***This one is short, and a bit rushed. I have a MAD case of the Sunday Scaries. I have to put on pants without an elastic waistband tomorrow and go do actual work with my flesh-and-blood coworkers instead of sitting at my kitchen table on the computer with my dog at my feet. My psyche is not adapting well to this looming change.***
Josh
A week had passed since Brent's run-in with the bear, and Josh was feeling no more at peace with the situation than he had that first night. The first few days had been a blur-- any interpersonal drama sidelined by the battle to keep his brother alive. His temperature had risen dangerously high, and he thrashed and moaned, yelling incoherently, tearing his stitches and bringing up damn year every ounce of water they managed to pour down his throat. He, Amelia, Melissa, and his father had taken shifts sitting with him, fighting to cool his blazing skin with cold water and compresses made with packed snow.
After the fever broke, though, everything slowed down and the old bitterness and fear began to resurface. Melissa and his father returned home, leaving him and Amelia to tend to their patient, and it was as agonizing as he'd have guessed. Brent quickly seemed to realize what Josh had noticed that first night-- that Amelia was compassionate to a fault. She wouldn't budge to his wheedling and sly grins, but when he moaned about the pain or struggled to raise the cup to his mouth to drink, there she was to tend him, in all her angelic glory.
Josh tried, really tried, not to resent it. The man truly was sick, after all. What was more, Amelia always looked so guilty afterwards, like she had kissed the man or gone to bed with him instead of just feeding him a drink of water or plumping his pillows. And she always made a point of fetching Josh for the more intimate tasks, although that may have been due as much to her own embarrassment and sensibilities as to consideration of his feelings.
One week after the 'incident,' a rider came from the ranch. There was some issue with a shipment of feed, and the merchant refused to anyone but him. Josh had half a mind to send the man to his father, but thought better of it. The old man was still decent at the books, and certainly had a flare for gaining rapport with potential business partners, but negotiations were a different story. That hair trigger temper of his didn't suit him in professional disagreements.
He didn't want to leave his wife and daughter alone with Brent, but his desire to stay home as a supervisor was silly, frivolous, and disrespectful to his wife. She said she would be loyal to him, and he had to trust her. So he asked, and she assured him she could manage Brent alone for a day. Despite her reassurance, he had ridden off with a ball of lead in his stomach.
The issue with the feed was resolved quickly enough, but just as he was leaving a man got thrown in the north pasture and broke a leg, and the sparse winter crew was already stretched so thin Josh had ridden out with the rescue party. By the time they brought the injured man back and Melissa had tended to him, which Josh couldn't dare let her do without his supervision in the presence of all those cooped up men, it was nearing dark.
His home didn't smell right when he pushed the door open and stepped inside, and it was colder than it ought to have been. The kitchen was dark, the stove unlit, and there was no evidence of supper. The hearth in the sitting room was dark, just a bed of fading embers.
"Amel--" he broke off as he rounded the corner to his room-- Brent's room, really, these days. Amelia sat slumped in the armchair by the bed, her haggard face relaxed in sleep, her entire body sagging against the wings. A delicate snore issued from her parted lips, and she didn't twitch at his approaching footsteps. Brent lay propped against a mountain of pillows, head canted toward his shoulder, his hand resting limp on the book that lay open on his lap.
Elsie Dinsmore.
Rebecca was a cozy ball, tucked beneath his brother's arm. Her father's arm. Her head rested against the uninjured side of his chest and one small hand gripped the fabric of the shirt Josh had helped him into that morning.
He didn't know how long he stood in the doorway and stared. It felt as if he lived a lifetime. Their lifetime. He watched them awaken and smile at each other as they stretched the sleep-kinks from their muscles. He watched them putter about the house as Brent healed, and then ride off together in the wagon. He watched them make more babies, and build that grand house, and leave their affairs to a slew of competent employees so they could sail the seven seas. He watched Brent hand Rebecca over to some faceless suitor, and bounce grandbabies on his knee. He watched Amelia's hair grow gray and her body slow and stiffen. He watched them sit together on the porch of that mansion and revisit all the lives they'd lived together.
