F
or Zach the next week passed as slowly as an ant walking across spilled honey. The flesh around his snakebites sloughed off, and the sores became infected. He suffered recurring bouts of fever, which set him back and drained what little remaining strength he had. As he drifted in and out of delirium, he was vaguely aware of Kate caring for him, of her gentle hands, her soothing voice, and of her eyes—always of her eyes—the biggest thing about her and constantly filled with worry.
Sometimes Marcus was there, his visits marked by the strength in his hands as he rolled Zach this way and that to bathe him. Even in a haze of fever, Zach wanted to tell him thank-you, but the words wouldn't come to his tongue. Other words did. Unbidden from the black, secret parts of his mind, they crawled up his throat. The most awful part was, he knew he was rambling, but couldn't stop. His brain seemed divided in half, one side aware yet powerless, the other crazy with fever.
Even if he hadn't been aware that he was talking out, Kate's gentle responses would have told him. "Shhh. It's all right," she would whisper. Though soothed by the touch of her cool hand on his forehead, Zach felt ashamed.
What was all right? What had he just said? Why did he hear that note of sympathy in her voice? "I'm here. It's all taken care of. Don't worry."
So sick, so awfully sick. Zach couldn't make sense of things. In the back of his mind, he knew she was comforting him as she would a child. That stung his masculine pride. But even so, the softly spoken reassurances calmed him.
Morning became night, night became morning, and Zach marked the passing of each day with a vague awareness, slipping in and out of sleep, swallowing what was poured into his mouth, turning his face to accommodate the cool cloths that caressed his skin.
Katie… Somehow, he came to think of her as Katie. Kate sounded so sturdy and practical and plain. She was none of those. Even while he slept, she lingered in his mind, as light as a whisper, her touch like gossamer, her voice a delicate scale of musical notes that lulled and soothed him. Katie… Her image became a pallet of shades behind his closed eyelids, light pink and deep rose on alabaster, her sable hair the perfect frame for her fragilely sculpted face. An angel who floated between him and the clutching hands of death.
When Zach finally awoke one morning to clarity, he not only felt on the road to recovery, but knew exactly where he was. Though he couldn't recall staring at them, the unpainted plank walls around him had become as familiar as the palms of his hands, every crack between the bare boards memorized.
He wasn't surprised to see Miranda sitting on the straight-backed chair beside his bed. Even in his semiconsciousness, he had sometimes sensed her small presence in the room. Nosy lay curled around the legs of the chair. Both child and dog were watching him as though they'd been keeping an endless vigil.
Miranda stiffened when she saw that he was awake. Without a word, she slid off the chair, nearly tromping on Nosy's plumed tail as she fled. Nosy wagged the uninjured appendage and pushed up to lick Zach's face.
"Leave off, Nose." Zach didn't have the strength to shove the dog away. "Leave off."
"He likes you."
The unexpected observance startled Zach, for he thought Miranda had gone. He tucked in his chin to see that she was standing at the foot of his bed. She was so short that her face barely showed above his toes.
"Right now, I wish he didn't. Give him a swift kick for me, would you?"
Her vulnerable-looking mouth curved in a smile that showed tiny, squared-off teeth with gaps in between. "You don't really want me to."
Victimized by Nosy's enthusiasm, Zach batted weakly with his wrist. Miranda came around the bed and pulled the dog back by his ruff. Once Nosy ceased his mischief, she stood there staring at Zach, her gaze inescapable and disconcerting.
"If I was to kick him, he wouldn't like me no more," she observed.
Zach ran a shaky hand across his mouth. "Then I'd be stuck with him, so don't."
"He likes you a lot."
This was the second time she had noted that, and it dawned on Zach that the revelation amazed her. Why, he couldn't guess. After all, Nosy was his dog, and dogs usually liked their masters. He squinted to study her.
"Maybe I should start kicking him, then. I don't care to have a dog licking my mouth."
"It's how he kisses."
"Hm." Still a little groggy, Zach tried to read her gaze. "Does he kiss you?"
"Yep, and I kiss back. It ain't nice not to." Her attention shifted to his lips, and she wrinkled her small nose so the freckles ran together. "It ain't nice to scrub 'em off while he's lookin', neither. Nosy'll think you don't like him."
