Chapter 19
Cressida groaned and rolled over in the bed, opening her eyes slightly, her heart jumping as she saw Ronan in the doorway. Behind him was a beast, though. Twice the size of a grizzly, fangs dripping drool that glistened in the sunlight coming through the window.
The monster loomed closer to him, paws the size of wagon wheels coming up, claws as white as pearls and as sharp as daggers protruding and swiping through the air.
She tried to call out to him, she tried to scream and let him know that he was going to be hurt, but it was too late; she couldn’t save him.
Her world went black. It felt like she was swimming in the deepest part of the river right after a storm. Her body was tossing and turning. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think straight.
As she tried to paddle upward, she realized her feet were still on the ground. She let out a scream, hoping someone would hear her, but there was nothing but the darkness surrounding her. She was alone. She didn’t know where she was; she wasn’t even sure who she was.
All she knew was that she had to get out of there.
Putting one foot in front of the other felt like heaving anvils. Each step she took was worse than the last. Her legs were in pain, she was out of breath, and every time she tried to take another step, she was only met with more of the same. Darkness and a sense that she was hopelessly lost.
“Etta!” she screamed, her voice cracking, her throat growing sore. “Etta, where are you?”
The darkness started to fade, but it was worse this time.
Fire, so much fire. Splintered wood. Screams. The smell of smoke and ash singed her nose.
She took a deep breath, but it was a mistake, forcing her to cough up what looked like black tar. She dropped to her knees, clawing at the ground, but smoke was clouding her vision, blurring it, burning her eyes, and making them water.
“Etta!” she screamed, sounding like a wounded animal on the verge of death, filled with terror.
“Hush,” a soft voice whispered, and it felt like there was a hand drifting across her head. “Calm down. It’s only a dream brought on by the fever.”
She tried to reach for the hand, wanted to hold onto it. The hand was gone, though. Another touch came, pressure at her fingers, in the palm of her hand, but when she tried to grab it, there was nothing there.
“It’s going to be okay,” another voice said, but this one was deeper, more masculine. “It’s all just a dream. I know it’s scary, but you have to hold on. It’s going to be over before you know it, and everything is going to be just fine.”
Nothing felt like it was going to be fine.
She tried to say that to the voices, but no sound came out.
It felt like there was a hand wrapped around her throat.
It squeezed tighter and tighter. She tried to claw at it, to take the hand away, but there was nothing she could do. It was stuck there. She had no voice.
Letting out a whimper, she sank to the ground, letting the heavy feeling take her. There was nothing else she could do. She was lost.
***
“Do you think she’s going to wake up soon?” a deep voice asked, a glancing touch pressing over her forehead before something else took her wrist, pressing gently and holding for a moment.
“I don’t know,” a woman said. “I know she’s going to be asleep for a while since her body needs to heal, but it seems odd that she hasn’t woken once since this morning when you were with her. It’s nearly suppertime.”
“Well, she was thrashing around earlier, so if nothing else, she’s at least trying to fight whatever is going on inside her. We just have to be patient.”
“I don’t know how much more patient I can be,” the woman said, her voice sounding like it broke a little. “I’ve never seen her this sick. Never.”
“We’re going to get through this. I’ll sit here with another cold compress. Why don’t you make her some more broth? We can try to get her to eat again the next time she’s awake.”
There were soft footsteps that whispered over the floor, the sound of a door shutting. Cressida tried to turn her head in the direction of the voices and the footsteps, but she couldn’t.
It was like her entire body was being weighed down.
And she felt too warm. She hadn’t felt it before, but now that she was trying to focus on everything going on around her, she could feel the fire coursing through her veins.
The footsteps grew louder again after who knows how many minutes passed. Cressida certainly couldn’t tell. She fought to open her eyes, but they still wouldn’t budge.
“I’ve got the broth for her.” The woman sounded like she had been crying, her voice thick. “Do you think she’s going to be able to wake up long enough to eat?”
“I’ll wait here until she does.”
