“I…fine,” she lied. “Just fine.”
“Really?”
Allie debated her answer while she added a slice of lemon to the lip of the glass. She had a feeling Estelle could see right through her polite lie. She should just tell her the truth, that Gage McKinnon and his dark temper and gorgeous looks made her more nervous than a whole room full of yellow jackets.
If she entertained any misconceptions that their encounter that first night might have been the beginning of a wary friendship, Gage quickly quashed them. He didn’t really complain about anything, he was just abrupt and brusque and deflected any of her attempts at conversation.
None of this could be easy on him. She could sympathize with him on that score. She always hated the times she had to be in the hospital, even though she’d been dealing with the medical complications of her diabetes since childhood.
Allie suspected Gage was used to being in the middle of the action, not sidelined to a hospital bed. He was probably going stir-crazy trapped in this small house with a woman he didn’t know and two little girls he didn’t want around.
Worse than his cool abruptness, though, was that disconcerting way he had of scrutinizing her out of those steely gray eyes until she was blushing and stammering and deathly afraid the man could look inside her and figure out all her secrets.
“He’s challenging, certainly, but we’re finding our way. Things have been better since I’ve given up trying to push the pain meds on him.”
“Still being stubborn about that, is he?”
Allie shrugged. “One thing I’ve learned since nursing school is that sometimes the patient really does know best, even though we don’t always like to admit it. If he wants to tough it out, I can’t argue with him. He seems to be handling the pain his own way.”
“By being as difficult as he can be.”
Allie smiled. “Not really. He’s quite undemanding, compared to some of the patients I’ve had.”
Estelle glanced down the hallway toward Gage’s closed bedroom door, then leaned closer to Allie with a conspiratorial smile. “You can tell old Estelle the truth now. Is the equipment below the covers as good-lookin’ as what’s above?”
“Estelle!”
Somehow the nurse managed to look as innocent as a baby kitten, even though her dark eyes snapped with laughter. “Come on, girl. It’s an honest question. The man has been mightily blessed in the muscle department, at least what I’ve been able to see. I imagine you must have noticed when you’ve helped him take a sponge bath.”
Her face caught fire and she knew she must be as bright pink as the scrubs Estelle wore. “I wouldn’t know. He insists on taking care of his, um, personal duties himself. All I do is fetch and carry supplies for him. Water, wash-cloths, soap. That sort of thing.”
“Does he let you at least help him wash his hair?”
Oh, heavens. She’d never even thought to offer help with washing his hair. How had he been doing it on his own with just a washbasin? Probably not very well.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid not to ask if she could help. Heaven knows, the man would rather bite off his own tongue than ask for anything on his own.
He would probably love a good shampoo. The idea of burying her fingers in that thick, dark hair to lather and rinse him made her insides go jittery and warm. She sighed at herself. Get over it, Allie! The man was a patient. That’s all.
“I’ll ask him today if I can help with his hair.”
“You want my opinion on how to handle that one, don’t ask him anything. Just show up with a basin and shampoo. What’s he gonna say after you’ve already dunked his head in the water?”
“‘No way in hell.’ And maybe ‘Oh, and by the way, you’re fired.”’
Estelle’s chest bounced with her laughter. “Aw, sugar, the man’s not crazy. He won’t fire a cute little thing like you, especially one who can make chocolate chip cookies like my mama used to do.”
She chomped on another one and Allie spent a moment wondering if she could indulge in one cookie. She did make a fine tollhouse, if she did say so herself. After calculating what she’d eaten that day and what her levels were the last time she checked she decided she could afford one half of one cookie if she ran a test strip after Estelle left.
“I imagine before he gets those casts off,” the nurse went on while Allie broke one cookie in half and savored the rich, crispy treat, “the two of you will butt heads on more things than just a shampoo or two. Like my mama told me on my wedding day, just make sure you both know who’s boss.”
Allie laughed at Estelle’s knowing look. “He is the one who pays my salary.”
“Why let a little thing like that get in the way of making sure the man knows what’s what? I’m only sorry I won’t be around to watch the fireworks.”
Allie frowned at the nurse. “You won’t?”
Beads clicked in her cornrows as Estelle shook her head. “This is my last official visit. Mr. Sexy FBI Man is stable enough I don’t need to check in every day unless he takes a turn for the worse. From now on the home health agency will probably just phone a few times a week to see how he’s doing and to check if you need any supplies. But I want to hear everything you find out about our hottie, you hear me? I’ll take you to lunch at the Barking Frog next week and you can unload everything on old Estelle.”
Her sharp pang of regret made Allie realize how much she’d come to enjoy these daily chats with the nurse.
Estelle was the only close friend she had found since she left Philadelphia and she would miss her bitterly. She needed these visits. While she and Estelle shared a soda or a cup of tea, Allie didn’t feel so very alone and afraid.
She hated this! She wasn’t sure she had the personality for the transient, isolated life forced on her by Joaquin and Irena. She craved safety, stability. Firm, solid ground under her feet.
