Rosemary had a problem. Well, she had many problems, but the most pressing was that she suspected that Lee had been driven off of the main road in the blinding wind and rain the night before.
She had naively expected that if she simply walked the horses in the direction the wagon was facing, she would get to Hope Valley eventually, and probably meet plenty of people along the way who could help.
As the day wore on, her panic level began to rise, because she hadn't seen another soul or another house since she'd set out.
She didn't even have a compass to know if she was headed in the right direction. But Jack had taught her how to read the sun, and thank goodness the sun had been very clearly in the sky. She'd watched it rise slowly, reach its apex and begin moving down behind her, and knowing that it generally rose in the east and set in the west, she had already chosen forks in the road that would lead her southeast toward home. She hoped.
But still, no one.
What was worrying her now as she felt the air begin to chill, was that the road seemed to be getting narrower. She remembered Jack saying that it was usually an indication that you were moving away from civilization rather than toward it.
Rosemary looked up at the sky. The sun was low behind her and she could sense just the faintest darkening of the horizon in front of her. Twilight was coming and she felt no closer to home, no more sure of herself, and infinitely more worried about spending a night in the wagon with Lee so ill.
It was time to give Lee more water, and Rosemary moved the reins gently to the right so the horses would stop at the side of the road rather than in the middle of it.
"Not that it matters," she said testily. "Not like we're going to be stopping traffic." She'd been talking to Lee, or more precisely, to herself, since she'd started out. She stopped often to force him to drink water, which he did seemingly without consciousness, though he managed to swallow. His fever had subsided a little, but she'd had to prop him up on her couch pillows to keep him from coughing. He hadn't spoken a coherent word since they'd left the cabin.
"I think we have to spend the night on this blasted road," she said, crawling over the bench and into the bed of the wagon. The mattress was large enough for both of them, and she still had the tarp pulled tight across the sides of the wagon just in case it started to rain again. If it did, she could simply lash it together and they could lie under it like a tent.
She was kicking herself that she hadn't brought the lantern that was sitting plain as day in the cabin window, but it had been brilliant sunshine when she'd left and it just hadn't crossed her mind.
"Here, drink," she said softly. She'd found that if she spooned a small amount between his lips, Lee would swallow.
Rosemary put her cool hand on his cheek. "I know you're in there somewhere..." she said, feeling the tears begin again. "And I'm sure this is what you need to get well, but I really wish I had you here to help me." Rosemary watched him breathing for a while, making sure he was getting enough air. His chest was still rising and falling precipitously, and she knew it wasn't easy for him, but he was alive, and she closed her eyes and thanked God for that.
"We're not going any further tonight," Rosemary said, looking up at the sky. She stood wearily and climbed down from the wagon, retrieving the rope she needed to picket the horses where the grass was plentiful by the trees. The rains had swelled a small creek that paralleled the road, and after unhitching them, she let them drink their fill and then tethered them to the line between two trees for the night.
By the time she climbed back up into the bed of the wagon with Lee, she was completely spent. She ate a few of the leftover graham crackers and some of the beef jerky from her bag, and drank some water.
And then, because she was so tired and she had been looking at a dusty and empty road all day, Rosemary simply stretched out beside Lee. She pulled the quilt over herself and tucked it up around his neck, pressing against his warm body. As she watched the sky turn yellow, then orange, then pink, and finally into a twilight blue, she talked to him. Told him stories of her life growing up, of her life in the theatre. She recited Shakespeare, especially her favorite role of all, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing.
"She loves Benedick. Of course she does," Rosemary said softly, smoothing Lee's hair gently from his forehead and sounding as if she was answering an unspoken question. "But they're both so stubborn and refuse to admit it, until finally she tells him, 'Love on, I will requite thee. Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand...'" Rosemary's arm rose up dramatically over the tarpaulin and into the star-filled sky as she finished the line with a flourish.
Sighing, she sat up and spooned more water between Lee's lips, now functioning in near-darkness. Before screwing the cap back on to the Mason jar, she took a long swallow herself.
"Maybe just a little sleep," she said to Lee, feeling every muscle in her body desperate for rest. She checked him one more time by holding her hand against his skin, on his forehead, his cheek, his neck and then down into the soft hairs of his chest. So intimate and so terrifying, this night. She pulled close to him and tried to will what little energy she had left into his body, to help it heal. And she prayed, more fervently than she ever had, for him to wake up, take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right.
Finally, she kissed him softly on the lips and whispered, "I love you, Lee Coulter. You come back to me, and I promise you, I'll never let you go."
Charlotte narrowed her eyes at the lowering sun. She'd ridden the main road nearly to Cape Fullerton and had seen nothing of the wagon or Rosemary and Lee. Anyone she passed, she asked, and no one had seen them. But they'd all been aware of the weather out on the road the night before, and they'd said it was impossible to see in the driving wind and rain. Most of them had taken shelter until the morning.
So, that's what they did. They took shelter. But alongside the main road they would have been visible, and it didn't make sense for them to move further into the trees, so Charlotte had developed a hypothesis.
Impossible to see. Which meant it was likely they had taken the wrong road. So all the way back, she and Hickam, who had finally caught up with her, had been exploring the side roads and then meeting back on the main one. It was a tedious process, but Charlotte was a good tracker, and she'd quickly told Mike what he should look for, so she was confident they'd been thorough.
And now finally, they'd discovered a small cabin on a side road and had found ruts from a wagon and tracks from two horses. The mud had dried and left clues, but when Charlotte finally jumped down from her horse, she found all she needed. One pair of fuzzy pink slippers, caked in mud, sitting on top of a small pile of refuse by the side of a mailbox.
Charlotte smiled. Rosemary couldn't have left a clearer calling card.
