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“Aaaaa!”
“There. Found a foot.”
“It sure smells like a foot,” Sally said in response to the drop of a ripe black sock.
“Looks like a bunch of red peppers.” Ann gently curled her hand around five stiff toes. Zach sucked air between his teeth, and she quivered deep in her stomach.
“I think red is good. You don’t want to see any blueberries,” Sally said, and he groaned again. “Or raisins. Or—”
“Not hungry.” He slumped, and his forehead rested against Ann’s hip. “Gimme a minute to get…”
Ann slipped her arm around his back. “Okay, let’s get you in the tub.”
“You have to get his jeans off, Annie.”
“Well, we have to get him up.”
“I…I can…” He floundered and swayed, but with a little help he stood for his undressing.
Ann drew a deep breath, unbuttoned, unzipped and unseated his jeans. Brief boxers answered the earlier question. They were gray and snug, and he was an innie.
Hands on her shoulders, he steadied himself and posed a new one. “Am I up?”
Sally had the nerve to laugh.
“Lift your leg,” Ann ordered. He did, but he almost lost what little balance he’d achieved. “Not on me!”
“What kind of a dog—” flailing, he grabbed the side of the tub and stepped free of his jeans “—you take me for?”
“The kind that’s better thawed.” On hands and knees Ann bumped his leg with her shoulder. “Can you step in the tub, please? Use the rail.”
She found herself looking up at her sister between a pair of sparsely hairy legs. Sally was leaning heavily on her cane, but her grin was easily worth Ann’s indignity.
“Rail?”
“Like you’re getting down in the chute, Zach.” Sally helped him find her safety rail. “Slow and—”
“Yeowww!”
“—easy,” Sally warned as he went down like a drunk on a banana peel. His hold on the safety rail was all that kept him from going under.
Ann was soaked. “Trust me, it isn’t hot.”
Knees in the air, Zach slid down the back of the tub, up to his chin in rocking and rolling water. Ann reached for his shoulders and held him still. “Just for a few minutes.”
His sporadic shivers shifted to steady shuddering.
“You have to rub to get the blood flowing,” Sally instructed from the sidelines. “Unless there’s frostbite. No rubbing frostbite.”
“How will I know if something’s frostbitten?”
“You start rubbing, it’ll fall off in your hand.”
“Don’t…” Zach waved a trembling finger under Ann’s nose.
“Annie won’t get your gun, cowboy.”
“Sally!”
“He’s turning beet-red.” Sally waved the end of her cane over the tub like a magic wand. “That’s what I call a royal flush.”
“Like hell,” Zach grumbled as Ann pushed his hand into the water.
“No, really,” Sally insisted.
“Yeah, really,” he groaned as Ann kneaded gently, his big hand sandwiched in both of hers. “Hurts like hell.”
“I’m telling you, red is good.” Sally took a seat on the toilet. “Rub his feet, Annie. Go easy.”
“I’m not sure about the rubbing.” But she tended to his fingers, simply holding them between her palms, one hand at a time. He protested and then gave over. Or under. Or out. His breathing had slowed, as though he were drifting off to sleep. “I think we should call someone for advice, Sally. At least find out—”
“I’m good,” he said. “I promise. No…no trouble.”
“I’ll Google it.” Sally punctuated her decision with a thump of her cane. “Back in a few.”
“Call Ask-A-Nurse.” Ann preferred fresh brainpower to search-engine options. She spoke quietly to Zach. “If there’s any chance I’m causing any damage or you feel like any of your parts might fall off, you will speak up, won’t you?”
“Uh-uh,” he muttered. “Startin’ to feel better.”
“I can have an ambulance here in—”
“Don’t.” He opened his eyes and galvanized her with a curious look.
Oh, God, don’t let him remember me. Her insides buzzed, horror and hope bouncing off each other within the thin-skinned bottle that was Ann Drexler. Dear God, let me be memorable.
The question in his eyes dissolved, unspoken and unresolved. Or simply unimportant. “Please don’t. I’ll…be on my feet…”
She shook off the moment, turning her hands into an envelope for five long toes. “Can you feel your—”
“Yeah. Barely. Don’t break’em.”
“Glass toes?” She smiled, half tempted to try giving them a tickle. They’d been molded into the shape of a cowboy boot. Naked, they were curled and cute. Flaming piggies.
“Yeah. Like the rest of me. Ice, maybe, but you…” He braced his hands on either side of his hips and struggled to gain control of his seat. “Ahh, you’re an angel.”
“Ice princess, according to the last guy I went out with.”
“And sent packing,” Sally put in as she parked her wheelchair in the doorway. “Brought you a ride, Zach. I call him Ferdinand. He won’t buck, but he can spin.”
“Lemme at ‘im.” Zach started up, sat back down, hung his head chin to chest. “Damn.”
“Easy, cowboy.” Ann sat back on her heels, watching her sister rise laboriously from her chair and worrying about how much the excitement had tired her out. But Sally was clearly pleased to take part in the rescue, and, as ever, her pleasure pleased Ann. “Okay, Zach, here comes the tricky part.”
“The packing?”
So he’d caught that. Was this some kind of in-and-out game? Zach in, Zach out.
Private joke, public laugh.
“The getting you out and dry and dressed.” Ann glanced up at Sally, who thought she was laughing with her. Little did she know. “Where’s Hoolie when we need him?”
