Chapter Twenty-Two
“Drina?”
For a moment, Alexandra thought it was Lisa who had said her pet name. But that couldn’t be right—the voice was far too deep. How would Aidan know about that? she thought, right on the edge of a dream.
Alexandra snorted herself awake, her arms flailing as she nearly leaped to her feet. Her head spun, still thick with sleep, and she teetered before sitting back down heavily. She had meant only to sit on the porch a moment, to keep watch for Danny.
Blearily, she reached under her spectacles and rubbed at her eyes, unsure if she was still dreaming, for it was Aidan that was standing over her. His face was drawn with concern, his dark eyes peering closely at her. The light from the front window threw his features into sharp relief.
“Oh,” she said, suppressing a yawn. “You’re here.”
“You sent for me,” he answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Danny said it was a matter of some urgency.”
Alexandra stood, steadier on her feet this time. Aidan reached out and gently touched her elbow, making sure she could stand. She didn’t immediately pull away, trying instead to shake the fog of sleep from her mind.
He had called her Drina. Nobody called her that but Lisa. Alexandra turned it over, waiting to be angry, and wasn’t.
“It’s Lisa,” she said. “She’s getting worse—I think we’ll need to send for the doctor.”
Aidan’s hand went to his vest pocket for a moment as if feeling for something. He looked at her, then nodded slowly. “All right,” he said. “Why don’t we wait and see if she can make it through the night?”
Alexandra, busy pinning her hair into some semblance of order, paused, a pin clamped between her lips. She pulled it out of her mouth. “You can’t be serious,” she said.
“Just hear me out,” Aidan said, holding up his hands. “The doctor isn’t apt to ride out here in the middle of the night. It would be safer for everyone if we just wait a few hours.”
“Safer for everyone except Lisa,” Alexandra shot back, her voice heated.
“That’s not—” Aidan started.
Alexandra turned on her heel, ready to storm back into the house.
Aidan caught her by the elbow again, his grip firmer this time.
“Hold it,” he said, his tone flinty. “That’s not what I meant.
I just want us to be certain that it’s necessary.
She’s your aunt, so naturally you’re worried for her,” he continued, his voice softening.
“I don’t want to worry her with unnecessary poking and prodding from the sawbones. ”
Alexandra glared at Aidan for a long moment. There was logic to what he said, which only annoyed her further. She ground her teeth, then exhaled slowly through her nose.
“Very well,” she said grudgingly.
“Come on,” Aidan said, turning her gently toward the door and ushering her inside. “You’re tired. Let me take a turn watching over her.”
“I am not,” Alexandra argued, though the yawn she struggled to swallow did her no favors.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate,” Aidan said soothingly, like she was a child. “You just take a turn sitting downstairs. I’ll call for you if anything is amiss.”
Grumbling to herself, Alexandra shuffled into the living room. The children were waiting for her, their faces anxious. She straightened up, ready to put on a false smile for them. Then she caught sight of Danny, his face dusty from his ride, and changed course.
“You all should really be in bed,” Alexandra said.
“Can’t we just stay up a little longer?” Bella wheedled. “We’re not tired at all.”
Gary rubbed at his eyes and tried mightily to hide a yawn under the guise of just stretching.
Alexandra pursed her lips, not buying any of it.
Danny, shuffling from foot to foot, glanced up the stairs, and Alexandra understood immediately: they weren’t trying to stay up late for the fun of it; they were afraid of losing someone else.
Alexandra sighed. “Oh, very well,” she said. “You must all ready yourselves for bed, but you may stay downstairs with me. We’ll all keep each other company.”
“Would you read to us?” Bella asked, clasping her hands together in a pleading gesture.
“If you can all agree on a book,” Alexandra allowed.
While the children dashed off to wash faces and put on their nightshirts, Alexandra sat down on the sofa before the hearth. Aidan lingered for a moment. Whatever he meant to say, he shoved his hands in his pockets instead and headed up the stairs.
Alexandra heard a door open, then Aidan’s deep voice. “Evening, Miss Lisa,” he said politely. “I thought I might keep you company for a while.”
Lisa didn’t answer, which worried Alexandra more than anything else that evening. She bit her lip until it hurt, focusing on that pain rather than her anxiety.
The children stampeded back down the stairs all together. They arranged themselves around the living room: Danny in the armchair, his legs stretched out in front of him, Bella on the sofa with her legs in Alexandra’s lap, and Gary snuggled right up against Alexandra’s side.
