A Bride for Keeps

by Melissa Jagears

  Freezing water trickled down the sides of her head and into her ears. Her ears ached with the cold. They throbbed with the cold.

  “Don’t leave me, love. Don’t leave me.”

  Despite being inside a vat of boiling water, shivers ran along every limb of her body. Up and down, over and across, and back again. All she could do was tread water. She wanted out!

  The pot. Senseless to stay in the pot. She clawed for the rim, but grabbed immaterial fluff. Where was the rim? She couldn’t pull herself out without the rim. “Help me!”

  “I don’t know what else to do,” a shaky voice answered. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Can no one . . .” The insides of her mouth were melting. She tried to make her tongue work, but it was burned to a crisp. She had no tongue. Could she make the leftover ashes form words? “Can no one save me?”

  “I can’t.”

  A waterfall of cold pricks landed on her neck. The sound of a steam engine chugging and weeping and chugging and weeping neared her. She had to get out of the boiler car.

  “I can’t do anything. God, it’s now or never. Let it not be never.”

  Her hands were quickly sheathed with ice-cold gloves and squeezed. Pain shot up through her wrists.

  “Pray with me, darling. You’re here right now. Listen. Ask God to stop it. He loves you. Call out to the Father to rescue you. I’m inadequate.”

  Was someone weeping? Why didn’t God tell the babbling man to stop sniffling and rescue her from the fiery waves?

  “So inadequate.”

  Her father didn’t love her. No one had loved her. Why would God love her? The heat from the cauldron she was in proved He did not.

  “God does not love me,” she cried.

  But she wanted love. She wanted love.

  She gave up, exhausted, and slid back into the boiling water. And it burned.

  Chapter 21

  Flames of fire no longer seared her leg, but they pierced through her eyelids. She covered her face with a clammy hand and groaned.

  “Julia?”

  She turned to Everett’s voice and squinted. His shadow moved, and intense light filled the room. She winced, the action shooting pain from her temples to her ears. “Ugh.”

  “Are you awake?”

  She moved her head slowly from side to side, but the pain sloshed as if she were shaking her head like a dog shakes a rag bone. “Light.” Her throat felt scratchy and dry. “Water.”

  “I’ll get you a drink.”

  She searched for a blanket to pull up over her head, but the quilt covering her was securely anchored across her chest. She turned her head away from the brightness. “No light.” Her voice slurred, and she struggled to make her brain correct her speech. “Please.”

  “Of course, I’ll recover the windows. I can change your bandage later.”

  Windows? There were more than one? Where was she? She moved her hands and rubbed the fluffy tick below her that smelled of sunshine. Not the straw tick that smelled of must.

  Moments later soothing darkness fell, and she tried to pry open her eyes. Everett’s arm slipped behind her neck, and the rim of a cool tin cup pressed against her lower lip. She downed the contents. “More.”

  He assisted her again, and she fell back onto the pillow. Every part of her body ached, all the way to the bones. The room tilted, and she closed her eyes against the nausea swelling in her chest.

  His warm hand brushed across her forehead. “You feel cooler.”

  The throbbing behind her skull made her wish sleep would return directly.

  “Lord, I pray that this isn’t just a calm in the storm. Let this fever be gone for good. Wake her up so I can talk to her, so I can tell her how sorry I am.”

  Praying again. Why didn’t he just tell her? “Tell me you’re sorry.”

  His hand brushed hair off her temple, soft and gentle, yet still painful. “Are you really awake?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Jesus had nothing to do with her being awake—hadn’t she opened her eyes herself? Well, before she closed them again against the windows. “Where am I?”

  “With me in the cabin.”

  “How many windows?”

  “Three all together.”

  “Put in new ones?”

  “No, this is the new cabin.”

  She wanted to see. Pushing against the mattress, she worked to set herself upright, despite her head exploding. “Why am I . . .” Though she’d moved her leg only a fraction of an inch, she remembered exactly why she was confined to bed. Though her lower limb no longer felt on fire, the pain resembled a slashed burn wound.

