Marry Me Page 24

  Jake gave his leg a gentle shake. Smithie clung on and shrieked in protest. Then, after looking between them, he let go and fell on the ground, eyes closed, playing dead like a well-trained dog.

  “Yes, yes, you’re good,” Jake told him. “Now run along like a good little monkey and—”

  Smithie sprang up again and howled at him, a call they’d never heard from him before, one that would have frozen Emily’s blood in her veins if she’d heard it echoing across the plains on a dark night. And then the animal dropped to the ground again, unmoving.

  The creature was a gifted mimic. Once when Mr. Biskup was over for supper, Smithie had watched her as she did the dishes. And then he’d scampered up, grabbed her dishtowel, and seized a clean plate from the shelf. Bemused, she’d watched as he’d scrubbed the plate and replaced it on the stack without so much as a chip.

  He sprang up and, apparently giving up on the stupid male, tugged on Emily’s skirts instead. He dashed off, perhaps five yards, and then looked back at them as if wondering why they weren’t following.

  “Something’s wrong,” she murmured, and started to sprint.

  It was just far enough that Emily was good and winded by the time they found him. They saw Biskup’s old horse first, cropping at a tuft of sweet grass, reins trailing on the ground. And beside him on the ground, a crumpled figure like a discarded doll, lay Mr. Biskup.

  Emily dropped beside him immediately, laying her head against his narrow chest. There…his heartbeat too thready, his breath shallow and slow, but there. Thank God.

  She sat back on her heels and ran her fingers over him, neck, head, limbs. It was as if she’d been split into two parts: the friend, worried and praying, even as the part of her well-trained by the doctor examined him with quick and professional care.

  She slowed as she turned his head. There was a gash at his temple, the thick, dark shine of blood matting his hair.

  “What can I do?” Jake asked.

  “My bag, it’s in the—” And then the worry broke through her training. Her voice shook, her hands trembled. “Jake, I—”

  “You’ll help him,” he said, and then his hands squeezed her shoulders, warm and supportive, faith and strength shining through his touch, and immediately her nerves settled and her mind cleared.

  “I think it’s safe to move him,” she decided. “Better than trying to treat him out here.”

  “It’s closer to our house than his,” he said. Ours. Through her concern, she tucked the word away to ponder later. “Want to take him there?”

  “Yes. The supplies are there, too. I’ll stay with him until you get the wagon. But hurry.”

  He hesitated a second. “How about if I carry him? It’d be faster.”

  “All that way?”

  “It’s not a problem.” He was as good as his word, lifting Mr. Biskup’s still body as carefully as if he’d held a child, his even, strong pace covering the distance to their shack so quickly that she, after scooping up Smithie, had to trot to keep up.

  “The bed?” Jake asked after shoving open the door with his foot.

  “Yes,” she said, and watched as he carefully laid Mr. Biskup down. The man hadn’t moved the entire time. Not good, she thought. “I’ll need lanterns,” she instructed Jake. “As much light as possible.”

  She bent over and gently tugged up an eyelid. The pupils reacted sluggishly. Not dangerously so, she judged, but perhaps not normal, either.

  “Jake?” she asked as she straightened.

  “Yes.” He came to her side immediately.

  “Could you heat some water for me? And my bag’s over in the—”

  “I know where it is.” He obeyed without question.

  Luckily she could run through an examination by rote, conscious all the while of Mr. Biskup’s heart-broken concentration, struggling not to reveal her concern. She’d treated patients on her own before in certain circumstances, when both they and Dr. Goodale agreed. But she’d always had the comfort of knowing the doctor’s skill was there if she needed it. She missed him then, which she’d never expected to do considering how much she’d regretted her sister’s years under his thumb. But she loved the medicine she’d learned. A kinder man might have tried to spare her. He’d been willing to use her, and in doing so gave her something she treasured.

  “Emily?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jake. There’s nothing obviously dangerous, but…I don’t know.”

