Scully looked out the window over the bed where Abigail slept, and saw twilight spilling across the snow in purple shadows. He could hear the cow bawling to be milked. “I’ve got chores to do,” he said, and was grateful for the distraction. All his life, his love of work had sustained him. Hard work, easy work—it didn’t matter. All of it helped him to round up his thoughts and corral them in one place.

Evangeline merely nodded, watching the child. A tendril of fair hair spilled down onto her nape, and Scully wanted to kiss her there, though of course he did not. It was one of the things that made Evangeline beautiful, paradoxical as it seemed, her not knowing that she was beautiful. He doubted that the thought had ever crossed her mind, even when she was standing square in front of a mirror.

He got his coat and went out to the barn, wading through knee-deep snow to get there. He milked old Bessie first, to shut her up as much as to ease her discomfort, fed her and all the other livestock, right down to the chickens and Hortense’s shy relations, who lived in the nooks and crannies of that ramshackle structure and seemed quite content with their accommodations. There was always a steady supply of mice and warm milk, as well as a hayloft to hide in and rafters to walk across, circus-performer fashion. It didn’t take much, Scully reflected, to make a cat happy.

All in good time, he carried the brimming milk bucket back to the house and set it down outside, by the door. Then he went to chop more wood for the fires. It was a sweaty, muscle-straining task, and he took great consolation from it, even though his shoulder pained him something fierce. The woodpile was high and the sun was gone, except for a few splashes of light along the western horizon, when Scully returned to the cabin.

* * *

“Come look,” Evangeline said softly. “I think she’s better.”

Scully dumped an armload of wood into the bin beside the stove—she’d heard the ax pounding, pounding, and guessed that he was trying to divert himself from his worry over Abigail.

He approached the bed, shrugging out of his coat as he did so, and a poignant, bittersweet longing rose up within Evangeline, a need to belong to him, and only to him, to have him hold and comfort her, to let him inside her soul, where no other man had ever been, not even Charles. Reaching past Evangeline, he touched Abigail’s forehead.

“Fever might be down a little,” he said cautiously. “She’s still breathing pretty rough, though.” There was a bleakness in his eyes when he looked at Evangeline. “I’ll make supper,” he went on. “I want you to eat something and then crawl in beside Abigail and try to sleep. I’ll keep watch over her.”

The same impossible and indescribable emotion swelled within Evangeline until she thought she would burst from the pressure, and it would have been a blessed relief to cry, even to sob and wail, but her tears were all used up. And she’d willed her energy, every shred of it, into Abigail.