Maureen Child - Love - From His Point Of View! - Meeting at Midnight

A laugh took me by surprise. It hurt, so I stopped. “Dumped a tray on him, did you?”

Her mouth stayed solemn, but her eyes laughed along with me. Extraordinary eyes. Not the color—they were blue, pretty enough, but nothing unusual. Maybe it was their shape, sort of elongated, with a flirty tilt at the corners. Or the way they seemed to offer confidences, as if she and I were old friends who didn’t need to put everything into words.

“I found Miss Jones at the bus station,” Duncan said. “She was buying a ticket to Denver.”

A frown snapped down. “You’re leaving town?”

“Why not? I lost my job.”

“But you have a car. What were you doing at the bus station?”

She pulled a face. “The stupid thing decided to die on me. The mechanic says it’s either some gasket or the whole motor, and he can’t say which without taking everything apart, which will cost a fortune. You’d think he could tell the difference, wouldn’t you?”

“Head gasket, sounds like,” I said, my brain clicking away on an idea. “Or the heads themselves. You must have lost compression.”

“You do speak the lingo,” she said admiringly.

Duncan asked her who she’d taken the car to, then assured her that Ron was a good mechanic. Gwen was looking fidgety.

“But your things!” she burst out. “I can understand leaving your car if it wasn’t worth repairing, but surely you couldn’t take everything with you on the bus. Even if you didn’t have furniture, there’s clothes, dishes, bedding…oh.” An embarrassed flush sped over her cheeks. “It isn’t any of my business, is it?”

Seely turned that lazy smile Gwen’s way. “Probably not, but we can’t help being curious about people, can we? I don’t have much stuff, being more of a wanderer than a nester. No dishes or bedding. A few keepsakes and some clothes, yes, but not that many. Susan seemed happy to accept what I didn’t want to take with me.”

“Susan?” I said, only half my brain on what she was saying.

“Another waitress at the resort. I’d been rooming with her, but I don’t think she minded my sudden departure. She’s had her eye on Vic for a while. Well.” She shrugged, a graceful movement that did lovely things to her breasts. “No accounting for tastes, is there?”

Things were falling into place. “You decided to leave more or less on impulse, then?”

“I do a lot of things on impulse.”

“Then there’s nothing waiting for you in Denver? No reason you need to be there right away?”

She used her eyebrows to ask where I was going with all this.

“My brother and sister-in-law think I’m going to need some help after I leave the hospital tomorrow.”

Gwen interrupted. “ Not tomorrow, Ben.”

“They can’t do anything more for me here. Besides, hospitals are unhealthy. People get staph infections in hospitals. Now, Gwen and Duncan might be right about me needing a little help—”

Duncan snorted.

“So I was thinking maybe you’d be interested. You need a job, right? And a place to stay while your car gets fixed.”

“I…” For the first time, her composure was shaken. “Weren’t you listening? I wasn’t planning to fix my car.”

I brushed that aside. “Look, if you’re worried about staying with a man you don’t know, I’m not in any shape to give you a hard time.” Gwen muttered something about my being able to give people a hard time on my deathbed. I ignored that. “Not that I would hassle you, anyway, but you couldn’t know that.”

She shook her head. “That’s not it.”

“What’s the problem, then?” I used my left elbow to prop myself up.

Everything went gray. The next thing I knew, Seely was depositing me efficiently back on my pillows. I’m not sure how she got there before Duncan, who isn’t exactly slow off the mark, but she did.

“There’s a line between stubborn and stupid,” she said, looking down at me. “Something tells me you cross it now and then.”

Duncan grinned. Gwen giggled. I scowled. “I moved too fast, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” Seely said. “I can see you’ll undo everyone’s work, given half a chance. All right. I’ll take the job.”

Hot damn. “Good. That’s good.”

“On two conditions. First, you stay in the hospital until the doctor releases you. Second, you’ll do as I tell you while you’re under my care.”

“Now, wait a minute—”

“He agrees,” Duncan said firmly. “Don’t you, Ben?”

Seely’s lips twitched, but she looked at me steadily, waiting. With a sigh, I nodded. “Within reason.”

Gwen spoke. “I hate to put a stick in the spokes, but you really should tell her about Doofus.”

Seely did that question-thing with her eyebrows. “Zach’s dog,” I explained. “My son. He lives with me. Doofus, I mean.” Relief had hit, followed by a wave of exhaustion. It was hard to get words lined up right. “Zach’s in kindergarten. He comes over after school some days.”

“My point is that Doofus is a puppy, not a dog,” Gwen said. “You should be aware you’re not just taking on one large, slightly snarly man. The man is at least housetrained. Doofus isn’t.”

“Thanks a lot, Gwen.”

Seely’s lips tipped up. “I think I can handle a puppy, as long as Ben can handle being bossed around.”

“Within reason,” I repeated. When she nodded, I breathed a sigh of relief. “All right, then. We’ve got a deal.”

Duncan was amused, Gwen was relieved, and Seely…I couldn’t tell. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth smiling, but her eyes seemed distracted, like she was taking a serious look inward.

And me? I was satisfied…for now. “Don’t you want to know how much the job will pay?”

“Money’s not a big issue for me.”

“Uh—you aren’t rich or something, are you?”

Gwen made a choked sound that she turned into clearing her throat. Seely laughed and tucked her hair back from her face. “I’ve been accused of a number of oddities, but rich isn’t one of them.”

The movement drew my attention to the long dangles of multicolored glass hanging from her ears. They reminded me…I glanced at her wrist.

Yes. That was the bracelet I remembered. “Pretty bracelet.”

Her eyebrows lifted gently. “Thanks. The stones represent the chakras. I’m guessing by the look on your face that you know what chakras are?”

“I read.” Bunch of New Age nonsense, but I wouldn’t say that to the woman who’d saved my life.

Everyone wanted me to rest then. I was willing to let them have their way as soon as I’d passed on some instructions for Manny, who was going to have to run things at McClain Construction for awhile. They were right—I was tired.

And I’d gotten what I wanted.

I’d stay here one more night, then I was going home. Not to an empty house, either. Seely would be there. I didn’t think Dr. Miller would give me grief over leaving the hospital once he knew I’d have trained medical help around. And I wouldn’t have to come up with any more reasons not to stay with Duncan while I was recovering.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my brother. Unfortunately, I also love his wife.

Outside, the birds were making a fuss about morning. It was a familiar sound, even this late in the year. There were always a few who wintered over. But usually I didn’t listen to their chatter from a hospital bed in the den.

I sat on the edge of that bed and glared at my knee.

I had no idea how it had gotten hurt, no memory of it bothering me during my crawl up the mountain, but it was swollen to twice its size. Soft-tissue damage, according to the doctor. The swelling should go down in a few days. I was to stay off it as much as possible.