For longer than she needed to, she stared at the fire. It had such purity, fire, clean and merciless. If only life was as simple and spare as flame.
Satisfied that the cabin was receiving sufficient heat, Astrid turned back to Lesperance. He was her patient now. The sooner she healed him, the sooner he could disappear from her life forever.
Astrid poured some water into a basin and knelt beside the bed, grateful to see that Lesperance had calmed. Carefully, she peeled back the blanket to look at his injuries. Even before she’d come out to the Northwest Territory, she knew about field dressing. Many times had she tended to Michael’s wounds received on missions, just as he had seen to hers. What she saw now on Lesperance turned her blood to sleet.
These were no accidental injuries inflicted by the landscape or animal. His wounds were man-made, save for the scrapes on his feet, clearly indicating he’d walked a goodly ways without shoes. Thank God, not too serious, but a grievous sign nevertheless. Someone had deliberately done this to him. But who? And why?
She dampened a clean rag and dabbed it at the cuts marring his arms, shoulders, and chest. He hissed a little at the cold before subsiding back into semiconsciousness. Soon, the water in the basin was pink, but the blood on his body was mostly gone. No need to use ashes to stanch the bleeding. The blood in the corners of his mouth washed away, and she could find no wounds on his lips or, after carefully prying it open, inside his mouth. Strange. She examined the rope abrasions at his wrists. Bound. Tied like an animal. Yet the bruises on his knuckles showed he had fought his captors. Somehow he’d freed himself. Examining his hands further, she found dried blood under his nails, but again, there were no actual cuts anywhere near them.
It wasn’t his blood.
Her mind whirled with the possibilities, yet she made herself focus on tending him. A poultice of dried arnica for the bruising. Honey and chamomile on the rope burns. As for the cuts…
Must not have been as severe as they first appeared. Astrid bent closer, forcing herself to ignore the proximity of his satiny copper skin to her mouth. The cuts had stopped bleeding and, in truth, seemed to be more scratches than cuts.
She sat back with a frown. She’d seen his lacerations earlier and they had been deeper. Damn. Damn and hell.
She closed her eyes to feel the magic around him. Still there, and growing in strength. It lit the air around him with energy, invisible but alive, the touches of the other world that existed just beneath this one.
The kettle whistled, piercing her apprehension. She busied herself with making tea—an English pleasure she simply couldn’t forsake—for herself and Lesperance. Only when she readied to pour the water did she realize she had only one mug. Which would be worse? Drinking from the mug and then placing it to his mouth, or giving him the mug first and then having to place her mouth where his had been?
He was her patient, so his needs came before her own. She dribbled a bit of tea into his mouth. She felt a surge of gratification when he swallowed easily. He would be better soon. And that meant his departure.
Astrid desperately wanted some tea, but, as she considered the mug in her hands, she found she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t share the same cup as him. Altogether too much intimacy. So she left it on the table, to wash later.
After eating a small meal of bread and cheese, taken from her cool cupboard, and performing meaningless, mindless tidying around her already clean cabin, Astrid found herself with nothing to do. Ordinarily, she would spend her days hunting or cultivating the small garden behind the cabin, but she was loathe to leave this stranger in her home unattended. As much as she hated sharing the small space with him, her conscience wouldn’t allow her to stray far from his bedside. He might need something, might get worse, his injuries might demand attention. Right now he slept, seemingly at peace.
Wait, then, until he awoke.
She went to her bookcase and selected Scott’s Ivanhoe. She’d lost count how many times she’d read it, but she wanted to immerse herself in the familiar comforts of knights and ladies. She always identified more with the knights than the ladies, though, riding around, performing feats of heroism, rather than embroidering in the solar. Michael used to tease her because of this, calling her Sir Astrid. He didn’t laugh as much when she called him Lady Michael.
Yes, she told herself, think of him, and not the man in her bed now. She would get Lesperance well again and then send him packing. Whatever trouble he’d gotten himself into, magical or no, he must deal with it on his own. She was through with magic.
His groan, several hours later, brought her to his bedside. He was awake, struggling to sit up.
“Don’t aggravate your wounds,” she cautioned.
He glanced down at his bare torso, drawing her attention to the chiseled muscles there, the dark brown of his nipples. Like other Natives, he hadn’t any hair on his chest, only the faintest dark trail that began just below his navel and led downward, covered, thank heavens, by the blanket.
“What wounds?” he rasped.
Her gaze flew back up to where the worst of his injuries had been. She swore. The cuts were gone now, barely red lines crossing his skin. Same with the rope abrasions. And the bruises were a healing yellow.
Astrid swore under her breath.
He lifted up the blanket just enough to ascertain that he was completely naked. “You took my clothes.”
“You were naked when I found you. Do you remember what happened?”
Anger and confusion darkened his face. He sat up fully. “There were men,” he said, struggling to recall. “A group of men. Spoke with English accents.”
A flare of alarm, but she tamped down her fear. Englishmen filled Canada. “And these Englishmen, what did they want?”
“Hell if I know.” He scowled. “Tied me up like a damned dog. They took me from the trading post. Don’t know where.”
“How did you get free?”
His look turned even blacker as he grew more frustrated, his hands forming fists. “I can’t fucking remember.” He shot her a glance. “Sorry. Taught not to curse in front of ladies.”
Astrid eyed her clothes wryly. A man’s shirt, vest, trousers. Heavy boots. She wasn’t wearing her gun belt at the moment, but she was seldom far from it. “No such things as ladies out here.”
“You’ve got a lady’s accent.”
She ignored this comment. “Is there anything else you can remember? Anything those men said?”
He shook his head. “Little bits float in and out of my head, but nothing to grab onto. Damn frustrating. But…I kept hearing a falcon, screeching.”
Her fear sharpened. “Falcon,” she repeated.
Memories began to collect in his mind; she could see the growing clarity in his coal black eyes. “There was a falcon…at the trading post. I think it was the same one.”
“I didn’t see it,” she said quickly. “Flying above the post?”
“Showed up after you left. Not flying. It was with some men, some Englishmen.” His dark brows drew down as he fitted pieces of remembrance together. “They were looking for guides, said something insulting to me. Then the bird, the falcon. It got agitated. Started shrieking and flapping for no reason.”
“Were