скачать книгу бесплатно
“Me, too,” Niki confessed. “But mine usually lead to pneumonia. I had it in my early teens. I guess it repeats. It’s so unfair. I don’t even smoke.”
“Neither do I,” Blair replied. “People around me do, however. I came here by way of Saudi Arabia. I was coughing before I got on the plane. It’s probably just the allergy.”
She nodded. But he sounded the way she did when she was coming down with a chest infection. Men never seemed to want to admit to illness. Perhaps they thought of it as a weakness.
* * *
BLAIR DIDN’T GET up for breakfast the next morning. Niki was worried, so she asked her father to look in on their guest. She wasn’t at all sure if he wore pajamas, and she didn’t want to walk in on him if he didn’t.
Her father was back in a minute, looking concerned. “I think I’d better ask Doctor Fred to come out and check him. He’s got a fever, and he’s breathing rough. I think it’s bronchitis. Maybe something more.”
Niki didn’t have to ask how he knew. He’d seen her through pneumonia too many times to mistake the symptoms.
“That might be a good idea,” she agreed.
* * *
DR. FRED MORRIS came out and examined Blair, prescribing a heavy cough syrup along with an antibiotic.
“If he isn’t better in three days, you call me,” Fred told Niki’s father.
“I will.”
“And you stay out of his room until the antibiotic takes hold,” Fred told Niki firmly. “You don’t need to catch this again.”
“It might not be contagious,” she protested.
“But it might be. Humor me.”
She managed a faint smile. “Okay, Dr. Fred.”
“Good girl. I’ll be in my office until late, if you need me,” he told her father as they shook hands.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
* * *
NIKI INSISTED THAT her father call Elise and tell her that Blair was sick and needed her. Todd was reluctant, but he badgered Blair until he got the number. He called her.
Niki never knew what was said, but her father came out of his office cold-eyed and angry.
“Is she coming?” she asked.
Her father made a rough sound in his throat. “She said that’s what doctors are for, getting people well. She doesn’t do illness, and she doesn’t want to be exposed to what he’s got anyway. There’s a ball tomorrow night in Vienna. A friend is taking her.”
Niki felt sick to her stomach. What sort of woman had Blair married, for heaven’s sake?
“It’s not our business,” her father reminded her.
“He was so kind to me, when Harvey attacked me,” she recalled. “I thought he’d found a nice woman who’d want to have children and take care of him.”
“Fat chance, that woman ever having a child,” her father scoffed. “It might interfere with her social plans!”
She sighed. “Well, we’ll take care of him.”
“Mrs. Hanes and I will do that, until he’s no longer contagious,” her father emphasized. “I’m not risking you. Don’t even ask.”
She smiled and hugged him. “Okay, Daddy.”
“That’s my girl.” He kissed the top of her head. “Poor guy. If it’s this bad and they’ve only been married a year or so...” He let the rest of the sentence taper off.
“Things might get better,” she said. But she didn’t really believe it.
“They might. Let’s have Mrs. Hanes fix us something to eat.”
“I’ll ask her.”
* * *
EDNA HANES HAD been the Ashtons’ housekeeper for over twelve years. She was as much a mother as a housekeeper to Niki, who adored her. When Niki had her sick spells, Mrs. Hanes was the one who nursed her, even when her father was home. He was a kind man, but he was out of place in a sick room. Not that he’d ever been unkind to his daughter. Quite the opposite.
“She’s not coming, then?” Edna asked Niki about Blair’s wife.
“No. There’s a dance. In Vienna,” she replied with a speaking glance.
Edna made a face. “He’s a good man, Mr. Coleman,” she said, pulling out pans to start supper. “I hate to see him married to someone like that. Wants his money, maybe, and not him, as well, but had to take the one to get the other.”
“He said she was beautiful.”
“Beautiful isn’t as important as kind,” Edna replied.
“That’s what I think, too.”
“Pity you aren’t older, my girl,” Edna said with a sigh.
“Why?” Niki asked, smiling.
Edna forgot sometimes how unworldly the younger woman was. “Nothing,” she said quickly. “I was just talking to myself. How about mincing some onion for me, and I’ll get this casserole going!”
“I’d be happy to help.”
* * *
BLAIR WASN’T DOING WELL. Niki managed to get into his room the next day while her father was out talking to his foreman and Edna went shopping.
His chest was bare, although the covers were pulled up to his diaphragm. He had a magnificent chest, she thought with helpless longing, broad and covered with thick, curling hair. Muscular and manly.
He opened bloodshot, feverish eyes to look at her as she touched his forehead. “You shouldn’t be in here,” he said in a gentle tone. “I might be contagious.”
“I’m not worried. Well, not about me. You should be better by now. When an antibiotic starts working, you can feel the difference.”
He drew in a raspy breath and grimaced. “He gave me penicillin. It usually does the trick.”
“Maybe not this time. I’m calling him right now.”
