Just Married...Again

by Charlotte Hughes

  “I’ve got on two of everything,” Danny volunteered. Both man and boy looked at her, as though sizing her up. “I’m perfectly capable of dressing myself warmly,” she said. They started for the door. “Uh, Mike, ol’ buddy?” she called out.

  He turned and offered her an easy smile, determined not to let her see how this friendship thing was grating on his nerves. “Yeah?”

  “You didn’t tell us what you were wearing under your clothes.”

  “That’s the luxury of being in charge, missy. I don’t have to answer to anybody.”

  “On the contrary, our survival depends on your survival. You’ve put yourself in charge because you felt you were more qualified. I, for one, have not seen anything to indicate as much, and since I wasn’t permitted to vote, I think I have every right to question whether or not you’re taking necessary precautions to stay healthy. And please don’t call me missy, unless you want me to call you by some of the cute little pet names I’ve given you over the years when you were feeling amorous.”

  Danny looked at his uncle. “What did she say?”

  Michael’s gaze locked with hers, but he could feel the heat creeping up his neck and spreading across his cheeks at the thought of his nephew learning the names he’d earned in the bedroom. The woman had no shame. “You want to know if I’m prepared?” he demanded. He closed the distance between them and met her gaze. There was a feral quality to his look. “If you’ll step in the next room, I’ll be more than happy to accommodate you,” he said silkily. “But I’ll expect the same courtesy.”

  “Are you guys fighting again?” Danny asked in a bored voice.

  Maddy could tell by Michael’s tone that she was treading on dangerous ground, and she didn’t want to give her nephew yet another sideshow. “Never mind,” she said.

  “May we proceed?” he asked.

  Maddy followed Michael outside, and the wind almost slapped her to the ground. She saw that Danny was having trouble standing, as well. With Michael leading the way, they staggered toward the woodshed. Maddy’s eyes watered from the cold, and her ears ached. She wondered if their caps and gloves offered enough protection. The cold seemed to knife through her jacket and jeans, despite the thermal underwear and sweatshirts she wore beneath them. Her fancy crocodile boots were slippery in the snow and much too tight with two layers of socks, but she knew it would have to do.

  The shed was in shambles, worse than when Maddy had first arrived, and the firewood was buried beneath an avalanche of snow and rotted wood. Working as quickly as they could, they spent several hours pulling away pieces of the collapsed roof, so they could get to the firewood below.

  It was slow, agonizing labor, and Michael insisted they go inside every fifteen minutes to warm up, and to dry their mismatched gloves at the fireplace. They lunched on canned soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches and went back to work.

  As the afternoon wore on, Danny began to complain, and at one point he became so belligerent, Maddy asked Michael to send him in. But he refused to coddle Danny, even when the boy seemed to be deliberately dragging his feet. Maddy tried with all her might to remain upbeat, but she knew she couldn’t take much more.

  “Okay, I’ll finish up out here,” Michael said. “You two go inside and get warm.” When Maddy started to object, he waved her off. “I won’t be long, go on.”

  The wind seemed to have picked up. As Maddy and Danny made their way toward the front door of the cabin, she had to hold on to him to prevent him from stumbling. At least he’d stopped complaining.

  Inside, she tore off her hat and gloves and helped Danny do the same. “I know you’re exhausted, honey,” she said, once they were out of their coats. “But you have to get out of these wet things.” She helped him off with his wading boots and sneakers and pulled his socks off. She’d handed him dry clothes from in front of the fireplace and told him to put them on. He nodded.

  “Would you like to go ahead and get your bath first?” she asked, noting the boy could barely hold his eyes open.

  “After I rest.”

  “Don’t forget to put your wet things in front of the fire,” she reminded him. “Once I clean up, I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate.” She hurried down the hall.

  Maddy wasted no time running a bath. The old claw-foot tub and pedestal sink would have been pretty, if she’d hired someone to re-glaze them as she originally planned. As it was, they were chipped and discolored but still serviceable. She loved the deep tub, and as she filled it with water she added her favorite lavender-scented bath salts.

