashed and just as quickly, he reached his burly arm across the desk and slapped her mouth. The blow, while nowhere near as hard as a man Nelson's size could have made it, was still enough to knock Alma back down in her chair. Her hand flew to her face. He pointed at her. "You talk to me, woman, you damn well better do it with respect. You may sit in that fancy chair, but that doesn’t mean you run things. Not from where I’m standing."

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Stunned, Alma held her stinging cheek and stared at him for one full minute before a sudden burst of fury erupted her back onto her feet. With her eyes as wide as saucers and the reddening print of his fingers mingling with the angry blush rushing to stain her cheeks, Alma snatched a piece of paper from her top desk drawer. Her hand shaking she was so angry, she wrote him out a check for his wages to date and slapped it down hard on the desk before him. "You have until twelve o'clock tomorrow to vacate the tenant house," she said, her voice trembling with emotion. "If you are not out by then, I shall have you forcibly evicted." Nelson snorted, a corner of his mouth turning wryly upward. "Woman, I was hired to work for this institute by the president of the Board of Directors. I’m not leaving until I hear him telling me to go. Now why don’t you dole out your ice cream and your hugs and kisses, paint a few more bunnies on the walls, and let me do my job." While Alma ground her teeth, her blues eyes sparking furiously, he turned to go. Were anything heavy within quick and easy reach, she’d have hurled it after him. But as it was, Jones made it out the door completely unmolested, and Alma found herself sinking back into her seat, her hands and knees both shaking. She touched the side of her face with tender fingertips and, to her utter dismay, felt the hot sting of angry tears welling up in her eyes. They spilled over her lashes and onto her cheeks before she could blink them away. She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself sternly, swiping at them with the backs of her hands. She was going to get rid of that man! Launching back onto her feet, she stormed towards the door. She was so angry that she made the walk to Duncan's house in ten minutes less time

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than normal. Rapping sharply at the door, Alma squared her shoulders. Just let that nasty piece of a housekeeper bully with her now, she thought. She was in just exactly the right mood to tell that old termagant where she could go! Maggie didn’t disappoint her, either. She opened the front door, took one look at Alma’s face and said, "Hmpf. So, I’m not the only one." Alma slapped her hand against the door before the housekeeper could close it on her, and she shoved her way into the house. "I have had it to my eyebrows and beyond with enemies!," she spat, and Maggie drew back in surprise. "I am tired of having to force sensible changes upon senseless people! My job is hard enough to accomplish without you adding to it!" Alma took a giant step towards the other woman, and though the housekeeper was taller and heftier than herself, she was too angry to back down. "Unless, of course, you truly do want to wage a battle between us. In which case, madam, with whom do you think the good doctor is most likely to side: his faithful old termagant of a housekeeper, or the woman to whom he’s already proclaimed his love?" Maggie started. "Oh yes," Alma said. "We may soon find ourselves sharing a household. You don’t have to like me, but you will be civil or you will be sent packing." Folding her hands over her waist, Maggie drew herself upright. After a long assessing moment, she finally asked, "Have you come to see Doctor MacRae?" Alma also drew herself stiffly straight. "I have." Backing up a step to admit her into the whole of the house, Maggie said, "If you would care to wait in the sitting room, I’ll inform him that you’ve arrived."

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It wasn’t sixty new garden plots or fifty new adoptive parents or even a smiling and openminded staff, but it was a victory. And with a nod of her head, Alma accepted it as such. "Thank you. I would very much appreciate that." Maggie excused herself upstairs, leaving Alma to touch the side of her sore mouth and wish that all her enemies could be so easily overcome.

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Chapter Eleven "Good afternoon." Duncan came jogging down the stairs, looking both surprised and pleased to see her, at least until he noticed her expression. "What’s wrong?" "I was wondering if you would mind doing me a small favor," Alma asked crossly. Her back was straight, her arms were stiff at her sides and she had her hands rounded in tightly balled fists. She knew she had to be a picture of displeasure, if ever there was one, and it stopped Duncan on the bottommost step to stare at her. His eyes drifted back up to her face, and he frowned as he noticed her mouth. "Is it the lighting in here, or is that a bruise on your face?" He stepped off the stairs and crossed the entryway to take a closer look. "I need you to help me dislodge that pompous, arrogant, evil-tempered—" Alma caught her breath, as if wrestling with some terrible, inner demon before blurting out, "—bastard! Yes, that is exactly what he is, and I don’t regret one whit that I’ve said it! I dare say I’ve done him a kindness to so slander his character in such a graceful albeit unlady-like manner!" "It is a bruise." He cupped her chin in his warm palm, tilting her head toward the sunlight that peered in through the slightly parted window drapes. "Someone’s struck you," he said, almost incredulously. His eyes grew darkly stormy, and with significantly more emotion, he repeated, "Someone has struck your face!" "Oh, never mind that," Alma grumbled, waving his observation aside. "It’s not important." Though she knew she ought to shoo his hands back off her, she melted just a little at the warmth of his skin on hers. Though only a slap on the

