Proving Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  Could they hear Laurel fishing? That was the direction of the creek, and she was the one who actually cared for the beasts.

  Collier considered following her tracks. Lord knew he could use the walk, after so many days in that tomb of a cabin. He could ask if she needed help carrying her catch home.

  Which would likely insult her again.

  But he couldn't go back inside. He felt like Dante emerging from hell—from the self-imposed limbo that had swallowed him these last weeks. It would swallow him again, no doubt, when night fell. But during this bright day, he could at least go see the creek. He could walk his wife back to the cabin whether she wanted it or not. He was still that much of a gentleman.

  And no matter their bedroom decisions, he was her hus­band.

  Greenhorn or not, Collier had no difficulty following the path Laurel had blazed through the trees. Too late, he real­ized he'd left his rifle. Hopefully he would not meet a wolf or a grizzly, or they would be dining on Englishman today. Laurel would be very put out that he'd gotten himself eaten in her care.

  Against those thoughts sounded the report of a rifle ahead of him. Collier sped his step. Having hunted before, he called out to identify himself. Mustn't get oneself shot. "Laurel!"

  Nothing. That seemed odd. Had she been hunting, the rifle would have frightened her prey away far more than would their voices. And if she was fighting something more danger­ous ...

  Surely, against a grizzly, she would accept assistance!

  "Laurel!

  Collier began to hurry. When he saw the darkness of her, crumpled on the creek bank, he ran.

  "Oh, Lord. Laurel! What in God's name ..." But he could see what had happened—the hole in the ice, the fish. He could not tell if the white that crusted her clothing and hair was snow or hoarfrost—but when he fell to his knees beside her, gathered her against him, he saw ice on her lashes, and her moving lips were blue.

  "Be still, dearest. I'll get you inside. Lie still now." He tore his gloves off, put them on her hard, pale hands, then un­buttoned his chesterfield. He was trying to open her own coat when he finally heard what she was trying to say.

  "Here," she rasped, as if she simply didn't know to stop calling. "C-Cole. I'm here."

  Perhaps limbo had been safer, because something inside Collier cracked more painfully than he could have believed.

  "And I am here too," he insisted, lifting her out of the wa­terlogged mess of a coat she'd worn, wrapping her in his own. He pushed her hands into his shirt—they were like ice!—and then stood with her and all her wet weight. Somehow he would get her back to the cabin.

  Her face seemed hard and pale too, especially her nose. Her breath came so shallow that he feared it would stop. Was that not how one froze to death? Did one not just stop breathing?

  The pain tore at him. Not her. Not her!

  Resting between staggering steps, he took a great gasp of air, then covered her icy lips with his, where her head rested on his shoulder, and breathed into her mouth. Perhaps he could make her take deeper breaths. Warmer breaths.

  He did that every few steps. At one point her blue eyes lifted slowly to capture his gaze.

  "B-bargain," she said in a gasp. What, did she think he was trying to seduce her? And her little more than a corpse?

  "Be still," he chided, and staggered on. "You little idiot."

  "N-not!" When her eyes flashed at him, his heart cracked. Perhaps she would live, at that. It was certainly his Lorelei. "Ev-everything..." She had to catch her breath. "Right."

  She'd done everything right, had she? "And where stands frontier wisdom of going out alone?" he demanded. He heard a whicker up ahead. They'd neared the cabin. They could do this!

  Laurel couldn't seem to draw breath, so he breathed for her again. Her lashes drifted closed, but as he resumed walk­ing, her lips moved. He wanted to weep at her sheer pig-headedness.

  "Wait until we get inside," he insisted thickly.

  Then they reached the cabin, and he managed to shoulder the door open and carry her into what felt like heavenly warmth, compared to the icy body in his arms. He knew better than to believe her safe now. Perhaps he was no moun­tain man, but he was well-read. She would be lucky if she did not lose body parts.

  Assuming she lived. But she had to.

  "You're getting out of those clothes," he instructed, laying her on the floor in front of the stove. Damn their lack of space!

