can only imagine.” She gently shushed Plato out of the way when he tried tucking his big head on the couch next to Mason, then grabbed one of the soft throw pillows from the opposite end of the couch and deftly tucked it behind his head. “Just take a few deep breaths. I’ll be right back.” The dog trotted after her as she hurried into Mason’s bedroom. He gave her a faint woof, then leapt up onto the bed, turned around a few times and lay down.
Courtney left him there, retrieved the wedge cushion, as well as Mason’s antibiotics, grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator in her kitchen and wet down a clean washcloth.
She went back to him and folded the damp cloth over his forehead.
He lifted his hand to it. “I don’t need that.”
She pushed it right back into place. “This is not coddling,” she assured drily.
“Feels like it.”
“Stop complaining.” She rattled the antibiotics bottle. “Did you take a dose before you went to sleep?”
“Yes, Nurse Ratched.”
She couldn’t help but grin. The big, tall, dangerous-looking man sounded as cranky as an overtired five-year-old. “Mason, you have no idea,” she warned lightly. “I work the night shift in an emergency room. I can order the meanest sons of guns around.”
“I’m shaking in my boots.”
“You’re not wearing any,” she reminded him, then went to her own medicine cabinet in her bathroom to retrieve a bottle of acetaminophen as well as her ear thermometer.
Back in the living room, she spotted the wet cloth clutched in his fist and not on his forehead.
Stubborn.
But then, so was she.
She shook out a few of the pills, opened the bottle of water and tugged the damp cloth of out his grip, then handed them to him.
“What are they?”
“Good old Tylenol. For fever and maybe to help dull the pain a little.” She didn’t think now was the best time to broach the subject of his prescribed painkillers. He’d already said he refused to take them, and that was his right.
He swallowed the pills and drank down half the bottle of water, then leaned his head back again against the square pillow. She folded the cloth once more over his forehead. “Leave it.” She touched his chin lightly and tried to ignore the tantalizing feel of that raspy chin. “Turn your head a little.”
“Why?” His voice dripped with suspicion.
“So I can torture you some more, of course.” She held up her thermometer. “I need your ear for a moment.”
He grimaced and turned his head slightly.
“Take comfort in the fact that it could be worse.” She quickly took his temp and then sat back on her heels. “Well, it’s not as high as I thought it might be, but if it’s not back down to normal by morning, I’m going to have my mother come by.”
He pulled the cloth off his face and gave her a look. “Your mother.”
“She’s a doctor.”
He shook his head slightly. “Right. I should have remembered that.”
She tugged the cloth out of his hand yet again and replaced it on his forehead. “Should? Why?”
“I met her once,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Because I remember stuff. I’m supposed to remember stuff.”
She didn’t know why she was unnerved to think that he’d met her mother. He’d spent a few weeks in Weaver around the time that they’d been … uninvolved. It wasn’t unnatural to think he might have met more of her family than just her, particularly since he’d been working with Axel. “Stuff … about cases?”
He lifted the cloth enough to give her a baleful look from beneath it. “Cases of what?”
Fortunately, she had a lifetime of experience dealing with men who thought they could control a situation with just such a look. “Cases for the agency, naturally.”
Mason felt only slightly better than roadkill, yet he still was shocked by the words that Courtney uttered so blithely. “What do you know about the agency?”
“More than I ever wanted to,” she assured evenly. “We nearly lost my brother because of Hollins-Winword. You work for them, too.” Her gaze drifted over him.
Maybe he did have a fever, because it felt like everywhere that amber gaze landed, a fire started to burn. “I never told you about my work.” He damn sure had never mentioned the name of the agency.
“So you don’t work for them? And I’ll bet the fact that you’re laid up like this has nothing to do with them, either.” She was still crouched on the floor beside the couch. It was a physical effort to drag his eyes away from the warm, golden glow of her.
So much skin, and so much on display, thanks to the thin shirt that she wore.
His fingers twitched, and he pushed around the cloth on his forehead just to keep them busy. “Right now I’m not working for anybody.” It was true enough in a sense. But since he was more or less toeing the line that Cole had drawn in the sand, it was only a temporary truth. “And I’m laid up because I wasn’t moving fast enough when I needed to.”
“Mmm.” She didn’t look convinced.
He wasn’t in the mood to argue about it. For one thing, it wouldn’t serve any good purpose.
All he needed to remember was that she was his landlady for the time being. A landlady nurse.
Who smelled like something soft and powdery and gently alluring.
She moved and her hand nudged his, slipping the cloth away. “I’ll get this wet again for you.”
He didn’t argue that, either, and watched her straighten and move across the living area, around the small dining table that shared the space with her computer and through an arch that led to the kitchen.
Her long hair swayed against her slender back that was faithfully outlined by her thin blue tank top. And then there was the womanly flare of her hips and the long, long legs….
Watching her was like watching a fantasy unroll in his head.
Only, the night that they’d spent together had been indelibly real, and he knew good and well that the reality was eons better than any fantasy.
He heard the sound of water and then she was walking back toward him, and the front view was equally as magnificent as the rear view had been.
He wondered who had been living the fantasy with her lately and grimaced over the acid taste that thought put in his mouth. “Why are you trolling the internet for matches?”
Her smooth, stupefyingly feminine walk halted. She blinked once, then shrugged casually. “Why does anyone? Because they’re curious? Bored?” She crossed the last few steps to the couch and lowered the blessedly cool cloth to his forehead again. “Lonely? Hopeful?”
“I’m not asking about anyone.” A yawn suddenly split his face. “Sorry,” he muttered and tried to shift, but the cast on his leg made it awkward, and the sharp pain in his back made it impossible. He bit back an oath. “I’m asking about you.”
She was watching him with that sympathetic, “poor baby” look in her eyes. “I guess you could put me in the hopeful camp,” she said after a moment.
“So you’re trying to find yourself a husband. On the damn internet. Don’t you know the dangers there are in—”
“Don’t you know that I’m a grown woman and am more than capable of handling any supposed dangers out there? How’s it any worse than meeting a stranger in a bar? Or a Valentine’s Day kissing booth?”