Before he could wonder how she was going to handle the rest of him—now there’s a hell of a choice of words—he heard her move to the foot of the bed.
She wouldn’t do it. As embarrassed as she’d been this morning when he’d caught her staring at this chest, there was no way she had the nerve to bare the rest of him. She wouldn’t do it.
At his waist, the sheet moved.
Alarmed, he opened his eyes. Well I’ll be damned. She had the sheet draped carefully across his groin to bare one leg, and not an inch more. She scrubbed away at a limb he couldn’t even feel. Everything he’d felt earlier died a swift, horrible death at the sight of her washing his dead leg. He closed his eyes again.
By the movement of the sheet at his waist, she must have moved on to his other leg. Then she came back and stood beside him. “I need to roll you on your side so I can get to your back.”
He didn’t look at her when he spoke. “Don’t bother.”
“Nonsense. I won’t be satisfied until every inch of you is clean.”
That made him open his eyes. He couldn’t help what he knew must be a cocky arch of his brow. “Every inch?”
She blushed and pressed her lips together. “I think you can handle a few of those inches on your own.”
He bit the inside of his jaw to keep from saying what popped into his mind.
She tried, he had to give her credit. She pushed and shoved and climbed up on the bed beside him again. But that only made him roll toward her. “This isn’t going to work,” he told her, humiliation nearly strangling him. “Just forget it.”
But she wouldn’t. She crawled off the bed, shook her skirt and apron out, then propped her hands on her hips. With her lips pursed, she stared at his chest, then the bed. A slow smile spread across her soft lips. Not a soft smile. A determined one. The gleam in her eyes made him more than a little nervous.
Quicker than a hen on a June bug, she yanked the corners of the bottom sheet out from beneath the left side of the mattress. Gripping the sheet in both hands right next to his arm, she lifted. And over he went onto his side. He had to catch himself with one arm to keep from rolling all the way over and landing on his face.
“There. I knew there had to be a way. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, fine, considering I’ve just been rolled over like a slug.”
Behind him he felt her smoothing and retucking the sheet. Then he heard a small gasp. He peered over his shoulder and found her staring at his backside. Her hands gripped each other tightly at her waist. Her eyes were wide with horror. “What is it?” he asked. “Never seen a bare-assed man before?”
“Your poor back!”
“What’s wrong with my back?”
She didn’t seem to be listening. She untangle her fingers from each other and wrung out the wash rag. “This is going to hurt, but I have to clean these sores before they get infected.”
Embarrassed again, Ash said, “You don’t have to do that, Sunny. Just leave it. I’m fine.”
“Leave it! I should say not.”
The next thing he knew she was washing his back and he was sucking in his breath at the sharp stabs of pain from his numerous bedsores.
She moved down his back to his buttocks. The lower she got, the less he felt. He glanced over his shoulder and didn’t know whether to laugh or curse.
Her face was scrunched up as if she were the one in pain. Her concentration was so fierce it evidently hadn’t dawned on her just what part of his body she was touching.
When she finished she said, “Don’t move. I need to get some salve to put on those sores.”
Don’t move. Was that her idea of a joke?
Sunny rushed from the bedroom to the kitchen, where she kept what few medicines she had. In the cabinet she found the castor oil, dried mint, strips of cotton to use for bandages. Squibb’s Carbolic Acid—oooh, that would sting. Glycerine, Dr. Bull’s Cough Syrup, Colgate’s Vaseline. Where…? There it was, her jar of salve made from the aloe vera plants that grew in the partial shade of the scraggly cedars along the rim of the ravine. Ignoring the trembling of her hand, she grabbed the jar.
While she found a clean rag with which to apply the salve, she berated herself. She shouldn’t have left him alone, letting him sleep last night. Those sores of his were in bad shape. If she had bathed him last night she would have found them then.
I would have touched his skin just that much sooner.
