Over the Edge by Mary Connealy Page B

get to Connor. To assure him she was still there to care for him. The death of Callie’s parents rushed into her thoughts as if drawn there by her fever. It had hurt so badly. She could not do that to her son. “I’m all he’s got. I have to go to him. He’ll be so afraid.”
    “Audra, go get him. Please.” Seth didn’t let go.
    Tears burned salt into Callie’s eyes. She couldn’t stay in bed when Connor might be terrified, confused.
    Audra stood. “I’ll be right back with Connor.”
    “I’m from Texas,” Callie said as Audra disappeared out the door.
    “You mean you’re tough enough to get out of this bed?” Seth asked.
    “I mean I’m tough enough to do anything I have to do.”
    “I like having a tough wife. It’s gonna be fun being married to you.”
    Callie narrowed her eyes at her polecat husband. Her good-looking polecat who was grinning at her like he didn’t have a brain in his head.
    And she’d married him, so what did that say about her?

    “Audra, where are you with Connor?” He raised his voice, not afraid to call for help when he needed it.
    “Connor tipped a plate of food onto himself.” Audra’s voice wafted up the stairs. “Ethan has him in the sink, giving him a bath. I’ll be a few minutes.”
    Seth was going to have to face his wife all on his own. He lifted one hand from Callie’s left shoulder. He’d been careful to avoid bumping the deep puncture wound on that arm, but even the least little touch had to hurt.
    She showed no signs of getting up or attacking. In fact, he was sorely afraid she might hit him with something even worse—salt water. Tears threatened to roll down out of her eyes, and he couldn’t stand it.
    Seth rested the hand not busy restraining her on Callie’s cheek. The woman was battered for a fact, and Seth knew a fever was a mighty serious thing.
    After all, hadn’t a fever just killed Audra’s husband a few months back?
    He brushed her hair back off her forehead and the silk of it tickled a memory Seth couldn’t quite bring into focus. He had touched her hair before, though, he knew it. Of course they’d had a son together. He reckoned there’d been a chance to touch her hair mixed up in that somewhere.
    God, please protect and heal my wife.
    The prayer startled Seth into straightening from where he leaned close to his pretty wife.
    It wasn’t a prayer exactly. Instead it was almost a . . . a still, small voice inside him. It seemed to come from the same place he’d heard the cavern call to him and the storm last night and the wolves. It was almost like God gave him the prayer, rather than Seth giving one to God. It was a wonderful, powerful feeling. On the other hand, Seth wasn’t sure having more voices inside him was a good thing. But if one of those voices was God, maybe it was all right. Maybe he’d better listen.
    He tried to search for that voice again, tried to pray on his own, and he stumbled over it and turned back to Callie before he could look for his soul and instead find emptiness. Or maybe find so many fears they amounted to madness.
    “You had a fever when I first met you.” Callie spoke quietly. Neither crying nor attacking. Seth decided he needed to pray more and longer and harder—if he could just remember how.
    “Is that why I don’t remember things?”
    Callie shrugged and her shoulder lifting under his hand was a wonder to him. He had a wife. A beautiful wife.
    “Why do I have a fever?”
    A sick wife.
    “Are my wounds infected? Is that what’s causing the fever, Seth?” She was losing that killer tone to her voice.
    Much as he didn’t want his wife to be killing mad at him, he thought it was a bad sign.
    Seth inspected the deepest cut on her forehead. “It looks a little red, but probably just from being sore. I don’t think it’s infected. The puncture wound on your arm is the worst injury.” She had a hundred small scrapes that added up to a lot of pain and blood loss, but nothing fatal.
    “My arm