Their gazes met. “What do you propose?”
Best not say it. Better to wipe the possibility from her mind. “I need to finish cleaning you up.” She touched the vinegar to the cut on his cheek.
He flinched. “I could carry him to your room for you.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Not in your condition.” She wrinkled her nose at the smell of the liquid and continued to dab away.
More vinegar and more winces until she finished with his face.
The shutters rattled. The wind. Nothing but the wind. Still, her heart pattered.Dear Lord, please look after us…
She wrung out the rag. Ben didn’t stir. Surely, he hadn’t gone to sleep too. She touched his undershirt’s torn collar, close to where his pulse throbbed. His eye opened.
She bit her lip. “The warrior hit your chest pretty hard, and your stomach. I should check?—”
“Never mind.” He latched onto her hand. “I can take care of the rest.”
“Of course.” Her cheeks heated. “I can go into the other room and leave you with the basin.”
“It can wait until tomorrow. I’m sure it’s nothing but bruises.”
“Bruises can be serious.”
“Nothing water’s going to help. I’ll heal.” His gaze caressed her face as he slowly released her hand. “You never said if you were cold.”
“Shaken. That’s all.” Trembling. Hungry for the comfort of his arms. On the verge of throwing good sense out the window. “I’ll go get blankets and pillows.”
“For Charlie and me?”
The wind rattled the shutters again. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“All of us.”
All of us. Had she really said that? Ben gaped at her. In a flurry, she scurried across the threshold, scolding herself as she shuffled down the hall. No doubt she’d temporarily lost her mind. But she had no intention of sleeping in the back room by herself, jumping at every creak of the house.
In her room, she stripped her bed of its quilt, then dug in the cedar chest for a couple of blankets. Arms loaded and a trail of bedclothes dragging around her feet, she trudged back to the parlor.
By the time she returned, Ben had scooted Charlie onto the sofa and moved the end table with the cleaning and doctoring supplies off to the side.
He stood when she entered. “I’ll help with that.”
“No, you sit.” She dropped the blankets and pillows onto the center rug, heat crawling up her neck to her scalp. What in the world was she doing? “I’ll fix a bed for me and Charlie on the far side of the carpet, and one for you closer to the sofa. Just like when we camped out, except no stars, rocks, or critters.” She knelt and worked to create order out of the jumble.
He lowered himself down to the edge of the sofa. “You never can tell when there might be a critter around.”
Was he trying to make fun of her, or merely teasing her? His leg jiggled up and down. Obviously, ill at ease with her impropriety. If she had any sense, she’d snatch up a blanket for herself and go hide in her room.
“You probably think I’m ridiculous.” She smoothed her grandmother’s quilt across the top layer for her and Charlie, then stretched out her thickest bedcover as padding for where Ben would sleep.
He studied her for a moment. “I think you’re rattled like the rest of us. And no one needs to be alone tonight.”
“Thank you.” She extinguished the lamp as Ben moved Charlie to the side of her bedding closest to the middle of the carpet.
The soft glow of the hall lamp she’d lowered to half wick cast long shadows and saved them from inky darkness.
As Ben slipped his hands from beneath Charlie, the boy’s eyes flickered open, his pupils huge. “I want to stay with Ben.” He latched onto Ben’s ankle.
“Don’t worry.” Cora knelt on the other side of him. “We’re camping out in the parlor. Ben will be here.”