“There’s a dance at the VFW tonight,” Sally said.
“Damn.” Zach’s mantra.
“You aren’t missing any—” Ann turned in time to get sloshed as he tried and failed to get up on his own. She laid her hand on his slick, sleek shoulder. “Slow down, Zach.”
“Still just a little…” He reached for support and found Sally’s safety rail on the one hand and Ann on the other.
She threaded her arm beneath his and around his back, braced herself and helped him haul himself out of the water. Whoosh. He was heavy, wet and slippery, but she wasn’t going down under him. Not this time.
“Step over and out, Zach.”
“Out-ssside,” he muttered as he released the rail and piled a few more pounds on Ann’s shoulders. “Jeez, I drew a spinner.”
“Hang on. Sally? Towels.”
“Right behind him, little sister.” Sally wrapped a blue bath sheet around Zach’s waist. “Got my wheels right outside the door, along with some chamomile tea. According to my Googling, we shouldn’t be—”
“Be careful,” Ann warned. “Wet floor.” One slip, and they’d all go down like bowling pins.
They wrapped Zach like a mummy, sat him in Sally’s wheelchair and swore to him he was not on his way to another hospital, nor hell, nor heaven, nor—for the moment—Texas.
Dressing him wasn’t an option, so they helped him peel off his wet shorts and tucked him into bed like an overgrown baby while Sally ticked off a list of Internet pointers about hypothermia. “We need to warm him all over, inside and out. Going after fingers and toes first was a mistake, but oh, well.”
Zach gave a shivery chuckle. “Oh, well.”
“Prop him up so he can drink this.”
Ann turned and scowled at the “Mustang Love” coffee mug decorated with a picture of a ponytailed girl and a high-tailed colt. “You prop him up.”
Sally gave a smug smile. “No can do.”
“I’ll p-prop…” But he didn’t move.
Ann countered with an irritated sigh, stuffed a second pillow under his shoulders, tucked her arm beneath his head and signaled her sister for a handoff. The soothing warmth of the mug settled her, and she calmly shared—warm tea, warm bed, warm heart. She was a Good Samaritan. Nothing more.
His dark, damp hair smelled like High Plains winter—fresh, pure and utterly unpredictable. She remembered the way it had fallen over his forehead the first time she’d taken off his hat, the way she’d turned him from studlike to coltish with a wave of her hand, the glint in his eyes gone a little shy, his smile sweet and playful. Remove the lid, let the heart light shine. Hard to believe she’d ever been that naive. Undone by a hunk of hair.
Deliberately she hadn’t noticed this time. But she noticed it now. Nice hair.
“Maybe you should give him some skin, Annie.”
Ann looked up. Get real.
“Full-body contact is the best human defrost system,” Sally said with a shrug.
“Is this the gospel according to Google?”
“Well, it does make perfect—”
“I believe,” Zach muttered.
Ann filled his mouth to overflowing with tea.
“From now on, when in South Dakota, remember the dress code,” Sally said as she caught the dribble from the corner of his mouth with one of the towels he was no longer wearing. “Thermal skivvies after Halloween.”
“‘S why I’m headin’…for Texas.”
“Not tonight,” Sally said. “You been rode pretty hard.”
“Thanks for not…p-puttin’ me up wet.” Eyes at half-mast he looked up at Ann and offered a wan smile. “S-sorry to b-bother you this t-time of n-night.”
“Still cold?” She imagined crawling into bed with him, shook her head hard and tucked the comforter under his quivering chin. “We can still get you to the—”
“No way,” he said. “I’m good.” He turned his head and pressed his lips to her fingers. “You’re an angel.”
Hardly. Angels didn’t quiver over an innocent kiss on the hand. They glided away looking supremely serene.
“Tree topper,” he whispered. Hypothermia had given him a brain freeze. Maybe tomorrow he’d remember her.
And maybe she could learn to glide and look supremely serene.
Chapter Two
Waking up in a strange room was nothing new for Zach Beaudry, but waking up in a pretty room was pretty damn strange. His usual off-ramp motel—good for a thousand-of-a-kind room and a one-size-fits-all bed—suited him just fine. No fault, no foul, no pressure.
He closed his eyes. Purple. Everything around him was purple. Motels didn’t do much purple. The color of pressure.
Where the hell was he? He felt like he’d been wasted for a week and had no clue what he’d started out celebrating. If he’d been drinking to forget, he’d accomplished his mission. He remembered bits and pieces—a long walk, a glittering Christmas tree, a pretty woman in white—but they didn’t come together in a way that made a lot of sense. How had he landed in a bed—somebody’s personal bed—surrounded by personal pictures of real people, furniture that wasn’t bolted down, and colors only a woman could love?
His head pounded. The pressure was on. If he had to pay the piper, he was owed at least a fond memory of the song, not to mention the wine and the woman. Hell, for all he knew, he might owe her. Before she walked in, he needed to neutralize his disadvantage by recalling who she was, what she looked like, and whether it had been good for her.
But nothing was clicking for him except his badly abused joints. Jacking himself into a sitting position was a dizzying experience, and he was about ready to crawl back under the mostly purple covers when he heard female voices outside the door.
“…take him into the clinic this morning.”
“Why? I checked on him. He’s still breathing. His color is better.”
