Saving Gideon

by Amy Lillard

  He extended a hand and let the tiny canine smell him. The silky-looking demi-beast whined, then licked Gideon to show his approval. Then he sat back on his haunches and cocked his silverytan head to one side as if waiting for what to do next.

  “That makes two of us,” Gideon muttered.

  One thing was certain—he had to get the woman out of this weather before she froze to death. She wore only a scrap of a dress. A spangled little thing of green and silver that looked as if it had been made of dragonfly wings and stardust. In it she seemed like some sort of pixie princess, but it couldn’t be very warm. Her shoes weren’t much better—tiny straps of silver and sparkly stones—hardly enough to call shoes and certainly not made for walking through unexpected snowstorms. Not that she would be walking anywhere.

  Gideon calculated the time it would take to get to the Bradleys’ with her carried over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. The mental picture included her head lolling around as he struggled over the treacherous distance covered in snow. Then he considered the journey without her, and then back, and how long it would take to get her into town and . . .

  The numbers were not promising.

  He didn’t want to hurt her worse. And as much as he didn’t want her at his house, he couldn’t leave her here. If he had been a praying man, he would have asked God for guidance, to help him, to help her. But Gideon hadn’t prayed in a long, long time.

  He set his lantern on the crumpled top of her car, then stripped off his coat and covered her with it. As gently as he could, he scooped her into his arms, and cradled her to him like a child. He was careful not to let her head fall too far forward or too far back as he reached once again for his light.

  Her dog growled. Gideon sighed. He couldn’t leave the beast in the cold any more than he could his mistress. His mutts could stand the weather, but he had a feeling this little dog was as pampered as they come.

  “And what should I do with you?” he muttered as snow fell around him, landing on her eyelashes, and the pale, smooth curve of her cheek.

  As if sensing it was time to go, the dog crawled into the gigantic brown handbag overturned in the passenger’s seat. Then he poked his head out as if to say, What’s taking you so long?

  Still holding her, Gideon wedged himself into the driver’s seat, his feet planted on the snow-covered ground. He snaked one arm through the light-colored handles of the bag, took a deep breath, and stood, managing to keep both woman and dog safe in his grasp.

  The walk back to his house seemed longer than any he had ever taken. Bitter cold nipped his face and hands. The handbag containing the woman’s dog banged against his right leg. With every step he took, the lantern slapped against the other. The dead weight of the woman—even one as tiny as she—became a burden after the first hundred yards. Or maybe the burden was carrying her so gently. It was hard not to jostle her as he picked his way over the frozen ground. He was painfully aware of the steps he took, how jarring they were, how cold the wind blew, and how pale she was. With every step his boots, heavy with caked-up snow, were nearly sucked from his feet. By his constant whine, the dog seemed none too happy about the bouncy ride and relentless snow. But Gideon trudged on, the way lit only by the lantern dangling off his arm.

  He could only hope she wasn’t hurt internally, and that by moving her he hadn’t sealed her death. He couldn’t stand another life on his conscience.

  Slowly he made his way back up the road and down the unpaved driveway that led to his house. He’d left the oil lamp burning in the front room. Golden light shone through the window, beckoning him like a sailor to a lighthouse. Just a few more yards. His breath puffed out in bursts of cloudy vapor. The snow continued to fall, but it had lost its urgency and now the flakes, still as large and wet, drifted lazily toward the waiting ground.

  Getting the door open was no easy feat, but no one locked up out here and with a little cautious shuffling, Gideon managed to get his injured pixie out of the storm.

  The temperature inside the house was marginally better than outside. With no one to tend it, the fire had fizzled out once again, and though the coals still burned brilliant orange under their blanket of ash, they gave off very little heat.

  He laid the woman gently on the couch. She moaned as he moved his arms from beneath her. He considered that a good sign. Maybe she wouldn’t be out much longer. Maybe she would wake up and tell him who she was and what she was doing driving around on a night like this.