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cheek, his magically medical hands brushed lightly over the curves of her face as if his touch alone could heal the insignificant wound. "What do you mean ‘never mind’ and ‘it’s not important’?" Duncan demanded, his features darkening even more. "It damn well is too important! Who did this?" "I told you!" Duncan went from protective to irritated in the span of a single heartbeat. "Does the bastard have a name by which I might know him?" "Oh." Now it was Alma’s turn to scowl. "Nelson Jones." Duncan’s eyes darkened further. "Come here." He led her to his surgery and gestured to the table. "Sit down." "This is silly!" Alma huffed impatiently. "I didn’t come here for medical aid. I came to ask for help in discharging that hulking lout of a groundskeeper! I’ve given him the sack, but he won’t go." "Don’t worry about that. I’ll get to him." Duncan opened a cabinet, pulling out a clear bottle and some cotton balls. After soaking down the white tufts, he put them in her hand and then gently pressed her hand to the bruise. "Hold that there until I get back." Alma’s nose wrinkled at the smell. "What is it?" "White vinegar. It should help the bruise disappear faster. Now hold it there." With drops of vinegar seeping through her fingers and trickling down the back of her wrist, Alma nevertheless did as she was told, and he led her back out of his surgery to the green and yellow marbled sofa in the living room. "Lie down," he coaxed. "I’m not tired." "Do you have to argue with everything I say?" he countered impatiently. "Lie down."

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For being such a dreadful color, the sofa was surprisingly comfortable. Duncan placed two thick pillows behind her, propping her half upright, and covered her with a blanket. "I feel ridiculous," Alma said. "I’m not sick, and I’m too old for naps." Pressing an almost chaste kiss to her forehead, Duncan only said, "Wait for me here." "If you’re going to confront Jones, I want to come, too." She started to get up, but Duncan gently but firmly pushed her back onto the pillows. He covered her with the blanket again. "I want you to rest. I'll be back in a moment." "I don’t need rest," she protested. "I’m not tired!" "You’re going to stay where I tell you," he said as he donned his coat and hat. "But I want to see the look on his face when he is told he has no choice but to go!" Alma said, and was promptly disgusted with herself because her words came out sounding very whiny. "I’ll be right back." He headed for the door, and then was gone. Alma waited a few seconds before she sat up, casting the blanket aside just as he leaned back into the room and glared at her. "Lie down," he ordered in his most authoritative voice. "And stay there." "Oh bother!" Alma lay back down, folding her arms across her chest and craning her neck back to glare at him. "This isn’t fair." "Fair has nothing to do with it." Duncan stayed long enough to assure himself that she’d stay put this time, and then left again. Waiting this time for several long minutes, Alma listened for the sound of his departure. When she heard nothing, she lifted her head from the pillow.

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Experimentally, she called, "Are you lurk ing just outside to see if I move again?" After only a brief pause, his voice came back through the door. "Yes." "Oh bother," she said again, scowling even more blackly. "All right, you win!" She pulled the blanket back up to her waist and folded her hands over the top of it. Almost more irritated now than when she’d come, she drummed her fingers on her stomach. "You may as well go, Doctor. I promise I’ll stay right here until you get back." She puffed a sigh that rustled her bangs and his footstep descended off the porch onto the gravel walkway. It wasn’t long before she heard the mechanical sputtering as he cranked the motor of his car, and the engine came reluctantly to life. Alma sighed again. It was a sad day indeed when a superintendent couldn’t even participate in the rigorous discharging of her own unruly employees. Frowning at the ceiling, she once more pressed the vinegar soaked cotton balls to her cheek and waited for his return. ______________ Bonnie Chambers' car swerved from the main road onto Doctor MacRae's driveway. Gravel ricocheted off the porch and sprayed the side of the house as she barely got the vehicle stopped before she collided with the front steps. "Alma!" she shouted, standing up in the driver's seat. "Hurry! We haven't a moment to spare! That crazy doctor is taking the place apart!" Alma came up off the sofa with a start. Though she’d only meant to close her eyes for a second, a glance at the face of the grandfather clock showed she must have dozed. "Alma!" Bonnie shouted again and began to frantically sound her horn.

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Rubbing her eyes as she scrambled to get up, Alma peeled the nearly dry cotton balls off her face and hurried outside. "Hurry!" Bonnie called. "We’ve got to get back! There’s no telling what he’ll do next!" "What's happened?" Alma asked as she climbed into the passenger's side. "The Doctor has given Jones the sack!" Alma’s concern became instant irritation. "No, he hasn’t! I did that! First thing this morning, in fact." "Well, he’s sacked him again then," Bonnie said, her face somber and her eyes thrown wide with concern. "And, Jones refused to go! And—oh dear, oh dear—you won't believe how those two suddenly went head to head right at each other. Big as a bull, Jones is! And Doctor MacRae, why, that ornery man of yours has broken the garden shed with him!" Alma's jaw went slack, and a strange quiver of excitement and—well, pride—stole into her racing heart. She quickly turned about on the seat to stare, unseeing, out across the rapidly passing landscape lest Bonnie read too much into her sudden state of speechlessness. When at last she finally managed to find her tongue, all she could stammer was, "He’s hardly my man." "Oh come on, Alma," Bonnie said reproachfully. "I’ve got eyes, you know. No one else puts a bounce in his step just by walking into the room. The closest I’ve ever seen him come to a smile is when he’s talking to you. You fix your hair and your dress every time you hear his car coming down the drive. And to look at you, one would think your cheeks permanently sunburned if he so much as casts a glance in your direction. Speaking of cheeks, what’s happened to yours? Land’s sakes, girl! Doctor MacRae’s struck you!" "Oh no, don’t be ridiculous!" Alma said, and barely bit her tongue before blurting that it was

