Nothing But Trouble (18 page)

A tear rolled down her cheek, and it glistened with the light of the fire.  “I'll be okay if you hold me.”

He opened his arms and she came to him in an instant.  He felt her body ease slightly into his, felt her tremble, felt the tension in her muscles despite his attempt to bring her comfort. 

“You aren’t still worrying about your saddlebag?”

She shook her head weakly, but he didn’t believe her.  Something was definitely wrong.

“Here, let me help these,” Stoney said, taking Melanie's hands in his and rubbing them. 

Melanie couldn’t help but think of how her hands felt so small in Stoney's larger, more powerful hands.  It was if nothing could hurt her if she was with him.  She hadn’t expected to feel the way she did.  Over the past few days, it had been easy to forget the reason they were here at all.  She recalled Stoney’s warning after he’d kissed her the other night.  Let’s not forget the reason we’re here.

She had forgotten.  She’d fallen in love with the big Wyoming Sky and the Wind River Mountains.  Out here, she wasn’t different or special.  She could just be herself. 

But that wasn’t all, she realized.  She’d fallen in love with Stoney.  Somehow he’d crept into her heart when she wasn’t looking and claimed it for his own.  When she was with him, she felt whole.  It was something she’d never known before. 

“Let's get some sleep,” he finally said.

The burden of tears weighed heavy behind her eyelids and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.  She held his hand tight.  It was now or never.  She couldn’t keep this secret from him any longer.

 “Tell me what is wrong,” he said, looking at her for the first time with concern.

Melanie drew in a deep breath and worried her bottom lip.

“You’re not having second thoughts about last night, are you?”

She snapped her gaze up to his face.  “No, no.  I don’t.  Do you?”

He shook his head, but his worried look remained.  Bending his head, he kissed her forehead.  “Never.”  He finally gave her a half grin.  “Now that we've settled that, why don't we crawl into those sleeping bags and generate a little heat.”

He tossed her a deep-dimpled grin.  It was that sexy happy-go-lucky grin that drove her crazy so often.

“I need to tell you something.”  She felt the weight of her predicament on her shoulders.  She took a deep breath and stared at him, trying to push the words past her fear.  “I’m in trouble, Stoney.”

He searched her expression.  She saw a thousand emotions pass through his features before she finally saw bewilderment.

She continued.  “We have to go back.  Right now.”

He stood up straight, his eyebrows knitting together.  “No, you’re doing great.  Look at the way you crossed that river without any help from me.  Before we started, I thought you couldn’t hack it, but I have to admit you’re doing better than I thought a pretty little city gal would do out here.  Give yourself some credit.”

Her heart ached with his compliment, however left-handed.  She’d deceived him, and now that deception was coming back to haunt her.  He assumed she was having doubts about her ability to make it the whole month.  After all they’d been through these past couple of days, he believed in her.

She should have told him about her diabetes.  She knew that now.  He had a right to know.  But hindsight was a luxury she hadn’t put faith in.

“I’m sick, Stoney.  I’m really sick.”

# # #

Chapter Nine

Stoney's eyebrows knitted together with her words.  “You didn’t pick any of those berries we saw yesterday, did you?”

Melanie shook her head impatiently.  Puking from eating a hand full of bad berries was nothing compared to what she was facing.  “No.”

He heaved a sigh, showing his relief.  “Good, because they’d make you wish you were dead.”

She clenched her stomach as a wave of nausea hit.

His expression blanched.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I have diabetes,” she blurted out. 

His face didn’t register any change, and she knew he didn’t understand.  How could he?  She’d hidden it from him the entire time they’d been together.  How could he know that she had the kind of condition that required daily medical attention?

She drew in a deep breath of clean air to help settle her nausea and started again.  “The lost saddlebag--”

“Oh, God,” he gasped, closing his eyes as awareness seemed to flood him.

“It had my insulin and my blood machine.”  She swallowed, tasting bile.  “I’ve been diabetic since I was seven.”

His jaw tightened, and his breathing was labored, but the fear etched on his chiseled features was unmistakable.  In his face, she saw that he was afraid, and he was angry.  And he had every right to be.  Her heart pounded in her chest, knowing whatever wrath he’d yet to unleash was much deserved on her part. 

“I know I should have told you.”

“You’re damn right!” he thundered.  His voice seemed to reverberate on the mountains around them, causing Melanie to hunch down.  “Good Lord, Melanie, what were you thinking?  We’re a good two days away from any help at all.  The radio is no good up here.  Your medical supplies are gone, and we have no way to contact anyone to help us get you out of here.” 

He began pacing.  He pulled off his hat and jammed his fingers through his dark hair. 

