9
Something crashed, waking Cord from a dead sleep. It sounded like a bomb had gone off.
His head was pounding and felt as if it was stuffed with cotton, but he pushed out of his bed anyway.
The sun was coming up outside, but the hall was shadowed. Where had the crash come from? Outside? Or in?
Had something happened to Molly?
He knocked on her door. Heard a woof and scrabbling paws on the wood floor.
"Molly?"
Through the throbbing in his skull, he thought he heard her crying.
"Are you okay?" he asked through the door. "Answer me, or I'm coming in."
There was a snuffle and then, "I'm okay. Bad dream."
He rested his forearm against the wall. A bad dream. Had she knocked over a lamp or something? Caught in the hazy place between sleep and waking, he'd thought the noise had come from outside.
Should he wait for her? His pounding head demanded more Tylenol.
And the sun was coming up, which meant he needed to get moving.
It was a struggle to dress. Each step down the stairs struck a spike of pain through his skull. He was alternately hot and chilled. He must've come down with something.
Grandma Mackie hadn't allowed for sick days. He couldn't afford to either.
He hit the kitchen and, for a moment, stared dumbfounded at the scene outside the window. Ice covered everything. The sun was weak but bright enough to cause blinding pain in his head as it glared off of everything.
The pond would be frozen over, which meant he'd need to break the ice for the cattle.
But all he really wanted to do was go back to bed.
Molly and the dog came downstairs. She let the animal outside and went straight to the coffeemaker.
"Sorry I woke you," she said softly.
He squinted against the pain in his head and really looked at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She'd definitely been crying. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, and the sweatshirt she wore was so big that the sleeves hung below her hands.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She nodded jerkily. "Having the dog helped. Really. I haven't slept that good since..." She shrugged and let the sentence hang.
Except she'd had a nightmare that had scared her so badly she'd woken crying.
"Thanks for letting me keep him." She finally looked up at him and frowned. "Oh my gosh, you look—" Her eyes went wide as she cut herself off. "Are you sick?"
He was going to shake his head, but with his temples pounding, he was afraid to make it worse. "It's just a headache."
She moved closer. "I don't think so. You're flushed."
She reached up and laid her palm against his cheek. Her hand was cool and soft.
It was the first timeshe'dtouchedhim.
He felt it like the beat of a gong, even though he might as well have been swimming through sludge.
