Page 68 of The Winter Husband
“It’s a wonder your arms didn’t come out of your sockets. You could have crippled yourself.”
“Don’t you remember stepping over the rim of the canoe?”
His mind grasped but found nothing.
“You became alert for a second, long enough to recognize the canoe.” She pushed hair off her cheek, and he glimpsed scabs on her knuckles. “You told me not to forget the paddle. It was already in the canoe, but that was the first time you spoke and made any sense.”
“Marie.” The danger was over, but for him the fear was still raw. “Of all the crazy, reckless—”
“Should I have left you there, feverish and alone?”
“The canoe could have capsized.” Her words curled around his heart, but he couldn’t help himself. “You could have drowned.”
“If I hadn’t brought you here, you would have died for sure.” Her nostrils flared. “I would risk the danger again, in a heartbeat.”
Such words, to come out of all that porcelain prettiness. All the images he’d gathered of her—king’s girl, baron’s niece, convent orphan, determined sharpshooter, playful hunter in moose-skin breeches—all coalesced into this one petite, iron-spined survivor.
He couldn’t imagine a more perfect wife.
“Did you think I wouldn’t try to save you?” she said into the silence. “And, having saved you, did you think I’d just let you send me away? How could I spend my life embroidering altar cloths, after all this?” The iron bars rang as she gripped them, too. “I’m staying in this world, Lucas. I will grow squash, beans, and corn. I’ll learn to dye porcupine quills and sew them into moccasins. I will scour the woods for berries and roots and learn which ones are good, which ones are poisons, and which ones are medicine. I’m staying here, to make a new life, even if you don’t want me to be your wife.”
“I want you to be my wife.” He shoved his hands through the bars to cup her cheeks. “Haven’t you learned never to listen to what a man says while he’s in a fever?”
She breathed hard, her gaze fierce.
“You,” he said, pressing his head against the bars, “are the bravest, most fearless woman I have ever known.”
“You’re saying this because your freedom is in my hands.”
“It’s my heart in your hands.”
She made a choked sound.
“I’ve been a fool, Chepewéssin. I didn’t want to acknowledge how strong you’ve become. I wanted you to be safe above all else, but fighting you is like fighting the north wind.”
He kissed her, though it made for an awkward kiss between the bars, broken up by gasps and laughter and shifts of position. She slipped her arms through to run her fingers up his shoulders, avoiding the sore side of the knife wound.
“Forgive me,” he whispered. “For underestimating you.”
“You acted out of love. You’re already forgiven.”
“My star maiden. With you, I am healed.”
Her joyful, rippling laughter made his chest swell. He felt three times larger than ever before, strong as an ox, flooded with happiness. Were he stomping in the woods around his cabin he felt like he could yank full-grown pines out of the earth by the roots.
“I’ll speak to Talon,” she whispered, pulling away. “He’ll set you free. Then we can go home.”
Home.
The future unfurled before him.
Already his mind populated it with dreams.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Six months later
Leaning over the outdoor campfire, Marie ladled a simmering mix of milk, butter, and squash from the iron pot. She poured the soup into one of the scooped-out gourds she’d prepared for today’s feast. The fresh scent of pumpkin tickled her nose and made her stomach growl, but as the hostess of the gathering, it wasn’t yet her turn to settle down and eat with her many guests.
