Dream Weaver (31 page)

She ran her fingers through her hair, her heart thumping. "Something from my other time. It was coming right at me!" She peered at him, her eyes filling with tears. "You don't believe me!"

Christian swallowed hard. "I find your visions difficult to accept. Gwen, mayhap all the moving we've done and all that's happened has, er, affected your brain."

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" she challenged, wiping her hand across her eyes. "You think I'm loony."

"Loony?" He shook his head. "Never mind. Best you go to bed now. By the morrow--"

"Oh, yeah, by tomorrow everything we'll be back to normal, right? And we'll both forget anything happened to me. But, oh, God," she said, her voice rising, "what if something takes me back to my own time?"

"Nay, don't say it!"

"And Christian, I'll never see you again!"

* * *

The following morning, Christian checked on several infirm soldiers, his mind churning with worries about his wife. After all this time he'd known her--for above a year--he still couldn't understand her or what malady she suffered from, whether it was mental or physical. Of course, a trip through time would be an unimaginably traumatic experience, but he sensed her difficulties went beyond that. Why was she having these hallucinations?

Could an unseen force draw her back to her own time? On his return to their room to write in his medical journal, Christian clenched his hands. No! He wouldn't let her leave him. She'd be here at the fort with him, night and day. He would not let anything happen to her.

* * *

Determined to forget her vision, Gwen organized her class the following morning. She went from one family to the next, to the lean-tos scattered all over the parade ground and to the families who lived in the soldiers' barracks, hoping to interest enough children in attending school. By early afternoon she'd enrolled enough children to start a class, gathering them in an unoccupied corner next to the Flag Bastion.

Perched on an upside-down crate, she held her calico dress down so it wouldn't flutter in the light breeze. Dark, heavy clouds hid the sun and gave an added dimension to the drab dreariness of the fort. The children sat on the ground, their lips parted, eyes wide with rapt attention. "...and so when the prince kissed Sleeping Beauty, she awoke and looked all around..."

As her gaze roamed from one child to another, Gwen noted one little girl who sat at the edge of the group, her head drooping. Hurriedly, she finished the story, then dismissed the boys and girls, encouraged by their friendly good-byes and promises to come again the next day.

Gwen walked over to the little girl and crouched down beside her. Tapping her on the knee, she spoke in a low voice. "Barbara, dear, don't tell me my story was so bad it put you to sleep."

Barbara roused and shifted her position, her hand pressed to her forehead. "Nay, Mistress Norgard. I liked your story well enough, but my head and my back hurt, and I feel so warm."

A stab of alarm sliced through Gwen. Not another flu epidemic! The poor little girl struggled to rise but fell back, prompting Gwen to put her arms around the child to help her stand. Barbara was burning up! Observing her flushed face, Gwen became more frightened by the minute, until she could hardly wait to find Christian.

After she returned the child to her parents and searched for Christian from one end of the fort to the other, she finally found him leaving the commandant's house. Relief flooded her at the sight of him. "Christian, one of the little girls is sick and--"

"I know," Christian replied, grim-faced. "Smallpox."

Chapter Twenty-one

The smallpox epidemic raged at
Fort
Pitt
. A newly-constructed underground hospital treated all the sufferers, too many, Gwen agonized. Tired and discouraged, she walked from one patient to another, checking on them, speaking words meant to comfort. She swept the room with her gaze, looking for Christian in the dim light. After a few moments, she saw him on the other side of the room.

So relieved she'd taken part in a smallpox vaccination program before her trip back in time, she didn't worry about catching the disease. Christian was inoculated, too, thank God. But she wanted to cry when she saw all these people who'd had no protection, who now endured pain and misery.

After her class this morning, Gwen worked alongside Christian in the hospital. Bending low at Barbara's bedside, she dipped a cloth in vinegar water to bathe the child's head. She wrung out the cloth, then gently dabbed it across the little girl's cheeks and forehead. Struggling to keep her eyes open, Gwen tried to ignore the heat, nearly choking on the stench. Wanting to present a cheerful face, she found it wasn't easy.

She squeezed Barbara's hand. "Hang in there, sweetheart. You're gonna make it."

In another bed next to the child, an older woman with damp, stringy hair groaned and leaned over, vomiting on the floor. All the first-aid training Gwen had experienced in her twenty-first century life had never prepared her for any of this.

Barbara pressed a hand to her forehead. "It hurts," she whimpered. "My back, too. And my skin, as if I'm on fire!"

Gwen patted the child's cheek. So many oozing pustules covered the child's face it was difficult to see her skin. "I know, dear, I understand. And I just know you'll get better soon." But would she? Or would she die, as many already had? Gwen steeled herself not to cry as she set the basin of water aside and gently smoothed a healing salve over the child's face and arms.

His face haggard with fatigue, Christian wove his way from one cot to another until he reached her. "I wish I could do more for these unfortunate people," he said in an undertone. "I can only make them as comfortable as possible--with your help, dear--and hope they'll survive."

A fierce rush of love for him burst inside her. She loved him more now, this minute, than she'd ever considered possible. To think he'd often wondered how much good he accomplished as a doctor. Just look at all the lives he'd saved here in the smallpox hospital! Whenever they both had time to themselves, she intended to tell him so.

After she cleaned up the woman's mess, Gwen headed for their room in the officers' barracks, where she slipped off her shoes and shoved them under the bed. Her eyelids drooping, she stepped out of her dress, then hung it on a peg. Clad only in her chemise, she flopped down on the bed. Despite the stuffy heat in the small enclosed room, she fell asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

Christian's feet dragged as he entered their room about an hour later. Directing a tender look at his wife, he sat on the edge of the bed and undressed. He cast his clothes aside, then lay back and fell asleep immediately.

