Who was to know anyway? A few stolen kisses and a head full of girlish dreams wouldn’t hurt anyone. She was tired of always telling herself to put away her silly notions of love. She’d do her duty and nurse the warrior back to health. And if he chose to steal a kiss or two in the process …

Wiping her hands down her skirts, she eyed the sleeping warrior and then decided that the best way to monitor his condition was to sleep right where she’d done so before.

She gently moved his arm aside and crawled against his side. Immediately his arm clamped around her and he turned his head as if seeking her.

It warmed her to her toes when he murmured, “Angel.”

She smiled and snuggled a little closer to his warmth. “Aye,” she whispered. “Your angel has returned.”

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

How quickly the angel became the devil. As the warrior’s fever raged throughout the next day, he alternated cursing Keeley as the devil’s handmaiden sent to drag him into the bowels of hell and believing she was the sweetest of angels.

She was exhausted and was never quite sure from one moment to the next if he’d try to kiss her senseless or try to cast her as far from his side as he was able. She could only give thanks to God that he was so weakened from his injury and the fever that he wasn’t able to do much more than flail his arm at her.

She felt bad for him. She truly did. She soothed. She wiped his brow. She murmured over and over, stroking his hair and even pressing kisses to his brow. He liked the kisses.

Once he moved his mouth up and caught hers in a hot, lusty kiss that stole her breath completely away. The man surely had a hearty appetite for loving because when he wasn’t cursing her, he spent all his time trying to kiss her senseless.

To her shame, she didn’t try to dissuade him. He was, after all, a very sick man. That was the excuse she used, and she refused to countenance any other reason for her tolerance of his affections.

As the afternoon got on, she separated some broth from the venison stew she prepared. She’d been extremely pleased when a grateful recipient of her healing had left half of a venison carcass at her door. It would feed her for days to come and feed her well.

Carrying the broth in a small cracked cup, she knelt by the warrior’s side and went about the arduous task of getting him to sip the warm liquid.

Thankfully he wasn’t in a combative mood and was back to thinking her the sweetest of angels. He sipped the offering as if it were ambrosia offered by God himself. And maybe in the warrior’s fever-riddled mind it was.