The Highwayman by Doreen Owens Malek

with you.”
    He closed his eyes again.
    “Go back to sleep, you need to rest.”
    He didn’t stir, and she thought that he had obeyed until she moved to get up and he caught her hand. She paused, and he pressed it tightly.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “Thank you,” he murmured, and then fell asleep.
    Alex released his hand and pushed through the flap of the tent into the early morning sunshine. She blinked and wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand.
    Rory turned from the cookpot where he was preparing breakfast and met her gaze.
    “He’s not...” he said, alarmed by her wet eyes.
    “No, no, he’s better. He came out of it and spoke to me.”
    Rory rushed past her to see for himself. When he rejoined her, he was grinning. “He is better. Even I can see it.”
    Alex smiled and nodded.
    “All thanks to you,” Rory added. “You saved him.”
    “Oh, Rory, he saved himself. You know how strong-willed he is, and very hale. He just needed time—”
    “You saved him,” Rory repeated, interrupting her. “And from now on, you’ll have no more trouble from me or mine. I’ll stand with you against any who would harm you.”
    For some reason, this moved her as much as Burke’s recovery had. Sullen, childish Rory, loyal only to Burke and their mutual cause, was pledging his fealty to her like a knight kneeling before the queen. She began to get teary again.
    “Come along inside,” Rory said, clamping his hand on her shoulder. It was the first time he had ever touched her voluntarily. “Maybe in a while we can feed him some broth from the pot.”
    * * * *
    As soon as Burke began to feel better, he behaved like a child and wanted to be on his feet at once. This attitude persisted in spite of the fact that he almost fell the first time he tried to stand; Rory caught him and set him back down on his pallet. Burke thereafter grumbled that he was being treated “like a puking babe,” which was accurate since the first thing he ate came back up again. Alex was reduced to standing guard to make sure he stayed horizontal and inventing amusements to distract him from his desire to get up and take charge again.
    Although she saw as little of the men in the camp as she had before, she could tell that their opinion of her had changed from controlled hatred to grudging respect. Rory must have told them of her role in Burke’s recovery, and the aura of veiled threat she had sensed before was entirely gone.
    The atmosphere in the camp was not the only thing that had changed; Alex herself was different somehow. The man upon whom she’d depended for her very survival had almost died, and she’d saved him. When Burke finally came to after days of fever and looked at her and touched her face, she knew then that she loved him, and was certain that he felt the same.
    Her conclusion was unshakable, even though she’d had little experience of any kind of love. Her uncle had always spoken of “romance” in sneering terms, as if it were an affliction of the weak, but Alex didn’t feel weak; she felt strong. Nothing and no one could keep her from Burke. Suddenly all the stories and songs made sense, the books she’d read since childhood and the lays of the minstrels sung at banquets and on feast days. Love had once seemed a distant dream, wonderful if ephemeral, but the reality was even more powerful. She would do anything to preserve it.
    Alex didn’t even question that her love was reciprocated. She could read Burke’s every expression and gesture, and she knew he had been fighting his feelings for her for some time. He’d give in to them, she would see to that. It wouldn’t be long before he recognized and admitted their mutual desire.
    It had to be love, what else could make her feel this way? It was difficult now to remember how she’d felt in the beginning, other than mortally afraid of Burke and desperate to get away from him. Now, the thought of their being parted filled her with panic. She wanted to stay