Her Hesitant Heart - By Carla Kelly Page 0,12

opened the door. “Emily, you’ll catch your death out here,” he chided, as though she needed reminding.

Once inside her own house, Emily Reese took charge. She indicated that the ambulance driver should take Susanna’s luggage upstairs.

The major took Susanna’s hand. “I’ll leave you two now. Good night.”

Susanna was left with her cousin. Take a deep breath and begin, she told herself, smiling her company smile at her cousin.

“It’s good to see you, Emily,” she said. “I hope …” Actually, I wish you would look me in the eye, she thought in alarm. What now? “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Five years,” her cousin said, making no move to take the overcoat that Susanna had removed.

Embarrassed, Susanna cleared her throat. “Emily, where should I hang this?”

Emily opened a narrow door under the stairs. “Next to the mop. I’m sorry we haven’t more pegs in the hallway, but the captain’s overcoat and hat take up room.”

Susanna nodded, amused to hear her cousin-in-law, Daniel Reese, referred to as “the captain.” She wondered if Emily was equal to a little tease about relegating relatives to the broom closet, and decided she was not.

When Emily just stood there, Susanna prodded a little more. “Where did you have the private take my belongings?”

“Upstairs. Let me show you where you’ll be staying.” Emily smiled her own company smile. “Come along. It isn’t much.”

Emily was right; it wasn’t much, just a space behind an army blanket at the end of the little hall. At least I have a place to stay, Susanna reminded herself as she and her cousin stood on the small landing. One bedroom door was open, and she looked in, charmed to see her little cousin, Stanley, stacking blocks, his back to the door.

She glanced at Emily, pleased to see some expression on her face now, as she admired her son.

“Stanley is four now,” Emily whispered.

“I’m certain we will get along famously,” Susanna assured her, thinking of her own son at that age—inquisitive, and beginning to exert a certain amount of household influence.

As Stanley stacked another block, the wobbling tower came down. The little boy put his hands to his head in sudden irritation and declared, “That’s a damned nuisance!”

Emily gasped and closed the door. “Cousin, this is the hardest place to raise children!”

“I imagine there are plenty of soldiers who don’t think much of letting the language fly,” she said, putting a real cap on her urge to laugh. “Must be a trial.”

“It’s not the soldiers,” Emily snapped, the portrait of righteous indignation. “It’s the no-account Irish living next door!” She lowered her voice slightly. “You’d be horrified what we hear through the wall.”

Susanna stared at her. “Here on Officers Row?”

It was obviously a subject that Emily had thought long about, considering that she never thought much of anything. “That’s what happens when the army promotes a bog Irishman from sergeant to captain of cavalry. So what if he earned a Medal of Honor in the late war? They’re hopeless!”

“I have a lot to learn,” Susanna murmured, hoping that the unfortunates on the other side of the wall were deaf. She thought of the pretty redhead who had given her a welcoming wave, and decided to form her own opinion.

Emily pulled back the army blanket strung on a sagging rod, revealing an army cot and bureau obviously intended for someone with few possessions. That would be me, Susanna thought.

“You should be comfortable enough here. I had a private from the captain’s company hammer up some nails to hang your dresses.”

“I am certain it will do,” Susanna replied. “I am grateful. Major Randolph said something about captains being alloted four rooms, not including the kitchen.”

She quickly realized this was another unfortunate topic, because Emily sighed again. “I think it’s … it’s unconscious for a widower to have six rooms!”

Do you mean unconscionable, Cousin Malaprop? Susanna thought, remembering Emily Reese’s bedroom back home. “I suppose that’s the army way. Now I’ll unpack ….”

Emily was just warming to the subject. “There are captains here with five rooms.”

“Why not Dan?”

“We came here at the same time as another captain and his wife who have no children, but this is what we have.” Emily frowned. “He was even in Dan’s graduating class!”

“Why did you get this smaller place?” Susanna asked, interested.

“Because Dan was academically lower in his class,” her cousin said. “Is that fair?”

I suppose that’s what happens when you marry someone no brighter than yourself, Susanna thought, amused. “What happens if someone comes to the fort who