Nan Ryan (32 page)

Helen swallowed hard and went to her room. Exhausted after more than twenty-four hours of work and worry, she undressed, drew her nightgown over her head, and fell into bed without even brushing her hair. She was asleep immediately.

It seemed to her only moments had passed when she was being awakened by Charlie standing beside her bed, calling her name and tugging on her hand.

“Charlie.…” she murmured groggily. “What is it? Can’t you sleep?” Her eyes opened to bright morning sunlight.

“Daddy’s sick!” he shouted. “I felt him and he’s soooo hot.”

Helen leaped out of bed and raced to Kurt’s bedside, her heart hammering in her chest. She found him shaking with hard chills, his teeth chattering violently. Anxiously, she pressed her cheek to his. He was burning up with fever.

“Charlie,” she said, never taking her eyes off Kurt, “does your father have any nightshirts?”

“Jolly gave him some,” Charlie said, nodding, “but he never sleeps in them.”

“Run down to the quarters, find those nightshirts, and bring them to me. Wait, Charlie … there’s a big bottle of rubbing alcohol under the sink in the kitchen and a box of cotton balls. Bring those to me first. Then grab some towels and washcloths.”

Jerking up the long tails of his nightshirt so he could run faster, Charlie dashed out of the room. Helen, trembling almost as violently as the man in the bed, whispered, “Can you hear me?”

“Cold,” Kurt rasped. “I’m cold.”

“I’ll make you warm,” she promised, then bit her bottom lip.

First she would have to freeze him half to death and she hated the thought of making him suffer. It couldn’t be helped. She had to get his fever down. And fast.

Charlie returned with the clean towels, the alcohol, and cotton balls. He handed them to Helen and was gone again after the nightshirts. Helen laid everything on the night table. Then, murmuring softly, “I’m sorry, so sorry,” she drew the bedcovers down to Kurt’s waist. His left eye opened a little and he looked at her with such a pained, pleading expression she almost weakened.

She gritted her teeth and refused to let herself be swayed. Pulling her nightgown up to her knees, Helen climbed up onto the bed with him and began bathing Kurt’s hot, jerking body with cotton balls dipped in alcohol. As she worked, she instructed Charlie to run out to the orchard and pull several handfuls of leaves from a peach tree. After he’d done that, he was to go out to the well and, if he could manage, draw a bucket of cool water.

As soon as he was gone, Helen stripped the covers all the way off Kurt. He lay there shuddering in his white underwear, trying to roll himself up into a ball on his side. She wouldn’t let him.

“Stop it!” Helen’s tone was sharp. She jerked on his arm and ordered,”You lie still, you hear me? Just for a few minutes, that’s all it will take.”

Helen worked furiously, quickly, terrified by the real and present danger his high fever presented. With great effort and moans of agony from him, she managed to push Kurt over onto his stomach. She immediately curled her fingers around the waistband of his white linen underwear, hesitated for only a moment, then made short work of peeling the linen underpants over his firm brown buttocks, down his legs, and off.

She quickly climbed astride Kurt’s waist and began patting the alcohol-soaked cotton across his back and down his arms. As she worked she crooned, “I’m so sorry, Kurt. I know you’re cold. I’ll warm you. I’ll make you warm.”

Her face pinkened as she spread the alcohol down the curve of his slim hips and over that part of him which was never exposed to the sun, yet was just as tanned as the rest of his lean body.

Helen heard Charlie noisily coming through the back door. She hurriedly got off the bed, drew the sheet back up over Kurt. Charlie came in struggling under the weight of the full oaken bucket, water sloshing over the rim, spilling onto the rug and him.

Helen thanked him for a job well done. Then she promptly came up with several more chores which needed to be done. Outside. Eager to be of help, Charlie hurriedly dressed in the parlor and went outdoors, with Dom accompanying him.

Helen again peeled the covers off Kurt, got back on the bed, and bathed his burning naked backside and long limbs with cold bracing water. He shuddered and squirmed and moaned in agony. She turned a deaf ear. She had to get his dangerously high temperature down.

When she had sponged all the bared flesh exposed to her, Helen realized she was in a bit of a dilemma. His cold bath was only half finished. The front of him—his chest and belly and navel and knees—needed bathing just as badly as his backside.

