"We won't be able to stay out there very long. Gavin will be here to get ready for tonight around 6:30."
"I know, I know. I just think it'd be more comfortable than trying to sit in here."
No one says a word; Cash just hands Isabella and me a plate and urges us to get our food first. We fill our plates and then make our way back out to the bar, where Isabella sits beside me and motions for Cash to sit beside her, sandwiching her between us. Sophie ends up sitting awkwardly on the other side of Cash, basically being ignored.
About halfway through dinner, Sophie says her first words since we began eating. "Oh! Before I forget, Olivia, I put some herbs in your drink. When Izz and I came down from Canada, we drove through the corner of Saskatchewan and Montana, and stayed at a place run by a woman with a lot of Blackfoot Indian heritage. She gave me some herbal recipes. I don't know if any of them work, but I figured it can't hurt since you're having so much trouble getting pregnant."
The curve of her lips is deceptively innocuous and her barb hits its mark, reminding me of what I might not ever be able to give my husband.
"You put something in her drink?" Cash says, his head turning from me to Sophie and back to me, mild alarm ringing in his eyes.
"Just some herbs. They're harmless," Sophie says, waving us off and taking a bite of her chicken.
Cash stares at me for a few seconds. I know what he's thinking and my stomach knots with anxiety. Surely she wouldn't … I mean, she'd be crazy to … She'd get caught if she …
Wouldn't she?
I can see from the expression on his face that Cash is thinking the exact same things I am. But he must also be rationalizing them, too, because his features ease into a smile that says we are both overreacting. My heart feels a little more steady when he reaches under the bar, past Isabella, and takes my hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
But that reassurance ends the next morning when I wake up vomiting. And can't stop.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Olivia
I've never felt so miserable. Everything I smell-everything!-makes me want to roll over and die. I wonder absently whether I'd feel better if I cut off my nose.
The vomiting started the moment I opened my eyes at five this morning. I got a whiff of my delicious husband sleeping beside me, the scent of a soap that usually turns me on, and I lost what little dinner I ate last night. I haven't had more than ten or fifteen minutes peace since then. And that was almost three hours ago.
Cash has tried to get me to go to the emergency room a thousand times at least, but I'm trying to hold off. I think the vomiting is slowing and I don't want to jump the gun and sound like a lunatic when I present there with the primary complaint of, "Oh, I think I've been poisoned. Can you test my blood for … everything?"
I really want to believe it's just a reaction to the stinging nettle Sophie says she put in my soda. It's a harmless herb that really is used for fertility, strangely. Why she'd want to help me is a mystery, but even that sounds slightly less crazy than her trying to kill me. I mean, surely she wouldn't be foolish enough to try and poison me when she has such a questionable incident associated with her name in Canada. That would be incredibly careless. And even if she was that reckless¸ it's not like poisons are easy to come by on such short notice. This is civilization, after all.
But now … waking up sick as a dog … well, now I'm beginning to wonder.
"Please let me take you to the hospital," Cash pleads again, brushing the hair away from my damp forehead.
"No," I tell him, turning my face slightly into the pillow, unwilling to tell him that the smell of his soap is making me gag. "I think it's easing up some."
"You think? Olivia, I'm not willing to take that kind of chance with you. I've honored your wishes up to this point, but this can't go on. It's not healthy. You've got to at least get something to stop this."
"If I'm not better in another hour, you can take me. I promise."
I don't have to be looking at him to know the extent of his displeasure. Not only do I hear his deep, loud sigh, but I can feel his worry/irritation combo rolling off of him and onto me like salt water crashing into a rocky cliff.
"Olivia … " he says, his voice stern yet concerned.
"Cash … " I reply.
I feel his forehead hit my shoulder just before I hear his muffled words. "Don't you understand what it would do to me if something happened to you? Don't you get that my life would end if you weren't in it?"
My heart squeezes. "Of course I do. Because I feel the same way. But, babe, we can't very well go to the emergency room and tell them we think I've been poisoned. Do you know what kind of madness that would create? We've got enough problems right now without adding to them. If vomiting is all that results from … whatever this is, I can deal with it."