“No. The brothers said this town needed a new mayor, someone more in keepin’ with progress for the future, and they’d haveta do their best to see that happened.” Another snort, and a fidgety shift of position. “Empty threats. Or so I thought.”
“That’s why they—they attacked me—?” Camellia’s voice sounded as tremulous as her insides must be feeling.
“That’s why.” No smile could lighten Ben’s face, or his mood, even as encouragement for a woman who desperately needed it. His brain was already working overtime, absorbing facts and calculating repercussions. “And more fool me, for not givin’ you fair warnin’ of the risk roundabouts. I’m so sorry, Camellia. I’m so consarned sorry! But I didn’t think—I never thought they might—” His big tough hands were grinding together, in futile agony, and abruptly he let out a string of pithy, heartfelt oaths that echoed across the room.
“Ben,” she said quietly. “It’s true I was—I was utterly petrified. But you’re here.” Her beautiful blue bruised eyes closed for just a moment, in gratitude and prayer. “You’re here now.”
“All right, enough of this,” Gabriel broke in. “Camellia, my dear, I’m gonna give you a good dose of laudanum, and I’ll leave a small bottle here that you can take if things get too bad for you to put up with.” He surveyed her, shaking his head. “I must say, I’m mighty upset that you were alone in the house all this time, scared and hurtin’. Had I but known—”
“Had I but known,” said Ben, “I never woulda left.” The muscle of his hard jaw clenched and unclenched; one could just imagine a hat in those gripping fingers, being turned restlessly over and over. “Good thing I at least came back early.”
For the rest of his days, he would be blaming himself for this assault on this innocent victim. His absence, and the fact that the perpetrators had gone after Camellia to get to him, would hang over his head forever, and for this he tasted the choking bitterness of guilt.
Silently the doctor looked from one to the other. “Yes,” he finally agreed. “Good thing.”
Ben suddenly uncoiled his length to surge upright, as if churning emotion would no longer allow him to sit still. “But I’m gonna leave again now.”
“Oh, please—”
“It’s all right, Camellia.” Bending slightly, he cupped one hand around her shoulder—the only place he felt he could safely touch without accidentally inflicting more discomfort. “I’m only goin’ to Mrs. McKnight’s, to fetch one of your sisters. Hannah, I think; she’s next oldest and knows what she’s doin’.”
“Hannah? I will be glad to see her, of course, but—”
“Gonna bring her here to stay with you a while,” Ben swept over her objection, “and give you the best of care. I need to check in at the store, and so on, Cam; just got a few other errands to run, and I want you to be with someone.”
Gabriel could see too much, understand too much. He knew exactly what sort of errands his friend planned on running, and it didn’t involve a check in at the store. He raised one significant brow. “Think that’s wise?”
Across the small intervening space, Ben’s gaze steadily met his. “Yeah, I think it’s very wise. Got a problem with it?”
“Not alone, Ben. Not by yourself. This isn’t yours to fix.”
His chin lifted in the old belligerent way. “Yeah, it is. My woman. My wife.”
While Camellia, feeling the effect of too many sleepless, half-hysterical, sob-filled hours and the trauma to which she had been subjected, could only sit helplessly as something untenable went on around her. Her husband’s kind touch could certainly be reassuring for someone who had turned into an abject coward overnight. But the fact that he was apparently so willing to disappear again, for who knew how long, was not a reassuring prospect.
Gabriel sighed. “All right, then. I’ll stay here, while you go summon some reinforcements. And then maybe I’ll just haveta keep you company whilst you run some of those errands.”
Chapter Fifteen
“UHHH...”
“Oh, dear, please forgive me, Cam,” implored an abject Hannah. “I’m so sorry, I know that must be terribly painful. But I’m supposed to keep using cold compresses, to bring down the swelling, and ease the discomfort.”
“Well, I must admit—uh...ouch—this isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Does it look so very dreadful, Hen?”
“Truly, the bruises are hardly even noticeable,” lied her sister without hesitation and without conviction.
“Ohhhh, God will get you for that, Hannah,” came Camellia’s voice, slightly muzzy from a dose of the narcotic painkiller full of morphine. She knew full well that her face must appear as damaged as it felt, with pain radiating outward from the roots of her teeth to the roots of her hair. “No one wants to be around a fibber. Tell me, please—if the doctor insists that I’ll be fine, why are there two of you?”
Could anything else possibly happen, than what had, already, in these past busy fifteen hours or so?
After delivering a puzzled and confused Hannah Burton to the door late yesterday afternoon, Ben had departed again, only to return some time later carrying a large covered pan of what turned out to be beef stew, a paper bag of sourdough biscuits, and half an apple pie.
“Didn’t want either of you to have to do any cookin’,” he explained in embarrassed response to the two women’s effusive thanks. “Doc, you stick around and eat, too.”
“But I planned—” Catching his friend’s eloquent glance, he sighed. “Sure. I’ll stick. Just how long,” he added dryly, “d’ you reckon to keep me around?”
“As long as I have to. Here, Hannah, wouldja mind dishin’ up for us? I been on the road a long time, and I’m powerful hungry.”