She forced the tempting thought away. She didn’t have time to dwell on the feel of his flesh beneath her fingers while she had bathed him. It was too pleasantly disturbing to think about. Touching him made her heart flutter, her breath catch, her mouth go dry. Had he felt how her hands had trembled? Lord, she hoped not.
Get your mind back on business, you idiot.
No more going easy on him, she decided. She knew he was tired because he was so weak, but as soon as she took care of his back, she’d start the massages and exercises Doctor Sneed had shown her. Then he could rest. She’d repeat the treatment after the girls were in bed for the night.
Tomorrow, she’d start over and do it all again. Except instead of a bath, Ash McCord was getting a shave.
No, she told herself. One reason he was so weak, aside from not having eaten much, was from lying in bed doing nothing. Tomorrow he would shave himself. It was a start.
She returned to the room and started dabbing on the salve. At the first touch of the cool, jelly-like stuff, Ash’s back muscles flinched. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Didn’t hurt, just surprised me.”
“It’s cool, isn’t it? It’ll take the soreness out so lying on your back won’t hurt so much.”
She forced herself to concentrate on the salve and the sores rather on all his wonderful, darkly tanned skin. If she concentrated hard enough, maybe her hands would stop their ridiculous trembling.
She crossed the line from tan skin to white. A few more inches, and he twitched again. “How…uh, how far down can you feel?”
He raised his head slowly and peered over his shoulder. “Not far enough,” he said.
She ducked her head. “I know that.” She smoothed the salve over his bullet wound. “Can you feel that?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No”
She pushed on the healing scar. “That?”
“No.”
She moved down to treat the sores on his buttocks. “Can you feel this?”
“Aren’t you worried someone might walk in and catch you poking at a man’s bare backside?”
Sunny smiled. Was he trying to rile her, or just scare her off? “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a little risqué.”
“I’ll say.”
“But don’t worry. The girls are at school and the men don’t come in the house without an invitation. Your backside is safe.” She gave the flesh in question a little pat with her hand.
“Sunny!” Ash cried, plainly stunned.
He was by no means more stunned than she. She couldn’t believe she’d done such a thing. Her cheeks grew so hot she worried she might faint. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I don’t know why I did that.”
Ash grinned, then started laughing. “Just couldn’t resist me?”
She gasped. “You’re outrageous.”
But a moment later she, too, laughed. She wasn’t sure what he was laughing at, but she was laughing at herself. It was either that, or cringe with embarrassment, and she wasn’t in a cringing mood.
Chapter Seven
Sunny let Ash rest half an hour while she worked up the nerve to go back in there and do what she had to do. Massage and exercise his legs. Her cheeks heated up at the mere thought. This was somehow altogether different from giving him a bath. This was more…intimate. More threatening.
But bringing him home and caring for him had been her idea. She had to do it. And she would.
If she could only keep from doing foolish, outrageous things around him. Thunderati
on. She had patted him on the bare fanny!
She grabbed up another towel and her bottle of glycerine. When she entered the room he was awake, still lying on his side as she’d left him, staring out the window. At least he was covered with the sheet and quilt now. And a good thing, too. The room was chilly.
She placed the towel and bottle on the corner of the bed and turned toward the bureau and pulled open a drawer. A dull pain swamped her at the sight of the familiar clothes her father would never wear again.
“What are you up to now?” Ash asked.
His sharp voice eased the ache. From the second drawer on the left she pulled out a soft flannel shirt, then turned to him. “Can you roll onto your stomach?”
His look was immediately suspicious. “What for?”
“Because that’s the easiest way I can think of to get this shirt on you.”
“What do I need a shirt for? Am I going somewhere?”
“Not until you can get up out of that bed and walk.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“No. It’s supposed to remind you we have work to do. Now roll over, please.”
He stared at her a long minute, then, much to her relief, he rolled onto his face. “Bring the damn shirt.”
When he’d worked his arm out from under his chest she slipped the sleeves up his arms. Then he started to push himself onto his side again.
“No. Stay as you are.”