Friends had always played a vital role in her life and she hated knowing she was weaving connections—like this fledgling friendship with Estelle—only to inevitably watch them unravel when she moved on.
For the rest of their visit, Allie was subdued, depressed. After a few more moments, Estelle rose to go.
“Much as I’d like to stick around and have another few dozen of these cookies, I’ve still got to hit my last patient of the day. You think Sexy FBI Man is crotchety, you ought to spend a few minutes with Miss Annabelle Stephens. The woman’s a hundred if she’s a day and couldn’t hear a nuclear explosion if it went off in her ear but that doesn’t stop her from bitchin’ at me nonstop from the minute I walk in the door. You give those cute little girls of yours a kiss for me when they get back, you hear?”
Allie nodded. Gaby and Anna had begun a daily ritual of playing at the park in the afternoon with a sixteen-year-old neighbor girl who tended her little brother and sister during the day.
The children had quickly become friends and the arrangement seemed to be working out well for everyone. Jessica Farmer was grateful for the extra spending money Allie gave her for taking the girls along, Gaby and Anna loved having other children to play with, and for two hours a day Allie didn’t have to worry about them annoying Gage.
She certainly didn’t want them underfoot while she washed Gage’s hair, assuming he didn’t jump down her throat for suggesting the idea.
After Estelle left, Allie gathered a washbasin and filled it with warm water, then found shampoo and clean towels from the laundry room. With her heart pounding in trepidation, she went to his room and knocked.
“Come in,” he answered.
She huffed out a shaky breath and pushed open the door. Her patient was sitting up in the wheelchair she knew he despised, typing something on his laptop computer with ESPN buzzing softly from the television set.
He looked up, his gray eyes dark with irritation. “Give it a rest already, Connors. Haven’t I been poked and prodded enough for one afternoon by your friend?”
She almost backed out of the room, but at the last m
oment she straightened her spine. His hair did look a little dull. Besides that, lines of fatigue fanned out around his eyes. He was pushing himself far too hard, far too fast. He spent a big part of every day having her help him with the rehab exercises ordered by his physical therapist, doing them two or three times more often than the PT recommended. She knew some of the exercises were excruciating, but Gage refused to give in to the pain.
It wouldn’t hurt him to relax a little, to allow himself to enjoy a bit of pampering. “Estelle made me realize I have been slacking in some of my responsibilities.”
He frowned. “You’re doing fine. Except you don’t seem to know when to lay off and let me have a moment of peace.”
She decided to let that slide. “I thought perhaps you could use a shampoo.”
He finally looked up from the computer, his expression baffled. “A what?”
“You know,” Allie narrowed her gaze, considering, “I think that wheelchair puts you just at the right height so we could use the kitchen sink. It will mean some tricky maneuvering but I think we can manage it and it will be much easier than using a basin.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was offering to help you wash your hair. I should have suggested it earlier in the week but it never occurred to me until Estelle asked about it. Trust me, the whole world seems a brighter and happier place when you have clean hair. I think you’ll find you feel much better.”
He looked completely flabbergasted at the idea, but then his gaze shifted subtly to the small mirror on the bureau. He cocked his head at his reflection then frowned at her again.
“I don’t need a shampoo.”
“Maybe you don’t need it. But it won’t kill you, will it? I promise, you’ll feel better.”
“You’re going to hound me about this until I give in, aren’t you?”
“How did you guess?” She smiled, remembering Estelle’s words about letting him know who was in charge.
He sighed and typed a few strokes into the laptop then closed the lid. “Let’s get this over with, then.”
Chapter 7
Not sure exactly when his life had spun so completely out of his control, Gage let Lisa wheel him into the kitchen and arrange him in front of the sink. He really ought to be working up some sort of a protest. He didn’t need another example thrown in his face to remind him how helpless he was that he couldn’t even wash his own hair, for Pete’s sake.
So why did he stay silent even as she draped a towel around his shoulders and handed him another for his eyes in case water dripped into them?
It couldn’t be because he secretly wanted her hands on him. Absolutely not. No, more likely he went along with her only because he was too worn-out to argue with the immovable force that was Lisa Connors.
Besides, he had to admit, his head was beginning to itch. Why suffer one more misery on top of everything else if he didn’t have to?
Behind him he could hear water run in the sink while she tested the temperature. A few moments later the tone of the flow changed as she turned on the spray attachment.
“Can you lean back a little?”
Resigned to his fate, Gage complied, wondering as he did why her voice seemed to have slipped an octave. “Is that far enough?”
“It should be.”
A moment later a spray of warm water hit his head. He forced himself to relax as she soaked his hair. He even managed to close his eyes instead of watching her with the wariness of a chained wolf.
Really, this wasn’t so bad after all. She was right, it felt kind of nice. Restful, even.
After a moment it became better than nice. He had never realized what a sensual experience having someone else wash his hair could be. As she worked lather through each strand of his wet hair, he was suddenly uncomfortably aware of this woman who had managed to barge her way into his life.
How could he be anything but aware of her? As her fingers worked through his hair, she leaned over him to reach better, enveloping him in her clean, fresh spring-like scent until he didn’t seem able to breathe in anything else.
