Free Angel Creek by Linda Howard Page B

but the effort still made her turn pale.
    She managed to take care of her more urgent needs and gulp down several dippersful of water, for she was very thirsty, but the simple act of removing her nightgown defeated her. She could not raise her arms to lift it over her head. Even if she could, she wasn’t at all certain she would be able to dress herself properly.
    But the animals needed caring for, and it wasn’t their fault she had been so stupid and clumsy as to fall out of the loft.
    She had been lucky that in the six years she had been alone she had never before been ill or hurt. Knowing that she had no one else to rely on, she had always been extremely careful, even to the point of holding a nail with a long pair of tongs rather than risking hitting herself on the hand with a hammer. She had done everything she could think of to make her surroundings and her habits safe, but none of her precautions had kept her from stepping on that cat.
    Even if she managed to get down the steps and woreher nightgown to the barn, how would she feed the animals? She couldn’t lift her arms, much less heavy buckets of feed.
    She was so furious at herself for having been careless that she could barely think. It didn’t help that each movement brought a renewed onslaught of pain.
    Her legs were stiff and sore, but she rather thought that was from the unaccustomed exertion of plowing. Her back, however, seemed to be one massive bruise from shoulders to hips, and her ribs ached with every breath she took. She tried to sit and found that she couldn’t. She considered simply falling onto the bed, but the thought of what she would have to endure when she tried to get up again kept her from doing that. Standing seemed to be her only recourse.
    But the spring morning was chilly, and she was growing cold standing there barefoot, wearing nothing but a nightgown. The coals in the fireplace would catch if she could place a fresh log on them, but that, too, was beyond her. It looked as if she would have to go back to bed to keep warm, regardless of the pain it would cost her to get up.
    When she heard the drumming of hoofbeats her first thought was that she had to get the shotgun, and she moved too quickly. The resulting pain shut off her breath, and she froze with a stifled moan.
    â€œDee!”
    The shout made her almost weak with relief. It was Lucas. She would swallow her pride and ask him to take care of the animals today; surely by tomorrow she would be able to do it herself. Painfully she moved to the window just in time to see Lucas heading toward the barn to look for her.
    â€œLucas,” she called, but he didn’t hear her.
    She went to the door, holding her breath against the jarring of each step, then stared in frustration at the bar she had automatically dropped across the door when she had come in the night before. She tried to lift her arms but found that even if she forced herself to bear the pain there was a point beyond which her muscles simply wouldn’t work. That point, unfortunately, came before she could get the bar raised out of the braces.
    â€œDee? Where are you?”
    He came out of the barn and headed toward the back of the house. Panting, Dee bent her knees and wedged her shoulder under one end of the bar, then straightened. The heavy bar bore down onto her sore flesh like an axe cutting into her, but she couldn’t think of any other way of getting the door open, so she ground her teeth together and ignored the tears of pain that burned her eyes. The bar slid out and hit the floor with a thunderous clatter.
    Lucas heard the noise and paused, then turned back toward the house, certain that the sound had come from there. Caution made him put his hand on the butt of his pistol.
    She managed to pull the door open and stood wavering with one hand gripping the frame for support. “Lucas,” she called. “I’m in front.”
    He came around the side of the cabin and took the