Abandoned Memories (27 page)

Pieces of wood, clothing, even small tools flew through the air. A chunk of firewood struck James. He moaned and forged ahead. His scent of sweat, smoke, and James filled Angeline’s nose, bringing her a modicum of comfort.

Once at the cliffs, he pressed her against the rock wall, kissed her cheek, and sped away to help others. The wind’s violence reduced to but a slap as the cliff absorbed the force of its punch. Angeline hunkered down, along with other colonists, and shielded her face as best she could. Something struck her head. Loosening her grip on Stowy, she reached up to rub the wound. The frightened cat leapt from her arms and sprinted away. Within seconds, his black fur was swallowed up in a cloud of sand.

“Stowy!” Shoving from the cliff, Angeline dashed after him, fear cinching her throat shut. Someone called her name, but it didn’t matter. This wind would toss Stowy around like a rag doll, and she couldn’t stand to lose him. Dodging flying branches and half blinded by sand, she plunged into the jungle. “Stowy!” A flash of black fur up ahead kept her stumbling forward.

Leaves slapped her. Branches stabbed her. Dirt and sand assailed her. Her skirts billowed, then slammed against her legs, then flapped right, then left. Her hair flailed about her head as if someone tugged on it from all directions. She struggled for each breath, barely able to hear her own thoughts—even the ones that shouted the invisible beast’s name,
Destruction
. Was he the cause of this mayhem?

“Stowy!”

The cat crouched near a boulder, his fur standing on end, his eyes skittery with fright.

Someone darted past her, dove onto Stowy, rolled onto his side, and came up with the cat in his arms. Wind tossed light hair in a frantic dance above sky-blue eyes.

Dodd.

He smiled, rose to his feet, and fought his way through flying debris toward her. Dodging a large frond, she reached for Stowy, but he held the cat back. Instead he leaned toward her ear and shouted, “I know a cave nearby. It’ll be safe. I’ll take you there.” His spit splattered on her neck.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” She tugged on Stowy until finally Dodd released him. He took a step back, disappointment burning in his eyes. Then grabbing her hand, he tugged her forward. “I’ll keep you safe,” he shouted, ducking a flying branch.

Jerking from his grip, she hugged Stowy and backed away. The wind drove her against a tree trunk, whipped hair in her face. Squinting against a blast of dirt, Dodd went for her again, but she turned and sped away. A crack as loud as thunder pummeled her ears. She spun around. Something above Dodd moved. A massive branch loosened from the canopy and came crashing down. Dodd’s eyes met hers. She started toward him, gesturing for him to move. He looked up. Terror rang in his eyes just as the branch struck him.

James closed his eyes and drew a breath, hoping to steady the thrashing of his heart. But when he opened them again, the wooden spike still protruded from Thiago’s chest. Blood gurgled from the wound around the chipped wood. James’s stomach cycloned, feeling much like the windstorm that had obliterated their camp earlier that day. Sarah knelt beside the unconscious Brazilian, her eyes red rimmed. She grabbed his hand while Magnolia and Eliza stared at James expectantly. Rising to his feet, he glanced over the wounded—at least a dozen. All lying on the sand beneath a slapdash bamboo roof some of the men had hastily erected. All attended to by Magnolia, Eliza, Angeline, and a few other colonists, who now stared at him as if he held the patients’ survival in his hands. But they were wrong. Avoiding Angeline’s gaze, he ducked beneath the bamboo and darted down the beach.

She followed him. He knew, because her coconut scent drifted on the ocean breeze and swirled beneath his nose. He continued walking, lengthening his stride, too embarrassed to face her. She caught his arm and turned him around. But there was no pity in her violet eyes. Concern, determination perhaps, but no pity.

“Eliza and Magnolia need you, James. You can’t just walk away.”

He glanced across the beach where colonists scavenged for anything left by the wind. “I’m not a doctor anymore.”

“They don’t know whether to pull out the wood or not. They need you to tell them what to do.” She squeezed his arm. “Dodd needs you too. And the others. You don’t have to look at the blood.”

In the distance, Blake marched across the sand, stopping to speak to one man, then slapping another on the back, before shouting orders to a group who combed the beach for goods. His commanding voice was an encouragement to a colony that no doubt wondered if maybe next the ground would open up and swallow them whole.

Sobbing drew his gaze to Mrs. Scott, sitting on a stump, her slave, Mable, trying to comfort her. The windstorm had stripped the colony of what little the flood had left them. James felt like crying himself, except that would make him appear even weaker than he already was. Useless as a preacher—evidenced by the woman standing before him who had tried to kill herself two days ago—and useless as a doctor.

“Will you at least try?” Angeline’s windswept hair fell in tangled waves over her shoulders. A curl blew across her face and tickled the freckles on her nose. She slid it behind her ear and stared at him, her pleading eyes shifting between his. And he knew he’d do anything to please her. Even if it meant his own death.

Which is exactly what it felt like he faced as he headed back to the makeshift clinic. Rolling up his sleeves, he approached Thiago, saw the relief on Eliza’s face, then shifted his gaze to the blood bubbling from his friend’s chest. And froze. His own blood turned to ice. He glanced away, his gaze landing on Dodd, lying in the corner, a lump on his head the size of a lemon. Angeline said a branch had fallen on him. The man hadn’t woken up or even stirred in the two hours since they’d carried him from the jungle. Beside him lay Mr. Jenkins, a gash on his arm. Mrs. Swanson had a broken leg. Next to her, two farmers suffered mild abrasions, and the rest had minor aches and scrapes.

But it was Thiago who caused James the most concern. And the most terror.