  If he'd not insisted on chairs, a second bed ...

  Collier closed his eyes for a moment, forcing those thoughts away for later. Laurel stared up at him, helpless but determined. She'd had something to say, hadn't she?

  Her lips moved again, and he had to lean near. Luckily he had experience removing a woman's clothing without look­ing.

  What Laurel finally managed to say made him laugh—un­even and panicky, but laughter all the same. Clearly she'd not appreciated his reference to frontier wisdom.

  She called him a get.

  Laurel watched Collier through a detached sort of veil, as if this were happening to someone else. He poured a cup of hot coffee, then scooped in more of their sugar than neces­sary, the way her mother would. Then he fed her little sips between undressing her. She could hardly feel his hand against her face, the cup's rim against her lips.

  Compared to dying, the hot, sweet liquid didn't seem so bad. Except that, as it warmed her, she began to tremble again. Worse, she began to bum again, her hands and face and feet.

  Collier stripped her of every stitch of clothing, which should have embarrassed her but, through the shaking and the pain, did not. He wrapped her in a quilt off her bed, which didn't seem to warm her at all, and was doing some­thing else too. Water, she realized. He was pouring water into their washtub, as fast as he could warm it on her camp stove.

  Her stovelet, he'd called it. Maybe she should have let him buy a bigger one, after all.

  With the little washtub either full or warm enough, Cole lifted her from the quilt and into the water. Her arms and legs draped out the sides, and now she tried to cover herself.

  "Idiot," said Collier when he noticed. He folded her arms into the warm water, under her breasts. Only then did he drape a blanket over her. "My word as a gentleman: I'll not ravage you in this helpless state."

  "G-g-get," she managed to grunt back at him. But her mouth still wasn't working quite right, and the pain crawled from her hands and feet up into her arms and legs, along her bones. Her eyes stung, despite her determination not to cry.

  Cole fed her more sweet coffee, then scooped snow from outside and started warming more water. "I'm sorry it can't be hotter," he told her, drying her wet, melting hair with a towel.

  Laurel shook so badly that she splashed water out of the tub. Collier tried holding her from behind, despite that he must be getting cold too. He kept breathing on her—on her ears, on her neck, into her hair. That did feel warm, but she trembled too violently to appreciate it. Besides, warm hurt.

  Cold—that had been peaceful.

  "What else is there?" he demanded, scooping water out of the tub in order to replace it with warmer. "You are the one who has lived here all your life. What else can I do?"

  "N-n-nothing," she said in a gasp. Oh, God. Every bit of her hurt.

  He gave her another sip of sugary hot coffee, so at first she didn't realize just how angry her answer made him. It was only when he put down the mug and gathered her close again that he said, very clipped, "Bugger that! I will not sit back and do nothing, no matter how strong you think you are. You may not have noticed, Lorelei, but you are half-dead. So I suggest you tell me—what else can I possibly do?"

  She wondered what "bugger that" meant. More, she won­dered at the dangerous gleam in his silvery, reflective eyes.

  She didn't dare say nothing. So she said, "W-w-we wait."

  As midday became afternoon, Collier remembered what Ben­jamin Cooper had said about the courage it took merely to wait. Never had he felt so useless... and for somet
hing so very important. He did everything he could. The warm baths seemed to help. At least Laurel's hands and feet and nose were turning red, instead of that corpselike white they had been. At least her breathing deepened. But her moans of pain tore at him, especially knowing that Laurel Garrison Pembroke would not allow a whimper to escape her throat unless the pain was, indeed, excruciating.

  When warm baths no longer seemed to help, he dried her off—every bit of her, as thoroughly as possible. Finally he saw the nude glory of his wife ... and he couldn't appreciate her beauty for her trembling, the clamp of pain about her mouth, the barely reined panic in her blue eyes.

  She knew how bad this was, perhaps more even than did he.