“What the hell for?”
“I thought I asked you, Mr. McCord, not to swear at me.”
“My apologies, Miss Thornton. Excuse me, but why should I lay here with my face buried in the da— in the bed?”
Sunny mashed her lips together to keep from smiling. “So I can flex your knees, like Doctor Sneed told me to.”
“That ol’ quack? What does he know? It’s a waste of time.”
“Well I don’t happen to agree with you. At any rate, unless you’ve got some pressing appointment elsewhere, it’s my time to waste, now, isn’t it?”
Without hesitation, she pulled the sheet and quilt to the side, baring one leg. Then she poured glycerin into the palm of her hand and began massaging it into the back of his leg. The muscles were much harder than she’d anticipated. And the hair on his leg tickled her palms.
She tried not to think of the impropriety of what she was doing. It had to be done if he was to walk again, and she was the only one to do it.
But if she was only massaging Ash McCord’s bare leg because she had no choice, then why was she suddenly shot through with an unfamiliar shaft of warmth and tingling?
From the corner of her eye she watched him rise up on one elbow and look at her. “I told you not to bother. I don’t want you doing this.”
“I don’t mean to sound unkind, Ash, but I’ll stop when you can yank this leg out of my hands, and not before.” She picked up his foot, bent his leg at the knee, then lowered it. Raised, and lowered.
“It’s a waste of time, I’m telling you.”
“Like I said, it’s my time.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than play with a man’s dead leg?”
Sunny clenched her jaw. “This leg is not dead, and I won’t have you saying it is. Doctor Sneed says there’s a good chance you can walk again, and I intend to see you get that chance. In the meantime, you could at least try to stop feeling sorry for yourself. You could just as easily have been killed, you know.”
Neither of them said a word the rest of the time she worked on his legs. Sunny mainly kept quiet because she was appalled at her own outburst. She’d accused him of feeling sorry for himself! So what if he was? In his place, she’d probably be weeping buckets of tears and ripping her hair out at life’s unfairness.
After working his knee several times, she concentrated on his ankle, which felt a bit stiff to her. When she started on his toes, he dropped himself back onto the bed and turned his head away.
Midway through working on his other leg—he’d turned his head so he couldn’t see her—it slowly dawned on her that perhaps he was embarrassed by what she was doing.
He seemed like a proud man. It was bad enough that he had to depend on someone to bring him meals and bathe him. But this intimate handling of his body, when he couldn’t even feel it, was probably much worse. Especially if he really didn’t believe he’d ever walk again.
She wished she could think of something to say, just to get him talking. But she couldn’t.
When she had to roll him onto his back so she could massage the fronts of his legs, she knew she’d been right about his being embarrassed. He actually blushed.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she started massaging the front of one thigh. “I know you must hate this. If you’re tired, why don’t you take a nap? I’m almost finished.”
He ignored her and stared at the ceiling.
Before leaving the room, she made sure the bedpan was within his reach. He didn’t look at her then, either.
When the girls came in from school, Sunny had muffins for them to snack on until supper. Amy immediately wanted to go see Ash.
“He’s resting,” Sunny said. “You can go see him if you want, but if he’s asleep, don’t wake him up.” Now there’s a wishful thought. Sunny knew when Amy dashed from the room that Ash might as well not be asleep, because he wouldn’t be in a minute. Amy would see to it. “Why don’t you two go say hello to him?” she added to Katy and Rachel. “I’m sure he’d like that.”
She wasn’t sure of any such thing, but the company of three boisterous young girls might cheer him up.
Katy’s eyes lit up and she followed Amy from the room, although at a much slower pace. Rachel frowned, then tagged behind Katy.
Already Sunny heard voices—Amy’s light and irrepressibly cheerful trill and Ash’s deeper tones.
Sunny cleaned up the table then followed the girls.
“…and Tommy Cavendish put a granddaddy longlegs in Miss Randolph’s lunchbox,” Amy was telling Ash.
