Chapter 22 #3
Cassie bustled around the kitchen at about twice her normal speed, chattering about chickens and how much she liked eggs.
She occasionally asked his opinion on something, and it took Red about five minutes to catch on that he’d better have an answer right quick, but it’d better be a short one.
Her eyebrows would furrow, and she’d look nervously at him if he didn’t hold up his end of the conversation.
But if he answered more than a yes or no or “whatever you say,” she’d start talking right over top of him.
She was listening to him for the sound but she wasn’t really hearing anything he said.
He just humored her because he didn’t have any idea what else to do.
He took anything the least bit heavy out of her hands and moved it to wherever she had in mind. He stayed out of her way as best he could while she whirled from the table to the sink to the fireplace, preparing him a dinner he didn’t think he could begin to eat.
Red had been hovering nearby for nearly half an hour, watching her for the first sign of impending disaster—which Red assumed was inevitable—when she stopped her monologue to stiffen and hold her stomach.
The exact moment she started breathing hard, he stepped away from her because she’d been heading for the cooler with a bucket.
He’d taken it from her, almost resulting in a tug-of-war before she let it go.
He headed to the cooler to refill it. He glanced back at her and saw her gripping the back of a chair with whitened knuckles and staring blankly into space.
He dropped the bucket and dashed to her side and held her.
“Don’t touch me,” Cassie snarled.
Red jumped back as surely as if a rattler had attacked him.
Then her voice deepened almost to a growl. “Get your filthy hands off me.”
It was a voice he’d never heard come out of his submissive little wife before.
The minute he backed away, Cassie turned to him and grabbed him around the waist. She buried her face against his chest. “Hold me, please, Red.”
His head spinning, he cautiously wrapped his arms around her.
He kissed her silken hair softly, as he did when they slept side by side.
He rubbed her rigid shoulders. She moaned as if the touch were comforting.
Her stomach grew hard between them, and his heart ached as Cassie whimpered with distress and burrowed closer to him.
Since she seemed to like her shoulders rubbed, he slid one hand down her back and around to massage her taut belly.
“What are you doing?” She shrieked as though he’d tried to push her off a cliff. “Get your hands off me.” She shoved hard at his arm.
Pulling away from her, he stammered, “I’m…I’m sorry. I won’t touch you if you…”
A loud wail broke off his wretched apology. “You think I’m fat and ugly.” Cassie buried her face in both hands and sobbed as if she’d lost her best friend in the world.
“Cassie, no.” He stepped away from her. “I think you’re?—”
“Red!” She hurled herself back into his arms. “Don’t let me go. No matter what, never let me go.”
Red held his hands carefully out at his sides, afraid to touch her as she snuggled up against him. He slowly lowered his hands, ready to snatch them back at the first sign of trouble.
When his hands settled lightly around her waist, she whispered, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
He held her closer, careful to avoid her stomach, as that might have been the problem.
Gingerly, he moved with her to a chair and sat in it with her, as he had during her first pain.
He rubbed her back and made meaningless noises of comfort to her.
Thirty minutes down, twenty-three-and-a-half hours to go.
The worst-case example was Muriel’s daylong laboring. Red didn’t see any reason to hope for the best. He held her and rocked back and forth and prayed for divine intervention.
Suddenly, she shoved his arms away from her and stood briskly. “What are you thinking? I’ve got dinner to get on.” She hurried back to the fireplace.
Could his twisting stomach hold down even a single swallow? And would he make her angry if he refused to eat? Worse yet, would she start crying again?
She started humming softly while she worked.
His heart nearly melted with shock. She had been yelling at him and demanding that he do her bidding and do it right now. I’m finally meeting the real Cassie…except insane.
This was Cassie with all of her conditioned behavior stripped away.
Sassy and demanding and efficient and filling his home with music.
He’d been half in love with her since the first time he’d laid eyes on her, and his heart had softened to her right from the beginning of their marriage, but that hadn’t been love because now he knew what the real thing was.
Love, fierce like a lion defending its cubs, roared through him.
This Cassie was who he wanted, and he wasn’t going to settle for anyone else.
Maybe, just maybe, after the babe was born, she’d stay like she was right now, but there was little chance.
It would take time, but they had all the time in the world.
He’d dig this woman out of her shell if it took him the rest of his life.
Cassie grabbed at the heavy skillet hanging on a peg on the wall, and Red rushed to lift it for her. She whacked at his hands with a wooden spoon. “Don’t you have any chores to do outside?”
“I’m carrying this frying pan for you.” Red pried her fingers off it. “Now tell me where you want it.”
She fussed and scolded at him as she shooed him toward the fireplace.
Maybe they didn’t have all the time in the world. A man could die a hundred times, in a hundred different ways, in twenty-four hours.