She went out the door and phoned the doctor.
He was perturbed that she was trying to nurse Blair. “Listen, if you get it again, it might go into pleurisy,” he argued.
“Now, Doctor Fred,” she teased softly, “you know I’ve just finished a course of antibiotics. I’m not likely to pick anything up. Besides, there’s nobody else to do this. Edna has her hands full just with meals, and Daddy’s in the middle of a business deal. Not that he’s a nursely sort of person,” she laughed.
He sighed. “I see your point. Isn’t Coleman married? Where’s his wife? Did you call her?”
“There’s a ball someplace in Europe where she has to go dancing,” she said, the contempt in her voice unmistakable.
“I see.” His tone was noncommittal. “Well, I’ll phone in another prescription, something stronger, and a stronger cough syrup, as well. Try to get some fluids into him. And I don’t want to have you wind up in my office...”
“I’ll be very careful, Doctor,” she promised, thanked him quickly and hung up.
* * *
LATER, SHE SENT one of the ranch’s cowboys into town to get the new medicines, which she’d coaxed out of the poor, harried pharmacist, a friend from high school.
Blair grumbled when she came in with more medicine. “Niki, you’re going to come down with this damned stuff,” he complained.
“Just be quiet and take the nice tablet,” she interrupted, handing him a glass of orange juice with crushed ice.
He frowned. “How did you know I like this?” he wondered.
She laughed. “I didn’t. But I do now. Come on, Blair. Take the pill.” She coaxed his mouth open and dropped the large tablet in.
“Bully,” he muttered in his deep voice.
She only grinned.
He sipped the juice and swallowed. He winced.
“Oh, gosh, it’s acidic. I’m sorry. I’ll get you something less abrasive. Gatorade?” she suggested.
“I’d rather have the juice, honestly. I do wish I had—”
“Some cough drops?” she finished, digging in the prescription bag. “How fortunate that I asked Tex to bring some. And you can have the cough syrup, too.”
She pulled a spoon from her pocket and poured out a dose of the powerful cough syrup the doctor had prescribed.
He took it, his dark eyes amused and affectionate as they met hers. “Your father’s going to raise hell if he catches you in here.”
She made a face at him. “Edna asked me earlier if you’d like something light for dinner. An omelet? She makes them with fresh herbs.”
He hesitated. “I’m not really hungry,” he said, not wanting to hurt Edna’s feelings. He hated eggs.
“I like eggs. We have fresh ones most of the year, when our hens aren’t molting.” She paused, her eyes narrow on his broad, handsome face. “You don’t like eggs, but you don’t want to trouble anyone,” she blurted out. “How about chicken noodle soup instead?”
He laughed. “Damn. How did you figure that out?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
“I’d really rather have the soup, if it’s not too much trouble,” he confessed. “I hate eggs.”
She grinned. “I’ll tell Edna.”
He studied her soft face with narrow, thoughtful eyes. “When do you start classes again?”
“January,” she replied. “I’ve already decided what I’ll take.”
“How do you get back and forth when the snows come?” he wondered.
She laughed. “Dad has one of the boys drive me back and forth. We have a cowboy who grew up in northern Montana. He can drive through anything.”
“It might be more sensible to get you an apartment near campus,” he said.
“I don’t like being on my own,” she said quietly.
He reached out a big hand and tangled her fingers in it. “All men aren’t animals, Niki.”
She shrugged. “I suppose not. I keep thinking what would have happened if you hadn’t been here that night.”
His face tensed. So did he. She was so fragile. Like a hothouse orchid. It bothered him that she was in here risking her own health to nurse him while his wife was off having a wild time in Europe and couldn’t be bothered to call him, let alone look in on him.
He’d never told Niki why he’d really married Elise. It had less to do with who she was than who she resembled. He’d just lost his mother, whom he’d adored, and Elise looked just like her. She’d come up to him at a party while he was grieving, and he’d fallen for her at first sight. Elise looked like his mother, but without her compassion and soul. Niki, oddly, reminded him more of her even than Elise, although Niki’s coloring was very different. Elise had the compassion of a hungry shark.
“You’re very quiet,” she commented.
He smiled gently. “You’re a nice child,” he said softly.
“I’m almost twenty-one,” she protested.
“Honey, I’m almost thirty-seven,” he said, his voice deep with tenderness.
“Really?” She was studying him with those wide, soft gray eyes that were silvery in the soft light of the bedside lamp. She smiled. “You don’t look it. You don’t even have gray hair. Don’t tell me,” she mused wickedly. “You have it colored, don’t you?”
He burst out laughing and then coughed.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” she said at once, wincing. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth!”
He caught his breath. “Niki, you’re a breath of spring,” he said. “No, I don’t color it,” he added. “My father was from Greece. His hair was still black when he died, and he was in his sixties.” He didn’t tell her that his real father was from Greece. He didn’t know or care where his stepfather, the man who’d raised him, came from.