In the light of the setting sun, Charlotte and Mike mounted their horses and headed back toward Hope Valley on the side road. It paralleled the main one with a distance of about a half a mile between.
"If they're on this road, and I reckon they are," Charlotte said to Hickam, "They might be home already."
Nathan touched the silver teardrop pendant lightly with his fingertip. It lay high on Elizabeth's chest and was catching the light of the moon that was finally visible after the rains.
"I'm glad you like this," he said softly.
"I don't like it," Elizabeth said, turning to him in the semi-darkness. She leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips. "I love it. I'm not sure I'll ever take it off."
Nathan smiled and reached up to move a curling tendril of hair away from Elizabeth's eyes. "And I think I'll always remember you in this light. Our very own moonlight..."
Elizabeth sighed. "It's been a wonderful honeymoon."
Nathan laughed softly. "Oh, this hasn't been our honeymoon, angel. This was a necessary trip to Hamilton to care for your very ill mother."
Grimacing, Elizabeth said, "Yes, well, I am sorry about that. But I warned you that it was probably more a matter of her missing me." She snuggled closer into his arms. "And it's been a lovely trip, no matter what we call it."
Wrapping her in his long arms, Nathan kissed the top of her head. "Where would you like to go on our honeymoon, then?"
Elizabeth answered quickly. "To our house on the meadow."
"The one we still have to build?" Nathan asked.
"I didn't say it was going to be an easy honeymoon," Elizabeth said, smiling.
For a moment they lay there in the moonlight, trying to memorize the movement of the train on the rails and the muted sound that rose up through the floor of the cabin, vibrating through their bones.
"Boy or girl?" Elizabeth said suddenly.
"Three of each," Nathan said, without missing a beat.
Elizabeth turned and looked at him with wide eyes and they both laughed.
"You think I'm kidding," Nathan said. He leaned down and kissed her, saying softly against her lips, "I'll take as many as you want to give me."
Snuggling back down again, Elizabeth said, "We'll take it one at a time and decide as we go. And considering I spend my days with nearly twenty children, it shouldn't be too much of an adjustment to have four or five little Grants running around."
She felt Nathan's chest rise suddenly and she turned again. "What?"
Elizabeth was surprised to see the beginnings of tears in his eyes, and Nathan looked as surprised as she did. "I don't know. A picture just popped into my head of children, our children, running around our new house." He took another deep breath. "I've never really been able to see it before, but... now I can," he said.
Propping herself up on her elbows, Elizabeth touched a tear with her finger, just as it left the corner of his eye. "I've never known a man like you," she said softly. "So strong, but tender. Fierce when you need to be, but just the thought of children, your children, can do this..." She kissed the spot just below his temple, where the small moist track ran into his dark hair. "I love that you feel this way..."
"I can only see it because of you," he said. "And I think I understand it now when people say that someone made their dreams come true. It's not just a saying, is it? It's literal. The things I've hoped for, dreamed of, are coming true with you."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "You said that you dreamed a lot in that bed of yours. The one we're going to be sharing when we get back?"
Nathan laughed. "Those were different dreams," he said, turning his head to avoid her eyes.
Elizabeth touched his cheek with her thumb. "You're blushing, Constable."
Turning back, Nathan pulled her to him tightly. "Never mind," he said, burying his face in her curls. Elizabeth circled his neck with her arms and laughed.
"I'll get your secrets out of you," she said.
"I don't doubt that for a minute," Nathan said, moving his mouth from her neck to her cheek before he finally found her lips.
Charlotte held the lantern up higher to illuminate the road in front of her. The moon was waning and there seemed to be some clouds gathering.
"Do you see that?" she said, never taking her eye off of the road ahead.
Mike squinted into the darkness, blinded by his own lantern. Then he saw it, the faint shape of a box, which slowly formed into a wagon. The wagon he'd driven himself, dozens of times. Lee's wagon.
"That's them," he said, spurring his horse on just as Charlotte did. He could see that the team was picketed just off the road. The tarp was still pulled tightly over Rosemary's belongings, causing irregular bumps and shadowed shapes in the faint light of the moon.
Charlotte reached the wagon first and pulled her horse up sharply. Holding her lantern high above what looked to be an opening in the tarpaulin, she blinked.
There in the bed of the wagon were Rosemary and Lee curled together. Lee was on his back and Rosemary on her side. One of her hands was tenderly cupping his cheek and her head was on his shoulder. They both looked to be sound asleep.
Mike pulled up next to her and raised his eyebrows. "Oh," was all he managed to say before Charlotte cleared her throat loudly and Rosemary started awake. Though Charlotte was focused solely on her daughter-in-law, Hickam noticed that Lee didn't move. At least not until he started coughing.
Rosemary looked wide-eyed at Charlotte, speechless.
"We'll discuss this later," Charlotte said, straining to be heard over Lee's coughing. Rosemary turned back and found one of the Mason jars, quickly opening it. She put her arm under Lee's neck and lifted him up, holding the jar to his mouth. He sputtered, but managed to get some of the water down his throat.
Mike was already untying the horses and bringing them round to be hitched.
Charlotte called out to him. "You drive the wagon with them in the back. I'll take your horse and wake up the doc. That's pneumonia, I'd bet on it. Meet us there."
Charlotte looked at Rosemary still holding Lee in the back of the wagon. Rosemary hadn't budged, and seemed to have a defiant look, though it may have been the shadows playing tricks.
"Not the time or the place," Charlotte said icily. "But there will be a time and place. Count on it." And with that, she rode away.
Rosemary exhaled. She looked down at Lee in her arms. His coughing had stopped and he was still very warm, but she thought there was a chance everything could be okay.
She cradled Lee's head and kissed the top of it. It was all worth it. Whatever music she had to face with Charlotte, it was worth it.