Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles

She watched him hobble into the living room and slowly, carefully and painfully—if the tight, tension-filled look on his face was anything to go by—lower himself into the corner of his green-and-blue-plaid couch. He rested the crutches beside him, against the coordinating wing chair.

After letting out a long breath, he met her gaze. “I was thirsty.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “This is exactly what the doctor was afraid of.”

“Specifically?”

“Neglect.”

Megan put her bag of medical supplies on the oak coffee table and left him sitting up on the couch. She walked through the town house dining room, past an ornately carved oak table and eight chairs, past the matching hutch and into the sunny kitchen. To her right was a circular dinette with four chairs. Behind it, in the corner, a bottled-water dispenser.

To her left was a long expanse of room with a refrigerator on the left, countertops and cupboards on the right. At the end was the stove and a built-in microwave. After pacing the distance of the room, she looked down the hall that led back to the living room. She noted the pantry and the powder room across from it, then retraced her steps. Taking a glass from the top cupboard closest to the water dispenser, she filled it and walked back to him.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

He drank greedily, and she watched his Adam’s apple move up and down. When he was finished, she couldn’t help noticing the way drops of water clung to his firm, well-shaped lips. What would they feel like against her own?

Holy cow! Why should the perfectly ordinary sight of a man drinking water make her think about that, then go weak in the knees and steal the breath straight out of her lungs? There was a perfectly reasonable explanation. She was a ninny, of course. If researchers came up with an anti-ninny inoculation, she’d be first in line for human testing.

He held the glass out to her and she took it, mortified to see that her hand was shaking.

“I’ll get you some more,” she said, turning on her heel.

“That’s okay. It was enough. I’ll just have to—”

“Yes, I know. But your body needs hydration. If you were in the hospital, they’d slap an IV on you faster than you could say intravenous saline solution.” She tossed the words over her shoulder on her way to the kitchen.

When she came back, she handed him the glass. “You’d also have a bedpan.”

His intense, blue-eyed gaze captured her own. “Then my decision to leave was definitely the right one.”

“Even though you’d have been more comfortable and better taken care of in the hospital?”

“Comfortable is a relative term. I’d have crawled to the facilities on my hands and knees before using a metal contraption you guys no doubt keep in the freezer.”

“They’re plastic. We haven’t used metal bedpans or kept them in the freezer for years.”

“Uh-huh. A likely story, but one I don’t have to test since you’re on my turf now. And I think my care quotient just went up.”

The look he gave her heated her blood and sent it bubbling through her body. Unfortunately, she felt it in her cheeks, as well as other, more sensitive places. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.

“Speaking of care, I need to take a look at you.”

“You’re looking at me.”

She shook her head. “I mean I have to check your abrasions for infection. Examine the stitches. Etcetera.”

“I don’t like the sound of etcetera. Will it hurt?”

“No more than and-so-on-and-so-forth.”

His blue eyes narrowed as he fixed her with a skeptical look. “You’re lying. It’s going to hurt. And me without a stick to bite on.”

“I never lie. But I also didn’t define how much discomfort is associated with and-so-on-and-so-forth.”

“Okay. Lay it on me.”

“I need to change the bandages. That will probably hurt some if there was oozing and they stuck. I’ll have to clean the wounds again and put on ointment—as gently as I possibly can. Look on the bright side. I don’t have to dig out the gravel.”

“Lucky me. Do you always look on the bright side?”

“There’s a reason my last name is Brightwell.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re too perky?”

His twitching lips said he was teasing and took the sting from his words as surely as topical anesthetic. She was amused and charmed in equal parts. And there it was again. Heat. It started in her cheeks and gained intensity, turning into a fireball that shot straight to her toes.

She cleared her throat and turned to her bag. “After wound inspection, I need to take your vitals. A veteran like yourself probably already knows that means temperature, pulse and blood pressure.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“If everything checks out, I plan to do some range-of-motion exercises on that injured leg.”

“Whoa. Motion equals pain. No one said anything about intentional infliction of bodily harm. I called for a nurse because it’s hard to flip a burger and stay upright on crutches at the same time.”

She put her hands on her hips. “If you wanted a butler, you should have called Servants R Us. I’m a health-care professional. On my watch, you’ll get expert health care. That includes making sure your nutritional intake is sufficient to support life for a man your size.”

“Does that mean you’ll do double duty as a cook?”

“Yes. But smile when you call me that.” She allowed herself a quick, appreciative study of him and his impressive size. “It’ll take a lot of food to keep you alive. But I will cheerfully provide it since my primary function is to restore your health to pre-trauma status as quickly as possible. No pain, no gain.”

“I’ll take the gain part and pass on the pain.”

“Unfortunately, they sometimes go hand in hand. Don’t be a wimp,” she challenged.

“It’s not the pain I’m worried about.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, unable to keep up the stern tone when his face took on a haggard look. She had a feeling he was no stranger to pain, and she wasn’t thinking the physical kind. What was his story? No, she thought. Don’t go there. Bonding wasn’t her job. Nursing was—his body, not his soul.

But he was quiet for so long, she thought he might just tell her whatever it was that was bothering him. Instead, he looked at her and asked, “How did your daughter’s appointment go?”

“What?”

“You told me last night you weren’t available this morning because she had an ophthalmology appointment.”

The man might have scrambled his brains less than twenty-four hours ago, but his powers of recall were annoyingly impressive.