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Page 135
injured strangers, because there weren't many cities with doctors, let alone hospitals."
The anger on his face segued into confusion. "That is how I began my inn, Miss Walker. I came here to be alone, but strangers came to my door begging shelter. I decided to provide it to themfor a price. But that was not long ago. You speak as though you discuss a time far past."
Mariah dropped her gaze. Oops. "II misspoke. It's just that I come from . . . the east, where there are more towns that already have established inns and doctors' practices."
She turned back toward the woman. She didn't remember a similar character from the screenplay. Was her arrival an event that was unforeshadowed?
"If you despise the frontier so," Thorn spat, his anger apparently overcoming confusion, "then go back to your comfortable existence in the east. Where servants cater to you so your hands stay pretty and soft."
To Mariah's dismay, tears flooded her eyes. She blinked them away, angry with herself.
Her hands. She glanced at them. Their redness was less dramatic now than the day before, but their skin was beginning to flake. She couldn't help thinking again of his tenderness when he had touched them. . . .
Angrily, she thrust them behind her back. "My hands have nothing to do with anything. I'm here because I have to be, but that doesn't mean I'll let someone treat me badly. Or anyone else for that matter. Why does this woman's staying bother you?"
She watched as Thorn hesitated. When he spoke, it was slowly, with a deep emotion that Mariah did not understand. "Because she's helpless. And because"
The rest of what he said was interrupted by a moan. Mariah turned to see the woman struggling to rise. Rushing to her side, Mariah gently pushed her back to the bed.
"There," she said triumphantly. "She's waking. She'll be better soon, I'm sure." But when Mariah turned back toward the door, Thorn was gone.
Only then did she realize that his last, interrupted words had sounded a lot like, "I'll fail her, too."

 
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