Only 06 - Winter Fire

said neutrally. “Go back to sleep. You have to relieve Ute in a few hours.”
    Her brother made a muffled sound, rolled over, and slid back into the sleep his growing body craved.
    â€œGet me a loincloth,” Case said flatly.
    Without a word she stood up, went to a basket in the corner, and shook out the last shirt that Conner had outgrown and worn to shreds in the process. The remaining fabric had been destined for the rag rug she was making. If it took a detour on the way, no harm would be done.
    â€œWill this do?” she asked.
    â€œYes.”
    He held out his right hand. Plainly he intended to put the cloth on himself.
    â€œIf you move around,” she said, “you could open the wounds again. Let me wrap—”
    â€œNo,” he interrupted curtly.
    One look at his face was enough to tell Sarah that he meant it. She could hand over the cloth or she could fight him.
    â€œDon’t be foolish,” she said crisply. “I raised Conner, I was married, and I nursed Ute back to health when he was in worse shape than you. I’m not going to faint at the sight of—of your—that is—”
    To Sarah’s horror, a blush climbed her cheeks. Abruptly she threw the cloth at him and turned her back.
    â€œGo ahead,” she said through her teeth. “But if you open up those wounds, don’t come crying to me about how it hurts.”
    â€œThe day I cry is the day the sun will set in the east.”
    She didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t an emotional kind of man. While she took a rawhide thong from around her wrist and tied back her long hair, she thought about the grim set of his face.
    â€œWhat about laughing?” Sarah asked without thinking.
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œLaugh?” Case asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhen I find something funny.”
    â€œWhen was the last time?” she retorted.
    He grunted in pain when he lifted his hips to finish wrapping the loincloth around himself.
    â€œWell?” she persisted.
    â€œCan’t remember. Why?”
    â€œHow about smiling?”
    â€œWhat is this, a catechism?” he asked. “You expected to find Robin Goodfellow shot full of holes and making jokes to entertain you?”
    Sarah laughed softly.
    â€œRobin Goodfellow,” she said. “Lord, I haven’t thought of Shakespeare for a long time. Did you like A Midsummer Night’s Dream ?”
    â€œOnce.”
    â€œBut not now?”
    â€œSince the war, Hamlet is more to my taste.”
    There was something in Case’s tone that made chills course over Sarah’s skin.
    â€œVengeance,” she said.
    â€œI’m ready,” he said, tying the cloth in place. “You can do whatever you’ve been doing to my leg.”
    As she turned around, he lay back on the pallet. She saw immediately that he had started undoing the bandage on his thigh but hadn’t finished the job.
    Clearly, the simple act of wrapping the loincloth around himself had almost been beyond his strength. His face was pale above his black beard. A sheen of sweat stood on his forehead. His mouth was drawn into a line so narrow it was almost invisible.
    â€œYou should have let me do it,” Sarah said. “You need your strength for healing.”
    â€œEither change the damned bandage or don’t. It’s all the same to me.”
    If his voice hadn’t been thinned by pain, she would have kept on scolding him as though he were her younger brother.
    â€œWe don’t laugh,” she muttered as she knelt by his side, “we don’t cry, we don’t smile. But we do have a temper, don’t we?”
    With difficulty, he bit back a scalding reply.
    He was surprised by the effort it took simply to hold his tongue. He, who had vowed to feel nothing at all after Ted and Emily’s death.
    Not even anger.
    Must be the fever , Case thought grimly.
    But he was afraid it was the rose-scented, sharp-tongued angel of mercy who was kneeling by his side.
    He gritted his teeth and endured the gentle, searing touch of Sarah’s hands while she unwrapped the bandage on his thigh. More than once he felt the brush of her shirt against his naked legs as she worked.
    Twice he was certain that he felt the satin weight of her breasts.
    Pain should have kept him from becoming aroused. It didn’t. The loincloth he had just tied around himself was rapidly losing the contest between modesty