Page 75 of A Rugged Beauty
"If she can get through the fever..." Maddie trailed off.
He knew. If she fought through the fever, she'd be weak and weary but alive. And if she didn't?
Memories flitted through his mind, too fast for him to catch any of them completely.
Holding Abigail the night they'd been stranded in the woods.
The determined moue she'd made when he'd been barely conscious after his concussion and she'd ordered him to eat.
The turn of her face, a glimpse just long enough to see her dawning smile. Feel the tug in his gut.
Their kiss.
Watching her walk alongside Felicity, in the early days of their journey. Keeping his distance, because if he spoke to her, he'd want to know her.
It's been there between us, from the beginning.
She'd been right. There’d been a recognition inside of him from the moment he’d seen her on the boardwalk in Independence. A connection that once ignited, he hadn’t been able to ignore but fully able to deny.
Looking at her pale skin, her slack expression, he couldn't pretend any longer.
He hadn't meant to, he'd tried his hardest not to, but somehow he'd fallen for her anyway.
And now she was sick. She could die. Just like Dinah. The baby. Charles.
He was going to lose her.
Maddie said something to him, but he couldn't make out the words as he backed out of the wagon and whirled away. He had to get away, escape.
He ran out into the open prairie, ran until his legs burned and his lungs were on fire.
Stopped to lean both hands on his knees. Retched into the prairie grass.
He was cursed. He'd known it for years.
And now he'd cursed Abigail because he'd been too weak to push her away. She'd gotten close, and now he was going to lose her.
He screamed at the sky, a wordless shout that barely touched the pain rolling over him.
Why did God hate him? Why was He punishing Abigail for Hollis's sins, whatever those were?
There was no answer. No strike of lightning to take Hollis's own worthless life.
That would be too easy.
He turned back the way he'd come, wishing for the emptiness he'd known when the berries had stolen his memory. The fort was there, so close but out of reach. The wagons a reminder of all the travelers he'd failed.
He couldn't leave Maddie to tend to the ill by herself. It wasn't fair to do that to her.
Hollis trudged back toward the wagons. What had become of the travelers they'd left behind?
Was the doctor right? Had their isolated patients and extra rest done more than Hollis's pushing to reach the fort? Or was Owen suffering just as he was?
Hollis had no answers. No prayers, no hope of Divine providence. Only a desperate grief that swamped him as he made his way back into the camp.
Fifteen
There wasa low groan as Alice passed from the shadows outside the camp to the space near the campfire, now burning low. It was late and she longed for her bedroll, but there was more to be done.
