Page 46 of Beyond Dreams

She’d already decidedthat when her husband was back on his feet again, she was going to knock him on his ass for this business. Okay, that sounded improbable, as in highly unlikely that any smack from her could move him at all. But at the very least when this was done she was going to give him an earful for making her do this.

Ugh, this was so gross.

Holly squeezed her eyes closed tightly and yanked blindly at the scratchy and long wool shirt, trying to get it over the fat man’s big head. She’d thought that robbing one big garment from the biggest man might mean that she only had to undress one dead man. She might have been wrong, but it was too soon to tell. The task was reprehensible, meant for those so much less squeamish than her, meant only for craven people or wild animals.

“I can’t believe the things this stupid time period has me doing,” she muttered, her teeth gritted.

She wrestled with the dead man for almost ten minutes—and that after staring at him motionless for the first five minutes—before she finally was able to walk away with his shirt in hand. In the misting rain, with her hair plastered to her head and face, soaked and muddied and miserable, she stomped back to where Duncan sat, and tossed the shirt angrily at him.

“I had to pull the spear out of his body first, Duncan,” she cried, real tears falling for how...inhumane it all was. “I had to close the dead man’s eyes so he would stop staring at me like he knew I was robbing him!” She picked up Duncan’s own bloody and torn shirt and flung that at him as well. “There. Get yourself warm. I’d rather freeze. I’m not doing that again.” And she stalked off, away from him.

“Where are you going?” He barked at her.

“I have to pee,” she shouted back at him.

“Dinna go too far!”

“Dinna go too far,” she repeated in an angry mutter, thickening her voice to sound like his. And then louder, “Sure, go ahead and strip the dead man, Holly, but dinna go too far to pee. Ridiculous.”

But she didn’t go too far, too weary and now sick of heart to wander off. She did what she needed to do and returned to where Duncan sat under the tree, only sparing a fleeting glance at him. But even the quick look at him had her feeling like a jerk for her eruption. He looked now almost concerned about her, as if her outburst had advised him of how awful that had been, what she’d been forced to do. Still, it had been necessary, and it wasn’t his fault.

“I’m sorry for that,” she said tightly. “I’ve just never seen a dead body before, let alone been forced to undress him.”

“I should nae have let you do that,” he said, his voice rough.

“It’s fine. It’s done,” she said. “I would feel worse if you’d had to do that and then started bleeding again.”

He’d yet to put on either his own shirt or the dead man’s shirt. Aiming for flippancy but possibly not achieving this, she said to him. “You’re wearing his shirt now. I didn’t do all that so you could hold it in your lap.”

In the golden twilight of evening, his grin was rather charming. “Yes, ma’am.”

But then, because of the gash on Duncan’s arm, she was forced to handle the fat man’s shirt once more, helping Duncan get it over his head and arm. She rather winced when it fell down over his chest, the red stain very noticeable upon the fawn colored wool, the hole and blood stain sitting right over Duncan’s heart.

“Dinna ken on it,” Duncan instructed curtly. He lifted his tunic and handed it to her. “Put that on or I’ll do it for you.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to threaten me,” she reminded him.

“But do you really want to try me?”

She did not, but because she could think of no clever retort, she stuck her tongue out at him as she accepted his shirt. But then she closed her eyes and held her breath as she pulled it over her head, conscious of the blood and gore on this as well. But at least it was Duncan’s. It dropped to her knees and because it was mostly dry, she thought it might actually warm her.

“And here you go,” Duncan said, patting the ground beside him. “Sit down here. Naught to do but settle in to wait. They’ll nae be long now.”

“You hope,” Holly commented. She did sit though and was surprised when Duncan lifted his arm and offered his chest and shoulder to her.

“Warmer here against me, will it nae be?”

She was sure it would be. Her initial reluctance, though, had little to do with any supposition that she wouldn’t be warmed, and it wasn’t about leaning into the dead man’s shirt Duncan now wore. Holly narrowed her eyes at him.

“Why are you being nicer today—hardly frowning at all—when you couldn’t bother with any civility yesterday, or the day before, even though that was your wedding day?” She asked.

“I dinna ken you then,” was his very straightforward reply.

“And you do now?”

“Enough to ken you are deserving of more than....more than my scowls.”

Holly briefly grinned, but only because with that revelation, his scowl had actually returned.

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