  He was an old man. She’d always believed him less fragile than he appeared at first glance, but…“Fell off his horse, I suppose,” she said and she probed the growing bruise at his temple. There was no fluid under the skin, she decided, the first good news. “I wish I knew why.” If he’d had some sort of a fit to cause his accident—well, she might be treating the immediate symptoms, and entirely missing something even more serious. She frowned.

  “That horse has always been skittish,” Jake said. “God only knows what set it off this time. Hit his head on a rock, did he?”

  “I believe so.” Jake didn’t sound a bit worried. Had he so much faith in her, then?

  “Guess he’ll be glad of his hard head for once.”

  Afternoon faded into evening as she worked. There was so little she could do. She cleaned his cuts, sprinkled in finely ground black tea, and smeared them with lard mixed with beeswax and resin. Mr. Biskup’s right arm twisted at a painful angle. She probed the bones, which felt fragile as a child’s, but cursed her own slight frame when she couldn’t straighten them herself.

  “May I?” Jake asked, his hands hovering over Art’s arm.

  “Like this,” she said, adjusting his aim slightly. He followed her directions with absolute confidence, pressing carefully until the bones moved back into place. Emily splinted it with pasteboard and cotton batting.

  But through it all Mr. Biskup hadn’t stirred, apparently so deeply out, even the pain of straightening his broken arm hadn’t penetrated. So she elevated his head, bathing it with cold water as she plunged his feet into a hot mustard bath. And through it all Jake was there, ready to help should she but say the word, a supportive hand touching her elbow the moment she began to doubt…how did he know? But he unquestionably did.

  Vaguely, through her concentrated concern, she had a notion that this was something new. Except for public viewing he’d rarely touched her first. She’d always been the one to touch in comfort and support. She filed the notion away for further study later, when she could give it the attention it deserved.

  Evening faded into night without notice. They dragged two chairs beside the bed. Jake dropped in and out of sleep without warning, without outward sign; Emily would look over and be surprised to find his eyes open or shut, for even the comforting rhythm of his breathing never varied.

  And she held vigil.

  Hours later, the dark outside so deep, the clouds obscuring the sky so it was near impossible to judge the time except that it was the dead of the night, Emily wearily propped her head on her hand, still watching for some sign, any sign, from her comatose patient.

  Though it didn’t feel like it, she must have dozed, for the next thing she was conscious of was Jake’s warm hand, rubbing sweetly between her shoulder blades.

  “Why don’t you rest?” he suggested. “I put a cot up in the lean-to.”

  “No.” She scrubbed her palm over her face, trying to force alertness. “It’s my responsibility.”

  “I’ll watch him carefully. I’ll wake you if there’s the slightest change.” The strokes were mesmerizing and she leaned back into them, feeling tension evaporate with each pass his fingers made over her muscles. “I promise.”

  “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

  His fingers paused a moment, then took up their magic again. “All right.”

  He got points for not arguing with her on this matter, she thought. She didn’t know if she would have shown the same restraint. In gratitude she reached up and caught his hand on the top arch of its caress and lin
ked her fingers with his. “I know you would keep watch as carefully as I. But I couldn’t—there’s no point in both of us staying up, and I’d only worry. I’ve held watch enough to know.”

  His fingers squeezed and warmth swept over her. Here was an intimacy she’d never known, in such unusual circumstances, the two of them wrapped in weary darkness, joining in their worry, trusting each other’s support.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “No change?”

  “Not that I can tell.” She was too tired to sigh; air just slid out of her. “Jake, there’s so much I don’t know. I hadn’t realized.”

  He stood there for a moment longer. And then he pulled his chair closer to hers, sat down, and took her hand again. He held it through the rest of the night, awake or asleep, beside her all the way, and it helped. More than she would have guessed.

  Near dawn—the clouds hadn’t left, but the sun seeped through, turning the inside of the shack to gray—she closed gritty eyes. When she opened them, she blinked, and twice more, before it registered.

