“Well?” she asked the next morning as Michael inspected her leg.
“It doesn’t appear to be any worse,” he said finally. Reluctantly. He’d wanted to find something, anything that would give him a reason to make her uphold her end of their bargain. She’d had a restless night, yet when he asked her about it, she refused to admit anything was wrong.
“What did you use in the poultice?”
“Slippery elm, marsh penny, vervain, -“
Michael was grudgingly impressed. All of those things had been utilized for their healing properties for generations. He’d been doing a lot of research on organics over the past year on Lexi’s behalf. Lexi suffered a rare blood disease that made even the simplest injuries life threatening. The medicines she’d had to take were sometimes worse than the disease itself, but she was thriving on ancient homeopathic remedies consisting of exotic-sounding roots and extracts.
“You have all that?”
Maggie nodded. “My grandmother didn’t put much faith in the modern healthcare system. She kept her own garden, and taught me to do the same.”
At least now he was beginning to get an idea of where Maggie’s aversion to medicine came from. A sudden memory struck him. “Wait a minute. Your grandmother – she was the healer, wasn’t she?”
“She never claimed to be a healer,” Maggie said carefully, “but many came to her for help when traditional medicine didn’t work.”
“My father swore by a paste – used to call it Angels and Demons or something...”
“Probably a mixture of Angelica and Devil’s Claw,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “Gram used to make a compress that was good for things like arthritis or deep bone and joint injuries. Lots of people used to come to her for it.”
Michael’s jaw dropped. “Do you know how to make it?”
Maggie shrugged. “Sure. I still make it regularly for some of Gram’s old friends. Takes a bit of time, though. You need to extract the oil from the Angelica and steep the Devil’s Claw for the better part of a day. Why?”
“My father says it was the only thing that ever helped him.”
The corners of her mouth quirked. “Is it now?”
For some reason, that hint of an Irish brogue that slipped into her speech sometimes drove him wild. He resisted the sudden compulsive urge to toss her onto her back and give her a good, old-fashioned tuppin’, as she would say. Instead, he gave her a rueful grin, adopting a brogue of his own. “Aye, Maggie, ‘tis true enough.”
She laughed, sending waves of warmth through him. “And that’s hard for you to accept, isn’t it?”
“Not as much as you might think,” he answered honestly. “I’d choose a natural remedy over an artificial one every time, providing it works.” He placed his hands on the bed at either side of her hips, effectively caging her in while he pinned her with that clear blue gaze. “But at least my father let me run tests to properly diagnose the problem first.”
Maggie wiggled free. “I bet he just did it to stop you from nagging him constantly.”
It was Michael’s turn to laugh. “You might be right.” He turned, reaching out and catching her easily. “I don’t give up easily, you know.”
She leaned heavily against him, avoiding his eyes, but he was not fooled. “Please, Maggie. Just let me take you in and give you a thorough exam for my own piece of mind.”
“A deal’s a deal,” she said, false brightness coloring her tone. “You wouldn’t go back on your word now, would you?”
His lips thinned. “No, but - ”
“Good,” she said, interrupting him. “Then that’s settled, and we don’t have to speak of it again.”
Michael left with a growing feeling of unease, exacerbated by the fact that Maggie seemed to be hurrying him along. “Go!” she said, playfully swatting him. “I’ll meet you at the wedding tomorrow.”
He’d wanted to come and pick her up himself, but she would not hear of it. He had too much to do, she’d said, and insisted she would be fine.
*
The moment Michael left, Maggie nearly collapsed against the closed door. The pain behind her eye was excruciating; it had been all she could do not to let Michael know. He suspected something, she was sure of it, but thankfully, he was still reluctant to push too hard.
She half-walked, half-crawled to the bathroom. She poured a few of the pain pills he’d left her the other night into her palm and gulped them down with a cup of water. Without even bothering to undress, she sat down in the shower stall and turned the hot water on full blast. The excessive heat and steam dulled the pain temporarily until the meds had a chance to work. Then she forced herself to make the short trip back to the bed. Peeling off her wet clothes, she buried herself under the covers that still smelled of Michael and sex, losing herself to the blessed darkness.