Kathleen Eagle - One Cowboy, One Christmas

Their guest gave a dry chuckle. “Up for b-boys, down for girls. I’m a…”

“Here.” While Sally started running the bathwater, Ann shouldered him into place over the toilet seat. Heave… “Sit right here, Zach.”

“No, I’m good. Boys can go…” ho “…outside. But don’t tell Ma.” He looked up at Ann and frowned as she unbuttoned his long-on-style, lean-on-insulation jacket. “Ma?”

Sally grabbed her arm. “You’d better let me handle that, Annie.”

“I don’t think so. He’s a big hunk of dead weight.” His pathetic excuse for a laugh turned into a feeble groan. Ann closed her eyes and tugged on his belt buckle. “I just hope he’s wearing some kind of underwear.” Not that she was prudish, really.

Well, maybe a little.

“Me, too,” he muttered.

“How’s the water, Sally?” Ann straddled his leg and started working on a boot. “Help me out, Zach. Wiggle your foot a little.”

“Can’t feel ‘em. Musta lost ‘em.”

“Just a little,” she coaxed, and felt a little movement, a little slippage. “That’s good.”

“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.”