43
Fran kept going for a while in the fog, but then Moses, always the steadier of the horses, tossed his head and stopped. Fran got off and gingerly stepped in front of the horse. The trail disappeared. They appeared to be on some kind of ledge.
She eased the horse back until she could turn him around. They backtracked to a couple of huge boulders. As good a place to wait out the fog as any. She backed up against one of the rocks and slipped off her slicker to drape between the boulders to make a little shelter over her head. Then she pulled Moses closer to lend her a little of his warmth. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms and stomped her feet.
“I’m sorry, boy,” she told the horse. “We should have stayed in the Caudills’ barn. But now we’ll just have to wait it out.”
A house could be just over the ridge and she wouldn’t know it. Maybe even Granny Em’s house. She had the feeling she was going in her direction.
The thought almost made her laugh. She couldn’t keep her directions straight in the daylight. No way could she know where she was in this fog. What would Granny Em tell her? To listen for the rhythm of the mountain. She held her breath, but she didn’t hear anything except water dripping off the trees. While that might make a rhythm, it wasn’t going to help her find her way home.
But singing might make her feel better. The song that popped into her head was the one she’d sung with Sadie and Becca. Froggie went a-courting. What a silly song, but at least thinking about it made her smile.
Her smile faded as she thought about Seth coming courting. She still hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around Seth wanting her to step back to the way they were before the war. Before Cecelia. Before Fran became a frontier nurse-midwife.
The gray fog pushed in on her. That was how she’d felt when Seth showed up at the center. That he was pushing in on her, not giving her the chance to think about what she wanted to do. Not caring what she wanted to do.
What did she want to do? With the rock cold and hard against her back, she had the feeling she was leaning against the mountain. That thought made her smile, even with the fog so thick around her that she felt a captive of it.
She blew out a breath and shut her eyes. If she could be anywhere in the world right at that moment, where would it be? She and Grandma Howard used to play that game. Fran would dream of being in France or on the moon or wherever, but Grandma Howard always wanted to be right where she was on the farm. Now Fran knew how she felt. She wanted to be right here in the mountains, taking care of her people. By a fire might be nice though.
Not just any fire, but the Lockes’ fire. She kept her eyes closed, letting her imagination go wild. By the fire, her hand in Ben Locke’s with Sarge at her feet.
She shook her head a little and opened her eyes. That was dreaming. She couldn’t let herself go to sleep and really dream. Hypothermia could sneak up on a person. She stomped her feet again and then rubbed her hands down the horse’s back and up under the edge of the saddle.
Moses shifted his feet and nickered. He perked up his ears, and then Fran heard it too. Something coming. A bobcat maybe. She could be blocking its den here among the boulders. Or maybe a bear. Her heart pounded up in her ears.
She had her foot in the stirrup to at least be off the ground and have a chance of escaping whatever was coming when she heard a bark. A dog. She peered toward the sound and saw a flash of yellow fur through the fog.
“Sarge,” she shouted.
She stepped back down to the ground as the dog exploded out of the fog. “I can’t believe you found me.” He jumped up on her, his tail wagging almost off, and licked her face. “Did Jeralene let you out? Well, then I guess I’m glad to be lost here in the fog instead of at the Caudills’ where their dogs might have hurt you.”
See, good can come from everything. Her grandmother was always saying that, and maybe she was right, if being totally lost in the fog and about to freeze could have something good about it. She rubbed Sarge’s head and spotted the rope dragging under him.
That changed things. Jeralene wouldn’t have put a rope on Sarge. Maybe somebody had tried to come with Sarge. Maybe Woody. Maybe Ben. She looked out at the fog and thought she might see a bit farther than she could minutes ago.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered the way the mountain men always did when they came after her. “Hallooo!”
She listened, but no sound came back to her. But then Sarge whipped around and barked. Maybe somebody was there. Somebody who would know how to get down the mountain. She remembered Ben finding her back in the summer, and even not knowing whether Ben might be out there in the fog looking for her or not, her heart started pounding harder again.
Ben went slow, practically feeling his way through the thick blanket of fog. He looked at his watch. Only half past three. With the rain over, the sun might break through the clouds and burn away the worst of the fog. He got back on Captain and gave him his head to pick the easiest path through the woods.
He yelled once, but the fog swallowed up the sound. What he needed was a foghorn. Or a conch shell like men used to call in their hounds after a hunt. Instead he put his fingers in his mouth and gave a sharp whistle.
He stopped Captain and listened. A dog’s barks threaded through the damp air back to him. Maybe Sarge. He whistled again, and then he heard a voice. Francine’s voice.
Captain made his way between boulders big as cars. Ben knew this place. Francine stepped into view on the other side of one of the boulders. He jumped off Captain and ran toward her, but stopped short of grabbing her in his arms the way he wanted to.
“Are you all right?”
She smiled a little. “Lost. And cold. But all right. What about you?”
He smiled back at her. “Lost. Cold. But all right.”
“We’re going to have to quit meeting like this.” She laughed. “On the side of a mountain.”
He started to say something, but she jumped in front of his words. “Wait. What did you say? You can’t be lost too. I’m the one who gets lost.”