  When she was dry he moved her into his bed, quite certain that feathers would insulate her better than would straw. He warmed bricks on the stove, then put them—wrapped—un­der the covers with her. Searching his memory for anything he knew about quickening the blood, he tried adding cay­enne pepper to some sweetened tea, and made her drink that.

  Laurel coughed, panted, and glared at him. But she drank it.

  "There must be something," he said for perhaps the hun­dredth time. "I can go for a doctor."

  She shook her head. "Even if you made it to Mown, you wouldn't make it back."

  Her speech wasn't quite so slurred as it had been.

  "Cooper said that your father watches the chimney smoke. If I put something on the fire to signal an emergency—"

  "No," she said. "No, Collier. Please. He might k-kill himself trying to get here. And then what could either of you do? T-take me out in the cold to get me to Sheridan?"

  Live or die, it would be in this cabin. In this bed. Alone with him. And he only now began to guess what she'd come to realize.

  Laurel closed her eyes and moaned.

  "There must be something," he repeated again. But her eyes closed. She'd run out of suggestions.

  Collier watched her shivering in his bed. Well, she needed him now, poor thing.

  Unsure what else could be of help, he made sure the fire was stoked, then stripped down to his long underwear and climbed into bed with her. Her eyes flared open, their blue a stark contrast to her red nose, but he quieted her by kissing her swollen lips.

  She did not kiss him back. She was in too much pain.

  "I mean to warm," he explained. "Our bargain is secure."

  Then he wrapped her in his arms and with one leg, stop­ping some of the worst of her shakes simply by weighing her down. Silly though it seemed, he took comfort from her in his arms.

  After a long, stiff moment, Laurel closed her eyes, leaned into him, and let him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Safe in Collier's strong arms, cuddled against the heat and hardness of him, Laurel finally stopped shaking and slept. But when she woke she was alone again—and she hurt.

  Oh, but she hurt! She ached deep inside, as if dying. And when she moved her hands, they felt as sensitive against Col­lier's soft sheets as if she really had burned them.

  She turned her head to find her husband.

  "Collier?" Her voice sounded thin to her ringing ears.

  Nothing. He'd lit the oil lamp on the table to combat the darkness pressing against the windows. He'd put up the wash-tub, laid out her clothes to dry. But his coat was gone. He was gone!

  He'd left for help after all! What if he didn't survive the trek into town? He could freeze to death, as she almost had ... worse, because he was alone in a country he'd never loved. And it would be her fault for having dragged him up here in the first place, for getting hurt. She had to find him, to stop him.

  Laurel ignored the slash of pain in her hands to swing herself up and slide her legs out of the bed. Then she fell.

  When her tender feet hit the floor, hard despite the pad­ding of one of Collier's rugs, she cried out. The blow to her knees seemed a relief, and she drew her hands to her instead of stopping her fall, let her shoulder absorb the rest of the blow.

  It still hurt. Never had she hurt so badly, not even when she'd broken her arm as a child. Now she lay helpless and naked on the floor between the bed and the stove, the world spinning.

  Alone.

  I got out of a frozen creek, she told herself desperately. I can get back onto my feet.

  But she'd only gotten to her knees before the door opened with a gust of cold and blowing snow—icy on her over­sensitive, naked skin—and Collier strode back in. Snow dusted his coated shoulders and his armload of firewood.

  "Good Lord," he muttered when he saw her. He dropped the wood into its box with a crash and hurried to her side, pulling his muffler down off his shaggy face as he dropped to his knees. "What happened? Let me help—"

  But when he tried to gather her into his arms, she screamed at his icy touch. He shrank back. "What? What did I do?"

  "You're cold," she whimpered, shivering. "And I'm naked." On the floor. In front of him. It began to matter more, the longer she lived.

  "Blast. I'm sorry, dearest. You rest a moment and I'll be right with you." Collier draped a blanket over her, then stripped off his coat, muffler, gloves, and hat. After a mo­ment's consideration, he stripped off his sweater, too, so that he wore only his boots, pants, and suspenders over his long underwear.