“Please, James.” Eliza pressed a cloth on the blood and looked up at him. “Tell us what to do.”

“We have to pull it out,” he said without looking at the wound. Angeline knelt beside Thiago to help. Sarah dipped a cloth in a bucket and dabbed the Brazilian’s head, her hand trembling.

“But what if it struck an organ?” Eliza asked.

James risked a glance. Blood pooled around the wooden spike. His breath beat against his chest. His head grew light. Cursing himself, he looked away. At least the location of the wood indicated no organs or major arteries had been punctured. “If it pierced his heart, he’d be dead. If his lungs, he wouldn’t be breathing like he is.” If it was another organ…well, James doubted he could operate. “Have lots of rags available, some alcohol if we have it.”

“We don’t,” Eliza said.

“I have some.” The shame in Magnolia’s voice drew James’s gaze as she pulled a flask from a pocket of her gown. “I don’t drink it anymore,” she offered as an excuse when all the ladies gaped at her.

James drew a deep breath. The coppery smell of blood sent his heart hammering. Sweat beaded on his neck and arms. “Get a needle and suture ready. Pull the wood out, dab the blood, pour the alcohol on the wound, and sew him up as best you can.”

Silence answered his instructions, prompting him to glance their way. All four ladies stared at him in horror.

Sarah grabbed Thiago’s hand, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Eliza tossed her hair over her shoulder, her expression tightening. “You make it sound so easy.”

James stared at the palm trees blowing in the wind just outside the clinic, at the gauzy foam bubbling on shore, anywhere but at the blood. “It
is
easy.” For anyone but him. “You can do this, Eliza. I know you can. I promise I won’t leave.”

Angeline lifted Lydia to sit on her lap, caressing the soft skin of her cheek. So soft, so innocent. Had Angeline ever been this innocent? She couldn’t remember. The baby uttered sweet gurgling sounds and grabbed Angeline’s chin, staring up at her with a drooling smile and eyes as green as moss filled with trust and wonder.
Trust
. How trusting Lydia had to be. She was completely dependent on others for everything: food, water, protection, even for moving from place to place since she couldn’t yet walk. Yet she had complete trust with no fear of harm or betrayal. How wonderful. How different from the way Angeline felt—from the way most people felt. What happened to people to make them so jaded and skeptical when they reached adulthood? Betrayal, rejection by someone they trusted. What a shame. Angeline hoped Lydia would not suffer such a fate. She hoped—dare she even pray?—that this little angel would never suffer abuse or a broken promise or heartache.

Or become what Angeline had become.

“You’re good with children.” James’s voice jarred her from her musings and made her blood warm at the same time. Plopping to the sand beside her, he drew up his knees and laid his arms atop them. “Want some of your own someday?” His lips curved in a half smile that sent her mind reeling with possibility.

Angeline kissed Lydia’s head and stared out to sea, where morning sunlight cast golden jewels atop waves. Of course she did. But she never would. The thought burned her throat with emotion, keeping her silent. It was just as well. Lydia pointed to Stowy perched on a rock beside them and said, “Day da.”

“That’s Stowy. He’s a cat,” Angeline said. “C…a…t.”

James laughed. “I fear she’s a bit too young to understand you.”

“It’s never too soon to start learning.” Angeline smiled. She’d been taking turns with Eliza and Magnolia looking after Lydia for Sarah, who insisted on keeping vigil beside Thiago ever since they’d removed the spike two days ago. Angeline didn’t mind. She cherished her time with the child. It gave her a chance to pretend, just for a moment, that she was a decent lady with a family of her own.

“How is Thiago?” she asked.

James tried to hide his concern, but she knew him too well. “He’s over the worst of it. We shall see.”

“And Dodd?” Dodd had not woken up in two days and she hated herself for being overjoyed.

James plucked a large shell from the sand and handed it to Lydia, who promptly stuck the edge into her mouth and began sucking on it. He released a heavy breath and squinted at the sun traversing across a cerulean sky. “I fear it’s a coma. If he hasn’t woken up by tomorrow, there’s no guarantee he ever will.”

“Poor man,” she said, though her heart leapt at the prospect. Dodd’s eternal sleep would solve all her problems. Well, the biggest one, anyway. She could stay with the colony—what was left of it. More importantly, she could stay with James. Start a new life like she always wanted. Abandon her memories to the past where they belonged.

“In the meantime, we must keep water and soft foods down him as much we can,” James said.

James and Dodd had never been friends. In fact, quite the opposite. Yet the concern in his voice for the man put Angeline to shame. Because of his fear of blood, James thought himself weak. But he was the strongest, most courageous man she knew. Though sweat had beaded his brow, though his hands had trembled and his chest heaved, he had stood by Eliza and Magnolia, instructing them minute by minute while they tended to Thiago. He hadn’t even left his post when his legs had begun to tremble. He’d just sat down and continued.

His eyes met hers. And in their depths she saw a life played out with the two of them—a life of love and passion and children and joy. A mist covered her own eyes, but she couldn’t turn them away.

“What are you thinking?” He cocked his head as a breeze stirred the tips of his hair.

“I’m thinking about you.”

Hope shone in his smile. Confusion formed a line on his brow. He brushed a curl from her face. “I thought you said…”

That she didn’t want his courtship? “I can think, can’t I?”

“As often as you want.” He chuckled. “As much as you want.”

Lydia pulled the tip of the shell from her mouth and tossed it at him.

He caught it, drool splattering on his hand. Laughing, he lifted his gaze to Angeline’s. “As long as they are good thoughts.”