  Everett’s hands settled against her shoulders and pushed her back down. All the effort to sit upright had only resulted in an inch or two in elevation. She gave up. It was too hard, and she’d already augmented her pain simply by waking up.

  “Take it easy, darling. Just because you woke up doesn’t mean you’re getting out of bed for a while.”

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “Two weeks.”

  That must be why her backside hurt so much. She moved slowly, trying to turn a bit onto her side, but her leg was a leaden weight that shot sparks whenever she put pressure on it.

  Everett braced her back with a wad of softness. “Better?”

  She hummed in assent, but she kept her eyes shut until the pain of his jostling left her.

  His eyes stared down at her, dark, anxious pools of blue.

  “I’ll be fine.” Maybe it was a lie, but she had to ease his anguish.

  “Will you?” He picked up her hand and rubbed her fingers with his thumb.

  She felt as if she could die any minute, if pain were an indicator. “What has the doctor said about my leg?”

  “I have a list of things to check for each day—that’s why I opened the windows, so I could see better.” He cleared his throat. “He’s not very optimistic. But no matter what happens, I want you to know that I will be here beside you.”

  Julia took a long look at him before setting her face on a cooler part of her pillowcase. She couldn’t shun this man forever; she could see he fancied her. And how many women had she known back home, stuck in loveless marriages, who would have been content if their husbands had simply found them attractive? She might even have been swayed into agreeing to her father’s marriage arrangement with Theodore if her intended had looked at her with a quarter of the care shining from Everett’s eyes.

  “I’m so sorry about the roof. I didn’t mean to push you into anything. . . . I know I gave you my word to keep my hands to myself, but I . . .” He raked his hands through his hair. “I’ve no excuse. I just need to make sure you know that I’m grateful that you married me, and having you with me is enough. It was more than any of the other . . .” He blew out an unsteady breath. “Well, simply . . . I don’t deserve you.”

  She closed her eyes against seeing the emotions play across his face. If he knew her past, every detail, he’d take those words right back. She pulled her hands in tight against her and curled up as much as her leg allowed. He’d told her his secret and she ought to tell him hers, but she couldn’t. A decent man was on the verge of loving her, and despite the fact that love would complicate everything, she didn’t want to toss it away.

  “Are you asleep?”

  She worked to keep her breathing even and slow. Let him believe her asleep; she hadn’t the emotional strength to face her feelings. What could she say that would make him feel better anyway? That she was sorry she was terrified of a man’s touch? He’d want to know why.

  He tucked her blankets in tighter. “Rest well, darling. But more important, wake up again.” A whisper of a kiss caressed her brow.

  The satiny touch of his lips sent a tickling sensation down to her toes, and she curled up tighter. Perhaps with time she could endure his intimate embrace; he’d proven to be honorable and trustworthy even when he had pushed. But then she’d have to face
being with child. The fear of losing one after another and becoming a vacuous shell like her mother was something that would never get better with time. Would she ever feel enough for him to endure what her mother had?

  “Ugh, Sticky.” Julia tried to catch the spool of thread before it flew off the bed, but failed. She wrapped up her embroidery panel before the kitten could catch her claws in the mess of thread on the back side of her project. Rachel said the back should look as pretty as the front.

  Rachel was either lying or had skills beyond a normal woman. Not that Julia had ever inspected the back of anyone else’s needlework, but who cared if the back looked like a thread cyclone?

  “Come here.” She pulled the cat off her knees and petted it, trying to avoid its playful paws. “Too bad you’ve outgrown your box, or I’d put you in there.”

  Sticky finally settled down, her purr rhythmic and unending, like the cicadas’ song that had grown louder overnight.

  The door bumped open, startling her.

  “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Everett didn’t look remorseful with that smile on his face.

  “No, just trying to keep my thread away from Sticky’s paws.”

