He laughed. And regretted it. Squeezing his eyes shut against the sharpened pain, he hissed until it subsided to a more bearable level. When he opened his eyes again, Kaylie Chatam was standing over him, pill bottle in hand.
“Mr. Doolin’s gone down to ask for your breakfast tray. Let’s get these into you so you’ll be up to eating when it’s ready. All right?”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But then I need to get to the bathroom.”
She dropped the pill bottle into one of the cavernous pockets on the front of her smock and slid her small but surprisingly strong hands beneath his arms, helping him into a sitting position on the side of the bed. He tried to bite back the groan that accompanied the action, but the pain was breathtaking. It eased as soon as he was still again. She quickly gave him the pills. After swallowing a pair of them, he was ready to go forward. He shoved up onto his good leg, jaw clamped.
Moving effortlessly into a supportive posture, Kaylie slid her arm up over his back to his shoulder, her own shoulder tucked neatly beneath his arm. Hopping and hobbling, he inched toward the bathroom door. Small bathrooms, he mused a few minutes later, had their good points, as the close confines allowed him to manage for himself. Afterward, the little nurse made a very welcome suggestion.
“Maybe you should eat your breakfast in the sitting room.”
Stephen looked into the sitting room and smiled. Comfortable as it was, the bed had already begun to feel like a prison to him.
“If it’s any inducement,” she went on in a teasing voice, “there’s a large cup of coffee in there.”
Stephen eagerly slung his arm around her shoulders. “Lead me to it.”
Chuckling, she eased him forward. By the time they reached the near end of the sofa, some three or four yards, his head swam. Bracing her feet wide apart and gripping his one good arm, she helped him lower into a sitting position in the corner of the comfortable couch before fetching a small, brocade footstool for his injured leg.
“How’s that?”
He waited until the pain subsided enough that he could get his breath. “Guess I’ll live. What about that coffee?”
While she went to the small writing desk standing against one wall and retrieved a tall, disposable cup with a cardboard sleeve, Stephen looked around him. Oddly elegant paintings that featured game birds, dogs and tools of the hunt from a bygone era covered the walls of the room. In contrast to the antique artwork, he noted, with relieved satisfaction, a flat-screen television hung over the mantel. The old girls didn’t have their heads entirely buried in the past, then. The screen was nowhere near as large as the one in his media room back at the house in Fort Worth, but it would do for watching the playoff games.
Stephen took the coffee container from Kaylie with his good right hand, turning it with the aid of the fingertips of his left to get the drinking slot in the plastic top adequately positioned. Taking a careful sip, he sighed with satisfaction.
“I have cream, if you’d like,” she said, reaching into her pocket once more and drawing out the tiny containers.
“Black is fine.”
Nodding, she parked her hands at her slender hips and glanced around before snapping her fingers and hurrying back into the bedroom. “Hang on.”
Like I’m going anywhere, he thought wryly. She returned an instant later with one of the bed pillows and a bath towel.
“We’ll have to keep using this as a lap tray until I find one,” she explained, placing the pillow across his lap. She covered both it and his chest with the towel.
He slugged back more of the coffee. It was still hot but thoroughly drinkable, and he moaned in delight as the silky brew flowed down his throat.
“Wonderful,” he said, using his thumb to tidy the corners of his lips. “This is the best cup of coffee I’ve had in weeks. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” she said, smiling down at him, and oddly enough, he thought that it just might be. She actually seemed pleased that he enjoyed the coffee. Something about that struck him as…Well, it just struck him.
He had little time to puzzle over the matter as Aaron carried his breakfast tray into the room just then. Despite being rumpled and unshaven, Aaron whistled cheerily as he crossed the floor.
“It’s a good thing I’m a married man again,” he said at his jocular best, “or else I’d have to take that Hilda away from poor old Chester. That woman can cook! Mmm-mmm.”
At the word again, Stephen saw Kaylie’s eyebrows rise ever so slightly. Silently amused, he glanced innocently at Aaron as Kaylie moved aside so he could deposit the tray on the pillow across Stephen’s lap.
Belgian waffles, still steaming from the iron, sliced strawberries, maple syrup, ham and—Stephen couldn’t believe his eyes—gele room. Kaylie touched the rim of the fluted cup of thick, sweet, golden cream with the tip of one finger.
“Clotted cream, a bit of England right here in the very heart of Texas.” Her dark eyes twinkled merrily. “My aunts are devoted to all things English.”
Stephen had no idea why that might be, but he didn’t care. Setting aside the coffee, he picked up his fork with his left fingers and his knife with his right. It was awkward, and he got cream on the edge of his jacket sling, but he managed to cut up the waffle. Nurse Kaylie watched intently, but she did not offer to cut up his breakfast for him. He liked her for that.
Aaron took his suit jacket and tie from the desk chair and began putting them on, chatting happily. “Our darling nurse has given me a shopping list, Steve-o. I’ll just make a quick run into the picturesque town of Buffalo Creek, and then it’s home to the little bride.” He clapped a hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “I leave you in capable, if dainty, hands.” He bowed over one of those dainty hands like some sort of old gallant, saying grandly, “I’d kiss your pretty little pink toes, darlin’, if I wasn’t married.”
“Again,” Kaylie chirped, looking a bit startled with herself, as well as amused.
“Hey,” Aaron quipped good-naturedly, “third time’s the charm, right?”
He waved and strode happily from the room. Kaylie pressed a hand to her chest and looked at Stephen.
“Has he really been married three times?”
Stephen nodded, going to work on his ham. “Never knew the first one, but anyone could have told him that was a nogo. She was, er, an exotic dancer. The, um, second wife,” he went on, “used him as a stepping stone to the bigger things.”
“Bigger things?”
Putting down his knife, Stephen took up his fork with his right hand, though he still had some difficulty eating that way. “Aaron’s second wife left him for a hockey player,” he told Kaylie bluntly, “after Aaron negotiated a six-million-dollar contract for the guy.” He gave her the name, but since it obviously meant nothing to her, he added, “The creep’s a starting center on the East Coast now.”
“Ah.”
“I think Aaron maybe got it right this time,” Stephen went on. “I think Dora loves him. She sure acts like it. Behaves as if he’s the cleverest, wittiest thing she’s ever met.” He shook his head.
Nurse Chatam slid her small hands into her big pockets. “He is kind of funny.”
Stephen chuckled and forked up another bite. “He is, really, especially when you get to know him. Fact is, Aaron’s a good guy.”
“But you give him a hard time anyway,” the little nurse remarked softly.
Stephen stilled. He did. He really did give Aaron a hard time. He wondered