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entirely the wrong cheek for the fingerprints to be Duncan’s. Halfway down the road, Bonnie had to pull somewhat off the motor path to allow Duncan's car to barrel past them. Although Alma stood up in the seat, waving in a manner fit to either break her arm or topple her over the side of the topless car, the doctor seemed to take not the slightest bit of notice of her. "Duncan MacRae! You really are an evil tempered beast!" Alma shouted after him. Grinning like a fool, she then plopped back into her seat as Bonnie swerved the car back onto the road. Folding her hands in her lap, knowing the situation didn’t warrant even the slightest of smiles, Alma still couldn’t help but let her happiness show through. "You know, I really do think he has gained a few pounds. He has to have. He is so much more cheerful now than when I first met him. It’s all the tea and cookies I’ve been feeding him. It won’t be long, I’m sure you’ll agree, before he’s smiling and laughing almost as much as a normal man." The look Bonnie gave her wasn’t exactly one of blind agreement. "Alma, you are my greatest friend. But I think one of us truly does belong in an asylum, and it’s not the driver of this vehicle." If garden sheds could talk, oh what a tale of valor and battle did Caxton’s have to tell! But for one broken pane, where the glass had been shattered out of its frame and now lay like tiny stars twinkling in the lawn, the outside of the building seemed as serene as always. It was the inside that lay in utter ruin. Shelves were overturned, and both a table and bench were broken in half. Clay flowerpots were smashed upon the floor, and potting soil and tools were scattered everywhere. "Oh my," Alma whispered. She stepped over bits of fragmented pottery, fallen rake handles, a shovel, and then stopped to pick up a piece of

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shredded tarp that had, up until that afternoon, covered the stack of burlap bags filled with seeds and seeding potatoes. She turned to look at Bonnie, both excited and shaken all at once. "Jones wasn’t murdered, was he?" "Not unless you consider a broken nose murder." Bonnie hovered in the doorway, as though afraid to venture any further inside. She looked cautiously about. "Have you ever seen such a mess? Look there, Alma. I think that’s blood on the floor." Alma turned in a circle, grinning as she surveyed the damage. "Whoever would have thought our skinny visiting doctor could put up such a fight." Alma clasped her hands to her breast. She was so proud of him. "And to think, I was napping on his couch when I could have run back here and seen all this excitement first hand!" Bending down to pick up two halves of a broken trowel, Bonnie shook her head. "You worry me." Alma grinned as she once more headed for the door. "Where are you going?" "Back to the Doctor’s house." "What on Earth for?" "He’s such a wonderful man, Bonnie," Alma said, skipping a little as she walked. "I owe him a debt of gratitude. At the very least, I think I ought to thank him." The teacher turned to look at the devastated garden shed, completely unconvinced. She looked down at the broken tool in her hands and under her breath muttered dubiously, "If you say so." ______________ Alma could see Duncan sitting on his front porch as she walked down his dirt and gravel driveway. She was so happy, she threw up her arm and waved and called to him as she broke into a half skipping

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run. But, the doctor didn’t look at her. He didn’t even raise his head. It wasn’t until she drew closer that she saw something odd in the set of his shoulders. The post must have come for there was a letter in his hands, and the look on his face was utterly without expression. Her smile faded and her steps began to slow. "Duncan? Are you all right?" He didn’t look up until she crossed in front of him, blocking out the sun. His face didn’t change and without a word, he reached for her hand, pulling her down to sit sideways across his lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist, letter still clutched in one hand, and held her tightly close. "What is it?" He lay his head upon her chest, closing his eyes, and Alma reached down to take the note from his fingers. "Who is Evaleen?" she asked, noting from where the missive had hailed. Duncan cleared his throat twice before he answered, and his voice sounded pinched and strained. "Freya’s sister." Alma’s instinct was to thrash her way back up and off his lap, throw the note on the ground and stomp it into the mud. But the man holding her was not her usual Duncan, and she kept a tight rein on her temper. "I see," she said, fingering the corners of the letter. After a moment, she unfolded the paper and made herself read it. Duncan, Thought you knew. Freya died three years ago. Complications due to birthing her youngest son. Both are buried in Oakland Cemetery. Evaleen From the moment that she’d first set eyes on Freya’s smiling photograph and learned of who she

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was, Alma had hated Duncan’s wife. She’d hated her smile and her pretty face, for meeting and for marrying Duncan, for having him when Alma couldn’t and for leaving him to hurt alone for year after passing year. "Oh." Alma lowered the note, feeling suddenly bereft and ashamed of herself. She put her arms around his shoulders, holding him close. "Oh Duncan." Though he made no sound other than his ragged breathing, she could feel the wetness as his tears soaked into her gown. "I’m sorry," she whispered. "I’m so very sorry." They held each other, and she let him cry on her shoulder. ______________ Two days later... He was going to do it. He deserved a chance at being happy, Duncan told himself sternly. And this time he was determined to make sure his wife was happy, too. Alma wasn’t Freya, after all. He didn’t need to live each day afraid of coming home to find a note waiting for him on the table. He did, however, need to get this tie on straight. Duncan stood in front of his dressing room mirror, staring at his reflection. A monkey in a tuxedo couldn’t have looked more ridiculous than he felt, jammed into a suit that felt too tight for him around the middle and too short across his shoulders. His cuff links didn’t match and he couldn’t get his tie on straight. He’d be very lucky indeed if Alma didn’t laugh him off the porch. He shook his head at himself, knowing that wasn’t likely. Alma was too much a lady to do something so rude. He stared at his reflection again, and then he shook his head. His normally graceful fingers felt like thumbs as he struggled to get his

