Читать книгу Love - From His Point Of View! - Maureen Child - Страница 12

Outside, the birds were making a fuss about morning. It was a familiar sound, even this late in the year. There were always a few who wintered over. But usually I didn’t listen to their chatter from a hospital bed in the den.

I sat on the edge of that bed and glared at my knee.

I had no idea how it had gotten hurt, no memory of it bothering me during my crawl up the mountain, but it was swollen to twice its size. Soft-tissue damage, according to the doctor. The swelling should go down in a few days. I was to stay off it as much as possible.

The downstairs bathroom was two rooms and half a hallway away.

All the bedrooms in the house were on the second floor, which is why they’d parked me in the den when I came home yesterday. The den was an addition, tacked on at the very back of the house. The bathroom was opposite the laundry room.

I’d put up with using a plastic basin to brush my teeth, but I was damned if I was going to pee in the stupid urinal they’d sent me home with.

Besides, I wanted more coffee. And something to do. There was a TV in here, but I wasn’t much for television. I like to read, but not all day. The table by my bed held sickroom paraphernalia—water, a glass, pain pills, the stuff Gwen had brought me in the hospital. My laptop, though I’d practically had to sign an oath in blood that I wouldn’t use it to work yet. A little bell I was supposed to ring if I needed anything.

I grimaced at that bell. Last night I’d barely managed one game of solitaire on my laptop. Seely had come in to refill my water and see how I was doing. I’d fallen asleep so fast I wasn’t sure I’d answered her.

I’d done nothing but sleep yesterday. I was sick of it.

On the floor next to the bed, Doofus was growling. He’d sunk his sharp little baby teeth into a dangling corner of my blanket and was killing it. In the kitchen, the radio was playing softly. I could hear quiet, moving-around noises, too…water running at the sink. The refrigerator door opening and closing.

That would be Seely, clearing up after breakfast. She’d brought me eggs and toast in bed.

Damned if I know why people consider breakfast in bed a treat. Even with a bed you can crank to a sitting position, it’s a pain. Besides, I’d had enough of beds. I wanted to shave. I wanted a shower and real clothes, not wrinkled pajamas. I needed to talk to Manny, and my loving family had persuaded Seely not to leave the phone by my bed.

First things first. I stood slowly, having learned that I got dizzy if I tried to move too fast. It was nice, I decided, to hear a woman puttering around in the kitchen. I wondered how much of a squawk Seely would make when I joined her there. A grin tugged at my mouth.

Funny. I was in a pretty good mood, considering I’d smashed my truck and put some major dents in several body parts. But it was good to be home…good to have survived to come home.

I started across the room. Contrary to my family’s fondly held opinion, I know my limits. I’d lost a lot of blood, which meant I was going to be weak, sometimes dizzy. Combine that with a knee not inclined to take much weight, a shoulder that kept me from using crutches and a body that was stiff and sore everywhere but my left big toe, and falling was a real possibility. Especially with that fool puppy running circles around my feet.

I took it slow and careful. I wanted to make a point. I also wanted coffee and conversation, maybe some answers. I limped into the dining room, frowning.

In any contest between memory and logic, logic ought to win. Women don’t glow. I knew that. I’d been in bad shape when Seely found me, my perceptions skewed by a system on the verge of shutting down. I couldn’t trust my memory.

Yet that one memory bead remained so clear…the curves of her face as she smiled at me, the tilt of her eyes, the way her breath had puffed out, ghostly in the cold air. And the gentle luminescence of her skin, like moonlight on snow. Not at all like a flashlight. Just as clearly I remember the warmth, a heat that had sunk itself into me instead of sitting around on the surface.

I had questions, and I couldn’t let them go.

I managed to avoid tripping over Doofus as I left the bathroom, but had to pause in the doorway to the kitchen, one hand on the jamb to steady myself. The sling supported my shoulder, so it wasn’t hurting too much. Unlike my knee.

Seely was wiping down the counter, humming along with the radio. She wore jeans and a blue sweater today, and her denim-clad hips were swaying to the music in a cute little be-bop that yanked my attention away from my sore knee.

Then I noticed what was playing on the radio: Kenny Chesney singing “How forever feels.” The song Gwen and I had danced to five years ago, on the night we’d ended up in bed together.

The night before I left her.

All the fizz drained out of the day. I took a deep breath and limped on into the room. Doofus yelped happily, announcing our arrival.

Seely spun around, her eyes wide. “How do you do that?”

“What?” Doofus had found his water dish and was thrilled by the discovery, lapping away as if he’d been in the desert for days. I’d have to put him out soon. Or ask Seely to, dammit. I didn’t like depending on others for every little thing.

“Sneak up on me when you can barely walk,” she said.

“No shoes.” I decided to rest a bit before making for the oak table in the center of the room. “I came out for a cup of coffee.”

“I would have brought you coffee. That’s what that little bell by your bed is for.”