He tossed and turned in his sleep. Images flashed through his brain, of trees and cabins and red-coated British soldiers, of Indians, tomahawks, and rifles. A scene materialized. He stood with Gwen on a mountain cliff, wooded valleys spread out below them.

An eerie foreboding made his heart pound. Afraid she'd fall from the cliff, he inched closer to save her. She reached for him, but before he could grab her, the stones gave way, sending her plunging to the ground, thousands of feet below.

"Christian!" she cried as she fell from sight. "I don't want to leave you."

"No," he groaned, "no!"

"Christian, wake up!"

Heart thudding, he jerked awake and stared wide-eyed at his wife. She bent over him, her hand warm on his shoulder, a worried look on her face. Even in the dark room, he saw the gleam of her long, flowing hair that fell to her breasts and brushed across her nipples. Agonizing over the dream's meaning, he ached to touch the silky strands, caress those breasts, erase the nightmare from his mind.

His dear wife lay on her side, propped up on her elbow. "Darling, you've been tossing and moaning in your sleep. You must've had a bad dream. Want to tell me about it?"

Christian's heart hammered against his ribs. He clasped her warm hand to his chest as relief swelled inside him. Through sleepy eyes, he saw his wife's lovely face, and he wondered how he could ever live without her or if he'd ever have to.

He directed a tender look her way. "I...I dreamed you left me, that you were drawn back to your previous time."

"God, no!" She pressed his hand to her heart. "You know all I want is to stay with you, for the rest of our lives." She laid her head on his chest, his heart pounding against her ears. "I don't want to leave you!" She raised up, speaking with determination. "I won't leave you!"

* * *

One evening after everyone had gone to bed and quiet had settled over the fort, Gwen persuaded Christian to accompany him past the lean-tos to an unoccupied spot by the Flag Bastion. There, they could sit and talk in private. God knew they'd had little enough time to themselves for the past week. Time alone with Christian, away from the sights, sounds, and smells of the patients--was that expecting too much?

Christian sat on the ground with his legs drawn up, hands clasped between his knees, looking so comfortable. She'd give anything to be wearing her jeans, instead of sitting with her legs pulled close to her body, the hem of her dress stretched demurely over her ankles.

Pipe clamped in his mouth, Christian looked out across the grounds of the fort, at all those ugly shacks dotting the parade ground. Clothes draped across makeshift clotheslines, boxes and crates scattered all over. He slipped the pipe from his mouth and turned back to her, the gathering twilight casting his face in shadow. She observed his features, where the fading sunlight accentuated the stubble on his cheeks but lessened the lines of fatigue etched around his mouth and eyes.

Christian sucked on his pipe for a few silent moments, the rich fragrance of tobacco scenting the air. "Help me divert my mind from smallpox," he suggested. "Tell me about medicine in your time."

Darkness crept over the fort as the last of daylight slipped from the sky, and the first faint stars decorated the heavens.

She thought a moment. "So you'd like to hear about medical miracles?"

"Medical miracles? Indeed!"

 
"Well, here goes. We have machines that can take a picture of the bones inside your body," she said with a cautious glance in his direction. "We call it an X-ray machine."

Christian scoffed. "Do not expect me to believe that. 'Tis impossible."

She leaned back against the brick wall. "I was afraid you'd say that. But maybe—mayhap--I've at least convinced you that we've done away with many diseases. Oh! that reminds me--just yesterday I saw two men on the grounds of the fort, each missing an eye. Is there some eye disease going around?”

Christian shifted his position on the ground, a look of chagrin on his face. "Many of these men don't have enough to keep them busy, and here they are stuck within the confines of the fort where they get into fights and gouge each other's eyes out."

"You're kidding!"

"Pardon me?"

"I mean, I can't believe it."

He nodded. "Sad, but true. A couple of days ago I tried to break up a fight and got a punch on the jaw for my efforts," he said, rubbing his chin. "And my interference availed me naught."

She leaned over and gently touched his jaw, tracing the cleft in his chin. "You didn't tell me about that."

He shrugged, taking her hand in his and kissing the palm. "'Twas a minor thing."

No more talk," he murmured, setting his pipe on the ground. "Everyone else should be asleep by now. This night was made for love." With infinite tenderness, he reached over to draw her muslin cap off. Whispering love words, he slipped the pins from her hair, then carefully dropped the pins into the cap. He eased her back onto the grass and spread her hair out around her, all the while gazing down at her. Twisting his fingers through the silky locks, he bent low to give her a long, hard kiss. The kiss deepened, his fingers caressing her body while he eased her dress up.

He nuzzled her neck. "It's been so long," he said, feathering kisses to her throat. "Too long."

Neither of them spoke. Neither needed words as they reached for each other. It seemed as if they'd been separated for weeks, months, years!

Gwen held him close, running her hands across his hard back, her fingers kneading the warm skin. She took in his aroma of tobacco, his very masculine scent, the enticing scrape of stubble next to her cheek. The taunting pressure of his body told her of his need, a need that matched her own. How had she ever existed before she'd met him, before she'd known how wonderful love can be?

Christian trailed kisses from her mouth to her breasts, sighing, murmuring endearments. His kisses, his caresses, became more insistent as he held her ever closer, her heart beating in time with his. She couldn't get enough of him. Her worries forgotten, she surrendered to this wonderful reality, of the here and now. Nothing else mattered but their love for each other.