“I want to stay with you.” The woman sniffled. “I wish I could do something to make this go away faster.”
“I know. I do too, but it’s going to be fine. We just have to hold on a little longer. Cressida is strong. She’s going to be able to fight this off. It’s a good thing that she’s resting so much. It means that her body is forcing her to slow down so she can heal.”
The woman sniffled again. “I don’t know if I could do this on my own. Thank you for going out and chopping more wood. And for being here.” The woman paused for a moment, letting out a deep breath. “You care for her, don’t you?”
The man said something in response, but it sounded like water was running in Cressida’s ears, and she couldn’t make out any more of what they were saying, even when she tried to focus.
Cressida wanted to wake up and tell them that they didn’t have to be patient, that she was right there. She didn’t know who they were, though. She didn’t know if she was going to be fine either. The people with her sounded worried, like there was something deeply wrong with her.
She sighed and tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t. There was a heavy feeling at the back of her mind that dragged her under again.
When she opened her eyes again, Ronan was in the room with her, sunlight filtering through the window. He sat beside her bed with a book in his hand, but he wasn’t reading. His eyes found hers immediately.
“You’re awake,” he said, his voice soft and low as he pulled his chair closer to the bed.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, trying to force the words out through her dry throat. It felt like she had swallowed a mouthful of crushed glass.
“You’re running a high fever. I don’t know when it’s going to break, but we’re trying to bring it down. Etta is making you some more broth.”
Cressida nodded, but if she was being honest, she heard the words, but they barely made sense.
Ronan put his book to the side and grabbed a glass of water. One of his hands slipped behind her back, sending tingles running through her body, or was that a chill? She couldn’t be certain as he helped her drink the water.
When he eased her back down, the heavy feeling was pounding in her head again. Her vision got a little hazy around the corners, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had been that tired. Yawning, she nestled back into the pillows, closing her eyes.
Cressida sat beneath the old oak tree near the barn, a notebook open in her lap, her pen loaded with ink as she worked through the lessons she had planned for her students.
It was going to be a new year for school, and she couldn’t wait to settle back into the familiar routine.
It would still be a while before the boys came back to school—not until the winter—but there would be the girls and all the little boys too young to work on the ranches and farms with their parents.
“What’re you doing?” Ronan asked, his voice deep and smooth as he walked over to her, Diver tagging along at his heels, the pink tongue lolling out of the side of the dog’s mouth.
“Lesson plans.” Cressida tapped the tip of her pen against the paper, leaving little ink splotches where it tapped.
“I read some new books over the last month or so that should integrate well into everything I want to teach the children this year, so I thought it would be good to work on plans to go along with them.”
Ronan sat down beside her, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back, bracing himself on his hands.
“It’s going to be a good year. The ranch is coming along nicely.
You’re going on your fifth anniversary of teaching at the school.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve gotten the life we wanted. ”
Cressida put a hand on the soft swell of her stomach. “I’m going to have to take a bit more time off once the baby is here.”
“We’ll get it all figured out, but whatever happens, you’re going to be able to keep teaching.”
Ronan turned that warm smile on her, the one that always made her heart skip a beat, the one that had been charming her since the moment he started to open up to her all those years ago.
Ronan reached out, linking his pinky with hers and bringing her hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it gently. “It’s going to be a busy school year for you. I heard some of the children talking in town today, and all of them are eager to be back with you.”
Cressida wrote down another one of the books she wanted to teach, giving the ink a second to dry before closing the notebook. “I miss them, too. By the end of the year, it always feels like I need a break, but then I spend that first day off and all the ones after it missing the children.”
“And that’s what I love the most about you,” Ronan said, leaning in and brushing his lips over hers. “You care for each and every one of those children as if they were your own.”
Cressida smiled, leaning in for another kiss, her lips slanting against his, her heart racing faster and faster. Even after all these years, there was still a little flutter that ran through her each time they kissed. She hoped the feeling was never going to go away.
Though she was pretty sure it wouldn’t, when she fell in love with him more each day.