  Smithie had spent the night curled against Mr. Biskup’s side, holding a vigil of his own. Emily tried to bribe him away with an apple and had finally let him remain. But now he sat on Art’s chest, looking straight into Art’s blurry but open eyes.

  She sprang to his side and felt Jake join her a second later. Placing her hand on Mr. Biskup’s forehead, she found to her relief that he was cooling. Avoiding a fever, she knew, was half the battle. “How do you feel.”

  “Lousy.”

  “Good.”

  “Good? I really hit my head, didn’t I? How’s that good?”

  “All things considered, you should feel lousy. If you didn’t, I’d know something more was wrong.” No frown had ever made her so happy.

  She wouldn’t be satisfied without giving him a complete examination, through which he groused all the way. And then he wouldn’t be satisfied until Jake moved him into the lean-to—he would not, he told them, put them out of their bed. Emily’s protests did no good and finally she gave in, deciding she was grateful he felt well enough to argue. Once settled on the cot, he fell immediately back asleep, a true one this time, his breath even, his heartbeat strong, Smithie snoring at his side.

  Fatigue hit her at once. She stumbled back into the main room and then stood in the center, swaying, unable to decide what to do next.

  “Go to bed, Emily,” Jake ordered her.

  “It’s such a mess,” she said, surveying the piles of dirty towels, pots, and the clutter of her precious medical supplies strewn across the table. And they hadn’t eaten since…she couldn’t remember.

  “I can clean,” he told her, taking her by the shoulders and pointing her in the direction of the bed, just in case she’d forgotten where it was. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Emily. I can clean; I am not Mrs. Sullivan’s son for nothing. It’ll be done by the time you get up, and if you don’t like it, you can order me around for the rest of the day and I shall follow every instruction to the letter, I promise.”

  “I should make you breakfast. Or dinner. Or whatever.”

  “For God’s sake, Em, you’ve been up all night.”

  “We have an agreement.”

  “And I am not the ogre employer you apparently think me. I will not starve, I can assure you—I did manage to feed myself without you for years—and if you do not get yourself to sleep I guess knocking you over the head might achieve the desired result as effectively as it did with Biskup.” He said the words as lightly as he could manage, suspecting she’d fight orders he really wanted to issue tooth and nail.

  He watched her lurch toward the bed. The morning sunlight did nothing to disguise her pallor. Exhaustion hollowed deep, heavy blue circles beneath her eyes, drew the impression of lines around her mouth that she was far too young to have.

  “There you go,” he said, as she toppled over. “Go to sleep, and it’ll be to rights by the time you wake up.”

  “Oh, I won’t be able to sleep.” She stretched, arms high over her head. Now stop that, he told himself. So what if she looks marvelous in bed? I’d be the ogre in truth if I wanted anything more than for her to sleep right now. “But this does feel good.”

  “Of course you’ll sleep.”

  She shook her head. “Stayed up too long, with too much stimulation. It’ll take hours for me to wind down. Truth is, I could just as easily help you, for all the good it’d do me to lie here.” She smiled at him but there was nothing behind it. “But I rather fancy watching you play housekeeper.”

  “Whatever you want,” he said, figuring she’d be out by the time he walked around the table. But after he’d rinsed and wrung out the rags, emptied dirty water into the yard, and grabbed a broom to start pushing dust around on the floor, she was still awake, watching him with wide, blue-green eyes, shifting back and forth as if she couldn’t find a comfortable spot.

  “There’s no hope for it,” she said, and sat up. “There’s too much leftover energy; if I don’t burn it off, I’ll never be able to sleep.”

  “You just stay right where you are,” he barked. If she burned off anything more there’d be nothing left of her.

  He tossed the broom aside with a clatter and came beside the bed. And then he stood there for a moment while he reminded himself that this was for her sake before he sat down beside her.

  “Jake!”

  “Hush,” he said. “Turn over.”