  He removed her shoes and placed them next to the big brown handbag he’d deposited on the floor, then he covered her with his coat.

  The tiny pooch stuck his nose out and sniffed around. He looked longingly up at the sofa, seeming to measure the distance, and then thought better of it. He whined, and Gideon wondered if the dog had ever been allowed to jump before. The little thing leapt into the air and scrambled onto the woman’s belly, settling himself down on top of Gideon’s coat.

  Gideon stirred the glowing coals, added a couple of logs to the grate, and in a few short minutes the fire roared once again. The wood glowed, the light casting golden orange shadows onto her face.

  Pixie. The word sprang to mind once again. During his rumspringa he’d read a book about a faraway, made-up land filled with magical creatures—fairies, gnomes, and pixies. His houseguest seemed to be the embodiment of the latter. She had a heart-shaped face with a pointed little chin and dark eyebrows to match short, inky curls. She looked beautiful in an other-worldly kind of way—beautiful, privileged, and as pampered as her dog.

  But if he remembered the story correctly, the pixies caused all the trouble and the eventual downfall of the fairy kingdom.

  Gideon shook himself free of the spell that seemed to surround them. He shouldn’t be standing there, staring at her and thinking about long-ago books, he should be—it took him a minute to collect his thoughts—he should be cleaning her wound, gathering more blankets, and seeing if he could rouse her.

  Think about it! He shook his head. If she didn’t wake up after the way you carried her, she ain’t gonna wake up anytime soon.

  The terrible thought occurred to him that she might not wake up at all . . . ever.

  He pushed it away, trying to remember what the doctor had told his brother Gabriel when his oldest boy had fallen out of an apple tree and conked his head.

  Let them sleep, but try to wake them up every hour or so. If they don’t respond, you have trouble.

  Gideon peered out the window where the snow had piled upon the ledge. Ach, would he have trouble. Enough of it that he wasn’t about to borrow any. He’d just take it one step at a time.

  He added another log to the fire, then made his way to the linen closet to get some quilts. She would be more comfortable in the bed, but the living room would be warmer. He scooped up the whining, growling whelp of a dog, retrieved his coat, then covered the woman with the quilts before depositing the dog back into his original position. He fetched a washrag to clean the nasty-looking gash on her forehead, wetting it in the washstand basin before warming it by the fire.

  He tried to be gentle as he pushed back her hair once again and touched the rag to the gash, but his fingers felt big and clumsy against her skin. He dabbed at the dried blood and winced at the depth of the cut. It probably needed stitches, but the hospital was a long way away.

  He dabbed it a few more times, and satisfied the bleeding had stopped, went to the kitchen and found the next best thing—a small tube of Super Glue. Returning to her side, he took a deep breath before applying the glue and pressing the sides of the wound together.

  Her eyes fluttered open, big and unfocused. They settled on him, and in a split second, it occurred to him that they were the exact same color of the grape-flavored gumdrops Mr. Anderson kept over at the general store. It had to be a trick of the lighting. He couldn’t be sure because as quickly as they opened, they cl
osed again.

  Surely the plunge of his stomach was nothing more than relief that she had awakened at all.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, hoping she hadn’t fallen back into unconsciousness.

  “Head hurts,” she murmured.

  Not a lot, but a start. Gideon smiled despite himself. “I bet it does.”

  “What happened?”

  “You had a wreck,” he said, using the words he’d heard from the Englischers in town.

  “My whole life is a wreck.” Her defeated tone tugged at his heart.

  “An automobile wreck.”

  “Where am I?”

  “My house.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You rescued me.”

  “No—”

  “Thank you . . .” She turned her face away and once again drifted into oblivion.

  Gideon stood motionless in the fire’s flickering shadows, but he wouldn’t let himself think too much about what she had said. It wasn’t true. He hadn’t rescued her. Heroism wasn’t his strong suit. He didn’t have it in him.