Zach let his offending hand fall to his chest. Duly chastised, he said, "I'll remember that. I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings."
"Me neither." She smiled again and her eyes grew as bright as polished buttons. "My ma won't let him kiss her on the mouth, but she lets him on her ear."
Zach didn't think that sounded like such a bad tradeoff. Nosy was one lucky dog.
"It gives her shivers. She says since Nosy come that she's got the cleanest ears this side of—" She broke off. "I can't remember where, but it's a long ways."
" Texas , maybe," Zach supplied.
She nodded. "You been there?"
"No. That's why folks say this side of Texas , because it's so far."
She shrugged a frail shoulder. "Me and Nosy been waitin' for you to get well. We been comin' to see you near every day. You talked sometimes."
Zach didn't want to be reminded. Morbid curiosity got the better of him. "What did I say?"
"Funny stuff. One time you said a spider was on the ceilin', and you kept yellin' for my ma to smash it." She leaned forward slightly. "Ma finally got the broom and pretended, only she said not to tell 'cause you'd be barest."
Zach figured out what she meant and silently agreed; he was embarrassed. "It sounds like I've been a handful.
Yelling, was I?"
"Real loud. You said—" She caught her lip in her teeth. "I ain't s'posed to say it."
"What?"
"If my ma hears, she'll soap my mouth. She won't soap yours, though, 'cause you're bigger than her. You still shouldn't oughta say it, though."
Zach cringed. He had a way with words when the mood struck, but he tried never to blackguard in front of children. He seldom did in front of women, either. "I'm real sorry if I've been saying things I shouldn't."
"Ma told me not to listen. I poked my fingers in my ears, but when you think a spider might get you, you can yell mighty loud." She rolled her eyes. "When Ma whacked the ceilin', you thought that spider fell in your bed and you near had a fit."
Zach didn't want to hear this.
She grew quiet for a moment, then added, "I wasn't scared."
"Of the spider?"
She giggled. "No. There weren't no spider. I wasn't scared of your yellin'. Know why?"
Zach hadn't a clue.
"'Cause Nosy wasn't. Ma says a dog can't talk, but Nosy does. He ever talk to you?"
"Not the same way a person would talk."
"But clear as rain in dog talk."
Zach knew how expressive Nosy's face could seem and understood what the child meant. "What does he say to you?"
She wrinkled her nose again, this time in thought. "Lots of stuff." Her gaze settled on Zach's. "I used to think you looked big and mean. But Nosy says you ain't."
"He does?"
She nodded but didn't elaborate. "That's why I wasn't scared when you kept yellin' for Ma to come kill the goddamned spider." Her eyes widened, and she clamped a small hand over her mouth. After shooting a glance at the door, she spread her fingers to whisper, "I said it."
Zach was glad for the slip. Given his colorful vocabulary, he had been imagining far worse. Evidently Kate had never been around a man who could curse until the air turned blue. He would have to watch his language. "I won't tattle on you."
"Promise?"
Feeling drained, Zach managed to smile. "I promise. I think we both better try not to say it again, though."
"You goin' back to sleep?"
Unaware until that moment that he had closed his eyes, Zach blinked. "I reckon."
He felt her small hand touch his. "Don't worry about spiders gettin' you. Me and Nosy won't let 'em come in here.
If one does, I'll fetch Ma's broom and smash the shit right out of it for you."
Zach took that promise with him into the black layers of sleep.
* * *
Kate stood outside the sickroom door and thought of a dozen reasons not to go in. There was bread to be put in the oven, dishes to wash, lunch to start. But if Zachariah truly was awake as Miranda claimed, she couldn't ignore his existence.
Look on the bright side, Kate. When he grows strong enough, he can leave.
As far as she was concerned, that would happen none too soon, and for more than one reason. For days Miranda had been spending hours at his bedside, her large eyes intent on his dark face, her own aglow with adoration.
Kate knew it was natural for her to develop an attachment. Zachariah McGovern had saved her life, and in the child's mind, that made him a man of heroic proportions, someone she could love and trust. That would be fine if Miranda were a normal little girl, but she wasn't.
