Because I was no longer on oxygen and considered in recovery, the decision was finally made to remove my saline drip, thereby allowing me out of the bed. I reeked of smoke and the nurse told me she would help me bathe, but Camille said, “No, I can do it,” since Mom had gone to pick up Aunt Jilly, Ruthann and Clint, who were all staying with relatives of Mathias, here in Bozeman.
My sister helped me to the bathroom and said, “When you get out of the shower we’ll fix your hair.”
Alone for the moment in the hospital room, pale evening light streaking through the lone window, I sank against my sister, weeping again. Camille tipped her nose to what was left of my hair, holding me close, murmuring in my ear.
“He’ll be all right,” she told me, again and again. “He loves you so much, he’ll be all right.”
“I love him too, Milla, oh God, I can’t be without him,” I choked in my terrible raspy voice.
In the bathroom I could hardly believe the person in the mirror was me, but I didn’t have time to worry about how I looked right now. I had to get cleaned up so I could go to Case and put my eyes on him. Touch him, tell him I was here and that he would be all right. There was no other option but for him to be all right. I focused on that thought as I let the water run over my skin, my short hair.
I sat on the bed then, which had been stripped and was awaiting new sheets. Camille knelt behind me, her big pregnant belly firm against my back. As she brushed my hair I could feel the baby pushing against my spine. Tears flooded my eyes, dripped over my face, as my sister combed out my hair. She had procured a pair of scissors to trim it, but I was too impatient, sick with need to get upstairs. And finally, they let me.
***
Case was on oxygen, a ventilator covering his mouth and nose. They had bathed him and treated his forearms, which had been badly burned; from knuckles to elbows he was wrapped in white gauze. A doctor had assured me that the repair to his heart valve had been relatively minor surgery, but that it was good we caught it now, as it may have turned into something far more concerning down the road.
“Your husband is actually quite lucky,” she told me.
My husband, she’d said. I didn’t correct her; God willing, the second Case was awake I was going to get Al in here to officiate; he was ordained, I knew.
Far more concerning was the smoke Case had inhaled while saving our horses. It was brutal to observe him this way, unconscious, with a machine breathing for him, another monitoring his vital signs. I put my hands on him, aching to touch him even further and let him somehow realize that I was here, close to him, that I would not leave his side until he awoke. His skin was cool beneath my fingertips as I stroked his forehead, his soft hair, his ears, tears streaking my face and hysterical sobs threatening behind my breastbone.
No, I told myself. You cannot lose control. Not now.
“Case,” I whispered painfully, and bent to kiss his forehead, the machines connected to him whirring. “Oh God, Case, my love, my sweetheart, it’s all right. You’re safe and it’s all right now. I’m here. Please hear me. I’m here.”
They let me sleep in a chair on the far side of his bed. But I spent most of the night kneeling on the chair alongside the bed anyway, well away from the side with all the machinery; I fell asleep with my forehead tipped on my folded arms, and dreamed terrible things.
I dreamed we were back at Camille’s wedding and he was telling me he loved me, and I wasn’t listening. I witnessed his pain, the aching inside of him, seeing his heart in my dream as though it was something in a cartoon, visible within his chest as he stood before me. I watched it crack into pieces, leaking from him, and then, with the suddenness of events in a dreamscape, the scenery around us changed and I was bent over him, outside in the foothills, cradling his head and shoulders upon my lap. He was dying, and a bullet hole in his gut was killing him. His blood was hot and wet across my entire lap. And then I screamed and screamed, unable to prevent this from happening.
I woke with a cry, my own heart throbbing. I tried to draw a deep breath and couldn’t, standing too quickly, so that blood rushed away from my head and I almost fell over. I bent close to Case, touching his face so carefully, crazy to see him awake, the nightmare so vividly terrifying in my head.
“Case, I’m here,” I told him. “Oh God, baby, I’m here. Please know that I’m here.”
He remained unchanged through the next day. The Rawleys, Dad, Mom, Camille, Ruthann, Clint and Aunt Jilly came and sat with me, by turns. Everyone was horrified, stunned. None of them tried to say much that first night, just knowing that their presence was what I needed. I begged Aunt Jilly to tell me what she saw, what the future held.
“I can’t just make a Notion happen, sweetheart,” she said gently, stroking my burned hair, and pain raked me to hear the endearment from her tongue, the one Case used most with me. I was his sweetheart, his love, and I would be until the end of time. Oh God, if something happened to him –
But I couldn’t finish that thought.
Aunt Jilly caught my hands and whispered, “I can’t see all of it, Tish, but it’s something from the past. There’s something from the past that you have to understand.”
“Will it save him?” I begged her. I couldn’t cry I was so terrified, so desperate.
Aunt Jilly’s eyes, blue as my own, held steady and she whispered, “I don’t know. But you have to try.”
Coming in Fall 2014...
The Civil War has ended, leaving the country with a gaping wound. Southern orphan, Lorie Blake, has worked as a prostitute since she was fifteen, carefully guarding her aching heart from the disgrace forced upon her every evening. Sawyer Davis, who fought bravely as a Confederate soldier for three bitter years, is now ravaged by haunting memories and the loss of his entire family. When their paths intertwine in a river town whorehouse, neither is prepared for the passionate intensity of their attraction to each other.
Forced to flee, Lorie joins Sawyer and his traveling companions—his two best friends and an incorrigible young boy with a heart of gold—on their journey north to Minnesota, where they long to build new lives. But danger pursues them in the form of a vindictive whorehouse madam and two ex-Union soldiers: one insane, the other bent on revenge. Lorie, soiled and shamed, must come to grips with her past and a secret that she cannot yet bear to reveal: her pregnancy by another man.
Through it all, Sawyer and Lorie know only one truth: they must be together. Even if it means challenging Death itself.
About The Author
Abbie Williams has been addicted to love stories ever since first sneaking her mother’s copy of The Flame and the Flower; and since then, she’s been jotting down her own in a notebook. A school teacher who spends her days with her own true love, their three daughters, and a very busy schedule, she is most happy when she gets a few hours to indulge in visiting the characters in her stories. When she’s not writing, teaching or spending time with her family, you’ll find her either camping, making a grand mess in her kitchen at various cooking attempts, or listening to a good bluegrass banjo.
Check out all of her books: Forbidden; Summer at the Shore Leave Cafe; Second Chances; A Notion of Love; Winter at the White Oaks Lodge; Wild Flower
The First Law of Love Page 39