Stepping Into the Light by Candee Fick

Author:Candee Fick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Scottish Highlands, clean medieval romance, Christian romance
Publisher: Candee Fick
Published: 2019-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Moira staggered as Evan’s considerable weight threw her off balance. The physical contact was almost as surprising as the searing heat of his lips on her skin.

What kind of friar would kiss a girl, even if it was on her cheek? Hadn’t he taken a vow of chastity? Then again, what sort of girl was she to seek out reasons to stay near the man? Hero-worship had taken her senses and invited his familiarity.

But no more. She pushed against his shoulders, and he crumpled into a cloth-covered heap at her feet before she could slow his fall.

Her initial shock at his behavior turned into panic when he didn’t move. Just as she’d toed him with no resulting effect, sounds from around the clearing reached her ears.

“What’s wrong with him?” Birkita dropped an armload of firewood beneath the rocky overhang. Hopefully she’d only seen him fall and not the actions that preceded it.

Moira quickly knelt to brush the hair from his flushed face and gasped. “He’s burning with fever.”

And besotted fool that she was, his illness had gone unnoticed or been explained away as ordinary exhaustion.

“Help me drag him closer to the wall.” She grasped under his arms and pulled while two other girls rushed to help lift his limbs.

While a feverish delirium could explain the kiss—and his crazy mumbling about her beauty—what would cause such a strong man to drop into a faint?

’Twas almost as if he had an infection—

Heaven help her, she’d forgotten all about the wound on his arm from their encounter with the boar. She’d known it bothered him, but they hadn’t the time for medicines while on the run.

And he’d worked so hard today. For all of them.

A minute later, with his body laid out along the back of their would-be shelter, she reached for the foul bandage and nearly gagged at the putrefying mess beneath the dirty cloth.

The oozing gash reaching from his wrist almost to his elbow hadn’t been properly cleaned that first night and the wet bandages had allowed it to fester. And now, beneath the skin, dangerous red lines stretched toward his upper arm as the infection spread.

This wound needed to be cleaned and treated in all haste if Evan were to recover.

She reached for her satchel of herbal remedies and began barking orders for someone to fetch fresh water from the creek. With the rest of the women still occupied weaving the roof for the shelter, Moira sacrificed her spare gown to the blade of her dirk, creating a pile of clean bandages and a supply of rags for the task ahead.

The moment she touched a water-soaked cloth to his arm, Evan roused with a moan and a slap of his free hand as if to push her away.

“Nay. Like it or not, ye’re staying put until I can clear the gore and pack yer wound with my herbs like I shoulda done two days ago.”

He lay back with a sigh. “Do yer best, me bossy beauty.”

Heat rose in her face at his delirious ramblings, but she focused instead on the task at hand.

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