And then he blinked, and they were young once more, the chilly air thick with the weight of their repose. He felt as he was walking through sucking mud as he turned and left them to their rest. He brought in firewood and stoked the hearth and the stove back to life. He was worthless in the kitchen, but he fried a couple eggs and wolfed them down, along with a heel of white bread and a cup of coffee. Then he returned to the bedroom and tried not to feel like a monster for prying Reb from Brent's arms. Fortunately, she didn't wake, nuzzling into his shoulder as he carried her to her room and set her on the bed. He remembered what his father had said about Brent sleeping through thunderstorms as he changed her from her dress to her cotton nightgown. She didn't even twitch. She only rolled over with a sleepy sigh as he pulled the heavy quilt up to her neck and smoothed the mussed hair from her forehead. How much longer would this privilege be his?
His moving about must have awoken Amelia, because she was in the kitchen when he left Rebecca. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, and her braid was half-disassembled, but she forced a cheerful smile when he entered the room.
"I'm so sorry," she said with a yawn. "I didn't think I'd fall asleep. I'll have supper for you in a bit, if you want to sit down."
"It's fine," he told her, leaning against the doorframe. This time together, while she finished the cooking and he thawed out from the cold, was usually the time they spent rehashing their days. Sharing those moments in each other's lives that they had missed. "I already ate. Why don't you sit and I'll make you something. You look burned out, sweetheart."
She cast a glance at him over her shoulder, and her smile was more genuine this time but also sadder. "I'm not very hungry," she said. "I ate plenty at lunch. Are you sure you don't want me to fix you something?"
"I'm sure," he assured her. "Come sit down, Ames."
They sank onto chairs on opposite sides of the table, and Amelia clasped her hands together, worrying at a fingernail. "Have you thought any more about leaving?" she asked finally, raising her weary gaze to his.
He nodded, slowly. In truth, he hadn't thought about much else.
"We need to do it," she said when he didn't offer more. "We need to get away from here."
The urgency in her tone caught his attention, and he frowned at her. "We will, Ames."
She bit her lip, rubbing absently at a scorch mark in the rough wooden table. "He's worming his way in, Josh. It frightens me."
"Who, pa?" The old man had been so wrapped up in Brent before he left, Josh hadn't seen him as worming his way into much of anything.
"No," Amelia shook her head sadly, lowering her gaze. "Brent. I know that he's hurt, but he's being sneaky. He wants us back so badly. He wasn't like this before--patient and... and gentle? I thought he'd have no real interest in Rebecca, that it was all some greedy ploy. The forbidden fruit, or something like that. But I'm starting to wonder if he's being truthful, and I'm afraid of how hard he's fighting."
His blood was so thick it was a miracle his heart thundered so quickly. He interlocked his fingers to hide the trembling in his hands, but he knew he couldn't hide the flush of anger that rose up his neck. "What are you saying, Amelia?" he asked through his teeth, and almost laughed when her face went from pensive to confused.
"Just that we need to leave," she said, lowering her brows at him as if he'd gone insane. "We already talked about this, Josh. What's the matter?"
"I want to leave to get away from my father," he said slowly, fighting to keep the words simple and civil while they twisted and clawed and begged to be more vile. "I'm worried for your safety if we stay here. I'm not moving you and Rebecca across the country just to remove you from temptation."
His wife blanched, shaking her head rapidly, her loose hair swaying with the movement. "Josh, that's not what I said."
"It's what you meant, though, isn't it?" he challenged, his ire building as her own face went from anxious to angry. Her cheeks grew pink and her eyes sparked with fire. "You weren't so nervous about this union when you thought Brent was an insensitive heel. But now that he's shown a little kindness and had some time to sweet talk you, I have to secret you away to help you keep to your vows?"
"Don't put words in my mouth. I was talking about Rebecca, you jackass."
He snorted in derision. "The hell you were, Ames. I've seen the way you are about protecting her. If it was really just about Rebecca, you'd have slapped him upside his head and set him straight. This is about you. You can't slap him upside the head because you don't want to. You like that he's good with her. You like him. It's getting harder and harder to tell him to shove off with his offer. You said yourself, it was easy when he first arrived because you thought he wouldn't follow through. Now it's looking like he might, and suddenly you need to flee to another state just to escape his pull."
Shooting daggers from her stormy eyes, Amelia sprang to her feet and circled around the table, grabbing him by the arm. It was almost humorous, this brief moment of understanding, as they stomped, furious but quiet, toward the door and let themselves out into the cold so they could fight in the privacy of the porch. It was getting harder to keep quiet, and neither of them wanted to wake Rebecca.
