“I can’t watch the baby.”
“Where is she?”
“Asleep, over there.” She tried to raise her arm. She sucked in a breath of pain and bit her lip.
“Where’s Lydia?”
“I sent her to get some more fruit.”
Theodore ran over to the flat trunk they used as a table and he picked up the bottle. “I can get Muddy out—”
“No!” Hank bellowed, then ran a hand through his hair. “I told you. Just leave that bottle alone.”
Theodore looked at Hank from a sulky face. “You don’t like Muddy.”
Hank didn’t say anything. He just spun around and strode toward the door.
“Hank!” Smitty called after him.
“I’ll be back!” He called out over a shoulder.
“Where are you going? Wait please! I can’t take care of Annabelle. I can’t even lift her!” Her voice was almost a moan.
He stopped in the doorway. “Stay here and help Smitty, kid. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
* * *
It wasa few hoursbefore Margaret could move without feeling as if her skin was going to burst.
A shadow loomed over her. “Feeling any better?” She looked up at Hank.
“Just ducky.”
He stood there looking like someone who thought his feet and hands were too big. He looked away for a tense moment, then turned back. “Did the stuff I gave you help?”
“Yes. It doesn’t hurt as much.”
He had came back to the hut a short time after he’d left, his arms filled with a thick waxy-leafed plant. He’d squeezed juice out of it and gave it to her to rub on her skin. Some concoction he said they used in the prison rock quarry when inmates got badly burned or exposed.
He gave her a long once-over look. “You need to go down to the beach.”
“Now there’s something I could use. A little more sunshine.”
“I’m trying to tell you what you should do.”
“Oh, forgive me, I forgot. I’m the woman. You’re the man. Please tell stupid little me what I should do.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and shook his head. “God but you can be a sarcastic b—”
“Don’t say it!” She held up her hand. “Don’t.”
“Oh, hell! I’m sorry, dammit!” He ran his hand through his hair, then jammed both his hands in his pockets and began to pace—all gestures that she had come to realize meant Hank Wyatt was feeling some uncomfortable emotion.
“Stealing my clothes was a cruel trick, Hank.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you’d go and get yourself sunburned?”
“I didn’t ‘go and get myself sunburned.’ I didn’t have any clothes.”