  Maddy sighed her immense pleasure as she lowered herself into the tub, letting her poor tired muscles and quivering flesh absorb the heat from the water. She leaned back and closed her eyes. A good soaking would go a long way toward lifting her mood and lowering her anxiety level. At least she hoped so. There was nothing quite as stressful as being trapped under the same roof as your soon-to-be ex-husband, especially when you were still in love with him.

  What made it so much worse was the crazy way Michael was acting. How could he make mad, passionate love one minute, insist on a platonic relationship the next, then treat her as if she were in boot camp? If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was doing it all to confuse her. He was succeeding very nicely.

  Maddy had been in the water fewer than ten minutes when Michael banged on the door.

  “Time to clear out, Maddy,” he said. “Danny and I need to grab a shower while there’s still hot water.”

  “I’ll be out shortly,” she said, not giving it a second thought.

  “This is no time for prissing around,” he told her. “The rest of us need to clean up, too.”

  She glared at the closed door. The man was really beginning to annoy her and test the limits of their so-called friendship. “I just got in here, for Pete’s sake! I refuse to let an entire tub of hot water go to waste.”

  “You’ve got five minutes.”

  Maddy gritted her teeth. Just who the hell did he think he was, telling her, a grown woman, how much time she could spend in the bathtub? It was absurd, especially since Danny was sound asleep and had no desire to bathe at the moment.

  He was doing it for spite. Had he been nice and asked her in a polite tone of voice instead of using his drill-sergeant routine, she might have reconsidered, but he could go jump in a frozen pond for all she cared. She’d sit there till next spring if she liked.

  Michael was back in five minutes. “Maddy, get the hell out of the tub now! Something’s wrong with Danny.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Wearing only her panties and bathrobe, Maddy leaned over her shivering nephew and tried to get a response from him. “Danny, can you hear me?” He mumbled something incoherent, and then drifted off. She began taking his pulse.

  Michael paced nearby. “I got worried when I couldn’t get him to wake up,” he said. “Why is he still in his wet clothes?”

  “I gave him dry clothes to put on,” she told him, “but I couldn’t very well stand there and watch to make sure he changed.”

  “I’m not blaming you, Maddy. I’m just worried. He looks very sick.”

  “His pulse is too slow,” she said. “He’s got hypothermia, Michael. I don’t know how severe it is.” Her eyes watered. “I should have suspected something by the way he was acting. He staggered in like a drunk. Please help me get him out of these clothes. First, let me plug that electric heater in. We need all the heat we can get.” She dragged it to the nearest outlet and turned it on high.

  Working as fast as he could, he pulled off Danny’s jeans and the sweats he wore beneath them. The boy didn’t even try to protest, but his teeth chattered nonstop. Michael finished undressing him and turned to Maddy, who stood as close to the fire as she dared, frantically warming towels and T-shirts, and the sweats Danny normally slept in, in front of the fire. She tossed Michael a towel, and he dried the boy while she dragged two ladder-back stools from the kitchen and placed them near the fire. She draped a blanket over them to
absorb the heat.

  “Why don’t we just set him in a tub of hot water?” Michael asked.

  “That could make things worse.” Together, she and Michael dressed the boy in thermal underwear and sweats, plus a pair of Michael’s socks that had been lying on the hearth for some time. “See if those towels are warm enough,” she said.

  Michael nodded and handed them to her.

  “Okay, you’re going to have to lift him so I can place the towels beneath him.” He did as he was told. Once Maddy had them in place, Michael lowered the boy gently. She grabbed another towel from the hearth and wrapped it around his head and neck like a turban.

  “What’s that for?” Michael asked.

  “To hold in the body heat.” Next, she covered the boy completely with the blanket, tucking it all around him.

  “He’s still shivering.”

  “That’s okay. I’d be more concerned if he suddenly stopped.” She looked at Michael. “I didn’t like the way his fingers and toes looked. Did you notice?”

