A Bride for Keeps (21 page)

“God does not love me,” she cried.

But she wanted love. She wanted love.

She gave up, exhausted, and slid back into the boiling water. And it burned.

Flames of fire no longer seared her leg, but they pierced through her eyelids. She
covered her face with a clammy hand and groaned.

“Julia?”

She turned to Everett’s voice and squinted. His shadow moved, and intense light filled
the room. She winced, the action shooting pain from her temples to her ears. “Ugh.”

“Are you awake?”

She moved her head slowly from side to side, but the pain sloshed as if she were shaking
her head like a dog shakes a rag bone. “Light.” Her throat felt scratchy and dry.
“Water.”

“I’ll get you a drink.”

She searched for a blanket to pull up over her head, but the quilt covering her was
securely anchored across her chest. She turned her head away from the brightness.
“No light.” Her voice slurred, and she struggled to make her brain correct her speech.
“Please.”

“Of course, I’ll recover the windows. I can change your bandage later.”

Windows? There were more than one? Where was she? She
moved her hands and rubbed the fluffy tick below her that smelled of sunshine. Not
the straw tick that smelled of must.

Moments later soothing darkness fell, and she tried to pry open her eyes. Everett’s
arm slipped behind her neck, and the rim of a cool tin cup pressed against her lower
lip. She downed the contents. “More.”

He assisted her again, and she fell back onto the pillow. Every part of her body ached,
all the way to the bones. The room tilted, and she closed her eyes against the nausea
swelling in her chest.

His warm hand brushed across her forehead. “You feel cooler.”

The throbbing behind her skull made her wish sleep would return directly.

“Lord, I pray that this isn’t just a calm in the storm. Let this fever be gone for
good. Wake her up so I can talk to her, so I can tell her how sorry I am.”

Praying again. Why didn’t he just tell her? “Tell me you’re sorry.”

His hand brushed hair off her temple, soft and gentle, yet still painful. “Are you
really awake?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Jesus had nothing to do with her being awake—hadn’t she opened her eyes herself? Well,
before she closed them again against the windows. “Where am I?”

“With me in the cabin.”

“How many windows?”

“Three all together.”

“Put in new ones?”

“No, this is the new cabin.”

She wanted to see. Pushing against the mattress, she worked
to set herself upright, despite her head exploding. “Why am I . . .” Though she’d
moved her leg only a fraction of an inch, she remembered exactly why she was confined
to bed. Though her lower limb no longer felt on fire, the pain resembled a slashed
burn wound.

Everett’s hands settled against her shoulders and pushed her back down. All the effort
to sit upright had only resulted in an inch or two in elevation. She gave up. It was
too hard, and she’d already augmented her pain simply by waking up.

“Take it easy, darling. Just because you woke up doesn’t mean you’re getting out of
bed for a while.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“Two weeks.”

That must be why her backside hurt so much. She moved slowly, trying to turn a bit
onto her side, but her leg was a leaden weight that shot sparks whenever she put pressure
on it.

Everett braced her back with a wad of softness. “Better?”

She hummed in assent, but she kept her eyes shut until the pain of his jostling left
her.

His eyes stared down at her, dark, anxious pools of blue.

“I’ll be fine.” Maybe it was a lie, but she had to ease his anguish.

“Will you?” He picked up her hand and rubbed her fingers with his thumb.

She felt as if she could die any minute, if pain were an indicator. “What has the
doctor said about my leg?”

“I have a list of things to check for each day—that’s why I opened the windows, so
I could see better.” He cleared his throat. “He’s not very optimistic. But no matter
what happens, I want you to know that I will be here beside you.”

Julia took a long look at him before setting her face on
a cooler part of her pillowcase. She couldn’t shun this man forever; she could see
he fancied her. And how many women had she known back home, stuck in loveless marriages,
who would have been content if their husbands had simply found them attractive? She
might even have been swayed into agreeing to her father’s marriage arrangement with
Theodore if her intended had looked at her with a quarter of the care shining from
Everett’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry about the roof. I didn’t mean to push you into anything. . . . I know
I gave you my word to keep my hands to myself, but I . . .” He raked his hands through
his hair. “I’ve no excuse. I just need to make sure you know that I’m grateful that
you married me, and having you with me is enough. It was more than any of the other . . .”
He blew out an unsteady breath. “Well, simply . . . I don’t deserve you.”

She closed her eyes against seeing the emotions play across his face. If he knew her
past, every detail, he’d take those words right back. She pulled her hands in tight
against her and curled up as much as her leg allowed. He’d told her his secret and
she ought to tell him hers, but she couldn’t. A decent man was on the verge of loving
her, and despite the fact that love would complicate everything, she didn’t want to
toss it away.

“Are you asleep?”

She worked to keep her breathing even and slow. Let him believe her asleep; she hadn’t
the emotional strength to face her feelings. What could she say that would make him
feel better anyway? That she was sorry she was terrified of a man’s touch? He’d want
to know why.

He tucked her blankets in tighter. “Rest well, darling. But more important, wake up
again.” A whisper of a kiss caressed her brow.

The satiny touch of his lips sent a tickling sensation down to her toes, and she curled
up tighter. Perhaps with time she could endure his intimate embrace; he’d proven to
be honorable and trustworthy even when he had pushed. But then she’d have to face
being with child. The fear of losing one after another and becoming a vacuous shell
like her mother was something that would never get better with time. Would she ever
feel enough for him to endure what her mother had?

“Ugh, Sticky.” Julia tried to catch the spool of thread before it flew off the bed,
but failed. She wrapped up her embroidery panel before the kitten could catch her
claws in the mess of thread on the back side of her project. Rachel said the back
should look as pretty as the front.

