He was back in no time, but felt as if he’d been gone forever. Immediately, he tilted Sara’s head back and brought the wine to her lips, but she failed to sip any on her own, so he poured a bit into her mouth, massaging her throat to help her swallow. When the first bit had slipped down, he tried again, convulsively swallowing himself, so badly did he want her to do so. He even tried issuing an order, but Sara failed to respond.
This was no time to panic, he told himself. Nevertheless, panic rushed him. And heat. So much heat, he could hardly bear it. Just the same, he brought Sara nearer the blaze to unwrap her. As fast as he could, he removed her shoes and peeled off her stockings, then he practically ripped the rest of her clothes off. He massaged her bare arms and legs, in turn, covering the rest, as he did. Then he put his head to her chest to see if he could hear or feel her breathing, but he could not.
The only sign of life had been her passive swallowing of the wine, and even then….
Adam shook his head, denying negativity.
When he had her wrapped tight again, he held her in his arms, her face in his hot neck, and told her ... everything—about his father, himself, about wanting to do murder when he was no older than five. He told of his shame and his fears, then and now. He told her how he had once protected his sister and how and why he protected his girls. He told her why he chose scrapper Sara to care for them, even why he hadn’t told her before—because he was ashamed of not being as strong as her.
When he looked at her face again, he thought maybe her lips were less blue, more pink. That made him try more dandelion wine.
It was difficult to hold her and feed her the liquid, but he couldn’t bear to let go, as if releasing her, physically, meant letting her go ... forever. He stubbornly held on, but nearly dropped her and ended up pouring too much into her mouth. When he made to massage her throat, a noise startled him.
A gasp.
Grating.
Horrid.
Wonderful.
Dreadful.
Like someone drowning.
He sat her up fast, frightened he’d kill her trying to cure her. Her gasps gained strength but were drawn out and painfully repeated.
Jagged torture.
He pounded her back, rubbed it, slapped it again.
He swore in German. At himself. At God.
At his mother for giving him the foolish wine.
Like a madwoman, Sara began to struggle free of his hold. When her arms cleared the binding blankets, she swung them to throw off the rest and rose on her knees. Like an avenging angel she appeared, hair wild and free. The roaring blaze behind her limning her in light, she tilted her head back and struggled to pull air into her lungs.
Adam watched, helpless, immobile, mesmerized by the brightest star in God’s universe, her life hanging in the balance.
Her grating, lung-pulling gasps stretched on long enough to kill him, enough to prove air was being forced into her lungs.
She stood, hands pressed to her back, head back, and dragged in one deep wheezing draught after another, painful to hear and see, yet infinitely more painful to experience, he had no doubt. But blessed as well, because Sara was alive. She was alive.
She paced before the fire and away again, gasping, sobbing, tears coursing down her cheeks. Adam’s cheeks, too, were wet. He wiped his eyes with the back of a trembling hand.
She was going to catch her death, fire burning her on one side, air freezing her on the other. “Sara. Sara,” he shouted to catch her attention. “You have to wrap up.”
She regarded him without recognition for a minute, taking in the shack. Him again. “The water,” he thought she tried to say, but her voice was too raw to be certain.
Adam stood, and only then did he realize how badly his whole body was shaking. He picked up the blankets and wrapped them around her from behind, holding them closed, allowing the feel of her, alive and breathing in his arms, to soothe him. “You have to keep warm,” he said, his words little more than a rasp and nearly as ragged as hers had been.
But she heard and turned in his arms. When she saw his face, she reached up, touched his cheek and examined the fingertip that came away wet, her look akin to awe. She croaked his name and rested her head on his chest.
He held her so tight, he was afraid he’d hurt her. Her bare feet on that cold floor, the wind whistling between the planks, was all he could think about, yet he held her and held her. She sought comfort, from him, and he could not let her down. Not again. “I thought I had lost you,” he said into her hair. “My Sara, my very own scrapper, I was so scared.”
