Chapter 26 - Better Than Passing [https://cdn.midjourney.com/31202ac0-6d15-4f28-90e2-0e51533983d5/0_3.png]

“What? Why?” Kennedy asked David.

Terry ran his fingers across his jaw.

David continued, “If he had let you try, and you had any kind of success, they wouldn’t have let you leave.”

“I’m an adult. I can go wherever I want.”

“Not on the mountain. They have their own laws and the only healer they have is dying. To the rest of the world, you would have been just another disappearing stranger. The folks in town leave the mountain alone.”

Terry reached over and settled his wide hand on her thigh, and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

Placing her hand over his, she asked, “Would they have killed me?”

“No. Worse…” David approached Steve, reaching for his trailing leads. “They would have held you captive. Healing is rare. They wouldn’t have wasted that skill, or allowed it to leave the community.” He ran his hand over the horse’s flank. “If you try it, while I’m gone, I can’t tell them you healed him. I won’t have witnessed it. I swear it upon the sweetgrass ring. Do you still have it?”

When she drew it from her pocket, he smiled.

Time moved slowly as she waited until she could no longer hear David and the big horses in the trees. Rolling onto her side, she asked, “Can I try?”

Terry shook his head no.

“Do you like pain?”

His brow furrowed, and he scowled at her.

“Then why not? What is the worst it could do?”

He brought his hand up to the side of his head and gestured like he was breaking an egg open.

“I will not go nuts.”

With an arched brow, he took a deep breath. Returning to silence, he pushed himself from the rocks and gathered the remnants of their lunch. Protective of her sandwich, she brought it up to her chest. If she was a kinder person, she would help him. The stubborn goat. She knew his arm and shoulder hurt. “I could bind your arm to your chest. It would limit its movement and might help with whatever is going on in your shoulder.”

He placed their pack down on the grass, with his wide back facing her. Then, without a word, he walked away. Frustration percolated in her gut as she sat alone in the middle of God knows where. Only her fear of getting lost and never making it to town kept her in place.

*

There was no way she was going to ride for two more hours today when she couldn’t even walk properly. She’d limped to the rock she was sitting on. Just in case, she stretched her stiff body. It was crazy to come to this mountain. Florida would have been so much less complicated. When she heard a stick crack, she froze, halfway bent toward her toes. Fear slithered up the back of her neck. Bear?

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When Terry’s solid body became clear through the trees, she took a breath and was about to complain. When he turned toward her, something in his face stopped her. Grimly, he approached her and held out his hand. A woven grass ring encircled his pinky finger. The Vet slid it free. Without a word, he pushed the grass ring onto her finger. His eyes glittered as if he dared her to reject him. Mouth resting in a firm line, the Vet stood still as if he were waiting for something.

Kennedy touched the ring on her finger and swallowed. “Thank you.”

When he nodded, his face showed relief. Terry went to claim Steve as David returned with the animals. There was so much she didn’t understand. She fished David’s ring out of her pocket and slid it next to Terry’s on her finger.

They helped her back onto her horse before they returned to their own.

*

She couldn’t stop touching the ring on the endless two hours it took to reach where they would camp. When they came to a stop and she tried to get down, she basically fell off of Steve. As soon as she could lie flat, she went to sleep in the grass, snoring while the men unpacked the sleeping bags and water. Kennedy dreamed of walking through a field thick with red berries, crushing them released the smell of home, red as blood on her fingers. The sound of her mother’s spoon in the herbal mix jar echoed.

Gathering handfuls of berries, she’d smeared them across her skin. When she woke up, cold on the ground with a sleeping bag half across her body, she was next to Terry. He had tugged too much of the thickness his way. David lay on the other side of the fire. Both men were asleep. What would it hurt to try? After rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she looked up at the star-flecked sky. Terry cradled his left arm against his body in his sleep. He’d risked his life for her. Nothing would happen. She’d had no talents. Mediocre was the bar she reached for in school. Passing was acceptable.

How in the hell could she heal someone? Was it some kind of laying on of hands bull shit? She rubbed her palms together and shifted onto her knees. Not wanting to wake him, she let her hands hover above his shoulder. There was too much heat coming from the area and she could see the swelling. The heat glowed, and she was cold. Could she borrow it? Kennedy drew the heat through her hands, up into her wrists, pulling the fever into her body. Terry groaned and grew restless in his sleep.

When she risked placing her hands on him, the contact made the sides of her body sparkle and itch. She pushed into the sensation, stopping at the edge of change, feeling electric. In that liminal space, she could feel that his shoulder wasn’t quite in the socket. Her fingertips itched, just like they had when she had reached for his palate. Her gut told her it would cause him pain to move it, but she had to if she was going to put it back in place. This was something she should ask permission to do.

Instead, she lifted his arm and cradled it in her own, to get a good grip. Her palm fit into the well of his shoulder. One glance to make sure David was asleep, and she forcefully moved Terry’s arm. Traction, rotation, and then down until she felt the click and release of what was not in place. Under her, he howled and thrust himself away, knocking her backward. Blind in pain, it took him a moment to realize where he was. Kennedy kept her distance as he shook his head, clasping his shoulder. Low and full of warning, he growled and glared at her. They both looked toward David, who had sat up and was blurrily looking around, a dagger in his hand. David stammered, half asleep, “What? Did you hear something?”

“I rolled over onto his arm and hurt him.” She was a liar. Nothing new.

David lay back down, tucking his knife into the leather sheath next to his sleeping bag. “I told him not to sleep so close to you.” He rolled away from them so that his back faced the fire and tugged his sleeping bag up to his neck.

Tentatively, the Vet moved his arm. When he could move it upward, he narrowed his gaze at her and mouthed the word, “NO.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t mean to roll over onto you.”

With an angry snort, he shifted away from her, abandoning the covers to curl up in the grass. Assholes. She was only trying to help. She pulled the covers over herself and flopped onto the ground. Men were stupid and stubborn.