“It’s nice.” Too nice, really. She could get a little too used to feeling Yuri’s arms around her.
She’d longed for this very thing more than once before she’d been injured. Now he was here doing it as her husband—a husband she couldn’t keep. “You don’t have to stay, though. I’m sure there are other things you should be doing.”
“Taking care of you is my priority. Everything else can wait.” He smoothed another strand of hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, then nuzzled his face into the hair hanging wild and free behind her.
She pressed her eyes shut and relaxed into him. She could stay like this forever, curled in Yuri’s arms and letting the heat from his body seep into her back. It made her feel like she was the most cherished, protected person in the world.
And it made her wonder how she was going to be able to watch the person who made her feel so cherished walk out of her life after he took her to Texas.
Washington Coast; One Night Later
“I can’t breathe... Let me go. I can’t breathe!”
Yuri sat upright on the pallet where he’d been sleeping on the floor of the cabin.
“Please, you have to let me go.”
“Rosalind?” Yuri looked in the direction of the bed, but inky blackness filled the ship’s cabin.
A weak cry sounded next.
He threw off his covers and stood. “Rosalind, what’s wrong?”
Panicked breathing met his words, followed by the rustle of sheets and the thump of a hand hitting the wooden headboard.
“No— Please— Stop—I can’t breathe. Let go of me! I can’t breathe!”
Yuri felt his way toward the bed in the darkness, then reached out, blindly trying to find his wife. “Rosalind?”
She was facing the opposite direction, hunched in on herself as sobs shook her shoulders.
“Ros?” He gave her a gentle shake. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Did something happen?”
She jerked, and the sudden movement was followed by an immediate whimper. “Yuri?”
“What’s wrong, darling? Are you in pain?”
“I was having a nightmare.” Tears clogged her voice. “Did I wake you? I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind being woken. Do you need anything? Is there something I can get you? I can go down to the kitchen and brew some willow-bark tea if you’re in pain.”
“No.” She clasped his hand, and only then did he realize she was trembling. “No. Don’t leave. Please.”
“I won’t. Here, let me onto the bed. You can rest your back against my chest until the pain calms down.” He climbed onto the bed and lay down, just like he had yesterday during the storm.
“How do you know I’m in pain?” she whispered into the darkness.
“How you were moving had to have jarred things. Was it that bad of a dream?”
She seemed to be crying an awful lot for a nightmare, especially one that had ended.
He wrapped an arm over her lower stomach, then slid his body fully behind hers so she didn’t have to move.
But she didn’t relax into him, not like last time. She stayed stiff and tense in his arms. “I’m sorry. You said we’re passing Seattle tonight. I know I’m in a ship, and I know Leeland’s not going to row out and get me, but I...”
She’d been dreaming about Leeland? He wrapped his arm more tightly about her. “You kept saying you couldn’t breathe.”
“I did?”