Then he was the one being consoled and crooned to, or so she tried with barely a voice. And when she chided him for taking so long to find her, scratchy throat and all, Adam finally believed he still held within his grasp the most wonderful gift God had ever given him—his wife. Right then he promised the Deity—He who had favored him with a response to his plea, for the first time he could remember—that he would see that no harm came to her.
When Sara went limp in his arms, Adam’s panic flared anew and he lowered her to the floor, wrapping her neat and tight again, but chills shook her nonetheless. A horrible shaking. As frightening as it appeared, Adam supposed it meant she was coming ‘round. Cold was better than numb. Wasn’t it?
The blazing fire could not seem to warm her, yet Adam was sweating so fiercely, he discarded his wet clothes with great relief. It occurred to him suddenly that Sara could use some of his heat as much as he could stand some of her ice.
Removing his pants was difficult, because blood, sticky with infection, matted the fabric to his wound. No wonder he had fever, he thought, when he saw the festering thing. No wonder he was limping. A wonder he could walk at all, he thought at almost the same moment the blasted leg gave way. Falling to his knees sent a shaft of pain so fierce up his thigh, Adam feared for a minute he might black out. After a bit, dizziness passed, but he needed to work fast. His leg had taken enough abuse for one day; even he knew that.
He grabbed the corner of the wet blanket he’d dragged off Sara’s horse and lay it on the ground for him to lie on, then he unwrapped Sara to settle her on her side at the edge of the warm, dry blankets.
Heaven blessed him with relief from the sharp edge of pain when he finally lay down. It also beset him with a new, incredible, and downright frightening, sense of ... destiny ... when he took Sara into his arms, skin to skin, for the first time ever.
Pulling those layers of dry blankets over himself, to keep them over her became a trial by fire, but a small price to pay for Sara’s life. A very small price. Besides, he had learned tonight that he would do anything to keep Sara safe. Anything.
Even walk through the fire of hell.
* * * * *
Sara woke basking in the heat surrounding her. When she opened her eyes she discovered herself in a place she could not name. Dark. Dismal.
Awareness came in slow beats.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but finally she discerned a small room, splintered shutters, closed against a cold that, nevertheless, whistled in. Board floors, scattered debris. But no scurrying creatures that she could see … or hear. Sara swallowed with relief, surprised at first that her throat hurt.
Warmth from more than the fire surrounded her. Adam’s face rested between her breasts; his beard tickled her belly. One of his hands cupped her bare bottom. She smiled, appreciating the feel and significance of having it there.
She was safe.
She had been lost, might have drowned, but Adam must have found her when she wasn’t looking. She remembered leaving the Petershein farm and getting lost. She remembered … the pond, covered, like a trap, by a pristine and inviting blanket of snow, a circle of bright welcome amid a darkened wood.
A shiver prickled her spine. She’d tried and tried to climb out, but couldn’t gain purchase. And then she’d seen the branch, like a reaching hand, but not reaching far enough.
After a very long time,
it seemed, she’d almost given up. Except that something, stubbornness, Adam might say, though it was more like faith that he would come, kept her trying. Finally she had caught that branch and tried to pull herself out, but it was no use, so she simply clung to it ... and waited.
She was so tired, she’d feared if she let sleep come, she would let go of the branch and slide back into the water. For a long time, she fought to keep sleep at bay.
She remembered, as her eyes closed, thinking perhaps she was going, finally, to join Mom, Datt and her brother. How many years had she wished for just such a gift? But for the first time since the day she lost them, she wanted to stay. She had more to do, people to care for.
Then Mom was standing there, like it was yesterday, bright smile, forest green dress, black apron and kapp, stirring spoon in hand. A rush of love had filled Sara, a need to follow, and yet….
“Mom, no,” she surprised herself by saying. “I love and miss you all and I want to be with you. I do. But I ... I have things to do. People to care for and love.” She meant the girls, of course.