Maybe she could close her eyes and finish. No. That wouldn’t work. Did she dare just turn him over and blithely continue with the bath as if her seeing him naked were an everyday occurrence? No. She couldn’t do that either.

Helen’s solution was to pull the sheet up over the prone, shivering Kurt. Then she struggled until she got him turned onto his back. By then the sheet was twisted around his body, so she tugged and pulled and finally got it loose. When she had it smoothed out and lying loosely over him, she folded it down to his waist. Then she yanked the bottom of the sheet free from the foot of the mattress and very carefully folded it up past his knees.

Kurt now lay on his back with the sheet preserving his modesty and hers. Helen went back to work. She bathed his chest and arms and legs. And reaching underneath the sheet, she swabbed and patted and bathed all the remaining burning flesh which she could not see.

The bath finished, she laid her cheek to his chest and sighed. He was still hot as fire, but perhaps a degree or two cooler than when she’d begun. She grabbed up one of the clean white nightshirts and managed to get it over Kurt’s dark head. That was the easy part. Getting his long arms into the nightshirt sleeves seemed next to impossible.

But she did it.

Had anyone happened by the open bedroom door, they would have thought a wild wrestling match was taking place atop the high feather bed. And, in a way, it was. Helen and Kurt rolled and tumbled about, her striving to get the nightshirt on him, him fighting against it and trying to grab her and hold her close, seeking her body heat.

By the time she finally got both his arms in the sleeves and the nightshirt pulled down his hot, trembling body, her own nightgown was twisted up around her pale thighs and Kurt’s injured hands were filled with the cheeks of her bottom. She was too tired to care. Her hands on his nightshirted shoulders, she laid her forehead on his chest for a minute to rest and get her breath.

Still panting from her labor, Helen extricated herself from Kurt, slid off the bed, righted her nightgown, and pulled the sheet and counterpane up over him, tucking both in around his shoulders and chin.

She rushed into the kitchen and brewed hot tea from the peach-tree leaves Charlie had gathered. Her Grandma Burke always swore by the brew, said nothing cooled a high fever like a cup of peach-tree-leaf tea.

She hurried back to Kurt, cradled his dark head in her arms, and forced most of the hot tea down him.

Still he shook and shivered.

Helen set the cup aside, snatched the downy handpieced quilt off Charlie’s makeshift bed, and spread it over Kurt.

“There,” she murmured, leaning close, stroking his hair. “Now, you see. That’s better. Much better.”

But the sick, freezing man in the bed continued to shudder and jerk with hard racking chills. His teeth chattered and his split, swollen lips formed the word, “Cold.”

“Oh, my dear,” she whispered in his ear, “I can’t stand to see you freeze. I’ll get you warm.”

Without any further thought to propriety, Helen Courtney turned back the covers and got into bed with Kurt Northway.

Chapter Thirty-six

H
elen wrapped her arms around the sick, shaking Kurt and held him close for half an hour. Until she heard Charlie coming in the back door. By the time the little boy entered the room, Helen was standing beside the bed.

“Did you gather the eggs?” she asked, smiling and pushing her tangled hair back off her face.

“Yes, only … only …” Charlie shrugged his narrow shoulders and caught his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Only what?”

“Two got broked and they squished all over the rest.” He wrinkled his small button nose and added, “I think maybe Dom stepped on them.”

“Sounds just like him, all right,” Helen agreed, smiling. Then cheerfully she said, “I think your father is a little better.”

“I’ll see,” Charlie told her, hurried forward, dragged up his footstool, and climbed on it. He leaned over and put his small palm on Kurt’s forehead. “He’s all wet,” Charlie announced.

Helen laughed. “Yes, I know. He’s perspiring, which means his fever has broken.”

Charlie drew back his hand, wiped it on his trousers leg. “Want me to pull off the quilt?”

“No, let’s keep him covered for a while. Let him work up a real good sweat.” Helen started to the door. She paused and said, “I’m going to clean up and get dressed now. You’ll watch him?”

Charlie turned on his footstool, leaned back against the high mattress. He crossed his short arms over his chest and said, “I’ll stay right here!”

By the time Helen was dressed, Dr. Ledet and Jolly had arrived. Jolly immediately headed down to the pasture to bring Bessie up for milking. The bearded doctor waved Charlie and Helen out of the room and examined Kurt.

