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Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-Two

"Is it wrong to say I'm happy you sprained your ankle?" Michael asked three days later as he and Allie sat together on a bench behind the hotel. There wasn't any foot traffic back beside the pig pen and the chicken coops and Michael liked being able to sit outside and yet still feel alone with Allie.

"Yes, Michael, I think it is," Allie laughed lightly. "Why are you happy that I'm in pain?"

Michael shook his head and laid the pencil he'd been sketching with on his lap before taking her hand, "I'm not happy you're in pain but I like spending this time with you."

Michael's heart sped up when the bright smile lit Allie's beautiful face and she laid her head on his shoulder, "And I love spending time with you," she replied, adjusting her leg which was propped up on a bucket to keep her foot elevated.

"Do you need anything?" Michael questioned. He was enjoying being more of a caretaker for Allie. It was a good change of roles seeing as how she was always working so hard to take care of him and Amelia.

"No, I'm okay," Allie promised. She pointed at the leather bound sketchpad that Martha had bought for Michael, "That looks really good, Michael."

Michael looked down at the pig he was sketching. It was a baby piglet with a butterfly on its snout. They had seen that very scene less than an hour before and Michael had laughed and wanted to capture it.

He found he loved to draw and his favorite things to draw were scenes and moments that made him smile. His favorite drawing he had yet to show Allie. It was a drawing of her face, the way it looked every morning as she lay against his chest; her lips curved in a hint of a smile, her eyelashes fluttering atop her cheeks and her hair mussed.

"Do you think Amelia will like it?" Michael asked, knowing he planned on giving her the pig drawing.

"I think she most certainly will. We'll need to get her a frame to put it in so it stays nice."

Michael frowned, "Where can we buy one?"

Allie lifted her head from his shoulder, "How about we take a walk to the carpenter's shop? He'll surely have enough scrap lumber he doesn't need to make a frame and you and I can make one together."

"You want me to go into town?" Michael whispered.

"You've done it before in an even bigger town than this one," Allie reminded him. "You have to go out among people eventually, Michael. You cannot simply stay locked away at this hotel. It is a nicer prison than that attic, for sure, but it will become a prison just the same."

Michael knew Allie was right but that didn't make him any more eager to be walking around the streets of town. Already he'd realized that not everyone was as mean as the Treadwell's had been but not everyone was as nice as Martha, Allie and Amelia either.

His cousins, Sarah and MaryBeth, who worked in the hotel, were not cruel or mean but they seemed to avoid him. He suspected that looking at him made them uncomfortable and he could understand why.

Martha told him he had more family in town, more cousins, but she hadn't told any of them about him yet. She wanted to give him time to adjust before letting too many people know that he was truly alive and well and in town.

"You'll be with me, right?" Michael asked, feeling no shame over the fact that he needed her with him. A man who was courting MaryBeth had laughed at Michael just yesterday and insisted that a real man did not depend on a woman but Michael didn't believe that. He didn't care what other men, and the story books, might have to say about men being heroes--Michael was a man but he was no hero. The hero in his life was Allie.