The second the door closed behind them, the moment of comradery was over. Amelia wheeled on him with her hands on her hips, the heat of their combined fury radiating off them both in waves, driving back the biting cold.
"You have no right to speak to me that way," she snapped, jabbing him in the chest with her finger. "I have been nothing but faithful to you, Joshua. I have never given you any reason to doubt my loyalty. The second Brent arrived, I made clear to you that my heart belonged to you, and I have been fighting to keep our family intact ever since. You, on the contrary, seem intent on tearing us apart."
He reeled, genuinely shaken by the accusation. "What the hell are you talking about?" he demanded.
"I'm talking about this damned martyr routine!' she half-yelled, clenching her jaw and sucking in a deep breath through flared nostrils before going on. "At every hint of trouble, you leap to the stupidest conclusions. If I so much as look at him, you make up a love story and beg me to leave you. It's almost like you want to get rid of us."
Her words and the sheen of tears in his eyes sucked out a great deal of his anger, but his blood still burned just enough that the words weren't as gentle as he'd have liked them to be. "You know that's not true, Ames."
"Isn't it? Don't you see how it makes me feel?" she begged. Now that the argument was fading, the cold was beginning to bite. He felt it cutting through his shirt, and saw it in the way she shivered and hugged her arms around herself. He felt it all the way down to his heart when she spoke. "You won't even fight for us, Josh," she said quietly, lowering her gaze to her feet. "You say you love us, but you just keep pushing me to go. You won't even fight."
He should have wrapped her up in his arms and taken her back inside, kissed away her tears and held her until she was sure of the fact that he loved her unto death.
"I shouldn't have to," he said instead. "I'm not fighting because I shouldn't have to, Amelia. I fought for you at the start. I fought for your hand, I fought for your affection, I fought for your trust. I fought to give you the closest thing to a good life that I could offer. I cleaned Rebecca's poopy bum and I took shifts with you when she was colicky. I clawed and scraped for your love and for this family, and all my brother has to do is stay put for a few weeks and read her a book and you're feeling like we need to run to escape him. I can't fight that, Amelia. I won't fight that."
"Josh..." The despair in her voice broke him, because she didn't sound indignant or frustrated, anymore. She just sounded defeated. He wished she'd fight him, but maybe he wasn't the only one who was worn out from it all.
With a sigh, he tugged the door open and followed her slumped form back inside. They moved around the house in silence, preparing for bed. She'd been sleeping with Rebecca on the girl's narrow bed, and he had taken to the couch now that Brent was on the mend and no longer required supervision. Dressed in her nightgown, she disappeared into Rebecca's room and he sat heavily on the couch, staring at the fire.
What had he done? The only chance in hell he had at holding on to his family was to keep Amelia happy and reassured of his love. They were partners, and he'd all but told her he'd left her to fight alone. He was a fool. Resolved to make it right, he pushed to his feet just as she appeared in the doorway to the sitting room.
"Rebecca kicks in her sleep," she said quietly, stepping into the room as he sank back down to the couch.
"Amelia, I--"
"Can I sleep out here tonight? With you?" She looked nervous, and his face heated at what was clearly an act of pity.
"I shouldn't have said all that out there," he mumbled. "It's not all on you, Ames. I'm fighting, sweetheart. I'm just not as good at it as you."
She smiled sadly, and came to sit beside him on the couch. "I know you are," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You've just got a few more battles raging than I have, right now. I see that. But Josh, it infuriates and frustrates me that you think I'd rather be with him. I'm running out of ways to tell you how much I love you."
Shifting carefully, he reclined on the narrow couch and pulled her down on top of him. She reached up and pulled the blanket off the arm and drew it over them. Her body was pressed to his from his feet to his shoulder, and her weight on his chest made it somehow easier to draw a breath. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "We'll leave, Ames," he promised, raising a hand to her hair, holding her head against his chest like that could bind her to his life. "I didn't mean what I said. I won't ever finish fighting for you. We'll leave as soon as the snow clears."
With a contented sigh, she gripped his arm and pressed her face into his shoulder. "I love you," she murmured sleepily.
"I love you too," he said to the ceiling, and wished the words were spoken with hope rather than desperation.