Helen paced just outside the door. Her hands clasped behind her, she walked back and forth. Back and forth. Soon Charlie paced with her. Hands clasped behind his back, he walked back and forth. Back and forth. The Russian Blue sat unmoving in the sunlit corridor, observing the pacing pair with disdainful green eyes, silently letting them know he thought they were fools who had taken leave of their senses.

Dr. Ledet emerged, informing them that a slight infection had caused Kurt’s fever to shoot up. He had carefully sterilized the contaminated wound and, hopefully, it should cause Kurt no further trouble.

The doctor praised Helen and Charlie. “Looks like you two have been taking real good care of him.”

Nodding proudly, Charlie volunteered, “We sleep with him.”

Helen nearly fainted. “What Charlie means,” she was quick to explain, “is he’s sleeping in his father’s room at night.”

The bearded doctor looked at Helen and chuckled. He put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Relax, child. I didn’t really suppose one of you had climbed in the bed with my patient.”

Helen could feel heat burning her cheeks. “No. No, of course not,” she said, avoiding the doctor’s eyes. Needlessly clearing her throat, she hurried on to tell Dr. Ledet that she and Charlie had given Kurt an alcohol bath to get his fever down.

“Well, it worked,” Dr. Ledet assured her.

The doctor soon left, promising to come again in a few days. Jolly stayed only long enough to handle some of the more pressing chores, then he too went home, mysteriously turning down Helen’s invitation to stay for dinner. Helen had never known Jolly Grubbs to say no to a meal. She halfway wondered if he was not feeling well himself. She grew mildly concerned when Jolly didn’t come around the next day.

Or the next.

Actually, Jolly Grubbs felt fine.

But he had ascertained that it would be good for just the three of them—Kurt, Helen, and Charlie—to be on their own together.

Kurt’s bad whipping might just turn out to be a blessing in disguise, Jolly surmised. It could prove to be one of the best things that had ever happened to Kurt. Or to Helen. The pair had spent the entire summer avoiding one another, staying out of each other’s way. Afraid of each other and of what might happen.

Well, by jeeters, they couldn’t stay apart now.

Jolly chuckled to himself and wished he was a fly on the wall so he could see and hear what went on in that guest room at Helen’s.

Helen didn’t have a great deal of time to wonder and worry about why Jolly wasn’t coming around. She was far too busy worrying over and taking care of Kurt.

Sheriff Cooper and Em Ellicott came to call, expressing their deep concern and bringing a big basket of food and a bouquet of freshly cut flowers. They looked in on Kurt, staying only a few minutes, not wishing to tire him. Coop stayed behind when Em and Helen left the room. Then after only a minute, he joined the woman out on the front gallery.

Helen poured icy lemonade from a glass pitcher, handed the first glass to the tall red-haired sheriff. “Coop, did he tell you anything? Did he say what happened? Who beat him so badly?”

“No,” Coop told her truthfully. “I asked who did it and why, but he wasn’t forthcoming. Swore he’s the one who started the fight.” Coop leaned back against the porch railing, took a drink of lemonade.

Helen sighed. She turned and handed a glass to Em. Em purposely reached for it with her left hand. That’s when Helen saw the sparkling diamond engagement ring and almost dropped the lemonade pitcher. She anxiously handed the heavy pitcher to Coop as Em, laughing, came up out of her chair.

The two young women hugged and laughed and jumped up and down while Coop stood there awkwardly holding the pitcher of lemonade, shaking his curly red head, and grinning.

Charlie stared at the women, totally puzzled. He looked up at the tall sheriff and said, “They sure act strange sometimes.”

Coop chuckled and nodded. “They do for a fact, Charlie.” But Coop’s turquoise eyes sparkled as he looked at the laughing young women.

“I’m so happy for you both!” Helen exclaimed, stepping back to hold up Em’s left hand and admire the dazzling stone. Then she whirled about, threw her arms around the surprised sheriff’s trim waist, hugged him tightly while he held the pitcher out of harm’s way, and said fervently, “Congratulations, Coop!”

“Thank you, Helen,” Coop replied, awkwardly patting her back.

Helen released him as swiftly as she had grabbed him, turned back to Em, clasped her shoulders, and exclaimed, “Oh, Em, Em! It’s wonderful! It’s so wonderful!”

And then there was more hugging and tears and excited talk of a Christmastime wedding with Em in a long white satin dress and Helen in lush rose velvet as the matron of honor.