Marry Me (23 page)

“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 linked 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.

“Are you worried about May?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“If there’s one thing I’m well trained at, it’s delivering babies. I did most of the examining of pregnant women in Dr. Goodale’s practice, for that was far easier than trying to convince a woman he should have a good look up her—well, you know. Plus the doctor had little patience for sitting with a woman through labor, and half the time it was all over before he got there. And…okay, I’m a little scared.” Her eyes flashed. “And if you so much as hint that to her, I’ll kill you.”

He didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer. He’d worked enough on her hand that it was pliable beneath his fingers, but her shoulders remained stiff, hunched at an awkward angle, her features pinched. If he was going to rub the tension out of her, muscle by muscle, he might have her asleep by sunset. Maybe.

“What was the worst case you ever had?” he asked. “Patient? Case? What do you call it, anyway?”

“For Dr. Goodale it was a case. For me, a patient.”

“So what was it?” He moved on to her wrist, and the bones felt delicate enough he might snap them with his thumb. But it would be a grave error to think her fragile. “The worst one?”

“The hardest one was an elderly man, a former butcher. He’d been referred from his own doctor, who couldn’t come up with a diagnosis,” she began, a brisk recitation. “He presented with symptoms of—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Not the most difficult to treat. The
worst
.” He left off massaging her wrist, hesitating only a moment before he brushed his fingers right over her heart. It leaped beneath the contact. “The one that you can’t forget. The one image that hovers, waiting for you to close your eyes.”

She sat silently, sifting through memories. “I almost said a child; they’re always difficult. But that’s not the one, though she had children of her own, and that made it worse. She was in her early forties, and had a cancer of the breast, and her eyes were very blue, very much like Kate’s, and she—” She looked up at him, her eyes swimming. “Oh, that’s not fair!”

“I know,” he admitted, and scooped her into his lap.
Probably close to the same age as her mother when she died
, he thought.
And she left children behind, too
. He gently pressed her head to his chest, and the first shudder ran through her. “Go ahead,” he murmured. “Go ahead.”

“I don’t want to,” she said. But she’d already begun.

He held her while she wept in his arms. His shirt grew damp, the feel of her tears on his skin blindingly intimate. She shuddered against him. Sobbed. And he was the worst kind of bastard because, God help him, every good intention he had was blown to hell and gone.

Finally she quieted, one last hiccup and a wet snuffle. “Do you think you can sleep now?”

She leaned back. “You can’t be serious.”

“That was the plan.” He brushed tendrils of hair away from her wet cheeks. “Not a good one, huh?”

“It wasn’t a bad one,” she said with a spent sigh.

“Well, well, would you look at that.” Her nose was red, her eyes swollen, her face splotchy.

“Not a pretty sight, is it?” she said without a trace of concern.

“No, not pretty,” he said, his voice gone unexpectedly hoarse. “Beautiful, though. Just beautiful.”

“Jake.”

And then, helpless to resist, he kissed her. Kissed away the tears on one cheek, and then the other. Tasted salt at the tip of her nose. Licked a drop as it ran down her jaw. A hundred kisses, a thousand kisses, one for every tear he’d pressed from her, and even more for all the ones she’d battled back in her life.