He wouldn’t take the medicine today. He’d face the pain and fight through it.
The sound of quiet voices drifted from the kitchen, and he hobbled that direction. He needed something—anything—to occupy his mind besides his own frustration.
Mrs. Wang glanced up from where she sat beside a basket of mending, her dark eyes immediately filling with that careful concern he’d grown to hate. “James, dear, you should be resting that leg.”
“I’ve rested enough.” The words came out sharper than he’d intended, and Rose’s head turned from where she sat across the kitchen table, something that looked like a shirt spread before her.
The sight of her bent over needlework in their kitchen should have soothed something in his chest, but instead it only reminded him of everything he couldn’t do. Couldn’t ride out to check the stock. Couldn’t help his brothers with the horses. Couldn’t even walk across a room without looking like a decrepit old man.
“I need something to do with my hands.” He resettled himself on the walking sticks, trying to find a position that didn’t shoot pain through his knee. “Something useful.”
Mrs. Wang exchanged a look with Rose that made his jaw clench. He was twenty years old, not some child to be managed and coddled.
“Well.” Mrs. Wang turned back to her basket. “We were just finishing up the mending for today, but if you’d like to try your hand at stitching, there are some small gowns for Mandie’s baby that need hemming.”
Baby clothes. They wanted him to sit here sewing tiny garments while his brothers handled the real work of running the ranch. The image of himself hunched over delicate infant clothing, needle trembling in his big clumsy fingers, made something hot and bitter rise in his throat.
Rose bit her lip, and her shoulders shook slightly. She was trying not to laugh at him. The realization sent heat flooding through his chest—not the pleasant warmth he’d felt holding her in the cave yesterday, but something sharper and far more humiliating.
“You know I can’t do…” He gestured vaguely at the delicate needlework spread across the table.
Rose looked up at him, and there was definitely amusement dancing in those green eyes. “Isn’t there something you’ve been wanting to get done around the house? Or maybe in the barn?”
The barn. Of course there were always things that needed doing in the barn, but most of them required two good legs and the ability to move without these blasted sticks.
“There’s always wood to chop.” He spoke harsher than he’d meant to, but the image of swinging an ax, of doing something that required actual strength and skill, made his muscles ache with longing.
Rose’s expression shifted, the amusement fading into concern. “That’s probably not a good idea yet. Not with your leg.”
Of course it wasn’t. Nothing he wanted to do was a good idea anymore. He was trapped in this house like some parlor ornament while real men did real work outside.
He was being ill-tempered and petty. Yet between the pain in his leg and the thought of his brothers working out in the weather while he lay in bed, he couldn’t seem to fix his rotten mood.
“Guess I can hang those shelves in the barn.” He turned and started toward the front door.
As he stopped to pull on a coat, hat, and gloves, Rose’s steps sounded behind him. “Mind if I come out too? I’d like a bit of fresh air.”
He spun to gauge her expression. Those brows lifted sheepishly—almost hopefully—showed his suspicion was right. She wanted to come out and watch over him like a nursemaid.
“I don’t need you to coddle me.” He growled the words as he pulled on his last glove and reached for the door.
“Good. I wasn’t planning to.” Rose’s pert tone nearly made him pause.
But he resisted the urge to look back again and pushed through the doorway. If only he could stride across the porch and down the steps. The best he could do was hobble to the edge and turn sideways as he took one careful step at a time, each jarring movement shooting fresh pain through his leg.
Rose waited through his slow progress, but he didn’t look back at her. Didn’t want to see whatever expression she wore—pity, concern, or worse, that barely suppressed amusement he’d caught in the kitchen.
The barn loomed ahead, its familiar bulk offering the promise of honest work, something that might make him feel like a man instead of an invalid.
Inside, the familiar scents of hay and horses usually soothed his restless energy. Today they only reminded him of all the work he couldn’t do. He made his way toward the back wall where the leftover lumber was stacked, each step on the walking sticks a painful undertaking.
“Has there been a fire here?” Rose’s voice carried a note of surprise as she stepped into the barn behind him.
James glanced up from the lumber stack, following her gaze to the newer timbers that formed the frame above them. “Early summer. Lightning strike during a bad storm.” The memory of that night still tightened his chest—the smell of smoke, the frantic race to save the horses, the sick certainty that they might lose everything their father had built. And then Enoch’s injury. “We got the animals out, but lost half the structure.”
Rose moved closer, her fingers trailing along one of the replacement beams. “This new section looks like it will last forever.”
“That’d be nice.” He shifted the walking sticks to ease the pressure under his arms. “Been meaning to get proper organization back in here since, but there’s always something more urgent needing attention.”