“I thought I had it under control,” she countered.

Stoney paced in front of her, his warm breath clouding as it hit the cold night air.  After a minute he stopped, and she silently watched his eyes graze the black nothingness of the night.  She guessed he was quickly trying to assess their options.  But she knew any one of them would be grim.  She had only one hope, to get to a hospital as soon as possible and regulate her sugar.  She was cold and she hugged herself to keep from shivering.

“Okay,” he began, taking each breath with visible control.  “We’re two days from any kind of help.  A day and a half if we push ourselves.  What can I expect?  How are you going to hold up?”

 She clenched her hands together and said, “I should be okay tonight.  I had a full dose of insulin this morning, and my night insulin shot is always a much lower dosage.”

“Okay, that's tonight.  What about tomorrow?”

“I didn't eat that much tonight.  I need to keep drinking water and moving.  Tomorrow I'm going to start to feel it.  After two days...it could be bad.”

“Define bad.”

“Fatigue, disorientation.”

He swallowed.  “And then?” 

Melanie’s heart squeezed.  She knew what he wanted to hear, but couldn’t give him the words that would bring him comfort.  This was not a time to lie. 

“Everything is gone?” he asked, a wistful hope in his eyes.

She gave a faint nod, hating the way the disappointment hit him.  “The insulin.  My blood monitoring machine and my sterile hypodermic needles.”  She threw her hands up in the air, but had to stifle her panic as the enormity of the situation hit her.  Fear flashed across his face at an alarming speed.  Fear she wouldn’t allow herself to feel fully.  She had to stay calm and alert if she had any chance of helping Stoney get her through this alive.  “Everything.”

He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath that stretched his chest against his shirt and tugged his jacket open.  She saw him shudder.  The sun was long gone, and it had to be close to freezing at this altitude.  Stoney didn't appear cold.  He was numb, oblivious to the elements and lost in whatever it was he was trying to figure out. 

“I know all about this disease,” she assured him, trying to instill some semblance of confidence.  She touched his shoulder, feeling how taut his muscles grew beneath her fingers.  “I take care of myself.”

He shrugged his arm from her hold.  In his expression, she saw the cold mask he’d worn for the first few days they’d been together.  He was shutting himself off again. “Do you?  Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“How would telling you have prevented this?”

“I would have known!”

“You would have coddled me,” she countered.  “You wouldn’t have agreed to help me.”

He shook his head. 

“A week and a half ago you would have jumped at any reason to turn me down.  Telling you about my diabetes would have been an easy out for you.”

He looked at her, and she noticed some of his anger had eased, but not his fear.  “You’re right.  But you still should have told me before last night.  I had a right to know.”

Her heart plummeted.  “How would that have made a difference?” 

“I’m responsible for you.  I’m supposed to be protecting you.”

“Don’t give me that macho crap.  How would telling you about my diabetes have changed our making love?”

His eyes bore into her for a long agonizing moment before she saw them soften.  “It wouldn’t.  But it would have shown that you trusted me.”  He turned away from her.

“I thought I made that more than apparent last night.”

He grabbed his saddlebag from the ground and began sifting through it, pulling out items and dropping them to the wet earth.  Finally, he opened the map.

“I thought you said you didn’t need that.”

He didn’t look at her.  “I have to think.”  Gripping the map, he crumbled it and threw it to the ground.  “I could have separated the vials,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“I could have put the vials in different duffel bags or...something.  If we’d lost one, we’d still have enough to get us back.  If I had known...”

He was right.  She’d been wrong to keep something so vitally important from him.  She wasn’t experienced enough in the wilderness to understand the dangers of what she was risking.  But Stoney was.  He’d tried to tell her the first day she’d asked for his help.  She hadn’t trusted him with her secret, and now it was too late.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.  But we don’t have time for that.  You need to tell me everything if we’re going to make it to the reservation.”

“The reservation?  We’re not heading back the way we came?”

“It’ll take too long to get you to the hospital in Riverton.  The clinic on the Wind River Reservation is closer.  Joshua will take care of you.  But right now we need to get some rest so we can get up early and find that saddlebag.  Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky.”

Stoney held her tight during the night and slept as restless as she had.  Now with the morning light, they had to get moving.  She needed to find that damned saddlebag and her insulin. 

Stoney had been right.  They wouldn’t have been able to find it in the dark last night.  She’d eaten a light dinner and drank plenty of water, like she’d been taught, hoping to keep her sugar level down.  In Stoney’s arms it was easy to forget that she had diabetes.  She’d wanted him to hold her and it felt so good when he had.  There was nothing they could do to find her insulin until the morning anyway.