If he turned his head just so, his cheek would brush against both of her high, firm breasts. He could nuzzle against her, could inhale the scent of her, could press his mouth to the warm skin of that enticing little hollow above her collarbone….
She cleared her throat. “I’m going to rinse now.”
Her voice jerked him back to sanity. What in the hell was the matter with him? His body was stirring like some randy teenager’s while he sat here fantasizing about a busybody nurse with a choppy haircut and secrets in her eyes.
Maybe she ought to just turn that spray to cold and stick his whole head under.
He drew in a deep breath, willing his body to settle down. In the loose cotton shorts he had to wear because nothing else fit over the casts, she would be sure to notice his arousal if he didn’t do something about it.
With effort, he forced himself to recite Miranda until his body started to settle down. The fiercely secured distance seemed to work. By the time she washed and rinsed his hair a second time, he just about had everything under control.
“All done,” she said briskly, her voice just a little too pert, and for one crazy moment he wondered if she might be as attracted to him as he was to her. No. Impossible.
“I brought in a comb and hand mirror,” she went on. “I’ll let you do those honors.”
Feeling more clean than he had since the accident, he took them from her and combed his hair, aware of her observing him out of those big blue eyes. There was an oddly seductive intimacy in having her watch him perform such a personal act. It seeped around him like smoke swirls, threatening to erode all his hard-won self-mastery.
“Are you ready to go back to your room?” she asked when he finished combing his hair.
Even though he knew it was dangerous to spend any more time with her, he was coming to despise the four walls of that room. “I like the change of scenery. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just sit here for a moment.”
“It’s your house, Mr. McKinnon. You can sit wherever you would like.” She picked up one of the towels and began to wipe down the counters on either side of the sink where water had splashed during his shampoo.
“Gage,” he reminded her.
She made a face. “Gage.”
With the counters dry, she knelt on the floor where more water puddled, probably completely heedless of the way her denim shorts outlined her very shapely rear end.
When she stood up, her shirt rode up a little and for the first time he noticed the small black electronic unit clipped to her waistband.
“Are you expecting an important page?”
Her gaze met his, confusion turning the columbine a murky blue. “A what?”
“A page. Why else would you wear a beeper clipped to your belt?”
The confusion in her eyes cleared for a moment and she looked down at the unit with a small laugh. “It’s not a beeper. It’s an insulin pump.”
She pulled her T-shirt up a little more, leaving the distinct marks of wet fingerprints on the pale blue cotton. As she revealed a small strip of bare flesh at her abdomen he could see some kind of medical-looking tube inserted into the skin just above her waistline.
“You’re diabetic?”
Her shrug was casual. “Since I was ten.”
“That must have been rough when you were a kid.”
She folded the wet towel and set it aside, then leaned back against the counter, her expression thoughtful. “Yeah, it had its moments. The year we found out I had it was a hard year all around. I was diagnosed two months before my mother died of kidney failure. I can tell you, that’s a terrifying thing for a ten-year-old girl—losing your mother from the same disease you just found out you share with her.”
He could picture her as a ten-year-old, sick and scared and grieving for her mother. A wave of sympathy washed over him and he was astonished by how strongly he wanted to comfort that little girl.
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“Must have been tough on your father, too,” he murmured.
Something hard and bitter flashed across her features. “Oh, I’m sure it gave him many sleepless nights in bed beside the new wife he married three months after my mother died. The sweet young thing who didn’t want the burden of dealing with a sickly kid who was in and out of the hospital that first year.”
A muscle worked in her slender jaw. “My maternal grandparents raised me after my dad remarried. I haven’t heard from him since he cheerfully gave up any visitation rights around the time his new wife delivered a pair of healthy, nondiabetic twin boys.”
He had seen plenty of cruelty to children during his years with the FBI but he never ceased to be amazed at how a parent could display such blatant inhumanity.
Gage studied her, anger for the pain she had suffered thick and fierce in his chest. Even with two broken legs, he wanted to find her father and kick the bastard’s selfish, thoughtless ass.
After a moment she blew out a breath. “I’m sorry. I must sound like a bitter old hag.”
“You don’t. You sound like someone who’s had a rough time, that’s all.” Besides, no one with a brain in his head or blood pulsing through his veins could possibly call her old or a hag.
“Ten is a pretty pivotal age for a girl. I fought and bucked against the restrictions of diabetes like a horse tied out in a hailstorm, sneaking junk food every chance I got and hiding out in the barn whenever it was time to check my BGs—blood glucose.”
For some reason, he found it heartening that she grew up on a farm somewhere, surrounded by animals and growing things. He hoped she had found some measure of solace living with her grandparents.
“I can’t blame him for it,” she went on, “but I’ve often thought that maybe if I had received a little more understanding and support from my father, I might have accepted my diagnosis more easily. I was a teenager before I was finally able to take control of my disease.”
“It’s still under control, I guess?”
“Not always but for the most part. It’s much easier now with the pump than when I was a kid and had to do the whole needle thing.”
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