Sassy Cinderella. Kara Lennox

her appendix.”

      “No offense, Sherry, but you’re not a—”

      “I’m a nurse practitioner and I’m qualified to make a diagnosis. It’s her appendix.” She turned and headed back to her car.

      “Wait, where are you going?”

      “Back to Dallas. Your brick-headed brother fired me, and by law that means I have to leave.”

      Though she wanted to stay until Kristin was out of danger, she couldn’t. She had no right. She’d gotten Kristin into competent medical hands, and that meant her role in the Hardison family was over. She climbed back into her car and took off, before Jeff could see she was crying…again.

      SAM HAD LONG AGO stopped wanting to be cuddled, but this night he crawled into Jonathan’s recliner with him, somehow managing to avoid jostling the broken leg.

      “Is Kristy gonna be all right?”

      “We’ll know more soon,” Jonathan said.

      “How come she’s always going to the hospital? I never went, not once.”

      Jonathan shook his head ruefully. “Seems there’s one in every family. When we were kids, it was your uncle Wade who was always getting into trouble—falling off horses, mostly, but sometimes other things. He fell in a bed of fire ants once and had such a bad reaction he had to go to the emergency room.” Now Jonathan knew what their parents had gone through. At least when Kristin had been injured last year, Jonathan had been able to go to the hospital and be with her. Now he was relegated to waiting at home for the phone to ring.

      “Dad? Was Sherry leaving?”

      “Um, yeah.”

      “Why? Didn’t she like us? I ‘pologized for putting the frog on her.”

      “No, she liked us. It’s my fault. I fired her.”

      Sam’s clear eyes clouded with confusion. “Why would you do that?”

      “I thought we didn’t need her.”

      “But, Dad, if she hadn’t been here—”

      “I know, I know.” He sighed. “She probably saved Kristin’s life.”

      “Then she can stay?”

      “I’m not sure she’ll want to stay now,” Jonathan admitted. “I think I hurt her feelings.”

      “Then just ’pologize. That’s what you’re always telling me to do when I do something wrong. Besides, she’ll stay if she knows we need her.”

      Jonathan was amazed his eight-year-old was so perceptive. In a very short time, he’d figured out what drove Sherry. She needed to be needed.

      Hell, if she wanted need, he’d give her need, and he’d give her a damn apology, too.

      Two hours after Sherry had left with Kristin, the phone rang, and Jeff was on the other end of the line. “Kristin’s fine,” he said without preamble. “Sherry was right, it was her appendix. They rushed her to surgery and took it out, probably minutes before it would have ruptured. But she came through the surgery just fine. They’ll want to keep her here a couple of days.”

      Jonathan’s stomach roiled with a mixture of relief and guilt. “My God,” he muttered, “and I wanted to give her Pepto-Bismol.”

      “It’s a good thing Sherry was there. Yeah, she’s a gem, all right.”

      Jonathan recognized the goading tone in Jeff’s voice. “I suppose she told you I fired her.”

      “What did you go and do that for?”

      Jonathan covered the mouthpiece. “Sam, take Sherry’s luggage and put it back in her room.”

      “Yay! She’s staying!” Sam clambered off the recliner and started hauling suitcases toward the back of the house.

      “Jonathan?” Jeff said. “You there?”

      “I was either going to fire her or take her to bed,” Jonathan admitted in a hoarse whisper, truthful with himself for the first time. “I didn’t think the latter was a viable option.”

      Jeff just laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

      “I wish I were.”

      “So take her to bed. What’s the big deal?”

      “Even if she were so inclined—which she’s not, now that I’ve alienated her—I would not be sleeping with the nurse while the children are around.”

      “I’ll treat them to a movie,” Jeff said, laughing. “Maybe a double feature.”

      “You’re not taking this very seriously. It’s far too complicated. I can’t sleep with Sherry. I’m not like you, like you used to be. I can’t just sleep with a woman and then discard her.”