One White Rose Read Free Page A

didn't I realize his hands were shaking until he tried to light [ the candles. It took him three attempts before he succeeded. When he turned around, she was already folding back a colorful quilt on the bed.
    "You're drenched. You really need to get out of your wet clothes before you do anything else," he said.
    "What about you? Do you have a change of clothes?" she asked.
    "In my saddlebags. If you don't need help, I'll start the fire; then I'll go back to the barn and take care of the horses. Have yours been fed?"
    "Yes," she answered. "Be careful with Pegasus. He doesn't like strangers." She stared down at the floor with her hands folded together. As Douglas turned to leave, she called out to him, "You're coming back, aren't you?"
    She was fretting again. The last thing she needed to worry about now was being left alone. He had a feeling they were in for one hell of a night, and he wanted her to conserve her strength for the more important task ahead.
    "You're going to have to trust me."
    "Yes… I'll try."
    She still looked scared. He leaned against the doorframe and tried to think of something to say that would convince her he wasn't going to abandon her.
    "It's getting late," she said.
    He straightened away from the door and went to her. "Will you do me a favor?"
    "Yes."
    He pulled the gold watch out of his pocket, unclipped the chain, and handed it to her. The chain dangled down between her fingers.
    "This is the most valuable thing I own. My Mama Rose gave it to me, and I don't want anything to happen to it. Pegasus might get in a lucky kick, or I
    might drop it while I'm drying down my sorrel. Keep it safe for me."
    "Oh, yes, I'll keep it safe."
    As soon as he had left the room, she pressed the watch against her heart and closed her eyes. She and her baby were safe again, and for the first time in a long while, Isabel felt calm and in control.
     

Chapter Two
    She had turned into a raving maniac. She didn't care. She knew she was losing the last shreds of her control, and somewhere in the back of her mind lurked the realization that she wasn't being reasonable. She didn't care about that either.
    She wanted to die. It was a cowardly thought, but she wasn't in the mood to feel at all guilty about it. Death would be a welcome respite from the hellish pain she was enduring, and at this stage, when one excruciating cramp was coming right on top of another and another and another, death was all she was interested in thinking about.
    Douglas kept telling her everything was going to be just fine, and she decided she wanted to stay alive long enough to kill him. How dare he be so calm and rational? What did he know about anything? He was a man, for the love of God, and as far as she was concerned, he was totally responsible for her agony.
    "I don't want to do this any longer, Douglas. Do you hear me? I don't want to do this any longer." She hadn't whispered her demand. She'd bellowed it.
    "Just a few more minutes, Isabel," he promised, his voice a soothing whisper. She told him to drop dead.
    Honest to God, he would have liked to accommodate her. He hated having to watch her in such misery. He felt helpless, inept, and so damned scared, he could barely think what to do. On the surface, he was presenting a stoic facade, but he wasn't at all certain how long he could keep up the pretense. Any moment now she was bound to notice how his hands were shaking. Then she would probably become afraid again. He much preferred her anger to her fear, and if it made her feel better to rant at him, he wouldn't try to stop her.
    She accidentally knocked the water basin over when she threw the wet cloth he'd pressed against her forehead.
    "If you were a gentleman, you'd do what I asked."
    "Isabel, I'm not going to knock you out."
    "Just a little clip under the chin. I need to rest."
    He shook his head.
    She started crying. "How long has it been? Tell me how long?"
    "Just six hours," he answered.
    "Justsix hours? I hate you, Douglas