  Gideon stayed up all through the night, stoking the fire and rousing his little pixie every hour. She didn’t seem to mind, even asking him his name, though he doubted in the morning she would be able to remember waking much less anything they had talked about.

  She dozed while he kept watch, sitting up in the hard-backed rocking chair. At the first light of dawn, he allowed himself a nap. And this time, thankfully, he didn’t dream of Miriam and Jamie and the guilt that haunted him, but of a violet-eyed pixie and the little dog she carried around with her in a purse.

  Blinding white-blue sunlight hit Avery square in the face, but she refused to open her eyes. Her head hurt . . . bad. The light turned red behind her eyelids, making her head pound as the blood throbbed through her veins. She should’ve had those blackout shades installed no matter what her father—or rather her father’s decorator—said about the matter. This was ridiculous.

  Unable to take the brutal light a minute longer, she tried to turn over, but every bone and muscle protested. Had she been hit by a bus? Then last night returned—Jack, the motel, the back roads of a small Oklahoma town, her car, and then . . .

  Louie inched closer to her side, rose up, and licked her hand. Sweet Louie V., fine and whole despite the tumble he must have taken.

  Avery winced as she stroked his silky fur. With much effort she forced her eyes open and took note of her surroundings. She was in a house. A very small house.

  There didn’t seem to be much more to it than the space where she lay. The room led into an open kitchen with a large rectangular table and sturdy-looking chairs. The fireplace had a thick, wooden mantel, and an odd-looking stove squatted in one corner. There was something strange about the house, but she couldn’t figure out what. Maybe because there were no pictures on the walls or trinkets sitting about, just a china hutch full of dishes and a large box containing wood for the fire. Or maybe it was the lack of care. The furniture would have been beautiful if not covered with a thick layer of dust and neglect.

  How did she get here? She squinted, straining to remember. Then it came back to her—the snow, losing control of her car, and then a warm fire and gentle hands washing her face. A man had awakened her several times during the night.

  Avery turned her chin, and there he was, head resting at an odd angle, propped up in the rocking chair near her. His hair, dark like rich morning coffee, had just enough curl to make it interesting. It was cut close to his face, almost as if someone had plopped a bowl on his head and trimmed all that stuck out underneath. His skin held the first hint of a tan, a golden glow with just the slightest trace of pink high on his cheeks accented by the vague shadow of morning beard growth.

  She had wispy memories of him waking her up in the night, asking if she knew the date, the year, the president’s name, and how many fingers he held up. As if sensing her gaze upon him, he opened his eyes. They were a smoky moss green, clouded and troubled. Once he realized she was awake, his expression changed, his eyes turning hooded and guarded. It happened so quickly she wondered if she had imagined that vulnerable expression at all.

  “You’re awake.” His voice sounded rusty.

  “So are you,” she said in return, but her crack at humor made her head pound anew. She reached up a hand to find a tender knot near her eyebrow.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “A little.” She attempted a smile. “A lot.”

  “That’s a nasty bump. I don’t have anything but Tylenol. Or I can give you some of the tea Clara Beachy brews up when, well, it’s said to be good for pains.”

  If she wasn’t mistaken, he blushed at his own words. And tea? What in the world did tea have to do with pain?

  “I’ll get it for you.” He stood and Avery noticed his commanding size. He was tall and broad and yet his shirt hung on him as if it had been made for someone else. Thinking about it made her head throb, so she quit and lay back on the pillows, closing her eyes. She just wanted to rest. To lie here on this lumpy old sofa and just continue to lie there until she felt better. Or died. Whichever came first.

  She listened to him putter around the kitchen. At her father’s house the kitchen was off-limits, off the main foyer and practically in a different county, so the sounds were foreign to her. A clunk here, a swoosh there, and then the whistle of the tea kettle. The splash of water, the clink of a spoon, and sure and steady footsteps across the wooden floor.

