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Chapter Three

“He what!”

“His exact words were, ‘Please pry that lovely child from that vile truck and wed her immediatus, which I think loosely translates into pronto.”

“Or, if your Latin’s as good as mine, could mean ‘when hell freezes over.’”

Mac grinned. “Cyrus has been trying to get me remarried for years. He thinks it’s my dumb luck that you happened into my garage and said I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“I’m a gift horse?” She tried to sound lightly amused in spite of the way her heart had jolted at Cyrus’s eccentric suggestion.

“I was sort of paraphrasing what he actually said. He lost me when he started quoting Julius Caesar.” Mac’s smile faded. “Seriously, Cyrus said I should jump at your baby-sitting offer. So I’m jumping—as high as I can under the circumstances. And I really want to thank you for your help.”

“That’s all right. As a man once told me when he fixed my water hose for free, it’s just being neighborly.”

His look was warm and she felt unreasonably pleased by his gratitude. She felt as if she’d done something wonderful, rather than simply offered to baby-sit in exchange for a parking place. His blue eyes held hers, and she read things in them she told herself came from the morphine, not from Mac. Things that made the narrow hospital bed suddenly appear plenty wide enough for two, if she was pressed up tight enough against him... Discomfited, she picked up the phone and held it out to him. “Here, call the boys and tell them I’m coming—with pizza.”

“They like pepperoni.”

“Got it.” It was as hard to leave him now as it had been in the parking lot. “Is there anything I can do for you before I go? I think your nurse sounded pretty serious about not touching that buzzer again.”

“Not unless you happen to have an extra elephant-hide boot tucked away in that camper of yours.”

“Sorry, it’s just me and my spider plant, remember?”

“Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” His inflection made it a question, a lonely-sounding question. The small hospital seemed quiet and empty, no ringing phones, no gurneys whisking down the corridors on rubber wheels, no clipboards crisply snapping shut.

“I’ll ask what time they think you’ll be released. Try to get some sleep now.” Impulsively, she took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze as she dropped a light kiss on his cheek. But his skin was so firm and warm, with his shadow of whiskers prickling her sensitive lips, that an erotic jolt caught her unaware. She jerked upright and stepped away from the bed. Murmuring good-night, she walked quickly from the room before she found an excuse to linger any longer, her mouth still hot and tingling.

She arrived at the ranch just over an hour later. The sun hovered on the horizon, fiery layers of pink, orange and mauve, as she guided the truck up the gravel drive and pulled around the side of the two-story house. She walked up the wooden steps that led to the porch, balancing two large, flat pizza boxes.

Michael answered her awkward knock on the back door, delivered with the toe of her tennis shoe.

“Hi. Come on in.” He took the boxes from her and politely moved aside for her to enter.

His older brother stood in the kitchen, hair still wet from a shower. Jacob looked at her a little warily. She was sure the boys wished she were Libby—the name that had come first to everyone’s mind when Mac had needed help—rather than some stranger who’d been dropped in their laps. At their age, they didn’t need an adult hovering over them, making sure they brushed their teeth before bed, so she hastened to reassure them that she wouldn’t intrude.

“I just wanted to deliver these pizzas.” She stayed at the threshold. “Your dad said you liked pepperoni.”

They nodded and smiled stiffly.

“I’m all set up for the night in my camper—” she started to back away “—but if you men need anything, be sure to give a knock on the door.”

“Aren’t you going to have some pizza?” Michael asked, obviously surprised.

She shook her head. “I had a hamburger in Dutch Creek. Good night, then.”

“But Dad said to put clean sheets on the bed in the guest room,” Michael blurted. “And we even changed the towels in the bathroom.”

She tried not to smile. “That was sweet of you, but—”

“At least come in and have a cup of coffee,” Jacob offered. “Dad said to have some ready for you. I made a whole pot, and me and Mike don’t like it.”

“I like it,” Michael said.

“You like the cream and sugar,” his brother scoffed. “It’s a wonder your teeth haven’t rotted off under those braces.”