  “They were awfully white.”

  “It might be frostbite.”

  “Oh, that’s just dandy. My brother’s going to appreciate the way I took care of his kid.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, we can’t worry about that now,” she said. “There’s too much to do.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’ll need more towels and blankets warmed up. Just drape them over those stools. I think I brought my hot-water bottle; you know how I pack everything I own when I go someplace.” She started out of the room. “See if you can wake him, get him to talk to you.” Maddy hurried down the hall toward her bedroom and located the oversized tote bag that contained what essentials she’d thought she would need for a trip to the mountains. She dumped the contents on the bed—two cosmetic pouches, her bath salts and oils, creams and lotions, her blow dryer and curling iron, and finally her hot-water bottle and a heating pad. Nobody could ever accuse her of not being prepared, she thought.

  She reached for them, upending a half-open box of tampons. Any other time she would have paused to pick them all up, but she was more concerned with her nephew than anything else.

  She hurried into the bathroom and waited for the water to warm up for the hot-water bottle. Not too hot, she reminded herself. Once she had the bag secured, she made tracks for the living room. Michael was talking loudly to Danny, as though his hypothermia and frostbite had rendered him deaf.

  “I pledge … allegiance …” Danny’s words were slurred. His teeth chattered. He drifted off. Michael nudged him gently. “To the flag.”

  “The flag.”

  “Come on, Danny, I know you can say the Pledge of Allegiance.”

  “Of the ’nited States of ’merica.”

  Maddy slipped the hot-water bottle at Danny’s feet and propped it with a pillow so it would touch his toes. After locating an extension cord, she plugged in the heating pad, turned it on low, and placed it on Danny’s chest beneath the blanket. Then, using extreme care, she lifted his small frozen hands from his side and placed them directly on the pad.

  “With liverty and just for all,” the boy finished. Maddy looked up. “Liverty?”

  Michael looked at her. He could tell she was scared. So was he. But they had to keep their heads, or they wouldn’t do Danny any good. “This is not the time to be picky. Once he rests up a bit, I’ll have him sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ how’s that? Just kidding,” he said, when her mouth dropped open. “Would you calm down? You’re making me a wreck.”

  Maddy took a deep breath. Adrenaline was still pumping through her body after the scare and all the racing about she’d done. She looked at Michael. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of coffee.”

  “I’ll make it while you put some clothes on,” he said. “I don’t need two sick people on my hands.” He also didn’t need to keep seeing that robe flap open each time she turned, giving him a clear shot of long shapely legs. He had enough to think about.

  “Michael?”

  He glanced up. “Yes?”

  “Leave out the salt?”

  He smiled wearily. “Okay, but only because you asked me nicely.”

  Maddy dressed in her pajamas and put on thick socks before she stuffed her feet into her bunny slippers. Her dogs, who surprisingly enough had slept through all the ruckus, now raised their heads and yawned wide, each emitting a squeaky-door sound that always made Maddy chuckle.

  “Do we need to potty?” she said. They both stood and wagged their tails and followed her to the utility room. Once they’d taken care of their business and Maddy had cleaned up the litter box, she checked on Danny. He was still shivering, though not as badly, and he opened his eyes when she touched his cheek.

  “Rambo and Muffin miss you,” she said softly.

  He turned his head slightly and gazed at the two dachshunds. He smiled, and then he looked at Maddy once more. “Am I sick?” he asked, still talking through chattering teeth.

  “You got too cold out there today, honey,” she said.

  “My fingers and toes hurt.”

  “You also got a touch of frostbite. Nothing serious,” she added quickly, not wanting to frighten him. “I can give you a couple of aspirin if you like. Do you think you could swallow them?” He nodded, and she smiled. “Tell you what, I’ll make you some hot cocoa, too. That’ll help warm you up.”

  “I already beat you to it,” Michael said, when she entered the kitchen. He poured a pan of hot water into a cup of cocoa while she got Danny’s aspirin and water.

