Once Bitten: Twice Mad

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Three: Pies, Cellars, Visions and an Unwelcome Guest

Evangeline sat in the sitting room, scrubbing clothes on the washboard. Colt had laughed when she had asked him to bring in enough pails of water for her to wash. He had insisted that by washing the clothes they'd been wearing for the last few weeks she was doing nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig. She had stuck her tongue out at him and sent him out to the stables to see to the horses hooves. Washing their worn out and stained clothing might be a waste of time but Evangeline wasn't willing to simply leave them dirty. She didn't mind stains and tears just so long as they smelled decent again.

Last night had been tense but uneventful. Everyone had been so worried that something terrible was going to happen the moment they closed their eyes but nothing had. It had been quiet and peaceful—two things that none of them were used to. Even in the towns they'd stayed in before the moans of rabid on the streets around them had managed to come through the walls and windows at times. To hear nothing but silence outside had been more unnerving than the sound of any monster had ever been.

Evangeline was lost in her thoughts when a quiet rapping came upon the wall and her head flew up as her hand released its hold on the wet blouse and grabbed her knife from her leg.

"I did not mean to startle you, miss." Doctor Harris said quickly as he raised one hand in peaceful surrender and smiled.

"I apologize," Evangeline gasped as she put her knife away and rose to her feet. She dried her hands on her trouser legs and glanced at the pie the doctor held in his hands that smelled suspiciously like delicious apples and cinnamon. Evangeline's mouth began to water and her stomach rumbled at the thought of eating something so sinfully good after nothing but beans, potatoes and fire charred meat for so long.

"It was completely my fault. I should have spoken sooner and not been so quiet. I didn't mean to seem as if I was sneaking," the doctor assured her.

Evangeline shook her head. "It's a different world outside of this town, doctor, so you'll have to excuse my friends and I if we seem a bit paranoid at times. We have had to learn to view everything as a threat in order to survive."

Doctor Harris laid his free hand over his impressive belly and tilted his head. "Have you lost members to your group out there?"

Evangeline felt the sting of the pain as if it were fresh and new. She nodded and swallowed hard. "Yes we have."

The Doctor gave her a comforting smile. "I am sorry for you losses, miss. I also want to apologize for how I treated all of you last night. Please know that it is not in my nature to be so rude. Judith, my wife, baked this pie and informed me that I was to come and offer it to you all as a token of peace."

"You have a wife?" Evangeline asked, with interest. She craved contact with another woman. Now that Katherine and Charlotte were both gone, Evangeline had no other woman to bond with. She and her aunt would never again be as close as Evangeline had hoped they would become—too many harsh words and too much bad blood existed between them.

"Yes," the doctor shifted his feet and averted his gaze. "But I'm afraid she isn't feeling very well today or else she would have come and greeted you herself."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Evangeline offered, though inside she was growing just as suspicious and apprehensive about this man as Colt and Comanche both seemed to be. "Tell her thank you for the pie. She didn't have to trouble herself with making it if she didn't feel well."

"It wasn't any trouble." Doctor Harris assured her, his gaze once again meeting hers. "Can I take this in the kitchen?"

"Oh I'll get it," Evangeline said as she walked around her tub of suds filled wash water and held out her hand. "I'm sure you have things to be getting back to." She wasn't sure why but something inside of her knew that Colt wouldn't want the doctor roaming around the hotel. They had no good or logical reason not to trust the man but that didn't seem to matter to her gut. Her gut was telling her that something about him was off.