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now that it had returned, she welcomed the sweet remembrance and thought perhaps she’d try to make the most of this unexpected visit from Reed Malloy and his two charges.
    That was what she thought until all hell broke loose around one o’clock in the morning .

     

Chapter Three
     
     
    Charlotte was out of bed and on her feet before she was completely awake. Her heart was pounding uncomfortably and her hand shook as she fumbled to light her bedside lamp, before covering it with its glass chimney. Then she heard the scream again, followed by Lily’s voice, yelling.
    Charlotte threw open her bedroom door and bounded down the hallway, colliding with Reed Malloy. She felt herself bounce off of his hard chest, and she nearly dropped the oil lamp.
    “ What in blazes is going on?” she asked, as they responded to the commotion coming from the children’s room. “The children are waking snakes!”
    “ Thomas has nightmares,” Reed explained, as he threw open the children’s door. Charlotte took the scene in instantly over Reed’s shoulder, her lamp illuminating the children. Lily was kneeling on the bed, yelling at her little brother who was thrashing around in the bed clothes. He screamed again.
    Reed was beside him in an instant. He took hold of both of Thomas’s shoulders and raised the boy to a sitting position. He shook him gently. Before long, the little boy was awake, blinking with large, startled eyes. Then Lily hugged her brother.
    “Was it the same?” Charlotte heard the little girl ask. Thomas nodded, and the two of them curled together, snuggling down in the sheets. It tugged at her heart. How much harder it must be for them to lose their parents than it had been for her. She had been six years older than Lily and had not been carted halfway across the United States to a stranger’s house. Only to find themselves unwanted, she thought, the guilt welling up in her at once.
    They seemed all right on the surface, but, of course, inside, they must be vulnerable and bewildered. And they looked so small in the middle of the four-poster bed.
    “Is there anything I can get you?” she asked, still clutching the light in front of her as if it were a beacon. Thomas yelled ice cream and Lily giggled. Charlotte was amazed at their resiliency.
    “ I was thinking more along the lines of warm milk,” she offered.
    “ I think that would be a good idea,” Reed agreed, turning to strike a match, which he held steadily to the wick of their bedside lamp. A soft, amber glow filled the room.
    Reed followed Charlotte out into the hallway.
    “You might catch cold going downstairs dressed like that,” Reed said as she reached the top of the stairs.
    She turned to him, saw where his gaze was falling and looked down.
    “Oh,” she gasped. She was in her shift of the softest white lawn. And with the light in front of her as she led the way, he’d been able to see clearly the shape of her figure from behind. Now he was no doubt getting a good look at the front of her. She blushed scarlet, thrust the lamp into his hands, and disappeared into her room.
    Of course, he had been perfectly respectable, wearing a set of black silk pajamas, even if they did emphasize the firm shape of his muscles when he moved.
    Hearing him go down the stairs, Charlotte leaned against the back of her door, feeling a strange tingling in her stomach  . . . and lower. She wondered if she should bother to join him. In a moment, she groped in the dark for her robe and threw it on before heading for the kitchen.
    Reed was already stoking the fire in the wood stove when she entered. She went to the cold storage and took a bottle of milk from where it lay nestled in the ice and straw.
    “Has Thomas been having nightmares long?” she asked, measuring out two cups of the frothy white liquid into a pot. When no answer came, Charlotte looked up at Reed.
    He was taking in her new attire with a disconcerting glance from her head to her feet, which peeked out