Sometime during the night, she had nodded off completely and fell to the floor. She awoke in a fright and remained confused until she realized where she was. Giving up her seat, she curled up on the floor in front of the waning fire.
Woeful moans floated to her ears. She willed her tired lids to open and blinked. She sat up and scooted away from the noise. Clearing the sleep from her mind, she focused on the form lying on a bed.
He flung his head from side to side and called out.“Aingeal.”
Abby guessed he was speaking in Gaelic. Had he said angel?I wish.At least if she were an angel, she could fly herself right back to her time, to her family home, to her brother and sisters.
Rubbing her eyes, she returned to the bed and, as if in a sleep-induced trance, brought the chair close to him, sat down, and began wiping his warm face.
He kept ranting, sometimes in Gaelic, sometimes in archaic English, but always the word “angel” was interspersed in his ravings.
Drained and exhausted, she had somehow fallen asleep with her head on her folded arms on the bed. She opened her eyes, and they felt as if someone had poured sand into them.
The dawn heralded a bleak gray light into the room from the open windows, and she remembered where she was and with whom. She sat up and placed her hand on his forehead. It was warm but not feverish.
The dolt had tried to roll onto his injured side. His left leg was over his right, but his upper back was still against the bed and his face was contorted in pain. Abby pushed his legalongside the other one.
She pressed him into the bed. “Don’t move! Do you want to make it so this thing never heals?”
She hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but if she didn’t manage his wound properly, the risk of infection was high. Abby just wanted, no, needed him to get well so she could leave and find the orb. Every moment there increased her chances of being discovered by the English, but she wasn’t going to leave him, not until he could take care of himself. She would never be able to live with herself if she did.
During that first day, the sword injury began to look better. The surrounding redness had lessened, and it looked clean. He must have been an extremely fit man, because his body healed faster than she could have thought possible.
However, he was still weak from the blood loss, or some other hurt Abby hadn’t found—she didn’t know. He moaned, slept, and smiled at her at different times.
She would have liked to believe the smiles were really for her, but she figured he was probably delirious with pain.
Sometimes those smiles took in her whole being. Her heart fluttered when his intense gaze held hers for a moment and then traveled down the length of her body and back up to her eyes, where his smile often shifted to a twitch of humor, and she glared at him for laughing at her. But at other times, her heart nearly stopped beating at the menace that grew along his tight mouth and settled in the darkening green specks in his brown orbs.
She alternated between wondering if he was ogling her, chuckling at her, or if he meant to do her great harm. In the latter moments, she hoped he was delirious.
It didn’t matter. For better or worse, he was in her care. However, if his look turned mean and she was certain he would live without her aid, she would leave before he had the strength to chase after her.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since Garrett’s dinner. She took stock of what she had. Water. Maybe she could make a soup of sorts. She ventured outside and scoured the ground for something she could use. The heavy rain had ceased, but in its place, a persistent drizzle fell from the sky. She wondered if the sun ever came out in Scotland.
A noise she couldn’t name sounded to her left. She halted and held her breath. Turning her head slowly in the direction of the sound, she started as a rabbit hopped into her line of sight.
It froze, and they stared at one another for a moment before the rabbit bounded off across the field.
Abby let out a laugh, thankful it was just an animal and not the English army.
Wild mushrooms grew in abundance, but uncertain which were poisonous, she decided not to pick them and went back into the cabin to search for anything they might eat.
After taking the damp vest off and laying it before the fire, Abby pulled everything out of the crate and collected another, smaller rolled-up blanket. She quickly unrolled it and found, to her delight, two loaves of stale but not moldy bread and a chunk of cheese. The owners must have been planning to come back for the box. Maybe they still would, and if they did, what would they make of her and the wounded man? She preferred not to find out.
Not wanting to linger there any longer, she wished he would wake up. She wantedto recover the orb, and he needed somewhere safer to stay.
Folding a cold wet cloth, Abby bent over to place it on his forehead.
He grabbed her hand and brought her fingers to his mouth, kissing them. “Thank ye.”
Her breath hitched, and all she could do was stare at his lips, open enough to glimpse his surprisingly white teeth. His lips stretched into a smile, and she realized she was staring. She darted her gaze to his.
Those clear brown eyes were smiling at her. Was he laughing at her? She whipped her shaking hand away and sat back in the chair, gazing at the cloth in her hands.
He cleared his throat. “Water?”
That was a good sign. Abby jumped up and poured some cooled boiled water into a mug and held it to his lips. He drank thirstily.
