She stood and fluffed his pillow as he eased back. His face twisted in a grimace, and he hissed out a breath as his body sank into the mattress. His eyelids lowered to half-mast, and his breathing lightened, like he was focusing on tiny inhales.
“Are your ribs hurting a great deal?” She pulled the quilts up over his legs.
“A little.” Soyes.
She settled the blankets at his middle, then stepped back to look over him. “Would you like a drink of water?”
He opened his eyes, taking her in. Then he lifted the side of the blanket to reveal the empty mattress on his good side. “Will you…stay with me?”
She glanced at the bed. He didn’t mean sit. He meant…lie with him. Everything in her wanted to fill that empty place, to snuggle into his side and let him hold her. To soak in his comfort. His strength. To be there for anything he might need.
They both wore clothes, and he was too hurt to do much but breathe. And theyweremarried, after all. It felt like much should be said before—or ratherif—they ever became married in the full sense of the word, but she wouldn’t deny him her presence.
For now, she would simply lie beside him.
Sampson must have thought her silence meant refusal, for he started to let the blanket fall back into place.
She stepped closer and took the cover from him. She needed to slip her own boots off first, a process which she fumbled her way through. Her pulse had picked up its pace again. Maybe she should just pull up a chair to sit beside him.
But her shoes were off now. She had to be careful not to lie where she would put pressure on his injuries. She sat and pulled her feet up onto the bed. This mattress was far too narrow for two grown people, especially when one of them possessed the broad shoulders of Sampson Coulter.
He held out his arm though. “Put your head on my shoulder.”
She obeyed, lying on her side with her temple resting on the solid bulk of his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her, settling his hand on the small of her waist. Cradling her in his strength.
She let her body relax, one breath at a time. She didn’t have enough room to put both her hands between them, so she moved one to rest on his chest. Up high, where hopefully it wouldn’t hurt his ribs.
Her pulse thrummed through her ears. But the longer she rested there, the more her body settled.
Sampson’s thumb stroked up and down the back of her arm. A slow steady rhythm that soothed her insides little by little.
But though her body relaxed, her mind refused to follow.
Images of her father flashed through her thoughts. That cold hatred in his eyes when he’d said she was no daughter of his. The rough way he’d gripped her wrists when he’d jerked her out of the stall. The raw burn of the rope as he tied her. Each image pulled the tears closer to the surface. Each memory ripped a new gash in her heart.
One tear slid free, scalding a path down her cheek to land on Sampson’s shirt. Then another. A ragged breath shuddered out of her chest. The tears she'd been holding back finally spilled over.
Her father was dead.
The man who was supposed to love and protect her had tried to kill her.
And now, he was gone forever.
Sampson's arm tightened around her, pulling her closer. He tucked her head under his chin. "I'm so sorry, Grace." His deep voice rumbled through his chest. "I'm here. I've got you."
She couldn't speak past the emotion in her throat, so she just nodded against him. Her fingers curled into his shirt, and quiet sobs shook her frame.
CHAPTER22
Sampson stood at the edge of the clearing, his good arm wrapped around Grace's slender waist as they gazed at the six freshly turned graves. The tiny mounds of earth seemed so small, so insignificant to mark the loss of a life.
Beside them, Dinah cradled baby Ruby close to her chest, her eyes red-rimmed. Around them, the rest of their family waited in reverent silence.
Sampson swallowed hard against the knot in his throat. Three days since the shootout that had taken Jedidiah and five of his men. Three days that felt like an eternity.
McPharland and his men had faded away, as Jess said he’d promised to do. Some of Two Stones braves found the stash of blasting powder—still useable, though that seemed hard to believe after so much travel and time in the snow.
For now, they’d decided to store it far enough away from the house that an accidental explosion couldn’t do damage. Maybe they’d stake a claim on the neighboring land where Two Stones had found the sapphires and start a new mine. It was far enough away that it would be hard to work from the main house.
