Page 37 of When the Sky Breaks

“And we’re keeping it?” Ansel shot me a puzzled glance.

“We are keeping it,” I agreed. “Now deal with the corpse. Her fever’s up, and I need a fire for yarrow tea and a place for her to lay down.”

“Place for her to lay down,” Milkweed repeated.

“Maybe I like you after all,” I muttered to the tiny cryptid as I helped Sorcha to her feet.

Ansel dragged the corpse through the storm out into the scrub. He left it at the top of a nearby hill, surrounded by brush, a likely spot for a lightning strike and an easy one for vultures and carrion birds to reach the body—it was the closest thing we could manage to a burial as the derecho bore down on us.

I spent the night leaned against the chapel wall, with Sorcha curled against my chest, diligently pressing mugs of yarrow tea to her lips every time she roused enough to sip. Milkweed hopped around for hours, repeating near everything I said, then eventually tucked himself into Sorcha’s dress pocket and fell asleep, only his ears peeking up above the muslin.

By morning the dry heat radiating from Sorcha’s skin had faded, albeit barely, and she was flushed and sweating again.

“Alright,” I said, dumping my saddlebags on a cleared patch of the floor and shoving the chapel doors closed behind Ansel as he went to cook breakfast in the remaining drizzle. “Clothes off. Bath. Now.”

Sorcha stared at the tub of runoff I’d hauled in from the wash earlier like it was poison.

“I’m fine, Neal,” she insisted. “I’ll just get some food, and if we rotate horses I can sleep in the saddle behind you and . . .”

“You smell like sweat and fever,” I cut her off. “Get the dress off and get in the tub.”

“That’s romantic and complimentary.” She rolled her eyes. I fought down the ghost of a smile as relief flooded through me—she felt well enough to be sarcastic, that was reassuring.

“You didn’t disagree with me,” I replied. “Now come here.”

“But”—she crossed her arms around herself—“I don’t . . . you haven’t . . .”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath—silently reminding myself that this inconvenient wave of awkwardness and modesty could more than likely be traced to my own failings in the first weeks after our marriage, my refusal of intimacy, the mistrust and discomfort that had generated.

“Sorcha, I held you half naked in the river for hours two nights ago,” I finally said. “You slept on my chest all night. It’s fine. We’re married. That’s my baby, in case you forgot.”

“But . . .” she tried to protest, but I didn’t let her finish.

Instead I changed tactics. “You can’t convince me you don’t want your first real bath in what, seven weeks now? You have to want your hair properly clean.”

She glared at me for a long moment, still and silent, before she finally got to her feet and turned around so I could reach the buttons down the back of her dress.

“Please.”

“Good girl,” I murmured, unfastening the buttons, hands lingering on her bare skin beneath. A soft, half-choked sound escaped her lips as my thumb traced over her shoulder and I dipped my head to kiss the nape of her neck. I wasn’t about to let anything remotely intimate feel transactional or procedural, never again. I helped her into the tub, winced as she shivered, and wished I had a way to make this awful trip more comfortable. As she settled in the water, I unbound her hair and smoothed water over her dusty, near-matted curls. Milkweed hopped out from the pocket of Sorcha’s discarded apron, thumped his back leg and said, “Cleanliness is next to godliness” in a voice I’d never heard. Sorcha chuckled.

I leaned down and kissed her cheek, elated to finally see her smiling, and cupped water over her face, washing away the tracks of fever sweat and last night’s tears.

“You’re fussing a lot,” she said.

“I’m making up for lost time,” I told her, leaning in and kissing her forehead.

“I think I like it.” She cracked a smile.

“I think I love you,” I said gently.

She paused, smile growing. “You love me?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I love you. And I’m sorry again that I was an idiot who didn’t know how to say it.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “Now what can I do to make this better?”

“My back really is bad . . .” She trailed off. “And . . .”

“It’s stupid. Never mind.”