"Easy, Miss Christy. The way you're kneadin' that dough, our biscuits will be hard as rocks." Fairlight Spencer set down the apple she was peeling and leaned across the table to still her friend's hands. "What's eatin' at ya?"

Christy sighed and flipped the dough again, though much more gently. "I'm sorry, Fairlight. I don't know where my mind is at this afternoon."

"I do. Your head is with them folks at the mission and your heart is with Neil MacNeil." The blonde woman smirked and resumed her apple peeling.

"Fairlight!" Christy slapped the dough one more time and sat down on the bench.

"No use in fussin' at me, Miss Christy. Ya know I'm right. I knew it from the moment ya showed up here earlier this afternoon. You and Doc had words this morning, didn't ya?"

"Well…yes. But Fairlight, I was trying to do the right thing."

"The right thing is never easy. What'd you say to him?"

"I told him that we needed to keep things professional — you know, respectable. I'm the mission teacher and he's the Cove's doctor and that's just the way things have to be."

Fairlight snorted. She sliced an apple and handed a piece across the table to Christy. "What'd Neil say?"

Christy took the apple and bit off a piece. It tasted sour. "Not a lot. He looked so hurt though, like a wounded animal."

"Well, don't you feel the hurtin' too? Between you and Margaret, that man's gotta heap of hurtin' on him right now."

Christy the piece of apple she'd been chewing. "That's my point, Fairlight! I can't add to that hurt."

Fairlight sighed. "Well, if that's…" She paused and looked towards the open front door. "Ya hear that?"

"Hear what?" Christy looked towards the door.

"That whipporwill. Strange time of day for him to be calling like that." Fairlight stood and began cutting biscuits out of the dough. "Death is coming."

Christy's eyes grew wide and she turned to look at Fairlight. "What?"

"You'd best get back to the mission, Miss Christy. They'll be needin' ya."

"Needin' me for what, Fairlight?" Her friend had a faraway look on her face.

"Go on. Won't be long now."

Fairlight's calm tone and unfocused gaze unsettled Christy. Her friend's premonitions were almost always right. "Is it Margaret?"

Fairlight smiled sadly. "Go on. He's waiting."

Christy's heart started to race and she shrugged on her coat. She was out the door before Fairlight had the biscuits on to bake.

By the time the mission came into view, the last rays of sunlight were slipping beyond the western mountains. Dusk had fallen, casting a graying light over the mission yard. Save the chirping of the crickets, it was silent.

Christy saw Neil before he saw her. He was standing on the porch, shoulders slumped and forehead resting against a post. His eyes were closed and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. He looked so broken and so alone. It was all she could do to keep from wrapping him in an embrace.

The porch step creaked under her weight. Neil's opened his eyes and turned his head towards her. "It's over. She's gone." His words were hushed and the words sounded like they were caught in his throat.

"Neil." Christy stepped towards him, her hands reaching out to wrap around his right arm.

He shook his head. "Alice will be needing you."

Christy nodded. "If you need anything—"

"I don't. She's still upstairs with…" His voice trailed off and he looked out towards the church, away from Christy.

Christy left him then. As she shut the mission door behind her, she willed herself to focus on Alice and faith and all of the things that would need to be done to prepare Margaret's body and the mission for a funeral.

Upstairs, Christy found Alice sitting stoically in a chair at Margaret's bedside. Her eyes were red from crying and she clutched her bible in one hand and a sodden handkerchief in the other. "Oh, Ms. Alice. I'm so sorry." Christy dropped to her knees at her mentor's side. "I'm so very sorry."

Alice sniffled, ran a hand across her damp face, then drew in a deep breath. "Thank thee, Christy. I take comfort in knowing she is no longer suffering. Has thee seen Neil?"

Christy nodded. "He's on the porch."

"Thee should go to him. We have both mourned Margaret before. I think this time he blames himself more than he did the first. He needs thee more than he knows."

Christy forced a sad smile and nodded. She was caught between a rock and a hard place and her heart was crammed in the midst of it all. "I'll check on him. I promise. First, what can I do to help you?"

"Would thee tie up Margaret's hair in one of thy's red ribbons? It's vanity, I know — but Margaret loved red ribbons when she was a small girl."

"Of course."

Alice leaned over and cupped Christy's cheek in her hand. "Thee is such a blessing, Miss Huddleston— even in a time of such darkness. I thank thee."

Margaret was buried the next afternoon. The people of the Cove had little grief for her passing. Christy, Ruby Mae, Hattie, Fairlight, Jeb, Opal, and Tom were the only mourners present to stand alongside Alice and Neil. The service was simple, short, and lacking in drama. Christy has a terrible thought, fleeting though it was, that Margaret would have been disappointed.

Long after Jeb and Tom had filled in the grave, Neil remained in the cemetery. Eventually, his legs grew weary of standing and he sank to his knees in the soft red clay. Christy found him like that hours after most of funeral party had returned home. The late afternoon sun was beginning to sink beyond the closest mountain. The evening chill was setting in and the birds were settling into trees to roost for the night.

"Doctor MacNeil." Christy sank down beside him in the dirt. "Neil." She lied a gentle hand upon his back. "It's getting dark. Won't you come in for supper? Fairlight and I made certain there was no squirrel in Ruby Mae's stew tonight. "

Despite his somber mood, her attempt at humor did not go unnoticed. He looked at her and forced a smile. "But squirrel's my favorite."

Christy wrinkled her nose and Neil let out a quiet laugh. He reached forward to tuck a loose wisp of hair behind her ear, but caught himself at the last moment. "I'm not staying for supper. I'm going back to my cabin. It's been too long since I've slept in my own bed."

"Oh." Christy realized with a pang that it had been more than week since Neil had been to his cabin. He'd been sleeping at the mission every night, leaving only to check on other patients. In spite of their unraveling friendship, Christy realized she'd grown used to seeing him first thing every morning and last thing every night. She would miss that. "I understand. I can go pack up some food for you to take with you." She jumped up and wiped the clay from her skirt.

"Thank you for the offer, but no. I can't go back into the mission. It's too…painful right now." He looked at her sadly and heaved himself up from the ground. "Goodbye, Miss Huddleston."

Stuck somewhere between understanding his reticence to return to the mission and his sudden desire to leave immediately, Christy could only nod. "Goodnight, Doctor."

She watched his retreating figure until he was beyond the first line of trees.