Bella passed a book over, and Alexandra recognized it immediately: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One side of her mouth pulled up in a half-smile. Perhaps a little nonsense is a good thing just now, she reasoned to herself.
She opened the book and began to read. The fire in the hearth crackled warmly, casting orange light over all of them.
It was peaceful, the sort of scene that Alexandra had envisioned when she’d been on the train to Nevada all of those weeks ago.
The fact that it had come at such a high cost—the potential loss of her dearest aunt—was enough to make her want to scream.
Instead, she read on, even as the children’s eyes began to droop, their heads nodding down to their chests or resting heavily on Alexandra. She read and read, until she, too, was lost in the text. Her eyes began to feel heavy again, itchy with sleep.
She was just at the point of drifting off when there was the creak of a floorboard, as loud as a gunshot in the silent, sleeping house. Alexandra forced herself back awake, her ears straining. The floor upstairs creaked again, and then there were footsteps on the stairs.
Alexandra twisted her neck around as far as she could and caught a glimpse of Aidan padding lightly down the stairs, his boots in his hand. Gently, she slid out from under Bella’s legs, laying Gary down on the sofa as she did so.
“How is she?” Alexandra whispered the moment he was downstairs.
“She’s stopped coughing,” Aidan told her. “I don’t know much, but my pa always said that once they stop coughing but still have a fever, it’s not a good sign.”
A chill ran down Alexandra’s spine. “We need a doctor,” she said flatly.
“I’m going just this minute,” Aidan told her.
Quietly, he unlatched the front door and sat on the porch step to pull his boots on. Alexandra followed after him, at loose ends.
“Read a long time,” Aidan commented as he wriggled his foot into his tooled leather boot.
“And?” Alexandra said defensively.
“Seemed a silly sort of story. Cakes that make you grow? Rabbits with watches?” Aidan shook his head. “Don’t see the point of it, myself. Seems like nonsense.”
Alexandra, her nerves growing more and more frayed by the moment, rounded on Aidan the moment he stood up. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Some of us are capable of human feelings, and wish to escape them for a few moments.”
Aidan’s dark brows shot up his forehead. He rocked back on his heels, and then he did the most egregious thing he possibly could have: He grinned at her. The way he stood there, looking at her as if she were the most amusing thing he’d ever seen, was too much.
Her face grew warm, and she balled her hands into fists.
When she spoke, however, she kept her tone even, betraying none of the anger she felt.
“Have you ever wondered why it is that in the whole two months I’ve lived here, not a single neighbor has paid a call on us?
We’ve had no visitors, no well-wishers, nothing.
Not one soul has come to congratulate the newlyweds.
” She nearly spat the last word, her verbal composure cracking.
Aidan looked at Alexandra blankly, his face falling. Aidan looked at Alexandra blankly, his face falling.
Alexandra tossed her head, satisfied that she had the upper hand. “Shall I tell you why?” she said. “It’s because you are a miserable, smug man, with poor conversation and poorer manners. Obviously everyone else around here is wise to your act and is staying far away.”
Alexandra stared at Aidan, unaware of when she had started to breathe hard, but she was.
For a moment, there was only her anger. Then, little by little, she began to realize what she had said.
Her face flushed anew, with embarrassment this time.
Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to entirely regret it. Defiant, she kept her chin held high.
Something shifted in Aidan’s eyes as he held her gaze. It was a look she’d never seen on his face before, and she could not make it into anything but hurt. Without a word, he turned and began the trek down to the barn for a horse.
As he stepped down off the porch, Alexandra raised a hand for a moment as if to stop him.
She snatched her hand back, curling it into a fist, which she pressed against her chest. She let him go, watching as he disappeared into the dark without so much as a lantern to see by.
She watched him until she couldn’t make him out anymore.
After several minutes, he reappeared with a horse and a lantern slung onto the saddle.
It was dangerous to ride at night, and Alexandra numbered the reasons in her head: the horse could step in a hole, wild dogs or wolves could be prowling…
or men could be out prowling, too. She swallowed back images of men in masks, brandishing revolvers.
He swung up into the saddle and urged the horse onward, the lantern making an oblong pool of light on the path in front of him. It receded down the road, the only sign of him becoming a pinpoint in the distance. It was like a star had fallen from the sky and was bumbling along toward town.
Alexandra bit her lip again, her fingernails digging into her palm. She tore her gaze away from the road at last—she needed to see to her aunt.
Still, as she climbed the stairs with heavy legs, she couldn’t help but wonder if Aidan would return; she couldn’t entirely blame him if he didn’t.