Her mother nodded, smiled. “Your Adam needs you. He does and for certain, more than we do right now, Liebchen.” It had been years since she’d seen or heard Mom so clearly, so when she was gone suddenly, Sara expected a renewal of the grief that had been her companion forever, but joy, rather than pain, filled her.
She knew, then, that Adam had come for her. She no longer felt alone or afraid, but protected, and she found herself struggling to pull air into her lungs.
Adam had come.
Where they were now, Sara did not know, but it was cozy, if drafty and dilapidated. Turning her awareness to the man beside her, Sara realized with a start that he burned with fever. A high one, she feared, but a heat she’d likely needed as much as he might have needed the cold that seemed to permeate her. She must have sought his warmth almost as easily as his embrace.
Sara freed an arm and finger-combed her husband’s unruly hair at his nape. Lord she liked his face against her breast. “My love,” she whispered.
At the sound of her own words, Sara’s hand stopped moving, as nearly did her heart. Did she? Did she love Mad Adam Zuckerman? And if she did, was she foolish enough to think he could love her in return?
No. She sighed. No, she wasn’t that foolish. And, yes, God help her, she loved him. This was the time to admit it, now when it must have pained him mightily to come for her, or no time would be right.
“Adam,” she called softly, surprised at the scratch in her voice. “Adam, how do you feel?”
He raised his head a bit, purring like a score of barn cats after fresh milk. “Nice,” he said. “You feel nice.”
Sara smiled. “No, how do you feel?”
He rubbed his face between her breasts. “Nice,” he said again before taking her nipple into his mouth.
The liquid sensation only he could incite moved from her breasts to her core, where it radiated outward in thrumming spirals, warming her the more.
“Spinster Sara,” Adam said, tasting, laving, teasing the nubbin with fascination. “Fire and ice, hard and soft, strong and gentle. You make me ache. You yell and I ache. You insult and I ache. You are my best dream, sweet Sara, awake or asleep.”
Sara might soar with joy if worry did not fill her. In his right mind, Adam would not say such things. She had never known anyone to burn so with fever. He did not know what he was saying. “Adam, you are burning up.”
“I know,” he said running his hands over her bottom, bringing his face to hers, and pulling her against his arousal.
With a worried chuckle, she pulled away, so she could examine his eyes. Glassy, they were, and unfocused. She put her cheek to his forehead, his heat all but scalding her. “You’re burning up!”
“It’s the fire,” he said. “In my blood. For you.”
“Delirious,” she said. “I knew it. We’ve got to get you out of these blankets and away from the fire.” Unwrapping him was easy, getting his hands off her body was not. Worse, because she wanted them there.
When they were both free of the blankets and Sara was about to help him away from the hearth, Adam lay her back down again in a move she did not expect. Fever or not, bad leg or not, he was strong. And determined.
Then he was there, somehow, covering her, devouring her, branding her, it seemed, with his hands and his mouth.
“Adam,” she said, placing her palms on his face to raise his head and reclaim his attention, before all conscious thought was lost. “Adam, we have to move you from the fire. It is too hot. You are too hot.”
He smiled then, lazy, self-assured, despite the fever in his eyes.
“Adam, the fire—”
“Did you know?” he said, serious, alert, suddenly. “That butterflies need to raise their body temperatures to fly.” His smile became earnest, boyish. “I want to make you fly, my Sara.”
Sara stopped focusing beyond the wonder of his hands on her body, of his lips ... everywhere. Were it not for the fact that she was, indeed, well on her way to flight, she might very well blush. Never had such pressure built inside her, not even that time in their bed. This was hotter, higher. Softer, harder. Wider, narrower. Inside and out.
Her world dissolved, yet it expanded. They were alone in the universe, she and her love, alone and rising, climbing toward, toward….
Adam moved above her and slipped inside her before Sara knew his intent. Shock was quickly replaced by a joy that consumed her. With inborn instinct, Sara Zuckerman arched to pull her husband deeper inside her body, to envelop and welcome him.
As she did, he threw his head back and called her name, then he stilled for one tense, silent moment, wherein neither so much as breathed. Then he came for her and took her mouth, and kissed her in the way of lovers.
