Rio Grande Wedding Part 5

Immediately, Molly bolted forward, putting her hands on his cheeks to test his fever.

She found the skin damp and hot. d.a.m.n. "Let me help. What do you need?"

He looked abashed, and raised a hand to gesture toward the room across the hall, where the light still burned. "I cannot get up."

"Oh! Excellent." She patted his shoulder gently. "Let me get a bedpan. Don't move." She rushed out of the room and found an old tin pot that would serve the purpose, and mindful of his privacy, held it out to him, ready to turn her back when he took it.

"No, no," he protested, and pushed himself up. "Help me."

"It's all right. I'm a nurse." She didn't really know how much he understood of her English. He seemed to be quite fluent and until he proved otherwise, she'd stick to her usual conversational style. "You don't have to get up."

A dark flush crossed his cheekbones, and he looked away. "No." With what appeared to be Herculean effort, he managed to swing his legs over the bed and sit up. "Please." He held out a hand to her. "Help me."

Molly nodded and bent down to allow him to put his arm around her shoulder. Together they rose, and the bedspread fell away, leaving him in clean white briefs, nothing fancy and somehow all the s.e.xier for it. Rotten of her, she thought with a half smile, to be admiring the fit of a patient's underwear. Sensing he might be embarra.s.sed, she tugged the afghan from the chair and with one hand, wrapped it around his waist. With his free hand, he captured the ends to hold it in place, and Molly lifted her head to smile at him.

He looked at her gravely, and she saw that his eyes were very large and dark and liquid limpid . The word sounded in her mind, a poet's description. His mouth was tight, anda paleness marked the flesh around it, but he managed a faint twitch that might have been a smile. "Thank you."

"De nada."She helped him across the hallway and he grabbed the door, bracing himself on the sink with arms that trembled visibly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He stood there, head bent. Light melted along the tense muscles of his back, showing the effort it took for him to stand there. After a moment, he nodded, and she reached for the door to close it for him. "I'll be right here. Cry out if you need me."

Leaning on the wall outside, she wondered again if she'd lost her mind. As if he wondered, too, Leonardo peeked around the edge of the wall, alarm on his face.

The woman, tousled, and weary by the look of her face, helped him back to his bed and tucked the blankets around him. He had been overheated and now felt very cold. Was that good? He thought so.

"Can you eat a little?" she asked him.

He could. His stomach felt as empty as a dry arroyo, but she had been kind enough already. "Go back to sleep. Morning is soon enough."

Her smile was quick and friendly. Alejandro liked the way her eyes crinkled with it.

"I'd much rather you ate, so I can give you some more medicine. Just a little broth or something?"

"Broth?"

"Soup.Sopa?"

And though he knew he should not accept more of her kindness, his stomach ached for something. "Yes, please."

"Bueno."

He smiled at her attempts at his native language. Like most gringos, she flattened it with her American accent, but it was kind of her to make the attempt. She bustled out and Alejandro lay back on the pillows, pulling the blankets more tightly around himself and closing his eyes.

He'd tossed Josefina bodily into a copse of bushes and taken off himself into the darkness, bolting like a wolf, away from the raid. He'd believed he'd made it, too, until the bullet caught him. Even then, he kept running as long as he could,determined he would not leave Josefina to the authorities as long as he had breath in his body.

But even a shallow bullet wound was enough to make him bleed too much, and the running made it worse, and he was weak and stumbling by the time he'd thought to pack dirt and gra.s.s into it. He'd taken a few minutes to clear his head, listen in the darkness to the faint sounds of the raid. Intending to circle back toward the lights and the place he'd hidden Josefina, he got to his feet and leaned into a small run.

In the darkness and his confusion, he made a wrong step and found himself suddenly hurtling through the darkness. Not a long fall, but it had not been easy on the way down. And the wind had slammed out of him, harsh and shattering. And he had not been able to get back up, no matter how the screams of Josefina echoed in his head.

Josefina. It made him sick to think of her alone tonight.

The woman came back with a tray she set on the bedside table. As she bent, the soft lamplight caught on strands of her hair, turning them to a silver-gilt shade that disappeared again when she straightened. "Here we go," she said.

There was a bowl of thin soup and a gla.s.s of milk and a cloth napkin. "Do you need help?"

He shook his head, but she did help him to sit up properly, putting piles of pillows behind his back so he could lean against the wall. The tray had little legs that fit over his lap. But now, shirtless, he was cold, and rubbed his arm. "Where is my shirt?"

"Oh! I had to cut it off. Your jeans, too, I'm afraid." She turned, as if looking for the shirt, and he thought she was more unsettled than she appeared at first. "Let me get you one."

She left and came back with a denim shirt with pockets. A man's shirt. Was she married?

"Your husband's?" he asked as she helped him put it on.

"Yeah," she said shortly.

"He will not mind?"

Her smile was sad. "No."

So he was gone. He nodded and picked up his spoon and began to eat. It was exactly what he wanted. Not too much, but enough to take the hollowness out of him. He thought of her attempt at Spanish and said, "This ... broth? We call itcaldo ."

"Ah,caldo ," she repeated "Notsopa ."

"Soup andsopa , broth andcaldo ."

"I see." She linked her hands around her knee and smiled. He liked that smile, very much, and he smiled in return.

A flicker crossed her face something startled and to hide it, she ducked her head for a moment. "Do you mind if I ask your name?"

"I am Alejandro Sosa," he said. "And I am in your debt,senora ."

"No. The angels put you where I'd find you," she added with another smile. "So they must have meant for me to fix you up."

He bowed his head, humbled. "I will repay you," he said with as much dignity as he could muster in his weakened state. He wished that he had his hair combed and his jaw shaved, so that he looked less like the fieldworker she had found and more like the son of his father. "Whatever you ask."

"Don't worry about it," she said casually. "How is your stomach? Upset?"

"No."

"Good. Then I want to-"

"Notbueno?" he said lightly.

It snared her, that little question and littler smile. Her face, very businesslike, shifted again and she lifted her eyes to his,seeing him. And he saw her. The fine bones of her face, the clearness of pale, pale eyes, the wisps of hair loose around her jaw and neck.Huera , they would call her where he came from, and say it in a soft voice of esteem. And he noticed that her body was not large, as he'd come to think. She was tall but narrow-shouldered, wide through the hips and small through the chest. Very strong.

She swallowed, looked away. "I'm sorry,Senor Sosa. I didn't mean to be patronizing."

Regret touched him. "Oh, no. It was a joke,senora ." He made a wry face. "A bad one, eh?"

That drew a chuckle. "No. Just small."

She took the tray and put the milk in his hand, then gave him a handful of pills. "You will feel much better by morning," she promised.