“Thank you.” Sara stepped into the kitchen before the argument escalated. “A cup of coffee would be nice.”

Jacob sat the pizza boxes in the middle of the large butcher-block table while Michael rather defiantly got out two mugs. She poured them both a cup of coffee without comment, although she spooned a generous amount of sugar and creamer into her cup so Michael’s lavish use of both wasn’t so obvious.

“Does he have a cast or just one of those bandage things?” Michael asked, dunking the end of a slice of pizza into his coffee.

“A regular cast,” she assured him.

Jacob sounded suspicious as he asked, “Is he really going to come home tomorrow? Sometimes Dad treats us like we’re still little kids so he won’t tell us stuff if he thinks we’ll worry.”

“I mean, they’re not planning to amputate his leg or something like that, are they?” Michael added, fishing out a slice of pepperoni that had slid off the cheese into his cup.

“Heavens, no!” Sara set her cup down so suddenly that coffee sloshed onto her fingers. “Of course not.” She wiped her wet hand on to her jeans. “He’s royally mad about his boots—”

Michael stopped her with a groan. “We heard. We heard all about it.”

“But other than that he’s fine. They said he’d be released right after lunch. I’ll run in and pick him up and bring him back here—”

She broke off, frowning at the thought. “Is your dad’s bedroom downstairs?”

The boys shook their heads.

“How about that guest room you got ready for me?”

Another simultaneous shake.

“I was just thinking, it’s going to be hard for your dad to go up the stairs for a few days. Is there somewhere downstairs we could set up a bed for him?”

“The couch in the office folds out into a bed,” Jacob volunteered. “But it sort of sinks in the middle.”

“Let’s go take a look and see if we can’t fix something up.” She stood and carried her cup to the sink.

“My turn to do the dishes!” Michael shouted, jumping from his chair. He grabbed the two empty pizza boxes and, with a flourish, stuffed them into the trash can under the sink. “Done!”

Jacob looked daggers, but, in a show of restraint, he turned his back on Michael’s smile of triumph. “The office is this way, ma’am,” he said formally, obviously trying to appear more mature than his brother.

Once again, Sara found herself hiding a smile as she followed his stiff and dignified back down a hallway to a book-lined room.

The boys tugged and pulled until they had the couch transformed into a bed, albeit with a sizable sag in the center. Still, they decided it was better than the stairs, and after a quick search for sheets and blankets pronounced the office a suitable sickroom ready for Mac’s return.

“Anything else you can think of?” Jacob asked, giving the mattress another bounce.

She shook her head. “Looks good to me.”

“Then I think I’ll head for my room and listen to some tunes.” He was at the door in two strides. “Good night, ma’am. Thank you for your help.”

Michael looked desperately after his brother, and she knew this was Jacob’s revenge for the dishes scam. He’d left Michael alone to entertain her for the rest of the evening, slick as a whistle.

“How about another cup of coffee, Michael?”

“Uh, no thanks. I, uh—” His freckles blended together as his face reddened.

She took pity on him. “I think I’ll pour me a cup, then call it a night, if that’s all right with you. It’s been a long day.”

“That would be great. I mean,” he amended hastily, “you have all the coffee you want. Or watch some TV or something. I guess I’m going to my room, too, so you can just—”

“You go on up. I’ll let myself out.”

“Night.” He bolted for the stairs as if afraid she’d change her mind and want a partner for an evening of gin rummy or someone to hold her yarn.

She retraced her steps to the kitchen, filled her cup, then unplugged the coffeemaker and dumped the rest of the pot down the sink. Leaning against the counter, she looked around the big, cluttered, old-fashioned kitchen. The refrigerator and stove gleamed white with the rounded edges she remembered from appliances of her childhood. Their heavy lines were at odds with expensive Mexican tile, oak cupboards and a custom countertop that spoke of a recent remodel. One wall was decorated with shining copper molds—a fish, a sun, a pineapple—their soft glow warming the room. She wondered if they were a leftover touch from the days of that ex-wife Mac seemed so reluctant to discuss.