“Sleep,” she said, “is the best thing for you.”
He drew in a ragged breath. “I haven’t slept for days,” he confessed. “I’m so tired, Niki.”
She smoothed back his thick, cool black hair. “You’ll get past this,” she said with a wisdom far beyond her years. “It only needs time. It’s fresh, like a raw wound. You have to heal until it stops hurting so much.”
He was enjoying her soft hand in his hair. Too much. He let out a long sigh. “Some days I feel my age.”
“You think you’re old?” she chided. “We’ve got a cowhand, Mike, who just turned seventy. Know what he did yesterday? He learned to ride a bicycle.”
His eyebrows arched. “Are you making a point?”
“Yes. Age is only in the mind.”
He smiled sardonically. “My mind is old, too.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t have had children,” she lied and felt guilty that she was glad about it. “Sometimes they make a marriage work.”
“Sometimes they end it,” he retorted.
“Fifty-fifty chance.”
“Elise would never have risked her figure to have a child,” he said coldly. “She even said so.” He grimaced. “We had a hell of a fight after the Christmas I spent here. It disgusted me that she’d go to some party with her friends and not even bother to call to see how I was. She actually said to me the money was nice. It was a pity I came with it.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said with genuine sympathy. “I can’t imagine the sort of woman who’d marry a man for what he had. I couldn’t do that, even if I was dirt-poor.”
He looked up into soft, pretty gray eyes. “No,” he agreed. “You’re the sort who’d get down in the mud with your husband and do anything you had to do to help him. Rare, Niki. Like that hothouse orchid pin I gave you for Christmas.”
She smiled. “I wear it all the time. It’s so beautiful.”
“Like you.”
She made a face. “I’m not beautiful.”
“What’s inside you is,” he replied, and he wasn’t kidding.
She flushed a little. “Thanks.”
He drew in a breath and shuddered. “Oh, God...” He shot out of the bed, heading toward the bathroom. He barely made it to the toilet in time. He lost his breakfast and about a fifth of bourbon.
When he finished, his stomach hurt. And there was Niki, with a wet washcloth. She bathed his face, helped him to the sink to wash out his mouth then helped him back to bed.
He couldn’t help remembering his mother, his sweet French mother, who’d sacrificed so much for him, who’d cared for him, loved him. It hurt him to remember her. He’d thought Elise resembled her. But it was this young woman, this angel, who was like her.
“Thanks,” he managed to croak out.
“You’ll be all right,” she said. “But just in case, I’m going downstairs right now to hide all the liquor.”
There was a lilt in her voice. He lifted the wet cloth he’d put over his eyes and peered up through a growing massive headache. She was smiling. It was like the sun coming out.
“Better hide it good,” he teased.
She grinned. “Can I get you anything before I leave?”
“No, honey. I’ll be fine.”
Honey. Her whole body rippled as he said the word. She tried to hide her reaction to it, but she didn’t have the experience for such subterfuge. He saw it and worried. He couldn’t afford to let her get too attached to him. He was too old for her. Nothing would change that.
She got up, moving toward the door.
“Niki,” he called softly.
She turned.
“Thanks,” he said huskily.
She only smiled, before she went out and closed the door behind her.
Don’t miss
WYOMING RUGGED by Diana Palmer,
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Copyright © 2015 by Diana Palmer
ISBN-13: 9781460387146
Carter Bravo’s Christmas Bride
Copyright © 2015 by Christine Rimmer
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