“Anybody can get lost in the fog. Except Sarge there. He’s quite a tracker.”
“One of a kind.” She reached down and rubbed Sarge’s head.
Ben tried not to be jealous. “But actually I do know where I am now that I see these boulders.”
“Then can you get us down off this hill back to civilization?” She looked up at him.
Her words made him remember the man who had come to convince her to go with him. Back to civilization. “Is that where you want to go? Back to the city?”
She frowned a little. “You mean Hyden?”
“Don’t know that anybody would call that a city. No, Cincinnati.”
“I’m soaked and about to freeze, Ben. Why are you talking about Cincinnati?”
Her lips were trembling and she was shivering. He unbuttoned his coat. It was wet on the outside, but the wool lining was still dry. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pulled her toward him. “Come here and warm up.”
She hesitated.
“Two bodies are warmer than one. In the army on cold nights we’d always buddy up with somebody to keep from freezing.” He kept his arms open to her, but let her make the decision about stepping into his embrace.
“Sensible.” She moved into his embrace and added in a whisper he barely heard. “Or not.”
He wrapped the sides of his coat around her and held her close. After a minute, her shivers slowed. He rested his cheek on her head. Nothing sensible about that, but it felt good. “I don’t want you to go back to Cincinnati.”
“What do you want, Ben Locke?” She looked up at him. Her face was damp from the fog.
“I want you, Francine Howard. Only you.”
When she looked at him without saying anything, he rushed on. “I know I don’t have much to offer you. No reason to not go back to Cincinnati with that other fellow. No house of my own. No job. Planning to head off to school. And you hardly know me.”
She slid her hand up out of his jacket and put her fingers over his lips. “Shh. Don’t talk about the reasons I shouldn’t stay. Tell me why I should.”
“I love you.” Three words he’d never said to any woman other than his ma when he was a little boy. But they were easy to say to Francine.
A smile lit up her eyes. “Then why don’t you kiss me?” She slipped her hand away from his mouth and around behind his neck.
Her lips were cool at first but warmed under his. When at last he lifted his lips away from hers, he kissed her eyebrows and then the hair that peeked out from under her wool hat.
At first Fran wasn’t sure if the sparkle of sunlight was really there or she was simply imagining it because of the kiss. But no, the sun was pushing a sliver of light through the fog to hit on the boulder beside them. But she didn’t move away from Ben. It felt too good to be in his arms.
She wasn’t being sensible at all. Ben was right. She barely knew him, but she knew how he made her feel. And there would be time, plenty of time to get to know him better. More words between them. More kisses. She completely forgot about being so chilled. Here in Ben’s arms, she felt warm and safe.
“You’re still shivering.” Ben rubbed his hands up and down her back. “We need to get you in front of a fire to warm up.”
He was right. Warm and safe in her heart wasn’t drying out her wet clothes and boots. Time to be sensible before her toes turned blue.
“Are we close to any houses?” she asked. “Coy told me Granny Em’s house wasn’t too far from theirs as the crow flies.”
“So you were at the Caudills’.” Ben’s face turned hard.
“Mr. Caudill tripped on a root and shot himself in the leg.”
“The old man?”
“No, Coy said they buried him last week.” Fran studied Ben. “Coy said he didn’t shoot Woody and that his father didn’t either. He thinks his grandfather might have, but that we can never know now that he’s dead.”
“I did.”
“And you patched up Homer Caudill?”
“I’m not a sheriff or a judge. I’m a nurse. Patching up people is what I do.” She touched his cheek. “Does that bother you? That I treated him?”
Ben blew out a breath and took her hand in his. “I guess you can’t turn away anybody needing help. Even somebody like Homer Caudill.”
“I was glad you didn’t shoot him.”
“Did you think I might?” He answered his own question before she could say anything. “I guess that’s a fair thought for you to have. I did consider confronting the man more than once, but something—Ma would say the good Lord’s providence—kept turning me away from that path.”
“And now we’re on another path.” Fran wanted to stop talking about Homer Caudill. “And I’m completely lost, as usual.”
He laughed then, the uneasiness in his face disappearing the way the fog did in the sunshine. “I told you I know where we are. Now that the fog is lifting, we can head over that way and be at Granny Em’s in half an hour. Or on down to our house in a little longer.”
“Granny Em first. Then your house to see about Becca and little Carlene.”
“Just a nurse on her rounds.” He was still smiling. “Maybe I should always ride with you to keep you from getting lost.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” She tiptoed up and brushed her lips across his cheek. “Thank you for finding me.”
“I didn’t. Sarge did.”
“But you gave me Sarge.” Sarge pushed his nose against her leg and wagged his tail at the sound of his name.
“So I did.”
More sparkles of sunrays were pushing through the fog, bringing back the daylight. They mounted their horses and Fran followed after Ben. The horses’ hooves plopped along the path. Water still showered down on them whenever they brushed against a branch. A squirrel chattered at them and a bird started singing. The rhythm of the mountains. It was part of her, and now she had a new song in her heart. A song of love.
She started singing.
“Froggie went a-courting,
He did ride, uh-huh, uh-huh.”
Ben looked back over his shoulder at her and laughed. And then he started singing with her. They were going to make good music together.