  Everett slid a dish of food onto the table that filled the air with garlic and some other smell she didn’t recognize and then came to sit next to her.

  Had he finished his chores so quickly again? “Who brought food this time?”

  “Mrs. Nogales. I didn’t quite understand what she called it, but the smell makes me hungry.”

  “Why didn’t she come in?”

  “Her English is worse than Helga’s, though she said something that sounded like she was praying for you.”

  Prayer. No one had ever prayed for her before, yet someone seemed to come over every day to do just that. Thankfully they didn’t expect her to pray aloud with them. She’d tried to ask God for a few things since being stuck in bed, but gave up. Everyone else’s words were better and surely more effective than hers. If they were effective at all. “I’ve never heard of Mrs. Nogales.”

  He shrugged. “She and her family actually live on the other side of town.”

  “And they came all the way out here?”

  “Just the mother and one of the sons. Seems they intended to buy a horse from someone down the river.” He reached down to pull off his boots. Hours before sunset.

  “Wait.”

  He stopped.

  She couldn’t take another evening of endless reading and embroidery. But there wasn’t much else to do but chat. And she’d talked, but the more she told him, the more he probed.

  She didn’t want to talk tonight. She’d considered telling Everett about Theodore last night when she couldn’t sleep, so bed weary she couldn’t get comfortable despite her heavy eyes. But when she’d managed to doze off, terrible dreams visited her. Reliving the past. Watching Everett leave her future.

  She put the cat down and sat up. “Please help me walk around.”

  “You can’t walk yet.” His face looked as panicked as if she’d asked him to dump her in a vat of boiling grease.

  “All right, limp around.” She pushed her splinted leg off the bed and forced herself not to wince at the tingles that shot up from her toes.

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  Her face must have betrayed her pain. “It still hurts, but I know it’s better. And it’s not going to work properly anymore if I don’t move it around some. My leg feels like it’s dying.”

  He jammed his heel back into his boot and put his hands on her shoulders. “Only if we go slow and I basically carry your weight.”

  “Fine. All this loafing has made my body sluggish.” As long as she could move—anything besides lying down—she’d even kiss him. Could she work up the nerve? No, she couldn’t kiss a man first. What was she thinking? “And my brain doesn’t seem to be working right either.”

  “Do I need to pick something more stimulating to read?”

  “Does Rachel have more books?” He’d read her more than a dozen already.

  “Several more cases. She keeps them in the back of the barn. Not sure how many more novels she has, but I saw several sermon collections last time I looked.”

  Just what she wanted—a preacher pointing out her every fault for hours and hours on end. “Maybe she’s got something on gardening?”

  “Good idea.” He smiled as he hooked his arm under her shoulder.

  How far could she walk before he’d drag her back into bed? As they hobbled down the stairs to the yard, her stomach growled. He had to be hungry too.

  “Maybe just to the barn and back.” Sticky weaved in and out of her legs. Not a smart cat.

  “Sure, that sounds like enough exercise to me.” He held her tight and started forward.

  “No, let me try to actually walk.” She tried to loosen his grip on her arm.

  “Don’t put pressure on your leg.”

  She tested a bit of weight on her foot, gritting her teeth. “I have to someday.”

  “When Dr. Forsythe says.”

  “What about when William says?” Normally, Everett agreed with William’s advice, but not on this. It was as if the second she was free to move, he feared losing her.

  Maybe they wouldn’t have time to talk as much, but the farm needed him. “You’ll be relieved once I can get up and do things. You’re behind because of me.”

  “Not on anything important.” He clomped along beside her, smelling vaguely like leather and hay.

  She dragged her leg. “You needed a wife to help you farm, and this past month I’ve hindered you more than helped.” She had put her weight on her foot for five steps, but the pain had increased twentyfold. She wouldn’t tell him that though. He might banish her to bed for a week again.

  “I want to make sure you stay well. I could lose the farm for all I care.”