  His body blocked the sun, casting her into shadows. “Here.” He held out a brown earthenware mug filled to the brim with steaming hot tea. “I added honey,” he said, “to cut the bitter, but I can still get you that Tylenol if’n you want.”

  Gingerly, she pushed herself up to take the mug from him. “This is fine.” She blew across the top then took a tentative sip. It tasted like burnt grass and cloves.

  Somehow she managed to drink all of the . . . tea. Mostly because he stood over her and made sure she downed every last drop.

  She forced a smile and handed him the mug, then eased back against the pillows and pulled the covers to her chin. It wasn’t modesty, but heat she needed. Despite the warmth the tea had infused to her system, the tiny little house was cold, and her tiny little dress was, well, tiny.

  The big man walked to the fireplace and stirred the ashes, adding more wood from the box. In no time, the orange blaze roared, warming Avery from all the way across the room.

  She so desperately wanted to just lie there and forget the world, enjoy the warmth rolling off the flames, but she couldn’t. Not yet anyway.

  “My car,” she asked after he turned around.

  “Well,” he drawled as if choosing his words very carefully, “I’m no expert, but it looked purty bad to me. Course’n it was dark last night. And snowin’.”

  Avery wanted to nod, but she managed only a single dip of her head before the simple movement sent waves of dizziness crashing all around her.

  “Steady now.” He moved to her side.

  “Yes,” Avery murmured. She closed her eyes against the spinning, but that only seemed to make it worse, so she opened them again.

  “Maybe in a day or two we can head out and take a look at the damage, but—”

  “A day or two?” She dared not raise her voice much over a whisper.

  “The snow will be gone this afternoon, maybe tomorrow. As soon as the ground dries up a little, we should be able to get over there.”

  “Oh.”

  “Course’n we’ll go on foot. It’ll be at least three or four days before I can get the buggy out. Molly and Kate do not like so much havin’ mud on their feet.”

  “Molly and Kate?”

  “My horses.”

  Then it clicked into place. The simple way he dressed, the lack of modern appliances, the beautiful handmade q
uilts that made up her bed. “You’re Amish?”

  “Jah.” He nodded. “I am Plain.”

  Tall and handsome, with slashing dimples and those haunting green eyes, the man was anything but plain. His answer charmed her, but she hid her smile not wanting him to think she was laughing at him.

  Oh, the irony. Jack had come here to find the Amish, but instead he found . . . a new lover. She had come out here to find Jack and had instead found the Amish.

  “I am thinkin’ you should rest now,” he said.

  “Yes.” She snuggled down under the beautiful handmade quilts, their colors exquisite, each stitch perfect, and she wondered about the woman who had made them. Maybe his mother or sister? Or wife.

  She peeked at him again. Didn’t Amish men have beards?

  “Thank you for saving me,” she said, her eyelids growing heavy despite the fact she had just woken up. Being cheated on and then knocked in the head could do that to a person. Or maybe there was something to that tea after all . . .

  He stared at her blankly. “You already thanked me.”

  Avery closed her eyes. “Mmm-hmm. Tell me your name again.”

  “Gideon,” he replied. “Gideon Fisher.”

  Biblical . . . suited him. “Avery,” she murmured in return. “Avery Ann Hamilton.”

  Then she drifted off to sleep.

  When Avery woke again, it was late afternoon, and she was alone. Through the window, the blue bowl of a sky had turned a pale shade of lavender that would deepen to purple and eventually black. From somewhere outside came an unfamiliar whack, whack, whack that had both rhythm and unpredictability. It was a soothing sound.

  The tea must have done the trick. Not only did her head feel significantly better, she felt significantly better.

  Louie V. lay sprawled on a bed of scraps in front of the hearth looking all the more like the spoiled and catered-to canine that he was. The crackling fire cast flickering shadows over his black and tan fur, making Avery realize Gideon hadn’t been out of the room for long. The fire still licked at the logs in long, orange strokes, sending smoke up the chimney, but not the sweet scent of burning wood.