Rachel was either lying or had skills beyond a normal woman. Not that Julia had ever
inspected the back of anyone else’s needlework, but who cared if the back looked like
a thread cyclone?

“Come here.” She pulled the cat off her knees and petted it, trying to avoid its playful
paws. “Too bad you’ve outgrown your box, or I’d put you in there.”

Sticky finally settled down, her purr rhythmic and unending, like the cicadas’ song
that had grown louder overnight.

The door bumped open, startling her.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Everett didn’t look remorseful with that smile on his
face.

“No, just trying to keep my thread away from Sticky’s paws.”

Everett slid a dish of food onto the table that filled the air with garlic and some
other smell she didn’t recognize and then came to sit next to her.

Had he finished his chores so quickly again? “Who brought food this time?”

“Mrs. Nogales. I didn’t quite understand what she called it, but the smell makes me
hungry.”

“Why didn’t she come in?”

“Her English is worse than Helga’s, though she said something that sounded like she
was praying for you.”

Prayer. No one had ever prayed for her before, yet someone seemed to come over every
day to do just that. Thankfully they didn’t expect her to pray aloud with them. She’d
tried to ask God for a few things since being stuck in bed, but gave up. Everyone
else’s words were better and surely more effective than hers. If they were effective
at all. “I’ve never heard of Mrs. Nogales.”

He shrugged. “She and her family actually live on the other side of town.”

“And they came all the way out here?”

“Just the mother and one of the sons. Seems they intended to buy a horse from someone
down the river.” He reached down to pull off his boots. Hours before sunset.

“Wait.”

He stopped.

She couldn’t take another evening of endless reading and embroidery. But there wasn’t
much else to do but chat. And she’d talked, but the more she told him, the more he
probed.

She didn’t want to talk tonight. She’d considered telling Everett about Theodore last
night when she couldn’t sleep, so bed weary she couldn’t get comfortable despite her
heavy eyes. But when she’d managed to doze off, terrible dreams visited her. Reliving
the past. Watching Everett leave her future.

She put the cat down and sat up. “Please help me walk around.”

“You can’t walk yet.” His face looked as panicked as if she’d asked him to dump her
in a vat of boiling grease.

“All right, limp around.” She pushed her splinted leg off the bed and forced herself
not to wince at the tingles that shot up from her toes.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

Her face must have betrayed her pain. “It still hurts, but I know it’s better. And
it’s not going to work properly anymore if I don’t move it around some. My leg feels
like it’s dying.”

He jammed his heel back into his boot and put his hands on her shoulders. “Only if
we go slow and I basically carry your weight.”

“Fine. All this loafing has made my body sluggish.” As long as she could move—anything
besides lying down—she’d even kiss him. Could she work up the nerve? No, she couldn’t
kiss a man first. What was she thinking? “And my brain doesn’t seem to be working
right either.”

“Do I need to pick something more stimulating to read?”

“Does Rachel have more books?” He’d read her more than a dozen already.

“Several more cases. She keeps them in the back of the barn. Not sure how many more
novels she has, but I saw several sermon collections last time I looked.”

Just what she wanted—a preacher pointing out her every fault for hours and hours on
end. “Maybe she’s got something on gardening?”

“Good idea.” He smiled as he hooked his arm under her shoulder.

How far could she walk before he’d drag her back into bed? As they hobbled down the
stairs to the yard, her stomach growled. He had to be hungry too.

“Maybe just to the barn and back.” Sticky weaved in and out of her legs. Not a smart
cat.

“Sure, that sounds like enough exercise to me.” He held her tight and started forward.

“No, let me try to actually walk.” She tried to loosen his grip on her arm.

“Don’t put pressure on your leg.”

She tested a bit of weight on her foot, gritting her teeth. “I have to someday.”

“When Dr. Forsythe says.”

“What about when William says?” Normally, Everett agreed with William’s advice, but
not on this. It was as if the second she was free to move, he feared losing her.

Maybe they wouldn’t have time to talk as much, but the farm needed him. “You’ll be
relieved once I can get up and do things. You’re behind because of me.”

“Not on anything important.” He clomped along beside her, smelling vaguely like leather
and hay.

She dragged her leg. “You needed a wife to help you farm, and this past month I’ve
hindered you more than helped.” She had put her weight on her foot for five steps,
but the pain had increased twentyfold. She wouldn’t tell him that though. He might
banish her to bed for a week again.

“I want to make sure you stay well. I could lose the farm for all I care.”

What man risked his farm for a woman who was more a companion than a wife? He must
think it his Christian duty to say so. “Well, I don’t want you to lose the place because
of me.” They reached the barn’s edge, and she leaned against the side. “Let me rest
a bit.”

Moving quickly, he rolled a thick log toward her. “Sit.”

With his help, she sank down onto the tiny stool, thankful
she’d arrived at the barn wall before she collapsed. Even William would insist on
strict bed rest if that had happened.

Everett lowered himself against the wall and sighed. “Such a pretty day. I’m glad
you got outside to enjoy it.”

She glanced at the soft blue sky, but winced at the sun peeking through the clouds.
Thankfully Everett wasn’t watching her. She needed to look restful, as if walking
out here had been a good plan. But the throbbing up and down her leg was hard to ignore.

“I know you don’t want to discuss your parents, but can you tell me why you left your
father?”

Should she admit to the pain to avoid this question—again? No, she might as well give
him just enough so he’d quit asking. Hopefully. “He doesn’t know where I am. And it
needs to stay that way.”

“Of course.” Everett pushed up from his slouch against the wall. “But can you tell
me why?”