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bow tie on straight. His brows furrowed as he tugged at the ends. Having mangled the tie beyond all repair, with a muffled curse, he took it off entirely. He left the mirror and sank down on the foot of his bed, elbows on his knees, head propped in his hands. He ran his hands through his hair, glaring at the floor as though it were the root of all his problems. Who did he think he was kidding, anyway? He hadn’t been able to keep Freya happy; what chance did he have with a woman like Alma? Duncan could just imagine himself approaching her father. Two to one, he’d find himself on the wrong end of a Winchester rifle the minute he asked for her hand in marriage. But if he didn’t at least try, a voice inside him whispered, he’d spend the rest of his life kicking himself for what he was missing. It was that thought alone that gave him the will to pick up the bow tie again and return to the mirror. He stared at his reflection, then drew a deep breath and wrapped the narrow black cloth around his neck once more. "Here," he heard Maggie say behind him. "Let me." He turned as she came into the room, pausing to lay a stack of freshly ironed shirts on his dressing table. "I hate these things," he said, when she took the tie from him. "I know." What he’d been struggling to do for more than ten minutes now, she accomplished in less than fifteen seconds. As she straightened the folds and tucked down his collar, smoothing his shirt into place, she added, "I was rather fond of the first missus." Duncan turned back to the mirror and looked at himself. "So was I," he admitted, and gave her a knowing look. "Of course, I find myself equally fond—no, make that enchanted—with the current lady in my life. Is it too much to hope that my

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future wife and my favorite housekeeper might someday get along?" Maggie sniffed. "If she hurts you, I’ll bury her under the woodshed." He caught her arm when she turned to gather up his shirts again. Bending, he bussed her cheek with a quick kiss. "Thank you, Maggie." Her face turned a brilliant shade of red. Gruffly, she shooed his hands away. "Get off with you. Lord knows you never keep a woman waiting." Duncan gathered his coat and hat, whistling ‘Oh Lady Mine’ as he headed for the stairs. He strolled out of the house and into the rain without a break in his smile or his stride. His lanky legs carried him over the worst of the puddles and he cranked up his car. Still whistling, he turned towards the Caxton Home for Orphans and the lovely Miss Alma Burke, whom he couldn’t wait to see. He was only halfway through the second refrain of his whistled melody when he crested a short hill and Caxton came into view. Duncan smiled when he saw the grim exterior of the familiar building. He had no idea what he was going to say to Alma, but just the sight of the place made him happy. And it didn’t matter that it was raining fit to beat the band, or that in all likelihood he’d be thoroughly tonguetied the instant Alma presented her lovely self before him, offering him her sunniest smile, those beautiful blue eyes of hers sparkling as she handed him a plate of cookies and a cup of sweet tea. He couldn’t wait to get her into his arms. Just the thought of holding her was enough to make his heart soar. Right up until he saw the roof cave in. One minute it was there, the multiple peaks of the layered roof dotted with chimney tops and colored a dull red from all the rain, and in the next, with a thunderous crash that he could hear even from this distance, four of the middle peaks had

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disappeared and Caxton’s main building suddenly looked distinctly different. Hardly believing his eyes, Duncan was so shocked that he stopped the car to stare. It was the doctor in him that finally broke through his paralysis and got the car moving again. He raced the rest of the way down the road with his heart in his throat and pulled to a stop twenty feet from the building just as a flood of children and adults carrying babies came spilling out the front doors. Mrs. Welsey led the pack with a screaming toddler in each arm and herding a passel of slightly older children like a gaggle of white nightgowned geese outside into the rain. "Alma?" he called to her as he leapt out of his car. Covered in plaster dust from head to foot, she coughed back, "Upstairs." Duncan waded into the building through a wave of excited youngsters, all of them carrying blankets or holding the hands of a younger child. "Go, go, go!" He shooed them out the door, even as he raised his head to look up the staircase. He shielded his eyes from the dirty water dripping down on him almost as though it were raining inside just as fiercely as it was out. He grabbed onto the wall, his heart all but stopping in his chest as he felt the entire building shudder and another crash sound somewhere deeper inside the building. "Alma!" He charged up the stairs, barreling into the first nursery he came to and running head-on into Miss Smith, who was coming out, one infant in her arms and a crying three-year-old clinging to her dirty skirts. Over her shoulder, Duncan saw the giant support beams, rotted from years of dampness and unrepaired roof leaks, lying across the beds.

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"This room’s clear," she told him, soaked to the skin and white as a ghost from grits of paint and plaster. "Thank God it’s bath night!" Bits of wood and plaster crunched under his shoes as he stepped past her into the room and stared up at the partial roof that remained. Water poured down around the edges like a waterfall. The whole building would need to be condemned. Duncan turned back to Smith. "Where’s Alma?" The old woman shook her head and then pointed down the hall. "Somewhere down there, I think." "Get out of here," Duncan told her, and she caught the hand of the crying child and hurried down the stairs. A horde of young teenagers ran by just as Duncan was re-emerging back into the hall. He managed to snag one by the arm before he could disappear down the stairs. "Where is Miss Burke?" The young man pointed back down the hall, and Duncan released him, bellowing down the stairs after them, "Get the younger ones off the porch! I want everyone well away from the building!" His words were echoed by another deep rumble that made the floor under his boots shake. Duncan caught hold of the stairway railing and stared. The building was shifting in the soft, water soaked ground. He raised his head to stare at the unstable structure that had once been a roof overhead. "Oh hell." Duncan actually heard Alma before he saw her. Snapping out orders like a general, she stood among the ruins of the last nursery, snatching babies and blankets from the cribs and sending them outside in the arms of what few staff members remained inside the shifting building. "There aren’t enough blankets to go around, so have everyone huddle," she was saying as he crossed the threshold.