“I didn’t want to drink it in bed. Besides, I thought it would help if you could see that I’m able to move around some now.”

“Help what?”

“I don’t want to sleep all day today.”

One of her eyebrows lifted. The woman had the most talkative eyebrows I’d ever seen. “Okay. You thought I needed to be notified of this?”

Yesterday I’d dozed off every time she checked on me. That had to be coincidence…didn’t it? “We have a deal. I do what you say, within reason. I wanted to show you that it wouldn’t be reasonable to keep me in bed all day.”

Her mouth kicked up on one side. “Well, since you’re already here, you may as well sit down and have that coffee. No, wait—I’d rather you didn’t go splat on the floor. Let me get on your good side first.”

I didn’t have much choice. She reached me before I’d taken more than a couple of halting steps and slid an arm around my waist. The warm strength of her body felt good. “How can you move so fast without seeming to hurry?”

“Long legs. It helps when my target is crippled and can’t escape.”

My mouth twitched. The top of her head was only a few inches below mine. If I’d turned my head, it would have tickled my nose. Her hair smelled nice—a green smell, like herbs.

We made for the table at a half lurch, and I had to admit it was easier with her help. More pleasant, too. My body started entertaining ideas I could have sworn it wasn’t ready to consider yet. I sure couldn’t do anything about those ideas, even if I’d been free to.

Which I wasn’t. She was an employee, off-limits.

We reached the table. I spoke abruptly. “The first time I saw you, you were glowing.”

“Amazing the sort of thing a mind in shock can conjure, isn’t it?”

“Is that what it was?”

She let me go as I lowered myself carefully into a chair, then looked me square in the eye. Her eyebrows were expressing skepticism. “I don’t know. Do you often see people glow when you aren’t in shock?”

“Hardly ever.” Common wisdom holds that people won’t look you in the eye if they’re lying. This is stupid. Since everyone knows this, someone who intends to lie to you will be sure to meet your eyes. I guess people who expect liars to look shifty haven’t been around teenagers much. “That E.R. doctor was sure baffled by my shoulder.”

She laughed and headed for the coffeepot. “The one you kept calling an idiot?”

“Yeah. Harry Meckle. I knew him in school.” Was she dodging the subject? Or was I being given a chance to avoid looking like a fool? I drummed my fingers on the table. “I want you to tell Gwen it’s okay for Zach to come over after school today.”

“Uh-uh.” She set a steaming mug in front of me. The multicolored stones in her bracelet glittered.

“Do you wear that all the time?”

“Hmm? Oh.” She sat down, keeping another mug for herself. “The bracelet. Yes, pretty much.”

“So why won’t you talk to Gwen for me?”

“I never step between dueling exes.”

“Gwen and I aren’t dueling. We aren’t even exes. We were never married.” I held myself ready for the questions that were sure to come. People were invariably nosy about me, Gwen, Zach and Duncan.

Seely shrugged. “So? You’re obviously ex-somethings.”

I’d never thought of it that way. For some reason the notion settled me, as if some little wandering piece had finally found its spot. I took a sip of coffee. “This is good.”

“Thanks.”

“The thing is, Zach has had enough uncertainty in his life. I think it will be good for him to see that, yeah, I’m banged up but I’m basically okay.”

“I won’t argue with that, but can’t you just tell Gwen yourself?”

I grimaced. “My family has some funny ideas. They think I don’t know my own limitations.”

She sipped her coffee, her eyes laughing at me over the rim. “Maybe you’ve given them some teensie-weensie reason to think that?”

“No.” I was certain about that. “Couldn’t have. I’ve never been really hurt before. A few stitches here and there, yeah, but nothing they kept me for overnight. Never been in any kind of auto accident.”

“Never? Not even a fender-bender?”

I shook my head and thought sadly about my truck.

“I imagine you scared them, then. They probably don’t realize it, but deep down I’ll bet they think you’re invulnerable.”

“They’re annoying sometimes, but they aren’t stupid.”

“Feelings don’t always follow logic, do they? They probably needed you to be invulnerable when they were younger. You were all they had.”

I scowled. “Who told you that?”

“Oh, it came up in different ways. While you were napping yesterday, you had visitors. Manny Holstedder—I gather he works for you?—and two of your neighbors, and of course Duncan. And phone calls. I made a list you can look at later, but I do recall that your sister Annie called, and another brother. Charlie, I think? And Edie Snelling called twice.” She put just enough lift at the end of that to make it almost a question.

“A friend of Gwen’s,” I muttered. There are worse things than an ex-lover who’s determined to fix you up. Falling off a mountain, for example. But dammit, I wished Gwen would quit trying to slide women under my door.

“Mmm. Anyway, your friends, family and neighbors all wanted me to know I was taking care of someone special. You’re something of a hero, you know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake—”

“No, really. They all think you’re pretty grand. Several of them told me about the way you took over raising your sister and brothers after your folks were killed.”

