The Preacher's Bride Claim by Laurie Kingery

Author:Laurie Kingery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2013-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Keith Gilbert came just before noon for an update on Elijah’s condition. Alice spoke to him as frankly as she had to his brothers.

“I’ll tell the church, and we’ll be praying,” he told her. “Mrs. Murphy said she’d be sending supper over for all of you,” he said, including Gideon and Clint in his words. “Alice, Cassie will be coming to relieve you again tonight.”

“I’ll be grateful for her help,” Alice said. “But I won’t be sleeping.” She wouldn’t be leaving Elijah’s side until the crisis had passed, and they had either won—or lost everything.

The deacon turned to go, but Alice reached out a hand to stop him. “Mr. Gilbert, how is Dakota? Is he... Does he seem content where he is or still restless?”

He sighed. “He seems to like Cassie and me, but before the reverend took sick, he kept saying his father’s name and studying everyone who passed, especially those Security Patrol fellows. I hate to bring it up, since Elijah’s so ill, but were you able to find out anything that day you went out and talked to those army officers?”

Alice took a deep breath. Their expedition to the border seemed like a decade ago, and yet it had been only two days ago.

She told him what Colonel Amboys had told them.

Keith Gilbert looked down at the ground for a long moment afterward. “I was afraid of something like that.”

“Mr. Gilbert, I’m telling you so that you and your wife will be prepared. But if you’re willing, perhaps it would be best to...wait a day or so before you tell Dakota? I know he’ll have questions to ask...us—” she stumbled over the word, praying she wouldn’t have to answer them alone “—through Lars, about what the officer said.”

“That might be best,” Gilbert said. “Honestly I don’t think he’s going to ask about it. Lars has stopped by a few times, in case the boy needed to talk, and he says Dakota’s worried sick about Elijah. He’d be underfoot here now, but Cassie made him promise to wait until the reverend was better, so he wouldn’t take sick, too.”

Alice nodded. A child like Dakota, who had so recently undertaken a journey fraught with danger and hunger, might succumb easily to such a dangerous illness. The Gilberts would be devastated if anything happened to him.

Just as they’d all be devastated if Elijah didn’t recover.

* * *

Hot again. And so tired, tired of the pain. The evil shadow was getting bolder now, closer.... His skin burned like fire—yet not fire. He burned as if there was ice coating his skin. So cold, but too exhausted to even shiver.

Perhaps he should get it over with, let the evil shadow overtake him. But whenever he would get this thought born of weariness, the presence of the Light grew stronger and held the evil in the shadow away.

A Voice in the Light murmured, “Not yet, Elijah. You have work to do yet.”

Cool hands. A soft voice. Cool water on his skin that banished the fiery heat, if only for a while.

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