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"We have to leave now!" Duncan looked up when the ceiling creaked in ominous warning. "Go!" Alma told her staff, and they needed no other encouragement. Grabbing a blanket off the nearest bed, she leaned over the side of the last crib and snatched up the baby, who was crying inside. Duncan took the child from her arms. "Is that everyone?" Wet from the rain, shivering from the excitement, she looked back at him with wide eyes. "I think so." They hurried downstairs together. "Did everyone get out?" she called out as they ran across the lawn to Mrs. Welsey, who was doing a head count. "One hundred, one hundred and one," the housekeeper looked around and then spied the baby in Duncan’s arms. "One hundred and two," she announced, plopping a meaty hand on top of the infant’s head. "All present and accounted for." There was a sudden crack and the entire west wing roof collapsed, sending the debris straight through the second story floorboards and breaking every window the support beams encountered on the way down. "Well," Alma said, and Duncan saw some of the familiar sparkle coming back into her eyes as she turned to him. "I guess we’ll be getting our fill of fresh air from now on, won’t we?" Keeping his cold and pneumonia comments to himself, he patted her shoulder. "It’ll be all right. Nobody got hurt. That’s the important thing." As one, they all took several steps backwards as the entire building let out a low, shuddering groan and the brick chimneystack that had lined the side of the west wing toppled over on its side.

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Chapter Twelve "Damn," Alma said, startling Duncan and Welsey, who both turned to stare at her in shock. She blinked at each of them, and then shrugged towards Caxton as she explained, "We just unpacked the new dishes for the kitchen." "I told you that was a foolish and flippant purchase," Welsey answered, although her tone held no hint of her usual rancor and derision. She turned to stare at the building again, too. "Had I known it would have provoked an act of God to prove my point, I’d have kept my mouth shut." Behind them both, Miss Smith wailed, "How can you be so calm? We’ve just lost our homes!" "Mm," Alma hummed. "Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I was flippant and foolish enough to repair the barn. What say we adjourn the children to it, so they can at least be out of the rain?" The dark sky flickered and a distant rumble of thunder mingled with another groan as the weight of the remaining roof shifted closer towards collapsing. And suddenly the most startled look crossed Alma’s face. "My mama’s picture!" she suddenly blurted, pushing Duncan out of the way as she spun around and ran back to the building. "No, wait!" Duncan thrust the baby at Welsey and sprinted after her. He tried to grab at her arm before she reached the top of the porch steps, but she was faster, and the roof creaked and groaned as she disappeared through the front door. Swearing, Duncan chased her into the foyer. "Damn it, woman! Alma, don’t!" She grabbed her skirts as she raced up the stairs for her office, skirting around fallen support beams, broken shingles and chunks of plaster ceiling.

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"Alma!" Duncan bellowed. He took the stairs two at a time behind her. But she never stopped. "I can’t leave my mama’s picture!" She ran all the way down the hall, and he only caught up to her because she had to force her office door open. A beam and bits of roof and shingling littered the floor. Her desk was buried in plaster bits and rain splashed down from the gigantic hole where most of the ceiling should have been. She had to dig down to find the picture and when she did, she let out a wail. A beam had smashed the frame, leaving the once elegant photograph torn, dirty and wet from the rain that dribbled in around the broken edges where a section of the roof had once been. Duncan eyed the section that still remained intact, albeit groaning as the support beam currently lay on the floor. "It’s ruined!" she cried. She had tears in her eyes, but Duncan didn’t let her mourn her loss. He grabbed her arm instead and steered her towards the door. "Come on." Hearing the urgency in the groaning of what little construction still remained above them, he dragged her after him, down the hall and down the stairs. Every ominous creak bespoke of its imminent collapse, and he hustled Alma across the foyer, out the door and off the porch. He dragged her away from the main building, heading after Mrs. Welsey who was herding children towards the barn. Halfway down the path behind them, Duncan suddenly jerked Alma to a stop. He turned his back to the barn, catching both of Alma’s arms and giving her a stern shake. It was a firmly restrained gesture that barely registered the fury that was burning inside him, hotter and hotter with every passing second. But, it commanded her attention in an instant.