  They'd slept together, practically nude. Laurel cringed, even under the blanket. A drop of wetness on her breast star­tled her, and she realized it was a tear. She was crying.

  Darn it, she never cried! But it all hurt so badly!

  "There." Collier crouched again beside her. "This may still hurt, but hopefully not as much. Ready?"

  She shook her head.

  "Really, the bed would be better for you."

  She had to swallow hard to make the words come out. "May I please have my nightgown?"

  She could not make herself look at him, so she didn't see his face, but she heard his soft curse as he straightened and went to her side of the cabin, then found her flannel night rail. If he was angry, it wasn't at her. "Here you are, dearest."

  Kneeling, he put the gown over her head. When it brushed her nose, she yelped again—and he jumped with her.

  "I'm sorry, Lorelei. I wish I could do better." He drew the sleeves over her hands carefully, much as her mother would slide sleeves onto a baby, using his hand to open the wrist so that tender fingers wouldn't catch. "I should have thought of this myself."

  She shook her head.

  "There we are. Ready?"

  She nodded, and Collier caught her under the arms, then lifted her back up and onto the feather bed with what seemed like little effort. "There you are, dearest. Let's move you closer to the middle, so you'll not fall again."

  She knew she wasn't his dearest—but she liked hearing him say it. She liked his being here. "I thought you'd gone," she admitted. "Just now."

  He actually drew back, his bright eyes flaring. "Left you?"

  "To go get help."

  "I would have the manners to say good-bye first. But I'll not leave anytime soon, even should you want me to."

  She remembered the snowflakes dusting his coat, saw the dampness there where it hung on its peg. "It's snowing again."

  "Yes. What's this?" The covers caught on her left hand, and he winced again even as she yelped. "I'm sorry, Laurel. You've broken your ring. Quality will out, I suppose."

  She shook her head. "No. It saved me."

  "What?"

  "Please help me sit up."

  He did that, bracing her with pillows, careful not to touch her hands as he lifted and readjusted her. She liked his near­ness, his arms around her, despite the hurt. She liked how surprisingly strong he seemed.

  He'd stayed, and she felt safe now. "I broke the ring on purpose," she explained, her own weak voice a constant sur­prise. The fishing line had me, and the glass cut me free."

  "You thought of that?"

  She nodded.

  "In the middle of a frozen stream?"

  She nodded.

  "You continually amaze
me." And he kissed her forehead. To her pleased surprise, that did not hurt. "But your hands are starting to swell, so I'd best get these rings off while I can."

  "No," she protested. "Not the wedding band!"

  Collier cocked his head oddly, his bright gaze searching her expression, and she flushed. She did not know why it should matter, really. But it did, deep inside where part of her was trying to die. She was supposed to wear her wedding band.

  She liked his flashing smile, even if she didn't understand it. "We'll put it on a string around your neck," he assured her.

  Remembering his dismissing the same suggestion for the engagement ring, she asked, "Won't that embarrass you?"

  "I fear, my dearest Lorelei, that we shan't make it out of this damned cabin come spring without worse embarrass­ment than that. I shan't have you lose a finger to mere show."

  Considering what it had felt like to huddle naked on the floor, she guessed "show" really was the least of their worries. So she told him where to find her mother's salve. Collier used it to grease her finger, then drew off both rings.

  She had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming again.

  "Tell me if I hurt you," said Collier, focusing on the rings. She said nothing, tears streaming down her cheeks, until both bands of gold slid free and he said, "There!"

  Then he saw her and winced. "Good Lord. Are you all right?"

  She nodded.

  "The devil you are! I told you to let me know—"

  "It had to be done," she reminded him, her voice shaky.

  She didn't expect Collier to stand as suddenly as he did, or to pace across the room, spin, and return to her bedside.

  "Laurel Pembroke, thus far I've done very little to assert my husbandly rights," he told her. For just a moment, before she realized the foolishness of such thoughts, her stomach cramped in expectation. "But I swear to God, if you do not abandon this idiotic show of strength, I may do something drastic."