At last there was only his gift on the table. He picked it up and knelt down beside the little girl. "Meggie, I would've given this to you sooner," he said, "if I hadn't gotten hurt. If I'd known... known it was safe."
Slipping out his knife, he snapped the thongs then put the buckskin-wrapped gift in the child's small hands. Slowly Meggie unfolded the soft bit of hide, revealing what lay beneath.
He heard Ashleen's soft cry and the children's gasps as Meggie stared, transfixed, at faded yarn hair and a raggedy cloth face whose features had been loved away long ago.
"That's Meggie's doll." Shevonne glared at him, accusing. "You said you had to burn it up."
"Yeah, or she'd get sick!" Renny added, his eyes stormy. "She's been lookin' all over—"
"I know." Garret felt heat steal along his cheekbones as he glanced at Ashleen's stunned expression. "I just... I couldn't do it. Decided to keep it in my bedroll, see if—if I got sick."
Hell, he was babbling. How could he explain that he'd stood over the fire almost an hour, the doll in his hands? How could he tell them how hard he'd tried to add the doll to the flames, telling himself it was for the good of them all? And those days when they had all shunned him as if he were Judas the Betrayer—how he'd wanted to tell them that he was doing his best to restore Meggie's treasure to her as soon as he was able.
Three weeks. He'd promised himself he'd wait three weeks to see if he took sick. He'd cursed himself for a fool time and time again as he'd waited for the chills of fever to overtake him. And after the accident, hell, he had been in so damn much pain, he wouldn't have been able to tell if he'd been dying of cholera.
But as the days had passed, and he had healed, he'd begun to hope that maybe Ashleen had been right—that whatever Meggie had suffered from didn't cling like an invisible poison to the plaything the child loved so fiercely.
"You never told me," Ashleen's soft voice broke in. "Never told any of us."
"Didn't want to raise anyone's hopes in case things didn't work out. Thought Meggie could've worked through some of her grieving, not have to start afresh if I had to destroy it in the end."
He knelt down beside the child, brushing her cheek tentatively with his fingers. There were tears on the little girl's face, her lips trembling.
Garret's gut clenched. "I want you to know I took real good care of her for you, Meggie-girl," he said in a strained voice. "Kept it safe."
A sound came from the child's lips, so soft that Garret thought he'd imagined it. Whatever he had been going to say died in his throat as Meggie turned her lost-angel face up to his, those melting dark eyes shimmering with tears.
She reached up, pressing her soft hand against Garret's beard-stubbled jaw,
"Th-thank you." Her rosy lips struggled to form the word. "Thank you, Mr. God."
"M-Meggie? Sweet Christ, Meggie?" he choked out. He grabbed the little girl up in his arms, whirling her around. A ragged sound, half sob, half laughter, rose inside him and burst free.
The other children crowded around, whooping and hugging one another while Ashleen stood with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Ash, did you hear her?" Garret called out. "Did you?"
"Tight," Meggie's muffled protest sounded against Garret's chest. "Too tight, Mr. God."
"Meggie, don't be a gudgeon! He ain't God," Renny began, but Ash quickly hushed him to silence.
"Renny's right. I'm not God, baby." Garret sank onto a keg, cuddling the little girl in his arms.
"Are so God. Said yourself."
Garret had the grace to flush. "You probably heard me... well, swearing, darlin'. It's a bad habit I've been trying to break."
Pink lips pursed into a pout, her delicate dark brows crinkling together. "Said am God when you 'frew 'way the rockin' chair. You said so. You did." Her lip trembled, and Garret could feel her stiffen.
An odd sensation swept through him, as though he were wandering on a river at thawing, waiting to plunge through dark ice. He was afraid, afraid of saying the wrong thing, of somehow jeopardizing this precious gift.
"That was a mistake, sweetheart. Tell her, Ash."
"Garret, don't you see?" Ash breathed, sinking down beside them, feathering her hand across Meggie's dark hair. "That's why—why she followed you, why she looked at you that way. As if she were expecting miracles."
"Well, I don't have any to give." Garret felt the urge to thrust Meggie into her arms then quelled it. "I'm not—hell, I don't even think I believe in... in..."
Ashleen smiled at him, a smile that could light the way for a blind man. "You're holding a miracle in your arms, Garret MacQuade," she said. "Believe."