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"I’m going back to my car," he told her, struggling to keep his tone even and soft. "I’ll bring back some help from Wellsville. When I get back, we’re going to find a place to bed these children down for the night. Then you and I are going to go back to my house, and I am going to paddle you as you’ve never had it done before." He drew a low, seething breath, fighting to keep from upending her right here and now, in front of the audience of staff and children, watching them curiously from the open barn door. "I am going to blister your backside so soundly, that the next time you even think about doing another damn fool stupid stunt like that again, your bottom’s going to remember the penalty and maybe your head’ll think twice!" Alma swallowed hard as he growled. "I love you, and I want you." He gave her shoulders another hard shake. "But I want you safe first! And if I’ve got to tan your hide to keep you that way, then by heaven that’s exactly what I’ll do, and you won’t sit for days!" Alma blinked rapidly, hugging her picture to her chest and nodding as fast as her head could manage it when he snapped, "Do you understand me?" He started to let her go, but then caught her close and kissed her fiercely in front of Welsey, the children and the rest of her open-mouthed staff. And then he stalked back to his car, leaving Alma to watch after him, her hand pressed to her mouth and a tinge of color on her otherwise pale cheeks. ______________ It was nerve wracking. She almost wished she didn’t know it was coming. Then at least she wouldn’t have to sit here, smiling and pretending to be entertained, when inside she felt more like a bundle of rapidly fraying nerves. She could hardly sit still. Her muscles all felt tense unto the point of

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hurting, and she simply could not keep her mind on the conversation. The mayor’s wife, Betty, was difficult to fool. "Are you all right, dear?" she kept asking, pulling Alma’s widely derailed train of thought sharply back on track. After the third time, she’d given up on, ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ and tried a more honest, "I’m a little tired, that’s all. It’s been a difficult day." "Oh, terribly trying, I’m sure," Betty quickly agreed. "You should have a lie down before supper, and get yourself rested up again." "Well," Alma hedged, and checked the timepiece on the mantle. She couldn’t count how many times she’d looked at that clock. Something had to be wrong with it. The hands were barely moving they dragged along so slowly. "I would lie down, but the Doctor had some things he wanted to discuss with me before either one of us can retire. I’m sure he’ll be along any minute. He just wanted to make sure everyone was all right first." "Ah," Betty said with a nod. And Alma blushed. If his passionate kiss earlier hadn’t yet become common knowledge, it would be soon enough. She sighed into her cup. Oh, how she wished it were kisses that he’d be fetching her to receive tonight. "That man is a worker and no mistake," Betty said. "He’ll make someone a good husband someday... although he could do with a sweeter disposition." "He smiles," Alma protested, perhaps a little more sharply than she should have, considering the way Betty looked at her. "He even laughs now. I’ve been working on him." "Oh," Betty said, and sipped her tea. Alma felt her face growing hot. "I’ve been fattening him up," she explained. "So his future

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wife, whoever she might be, won’t have as much work left to do. You know, once she takes over." "Of course, dear." Alma didn’t think she’d be so grateful to hear the familiar chugging of Duncan’s car, but when it chose that moment to pull up in front of the porch, she almost sighed in relief. "Shall I leave a light on for you?" Betty asked, as Alma set her teacup down on the table and stood up to gather her coat and hat. "Oh," Alma checked the timepiece yet again. "I really don’t think I shall be out too late." How long did the spanking of a girl’s life take to be delivered, she wondered. "I should think I’ll be back by supper, at the most." "Well then, have a good time, dear," Betty said as she headed for the door. As Alma slipped out onto the porch, she looked down at the doctor who was coming down the walk to meet her, and she swallowed hard. His face was grimly set, and although he no longer looked as though he wanted to shake her senseless, she knew without a doubt that a ‘good time’ didn’t come anywhere close to describing what she was about to endure. She fidgeted with her skirts nervously and, as he drew closer, said, "Mrs. Cotterhill wanted to know if I’d be out late. I wasn’t sure what to tell her." "We won’t be late." Duncan shook his head. "This should only take about an hour or so." An hour. Alma swallowed hard, but she shut the mayor’s front door and then followed him back to his car. He held the door open for her and even offered her a hand up onto the seat, letting her settle her skirts in around her legs before he shut it after her. It wasn’t at all the actions of a man determined to hurt the woman he professed to love.

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Taking a deep breath, Alma tried to resign herself to being accepting of his faults. After all, no man was expected to be perfect. And the doctor had so many good points to his character, so what if he spanked? As far as flaws went, it could have been a hundred times worse. He could have been an alcoholic. Or unemployable. Or even worse, agnostic. What was a little spanking compared to the horror of taking an agnostic home to meet her father. But still... She waited nervously while he started the car and when he finally slid into the driver’s seat, anxiously wringing her hands, she couldn’t help but ask, "Are you really going to spank me for an hour?" She must have looked as frightened at the thought as she sounded, for his eyebrows arched sharply and he looked over at her in surprise. "Heavens, no! I want an hour so I can hold you afterwards, assure myself that you’re all right before I bring you back here and just leave again." "Oh." Alma was almost relieved, except that whether it lasted an hour or only a minute, she was still going to be spanked. That kind of knowledge was nerve wracking. It left her stomach tightly knotted and every muscle in her body so tense that she trembled from it. "Alma," Duncan said softly. She looked over at him. Very simply, he said, "I wanted to tell you I love you." Her situation hadn’t changed. She was still on the verge of a painful and humiliating ordeal. And yet, how odd that those three little words could take most of the tensity right out of her. Her shoulders eased. She even smiled, albeit a small one. "I love you, too," she admitted.

