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Biting her lower lip against the pain, she leaned back into the pillows he'd pulled from somewhere. The dank smell of long-unwashed linen filled her nostrils.
"This is going to hurt," he said.
He touched her calf and the sensitive skin exploded in pain. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Beside her, she heard the wrenching hiss of fabric being ripped. Then he slid something beneath her knee, pulled it taut, and tied it down.
She whimpered and tried not to cry. Fire seemed to race through her body, burning her skin. She tossed restlessly from side to side, moaning softly.
He leaned down beside her. She felt the warm, moist strains of his breathing against her forehead. "You're going to be okay...."
It was a lie. She could hear the fear in his voice; it
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matched her own. For some absurd, illogical reason, she wanted to assure him that she would be all right.
She opened her eyes to look at him.
And saw nothing but blackness.
She blinked, tried again.
Same thing.
Icy fear shuddered through her, left her gasping and terrified. "Oh, my God .. . Killian, I can't see you."
"It's okay, Lainie. It's okay. The blindness is temporary."
"No." She meant to scream the denial, but couldn't manage it. The word slipped from her dead mouth, cracked and too soft.
His hand was on her forehead, and even though it hurt to be touched, it soothed her.
He was beside her, right beside her. She heard the tinkling splash of water, then the comforting feel of a cold, damp rag on her fevered forehead.
She sank into the warm bedding. Darkness curled around her, threw her into an impenetrable void where nothing existed, where even her pain was lessened. It beckoned her, that darkness, drew her forward with a sly, seductive voice. She didn't want to go. She'd been in that darkness before, and she wasn't sure she could find her way out again.
But everything seemed so far away now, so small and meaningless. Nothing made sense, nothing mattered, and she was so tired. She just wanted to go to sleep....
"Don't leave me, Lainie." She heard the voice, heard the ragged edges of fear in it, and she frowned. Who was talking to her? Where was she?
The darkness lured her into its cool shade again. Once she was there, the fire in her skin dwindled into nothingness, the jagged pain in her abdomen and legs lessened. From somewhere came an even in-and-out
whisper of sound, like an evening tide washing on a sand beach. It was soothing, that sound. So soothing .. . She closed her eyes, letting herself drift into the painless darkness, letting herself forget.
Chapter Twenty-five
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The night was cold and black and filled with whispered sounds. Somewhere an animal howled. The billowing, reedy sound pierced the darkness, left a lingering edge of disquiet in its wake. Everything had taken on a hazy, unreal quality. Killian felt like a shadow himself, walking woodenly through a foreign, unearthly landscape.
"Jesus," he cursed, and dumped the now tepid water on the ground. He was acting like a tenderfooted fool who'd never been in the desert's darkness before, instead of a man who'd lived alone and on the fringes of danger for half his life.
Bending slowly, knees creaking, he dipped the tin bowl into the cold creek. Cool water sucked his fingers and spilled over the back of his hand. He glanced up. Moonlight slithered across the rippling water, turned it into a snakelike silver chain against the black earth.
He straightened and turned back toward the cabin. He took a few heavy steps, then stopped. Suddenly and without warning, he was overwhelmed by it all. For the past three or four hours, as Lainie lay in the rickety bed, writhing in pain at the slightest touch, her brow beaded with sweat, her face a pale, deathly blue, he'd managed to focus on the simple acts of caring for her and nothing else. Each task, from dressing her to repairing her torn
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