Mortified, I nearly burned my tongue on the coffee. I set the mug down and cleared my throat. “To get back to the subject—I thought you could assure Gwen that I’m up to having Zach come over. That is…I never asked. Are you okay with having a five-year-old around?”

“Sure. I like kids.”

“I guess you don’t have any of your own. You said you weren’t a nester.”

She tipped her head to one side. Her curls were semitamed today, caught back in a stretchy blue thing at her nape. A few strands had wiggled free. “Are you really curious, or just paying me back for having learned so much about you when you were helpless?”

That surprised a chuckle out of me.

Oddly, she shivered. It was a delicate little thing, but I caught it. “Are you cold? We can turn up the heat.”

“No,” she said absently, rubbing her left palm as if it itched. “You do have a deep voice, don’t you? It sounds as if it’s rolling up from the bottom of a well. Oh, look—Doofus is actually at the door, asking to go out. I’d better reward that.”

She liked the sound of my voice. That’s what that little shiver had meant. I enjoyed that notion about as much as I did watching her as she ambled for the back door. The way those long legs carried her along put a nice little sway in her hips. Those legs…

She opened the back door and Doofus scampered out. “How did you pick Doofus?”

“The name or the dog?”

“Both, I guess. A bit of unique, isn’t he?”

“That’s one way to put it. No, leave the door open. He panics if you close it, then forgets what he went outside to do.” A man could die happy with those legs wrapped around him—whoa. A little sexual buzz was okay, but I couldn’t let myself get carried away. “I got him from the pound for Zach’s fifth birthday. The vet says he’s a basset mix, emphasis on the mix.”

She glanced out the door. “The ears do look have the look of a basset hound. Zach comes over to play with him fairly often, I take it?”

“Two or three days a week. A neighbor’s teenage daughter walks him here from the school when the weather is decent. Sometimes to Mrs. Bradshaw’s, if I can’t be home at that hour.”

“That’s your neighbor, right? She stopped by yesterday to see how you were doing.”

“She keeps kids.” That still didn’t sit too well with me. I didn’t want Zach raised by anyone other than family. But Mrs. Bradshaw was a good woman, and he liked it there. As Gwen often pointed out, at Mrs. Bradshaw’s he had other kids to play with, most notably a set of twins. “You never did answer my question.”

“Your…oh. About children.” Doofus scampered back in, the whole back half of his body wagging with delight over his performance. She shut the door and knelt to praise and pat. “Nope, no kids of my own. No stepchildren, nieces or nephews, either. I’ve never been married, and I was an only child.”

So was Gwen. Putting the two women together in my mind made me uncomfortable. I shifted, stretching out my bad leg. “I guess that would be lonely, being an only child.”

“I had my fantasies about having a brother or sister when I was growing up. But a lot of people from big families fantasize about being an only, I think. Didn’t you?”

“No more than four or five times a day. Especially when Charlie and Annie were teenagers. Not that Annie got into any real trouble, but she was a girl. There’s so much stuff about being a girl at that age…” I shook my head. “I wanted to lock her up or send her to a convent. Raising girls is scary.”

“She’s quite a bit younger than you, I gather.”

“Eleven years, yeah. She’s the youngest.” I hadn’t done right by Annie. For years she’d had a kind of phobia about leaving Highpoint, and I hadn’t even realized it—probably because I’d liked having her around too much to question why she’d moved back home and stayed. Jack had known, though. He’d married her and taken her off to see the world, one dirtpoor village at a time. And she loved it. I frowned at my coffee cup.

“More coffee?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks. Ah…jeans probably won’t work with this stupid knee. There ought to be a pair of sweats in the bottom left drawer of my dresser, though. If you’d get them, I can have my shower in the downstairs bathroom, then get dressed.”

“You are not—” she started, then stopped, shaking her head. “Who’d have thought you’d be so devious?”

I scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m supposed to fuss at you, remind you of what the doctor said, et cetera. In the end, you’ll give up on the shower, and I’m supposed to concede that you can get dressed. Which is what you really want.”

“Are you sure you don’t have brothers?”

She chuckled. “Nary a one.”

Yet she obviously knew men. Well, she’d probably had plenty of opportunity to observe my half of the species. That showgirl’s body would get any man’s attention. Then he’d get hooked by that slow smile, or the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, laughing all by themselves. “You aren’t giving me a hard time about getting dressed,” I observed.

“Not much point. I knew you’d be champing at the bit today. You do realize I’ll have to help you, don’t you?”

“Like hell you will.”

She just looked at me. For once, even her eyebrows didn’t comment.

At last I sighed. “The shirt. I’ll need help with that. And the sling.”

“I could give you a sponge bath first.”

A visceral flash hit me—her hands running a warm, soapy washcloth along my arm to my shoulder, then down my chest…she’d be bending over me, bringing those magnificent breasts close enough to…“No, you can’t.”

Like I said, I know my limits.