Ash looked properly shocked. “What did Miss Randolph do?”
Amy giggled. “Ah, heck—”
“Amy Sue Thornton!” Sunny cried, “You watch your language.”
Amy sighed dramatically. To Ash she said, “I ain’t supposed to say ‘heck.’“
“And you aren’t supposed to say ‘ain’t.’“
Another sigh. “Yes ma’am.” Then Amy grinned at Ash again. “But Miss Randolph, she ain— isn’t scared of anything. She just picked that ol’ spider up off her napkin and threw it on the ground.”
Katy, eyes big and round and dreamy, stepped next to the bed. “Can I get you anything, Mr. McCord?”
Sunny peered closer at Katy. The girl sounded like she’d just run all the way home from school. When Ash turned his smile on her, Sunny watched, astounded, as Katy blushed beet red.
“No, thanks,” Ash said. “I’m fine.”
Rachel, who’d been quiet since Sunny had entered, stood stiffly at the foot of the bed clutching her slate to her narrow chest. “How long you gonna be here?”
Still grinning, not noticing the hostility in her voice the way Sunny did, Ash asked Rachel, “You ready for me to leave?”
“Oh, no!” Katy rushed to assure him. “You can’t leave. You’re not well yet. You have to stay until you’re well.”
“No he doesn’t,” Rachel said.
“Rachel,” Sunny cautioned.
“Well, he can’t stay!” Rachel cried.
“Rachel, Mr. McCord is our guest, and he’ll stay until he’s ready to leave,” Sunny said firmly. She reached for the child, intending to lead her from the room before Rachel said anything else.
But Rachel pulled away. “He can’t stay in Daddy’s bed. When Daddy comes home, we don’t want him to think we gave his bed away to a stranger.”
“Rachel.” Sunny knelt before her six-year-old sister. “We’ve talked about this before. Daddy’s not coming home. You know that, honey. As much as we all want him to, he won’t. He can’
t.”
“Yes he can! He will! And when he does, I don’t want him to find some stinkin’ ol’ convict in his bed. That’s my daddy’s bed! And my daddy’s shirt, too!”
Sunny reached for her again. Rachel spun away toward the bed and a stunned, frowning Ash. “You get outa my daddy’s bed, you hear? That’s my daddy’s bed, and you gotta get out!”
Mortified, Sunny finally managed to grab Rachel by the arm. But Rachel didn’t go easily. She twisted and tugged and flailed her other arm.
“Rachel! Stop it this instant.”
“No! Make him get out of Daddy’s bed!”
Rachel flailed her free arm so hard, her slate flew from her tiny hand and struck Ash hard on his left thigh. He grunted.
Sunny grabbed Rachel up and carried her, kicking and screaming, from the room.
Soberly, rubbing a hand absently along his thigh where the little one had hit him, Ash watched them go.
Amy climbed up onto the bed on Ash’s right side like she’d been doing it all her life. “Don’t mind Rachel. She doesn’t think Daddy’s gone to heaven to be with Mamma. She think’s he’s just resting.” Amy patted him on the shoulder. “She didn’t mean to hit you. Did she hurt you?”
“No, she didn’t hurt me,” he answered. How could she hurt a dead leg? And yet…
It took a while, but Sunny finally managed to get Rachel calmed down. The child was sorry she’d accidentally hit Ash, and promised to apologize to him later. But for now, Sunny wanted Rachel to rest. She got her to lay down on the bed, and after only a few minutes, with Sunny stroking the hair back from Rachel’s flushed, tear-streaked face, Rachel fell asleep.
Sunny wanted to weep with frustration. It had been three weeks, and still Rachel was no closer to accepting their father’s death as fact. If anything, the girl was becoming more adamant that he would one day come home. Sunny didn’t know what to do.
Heavy hearted, she left her next-to-the-youngest sister sleeping, and went back to Ash’s room. It was time for Amy’s nap, too.
Wild Texas Flame Page 9
