The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Cowboys of Chance Creek) (14 page)

“No.” She shook her head, knowing she had to do whatever it took to keep Ned lying down and resting. “How do I get up there?”

Ned groaned as
he listened to Fila’s tentative shoveling on the roof above his head. He couldn’t stand the thought of her up there doing such heavy work alone. He was the one that should be shoveling, while she remained safe and warm inside. Of all the stupid things he’d ever done, flipping his truck took the cake. He’d never live it down. If he got out of here. It worried him that that his leg could get infected—but not for his own sake. If it withered and fell off it would be his own damn fault. But if things got bad enough, Fila might try to make that hike out to the main road and that was dangerous—too dangerous.

Her shovel chipped away at the snow above him, the repetitive clunks telling him his neighbor had been right; there were layers of ice between the snow. It would be hard to break through and get off of the roof, but if left there, the whole thing could collapse. With him underneath it.

The pain reliever he’d taken had barely dulled the ache in his leg, and as the minutes crept by, Ned’s spirits sunk. He had no television to lighten things up. There were books, but even if he could fetch them he’d barely be able to make head or tails of their contents. The forced stillness gave him much too much time to think about his life. He really had messed up this time. Forget about managing the cattle herd now—Luke was about to get his chance, after all. As usual, Ned would be screwed.

He heard the bang and rattle of the metal ladder against the house. Fila must be coming down. He waited and sure enough, she came through the front door several minutes later.

“How’s it going?” He watched her kick off her boots and strip off her jacket. She pinned her gloves to a clothes rack near the front door to dry and entered the living room.

“Slow.” She sighed. “I’m not strong enough.” She rubbed her wrists as she sat down on the sofa.

“You’re plenty strong. I’ve seen the muscles in your arms when you knead dough.”

She made a face. “Shoveling ice and snow is harder than making bread. Still, I’ll do it—I just can’t do it all at once. I need a break.” She sat back against the pillows.

“Relax for a while, then. Take a nap.”

She shook her head, got up and crossed the room to the bookcase. After perusing the shelves for a moment, she pulled out a slim volume. Ned frowned. Was she going to ignore him while she read? A spurt of anger pulsed through him at the thought she’d rather read than talk to him, but he stifled it. It wasn’t Fila’s fault he was flat on his back. He wanted to ask her what book she’d chosen, but usually when he asked that, people didn’t answer him. Instead they held the book up so he could read the title.

Which told him nothing.

“It’s an adventure story.” Fila crossed back to the couch and sat down. She tucked her feet up under her and positioned the pillows behind her back. “The Call of the Wild, by Jack London.”

“I think I’ve seen the movie.”

“Should I read it out loud to pass the time?” When he didn’t answer right away, she sighed. “I know it’s for younger readers, but I’m not very good.”

“Not very good at what?” Ned shifted to see her better and gritted his teeth against the pain.

“At reading. I haven’t been in school in over ten years, so there are lots of words in adult books that are unfamiliar. I can usually figure them out, but I’m kind of slow.”

That made sense. Funny he hadn’t thought of it before. “Did you learn to read Arabic?”

“Actually, the Afghans speak Pashto, among many other tribal languages. Not Arabic. But no, I didn’t read at all once I got there. There was nothing to read in my village. Plus it wouldn’t be allowed.”

“Huh.” Maybe he’d found the one woman who couldn’t lord her superior learning over him. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead and read some.” It would pass the time.

“Just a few pages,” she said. “Then I’ll go back outside.”

They nearly didn’t make it through the first page. Fila handled the chapter heading easily enough, but then came the verse of a poem—an old one, judging by the language. She sounded it out as best she could, but it left both of them puzzled with its archaic terms.

“Maybe I’ll pick another book,” Fila said.

“It was a good movie,” Ned said. “About a dog. I like dogs. Try the first few lines. Maybe it gets better.”

It did. They were introduced to Buck, a happy, yellow dog who lived in 1897 that made Ned think of Boomer. A page later, they read of the hired hand who stole him from his master and used him to pay off a gambling debt. By the third page Buck was riding a train bound for San Francisco with a rope around his neck. Fila looked sympathetic. Ned reckoned she could relate to the way a life could be so quickly overturned. Right now he could, too.

She read two more pages, struggling with some of the words, having an easy time with others. She put the book down with a sigh. “I’ll try again.” She pointed to the roof.

“Thanks for reading. It did help pass the time. Buck sounds like my old dog—Boomer.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got hit by a car.” Ned remembered the way the dog used to nudge his hand with his nose when he wanted to be petted—reminding Ned he was there, ready for anything.

Ned let his head fall back to the floor. He’d break those truck windows all over again if it meant he could have Boomer back. Then he thought about Cab’s ultimatum. No, he wouldn’t—but he missed Boomer.

“After dinner we can read more.”

“Uh huh,” Ned said distractedly. A glance out the window told him the afternoon was waning. “You come down before it gets dark.”

“I will.”

Soon he was alone again, but at least he had something to think about. A yellow dog kidnapped from its home. He had a vague memory of the plot of the movie, but had lost many of the details. He liked the way the story was told from the dog’s point of view. That was clever. Boomer had been clever, too.

He wished his dog was here now. He could sure use the company.

As the chip, chip, chip of Fila’s shovel started up over his head, Ned’s eyes drifted closed. His leg hurt, the floor beneath him was hard, but all wasn’t lost. He was alone with Fila and they’d shared something together—the story read-aloud. When he thought about it, she seemed calmer, too, than she’d been in the past few weeks. She was too busy taking care of him to remember her own fears. Ned considered this. Maybe breaking his leg would have an upside. Maybe she’d get over the past while she cared for him. He’d lie on this floor forever if it meant she’d heal enough to fall in love with him.

