Tough To Tame: Tough to Tame / Passion Flower

“Like you can help it,” she muttered, and smiled. “I’ll get it started.”

He watched her walk away, thoughtful.

She brought in a tray and had her soup with him. There were just the two of them, all alone in the world. Their parents had died long ago, when she was ten. Kell, who’d been amazingly athletic and healthy in those days, had simply taken over and been a substitute parent to her. He’d been in the military, and they’d traveled all over the world. A good deal of her education had been completed through correspondent courses, although she’d seen a lot of the world. Now, Kell thought he was a burden, but what had she been for all those long years when he’d sacrificed his own social life to raise a heartbroken kid? She owed him a lot. She only wished she could do more for him.

She remembered him in his uniform, an officer, so dignified and commanding. Now, he was largely confined to bed or that wheelchair. It wasn’t even a motorized one, because they couldn’t afford it. He did continue to work, in his own fashion, at crafting a novel. It was an adventure, based on some knowledge he’d acquired from his military background and a few friends who worked, he said, in covert ops.

“How’s the book coming?” she asked.

He laughed. “Actually I think it’s going very well. I spoke to a buddy of mine in Washington about some new political strategies and robotic warfare innovations.”

“You know everybody.”

He made a face at her. “I know almost everybody.” He sighed. “I’m afraid the phone bill will be out of sight again this month. Plus I had to order some more books on Africa for the research.”

She gave him a look of pride. “I don’t care. You accomplish so much,” she said softly. “More than a lot of people in much better shape physically.”

“I don’t sleep as much as most people do,” he said wryly. “So I can work longer hours.”

“You need to talk to Dr. Coltrain about something to make you sleep.”

He sighed. “I did. He gave me a prescription.”

“Which you didn’t get filled,” she accused. “Connie, at the pharmacy, told on you.”

“We don’t have the money right now,” he said gently. “I’ll manage.”

“It’s always money,” she said miserably. “I wish I was talented and smart, like you. Maybe I could get a better-paying job.”

“You’re good at what you do,” he replied firmly. “And you love your work. Believe me, that’s a lot more important than making a big paycheck. I should know.”

She sighed as she sipped her soup. “I guess.” She gave him a quick glance. “But it would help with the bills.”

“My book is going to make us millions,” he told her with a grin. “It will hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list, I’ll be in demand for talk shows and we’ll be able to buy a new car.”

“Optimist,” she accused.

“Hey, without hope, what have we got?” He looked around with a grimace. “Unpainted walls, cracks in the paint, a car with two hundred thousand miles on it and a leaky roof.”

“Oh, darn,” she muttered, following his eyes to the yellow spot on the ceiling. “I’ll bet another one of those stupid nails worked its way out of the tin. I wish we could have afforded a shingle roof.”

“Well, tin is cheaper, and it looks nice.”

She looked at him meaningfully.

“It’s cheap, anyway,” he persisted. “Don’t you like the sound of rain on a tin roof? Just listen. It’s like music.”

It was like a tin drum, she pointed out, but he just laughed.

She smiled. “I guess you’re right. It’s better not to wish we had more than we do. We’ll get by, Kell,” she assured him. “We always do.”

“At least we’re in it together,” he agreed. “But you should think about the military home.”

“After I’m dead and buried, you can go into a home,” she assured him. “For now, you just eat your soup and hush.”

He smiled tenderly. “Okay.”

She smiled back. He was the nicest big brother in the whole world, and she wasn’t abandoning him while there was a breath in her body.

It had stopped raining when she got to work the next morning. She was glad. She hadn’t wanted to get out of bed at all. There was something magical about lying in the bed with rain coming down, all safe and cozy and warm. But she wanted to keep her job. She couldn’t do both.

She was putting her raincoat in the closet when a long arm presented itself over her shoulder and deposited a bigger raincoat there.

“Hang that up for me, please,” Dr. Rydel said gruffly.

“Yes, sir.”

She fumbled it onto a hanger. When she closed the door and turned, he was still standing there.

“Is something wrong, sir?” she asked formally.

He was frowning. “No.”

But he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She knew how that felt, because she loved her brother and she couldn’t help him. Her soft gray eyes looked up into his pale blue ones. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” she ventured.

A laugh escaped his tight control. “What the hell would you know about lemons, at your age?” he asked.

“It isn’t the age, Dr. Rydel,” she said. “It’s the mileage. If I were a car, they’d have to decorate me with solid gold accessories just to get me off the lot.”

His eyes softened, just a little. “I suppose I’d be in a junkyard.”

She laughed, quickly controlling it. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“You’re sort of hard to talk to,” she confessed.

He drew in a long breath. Just for a minute, he looked oddly vulnerable. “I’m not used to people. I deal with them in the practice, but I live alone. I have most of my life.” He frowned. “Your brother lives with you, doesn’t he? Why doesn’t he work?”

She tightened up. “He was overseas covering a war and a bomb exploded nearby. He caught shrapnel in the spine and they can’t operate. He’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

He grimaced. “That’s a hell of a way to end up in a wheelchair.”

“Tell me about it,” she agreed quietly. “He was in the military for years, but he got tired of dragging me all over the world, so he mustered out and got a job working for this magazine. He said it would mean he wouldn’t be gone so much.” She sighed. “I guess he wasn’t, but he’s in a lot of pain and they can’t do much for it.” She looked up at him. “It’s hard to watch.”

For an instant, some fellow feeling flared in his eyes. “Yes. It’s easier to hurt yourself than to watch someone you love battle pain.” His face softened as he looked down at her. “You take care of him.”

She smiled. “Yes. Well, as much as he’ll let me, anyway. He took care of me from the age of ten, when our parents died in a wreck. He wants me to let him go into some sort of military home, but I’ll never do that.”