The Bridal Contract

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“Knowin’ and doin’ are two different things,” he pointed out as he stood. “I’ll tidy up for you,” he added before she could object, and she watched as he stacked their things on the tray and carried them to the dishwasher.

He opened the door, pulled out the rack and efficiently loaded it. He apparently knew his way around a dishwasher, but it was a machine. Ty and Troy hadn’t minded getting stuck with dishwasher duty, declaring that loading the dishwasher was the only halfway manly job in the kitchen.

The sudden memory didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected, and that got her attention, but the absence of painful grief suddenly felt disloyal, and guilt followed swiftly to send her heart low…

Chase’s soft question so close to her ear startled her. “Are you fallin’ asleep?”

She’d been so lost in private misery these past moments that she hadn’t noticed him finish clearing the table and walk back to her.

The words, “I’m fine,” babbled out like the automatic response they’d become.

“I asked if you were falling asleep,” he said with a chuckle. “Yes? No?”

“No.”

In truth, she’d lapsed into one of those long, long moments that could so easily become hours when she was by herself. Thankfully Chase didn’t seem to realize it.

“Let’s see how well you can get up and move around on your own.”

Fay reached for the table edge and tried to unbend enough to stand, but she was so stiff now that she couldn’t get much more than a couple inches off the chair before she had to sit back down. Frustration made her try again. Though she got only a little higher than before, Chase gently helped her unbend enough to stand reasonably straight.

“I saw liniment in your downstairs bathroom. While you rub some on, I’ll move my truck and make an ice pack for that knot on your head.”

Fay didn’t reply to that because she was trying to adjust to the stiff pain that seemed to have locked up every muscle. Movement would loosen them, so she turned carefully from the table and walked across the kitchen into the back hall that led to the bathroom. By the time she got there, she was a lot more limber, but it took some doing to get her jeans down and make use of the liniment. Once she was finished, she walked out and made her way to the living room.

The TV was still on and she made a partial circuit around the room to walk off a little more stiffness before she gingerly lowered herself onto one of the two recliners and struggled to ease it back. Chase brought in the ice pack, coffee Thermos and their cups and she noticed a few dapples of rain on his shoulders and in his hair.

“You’ve got some small branches down from the first blow-through,” he told her. “Nothing major.”

He set her coffee on the table next to her chair, handed her the waterproof cloth pouch he’d filled with ice, then sat down in the second recliner with his coffee cup. He looked for all the world as if he was settling in, and Fay felt her resistance to that idea waver as she placed the ice pouch against the side of her head.

How many women in their part of Texas would have loved to have Chase Rafferty around, waiting on them? Maybe it would be less aggravating to look at it that way. It would certainly take less energy than trying to get rid of him.

And from the sounds of it, a new storm was blowing in, so it might not be the smartest thing for him to leave and have it break before he could get home. Yes, he’d lived in these parts all of his life and had weathered dozens of bad storms, just as she had. They both were accustomed to the dangers and knew how to handle them, but it would be churlish to send him home at the wrong time.

Besides, she couldn’t help noticing that it felt comfortable to sit in her living room with company. Though she’d been too grouchy to convey much more than a speck of hospitality, Chase seemed immune to her bad mood. Now that he’d stopped bossing her and asking nosy questions, she decided she almost liked that he was here. It was a bonus that he didn’t seem inclined to make small talk. In fact, the silence between them was almost companionable, and that was as soothing to her as it was surprising.

Chase used the TV remote to switch to a local channel that had interrupted regular programming to show the progress of the storms before he offered her the remote. She waved it away, and he set it within her easy reach.

Fay felt her body sink further into the cushy recliner, and exhaustion began to roll over her in waves. Between the hot, filling meal, the analgesic and the liniment, the sharp edges of her various aches and pains had been dulled. The chair put her in a physical position that was more comfortable than she could have hoped for, and suddenly her eyelids felt as if they weighed a pound apiece. An alien sense of well-being came in on the next wave of exhaustion and she was asleep before she could make sense of it.