  What man risked his farm for a woman who was more a companion than a wife? He must think it his Christian duty to say so. “Well, I don’t want you to lose the place because of me.” They reached the barn’s edge, and she leaned against the side. “Let me rest a bit.”

  Moving quickly, he rolled a thick log toward her. “Sit.”

  With his help, she sank down onto the tiny stool, thankful she’d arrived at the barn wall before she collapsed. Even William would insist on strict bed rest if that had happened.

  Everett lowered himself against the wall and sighed. “Such a pretty day. I’m glad you got outside to enjoy it.”

  She glanced at the soft blue sky, but winced at the sun peeking through the clouds. Thankfully Everett wasn’t watching her. She needed to look restful, as if walking out here had been a good plan. But the throbbing up and down her leg was hard to ignore.

  “I know you don’t want to discuss your parents, but can you tell me why you left your father?”

  Should she admit to the pain to avoid this question—again? No, she might as well give him just enough so he’d quit asking. Hopefully. “He doesn’t know where I am. And it needs to stay that way.”

  “Of course.” Everett pushed up from his slouch against the wall. “But can you tell me why?”

  She flinched against a scorching twinge. “He pressured me to marry a business partner entirely for his gain, not mine. That’s when I realized he loved me as little as my mother had.” How could a father overlook a man’s indecency toward his daughter—no matter how much he could profit?

  “Do you think I’m like your father? Only worried about my gain?” He kept his gaze on his hands as if afraid to hear the answer. A vulnerable question. Since her fever had broken, he’d repeatedly exposed himself to her criticism—like he was asking for it—apologizing for every real or imaginary sin he believed he’d committed against her.

  “No, I don’t think you’re like him.” Everett was trying to give her his heart, though she’d yet to give him anything of worth.

  “Good. Have I told you I didn’t know Rachel asked you here on my behalf?”

  More confessions. How
many more could he own up to before she couldn’t stand the guilt of her own unacknowledged sins? “I gathered as much.”

  “Well, I just wanted you to know that I’m glad she did.” He winked.

  He wanted her to smile, but Julia couldn’t. He was falling in love with her if he wasn’t already, and that made her feel even worse for having a hesitant heart.

  Chapter 22

  Sighing, Julia clenched her fist to keep from knocking the doctor’s probing hand away so she could scratch her itchy leg. The man sure took his sweet time. While Rachel made the evening meal for the third time in a row, Everett hovered over the doctor’s shoulder.

  Her leg had been better more than a week now. She had told Everett, but he wouldn’t believe her until the doctor said so himself. Eight full days passed before Everett tracked down the busy man, and another three for him to come. Evidently, a rash of cholera was keeping the county doctor busy.

  “My leg feels better. It does. I know it’s healed.” Why must he tarry so long? “Besides feeling a bit numb along the scar line, it couldn’t feel better.”

  Dr. Forsythe laid her leg back onto the new rope bedstead. “I think you’re right. And one lucky girl.” He gathered the dingy bandages and splint material. “I thought Lister’s idea of using acid was either sheer idiocy or wild genius. I kept expecting you to call me for an amputation.” He patted her arm. “Good thing I heard about his methods before leaving Boston. Most likely saved your leg and your life.”

  She shuddered at the vision of her right leg missing. Perhaps that’s why Everett had hardly left her side during her recuperation. If she had gotten through the infection and fever, yet lost her leg, he’d have been bound forever to a crippled woman, even more of a burden. She released a sigh.

  “I wondered if I’d doomed you to life with a useless, painful limb, but it healed by first intention without even an appearance of laudable pus like Lister predicted.” He took a long look at her leg and hesitated before covering it with the fold of her nightdress as if burying a treasure. “Though you could have simply beaten the odds.”

  “It was a miracle, Doc.” Rachel put her hand on his shoulder. “Lots of prayers to the Lord were offered at this bedside.”