Fila’s fingers were
so sore she could barely grip the ladder when she climbed down again two hours later. She was discouraged as well as aching when she realized she’d barely shoveled a third of the snow off the back half of the roof. She’d have to start in again first thing in the morning and pray the structure held up through the night.

When she made it back inside, the cabin was dark except for a dim glow from the wood stove.

“I’m sorry.” She hurried into the living room once her outer gear was off. “I should have thought to light a lamp.”

“There’s an oil lamp on that table.” Ned pointed toward the back of the room. “Should be matches close by.”

She found them, trimmed the wick and got the lamp burning. As its light filled the room, she relaxed a little. That was better. She brought a glass of water to Ned, but he waved it away. “What I need is crutches. I think there might be an old pair up in the attic.”

“Crutches? You can’t walk.” Fila was adamant.

“I can, too. I need to go to the head.” Another thing she hadn’t thought of. “Take the lamp with you. I’ll be okay.” He pointed to the stairs and she made her way up them, shining the lamp ahead of her. The loft was a small, cramped, cobwebby space packed with odds and ends. After shifting piles of old gear she finally unearthed a primitive pair of wooden crutches and brought them back downstairs.

Ned struggled to stand and it took all her strength to brace him while he did. By the time he was on his feet, his face was white and he was sweating. Once the crutches were braced under his arms, however, he did better. He swung himself around and down the short hall to the bathroom.

Several minutes later, he was back. Instead of taking up a position on the floor, however, he hovered in the hall. “You think it’s a bad idea if I try the bed?”

Fila thought hard. “It’s important to keep your leg straight.”

“I think if you position some pillows around it, I can do that.”

She assented silently, and when he was settled on the double bed in the main bedroom she agreed it was better than having him lie on the floor.

“Much better,” he said. “Keep those crutches where I can reach them.”

“Only to go to the bathroom. Otherwise you sit still.”

“Believe me,” Ned said. “I have no plans to go for a stroll.”

She could believe it. He looked strained. Obviously in pain. She fetched the pain reliever tablets she’d found earlier and gave him more. She wished she had something stronger.

“I’ll make dinner.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Soon they were holding warm bowls of homemade
dal
and dunking biscuits in the thick lentil soup. Ned still sat on the bed with his legs stretched out before him, Fila perched on a folding chair she’d brought in from the main room. It was a plain meal, but a filling one. In some ways, sitting in the glow of the oil light in an otherwise dark, and not altogether warm house reminded her of her time in Afghanistan. The old wood-fired cookstove in the kitchen sure did.

“Thinking of your time away?”

Fila nodded.

Ned shifted a little. Winced. “Did they hurt you, Fila?”

It was the question everyone wanted answered. Did they hurt her? She hesitated before saying, “I was not raped.”

Ned didn’t look away. “I’m glad to hear that. That doesn’t entirely answer the question, though.”

Tears pricked her eyes. She blinked them back, remembering her vow. “I don’t think I can put into words what they did.”

“Try.”

She set the bowl down on the bedside table and clasped her hands together in her lap. “They took away…everything. My family. My home. My country. They kept…saying I was wrong. Everything I did was wrong. Everything I felt was wrong. Everything I thought was wrong. Until I didn’t know what was wrong or right anymore.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It was like being peeled away layer by layer by layer until there was nothing left. Until I became nothing. Until I disappeared. I thought when I came home I’d get it all back again, but—” She shook her head. “There’s nothing to get back. Who I was—” A tear trailed its way down her cheek, despite her best efforts. “It’s gone.” Her voice cracked and she fought for composure, her fingers entwined so tightly together they ached.

Ned didn’t need to know all this. She didn’t want him to know it. The words still spilled from her lips, though. “Now it’s just the same here as it was there. Everything I do is wrong. Everything I say and think and the ways I react. The way I look—it’s all wrong. I don’t fit in here any more than I fit there. They won!” Her voice spiked upward as she put voice to her worst fear.

Ned tried to reach for her, swore when the motion jostled his leg, put down his bowl and finally touched her hand. “They did not win.” His voice was nearly a growl. “You got away from them. You didn’t become one of them. If they’d won you’d have a suicide vest strapped on and be marching into some crowded building. All that’s happening right now is you’re readjusting to coming home. Soldiers go through the same damn thing, you know. That’s what you’re like—a soldier coming home. A prisoner of war.” Fila scraped the wetness from her cheeks with her sleeve. She hadn’t looked at it that way. He touched her again. “You’ve been to war for over a decade. Give yourself time.” He patted her knee. “And for God’s sake, go ahead and scream once in a while. Cry. Throw things. Let it out.”

“I can’t.”

“You’re going to have to.”

He didn’t understand. No one did. Sometimes she thought she would start screaming and never be able to stop again. When she thought about what happened, how much she’d lost—how much time she’d lost—it made her feel like shredding the things that surrounded her into a thousand pieces. She didn’t know what to do with her anger. It was almost worse than her fear.

“Go on and eat. You probably worked up an appetite shoveling off that roof,” Ned said. “Think I could get another bowl of that soup? It’s good.”

“Of course.” She gathered their dishes and stood.

“By the way,” Ned said casually. “The way you look is not all wrong. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Fila quickly darted to the kitchen and spent far more time than necessary spooning more soup for each of them from the pot on the small cook stove. The knowledge that Ned thought she was pretty—beautiful, actually—warmed her all the way through.

‡
Chapter 17

N
ed sat back
against the pillows Fila had placed between his back and the headboard of the bed, his leg aching. Fila perched cross-legged on the kitchen chair she’d dragged into the room at dinnertime and read more from
The Call of the Wild
. While he enjoyed the story—he liked dogs, history and action—he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging worry that sooner or later she’d address his inability to read as well as he should.