Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“It is what I am here to do—heal. Then I go home,” she reminded him, and intended to keep on reminding him.
He stared at her a moment, then bid her good night and went off to his room.
His lack of response worried her.
Would he be true to his word?
Chapter 8
“Where is Aliss?” Rogan asked of Anna, as he caught her leaving her cottage.
“Last I saw her she was speaking with Derek.” She smiled. “He feels so much better. He is almost his old self.”
“I know.” He nodded then shook his head. “Aliss is not with him, I just saw Derek.”
“James?” she questioned, and her smile grew brighter. “He is healing so nicely, sitting up, finally eating well this past week, and Aliss says the stitches will come out soon.”
“Yes, I heard,” Rogan said, having heard nothing else in the last few days. The people were excited; if the healer could save James from death, surely she could cure the persistent illness. “She is not there, either.”
“Perhaps she rests—”
“Aliss rest?” Rogan snapped sarcastically, and Anna took a step back. “She has been up since before dawn and suppertime is near and I can find neither hide nor hair of her.”
Anna’s brow shot up. “Laurel. She is due to deliver in a couple of weeks—”
Rogan shook his head and marched off, mumbling to himself. Aliss had worked herself senseless since arriving here; little sleep, little food, endless healings, and not a thought for her own well-being.
Her day started before anyone else’s in the village and never seemed to end. He had grown tired of watching her hectic pace, but no amount of threats deterred her from her course.
Last night she had really tested his mettle when, after he had insisted that she get some needed rest, she persisted in working with her herbs and potions, although she had promised she would retire soon.
He left her only to return in the morning to find her sound asleep, her head resting on the table. She had never gone to bed, though exhaustion had claimed her as she had worked. When he had woken her, thinking to see that she slept in her bed for at least a couple of hours, she immediately started her day.
He had had enough. Now she would listen to him.
Rogan entered Laurel and Peter’s cottage without knocking. The young couple’s eyes turned wide when without a word he scooped Aliss up and flung her over his shoulder, grabbed her basket and walked out the door.
“What do you think you are doing?” Aliss asked, pounding on his hard back.
“Looking after you since you are too stubborn to do it yourself.”
She forced a laugh. “You call this looking after me?”
“What would you call it?”
“Another abduction,” she snapped. “Now put me down!”
“When we get home,” he snapped in return.
“This place is not my home.”
Rogan entered his cottage and turned into his room, where he was certain no one would disturb her, and dropped her on his bed. “For now, this is your home.”
Aliss scrambled to the edge of the bed.
“Do not dare set foot out of that bed. You will rest.” He could hear the warning snarl in his voice. It did the trick; she did not move.
She raised herself on her knees. “I am not tired and there is work—”
“That can wait.”
“It cannot.” Her shoulders slumped. “You must let me heal as I see fit.”
“And what if you get sick? What do I do then?”
“Why don’t I, or you, or Anna and others not get sick while some do? That is the true question.”
She plopped down, crossing her legs, and Rogan caught a hint of a firm, slender calf before she tucked her skirt over it. She had beautiful cream-colored, touchable skin and a heart that never stopped caring.
He joined her on the bed.
“I intend to find the answer. It is here right in front of me. I know it,” she said.
“What is your life like back home? Is there a man who cares for you?”
“What does that matter?” she asked, annoyed.
“Healing, healing, healing. That is all you ever talk about. I have wondered if you have anything else in your life.”
“I love my work.”
“I understand that,” he said, and reached out to tug gently on a strand of her fiery red hair. “But you are a beautiful woman, surely you have many men chasing after you.”
“I have no time for a man in my life.”
He wrapped the red curl around his finger. “No time or no interest?”
She swatted his hand away. “I do not wish to sit here talking about nonsense when time could be better spent in finding ways to combat this malady.”
He leaned closer and he could feel her body shiver like a trembling breath washing over him. “Talk of intimacy frightens you.”
“It does not!”
A catch in her voice told him otherwise.