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"Then don’t be afraid of me. No woman should ever have to fear her husband." It was as close to a proposal as he’d yet come, and Alma sat staring back at him in surprise. "I—" she fidgeted, wondering if she should give him such a convenient way out. "I don’t have a-a husband." The look on his face was unmistakably determined. "Yet. I’m giving you six months to get used to the idea." "Don’t I have a say in the matter?" she asked, a slightly wider smile beginning to tug at the corners of her mouth. "Of course." Putting the car in gear, Duncan drove back onto the road and headed for home. "You get to say yes." ______________ "I’ve sent Maggie shopping," Duncan said as they pulled up the driveway to his house. "So, we’ve less of a risk of being disturbed before this is over." "All right." But Alma made no move to get out of the car. She sat staring at his house as though it were the gallows and she the condemned about to climb its steps. Shutting off the engine, Duncan got out and walked around to her side of the car to open the door. She didn’t want to go inside. She didn’t even want to know what lay in store for her there. Would he use his belt again? Would he use his hand? She supposed it was a given that her bloomers would be taken down, but maybe, with the severity that he’d promised, she’d be able to keep them up this time. Despite her anxieties, when Duncan held out his hand, without a word, she lay her own in his palm and let him help her from the car. They walked inside together. Like a gentleman, Duncan took her hat and coat and hung them on the pegs by the

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door. Then, pressing his hand to the small of her back, he steered her towards his sitting room. A cushioned footstool had been set in the middle of the floor, and upon it had been laid three willow switches, tied together at one end with a length of leather cording. They were fresh and supple, and he’d trimmed them all smooth. Her knees wobbled a bit when she saw them. She had to stop walking or they’d have buckled altogether and she’d have fallen on her very next step. At this point, there was something to be said for agnostics. Duncan stepped in front of her, enfolding her in his arms. He held her tightly, rubbing her back for what felt like forever before he finally stepped back. "Raise your skirts," he told her. Alma looked at the birch again, then bent down and did as she was told. There was no lecture and no more delays. He pulled her bloomers down her legs, softly commanding her to ‘step’ so he could strip them from her feet entirely. He made her stand bent over, her hands flat upon the stool and her legs stiffly together. When he picked up the birch, the switches rattled together, bending with the motion of his hand and bouncing in the air with frightening flexibility. "I know you won’t be able to," Duncan said, laying his hand in the middle of her back, stabilizing her, comforting her even. "But try to hold still. I don’t want to strike something I’m not aiming for." Staring fixed at a spot on the stool between her hands, Alma nodded. And then she stood trembling, waiting for what felt like an eternity before the first hard lick of the switches fell. Had she known just how badly that initial stroke would hurt, she’d have cheerfully waited an eternity longer. Duncan was nothing if not a man of his word. The severity that he’d promised, he delivered with

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crisp, snapping strokes of his arm that made the switches fan out and leave streaks of pure smarting agony across her skin. Alma shrieked at one and begged and sobbed at two, but Duncan didn’t discard the birch until a full count of fifteen had been delivered. And from first to last, his hand never abandoned her. Somehow, that made it easier to bear. ______________ The destruction of Caxton made the news statewide, and donations began pouring in almost immediately. Alma couldn’t have been more pleased. Finally, she would be getting her new and modern orphanage, one that didn’t reek with that awful institution smell, and without first having to resort to arson. In the meanwhile, the local residents rallied together, opening their homes as temporary foster centers until the new building could be completed. Even the mayor joined the cause and took in a pair of twin boys, although its being an election year, Alma suspected he might have ulterior motives. Within two days of the roof’s collapse, more than a hundred men arrived by bus, horse, cart and automobile to tear the old building down. Alma rolled up her sleeves, borrowed a hammer and joined right in. And when the photographer from the New York Metropolitan arrived to take their picture, she posed right up front and in the middle of the all the rest, dirty from her eyebrows on down, and grinning with the best of them. Early one Saturday morning a week to the day from when the framing of the new building had begun, Alma received her first special delivery package, delivered to her brand new front porch. Sent by her father, it was a crate of expensive toys and stuffed animals, the plushy, well-stuffed sort normally given to the children of well-to-do parents.

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There were raccoons, bears and puppies and little girl dolls with pink lips and cheeks and ribbons in their hair. While not exactly what Alma would have purchased at the moment had she been given the choice, she was nevertheless pleased that her father would sent such a treat without first having to be asked. Maybe that meant he was softening towards her just a bit. She was still standing on the porch amid the ladders and stacks of lumber, looking over the packing slip when a coach from town pulled up in the circular drive. A woman Alma at first thought might have been a prospective mother-to-be stepped down. Alma had seen a good many adoptive parents since Caxton’s tragedy had hit the news. In the last week and a half, she’d bid a fond goodbye to twenty-three of her chicks. If only Alma had known all the benefits to be had in a collapsing roof, she’d have caved hers in months ago. "Good day," the woman announced. She wasn’t at all good motherhood-looking material, at least not to Alma’s way of thinking. At least fifty years old, her gray hair had been swept up into a stern bun at the back of her head and her lined face seemed more accustomed to frowns than to smiles. She was tall and thin, and carried herself with such an air of authority that she virtually marched up the porch steps like a soldier to stand directly in front of Alma expectantly. "Alma Burke, I assume," she stated. "Yes." Alma folded her hands before her. "And you are?" "Martha Barrett. I am your replacement." She lifted her chin a notch. "You are packed, I assume, and ready to depart?" For a moment, Alma didn’t move although, inside, a shock of complete panic struck the pit of her belly. "I beg your pardon. What?"