With a certainty as old as time and as far back as the first Adam, Sara knew that this Adam, her very own Madman, was the mate God intended for her, in life and through eternity.
As if that knowledge were not enough, he raised his head, his eyes bright and clear as glass. “You are the first and only home I have ever known, Sara Zuckerman. You are my own perfect butterfly.”
Chapter 13
Tears filled Sara’s eyes, joy overflowed her heart, and as her love began to move inside of her, bringing her and himself to a higher plane than she imagined existed, that incredible spiral inside her coiled hotter and tighter.
Adam whispered; he shouted. He moaned; he begged. He beseeched and thanked her ... and the Deity. He rode her hard and he raised her up, till he brought her so high, she thought she might expire. Then he lowered her again, setting her softly to rest, only to raise her up once more.
Sara caught and matched his rhythm as Adam began to speak words of love, though the word love itself was never used. When he told her she’d touched his soul, Sara allowed her deepest secret, that she loved him, to burst from her lips.
Adam shouted in exaltation, though his response, if any, died on the lips he pressed to hers. She didn’t care. This was Adam. Her Adam. And he was taking her, loving her in the way God intended them to love. And she was grateful, and happy and soaring gloriously.
The stars rushed them, coming fast and furious, sparkling, despite a climb that had been slow and intense, and beyond-belief wonderful.
They arrived in a blinding flash, touched wonder and encompassed it for one long, thrumming beat, then they floated toward earth once more.
* * * * *
Sara had been gone for twenty four hours. Jordan shook his head with worry and urged his carriage horses faster.
Roman told him that Lena had left Emma with the children and driven to his house, the next farm over, at mid-morning, a whole bloody day after Sara had left for a birthing. Lena, Roman said, had been no-longer able to sit still and wait, even though that’s what Adam had ordered her to do the evening before, as he set off to find Sara, himself.
Roman listened to Lena’s tale, sent her back to Adam’s house, and set out immedia
tely to get Jordan. He cursed. His life among the Amish could bear a great deal of improvement. He was merely a man, an English man, who some of the Amish foolishly believed could fix anything, while most were certain he could fix nothing.
When he arrived at the Zuckerman house, Jordan listened to Lena tell him about Sara and Adam, and Jordan told her she had done the right thing by going to Roman, though Jordan did not think she believed him.
Adam’s sister, beautiful, ethereal like a fairy princess with invisible wings, waited as if for him to speak directly to her. But not one intelligent word came to mind, which went to show how foolish he was, where she was concerned. “Good morning, Emma,” he said, damning himself for an idiot, and stepping near enough to smell springtime and touch stardust. He took her hand, inordinately pleased that she seemed to want his touch as much as he wanted to touch her. “I’ll bring Sara home; don’t you worry.”
Lord, and didn’t she nod as if she believed him. Really believed him. Considering the number of women who put their trust in his skill every day, he wondered why this woman’s humbled him beyond understanding.
Uncomfortable with the odd sensation and the undefined reason for it, Jordan turned back to Roman who had just come inside. “Hope you brought your biggest buggy, Roman, so there’ll be room in the back, in case….”
Roman gave an affirmative nod to Jordan’s unfinished sentence, deepening the worry on Lena’s face.
“Lena, can you come with us,” Jordan asked. “Having a woman there for Sara would be—”
Emma tugged hard on his arm and pulled him around to face her. No doubt about it; she wanted him to pay attention as she pointed to herself, panic and some deeper need in her eyes.
“You want to come instead of your mother?”
Emma nodded, the movement of her head almost comical in its determination and speed. Charming brat. “Adam will be there, too, aren’t you afraid of Adam?”
She shook her head as if that was absurd. No wonder Sara got that impression. Emma’s answer made Jordan wonder if she thought Adam was someone else. “The man who lives here, Sara’s husband,” he said, watching her look turn haunted. “He will be with Sara. That Adam is your brother.”
Butterfly Garden Page 16