Not that Kate believed McGovern would deliberately set out to hurt her child. It was just that Miranda expected and needed far more than he could ever understand or be prepared to give.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the sickroom door. As she stepped inside, she sensed that her patient was indeed awake, just as Miranda said, even though his eyes remained closed. She couldn't say exactly how she knew. The rhythm of his breathing didn't change. His dark face looked relaxed, as though in sleep. His large hands, which rested at his sides atop the sheet, were loosely curled. Yet she knew.
As silly as it was, Kate decided the air in the room seemed different. Charged and heavy, like right before an electrical storm, it made her skin tingle. Wondering why he didn't acknowledge her, she stepped softly toward the bed.
* * *
The faint sound of Kate's footsteps and the whisper of her skirt had become as familiar to Zach as the rhythm of his breathing. Unsettled by the feelings that swamped him, he kept his eyes closed, trying to come to terms with his reaction to her.
Could a man fall in love while he floated in and out of delirium? A month ago he would have answered that question with an unequivocal no. But he couldn't deny his emotions. Katie, sweet, gentle, beautiful Katie. During his illness, he had absorbed the essence of her as a sponge did water.
Right now she smelled faintly of laurel smoke and Pyle's Pearline Washing Compound, which told him she had done laundry that morning. Without any clear recollection to explain it, Zach knew he'd be smelling a hot iron on starched cotton before the day was out. She usually tried to do her ironing on the same day she did the wash.
How odd that he knew that about her, yet had no memory of how he knew.
Now that he thought about it, he realized that wasn't all he knew about her. To make her store of potatoes stretch, she often baked camas root, a bulb that grew wild in these parts and had once been a mainstay of the local Indians's diet. She served salmon caught in the Umpqua far more often than she did venison or pork. She also loved onions and added them to nearly everything she cooked, and she frequently baked sweets.
How could he possibly know all that? Zach struggled to recall and couldn't. He guessed that maybe he had registered the kitchen smells and stored them away as memories.
His sense of smell solved several mysteries, but there were a multitude of others. He knew that ice was delivered only once a week, and that even in summer she could afford to buy only two blocks, which never lasted her. She pretended not to like Nosy, but gave him a scratch behind his ears every time they met and allowed him the run of her house. Reading was her favorite pastime, and she indulged in it every chance she got, poring over the same old newspapers and periodicals, night after night. Had he seen her pet the dog? Had she sat by his bed to read?
Zach couldn't say. He could only accept that there were unexplainable facts about Kate stored away in his mind.
When disconcerted or frustrated, she made an inarticulate little sound in the back of her throat and followed it with a whispered, "Dad-blame," as if it were a cussword she wanted no one else to hear. She kept Pear's Soap readily at hand somewhere in the house, probably next to the kitchen sink, and washed her hands so frequently that its distinctive but pleasant scent always lingered on her skin. She hated the rain. She loved flowers, and she was saving her pennies to make Miranda school dresses.
Her pennies… They were pitifully few, and she collected them in what she and Miranda referred to as the savings crock. Kate was using the pennies to teach Miranda her numbers, and of an evening, their voices rang through the house as they counted from one through twenty until Miranda got it
almost
right.
Almost was one of Kate's favorite words when dealing with her daughter. Miranda could
almost
write her first name. She could
almost
make the bed by herself. She could
almost
drink her milk without dribbling any down her chin. Kate was one of those rare mothers who had a knack for ignoring failures and made a big to-do over minor successes.
Yes, he knew so many things. Like right now he knew she was standing at the foot of his bed in a gray or black dress, her large brown eyes concerned but wary. When he lifted his eyelashes, a touch of pinkness would flag her cheeks and her hands would begin to worry her apron, which would be gray or white because she owned only two.
He slowly opened his eyes. And sure enough, there she stood. The moment his gaze met hers, she began to pluck at her white apron, and her cheeks turned a comely pink. His gaze shifted to the right corner of her bottom lip, searching for a hairline scar, faded to an almost imperceptible white, that he knew was there. There was another at her temple, but the flyaway tendrils that escaped her severe coiffure usually concealed it.
Today she wore the black shirtwaist, which had seen better days. The simple lines of the pleated bodice and flared skirt did little to conceal her slender figure, which was temptingly well rounded in all the right places.
