well, fair maiden, there’s always tomorrow,” Tubbs said, and made Merrie a sweeping bow before he left. “Parting is such sweet sorrow!” he added on his way out.
Merrie looked after him, but not with any real interest. She turned back to Delsey. “Will Ren take the medicine, you think?”
“I would bet money that he sticks it in his medicine cabinet and closes the door,” Delsey replied. “It’s what he did the last time, and he ended up right back in Dr. Fellows’s office.”
Merrie hesitated. “Does he wear pajamas?” she asked, flushing.
“Ah. I see.” Delsey smiled gently. “He wears the bottoms,” she said. “Think you can get the medicine in him?”
“I got medicine in an outlaw horse once,” Merrie replied.
Delsey smiled gently. “Let me heat up some soup for him, and we’ll both take it up.”
“Great!” Merrie said.
Delsey kept her thoughts to herself. It was a relief, however, to notice that dashing Tubbs hadn’t made an impression on the young woman. The boss looked at Merrie in a way he hadn’t looked at a woman since that she-cat took him for the ride of his life. It was a start.
* * *
REN WAS IN BED with the covers pulled up to his waist, looking miserable, when Delsey and Merrie walked in.
“I just need rest,” he muttered, glaring at them. “Not mothering!”
“Nobody’s mothering you,” Merrie promised. “Where’s the medicine?”
He glared at her.
“In the medicine cabinet, I’ll bet,” Delsey told her.
“Traitor!” Ren shot at her.
Merrie walked into his bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. There were two prescriptions. One was an antibiotic, one was a powerful cough syrup.
She carried them both triumphantly back into the bedroom and started to open the antibiotic.
“Is that the cough syrup?” Delsey asked, reaching for it. She had a spoon in her hand. She read the directions, poured some into a spoon and pushed it toward Ren’s defiantly closed mouth.
“Open up, or I’ll roll you in a towel and shove it into you,” Merrie said forcefully.
The words, and the tone, caused him to burst out laughing. He opened his mouth, and Delsey spooned the cough syrup in.
“Very nice,” Merrie said. She held a pill in her hand. “This one, too,” she said.
He stared up at her. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.
“Delsey, have you got a really big towel and two strong men...?”
“Hell.” He opened his mouth and glared at Merrie as she put the pill on his tongue.
He swallowed it down with some of the milk Delsey had brought him.
“Milk causes more mucus, you know,” Merrie commented.
“It’s all he’ll drink when he’s sick.” Delsey sighed as she put the tray with legs over him and set the soup and spoon and napkin on it.
“He needs to drink lots of water, to thin the secretions so he can cough up the mucus,” Merrie added.
“I’m right here,” Ren muttered. “I can hear both of you.”
They both stared at him.
He grimaced and picked up his soup spoon. “All right, you had your way. Now get out of here and let me eat my soup in peace.”
“It’s not soup. It’s oyster stew. Your favorite,” Delsey added with a warm smile.
He made a face at her, but then he smiled. “Okay. Thanks.”
“You get better. If you need anything, use the intercom,” Delsey added, indicating the unit on his bedside table.
“I won’t. But thanks.” He included Merrie in that. “Don’t think that threat about the towel made any difference,” he added firmly.
She grinned at him. “Liar,” she said mischievously.
He just chuckled.
* * *
THAT NIGHT, MERRIE went in to see Ren before she went to bed. She was still fully dressed. She didn’t want to be seen by a man in just pajamas and a robe, even if it was a modern world.
She knocked lightly and peered in the door. “Doing okay?” she asked.
He glared at her. “Close the door, from the outside,” he said icily.
“Yes, sir.” She closed it, wincing at his angry tone, and went down the hall to her own room.
He was so unpredictable. One day he was almost nice to her, the next he snapped her head off. She looked at herself in the mirror and realized the cause of his sudden irritation. Her cross was visible around her neck, outside the sweatshirt she was wearing.
She fingered it gently. Her mother had given it to her when she was a little girl. She’d changed the gold chain many times over the years, but the cross remained the same. It was something from her mother, her childhood, something priceless. Ren didn’t have to like it. But she wasn’t taking it off.
His coldness hurt her. She wondered why. He was just Randall’s brother. He wasn’t even nice most of the time. Ah, well, she thought, she wasn’t going to be here long anyway. No use wasting thoughts on a man who’d probably pay to see her breaded and deep-fried.
* * *
IT TOOK HIM two days to get up enough strength to leave his bed. He was a little unsteady on his feet when he came down to breakfast, but his bad attitude was back in full force.
He pulled out a chair and glared at the women. “I don’t need babying, in case you had that in mind. I feel fine.”
Merrie stared at him. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Delsey agreed.
He popped his napkin out and folded it in his lap on top of his immaculate jeans and chaps. The spurs on his boots made a jingling sound when he moved his feet under the table.
“Is that sausage?” he asked suddenly, pointing his fork at the platter next to the bacon and eggs.
“Yes. Merrie likes it.”
“I hate sausage,” he said curtly.
“I love it,” Merrie replied, just to irritate him. She gave him a long, steady look. “It just makes me feel good, thinking of pork being shoved through a sausage grinder.”
His eyebrows went up. It was the way she said it, eyeing him the whole time. “I would not fit in a sausage grinder,” he said abruptly.
She sighed. “Pity,” she said, with a blithe smile.
He choked back a laugh and reached for the coffeepot.
* * *
SHE WALKED OUTSIDE before he left, enjoying the previous night’s fall of new snow. It lay like a blanket over the hills and mountains in the distance. She wrapped her arms around herself, because it was below freezing and her coat was more decorative than functional.
“I thought I told you to go to town and buy a coat,” Ren muttered as he came outside, sliding his hat over his brow.
“There hasn’t been time,” she replied.
“I’ll have Delsey drive you in tomorrow,” he said. His eyes gave the old coat a speaking glance. “Don’t you own a decent winter coat?”
She flushed and lowered her eyes. “We had a very strict clothing allowance when Daddy was alive,” she said with