  “Excuse me?” She couldn’t quite hide her shock, and it made him smile.

  “I’m not planning to take advantage of your weakened condition.”

  “Oh,” she said, sounding so disappointed he grinned.

  “I’m just going to rub your back.” He probed gingerly where her neck widened into her upper back. Her muscles had contracted completely, knotted into balls as hard as twisted rope. “Jeez, Em, you gotta relax.”

  “I’m trying,” she said, her voice muffled against her pillow.

  “Feel good?” he asked. Lord knew what had happened to her pins during the night but now her hair was loose and he brushed it aside, out of the way. Her neck was vulnerably white, barely tufted with downy hairs, and damn it, kissing her right there seemed like such a fine idea he had trouble remembering why he wasn’t supposed to.

  “Hmm-hmm,” she mumbled.

  “Relaxing?”

  “Well, no.”

  “No?” His hands stilled. “Am I hurting you?”

  “Not that, either.”

  Without warning she rolled onto her back. He didn’t move his hands fast enough, and he brushed her upper arm, and then her breast, before he pulled them away. His whole hand tingled, just with the memory of that slight touch.

  “Having you touch me, Jake—I can’t imagine that I’m ever going to find that relaxing,” she said, so honest it made him hurt. And want, and wish, and a hundred other things he’d sworn off.

  “So you can’t relax, you can’t sleep, you can’t let me rub your back…Em, why don’t you just have a good cry and get it over with? Bet you could sleep then.”

  “Cry? Didn’t you see? Art’s fine. It was a happy ending. No reason to cry.”

  “Happy’s as good a reason to cry as sad for most of the women I know.”

  She lifted her chin at being compared to “most women.” “Not for me.”

  “What would be a good reason?”

  That perplexed her. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she came about as close as he’d ever seen to frowning. “What are you talking about?”

  “When your sister left—I was sure that’d do it. I was all prepared to nobly let you drip all over me. Even had a stack of kerchiefs handy. But you didn’t cry.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t,” he said. “I just wondered. Do you ever cry?”

  “Of course I cry.”

  “When?”

  “When it’s appropriate,” she snapped
.

  “And when would that be?”

  “I don’t know,” she retorted. “I know it when it happens, though.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ve nothing to cry over. I’m lucky and I know it.”

  “Em. It doesn’t diminish anything your sisters did for you if, just once in a while, you are less than perfectly happy.”

  “That’s not it.”

  But it was. He was sure of it. Somehow she’d gotten it into her head—though not just her head, he realized; her bones, her soul—that if she was ever unhappy, ever worried or sad, she would seem ungrateful for all her sisters had done for her.

  It couldn’t be good for her, he thought, to limit her emotions in such a way. The mirror of what he’d done. He’d allowed no joy, and she’d allowed no sorrow. They’d both been wrong. Life and the heart required free rein.

  Oh, damn, it might be a terrible mistake to push this. How was he supposed to know what was the right thing to do? He’d avoided messy emotions whenever possible.

  But she’d pushed, he remembered. Pushed him when he’d prayed she’d stop and he couldn’t be sorry for it. “And when was the last time you cried?”

  “I don’t know.” A bit of temper showed through, overtaking the fatigue.

  “Okay.” He took her hand and made light, soothing circles in her palm, a nearly hypnotic rhythm. “What’d you think, when we found Art?”

  “I thought he was dead.”

  “No…I mean you. What did it feel like? Is there…I don’t know, excitement, focus, concern? To know that you’ve work to do? That someone’s life is in your hands?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. Some of each. Excitement that it would be my decisions this time, without Dr. Goodale sniping over my shoulder. Worry about the same thing. Wishing I knew more. But that only takes a fraction of a second. Then you think about what you’ve got to do and nothing else.”

  Such gentle, small hands she had. He pressed his thumb in the middle, felt her flesh yield, and ran his fingers down hers: thin, elegant, strong.