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The woman blinked at her a moment, then leaned in closer and said quite loudly, as though Alma were deaf, "I am Martha Barrett, the replacement sent by your father! I trust you are ready to go!" Twenty minutes later, Alma found herself standing on Duncan's front porch step, banging frantically on the door. "Duncan! It’s an emergency! Hurry! I need you!" Maggie opened it, her jowls quivering indignantly. "What do you mean by pounding on the door in this manner?" Near to tears, Alma had no time for busy-body housekeepers. She jumped up and down, trying to see past Maggie and into the dark house, then ran back off the porch and scooped up a fistful of small pebbles. She turned to look up at his second story laboratory window. "Duncan!" She meant to throw the rocks gently, but distress gave her arm a bit more strength than the fragile glass pane could handle. It shattered under the multi-pebbled assault. An instant later, the broken sash was thrown up, and Duncan stuck his head outside. "Damn it, Alma! That's twice now you've—" He froze when he saw her panic-stricken face, and his anger abruptly drowned beneath a wave of concern. "What's happened? Is someone sick? Hang on!" He held out a finger. "I’ll be right down!" "No one’s sick," Alma called up. He poked his head back outside. "What?" "I need you," Alma said, feeling as brittle as her cracking voice. As if he had given her permission, her tears fell past her lashes and journeyed down her cheeks. Duncan stared down at her, not moving. "What’s happened?" Her shoulders sagged in misery as she shrugged. "I've been replaced." She turned away,

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flopping down to sit on the porch, and covered her face in both hands. "My father sent a woman and I’ve been replaced. What am I going to do? How can I go when I’ve only just got everything started?" When she looked up again, Duncan was no longer leaning out his upstairs window, but coming quickly down the stairs. He flung open the front door and then closed it again, before the glaring Maggie could come outside with him. "I thought you wanted to be replaced?" he said, sitting down on the steps next to her. "It’s all you’ve talked about ever since your arrival." "I know!" Alma wailed. She sounded so forlorn, valiantly trying to wipe away her tears and pull herself back together again. "You don’t understand; I don’t belong out here. I am a fragile city girl. I’m accustomed to lying in bed all day long and dancing throughout the night. I like going to parties and operas and music recitals and hosting grand banquets that leave everybody patting their stomachs and groaning with contentment for weeks afterward." She stilled when he touched her face, brushing several drops aside with the pads of his thumbs. Briefly closing her eyes, she tucked her cheek into his palm. "Don’t think for a minute that I want to see you go," Duncan said, "but I don’t understand why you’re crying. You should be happy; you’re finally getting what you’ve wanted all along." "But I take it all back!" Alma wailed. "I’ve changed my mind! I don’t want to be relieved! You didn't see her, Duncan. She’s another Mrs. Lippett, only thinner and without any chin. How can I leave when I know that the very minute I go she’ll be unleashed upon my poor, defenseless babies to undo every good reform I’ve created?" He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her to him. "It’s all right."

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"No, it most certainly is not all right!" she snapped back. "Can you imagine such a woman carrying on the painstaking labors that I’ve started here? No!" Straightening stiffly beside him, she knuckled her fists into her hips. "The manager of an institution in as bad a shape as Caxton has got to be young, husky, energetic, forceful, efficient and sweet-tempered woman—like me!" "I thought you weren’t happy here," Duncan said. Alma looked at him as though he’d suddenly sprouted a second head. "Well, of course I'm not happy! Who could possibly be happy with things in the condition that they’ve been? But, that’s all changed now. After months of struggling with enemies and fighting the ugliness, how can anyone think I’d simply up and abandon the project now when I’m finally about to get my brand new modern building? I’ve worked too hard for this, Duncan! I refuse to go! I’ll not be relieved from this position until they find a superintendent equal to the one they’ve already got!" She folded her arms across her chest, her back stiffening with every ounce of stubbornness that she possessed. "I am staying right here!" When Duncan began to smile, Alma calmly added, "Which isn’t to mean I’m mortgaging myself to the world of institutions forever, you know. Just for the present." "Of course not." He put his arm back around her shoulder and drew her into him again. "The instant things become something approaching normal, I’ll be packing my bags to go. And I won’t look back, I can promise you that!" "Right." Duncan nodded. "We’ve still got a lot of remodeling to do. I was even thinking last night that during the hot summer months, we should screen in the front porch and let the children sleep out-of-doors so they can be

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assured of plenty of fresh air. Until that point, without a doubt, I am the absolute best person for this job!" "And, I agree with you." "I love to plan improvements and order people about," Alma told him. He laughed. "And besides," she said, her voice softening. "I didn’t want you to think I was like Freya. Not all wives want to leave their husbands, you know." "What makes you think I wouldn’t go with you?" Duncan countered just as softly. Alma started to smile. "Well, that’s just one more reason to stay then, isn’t it? After all, country doctors don’t grow on trees." "No, they don’t." Squeezing her shoulders, he slapped his hands to his knees and stood up. "May I offer you a ride home, Madam Superintendent?" "Oh, please, yes," she said as he pulled her to her feet and walked her out to his car. "I ran all the way here. I nearly twisted my ankle under me, too. It’s starting to throb most dreadfully." When he shot her a startled look, she quickly amended. "I’ll be fine. I just need to get off it, that’s all." "Tell me you didn’t leave that poor, chinless woman standing on Caxton's front step?" "Oh mercy, no. That would be rude." Alma smiled as Duncan opened the car door for her and slid into the seat. "I chased her off with a hammer before I came over here. You know," she said when Duncan leaned against the car and covered his eyes with one hand. "I find myself growing rather attached to orphans."

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