"How are you feeling?"
Like hell, but he didn't dare say so for fear she'd run and get the Pear's soap. "I've felt more spry. But I'm a darned sight better than I was."
"I'm glad."
As if she realized she was wringing her apron, she pressed her palms against her skirt and forced her fingers to be still. Zach considered assuring her that he didn't bite, but she looked so delectable he didn't. If he got a chance, he'd happily nibble on that neck of hers. As if an opportunity might arise. He was in no condition to pose a threat.
At least not yet.
As he studied her, the blush on her cheeks deepened, and she lifted a hand to her waist. He followed the nervous ascent of her slender fingers up the line of black buttons on her bodice. As she splayed her hand on her chest, he realized where his gaze had come to rest and forced himself to look away—at the chair, the wall, the ceiling.
When he finally glanced back, he saw that her blush had turned crimson, and he wanted to kick himself.
Say something, you idiot
. Zach searched his mind but couldn't come up with a single thing. For a delicately made woman, she had lovely breasts, just the right size to fill a man's hands, but that wasn't an observation he could make aloud.
"A-Are you hungry?" she asked.
Zach placed a hand on his belly and blinked in surprise. He had lost so much weight that his navel was damned near buttoned to his backbone. "Jesus H. Christ."
It was Kate's turn to blink, Zach's to blush.
"Sorry," he muttered. "That just shot out."
She stared at him for a moment. "For the remainder of your stay, please try not to take the name of the Lord in vain, Mr. McGovern. There's a child in the house."
For some reason that Zach couldn't readily recall, he had always believed that the
H
between Jesus and Christ had somehow made the expression acceptable. Kate clearly didn't agree.
"Sorry," he repeated. "But it's not every day I wake up to find I'm nothing but skin stretched over bones."
He didn't look like "nothing but skin stretched over bones" to Kate. Her gaze dropped to the dark mat of hair on his well-padded chest, then shifted to the bulges of muscle in his bare arms. If anything, the weight loss had more sharply defined the powerful lines of his body.
When she glanced back at his face, she saw that his eyes had closed. He looked indescribably weary, with deep lines etched in his cheeks. "It'll take a while to regain your strength, but you will." Concerned by his sudden withdrawal, she moved closer and touched a palm to his forehead. Though it made no sense, she felt something akin to relief at the heat of his skin. No matter how powerful he looked, he was still an extremely sick man who needed tending. "You're a bit feverish again. To be on the safe side, I'd best get another dose of
Aconitum
napellus
into you."
Zach heard a bottle and spoon clink. Then cool metal touched his lips. Trusting her, he parted his teeth, and the most horrible stuff he could recall ever tasting filled his mouth. His throat convulsed as he tried to swallow, and he choked. Burning liquid bubbled into his sinuses. He reared up on one elbow, gasping and coughing, tears streaming. When he got his breath, he croaked, "Son of a bitch! What're you trying to do, kill me?"
"I'm trying to help you," she cried as she dabbed his face with a cloth.
Zach grabbed the cloth and scrubbed at his lips. "Warn a man before you pour shit like that in his mouth. I damned near choked to death."
She made that inarticulate little sound in the back of her throat that he had come to know so well. "Mr.
McGovern! A bit of bitter medicine is no excuse to use filthy language like that. For shame!"
Zach looked up into her startled brown eyes and realized what he had just said. Before he could apologize, she plunked the bottle and spoon back down on the table, then swept from the room. As he sank weakly back onto the bed, he wondered if she had gone to get the Pear's soap and decided just about anything would taste better than
Aconitum napellus
, whatever in hell that was. He'd rather have the fever, thank you very much.
He took another swipe at his mouth, then threw the cloth in the general direction of the bedside table. When it landed, it hit the bottle of medicine, and before he could react, both bottle and cloth fell to the floor. Glass shattered, and the bitter remedy geysered.
Zach pushed weakly up on an elbow to gaze down at the mess. She would never believe in a million years that he hadn't spilled it on purpose.
The sound of his voice resounded in his head. So much for watching his language. In the space of a minute, he had already used half the cusswords in his vocabulary. He fell back on the bed, groaned, and angled an arm over his eyes. Damned if he couldn't give lessons on how to drive off females.