  Michael gently held Danny up so he could take the medicine and sip the cocoa. “We might as well change the towels and blanket,” he said, “while we have him up.”

  “I’d rather go ahead and pull out the sofa bed,” Maddy told him. “If you could just hold him for a minute.” Michael picked up the boy, and she tucked the blanket more securely around him so he wouldn’t get cold.

  Michael carried Danny to the chair and sat down, holding him in his arms as he would an oversized infant. As he gazed at his nephew he knew he’d never have been able to live with himself if something had happened to him.

  A groggy Danny opened his eyes. His smile was weak. “Are you going to sing me a lul’by, Skipper?”

  Michael felt something sting the backs of his eyes. He blinked. “Yeah. When pigs fly.” He voice came out sounding gruff, but the look in his eyes was one of love and deep concern.

  Once Maddy had made up the bed and placed the warm towels in the very center, Michael laid the boy down. Maddy put the heating pad on Danny’s chest and placed his hands on top, then covered him with two freshly warmed blankets. She fashioned a towel around his head like before, then checked his hot-water bottle to see if it was still giving off enough heat.

  “What do you think?” Michael said quietly as they sipped their coffee in the kitchen.

  “He’s going to be okay. You and I need to sleep with him tonight.”

  “On the sofa bed? Won’t that be kind of crowded?”

  “That’s the point. He can absorb our body heat. Besides, I don’t want to leave him for one minute, and we can’t risk letting the fire burn out.”

  “I should never have forced the two of you out in this cold,” Michael said, his expression guilt-ridden.

  “Stop blaming yourself. We all dressed warmly and took every precaution. Children are more susceptible to hypothermia because of their size, and Danny’s on the skinny side to begin with.” She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “He’s going to be okay.” She suspected they would probably take turns reassuring each other over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

  “How about you?” he asked, suddenly looking anxious. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I’m perfectly fine. And Danny will be, too.”

  But Michael couldn’t stop worrying. While Maddy prepared dinner he kept the fire going and sat on the edge of the sofa bed, watching for any sign of improvemen
t. The boy had finally stopped shivering, and he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but still, Michael fretted. In the past, when he’d thought of children, he’d viewed them as a hardship, what with buying clothes and shoes, feeding and educating them, paying the costs for medical and dental work, and a whole slew of other expenses. He’d sympathized with his colleagues who were parents, who sometimes had to sit up all night with a sick child, only to have to go to work come morning. Now he realized just how lucky those people were to have someone in their lives who loved and needed and trusted them.

  He no longer pitied them, he envied what they had.

  “Michael?”

  He jumped when Maddy called his name. He hadn’t even heard her come into the room. She stood there holding a steaming bowl. He saw the concern on her face, but this time it was aimed at him.

  “Why don’t you take a break while I try to get Danny to take this broth?” she suggested.

  “I’ll feed it to him.” He woke the boy gently. It took some convincing, but they finally got him propped up on several pillows so Michael could spoon the broth into his mouth.

  Maddy checked Danny’s toes and fingers and saw, to her relief, some of the color had returned. Nevertheless, she refilled the water bottle and put it in place.

  “How do you feel, Dan-the-Man?” Michael asked, teasing the boy.

  “Tired. I just want to sleep, but you guys keep bugging me.”

  “It’s for your own good, buddy. You gave us a scare, and you’re not out of the woods yet.”

  Once Danny had taken about half the broth, Michael pulled the pillows from beneath him and exchanged his blankets for two that had been warming in front of the fire. As he tucked them around the boy Danny opened his eyes briefly.

  “Thank you, Uncle Mike, for taking care of me.”

  Michael had never seen his nephew look so trusting, and the emotion was as powerful as if he’d just received a blow to the chest. “You’re welcome, kiddo.”

  They sat up late, warming towels and blankets and feeding the fire. As though sensing something was wrong with Danny, Muffin and Rambo jumped onto the sofa bed and curled up at his feet.